Career mode

[Mika_87]

My question is how to get best career mode experience. I have bom, bos and bok. I would finally like to start career after some campaigns and training but how to start. I will fly bf109 and will start from begin of war, so bom is my first. How long are those careers? I would like to experience all three great maps and after that continue to bodenplatte. Is there some way to choose how many missions i want to play? Give me your opinions how to get best career experience! I will try russian career also, what would be best plane for that? Edit. I have few collector planes and will list them later.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Mika_87

[41Sqn_Skipper]

If you are in the map screen there's an options menu at the bottom.  There you can select the advance speed of the campaign (realistic/fast). I assume the fast option will skip more days between the missions.

You can advance for one theatre to another where possible  (german and soviet campaign, at the moment not for US and RAF).

[Mika_87]

Thank you.

 

Do you know difference between realistic vs fast?

 

I mean how long does it take to finish career in fast way vs realistic.

Ofcource it depends on missions and player but some average times would be nice to know before starting.

[PatrickAWlson]

11 minutes ago, Mika_87 said:

Thank you.

 

Do you know difference between realistic vs fast?

 

I mean how long does it take to finish career in fast way vs realistic.

Ofcource it depends on missions and player but some average times would be nice to know before starting.

 

I know that realistic and fast have their implications, but I question whether "fast" isn't actually more realistic.  If you are flying against the AI on a daily basis then 1 victory per mission is about 350 victories per year is over 1000 victories in a career - with some subtractions for time off.  So under realistic you will fly a realistic number of missions but probably come away with an absurd number of victories.

 

If you think of each game mission as not a mission but a combat encounter then fewer is probably more realistic.  This gets you through the process a bit faster but hopefully not too fast, all while giving you enough stick time to become the ace of aces in WWII.

 

An alternative is to fly realistic but make liberal use of leave to advance time.  Or fly realistic and score 100 victories - take that Hartmann!  

 

Last, get a proper definition of realistic vs fast, as, unfortunately, I don't have it.  Just wanted to toss out a couple of thoughts on how you can handle progression.   Choose the one you like best.

[LukeFF]

7 hours ago, Mika_87 said:

Do you know difference between realistic vs fast?

 

Realistic: missions will be flown every day by the squadron (weather permitting).

 

Fast: several days will be skipped between missions.

[Ram399]

23 hours ago, Mika_87 said:

Give me your opinions how to get best career experience

If you intend to fly with a Bf-109 unit from Moscow through Kuban make sure you pick one starting out at Moscow which was present in the other 2 theaters, as some units don't make an appearance in the others.  You can transfer between units if necessary but in doing so the AI members of your squadron will be lost, and in my opinion the career is far more enjoyable when one actually pays attention to their AI squadron mates and helps them to gain experience.  If you can manage to cultivate a number of decently skilled pilots you will see a large boost to your flight's combat effectiveness overall and it won't be just you shooting down everything.

I would definitely recommend realistic mode if you really want to get into it, but be warned that it will be an extremely long game.  I've put around ~220 hours into a similar playthrough which I started two years ago at Moscow with II./JG 52 and I'm not even a third of the way done with Kuban yet.  Oddly enough the rate of time passing in the game from 1941 to 1943 has matched the actual amount of time passed from when I started in 2018 to 2020 almost exactly, though this is with a number of decently sized breaks in between playing.

Finally if you really want to commit to it, I taught myself how to make custom skins purely so I could add identifying markers and numbers to my unit's aircraft.  My first few starting out were rather basic but they've steadily increased in complexity to the point that I'd consider myself a relatively competent skinner.  This plays into the part where I try to keep my AI wingmen alive as it helps to be able to ID them in flight- plus it just looks cool when everyone is in formation.

[Yogiflight]

3 hours ago, Ram399 said:

If you intend to fly with a Bf-109 unit from Moscow through Kuban make sure you pick one starting out at Moscow which was present in the other 2 theaters, as some units don't make an appearance in the others. 

Only II./JG52 is in all three battles.

 

[Mika_87]

Thank you ALL for great advices!!

[Atomic_Spaniel]

On 5/19/2020 at 7:38 AM, Ram399 said:

You can transfer between units if necessary but in doing so the AI members of your squadron will be lost, and in my opinion the career is far more enjoyable when one actually pays attention to their AI squadron mates and helps them to gain experience.  If you can manage to cultivate a number of decently skilled pilots you will see a large boost to your flight's combat effectiveness overall and it won't be just you shooting down everything.

 

Do we know how long it takes them to get to veteran or ace?

 

I'm flying a La-5 career in the Kuban and my fellow pilots last such a short time that I would not advise them to start reading any long books. The biggest problem I have is that many times they will peel off to engage vast numbers of 109G4s and are shot from the sky before I can do anything about it. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Atomic_Spaniel
Grammar

[Ram399]

8 hours ago, Atomic_Spaniel said:

Do we know how long it takes them to get to veteran or ace?

