User Impressions of FC4, please

[Dr1falcon500]

On 11/23/2024 at 5:44 AM, sallee said:

One thing which is quite entertaining is that the AI pilots seem not to understand blip switches, which makes for fun runway starts at the beginning of a mission. Watch in amusement as your flight scream off at full throttle, careening around and crashing into each other and airfield buildings.

Not much love shown. I land in my 1 1/2 Strutter in 1916 and wonder why I can't have a go in those SE5as which line the airfield.

Or one of those DVa's when I land an EIII!

Edited November 24, 2024 by Dr1falcon500

[jollyjack]

Roland c2a ... it seems a bit slow especially on gaining height.

Something to do with throttle and mixture?

 

PS as turret gunner you cannot shoot up it's own plane's wings or tail. Is that a bug?

Edited November 27, 2024 by jollyjack

[Dagwoodyt]

On 11/22/2024 at 4:41 PM, RNAS10_Mitchell said:

I like the tripe.  It's my 2nd favorite aircraft currently,  but I think the pup is gonna give it a run for the money in that special spot.

Just bought FC 2&3 as they were on sale. A better deal for me than FC 4 at its' current price. The Tripe is nice until stalled😉

[Avimimus]

17 hours ago, jollyjack said:

Roland c2a ... it seems a bit slow especially on gaining height.

Something to do with throttle and mixture?

 

PS as turret gunner you cannot shoot up it's own plane's wings or tail. Is that a bug?

 

My own two cents: This is a significant improvement.

 

The Roland C.II was able to get almost 20-25 km/h faster speeds than other German two-seaters of its era. It was also able to get within about 10 km/h of the fastest German two-seaters of 1918 while its was still 1916! This comes at a cost. The climb rate is terrible and speed can only be maintained at certain altitudes and with the right amount of fuel to trim-out well. It feels much more realistic to me than in Rise of Flight.

 

In any case - it can reach 162-164 km/h pretty reliably and can still outrun most opponents of its era.

[PatrickAWlson]

Obviously I like playing careers.  FC IV does three things. 

1. It allows careers to start on Jan 1916.  Granted, there is some serious fudging to make that happen (Like dressing the Fe2b up in gray, slapping a black cross on it and calling it an Albatros C.II  ) but it is no worse than RoF at this point. 
2. It fills some HUGE holes in the 1917 plane set.  The Albatros D.III is the most obvious, but the Strutter is really big too.  The Pup is also nice to have.  
3. The map.  Paris! ... meh.  I couldn't care less.  What FC IV delivers is the whole front from Lille to Verdun.  Wish we had that last bit to the north but still, this is one huge map.  

So, if you're a "I just want to fly an airplane" guy then this module probably comes up a bit short.  If you're a "I want to RP a WWI pilot guy" then this is the culmination of the project and is an absolute must have.

[Russkly]

32 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Obviously I like playing careers.  FC IV does three things. 

1. It allows careers to start on Jan 1916.  Granted, there is some serious fudging to make that happen (Like dressing the Fe2b up in gray, slapping a black cross on it and calling it an Albatros C.II  ) but it is no worse than RoF at this point. 
2. It fills some HUGE holes in the 1917 plane set.  The Albatros D.III is the most obvious, but the Strutter is really big too.  The Pup is also nice to have.  
3. The map.  Paris! ... meh.  I couldn't care less.  What FC IV delivers is the whole front from Lille to Verdun.  Wish we had that last bit to the north but still, this is one huge map.  

So, if you're a "I just want to fly an airplane" guy then this module probably comes up a bit short.  If you're a "I want to RP a WWI pilot guy" then this is the culmination of the project and is an absolute must have.

 

That´s useful feedback, thanks @PatrickAWlson

 

Given my FC flying is entirely done using your campaign generator, it´s good to have your input, especially given the price and the plane set that FC4 adds.

 

I think I´ll get it when it goes on sale on Steam, as I´m only likely to fly careers in the Pup and the D.III.

[Trooper117]

3 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

The map.  Paris! ... meh.  I couldn't care less. 

