DoubleTap

Watched it again at work and I am again crying. My friend Mike got it as well. FUNNY!

I'm crying myself. The only shame is that you can't show it to as many people who will get the joke. Funny damn #%$&*!!!

I suggest we go after Lithuania. Those smug bastards have been asking for it for a LONG time! (Yeah, things are usually slow at CNN most mornings. Or maybe because I am smarter than a chimp that it only seems slow.)

What does that mean? I always pick others. I am so very hurt by this insinuation...Or were just making sure I did not pick you again this time? :wink: Von Tonar is most honorable Imperial Japanese Naval Commander. Hai! (You can be there from the start, right?) Jensenpark, if you can be there from the start, will be the US Commander. Yes, (to Von Tonar's question) except for the Japanese Sea Planes, it's all carrier landings for the Japanese. I would suggest practicing carrier landings most strenuously (broo-ha-hah!). For the Americans, there is also Midway for landings, which is a real strong incentive for the Japanese to shut it down. In case they do, I certainly hope the Yanks will practice their carrier landings as well. (I am speaking to myself, by the way, because I stink. I still do not have my arrestor hook mapped!). If I can make couple of suggestions/observations. In addition to practicing landing itself, both sides might want to work out traffic control; ie which carriers are for landing, which are for takeoff. I will put different colored lights on the carriers for both sides so as to make recognition easier from a distance; red, green, and white. The largest Japanese carrier will have no lights. For the Yanks, Midway could be a disaster. There are 6 different types of planes taking off from there from two separate spawn points. Add with planes coming in, sometimes damaged, and there is a recipe for an ugly (but hilarious) disaster. For the Japanese, keep in mind a couple of things. First, one of your carriers is larger than the rest because it is a American substitute needed for B5N2 ('Kate') takeoffs. It might make landings easier to use that one. True, then it makes it difficult to use it for takeoffs. However... Two, it just occurs to me that in order to help keep that carrier clear, it MIGHT be possible to launch Kates from the other carriers IF other plane types spawn before them on the same carrier. That might push the Kates back far enough to give them enough deck space to take off from the smaller Jap carriers. I have NOT tested this out as I would need other players to do so. The Japanese team might want to check that out. Of course, it would take a certain amount of coordination to pull this off. BTW, Frior, thank you for tabulating the player list.

Check your email...2 Missions, 1 for each side.

Frior, I think the graphics standard won't matter as much. I think that as long as everyone sets their graphics to a decent level for their PC’s (one that does not choke it), we should be fine. The connection speed is another matter. I will consult with Roger on this when we have a more solid idea of how many are going to fly. I think the 56k actually worked well last time. Regarding teams, they will need to be even, and I would like the core of each to be formed earlier to allow some team practice and discussion. Dave, consider yourself Red. Dave is the first of the Red core. Everyone put in where you would like to fly so we can put together teams by this weekend. We may still need some Mercs, but I’d like to get as many people solidly on a team as possible for this one.

I've just sent out the manual for the new K9 Dogfight Campaign, Hell-Divers!. Let me know if you did not receive it. Tomorrow I will send out two training missions, Japanese and American, which allow you to practice with all the planes to be used, including some surprises. The date I am setting for this event is Friday, the 15th, 5:30pm EST. Hope everyone can make it. This looks like it might be the most fun so far, if I do say so myself.

Yes, any material is appreciated. I've found quite alot but any other references is great. Thanks!

DOH! Yes, I meant EST. Thank you, BG. Dave, Sunday afternoons are certainly an option.

While I have a number of ideas for future campaigns, I have settled on the next one. Further details to follow, but for now let me just say you should brush up on your dive-bombing and carrier landings... In addition, I plan to give everyone the full info well ahead of the campaign, and I would like the teams set as much as possible before for a couple of reasons which I'll reveal later. (One of them is to allow the teams to practice together before the event.) Having teased you with that, I would like to explore the possibility of running this next one on a weekend day. How feasible is this for everyone in general? I am thinking of a start time of 2,3,4pm. We would be sticking with the standard 3 hours for completion of the campaign. Please consult the poll above.

Actually, I am replaying the original campaign first, and having a great time. Really nice work, Dubbo. Really enjoyed the video sequences. Can't wait to try the next one.

Welcome back, Dave! Looking forward to the pics.

Jeez, Jim, but with all that room you should be building an airstrip!!

Ahhh, World War II online. Were I independently wealthy and had loads of time on my hands... I ever tell you guys about the time I took out an entire German 88 gun crew with my little French revolver? Boy, were THEY surprised!

Great! There are fantastice quality. Nice job, BG! I am saving the link so I can shamelessly steal these images for my own uses. HA! *** Seriously, paging through these, they are incredible. The Detail is amazing. Check out the Spitfire #144

Great! There are fantastice quality. Nice job, BG! I am saving the link so I can shamelessly steal these images for my own uses. HA!

Sweet, Dubbo. Thanks!

