Combat Box by Red Flight

[Otto_bann]

23 hours ago, Alonzo said:

We are changing the rules on airfield vulching...

 

Finally the logical and dissuasive rule that I suggested since so long has been imposed (the addicts of ease will not like). Thank you so much!

[RedKestrel]

16 hours ago, Sketch said:

While adding tank crew would be cool. There's a few problems.

 

1) there's already 84 people nearly all the time flying planes in Combat Box. If we add tanks, this would take away from, not add too, players flying. If we could, without any server performance issues, add say 200-300 players, then yes we would add tanks

2) Like airfields, tanks give off radar, and if it's already apparent with all the vulching at airfields, pilots typically go where they can see enemy on the radar. Imagine putting that same radar on the front lines, so tanks don't have to drive so far.

3) Tanks are typically the least common denominator, meaning that everybody that's flying around will be looking for a player tanks for an easy kill because it really is an easy kill without any AAA nearby. And AAA cost server performance which we don't want and we don't want tank players to constantly quit because they can't do anything about enemy pilots killing them constantly.

 

Yes I understand other servers have tanks. They have made that choice and that's good for you and all tank players. Good luck and have fun!

Best solution is a tanks only server, with appropriately sized maps. Getting tanks into the game in a meaningful way seems difficult to do with air focused missions.

[Kampfpilot_JG3]

hello

the stats page sorties results for the day 18 of july is missing 2 missions results up to this hour . Mitchells and Lowlands . Rhineland just finished . Eindhoven has started .

Edited July 18, 2020 by dog1

[Alonzo]

1 hour ago, dog1 said:

hello

the stats page sorties results for the day 18 of july is missing 2 missions results up to this hour . Mitchells and Lowlands . Rhineland just finished . Eindhoven has started .

 

Thanks for the report. We've restarted the stats parser and everything looks good again.

[Haza]

19 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

Best solution is a tanks only server, with appropriately sized maps. Getting tanks into the game in a meaningful way seems difficult to do with air focused missions.

 

The Finnish server does it rather well. CB during my time zone is lucky to get into double figures and in deed checking the stats, I would say that 40% of the time the server has less than 50 players. It would be great for the server to have some ability for when numbers were low that the server allowed tanks as this might draw in other players. However, as you have already mentioned, the server is very 'air focussed' so it is limited for combined arms warfare. 

Perhaps as BON develops we may see other servers appear that cater for this style of gaming.

 

Regards

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by Haza

[Kampfpilot_JG3]

 

ATT Alonzo

Was Vulched over Kirchelen Mitchells boys mission

Today as i prepared for landing approx 1 KM from touch down 200 mt height flaps down i was vulched , i will attach the sortie log link as soon as the mission is over and stats updated .

here is the link

https://combatbox.net/en/sortie/log/778216/?tour=24

Edited July 19, 2020 by dog1

[JG13_opcode]

On 7/12/2020 at 1:02 AM, Alonzo said:

The behavior we see in game, which is that pilots of both sides know exactly where to go to find pilots of the other side who are on the ground or just taken off and vulnerable, and where there will be little defence against them making easy kills, is absolutely ahistorical. Pilots fly around with no specific mission in mind. That's ahistorical - they'd have orders to follow. Pilots can respawn when they die, well clearly that's pretty unrealistic.

 

Let's think about how we could improve the vulching situation for the vast majority of players who, unlike you, do not find it fun to take off under fire or to be shot while their engine spools up.

 

Won't having a 10-km "magic home free zone" just encourage drama?  If I'm winning an engagement and he flees home into the magic safe zone I'm now risking a ban.  What if I lose SA in a fight (happens to me all the time) and chase a guy into the magic safe zone?  I don't want to get banned just because I lost track of where I was. 

 

What's to stop me from running back to the magic safe zone to get away from a Mustang, climbing to 10000m in my 109 while staying in the "don't shoot me or get banned" zone, and then using that artificial constraint to get the advantage?  If I'm in the magic zone I can just climb at my best climb rate without regard for the threat, and if he shoots me I'll just get him banned.

 

I think vulching is caused by people getting bored becase of not being able to find anyone on the server.  Perhaps there are too many targets and they're too spread out.  What about larger, more centralized targets so there's always a hot spot for people who want to furball?  I feel like vulching is a problem that can be solved more effectively by better map/target design than by a magic home free zone.  You said it yourself - people vulch because they can't find players.  I myself have had multiple sorties where I quit out of frustration because I circled two or three nearby ground targets for 20-30 minutes and saw nobody.

