New life for Red Baron 3D?

Willi Von Klugerman · 25 September 2009, 07:59 PM

RB3D is a splendid game but there is a few things that bugged me.

1.The AI of the AA guns are not quite "spot on",particularly the flak.As far as I can remember,I was brought down by flak at least THREE times.Plus the flak should have been peppering the sky like crazy.

2.The career mode skins,most of them are accurate but the one that really got me was that Lothar's DR1 is mostly red with a yellow tail,of course we all know what his mount looked like

Plus the N.124 squadrons insignia wasn't correct and should of had the famous indian insignia.

3.How come the F2bs and Strutters barely make an appearance in the career mode!I remember rarely seeing them around the front when I was playing

Chock · 26 September 2009, 04:24 AM

If you are looking for the less popular types in a WW1 flight sim, and lots of accurate personal paint schemes, you probably ought to check out the Over Flanders Fields: Between Heaven and Hell mod for CFS3. It's currently the most accurate WW1 flight sim by a very long way, although you do need a lot of hard drive space for it (and thirty dollars for the DVD it comes on), as it decompresses to about 15 Gb with the latest patch. But as you can probably tell from that size, its wipes the floor with all other WW1 sims as far as depth goes, so it's well worth the cost.

For less HD space (and less cost), Third Wire's First Eagles is worth a look, as there are a lot of skin mods and add-on aircraft for it, as well as many tweaks which make it quite accurate. If you check out the downloads for it at Combat Ace, you'll find it can include some unusual types too, such as the Star Strutter.

All this is just as well, since as most people are finding, Rise of Flight is a good flight sim, but a very poor attempt at a WW1 sim as far as accuracy goes. Moreover, the campaign is even more soulless than the one in IL2, which seems hardly possible to pull off, but sadly they managed it. I've actually deleted RoF from my hard drive, until they improve it, as in its current incarnation, it offers nothing over FE and OFF beyond pretty graphics.

So I'm hoping they can do something with Red Baron, as despite its faults I recall having a great time with both the original and the V2 versions, although I'm certainly not holding my breath waiting for it, since they'll be looking at a lot of work, and unfortunately projects such as that often have a high mortality rate when it comes to making it all the way. In the meantime, for me it is First Eagles for a quick fun blast, and Over Flanders Fields when I fancy a bit more involvement.

Al

Willi Von Klugerman · 26 September 2009, 08:14 AM

Yeah I heard some cons about ROF's career mode but I can imagine the multiplayer being quite intense!

LewisS · 26 September 2009, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sightreader

Aww, don't be putting those pics up. I just drooled all over my keyboard!

Thanks, it appreciated.

You should see the HF20 now, that was a 3/4's built screen test. The HF22 floatplane will have a working engine crank handle starter, among other things.
The problem I'm having with the Farman pushers in general is a lack of good interior details, I don't like fudging in details if they aren't authentic.

I'm hoping that the new RB3D has text editable FM, I'm pretty comfortable with the format that TW has for their aircraft, it includes the damage modeling with the flight and mass modeling, so the adjustments needed are all in the same text group for the part of the plane being done.

Willi Von Klugerman · 26 September 2009, 10:30 AM

Lets hope they include flyable multi-seaters!I don't see why its so hard to simulate a rear gunners gun via mouse control.

LewisS · 26 September 2009, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willi Von Klugerman

Lets hope they include flyable multi-seaters!I don't see why its so hard to simulate a rear gunners gun via mouse control.

Well Richthofen's Skies had switchable pilot and gunner positions, but you didn't have direct control of the gun position as it was strictly under AI control. You would have been required to relinquish the pilot control to autopilot at any rate if in single player mode. We never had the equivalent of "mouselook" control swapping for getting the gun to track where you looked, besides 'Otto' was always griped about for being too damn accurate, in addition to not being thrifty with the ammo.

LewisS · 26 September 2009, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willi Von Klugerman

RB3D is a splendid game but there is a few things that bugged me.
*******************

Plus the N.124 squadrons insignia wasn't correct and should of had the famous indian insignia.

3.How come the F2bs and Strutters barely make an appearance in the career mode!I remember rarely seeing them around the front when I was playing

Depends on the patch you had for the game, I remember in the Western Front Patch that the Layfayette Escadrille was being fairly well represented with the Seminole head and the later war bonnet.

What wasn't accurate was the airfields used as RB3D had Esc. 124 at Ablainsville, when they should have been at Chacy 17 miles SW of Amiens from late fall 1916 to late winter of '17, then they moved to the East, to Ham, and were there till late spring when the Verdun front heated up. They also were stationed at St. Pol du Mer during the summer, none of these changes were reflected in the game, hell there isn't even a Chacy in RB3D because it's in the nether regions between Flanders and Verdun.

Both The Promised Land and WFP2 had plenty of Strutters and FE2b's with regular patrols all the time, If I had nothing better to do on an Offensive Patrol I'd shadow the slowers Fees and Strutters to ambush some Huns that could be depended upon to stalk these two 2 seaters.

Executioner128 · 8 October 2009, 04:03 PM

Red Baron was brought out in 1997 and I only have stopped playing it since about 2007 or so.

There were quite some bugs and imperfect aspects but that campaign was sooo immersive, and it had an excellent and user-friendly mission editor which provided us with uncountable hours of fun!

Long live Red Baron ...

J.R. · 8 October 2009, 06:46 PM

All I ever seemed to shoot down were FE's and RE'8's. I think I saw F2b's once and strutters once. Every once in a while you got a crack HP 0/400's but not very often in career mode.

Executioner128 · 9 October 2009, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J.R.

All I ever seemed to shoot down were FE's and RE'8's. I think I saw F2b's once and strutters once. Every once in a while you got a crack HP 0/400's but not very often in career mode.

I flew into a lot of RE8's, FE2's and BE2's for the British side, and Aviatiks and Albatrosses C III for the German side. (as far as bombers are concerned)

You could definitely face Gotha's in career mode near the West-Flemish coast. I have also faced Rolands, Strutters, Hannovers, and so on. Though I would agree that Handley Pages were quite rare.