homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Wings: Over Flanders Fields Deep Immersion DiD campaign -- Player Instructions (UPDATED 28 Nov 2018)

Aleck A. Mackinlay
April 10, 1916

Leading flights again, so I suppose the Major has not given up on me completely. An uneventful patrol of the lines near Bethune, but fighting a blustering wind the whole way. The enemy remains scarce, and not a single other aircraft to be spotted. Replacements for Yule and Clarke expected tomorrow so we will be back to full complement. Preparations have started for our upcoming deployment to Abeele.

Raine, it is amazing how James is able to prioritize his accommodations based on food supply. I wonder how many more of those “jumps” No. 3 will make before settling for a longer stay. BTW, I don’t even know if Gaston hit him at all. It seemed more like a dive one tree height too low. Bullet or panic, Gaston will claim either.
Wulfe, 48 hour pass? What’s that? Is that something you get when you fly in the rain and land at another aerodrome? That was one soaking wet story! I don’t know why they insist sending us up in this weather. I knew Lemoire was a barrel of laughs.
Lederhosen, just stick to bombing the trenches. Leave the Nieuports to the capable Eindeckers. Jeez, why would anybody want to fly a Fokker, when they could fly a Roland?
Lou, is it me or is Swany’s accent getting thicker? Can’t wait for the monoplane showdown.
Scout, hopefully once over at Abelee you’ll get to see more action. Fingers crossed.


10 April, 1916 05:20 morning mission
Senard, Verdun Sector
Escadrille N37
Lieutenant Gaston A. Voscadeaux
13 confirmed kills

His single burst kill was confirmed this morning. There was one more thing. Gaston was called into the C.O.'s office. Le Capitaine announced that he had been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant.
"- It is difficult and most dangerous missions for you now. You will take Dagonet with you and take out the balloon south of Jametz. Bonne chance!"
The morning sun played hide and seek among the clouds as Gaston and Dagonet raced each other to the front lines.



They formed up above the trenches and proceeded along the predetermined route.



The morning mist grew thicker as they flew east and ended up flying through a cloud burst. On the other side the balloon was waiting for them. Gaston went low, while Dagonet attacked from above. Le Prieur rockets screamed as they left the struts of Violette and found their target, but it wasn't enough to bring it down. Then Dagonet made his attack from above and the rockets hit the balloon again. The gas bag hung defiantly in the air, but Gaston was already turning back for a machine gun attack. Round after round ripped into the fabric. As Voscadeaux passed it and looked back, he could see black smoke emanate from it, then flames begun to lick the big sausage and finally a huge explosion consumed the entire apparatus.



With the mission accomplished Gaston and his wingman turned back. The duo was about to cross the front lines back to the French side when they noticed two specks fly above. Dagonet continued back to base with some damage, while Voscadeaux peeled off and chased after the Huns. He has not had his morning Fokker yet. The dots continued to grow in front of Gaston's aeroplane. Eventually he had been discovered and one of the Eindekkers detached from the formation and faced him. So, it is a duel then. Gaston tracked the German's movements and in the final instant before the merge sent a volley into him. The Boche pilot went into a turn to avoid the fire while Gaston took advantage and placed Violette on his tail. He kept hammering and could see debris fall off the Fokker, but monoplane refused to fall. Gaston was on his final bullets when the Eindeckker's prop stopped and the pilot was struggling to keep his machine level.



He glided to the ground and let his plane be stopped by the roadside hedges. They were near Jametz and Voscadeaux, freshly out of ammo, decided there was no point sticking around anymore.
He parked his purple Bebe next to Dagonet's green and brown one and made his way to the mess hall. He was still hungry.

10 April, 1916 13:40 afternoon mission
Senard, Verdun Sector
Escadrille N37
Lieutenant Gaston A. Voscadeaux
13 confirmed kills
Waiting for 2 claim confirmations

The assignment for this afternoon was to patrol friendly front lines north of Senard, where Aisne River crosses into NML. The miserable weather from the east arrived over Senard. Grey rain clouds stretched as far as eye could see and because of them, they couldn’t see very far. Finally, after reaching the altitude of 2,000 meters the clouds relented and blue skies could be had above. Gaston couldn't decide if he hated more the Hun hiding in the sun, or the one hiding in the clouds. They didn't see either. The Boche had probably decided to remain hidden. After the allotted patrol time elapsed, Gaston and his wingman Caporal Garrigou descended back into the gray muck of sunless Senard.

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Fullofit, that was some outstanding balloon work on Gaston's part. And congratulations on his promotion. He is indeed a force to be reckoned with.
As to Swany's accent, it does come on stronger when he is anxious or tired or upset or excited or nervous, or scared. I had an uncle who was the same way; almost no accent at all when things were going as planned, but he sounded like he just came off the boat when things took a turn in nearly any direction.

Scout, glad to see that Aleck is back in the Major's good graces. Hope things get a bit more lively for him soon.