Your welcome, Gents. It went well, although we needed probably 2-3 more players on a side for that map. Even though I lowered the target objectives a bit, and we knew the map a bit better, it was still very difficult to reach the objectives. More bombs and guns were needed. However, that means we have a pretty good idea that the mission overall runs well with a certain number of players. Despite the claims of English cowardice, I think the real problem was not enough planes to fill the sky (We maxed out at 11-12). It was interesting to fly again. This time I took a little time off mid-mission from Pe-2 bombing runs, and hopped into a Gladiator for some convoy defense. I gotta say that with some energy behind her, the Gladiator is a decent match for the Stuka and even the G50 if the 50 tries to dogfight. I think I downed a Stuka and may have chased a G50 into the drink. Landing on the carrier turned out to be a little more difficult that I imagined (Splash!). Quazi seemed to discover that some units, particularly the AAA were regenerating mid mission. I have not completely confirmed that independently, although I did see some AAA firing in the distance that I thought I had cleared. If true, I am surprised because I thought the default was longer than an hour. In any event, I will adjust it if needed. Other lessons learned. Straffing artillery, even out in the open, is a pain in the ass compared to vehicles. However, a well placed bomb can take out several at a time if they are relatively close together. I admit its a bit of an odd mission map, in that most of the planes, if not, do not have alot of air-to-air killing power, but I think it works based on the emphasis on ground-pounding. It also makes the plane additions in the subsequent missions that much more welcome when everyone starts getting some real punch to their guns. Thanks to all who flew, and my apologies to my UK mates because we started a bit late.

The only problem I have with cockpit only mode relates to the departing airport. In my opinion, the field of view is just too limited to safely take off especially during the initial spawn when the airport resembles a monkey humping a football. You can't maintain decent situational awareness with people unexpectedly spawning willy nilly on the airport. It's hard enough to keep from running people down even with outside views. And as most have witnessed, when your airfield is under attack, recently spawned players tend to put the throttle to the firewall from the ramp to takeoff regardless of the airstrips actual location. But I do just as Pantless does when airborne, and I use my cockpit view only. I also like the limited id tags idear. With 5km tags, all of your tactical planning goes out the window when you know the enemy can see you from so far away. The airport chaos was my concern too, regarding externals. I MAY have a way of avoiding it in the offing, but it's not certain yet. WIthout externals, it would really be a pain to get planes off during a mission. One other problem with external views came up recently. During the events, some people may have used the externals to look at enemy airfields and aircraft to determine their position. While I know this is common practice for Coops (where we are merely trying to find one another so as to facilitate some killin') it is not appropriate for DF events where surprise and stealth are part of the deal. I would ask everyone to refrain from using externals in this manner in competitive events. As far as limited icons, I like them. While we can debate and adjust the parameters, I like the use of them in the DF events because it adds an element of tension and allows tactics that would ordinarily be useless. As they are set now, it is very easy to spot friendly aircraft at a distance (simulating radio contact and ground control), but enemy icons do not become visible until around 2km. I will check but further info is revealed at 1km. In any event, you can definitely spot enemies further out, but they will be black dots. You can tell they are enemy if you do not see the icons with the dots. In regards to Frior's question regarding lower graphics, its a good one. For one, we've tried a few things to improve the overall server performance, so try bumping up graphics as it may not affect the performance as badly. Second, if anyone has serious problems spotting at a distance let me know. We can try to find an good compromise.

Certainly, nut it depends on the mission and map. Also, based on previous projects like DCG (would like to get back to that), people have different tolerances for the same map and plane set. For some, an hour in the same scenario is torture, others could play for three hours and not notice. I think for SSS, the map's a bit small for 2 hours, especially without adding units and/or raising objective limits. This is all really preliminary, though. We need to fly a lot more (Yahhhh!) to really judge.

When you get to it, Enforcer. I am working on reworking on the SSS missions, I still need to do some fixes on D-Day, and I am playing around with another surprise that hopefully will pan out. Also, I would like to work on the Battle of Britain suggestion of Guitarman's. Come to think of it, anyone seen him lately?

This seems like my experience last night. The curious thing is that I've flown the G50 before, and I never noticed the drop off before. Perhaps it had to do with dogfighting rather than bomber straffing, but it was quite noticable last night. Thanks for the link!

Alright, its a go. I will be hosting normal coops this Thursday. Sometime during the evening, when we get a good number of pilots, I'll load up Map 1 of SSS. I'll send out an email as well. Kool.

Hey, While testing flying the G-50, I noticed that the rounds seem to drop off precipitously, almost as if they were cannon rounds. It made trying to hit something tricky. Was this a trick of my eye, or is the velocity of the rounds slower than other MG's. Just curious...

Gents, I would do it tomorrow, but I have an appointment that would interfere. I thought it was Thursday, but I believe I am in error. Let me check, but how many would be able to make a thursday event? We could run normal coops and then run the SSS map 1 whenever we the a decent number of players. Glenn BTW, I did try some G-50 verus Pe-2 action, and that was tough nut to crack. I would like to fly blue when we do this to see how it plays out from the other side. Plus, I sink I hav und goot stratigee! YAHVUL!!