Just started Career

[vino]

I've flown this simulator for a few years now, and finally started career. There should be a VERY VERY EASY -difficulty level for players like me, who don't know anything about fighting. I flew about 15 missions, and I was shot down every one of them. This is why I usually just fly around and watch the scenery. I guess combat is not for me...

[Herne]

18 minutes ago, vino said:

I've flown this simulator for a few years now, and finally started career. There should be a VERY VERY EASY -difficulty level for players like me, who don't know anything about fighting. I flew about 15 missions, and I was shot down every one of them. This is why I usually just fly around and watch the scenery. I guess combat is not for me...

 

You can pick up some tips on You Tube I guess, but I would recommend trying to stay close to your formation. There will be times when you are outnumbered and the odds are against you. In those situations If it looks hopeless, I will try to run. Live to fight another day. Some situations you will outnumber them.

Good decision making comes with practice, I still frequently have been known to make bad ones lol.

 

Keep trying, this is one of those games where the more you practice the better you get. The important thing is that you are having fun.

Edited December 7, 2018 by =11=Herne

[dburne]

You can also set up some quick missions for practice, like 1 on 1.

Practice, practice, practice. 

[RedKestrel]

As Herne said, a lot of times in the career you are outnumbered and facing superior aircraft. A couple nights ago I flew an intercept mission that had my flight of 3 Yak-1s attacking a group of eight Bf-109E-7s and 4 Bf-109F-4s only about 10 km from our airfield. No time to climb to altitude, we were still in our initial climb when we ran into them. We got slaughtered twice in that mission. Because it was so close to our airfield, we couldn't flee home without being pursued.

Eventually what I did was to take off, fly in the opposite direction of where I was supposed to go to gain altitude, and then attacked the enemy flight, focusing on the escort fighters. Because we came in with the advantage this time I was able to kill one and cripple another (AA got him later). And the AA around our airfield and the target formations eventually drove off the attack aircraft.

Sometimes if you're having trouble in the career missions you have to get creative to survive. Even on the easiest settings outnumbered by that much is difficult.

Another piece of advice is to start your career as commanding officer of your squadron. This way, you can take yourself off missions you don't like, add additional friendly aircraft to your mission if available, etc. If you don't feel like leading the flight just move your character farther back down the formation - AI will lead the flight but you still command the squadron. But if you're the leader, you can take your flight to higher or lower altitudes to avoid enemy fighters or start with an advantage.

I may get flamed for saying this but you can also start a german fighter career if its the soviets giving you trouble. Generally speaking, in a 109 or a 190 you can run away from just about anything at most altitudes higher than the deck, so that can help when you get in a bit of trouble. Its not that its easier per se, you just have the faster, better climbing aircraft, which is a huge advantage in air combat. 

Practice in the QMB too. Give  yourself a bunch of advantages. Start flying 3 vs. 1 against enemy fighters, then 2 vs 1, then 1 vs 1 until you can reliably shoot down the enemy without getting shot down yourself. Then graduate to 2 vs 2, then 3 vs 3 to develop situational awareness. Then you can go to 2 vs. 3, 1 vs. 3, etc. to practice fighting multiple opponents.

[Solmyr]

2 hours ago, vino said:

I've flown this simulator for a few years now, and finally started career. There should be a VERY VERY EASY -difficulty level for players like me, who don't know anything about fighting. I flew about 15 missions, and I was shot down every one of them. This is why I usually just fly around and watch the scenery. I guess combat is not for me...

 

But you can customize the difficulty level.. I guess that you even can set an invincibility. You also can set less traffic and less skilled AI I believe. You should even be able to do that directly into your actual career.

[RedKestrel]

19 minutes ago, Solmyr said:

 

But you can customize the difficulty level.. I guess that you even can set an invincibility. You also can set less traffic and less skilled AI I believe. You should even be able to do that directly into your actual career.

Yes, you can set the difficulty to easy, which will mean your AI buddies are verteran and your enemies are rookies. Also less AA, and less accurate. And if you set frontline activity to sparse you're not likely to run into extra enemies as you sometimes do at other settings.

 

[vino]

I just finished my first successful mission. Took off, got near enemy, shot down 2 planes and somehow managed to navigate back to base. Feels SO good!

[dburne]

17 minutes ago, vino said:

I just finished my first successful mission. Took off, got near enemy, shot down 2 planes and somehow managed to navigate back to base. Feels SO good!

[PatrickAWlson]

Shameless plug for PWCG.  You can start a career in PWCG and then set fighter opposition to zero.  That will limit odds of being shot down.  Worst case you are flying around and looking at scenery, or you will get bombers and attack planes as targets.  

[Georgio]

On 1/9/2019 at 12:27 PM, vino said:

I just finished my first successful mission. Took off, got near enemy, shot down 2 planes and somehow managed to navigate back to base. Feels SO good!

 

I spend most of my time in career mode and rarely get shot down though I'm exclusively VR which makes things a lot easier as I find it easy to keep track of who is doing what.

Firstly bind a key to toggle labels on/off, purists would say this is cheating but the point is to only flick it on/off to see which tiny dot is friendly or enemy, when planes are closer it's easier to ID.

Secondly, bide your time.

If you see an enemy formation travelling in the opposite direct leave them, especially if you're on an escort mission. Your job is to protect your planes, not attack other planes.

If you get a group of enemy planes threatening your escorts/bridges/ground troops, don't immediately engage them, turn away and gain height as they will always be higher than you. Once you have gained height, then turn to them to engage.

Try not to get into a turning fight as you'll bleed energy and get low and slow, instead dive down, fire a burst with all guns and then pull back up all in a straight line. This way you'll retain your energy adavantage. Then simply look for the next target and rinse and repeat until you nail them all. 

The AI will generally get into a turning fight and your aim is to be sufficiently above them at all times so that they don't have enough energy to engage you.

 

[Gambit21]

On 1/9/2019 at 4:27 AM, vino said:

I just finished my first successful mission. Took off, got near enemy, shot down 2 planes and somehow managed to navigate back to base. Feels SO good!

 

Nice!