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Heh, heh! Makes perfect sense. With that palace visit coming up Swany must really be upset and tired.
So I hear the weather is getting worse. Maybe Gaston will be finally able to catch up to current date, then?

Fullofit - here's hoping the balloon and the eindecker get confirmed! No pressure, but - if they do...do you know what that means? Gaston Voscadeaux becomes l'As des As!!At the moment, he's tied for the top spot with the two infamous Bosches, Boelcke & Immelmann...I imagine by now he must be the face of French aviation. The Fullard brothers certainly think so

Lou - same goes for Swany. To be competitive for the top spot, in a Morane of all things, is an amazing feat. Also, what a brilliantly-written character Dirks is...it's rare that I immediately really enjoy a character, but Archie Dirks is great. I only wish he would become Swany's chief Ack-emma so that I could continue to hear about his hilarious antics.

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Wulfe, thanks, that's high praise coming from someone with your skill at character development. Writing fellows like Dirks is always fun. And Swany just might see about getting him transferred to his new outfit, the man does seem to know his way around an engine.

Fullofit, Swany does have a lot going on at the moment and it's definitely got his accent coming on strong. He's quite anxious about meeting the King; he's very tired of waiting around Candas; he's upset about no longer seeing his good friends Collins and Jericho; he's excited about his new assignment; he's nervous about the mock combat with the Eindecker, mainly because of the audience that will be watching; and he's scared, (hell, he's terrified), about having to face Georgette with the news that he's being sent back to England. I'm actually surprised the poor sod isn't speaking pure Norwegian at the moment.

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Wulfe, we’ll just have to wait and see about the balloon. I wouldn’t put too much faith in the Einie. Too far behind enemy lines. You just wait and give good ol’ Fullard Bros some time. They will soon start knocking those Fokkers and later Albatroses out of the sky, probably making it a competition between themselves. I am sure of it. Having a Nieuport under your seat will make sure of that.
Lou, Swany should realize that all these things he’s fretting about are nothing compared to a brace of Eindekkers on his tail, well except that part with Georgette maybe. That will be a tough nut to crack. And whatever he does, do not let him speak Norwegian around her. Accents seem to turn her on. Doesn’t she have a pet fish?

Does any of you fine Gentleman know if it is possible to assign a custom skin to a non-HA pilot? I’ve made a skin for S. Ltn Medeville, but he insists on using Adelus’ airplane instead (default Escadrille skin). I assume at this point only HAs can be assigned custom skins, is that right?

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W-w-w-w-wa-wanda.

I believe that is correct Fullofit, you can only assign custom livery to HAs or yourself. That being said, you could try naming the skin with the pilot's name exactly as it is spelled in the sim and see what happens.

As to Swany and the Eindeckers, in some ways he might, ("might" mind you), prefer them to facing the uncertainty of other things - the devil you know vs the devil you don't and all that.

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Thanks Lou, that’s what I was afraid of.

Textbook balloon attack Fullofit! Spot on with your rockets! Well done, mate.

Thanks Hellshade. I think my wingman did an even better job with the rockets.

Fullofit, if there is a way to remove or reduce HA pilots, there must be a way to add one with the appropriate name, and then assign the skin. Mod gurus, any comment?

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Oh yeah, I am fairly certain that could be done, I just don't recall the steps at the moment.

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OK, it may be as simple as going into one of the country's aces txt files, in this case "FranceAces.txt" for Fullofit's pilot. The path to this file should be something like this: C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\campaigns\CampaignData\

Once in there you would copy an existing entry, let's use Fonck as example:

FrenchAce01
Rene Paul
Fonck
15
02
1915
18
06
1953
FonckKill.txt
xxCraft.txt
75
NULL
NULL
NULL
NULL
Capitaine
Fonck.bmp
Fonck.txt
EOR

Now add this a second time at the end of the list and simply change the pertinent info for your new "ace" and save the file. But of course make a back-up copy of the original file first.

Give it a go and see what you get.

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You are truly Gentlemen and also scholars! I’ll give it a go, although it looks like I’m going to need extra files to replace FonckKill.txt, xxCraft.txt Fonck.bmp and Fonck.txt. It is inconceivable to me that a non-HA can be converted to an HA. He will most likely never get a confirmed kill again, unless it is historical, which it isn’t. I wonder if Triple-J could shoehorn the ability to assign custom skins to non-HA pilots into his marvellous ME? Have I buttered it well enough?

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mmmmmmmm ... butter

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If I got you well, this feature is already implemented - you can assign custom skin to your Player pilot (although, only to your pilot).

Hey Triple-J, we can count on you to step in. You’re a star! No, assigning a skin to your own pilot is built-in into WoFF. The request is to have any non-player non-HA to have a custom skin, which would be assigned in ME and hopefully saved from mission to mission. Does that make sense?

Then there is a problem - we do not have free slots for assignment of personal skins to non-HA, non-player pilots in WOFF. There is one slot for player skin, five slots for squadron skins and five slots for HA skins per A/C type. That is all :-(.