 

I will also say that using Spits/109s as a "model server" is a bad idea.  Perhaps people who flew Allied back then didn't notice it, but when you have guys like GunRunner who would not tolerate Axis aircraft faster than the Spit cherrypicking plane sets so that he always had the advantage, I will say that it wasn't really an example of a server I would want to see emulated.

Edited July 19, 2020 by JG13_opcode

[VBF-12_Snake9]

50 minutes ago, JG13_opcode said:

GunRunner

GunRunner banned me more than a cupule times.  Wonder if that old dude is still alive.  ?

Ahh good times.  

 

[ITAF_Airone1989]

1 hour ago, JG13_opcode said:

 

Won't having a 10-km "magic home free zone" just encourage drama?  If I'm winning an engagement and he flees home into the magic safe zone I'm now risking a ban.  What if I lose SA in a fight (happens to me all the time) and chase a guy into the magic safe zone?  I don't want to get banned just because I lost track of where I was. 

 

I think vulching is caused by people getting bored becase of not being able to find anyone on the server.  Perhaps there are too many targets and they're too spread out.  What about larger, more centralized targets so there's always a hot spot for people who want to furball? 

 

1) if you get in the 10km area you will see flak around you, so also if you didn't notice before you will understand what is going on. Plus: if you are so close to enemy airfield you are already in a pretty bad position, so probably you will be shot down by some other guy that saw flak on you (and not by the guy that is climbing in the magic area).

But still: in this case is your bad cause you lost SA, so not a admin problem for sure. And in real life airfield where so much protected by flak that you have really few chance to come back home.

(And is not applied to the airfield close to the front line, so in my opinion this rule is ok.)

 

2) server doesn't allowed such a big concentration of players without issue like lag/kick, ecc... That's why admin already decided to spread around target, to avoid big fighting groups.

On another server we did a short campaign with 15 bombers in a close formation, and 35 escort fighters VS 34 defensive players:  I posted those missions in video section (battlefield diary, biggest battle...), was a beautiful experience but still a lot of guy had lag or kick problem. 

And it's not a server or mission maker problem, is a game issue: like as it cannot works properly with so many information all togheter.

So, spreading targets allowed to people to have a smoother match.

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by ITAF_Airone1989

[357th_KW]

5 hours ago, JG13_opcode said:

I will also say that using Spits/109s as a "model server" is a bad idea.  Perhaps people who flew Allied back then didn't notice it, but when you have guys like GunRunner who would not tolerate Axis aircraft faster than the Spit cherrypicking plane sets so that he always had the advantage, I will say that it wasn't really an example of a server I would want to see emulated.

 

History repeats itself it seems.

[RedKestrel]

44 minutes ago, KW_1979 said:

 

History repeats itself it seems.

The spitfires are currently the slowest aircraft of the plane set with the exception of the token early aircraft, Tempests are restricted, k4s and D9s are ubiquitous, and you even have occasional 262s. You can even vulch frontline airfields with all that hardware.

[357th_KW]

47 minutes ago, RedKestrel said:

The spitfires are currently the slowest aircraft of the plane set with the exception of the token early aircraft, Tempests are restricted, k4s and D9s are ubiquitous, and you even have occasional 262s. You can even vulch frontline airfields with all that hardware.

 

I realize that the shoe is on the other foot in this case, I still don't understand it.

[Talon_]

3 hours ago, KW_1979 said:

 

I realize that the shoe is on the other foot in this case, I still don't understand it.

 

In terms of pure hardware the server has a slight Blue lean currently in my opinion, but we're hedging for the future so that we can allow historical 150 octane fuel levels during Normandy whilst Blue only get G6s and Antons  

[Otto_bann]

14 hours ago, dog1 said:

...Today as i prepared for landing approx 1 KM from touch down 200 mt height flaps down i was vulched ...

 

I downed 2 guys hunting above my airfield too this same evening (in less 10 min and an other one is came less 5  min later but I was too far away).

I informed them by chat about the new rule but I got no response for one and the other has refused to admit he was above this airfied (however he was just above )...:)

Maybe this (good) new rule is not enough knew for the moment by all  (to write it in the brief maybe could be to help to know it?). For few others, probably, it will not easy to respect it quickly.

I took a track for the 1st one.

