Rise of Flight : Now with Red Baron 3D-esque dynamic campaign

[Nikolaj]

I swear I did not edit any of this - he dives and while passing my spinning Pup gives the thumbs up

Haha, that's awesome! You've inspired me to reinstall this game. Coming to it right after Sturmovik, I was very frustrated the last time I tried it. I think I'll give it a proper go this time. :)

[Fishbreath]

My final notes from my Sopwith Dolphin familiarization: it's the first airplane I've flown that simply refuses to snap roll. I make the proper control inputs, it wallows around, and then it runs out of energy and spins (although my spin recovery technique above always seems to work after one or two rotations). Beyond that, I'm comfortable flying it now, which gives me something to fly online.

Since I'm in a giving mood today, and I see nothing but entertainment in encouraging other people to try out eclectic aircraft, I'll offer to buy a Dolphin for the first two people who promise to eventually try it in a career and post screenshots here.

[djotefsoup]

Oh bugger my giveaway thread fell off to page 3 too. Still got 2 days to enter! Don't all rush! :)

I will sweeten the deal with an R.E.8 (pictured) and a D.H.4 (pic-tur-ed) code to go with those Dolphins if you can conclusively prove that at some future point you will eventually have fun with them.

[Nikolaj]

I'd be willing to give the dolphin a try, and to post screenshots of what will likely be my failure. :)

I'd also be willing to promise to try to have fun with the R.E.8 and the D.H.4, although I can't actually prove that that's true. :)

Having reinstalled the game and given the tutorials another try, I had totally forgotten how poorly voiced they are. It's probably some of the worst voice acting I've heard in my life. Also, I find the tutorial missions very difficult, and I think it was these that made me put it down the last time I tried. I think I'll try mixing the tutorial with some actual action this time, so the same thing doesn't happen again.

[djotefsoup]

Yep, I think quick missions by yourself / shooting friendlies are definitely the way to go to learn the game. I read too many posts on the forum where people said the tutorials were way too hard or wouldn't complete properly bla bla bla to bother with them.

[Nikolaj]

Yep, I think quick missions by yourself / shooting friendlies are definitely the way to go to learn the game. I read too many posts on the forum where people said the tutorials were way too hard or wouldn't complete properly bla bla bla to bother with them.

I hit the wall with the tutorials on the third mission. It's not that it's too hard, really, since I'm consistently able to do what I'm supposed to. Unfortunately, I'm not able to do it in 15 minutes, which is a requirement. I usually have to do a circle or two, to gain enough altitude for the next checkpoint, after flying under the bridge, and the result is that I run out of time in the end. At one point, I was about 2 seconds from touching the ground, when the mission ended with a failure.

I'll come back and try it again, though, but for now, I need to have some fun. :)

[DennyA]

I know this has been covered uptopic, but given all the additions to the plane lineup in the past year...

What planes should we recommend to noobs, as far as reasonable flying qualities and having a fighting chance?

[Fishbreath]

I think the Sopwith Pup and the Albatros D.III (and D.Va) are the really obvious ones. Neither is particularly hard to fly, both are competitive with their contemporaries but not super-dominant, and both are tolerant of the sort of turning fight a newcomer to WWI air combat* is likely to get into. The SPAD XIII is a decent place to start for boom and zoom, since it's your only option.

* This is an important point to make, because the character of a WWI energy fight is vastly different from the character of energy fighting in WWII or early jets.

[scharmers]

I know this has been covered uptopic, but given all the additions to the plane lineup in the past year...

What planes should we recommend to noobs, as far as reasonable flying qualities and having a fighting chance?

Why not the S.E.5? Not a turnfiter, but a)is fast enough to get out of trouble, b)doesn't shed vital components at the drop of a hat, and c)doesn't viciously snap into a spin the instant you think about going outside its flight regieme.

[djotefsoup]

I know this has been covered uptopic, but given all the additions to the plane lineup in the past year...

What planes should we recommend to noobs, as far as reasonable flying qualities and having a fighting chance?

Although they are the 2nd and 1st most shit planes in the whole game, I think the big stretch of quick missions I did in the DH2 and E.III taught me more about how the game likes to be flown than anything else. They're so incredibly low performance that anything else is a step up. Just about any move of any kind takes a good 15-30 seconds to complete, and they tend to just politely refuse mistakes rather than the usual do-it-anyway-and-spin-or-fall-apart-instantly of later planes.

The free Albatros D.Va is really good as a noob plane - it just doesn't have a lot of drawbacks vs opposing planes and no real negative handling characteristics, it's an all-around nice guy, agile, fast, hard hitting and lots of ammo. The free Spad 13 isn't too bad either, though perhaps a little twitchier and more deliberately B&Z style, and the ammo count isn't as noob friendly. Spad 7 series is perhaps more benign than it but again the lack of ammunition (350 bullets for the 180hp version! when I started that was maybe half a kill's worth) will feel quite restrictive if you play without unlimited ammo.

What else is noob friendly ... hmm. Other than the Albatros D.II/III/Va - maybe not a lot else that you would say is such without at least a little reservation.

* Sopwith Triplane (maybe a bit hard to see out of but otherwise a nice guy plane, much the same but much nicer than the Dr.I)

* Sopwith Pup (almost as good as the Camel and only about half as nasty)

* Bristol F2B (a really good plane for single player, very forgiving, very good at almost everything)

[Mr Bismarck]

The Pfalz III is the best newcomer plane in my opinion. It moves at glacial pace, but it's very steady, will take incredible damage and has almost none of the alarming flight characteristic quirks that you see in the other planes.

It also prop hangs like almost no other plane.