I'm not sure exactly, but I've noticed they seem to become roughly competent after scoring around 10 or so kills.
Generally I've found it easier to focus on the already high level members of the unit as they are generally already past the rookie level AI and can easily gain more experience.
As you said however, the AI is severely lacking in self preservation, and Kuban is especially dangerous due to the high volume of hostile aircraft.  As a result I've effectively taken to just circling above most major dogfights and only engaging enemy fighters when they threaten my pilots.  This works rather well though, as since I started the career in Moscow I currently have 4 pilots at the ace level- three of which have over 100 kills, and they can generally be relied on to shoot down enemy aircraft without assistance.

I'm not sure at what point they reach ace exactly, but I'd guess its around the 40 kill mark or so- and I believe someone once told me that skill was tied to rank and that only the highest ranking AI pilots could achieve ace, so that might be a factor.  

Another big thing which I've noticed helps with keeping your men alive as well as helping them gain experience is having the ability to command them as the flight leader.  Being able to force RTB when things get too hairy or being able to lead them to a more advantageous position before combat starts is extremely helpful. 

The best way to farm kills at least for the German side in Kuban is to fly as the flight lead on a bomber intercept mission and to simply ignore the bombers and go for the fighter escort when they first appear over the frontline.  Since the target of the Soviet bombers is invariably some supply depot around Kerch, you can afford to order your flight to engage the nearest air target so that they focus on the fighters and then once they're gone you can reform and pursue the bombers who can be caught completely unescorted far behind the frontlines without risk of reinforcement.  Then it pretty much just turns into that scene from the Battle of Britain where the unescorted He-111s get thrashed by extremely cheeerful Spitfires- except its now A20s getting shot by Bf-109s.
The end result of one of these intercepts:

Spoiler

 

[flagdjmetcher]

17 hours ago, Ram399 said:

If you intend to fly with a Bf-109 unit from Moscow through Kuban make sure you pick one starting out at Moscow which was present in the other 2 theaters, as some units don't make an appearance in the others.  You can transfer between units if necessary but in doing so the AI members of your squadron will be lost, and in my opinion the career is far more enjoyable when one actually pays attention to their AI squadron mates and helps them to gain experience.  If you can manage to cultivate a number of decently skilled pilots you will see a large boost to your flight's combat effectiveness overall and it won't be just you shooting down everything.
 

 

Oh, it's definitely not me shooting down everything.  My raw AI flightmates get most of the kills, and far from protecting them I'm usually unable to even find them.  And then on the rare occasions that I do find myself in a firing position, there's generally one of my flightmates swooping in between me and the target, and another two behind me attempting to fire over/through me.  So yeah - not only do I find it hard to imagine how I'd ever protect them, I'm not sure I'd want to!

[curiouslysophie]

On 5/19/2020 at 7:38 AM, Ram399 said:

If you intend to fly with a Bf-109 unit from Moscow through Kuban make sure you pick one starting out at Moscow which was present in the other 2 theaters, as some units don't make an appearance in the others.  You can transfer between units if necessary but in doing so the AI members of your squadron will be lost, and in my opinion the career is far more enjoyable when one actually pays attention to their AI squadron mates and helps them to gain experience.  

This is interesting! I have just started a BoM career and was hoping to take my pilot through to the other theatres. Can you transfer from BoM to BoBP?

i don’t mind swapping units, I’m just not sure which ones are in each theatre.

[Yogiflight]

6 hours ago, curiouslysophie said:

This is interesting! I have just started a BoM career and was hoping to take my pilot through to the other theatres. Can you transfer from BoM to BoBP?

i don’t mind swapping units, I’m just not sure which ones are in each theatre.

You can play through from Moscow to Kuban with the II./JG52 (it is the only fighter unit, taking part in all three battles), then you have to look for a new squadron for BOBP (or BON first, depending on how long you will need) and finish your career in Germany in early 1945.

But of course you can also select any other unit in the Moscow career and swap to another one, when you can't go on with your actual unit. The game will ask you, if you want to stay with your squadron or change to another squadron. If you stay, your career will end at that point.

[curiouslysophie]

3 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

You can play through from Moscow to Kuban with the II./JG52 (it is the only fighter unit, taking part in all three battles), then you have to look for a new squadron for BOBP (or BON first, depending on how long you will need) and finish your career in Germany in early 1945.

But of course you can also select any other unit in the Moscow career and swap to another one, when you can't go on with your actual unit. The game will ask you, if you want to stay with your squadron or change to another squadron. If you stay, your career will end at that point.

 

Thank you! Good to know. I was hoping to swap to 190’s after Moscow anyway. 

[sevenless]

5 minutes ago, elegz said:

 

@sevenless has just stolen my kill like in MP.)))

 

I don´t fly MP ?

[UFA_Bagel]

8 minutes ago, sevenless said:

 

I don´t fly MP ?

Ye, stay where you are, mate.)))

 

8 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

 

Ok, cool. In these cases, did 4./JG 52 occupy the same airfields as JG 3 and 2./JG 52 the same airfields as JG 11?

Yes. Look at tables in the same source and pay attention to notes with * under the tables.

Edited July 16, 2020 by elegz

[UFA_Bagel]

Some posts have been moved to another thread including a few relevant to this discussion:

 

Two posts above have been forgotten and left here and that's why they do not make any sense.))

Edited July 18, 2020 by elegz