[JohnnyFirpo]

someone seems to be looking more for a duck hunt than a challenge ?

 

[Talon_]

14 minutes ago, Otto_bann said:

Maybe this (good) new rule is not enough knew for the moment by all  (to write it in the brief maybe could be to help to know it?). For few others, probably, it will not easy to respect it quickly.

 

 

They'll respect it when the auto-kick is enabled  

[Otto_bann]

11 hours ago, JG13_opcode said:

 

Won't having a 10-km "magic home free zone" just encourage drama?  If I'm winning an engagement and he flees home into the magic safe zone I'm now risking a ban. 

 

Maybe you fly this server by the wrong way?

If you are chasing at limit of the 10 kms, yes, you will have most chances for be at wrong place quickly ... But if you search enemies around the ground targets which ones are the real goal of the server, or far away of ennemy airfield, you will have no chance to get this problem.

 

Don't begin your hunt at only 11km and take care to your navigation when you will be at 6 of your opponent. So protect your bomber or protect your own ground targets  an all will be well.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Otto_bann

[JohnnyFirpo]

Does that mean i cant chase someone down back to his AF since he enters a „safe zone“?.. as i can understand and do support the „anti-vulch“ measures here, it is gonna be hard to differ at times. No one should be kicked for chasing a fleeing guy back to his base

Edited July 20, 2020 by HBG-Viper_1

[Hawk-2a]

11 hours ago, JG13_opcode said:

What's to stop me from running back to the magic safe zone to get away from a Mustang, climbing to 10000m in my 109 while staying in the "don't shoot me or get banned" zone, and then using that artificial constraint to get the advantage?  If I'm in the magic zone I can just climb at my best climb rate without regard for the threat, and if he shoots me I'll just get him banned

This.

[Otto_bann]

11 hours ago, JG13_opcode said:

What's to stop me from running back to the magic safe zone to get away from a Mustang, climbing to 10000m in my 109 while staying in the "don't shoot me or get banned" zone, and then using that artificial constraint to get the advantage?  If I'm in the magic zone I can just climb at my best climb rate without regard for the threat, and if he shoots me I'll just get him banned.

 

1° if you take off, run to targets for come back in your 10 km airfield zone when you meet an ennemi, to return to target then until the next enemy, etc... Flight Simulator is a best game for you.

2° If you have to climb at 10000m to be secure in your 10 km zone each time, you'll never have time to use you bomb and your guns and you will fligh 3 times by mission after have used  5/10% of the map only...

 

3° You will be tired very quickly by this strategy a little bit silly ?

Edited July 20, 2020 by Otto_bann

[Bilbo_Baggins]

Hey gents, not to detract from the current hysteria, but had a good time on the server the other day and was just wondering if anyone has any tips for landing at these recovery strips? 3 of our machines here attempting landing at the recovery base but only 1 made it. Are there any tricks or tips to landing on these rough hilly strips without binning it in?

 

https://streamable.com/gg9bgg

 

Cheers! 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Bilbo_Baggins

[Haza]

56 minutes ago, Talon_ said:

 

They'll respect it when the auto-kick is enabled  

 

Just waiting for Professor Dolores Umbridge to appear.

 

[Black-Witch]

I know the majority of the ComBox Dev's use VR but how do they get on when there's so much cloud, it destroys my frame rate :(

 

 

[RedKestrel]

1 hour ago, Black-Witch said:

I know the majority of the ComBox Dev's use VR but how do they get on when there's so much cloud, it destroys my frame rate

 

 

What are your clouds set to? I run 1440p/60FPS with high clouds on cloudy missions with little issue and a relatively modest rig, but I had to turn down from Extreme when I went to 1440p because the FPS dropped into the low 30s on heavy clouds. It seems the jump from High to Extreme takes a pretty hefty load. The clouds on High look almost as nice and with the recent adjustments to contacts in front of clouds its not as ugly as it used to be when spotting planes against lower-quality clouds.

[422nd_RedSkull]

19 hours ago, VBF-12_Snake9 said:

GunRunner banned me more than a cupule times.  Wonder if that old dude is still alive.  ?

Ahh good times.  

 

Me too, only because we has divergent opinions about one thing that i dont remember more was are.

[VBF-12_Snake9]

3 hours ago, =ABr=422nd_RedSkull said:

Me too, only because we has divergent opinions about one thing that i dont remember more was are.

