homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Rise of Flight - The First Great Air War ROF Campaign Released

Yes please, I've been asking for this forever...

Bandy,

I started with 20 Sqn based at Clairmarais on 1 Feb 16. The first couple of missions I didn't actually fly for various reasons, some to do with the game (AI crashing on takeoff at Clairmarais due to sloping ground) and real life interruptions at the time. I was also getting used to configuring the generator in a way that suited me and my system.

I then transferred to 24 Sqn based at Bertanlges and things got better. I've flown several different mission types including Offensive Patrol and balloon defense.

You are right about the limited plane set. So far I've only come across DFW CV, Eindeckers and a couple of Gotha's. I realise this is not very representative of the period but the missions have still been fun to fly. The beauty with Pat's generator is that if I get fed up with the missions I'll use the 'Request Leave' option and start at a later period, maybe simulating a tour on Home Service before returning to the front in a different Sqn and/or aircraft.

Here's a few screens from the Generator to show what's been happening:






Now you may say that 7 kills in a short space of time is a little unrealistic and that maybe true. However, the circumstances were such that I could rationalise them to myself without destroying the sense of immersion. For example, the 21 Mar mission was an Offensive patrol. I spotted five aircraft in the distance and I assumed them to be 3 DFW's with an escort of 2 EIII's. My flight closed the gap and I realised the 2 trailing fighters were in fact DH2's. There was a general melee as we engaged and I ended up with all three of the DFW's destroyed. I was a little puzzled at first as I have a healthy respect for the two seaters but in this instance the gunners did not seem to return fire at all. I then checked the mission playback and established that the DH2s had been attacking the DFWs for some time prior to my arrival. The DFW gunners were therefore out of ammunition which made them sitting ducks for me!

The last mission I flew was another spectacular. Not necessarily from a combat view, although 2 kills defending a balloon was great fun, but the fact there was a complete under-cast with a base at around 300ft. Why there was a balloon up for Obs in such weather is another matter (General Melchett on the rampage no doubt). After the combat I spotted a gap in the cloud and dropped down through it but almost became disoriented, I recovered with about 50ft to spare. It was then a case of a low level navex at tree top height to find my way home. I use a paper map and on several occasions almost went inadvertent IMC while trying to work out where I was. I got there eventually after almost an hour of nerve jangling flying. Intense stuff and a testament to Pat's Generator and to RoF in particular.

Oops, rambled on more than I planned but I hope it gives you an idea that you can still have fun despite the limited early war plane set.

Regards,

WB.

One thing I haven't worked out how to do yet is add text to the narrative boxes in the AARs (see screens above). Is this possible and am I missing something obvious?

Cheers,

WB.

Thanks for sharing.
You have to click inside the 'Narrative' box add compose your report on maybe the 2nd or 3rd screen of the report process before clicking 'Finished'.
Maybe you tried this already, so there might be a bug in your install. Works for me, though I haven't upgraded to 7.2 yet...

Is that using Automatic AAR?

WB.

I think that you hit a bug there. I think that I forgot to allow narrative to be added to automatic AAR. I can fix that.

Thanks PW, you are a star. While you're at it did you note that the pilots name does not show on the report screens?

Cheers,

WB.

Quick questions

Date Format:
Not a huge issue by any means, but a little nigglely thing: the date format is generated differently in the Campaign GUI from the mission file itself: ds/mm/yy vs. yy/mm/dd I think... Yes, relative easy to work it out by myself, but if it is easy to standardize that would be great.

Auto Mission Files:
For some reason I often have 2 or 3 missions to choose from in the Auto Report drop down list. They must be fragments of old missions, missions aborted (wife in need...), or quick missions--I clean them out of the data folder when I remember. These auto file names have no date, so it is Russian Roulette trying to get it right and match the mission to the GUI report. Is there any trick to figuring this out? Any way to "back out" of a wrong choice in the Report GUI, sort of an "Undo" button? I know, I know, I always find myself in these situations...

Wounded Player:
I was wounded by what must have been an 'ace' DFW crew, a wingmate was also wounded, but in mission report only he is reported as wounded.
To reflect this I could take a leave, but ideally the campaign should enforce this. Understandable if too complex.

Briefly FONT!
As discussed some pages ago, people are using some nifty chalkboard fonts. I've tried to implement other fonts, but they do not appear. I have RoF installed on a dedicated game partition, so no bloated M$ Office or other programs with massive font files to draw upon. I can likely download nice fonts, or grab them from other programs, but if anyone can tell me what the folder hierarchy for font install on Win7 might be, I would sincerely appreciate.

Thank you gentlemen & gentleladies (if any of you are out there)

Your font folder sequence should be:

C:\Windows\Fonts

G'day,


Please excuse my ignorance if this has been asked before, but would it be possible to configure your campaign generator to work as a campaign mission generator along similar lines to Loewengrin's DCG and used for a group situation, rather then the nominal single player mode? That is, that all the flights in the mission are automatically unlocked for other human to fly as well. Normally these other flights are only for AI. Following on from this, could the results for every flight then be recorded and somehow incorporated into some form statistics for all the flights and participants to ensure continuity of the campaign?


Regards,
Warg

It could be. I don't know how to do that but anything that can be generated can be coded. I can't promise a time line, but if somebody else (need to be a Java programmer) wants to take on that task I will happily provide them with the code.

Hi Pat, apologies for asking but has this been addressed and uploaded?

No, not yet. I have it on the bug list but no fix yet.

Just as an FYI, I have not seen this bug myself - I've been able to enter and save text in the narrative boxes, using Automatic AAR. I'm using Campaign Generator 7.2.

Charlo

Confirmed per Charlo's post. It does work as is.

Version 8.0 is up. This version adds some basic bomber and recon campaigns. Lots left to do, but I wanted to get the initial version out there.

V8.0
New Features:
- Support for Recon and Bomber careers
- Player may transfer between all career types
- Added dedicated bomber squadrons
- Boghol 1
- Boghol 5
- 100 Squadron
- 207 Squadron
Bug Fixes:

Bomber/recon missions are still in their infancy. Much more can be done but even at this stage there should be some interesting missions. As a Gotha pilot you can not only bomb but also defend against enemy scouts. Two seaters will also cross your path. That should beeven more interesting when the two seaters start to come out, as two seater vs. two seater combat will be a common event.

Obviously we do not yet have any flyable recon types, so transferring to a recon squadron won't do much for you. Wait for the DFW for this to become a viable option.

Some planned upgrades:
1. Vary targets for bombers - train stations, ships, bridges, etc.
This is going to take alot of work as I will have to add these items in reasonable places.
2. Add escorts for two seater flights. This will enhance all campaign, bomber, scout, or otherwise.
3. Do active artillery spots with your arty bombarding their the target as you arrive.
4. Try to do persistent damage. That will be difficult, but hopefully possible.
5. More ground units.

Does Auto AAR work? I get an error message. I went back a few pages on this thread but didnt see it mentioned.

What message? If no files found then you have to configure RoF to output mlg files: set Mission_ResultsFile = 1 in Startup.cfg.

Nice job Pat! Thanks for your continues efforts and work on this. Much appreciated mate!

Thanks for the response Pat! Excellent job BTW!! Totally digging the Generator! When I edit the startup config I was expecting to see what you had typed
and that I would just have to change a "0" to a "1". To I have to manually put the whole line in because I dont see it in the config. The closest thing I see is at the
bottom in te (Key= system) section that reads "mission_text_log = 0". And if I have to put the line in manually does it go in this section?

Thanks for all your help and Great Job!!