First time I played a career since ages

[JtD]

So, having done quite a bit of QMB fighting and testing lately, I felt I should once more venture into the more complex parts of gameplay and decided to, for the first time since the career overhaul, to start one. I picked Kuban and German side, flying the Fw190A5 in a ground attack role.

 

Well, after clicking through a lot of menues were I learned that my alter ego, born in 1916, was rejected from the Luftwaffe in 1939 because he was only 15 years old, I eventually got things going and started my first mission. Not having played a lot on the Kuban map, I decided to do a little sightseeing, leave flying to the autopilot and get an idea of the lay of the land, frontlines, ground action and formation flying. Everything looked really pretty, clouds, aircraft, forest, hills, shoreline, sea. Eventually we closed in on the target area, and I spotted (well, icons on) a couple of Yak-1's on CAP heading our way. I figured it was time to disengage the autopilot. And it didn't work. Well, the next minute I frantically tried to disengage the bloody thing, but to no avail. And of course, the enemy, out of or formation of 8 planes, picked my plane to go after. Fortunately my AI alter ego kept cool, and stoically continued to fly towards the target at cruise power settings. He only lost his cool when the Yak eventually opened fire from a few hundred meters out, and of course, he immediately dropped the bombs and, obviously, started turning. Naturally, the rest of the squadron didn't bother, as they weren't under attack. Took the Yak quite a bit of firing time, but it finally hit (hard to lose a turning contest against a Fw190) and dewinged my plane. I watched in amazement, still trying to somehow disengage the bloody autopilot, as my aircraft spiraled towards and eventually crashed into the ground. On the plus side, posthumously I got my first kill, as the stupid Yak crashed into my crashsite a couple of seconds later. For whatever reason.

 

Well, I hit ALT+F4 and think I'll give the career another try in another couple of years. Or maybe sooner if I find a way to laugh my frustration off.

 

I did like the presentation of the historical background and the work that went into the unit selection, and as said above, the map looked beautiful. Is that autopilot thing a known thing / feature in the career or was it a freak incident? Never had this happen to me before.

[No105_Swoose]

Interesting summary JtD.  The default start for career mode is air start (vice start on runway) and, as you found, your aircraft will be on autopilot.  To get out of autopilot I have to hit "A", Shift + A, and Control + A.  Then I have control of the aircraft.  Maybe if you do another career mode look at the options and select start on runway.  The options also let you choose the difficulty (easy, moderate, or hard) and the density of frontline activity.

 

[ZachariasX]

Just tried it, started an A5 career over Kuban. Toggle "a" for autopilot. Or "Shift + a" for autolevel. Works fine.

 

When I star airborne, i am on autopilot. I press "a" and I have control.

[MasserME262]

you can set the autopilot off by moving the stick generously (try to do a roll to one side and autopilot will deactivate).

Anyways, that aside, after trying 1 SC made by black six and now 1 user-made SC, I dont think Im playing career anytime soon, I find it quite boring to always have completely random missions that has anything to do one with the other. I would even prefer to play in multiplayer and be raped by the "PROs" often, but at least thats way better than suffering the career thing.

[JtD]

Sounds like a glitch then, believe me, I tried everything. I even went into the settings menue at some point to see if autopilot disengagement was a different button (even though I must have switched it on and off like 50 times in the last couple of days). I think I started the mission with auto level, which I switched off and after some minutes manually switched on autopilot and then never managed to switch it off again. Thank you for your time.

 

WRT SC's, I did the Bf109F-2 Moscow campaign some time ago, but the Bf109F-2 flies like a brick compared to all other Bf109's and I lost interest at some point. But up to there it was great, and I thought I'd check out career mode now. Can't really say it was as much fun.

[Dirt_Merchant]

1 hour ago, ME-BFMasserME262 said:

you can set the autopilot off by moving the stick generously (try to do a roll to one side and autopilot will deactivate).

Anyways, that aside, after trying 1 SC made by black six and now 1 user-made SC, I dont think Im playing career anytime soon, I find it quite boring to always have completely random missions that has anything to do one with the other. I would even prefer to play in multiplayer and be raped by the "PROs" often, but at least thats way better than suffering the career thing.

 

Multiplayer is the absolute most rewarding frustration in flight sims lol.

[Letka_13/Arrow_]

JtD: I am not sure I understand, but you are dumping whole career because of a glitch in the sim? A mission flown by autopilot is certainly not representative of the current state of the career. I've flown some 40 ground attack missions in it recently (Il-2 BoM) and had many excellent moments. For sure the career has its fair share of problems in mission design or AI, but I think it can be enjoyed and devs have done a lot of good work to continuously improve it. Bashing it because of a single mission is hardly any objective judgement or constructive criticism, but rather a pointless rant in my opinion. I am happy that we have a career and it is being worked on, but I think that such opinions do not help to improve it or encourage the developers to improve it. 

[MasserME262]

22 minutes ago, JtD said:

did the Bf109F-2 Moscow campaign some time ago, but the Bf109F-2 flies like a brick

man, its definitely not a brick.

I remember the first time I tried it in QMB, just after I bought BoM. I thought exactly the same as you and lost interest too, and even told myself I would never fly that **** again.

But after several months, I decided to fly it once again, to give it a chance.

Man, I LOVE it, its, among the E7, F4 and G2, my favorite 109 (you can see I like "old" 109's). Maybe its because I learnt to fly 109's a little better (and I guess it gonna be even better the more I learn to fly them, still an universe to improve in my skills).

Try it again, it could be a nice surprise.

 

PS: Im actually thinking about buying 10 days of Autumn to play it, I enjoy the plane that much now that I will probably buy it.