 

Same here!

[Russkly]

16 hours ago, Trooper117 said:

 

Same here!

 

And here.

 

Shame Ugra couldn´t have used their time to make some further improvements to the map rather than modelling Paris.

[Flashy]

I actually really like the fact that Paris is now on the map.. I just wish the map had been made bigger... it would have been awesome if the western front included the areas of the current map, the RoF Channel map (including London), and the Normandy map(but in WW1 time frame).. then we could fly from London to Paris on one map.. that would have been amazing!

[Avimimus]

23 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

(Like dressing the Fe2b up in gray, slapping a black cross on it and calling it an Albatros C.II  )

 

Surely you mean an AGO C.II?!

[PatrickAWlson]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

 

Surely you mean an AGO C.II?!

 

Nope, Albatros C.II.  It was a real plane.  

https://flyingmachines.ru/Site2/Crafts/Craft25754.htm

Like I said, I'm reaching.  However, the FE2b is the only two seater that the DH2 has a chance of catching, so that's the one that I am using.  I know that our FE2b is actually faster than the Dh2 or the Eindecker, but I manage to catch the AI just fine in an Eindecker as long as I have an altitude advantage and I'm willing to engage in a long chase.

Edited December 6, 2024 by PatrickAWlson

[Shadowed]

I’m enjoying the full career. I do wish the vanilla Career started before September 1916, but PWCG works great and is offline. 
 

FC is a blast in VR and seeing an enemy plane fly right over my head causes me to duck!

 

I am avoiding careers in the north since I find it distracting seeing the unfinished map. Not sure what the solution is other than extending the map more. 
 

There are a some airfields that have a hill in front of them causing the AI to have some takeoff issues. 

 

Sometimes the enemy AI are flying rather lackadaisical when getting shot at, and it seems like it is because their squad leader isn’t giving them orders. 

I did fight an Eindecker whose propeller wasn’t rotating but it definitely was producing thrust. 
 

 

 

[PatrickAWlson]

@Shadowed

I mostly avoid stationing units at the northern most bases.   Units stationed near the edges of the map tend to get their flight paths pushed into the usable map whereas units not stationed near the edges will go in any direction.

 

All airfields and takeoff paths have been redone for the next release.  Hopefully that will help.

 

Can't really do much about the AI.

Can't do anything about flight models or physics.

PWCG only generates missions, just like a person using the mission editor.  It does not have any more ability to impact the game than the ME allows.

[Shadowed]

3 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

@Shadowed

I mostly avoid stationing units at the northern most bases.   Units stationed near the edges of the map tend to get their flight paths pushed into the usable map whereas units not stationed near the edges will go in any direction.

 

All airfields and takeoff paths have been redone for the next release.  Hopefully that will help.

 

Can't really do much about the AI.

Can't do anything about flight models or physics.

PWCG only generates missions, just like a person using the mission editor.  It does not have any more ability to impact the game than the ME allows.

 

Oh, my complaints are unrelated to PWCG. Even on the built-in campaign I have those issues. Getting the AI to perform more aggressively is something the devs should hopefully work on as it is my main complaint in FC. I don't mind giving it a go; I haven't messed around with forcing AI orders yet.

[PatrickAWlson]

2 hours ago, Shadowed said:

 

Oh, my complaints are unrelated to PWCG. Even on the built-in campaign I have those issues. Getting the AI to perform more aggressively is something the devs should hopefully work on as it is my main complaint in FC. I don't mind giving it a go; I haven't messed around with forcing AI orders yet.

 

The AI going passive has been around since RoF.  I get the impression that the AI code is kind of wonky, not just in terms of its decisions (we know that) but in terms of its structure.  If the AI was in a consolidated decision making module it would be much more consistent and much easier to fix.  The way that it kind of goes off the rails makes me thing that it is event driven (which is fine), and not all of the event driven transition possibilities have been accounted for (which is not fine).  