I flew strictly 190s at the time, and he didn't like getting shot down.  ?

[II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson]

Allied mid-44 planes with 150 vs A6s, A8s, and G6 wont be too huge of an issue for good pilots. The crap pilots will suffer horribly though.

 

I'm very much hoping for GM1 injection for the late G6. 44,000ft ceiling here i come.

[RedKestrel]

52 minutes ago, II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson said:

Allied mid-44 planes with 150 vs A6s, A8s, and G6 wont be too huge of an issue for good pilots. The crap pilots will suffer horribly though.

 

I'm very much hoping for GM1 injection for the late G6. 44,000ft ceiling here i come.

I’m already terrorizing the Luftwaffe in my UFO OP-47 with 150octane, so I’m burning through the karma I earned getting owned by K4s and Doras.

[Alonzo]

The admin team thought about these edge cases such as chasing someone back to their base. But they are edge cases. The point of the rule is to encourage pilots to avoid player airfields.

 

The rule is simple: if the airfield has a dotted line and shaded area around it on the map, it is a protected airfield. If you damage someone when they are close to a friendly protected airfield, the bot kicks you. That's it.

 

Not all airfields are protected. Front-line, capturable or otherwise 'special' airfields are usually not protected. Most protected airfields have at least 30 - 40km to the closest friendly target and are deep inside that side's territory. Pilots will not accidentally find themselves over a protected enemy airfield. Sure, if you chase a wounded bird for five minutes and fail to realize they're near their field maybe you would incur the bot's wrath and get kicked, but I'm actually not sad about that. It's a simple rule and we have these wonderfully complex machines called human beings that can work within the bounds of the rule.

 

I'm sure there are lots of ways where someone can contrive a situation where, to any reasonable human being, it would have been reasonable for them to shoot someone within the 10km limit and it wouldn't have been "vulching." But adding complexity to the rule makes it harder to understand and implement. This rule is simple: Someone took damage? Within 10km of a protected field? Victim is aligned with the field and attacker is not? Kick the attacker. Done.

[Tempus]

44,000 fts. ;)))))))))

 

 

[JG13_opcode]

7 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

What are your clouds set to? I run 1440p/60FPS with high clouds on cloudy missions with little issue and a relatively modest rig, but I had to turn down from Extreme when I went to 1440p because the FPS dropped into the low 30s on heavy clouds. It seems the jump from High to Extreme takes a pretty hefty load. The clouds on High look almost as nice and with the recent adjustments to contacts in front of clouds its not as ugly as it used to be when spotting planes against lower-quality clouds.

 

Mind sharing your settings?  I struggle to get 60fps @ 1440p with a Ryzen 7 2700X and an Rx Vega 64

[RedKestrel]

57 minutes ago, JG13_opcode said:

 

Mind sharing your settings?  I struggle to get 60fps @ 1440p with a Ryzen 7 2700X and an Rx Vega 64

Not at my machine at the moment so I can’t get a screenshot, but if I recall...

Rig is 1660 super with 16gb of RAM. i5 7500 processor, automatically goes to 3.6 ghz IIRC.

 

Preset is High. Clouds High. Shadows and Mirrors at medium. Canopy reflections normal. Grass normal. Distant landscape detail normal. Terrain distance 100 km. Frames limited to 60 FPS. Vsync on. HDR and SSAO off. FXAA x4.

 

Clouds, shadows, and the preset seem to have the greatest impact. And grass when close to the ground, you could try turning that off as it doesn’t look amazing anyway IMO.

 

I get occasional stutters in highly populated areas and the occasional frame rate drop but not that noticeable.

[ACG_Smokejumper]

On 7/17/2020 at 2:26 PM, Sketch said:

While adding tank crew would be cool. There's a few problems.

 

1) there's already 84 people nearly all the time flying planes in Combat Box. If we add tanks, this would take away from, not add too, players flying. If we could, without any server performance issues, add say 200-300 players, then yes we would add tanks

 

 

 

My dream come true would be WWII Online but BoX engine.

 

1000 ppl in a server flying, tanking and running around..... Yes please.

 

I'd get so fat......

