posted 06-30- 05:13 AM               

My problem is I can't see/find the enemy. The target overlay helps me to fly in their general direction but the sky mostly remains empty. I achieve a little success using the F3 view to spot them, (if they are close enough) lining up the plane and then switching to F1 view. There is no target indicator on the screen, such as the yellow square in MS-CFS or the red square in EAW, should there be one? When I press "T" or "N" I can see the target info changing, so targetting is responding. The manual isn't helping, so may someone please explain how to target and find/lock onto the enemy, and if I am doing something wrong, how to use Padlock and Target?!

Another problem. When I take control of the bombsight or gun position in a heavy, the autopilot doesn't seem to take over as the manual says and the plane crashes. Am I supposed to engage autopilot manually before I move to another position?

posted 06-30- 05:49 AM               

Many of your questions should be answered by the replacement Key Command Chart in the package!

posted 06-30- 07:13 AM               

Wow! there's A LOT more to this game than I imagined. Listening to the radio broadcasts has also stunted my development, but when I've heard them all, I'll get more time to fly. Fascinating.

I have printed the keyboard list but not tried it all out yet, (I'm at work and my game PC is at home) but a couple of questions come to mind:

IS there a target indicator? I fiddled with the padlock setting, T & N keys last night and never saw one. Alt V; I assume tags all planes so they cannot be invisible?

posted 06-30- 12:27 PM               

With Alt-V on, the targeted plane will have a diamond over it. The others have a square. Once you know what to look for you'll find it works.

posted 06-30- 08:52 PM               

Mighty answered your questions pretty well!

'Cockpitless' view?? Nope, afraid you're going to have to learn the hard way! Actually, to me that just adds to the emersion factor to have to deal with the lack of being able to spot your opponent because he's still below your engine canopy! It gives the fites a little pucker factor! I don't think you'll miss it at all after a while.

Ronin

posted 07-03- 12:51 AM               

The new keyboard file helps tremendously! My big problem now is my pilot skills (you don't have a fix for that I suppose).

Keeping the sights on the enemy is tough! I've set my joystick and rudder sensitivity to just off OFF and still find the sights wobbling aroung the target. The plane seems to "bounce" from side to side when the rudder is applied to fine tune the aiming. Is this a natural flight characteristic, it doesn't happen in other combat sims?

I'm going to try and download the other patches now. Although they are not described on the site, I assume they will permit me access to more planes and stuff?

posted 07-03- 06:51 PM               

~Nat~

------------------
JV44 "Naturlich"


If you can't out run em.. <B>OUT GUN EM!</B>
<B>Nats FS-SDOE Site</B>

posted 07-04- 01:37 AM               

About the downloads: If plane pack and plane pack patch give access to more planes, what is in Contest Pack?

posted 07-04- 07:05 PM               

F4F
F4U
P47
P80
Mk1 Hurricain
M6A5 Zero
some WW1 aircraft (sorry, can't remember which)
and I think a couple of other aircraft

posted 07-06- 02:10 AM               

Thanks for all the pointers. All patches are installed and SDOE is fully operational and much improved over the original version. (Ronin, I see other keyboard questions above, perhaps your keyboard update file should be one of the downloads?)

Hey, I even managed to find and kill some bad guys, once from the upper gun turret on a B17! Feeling quite proud of myself!

Some of the test missions are a mystery to me e.g. the B29 one, I can't take control of it so what is the ojective? I've approached them from the point of view that anything that sends out a red FOF signal must die (flew right into the V2 trap the first time and got nailed!).

Still can't figure out bombing from a B17. When I take control of a gun turret the plane appears to fly on autopilot, no problem. When I move to the bomb aiming station:
a) I don't see the target because the plane was perhaps not lined up right or goes off course if the trim was not perfect.
b) Autopilot doesn't kick in and the plane crashes. If I engage autopilot before moving, it switches off (and the plane crashes).

There must be a better way to do this!

Bought another WW2 sim at the same time, called Luftwaffe Commander. (Much harder to figure it out without help from the likes of the fine gentlemen of this group.) This brings me to a question: Is there a site on the Net where combat flight sims are compared, rated, voted upon etc., which could stop people (mainly me) from wasting money on junk such as EAW?