 

Edit: just in case, I fly it like I would fly something in between E7 and the F4... damn, that's precisely what the F2 is in game lol, I guess that wont help much, but that's how I fly it, a mix of E7+F4.

Edited November 15, 2019 by ME-BFMasserME262

[ShamrockOneFive]

10 hours ago, JtD said:

I did like the presentation of the historical background and the work that went into the unit selection, and as said above, the map looked beautiful. Is that autopilot thing a known thing / feature in the career or was it a freak incident? Never had this happen to me before.

 

Never ever heard of this before. Even just moving the stick is enough to break the autopilot system out of holding your course.

 

The Career mode and QMB are no different in this regard.

 

That'd be a pretty weird glitch.

[unreasonable]

Runway starts are much better, if you have the time, at least in some planes. AI Fw190s used to have terrible problems taking off for some reason, not sure if that is fixed yet.

 

As of the last time I played a lot of campaign - early this year - flying a 109 around worked quite well in some missions. Even ground attack seemed plausible. The problem area was escort missions of the large bombers: instead of having the bombers based off map, they have a base assigned. You meet the bombers over your airfield. So the bombers approach your base from the direction of their base, you take up, and climb above their formation while the bomber formation turns towards the next WP towards the target. Unfortunately, in the unit I was playing, that often meant that the bombers made a 180 degree turn. Even if the AI fighters did not collide with the bombers while climbing through them, the bombers often collided in the turn, and those that did not took the entire flight to the target to regain formation.

 

Why you do not just meet the bombers at some designated point and time in their direct path to the target from a map entry point I do not know. They could fly off map instead of landing as well: BoX's AI landing routines are horrible.

 

Mind you, stupid and counterproductive events happen in real military settings as well.    

[JtD]

10 hours ago, Rudolph said:

JtD: I am not sure I understand

 

To be clear, I posted for two reasons.

One, I think it was in a way hilarious to have that happen. It was extremely odd to not be able to disengage the autopilot, but also to have the events unfold the way they did with everything going wrong that can go wrong. Murphy's law in perfection. So I posted the anecdote.

Two, I was wondering if anyone else had ever had this happen, so if it is a bug of some sort or just too odd to consider it one. So I posted the question.

Yes, it also was frustrating, and it could have been more frustrating given that it was an ironman career. But then I'm convinced I'll be able to laugh it off pretty soon and that it won't be a couple of years until I try and start a new career. Maybe later today.

 

10 hours ago, ME-BFMasserME262 said:

man, its definitely not a brick.

 

We're venturing into FM territory here, so I'll leave it with the remark that I've flown and testd it enough to know that it lacks in comparison to other 109's. It's certainly good enough to tango with the MiG's and I-16's I frequently came across in the campaign.

 

3 hours ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

The Career mode and QMB are no different in this regard.

 

That'd be a pretty weird glitch.

 

Thought so, and yes, it was.

 

3 hours ago, unreasonable said:

Mind you, stupid and counterproductive events happen in real military settings as well.

 

Thanks for your input, will certainly check out the ground start, in fact I was a bit surprised to start in the air on the first mission. And about the quoted bit - not just in military settings. I'm used to see idiotic things happen after having seen them coming, without being able to do anything about it, and I've never been in the military.

[Yogiflight]

4 hours ago, unreasonable said:

instead of having the bombers based off map, they have a base assigned.

It would not be that big issue, when the bombers were based, where the bomber squads are based, when you fly a bomber career, much further behind the front line. But when you fly a fighter career and have an escort mission, the bombers are always based on the airfield next to yours.

In PWCG, for example, when you fly a German fighter campaign on the Kuban map, the bombers are based on the Crimea airfields, so they have enough time to climb.

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, JtD said:

and I've never been in the military.

...ah, you then were never sent circling the drain on an unstoppable autopilot like that. No wonder it came to you as emotionally discomforting. Upside is, you can arrange yourself with such eventually.

 

You should be happy, now you know what the real thing feels like. ?

[SYN_Vander]

Mmmm, I’m reading a couple of incorrect statements in this thread. Just to be clear:

 

When you start a single mission in-flight you are NOT on auto-pilot, but on auto-level.

Auto-level is engaged by pressing Shift-A (default) and disengaged by pressing Shift-A again or by moving the controls far enough from the center position. 
Auto-pilot is engaged by pressing A (default) and disengaged by pressing A again, but only when you are in 1st person/ cockpit view!
 

Perhaps you were frantically pressing A whilst looking at your plane in exterior view? ?

[JtD]

2 hours ago, SYN_Vander said:

Perhaps you were frantically pressing A whilst looking at your plane in exterior view?

 

I cannot rule this out completely, as I was in external view admiring the scenery when everything started...now that would be a laugh! 

Edited November 16, 2019 by JtD

[Dakpilot]

Pretty sure from reading comments that the A5 Kuban career has had many issues regarding AI etc. It seems to highlight the worst. 

 

I have not tried it yet myself, to clarify, only from reading comments spread over many topics 

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

[Yogiflight]

I only was flying it in the early days of BOK. There it was ok for me. We were flying the ground attack version with the boost below 1K and we were fast enough to be able to maneuver, so I did get the one or the other kill and left the scenery once the air got too hot. But with the bug, that the FW 190 are flying with cruising speeds below 300km/h, you are pretty much dead meet, once attacked by enemy fighters from above. It would be nice, if the Devs would finally solve this issue.

[Bremspropeller]

You can override autolevel with a bit of stick input.

Never bothered to use the AP, as it just hands the plane over to Otto, who apparently got sh1tfaced the night before.