Originally posted by Dr Lecter
I select 'join', then the player, and the system tells me that my join request has been sent. Then I don't know what happens next.
If you are accepted, you should see a White text message saying that you have, and will be placed in their cockpit (pos 1). Hit 2 to go to a gun position and then check the top left information for details of any other gun positions. Try jumping around by hitting each number, with 1 returning you to the pilot's seat (effectively sitting on his knee!
).
You can join someone at any time, even if they are not yet airborne - as soon as they go to the runway, you will go to, but will then be able to jump to the guns. Or, if you don't want a long, boring flight, you can wait until they are almost in an active area before joining and get some action much quicker. Also, if you don't want to wait until the pilot lands, you can then leave at any time by clicking Tower on the clipboard.
Best place to send a join request from is the Tower, either using the roster or by typing .join [GameID] - inserting their name without the [ and ]. Confirm they are ready for you to join first as, unless they have elected to have join requests show in the text buffer, any join requests produce a huge window in the middle of the screen - not good if they are concentrating on not hitting trees/hills on take-off, or busy defending themselves from attackers at the time!
When you are gunning a bomber, don't forget you have outside views enabled too! Hit F3 to get external view, use the [ and ] to zoom away from or nearer to the aircraft, and then if you hit F8, you can then use the number pad (or view hat) to scroll around to see the aircraft from different angles.
Also, if you join a formation, use Ctrl-2 or Ctrl-3 to jump to one of the other two aircraft - this way, the pilot can also jump to a gun on the lead plane, which is useful if there are multiple enemies attacking from different directions.... Happy Gunning!