How to skip a long waste of time?

[PatrickAWlson]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

Honestly, being able to save and load situations would be a dream for me.

 

I actually really enjoyed the campaign format in the original Red Baron (not Red Baron II/3d)... it was possible to experience a much broader sweep of the war (because there was less time lost in transit between locations).

 

P.S. I also really enjoyed how there were different mission types which varied in difficult depending on the stage of the war or location on the front. Something which could be seen only through playing through the whole war and/or transferring squadrons.

 

The second part is very doable.  The biggest problem is that, unlike WWI where the GAS could hold its own to the end, in WWII the Luftwaffe was getting pounded mercilessly.  An actual portrayal of the war conditions in 1945 would be very, very ugly.  Still, there should be a feel of an ever increasing Allied advantage.

[Majpalmer]

Pat, I'm working my way through a German campaign. Started on 1 October 41 Moscow map. II/JG52. On 1 April I moved to the Stalingrad map, as expected. But on 1 June 1942 I moved to the Kuban map, based south of Rostov. The Germans didn't open Blue until 28 June. Rostov fell, for the 2d time, on 24 July. 

 

 

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, Avimimus said:

P.S. I also really enjoyed how there were different mission types which varied in difficult depending on the stage of the war or location on the front. Something which could be seen only through playing through the whole war and/or transferring squadrons.

 

All of that pretty much already happens in career mode. ?

[Lusekofte]

Personally I prefer qmb if I cannot wait for the action

I spent several years looking fir something to do in this sim. And found some career to be very enjoyable.

Included the flight with no event.

Unfortunately, planes I like to fly, got career that is really repeatable. 

So one had to find a compromise 

[JonRedcorn]

2 hours ago, LuseKofte said:

Personally I prefer qmb if I cannot wait for the action

I spent several years looking fir something to do in this sim. And found some career to be very enjoyable.

Included the flight with no event.

Unfortunately, planes I like to fly, got career that is really repeatable. 

So one had to find a compromise 

Should give PWCG a try I find it's much better as a campaign generator than the stock career mode. The missions are far more alive and filled with action than the regular career mode.

[Majpalmer]

34 minutes ago, JonRedcorn said:

Should give PWCG a try I find it's much better as a campaign generator than the stock career mode. The missions are far more alive and filled with action than the regular career mode.

I agree. I use Air Start and, usually, I never complete my assigned patrol path because we run into assorted EAs long before getting to the objective. 

[Lusekofte]

10 hours ago, JonRedcorn said:

Should give PWCG a try I find it's much better as a campaign generator than the stock career mode. The missions are far more alive and filled with action than the regular career mode.

I fly with mates using PWCG in coop.

I agree it is a gem, I responded to this , just saying for some units and planes, career can be quite fun. For other it is boring

[tattywelshie]

11 hours ago, JonRedcorn said:

Should give PWCG a try I find it's much better as a campaign generator than the stock career mode. The missions are far more alive and filled with action than the regular career mode.

Totally agree with this, there is a much larger element of chance encounters with the enemy in PWCG.

[F19_Haddock]

Scripted campaigns take on average 30 minutes per mission. Much better than the dynamic campaigns if free time is an issue.

 

 

On 7/21/2022 at 8:58 AM, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I do agree with PatrickAWlson though that it's more important to make the current time compression actually work at the advertised rates.

 

This! 

Edited July 22, 2022 by F19_Haddock

[Gambit21]

16 minutes ago, F19_Haddock said:

Scripted campaigns take on average 30 minutes per mission. Much better than the dynamic campaigns if free time is an issue.

Not the case.

There is nothing intrinsic to scripted missions that makes them shorter, or “30 minutes average”

 

Shorter missions are more likely in Eastern Front scenarios.

 

With both of of my campaigns missions from 50 to 75 minutes or so.

 

[Avimimus]

5 hours ago, LukeFF said:

All of that pretty much already happens in career mode. ?

 

True... but if one could skip time  Well, I'd see a lot more of the career mode than I do

[PB0_Roll]

I have a 2 year old computer that was above average back then (i9700k,rtx2070)

 

when I play a career with 3rd squadron flying tempest, autumn 44, with difficulty set as "easy" and density set at "medium", the flight time is pretty short and the time multiplication works as intended. I don't know if this will work with every career tho. Especially escort missions are much more likely to not work as well.

 

To keep the boring time to a minimum here's my procedure:

 

1/keep record of my position in the group, as seen in the mostly useless briefing. "wingman 6" means I'm flying as number 7. My callsign is, very wisely, NOT indicated in the briefing.

 

2/take off and take note of my group's callsign.