[Avimimus]

23 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

Nope, Albatros C.II.  It was a real plane.  

https://flyingmachines.ru/Site2/Crafts/Craft25754.htm

Like I said, I'm reaching.  However, the FE2b is the only two seater that the DH2 has a chance of catching, so that's the one that I am using.  I know that our FE2b is actually faster than the Dh2 or the Eindecker, but I manage to catch the AI just fine in an Eindecker as long as I have an altitude advantage and I'm willing to engage in a long chase.

 

Ah! I'd forgotten about it (because it was a one-off). I'd generally go with an Otto pusher (or better yet an AGO pusher) as they were more numerous. The AGO pushers saw widespread service for a bit and were apparently initially considered a threat due to their forward firing arc.

 

It'd be really great to get an engine-mod for the F.E.2b to represent one of the slower variants. Maybe pay for it through adding a couple of weapon mods and selling it as a Collector Plane.

[LufberyJAA]

FWIW, I picked up FC volume IV last Friday and I'm enjoying it so far. The E-III is a really neat plane to fly. I'm going to try a couple of careers with the new planes too.

 

So far, I'm pleased!

[Russkly]

13 hours ago, LufberyJAA said:

FWIW, I picked up FC volume IV last Friday and I'm enjoying it so far. The E-III is a really neat plane to fly. I'm going to try a couple of careers with the new planes too.

 

So far, I'm pleased!

Thanks for that.

 

Out of interest, what are you flying against in the E.III? What can it catch?

[JG4_Moltke1871]

2 hours ago, Russkly said:

Thanks for that.

 

Out of interest, what are you flying against in the E.III? What can it catch?

Observation balloons 😅

[Russkly]

1 hour ago, JG4_Moltke1871 said:

Observation balloons 😅

 

Tee hee!

[Dr1falcon500]

If its not too difficult too knock down Nieuport 11's and 17's and Fe2b's flying a Fokker EIII it doesn't say much for the AI. I started a career with Jasta 6 flying an EIII, after about 4 missions it was replaced with Albatros DII. The last mission was a transfer flight EIII's had 33% fuel to fly 180km so had turn back and most crashed. This is a common fault with these transfers. I tried Jasta 6 with PWCG despite checking EIII as owned our unit was given Halberstadts. Installing latest PWCG didn't solve that either. I ended up uninstalling Flying Circus for a few reasons. There are quite a few few things that aren't really WW1 and things that are in the wrong time frame. I can't see that there will be any fixes or improvements. Maybe if there substantial improvements I may try FC again until then I'm quite happy with RoF with mods and Flanders Fields.

[ST_Catchov]

Oh well. Say la vee. At least we can celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour on the holiest of days with Peace on Earth forever and goodwill to all men and chicks including the missus. 

[Dupxo]

On 12/25/2024 at 12:10 PM, Dr1falcon500 said:

If its not too difficult too knock down Nieuport 11's and 17's and Fe2b's flying a Fokker EIII it doesn't say much for the AI. I started a career with Jasta 6 flying an EIII, after about 4 missions it was replaced with Albatros DII. The last mission was a transfer flight EIII's had 33% fuel to fly 180km so had turn back and most crashed. This is a common fault with these transfers. I tried Jasta 6 with PWCG despite checking EIII as owned our unit was given Halberstadts. Installing latest PWCG didn't solve that either. I ended up uninstalling Flying Circus for a few reasons. There are quite a few few things that aren't really WW1 and things that are in the wrong time frame. I can't see that there will be any fixes or improvements. Maybe if there substantial improvements I may try FC again until then I'm quite happy with RoF with mods and Flanders Fields.

 

Mister, you made one big mistake - you bought FC4 in spite of fact that product does not meet your expectations. One year ago we could have hope but now? Now we should wait for fixes for single-players and optionally buy modules when they are 75% off. Unfortunately you paid quite big price for product you don't like.

 

[LufberyJAA]

On 12/24/2024 at 5:46 AM, Russkly said:

Thanks for that.

 

Out of interest, what are you flying against in the E.III? What can it catch?

I'm doing okay against FE2bs and Nieuport 11s. 

 

Those seem to be the historical opponents too.

Edited December 27, 2024 by LufberyJAA