I was wondering if there is a mod that allows more than 4 planes to be in one single flight of aircraft?
And conversely, I was also wondering if there is a mod or possibility of assigning a flight of, say 4 aircraft, to split up at a certain waypoint and pursue different flight paths, heights and/or objectives?
As far as I am aware 4 is the maximum number of flights in a squadron, and I don't know if increasing that is possible.
What you can do, for splitting planes up during a mission, is reduce the number of planes per flight.
personally i like to have flights of two aircraft making up my squadron. this gives you greater control over the AI pilots.
personally i like to have flights of two aircraft making up my squadron. this gives you greater control over the AI pilots.
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I'm gonna make like Homer Simpson and let out a big 'duh ...'
What I mean is, I've never understood the role of clicking the 'ai' option. What does it actually do when flying? And how can I control 2 flights of aircraft? This would be a great feature, but so far I've not discovered/understood how it's supposed to work.
Clicking the AI option when mission building is for creating a CO-OP.
It will make a "flyable" aircraft "non-flyable" .
when people go into the aircraft tab to choose an aircraft to fly.
So when building a mission,if for chance you wanted a flight or two of P-51's as
AI only,then you would click the AI option tab while building your CO-OP.
Building campaigns or single missions the option is useless.
Hope that clears it the AI Tab up for you.
I agree also with splitting flight's up as to have more control.
It seems to work better for me anyway.
Posts: 189
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Joined: Jul 2008
Agracier:
The first question I have for you is: How long have you been flying this game?
The next question is: How many missions have you made in full mission builder?
Please don't be offended - these questions aren't meant to belittle your question but to set a bench mark of your experience.
As Skymaster said the AI option only works in co-op.
Now, there are ways around the number of planes in a flight. Assign yourself as lead plane in the first flight (assigning your flight as many planes as you like) and you'll have control over everyone in your squadron. Assign a second flight waypoints as you like, and then join your flight with that flight and fly formation. This way the second flight will follow its waypoints to wherever you want them to go and you'll just follow along.
A point to consider: During the beginning of the war the standard flight was three planes - a leader and two wingmen. It was discovered that the wingmen more or less went along for the ride as they were too busy trying to keep track of their leader, and each other, to be much good shooting down the enemy. This gave an effective firepower of only 33%.
This led to the four plane flight - a leader with wingman in the lead element, and a second lead with wingman in a second element. The four planes would fly formation with everyone scanning for enemy. When contact was made the elements would split up and now, with the addition of only one plane, there was an increase in effective firepower to 50% if the wingmen only followed their lead. However, because they didn't have to watch TWO other planes, they could spend more time clearing their leads six. This now increases the effective firepower to almost 100%.
The point of the above diatribe, is - why have more than four planes in a flight? Even bomber streams were made up of four plane boxes within the stream.
Now, if you've flown with AI guys before, and I'm talking fighters only here, you've noticed that when you give the command to attack, planes 3 and 4 will break off and go after the CLOSEST target, while your wingman will follow you all over the place. You have to give him the command to attack. Beware, though, once you've told him this he won't be there to back you up if you need him. This is very similar to what happened in real life.
Using the command to 'Rejoin' before contact will keep everyone in your flight together until you give the command to attack something. You can use this command for all the planes in the four flights you have control over. I use this a lot when attacking a bomber stream to get my guys to spred themselves over the stream. As we fly over the stream I'll command the fourth flight to attack. Then I'll tell the third flight, then the second and, finally, my flight.
If you know all this I apologise for wasting your time but, not knowing what you know, I figured I'd shotgun the subject to death. Who knows - maybe someone else will get something out of this.
Great days all.
Thanks for all the info.
I've been flying since a bit just before the summer, with a long break in between. I've made dozens of missions, but I haven't really ever done any co-op missions to speak of. It's all single missions for me. And if truth be told, I suspect that like many here, I spend more time installing mods, fixing mods, trying out mods, downloading skins, making skins, putting skins in correct folders and reading the posts on forums like this, than in actually flying a game mission ... ha ha.
I've also found that the manual included in the game is not really much help when it comes to specifics. One gets better information by asking people who've played the game.
For instance the last explanation of how commands to other wingmen work, and what the 'ai' check box does, is much better than what is given in the manual and clears up many frustrations I've had along the way - for which thanks.
However concerning the number of actual planes in historical flights and all - well, realism is good for history and while I love the realism in the game, and love history, this is still a game. Complicated as can be but rewarding and very time-consuming. Especially in making good intricate missions. I was really looking for a shortcut to making missions with large amounts of planes. My machine can handle 100 planes easily and I thought that in making large bomber streams, it would less time-consuming in setting up enemy flights of more than 4 planes at a time. Makes for less cluttered mission maps too I would think.
But if the limitations are 4 planes, well then so be it.
I will have to learn more about issuing commands. I tried them out a while ago, especially the change formation commands, but still, I don't really see much happening in the air or with formations changing.
I was also wondering why all the commands are issued to 'staffel' and 'rottenflieger' and other German terms? Not that i don't understand German, mir gibt es nichts eigentlich, but not everyone wants to pretend to be an airman flying for a less than admirable regime, even if only in a virtual connotation.
Posts: 189
Threads: 49
Joined: Jul 2008
Agracier:
I've made flights of more than four by sticking waypoints close together and giving the planes the same altitude and speed. Just gotta watch though - the ai guys start out in right echelon then move to diamond or finger four depending on the plane; this is another gripe with me - no consistency. Somewhere else in the forum are guys asking the same thing you are so they can make bomber streams in a jiffy.
Anyway, on to your other question re: the in-game radio dialogue. I took the easy way out and simply copied the DE Speech folder and saved it somewhere else. I then copied all the Actor folders in the GB folder and pasted them into the DE folder and answered 'Replace All' at the popup. Now the 'Germans' speak with British accents and it sounds like a WW2 movie from Britain! LOL. I've replaced the Russians (RU) with Aussies (AU) and can now understand everything everyone says. The path for these is: IL2 root folder\samples\Speech.
Oh, here's something else I've done:
I hate the radio calls that say such things as 'Heading: two five zero. Altitude five zero.' You can get rid of most of this by clicking the 'Radio Silence' box on the Waypoint page. However, they will still ask for landing permission and the tower will reply. I prefer the silence since different squadrons would have different frequencies and I wouldn't hear the Free French on the radio at all. What I
Might it be possible to make a mod that allows you to edit the formation flights will start off in with FMB?