2bis/Once satisfied of manually taking off and joining my leader, engage full autopilot

 

3/make sure radio subtitles will appear on my screen (I usually fly with no text on screen)

 

4/set time multiply to the maximum, while reading the subtitles (since time multiplication removes engine sound , most likely for more immersion ?)

 

5/as soon as my callsign is mentioned in subtitles, or my aircraft seems to do something else than flying in formation with my leader, set time multiply to 1, set autopilot off, set screen text to off, setup my engines settings, assess the situation.

 

6/as soon as I hear "my callsign" "engaging ennemy from the" "direction" "distance", make sure my six are clear (usually they are not !).

 

7/after combat, if I am in formation with my flight and heading home, repeat 2bis/3/4/5  until close to my airfield and then land manually. If not in formation with my flight, use level autopilot when it seems safe, then 3/4/5 until manual landing.

 

This doesn't make career more immersive I reckon, but at least it's playable, and I can fly  to 3 missions in one session.

[Majpalmer]

7 hours ago, PB0_Roll said:

I have a 2 year old computer that was above average back then (i9700k,rtx2070)

 

when I play a career with 3rd squadron flying tempest, autumn 44, with difficulty set as "easy" and density set at "medium", the flight time is pretty short and the time multiplication works as intended. I don't know if this will work with every career tho. Especially escort missions are much more likely to not work as well.

 

To keep the boring time to a minimum here's my procedure:

 

1/keep record of my position in the group, as seen in the mostly useless briefing. "wingman 6" means I'm flying as number 7. My callsign is, very wisely, NOT indicated in the briefing.

 

2/take off and take note of my group's callsign.

2bis/Once satisfied of manually taking off and joining my leader, engage full autopilot

 

3/make sure radio subtitles will appear on my screen (I usually fly with no text on screen)

 

4/set time multiply to the maximum, while reading the subtitles (since time multiplication removes engine sound , most likely for more immersion ?)

 

5/as soon as my callsign is mentioned in subtitles, or my aircraft seems to do something else than flying in formation with my leader, set time multiply to 1, set autopilot off, set screen text to off, setup my engines settings, assess the situation.

 

6/as soon as I hear "my callsign" "engaging ennemy from the" "direction" "distance", make sure my six are clear (usually they are not !).

 

7/after combat, if I am in formation with my flight and heading home, repeat 2bis/3/4/5  until close to my airfield and then land manually. If not in formation with my flight, use level autopilot when it seems safe, then 3/4/5 until manual landing.

 

This doesn't make career more immersive I reckon, but at least it's playable, and I can fly  to 3 missions in one session.

That's almost exactly what I do. I do check my emails and text messages along the way, however. 

[Gambit21]

?

 

[PB0_Roll]

5 hours ago, Majpalmer said:

That's almost exactly what I do. I do check my emails and text messages along the way, however. 

Considering the time multiplier efficiency on escort missions, I could probably do this too, if I had another screen. Or read a book. However, since the warning window is pretty small between ennemy detection and poor me shot down in flames, I prefer to keep an eye on screen ?

 

Or skip escort missions...

[Majpalmer]

I have external views turned on and the setting for EAs on my stick. So as I read my emails, I'm periodically checking to see if any EAs are up and about. If they are, they show up there before they show up visually, usually long before. Once I know that there are EAs about, I start paying attention more closely. 

[Oyster_KAI]

Is the Silent Hunter III design concept feasible in GB?
It allows you to enter a very large time compression, automatically jumping to 1X time once any ships or planes are spotted.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

1 hour ago, Oyster_KAI said:

Is the Silent Hunter III design concept feasible in GB?
It allows you to enter a very large time compression, automatically jumping to 1X time once any ships or planes are spotted.

Technically, yes. There's two problems though:

- As always, development time/money.

- A system such as in Silent Hunter where aircraft will switch to a simpler (and possibly formation/convoy based) AI system would tremendously speed up AI for distant aircraft/vehicles (i.e. outside of visual range). However, most hand-made missions (as well as the career/AQMG missions to some extent) already switch off AI depending on distance to the player. So the question is how much impact this would have in addition to the already existing mission-scripting based system. Probably not much.

 

What would have more impact is things such as simpler physics/AI for distant aircraft *including* those in visual range. But that likely takes even more effort to develop. Furthermore, it's not quite clear how this would impact things such as distant air battles.

 

EDIT: In my Hürtgenwald campaign I'm pretty aggressive with switching off out-off-range objects, and during testing I was able to keep at least 4x time compression for most of the travel time in all but one of my missions. In another campaign I'm working on, I can pretty reliably hit 8x.

Edited July 27, 2022 by AEthelraedUnraed