[Black-Witch]

16 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

What are your clouds set to? I run 1440p/60FPS with high clouds on cloudy missions with little issue and a relatively modest rig, but I had to turn down from Extreme when I went to 1440p because the FPS dropped into the low 30s on heavy clouds. It seems the jump from High to Extreme takes a pretty hefty load. The clouds on High look almost as nice and with the recent adjustments to contacts in front of clouds its not as ugly as it used to be when spotting planes against lower-quality clouds.

on my Index I use 80hz, the lowest setting, and 100% resolution. frame rates without clouds is around 70fps. Clouds, yes I agree High is fine, Extreme causes a frame rate hit. but, even on High, when there are 80% clouds, AND they are that "double layer" it causes constant judders. unplayable.

Edited July 21, 2020 by Black-Witch

[II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson]

13 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

I’m already terrorizing the Luftwaffe in my UFO OP-47 with 150octane, so I’m burning through the karma I earned getting owned by K4s and Doras.

 

The highest fight i have ever had was on Combat Box on Y29 map. I was in a 109G2 and tangled with a P47D28 at 11K which is something like 36,000ft. It went on for over 5 minutes and i finally made some inconsequential hits on him but it was enough for him to want to dive away and go home. I did not catch him in the dive as once we passed 7K there were a group of Spitfire loitering so i turned away and went home.

Edited July 21, 2020 by II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson

[RedKestrel]

1 minute ago, II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson said:

 

The highest fight i have ever had was on Combat Box on Y29 map. I was in a 109G2 and tangled with a P47D28 at 11K which is something like 36,000ft. It went on for over 5 minutes and i finally made some inconsequential hits on him but it was enough for him to want to dive away and go home. I did not catch him in the dive as once we passed 7K there were a group of Spitfire loitering so i turned away and went home.

I've been in the opposite sort of situation lately - lots of deck-level tangles in the P-47 versus Doras and K-4s. Usually running fighter-bomber sorties. Most of the time its still the same old story as before when you're caught down low in a Jug. But a couple times, with the 150 octane fuel giving me more energy to work with, I've either been able to run, drive them off, or shoot them down. Situations where I would have been meat on the table before are a little different - I'm more medium rare than well done these days. 

2 hours ago, Black-Witch said:

on my Index I use 80hz, the lowest setting, and 100% resolution. frame rates without clouds is around 70fps. Clouds, yes I agree High is fine, Extreme causes a frame rate hit. but, even on High, when there are 80% clouds, AND they are that "double layer" it causes constant judders. unplayable.

I haven't had a chance to play with dual-layered clouds since I upgraded my monitor -  I imagine it would be pretty juddery though. Having tested it on full overcast, I can still get 60 fps if nothing is going on, not sure what would happen if a fight started. 

[JG13_opcode]

23 hours ago, Alonzo said:

Most protected airfields have at least 30 - 40km to the closest friendly target and are deep inside that side's territory. Pilots will not accidentally find themselves over a protected enemy airfield.

 

Honestly I'm not so sure about that.  Some of the protected zones are awfully close to objectives, such as on the Lowlands Standoff map where you have Gilze-Rijen that's less than 20 km from part of the reconnaissance zones.

[422nd_Bello]

On 7/20/2020 at 6:45 AM, Bilbo_Baggins said:

Hey gents, not to detract from the current hysteria, but had a good time on the server the other day and was just wondering if anyone has any tips for landing at these recovery strips? 3 of our machines here attempting landing at the recovery base but only 1 made it. Are there any tricks or tips to landing on these rough hilly strips without binning it in?

 

https://streamable.com/gg9bgg

 

Cheers! 

If i dont have damage on my plane i can land it there reliably, i will share my technique that i use on the P51.

Full flaps and gear down holding the plane in a level or slightly nose up attitude and adjusting the glide slope with power, i aim for 135-150 mph on final aproach and cut power when i am just about to touch the runway after the flare. From this video it seems that you lacked to flare the plane and came in with a higher than ideal descent rate, you need enough speed so you can flare but not too much that you float above the runway and NEVER USE BRAKES outside runways as this increase greatly the chances of a tip over. After touchdown keep the stick full back and keep it straight just using rudder.

[Black-Witch]

Just realised the "Warning Circles" on the map are NOT at a 10km radius, they are closer to 8km radius, so adjust for that when map reading, circles are like the "Pirate Code", more for guidance!

 

Well, they weren't at Grimbergen > Battle of the Scheldt, at least!

 

Witch

 

[Otto_bann]

The surveyor's pencil has slipped on the map therefore. It does not matter, we know that around these airfields it is forbidden to hunt at 10 km or less

Edited July 22, 2020 by Otto_bann