[Mr Bismarck]

Things got a little hectic in our multi session tonight...

[jpinard]

I know this has been covered uptopic, but given all the additions to the plane lineup in the past year...

What planes should we recommend to noobs, as far as reasonable flying qualities and having a fighting chance?

I really like the Dolphin as a starter.

[djotefsoup]

How to break a Halberstadt CL.II:

[djotefsoup]

How to, instead, break another thing other than the Halberstadt CL.II, with the Halberstadt CL.II:

[Nikolaj]

I thought I might as well advertise this here, in case any other beginners are interested. There is an online flight school called Joint Ops, which offers courses in Rise of Flight. Their main programs are centered around IL-2, and I've taken their Basic Flight School course in that game, which was excellent.

It consisted of 8 classes of 3 hours each, including both theory and practice, and centered around taking off, landing, runway taxiing, and general flight procedures, as well as an introduction to wingman tactics, and just a bit of online fighting. After taking the basic course, which is free, you can sign up as an active member, for $50 a year (cheap, in my opinion), which grants you access to the more advanced courses.

I'm not sure how their Rise of Flight courses are structured, but I think it's very similar to the IL-2 courses, and I know it starts with a Basic Flight School course. I think all of the RoF courses require active membership, though, although there's a reduced fee (of $30), if you only want to take RoF courses.

Based on my experience with the IL-2 basic flight school, I can warmly recommend them. They're very professional, as well as great pilots and teachers, and they have a great community. Signing up does take some commitment, though, as they'll expect you to actually show up for every class, as well as practice on your own in between classes. Each course also features multiple tests, but I haven't heard of anyone ever failing (although plenty of people wash out, because they miss too many classes).

I want to do their RoF BFS, as well as the more advanced IL-2 courses, but I'm not sure I'm able to make that commitment right now, so it'll have to wait for a while. They start new courses every 2 or 3 months, though (depending on the course), so it's quite easy to plan ahead.

[djotefsoup]

[djotefsoup]

[Fishbreath]

In related news, since the D.H.4 doesn't have the glamor of the Brisfit or the age of the DFW or Gotha, Jarvis Cole (Fishbreath) is #4 on the all-time squadron achievement list.

[djotefsoup]

It amazes me that the DH2 (the collection of planks and wires in my previous post) and DH4 (above) first flew 13 months apart.

[djotefsoup]

[Jarrodhk]

That is pretty awesome.

[djotefsoup]

Oh it was so good :) Stupid 2mb gif limit made me cut out the initial and end parts where I came screaming in there at like +30kmh, blipping/yawing off to his right to slow down as fast as I could, feeling it start to lose control and spinning, turning the spin into a roll around him and then spinning it again on trying to end it, then using that to escape pointing exactly downwards underneath him :)

The Dr.I is fucking awesome. I never really played with it that much because it was so brutally nasty to fly around in compared to the learner planes but holy shit it's just awesome when it clicks. It's like an F-16 with no fly by wire.

[Fishbreath]

The Dr.I's an interesting kite. It'll outturn anything but a Camel, and having three wings plus a biggish rotary gives it a fantastic climb rate at most of the altitudes at which it's likely to encounter enemy fighters. Fighting D.VIIs I never feel like I'm at too bad of a disadvantage in the trusty Sopwith Dolphin, but the Dr.I can turn a vertical fight into a horizontal one by climbing, then beat me in the horizontal.

Of course, as with any late-war fast Allied fighter matchup, I can put "can dive away from the fight" onto the list of pros.

[djotefsoup]

I liked this one for a good Dr.I vs Camel fight :)

[Mr Bismarck]

That's a spectacular .gif there. Considering one is a copy of the other they came out as very different birds, the Tripe and the Dr.I.

[Tim James]

Having reinstalled the game and given the tutorials another try, I had totally forgotten how poorly voiced they are. It's probably some of the worst voice acting I've heard in my life.

I mentioned earlier that I'm pretty sure I read somewhere the voice is computer generated to sound like some famous WWI pilot.

Also, I find the tutorial missions very difficult, and I think it was these that made me put it down the last time I tried.

For anyone else struggling with the tutorials: don't spend too much time on them. The landing tutorial is pretty good, though you can be more aggressive than that with a lot of planes.

* This is an important point to make, because the character of a WWI energy fight is vastly different from the character of energy fighting in WWII or early jets.

You can't just throw this out there without following up on it...

[datter]

Eddie Rickenbacker.

[Fishbreath]

You can't just throw this out there without following up on it...

The short gunnery range, slow top speeds, and relative equality in performance in WWI conspire to make energy fights more razor's-edge-- there's no room for mistakes, or else you'll lose that tenuous hundred meters of altitude advantage and end up fighting on equal ground. WWII aircraft are so much faster relative to their shooting range that you can extend away without leaving your opponent a giant shooting window.

The fact that the Dolphin can turn with some German fighters is part of the reason why I like it. I took a quick and unedited video of a dogfight that happens to illustrate that. If you disregard my monstrously sloppy left turn after he crosses my 12-o'clock high, I use my similar climb and better sustained horizontal performance (the D.VII definitely wins on changes in direction, though) to reverse (some tracers fly past, but I couldn't see them, and so neither can you) and force him into a sustained turn. He tries to go high, and as he slows from his climb, my guns are there to meet him.

And a fighter as great as that could be yours! One Dolphin code remains. :P

Also, I thought this was pretty fantastic. It'd be even better if I spoke French.

[Tim James]

The fact that the Dolphin can turn with some German fighters is part of the reason why I like it. I took a quick and unedited video of a dogfight that happens to illustrate that.

Clearly, the best thing about the Dolphin is the explosive rounds.