2184 replies to this topic

[SYN_Jedders]

Welcome to our new server thread. You are ALL welcome to try our server, new and experienced pilots alike. You will find a very friendly and helpful bunch of people fly here in many timezones. We also run a free Teamspeak3 server for communication.

Sunday night Vintage missions continue to be popular so why not give them a try!.

~Hopefully see you there!~

Jedders

[SYN_Jedders]

Images courtesy of A.S.PUSHKIN from Sundays Vintage mission. I was the 2nd bomber I think!

[SYN_Flashman]

…and I think I was the first one running away….

Of course on our next sortie I was Jedders fron gunner and managed to shoot our own wing of due to a slight mouse confusion issue. Thats my excuse and im sticking to it!

[SYN_Per]

God, I´m happy I´m not in any of those pictures. Was not wearing my lucky high heels. That´s my excuse and I´m sticking to it!

[Feathered_IV]

Great to see a shiny new thread. The other one was getting HUGE.

The Syndicate server is very much the showpiece of the RoF online community. I don't think there is another running more imaginative or smoother missions. The commitment to realistic and immersive gameplay makes it a real pleasure to visit.

Heres a couple of shots taken there recently. The second one is a bit of a favourite. Took it after an hours worth of gratuitous property damage committed sausage side. Punched through the 10/10 overcast to RTB in peace and quiet. Nice!





Just like to give a heartfelt thanks to Bliss and all who make the server what it is. Couldn't fly anywhere else!

[SYN_Flashman]

Thanks Feathered. Love that first shot of all the planes ducking and diving!

[SYN_Jedders]

LOve that skin, Feathered. fantastic pics aswell!

[SYN_MrWolf]

Wow.that 1st pic looks awesome. Did you enhance it..or should I recheck my graphic settings?

[Feathered_IV]

Nah I didn't retouch it, thats just the way it looks.

The skin is "SC_S65JGilmour" btw. Big salute to the author, it's one of the nicest Camel skins out there.

The second shot got me thinking. I once played an offline qmb mission where I had 10/10 cloud at low level, with the balloons over the frontlines rearing up out of the mist like Nessie. It was like another world to go from the rainy, turbulent fog of no-man's land to the clear air above. One wonders how such a scenario would pan out online? I've a screenie of it somewhere. Must have a look for it.

Edit: Found it

[SYN_Per]

Amazing pics Feathered! Thanks for posting them.

[A.S.Pushkin]

factory is destroyed

Attached Files

•  ROF-2011-01-10-01-55-31-97three.jpg   169.94KB   1323 downloads
•  ROF-2011-01-10-01-55-31-97three1.jpg   175.8KB   1313 downloads

[SYN_Blackrat]

Yes, great images feathered, what graphics card are you using?

Hmmm, very artistic Pushkin I like it.

[A.S.Pushkin]

R5830 1gb
SLI=choy_10=
=fb=isay(rigth)
sVist(left)
need 4 HP
cover at moon =FB=VikS

P.S Syn the best server:-)

[Feathered_IV]

Hi Blackrat. I'm using a Q6600 (4 year old quad) GTX260 and only 2gb RAM.
Despite this RoF runs surprisingly smooth.

[-Requiem-]

Just to officially have a post in the right thread about it. I think if Syndicate had a "co-op Saturday" in conjunction with the "Vintage Sunday" with an official start time just like the Vintage missions it would be nice to see how people find the gamestyle when plenty of pilots are on.

[HotTom]

+1

Saturday Coops would be great!

[ATAG_Bliss]

I made 4 missions last night (non historical) dog fight maps just to focus on even planesets/balance (Just for you Para ) These happen over the front (entente fields are close to Reims) with fairly close airfields. Both sides have 2 airfields a piece with the further airfields getting a 1500m airstart. There are also AI 2 seaters for both teams lurking about set to attack air targets. (They will attack you or your balloons for both sides.) There are 3 respawning hardened balloons for each side along with some ground targets near the base of the observation balloons as secondary targets. There are 6 ace AAA and 4 ace machine gunners at each ground-spawn field, all of which are invincible, to minimize any sort of vulching. These have a time limit of 2 hours and 15 minutes. All planes are unlimited. Various atmospheric conditions, start times, and seasons occur for each mission.

Planesets are:

SYN Frontlines Early War - DH2 vs EIII
SYN Frontlines Boomers - Spad13/Dolphin/SE5 vs D7F/D12/Pfalz D3
SYN Frontlines Turnabouts - Camel/Tripe/Pup vs DR1/D8/Pfalz D3
SYN Frontlines Noops - N28/N17 vs D5/D7

Please let me know how these work for gameplay and bugs. I won't have my desktop PC for quite a while, and it's kinda difficult to test missions on a laptop without a joystick

Thanks.

[Miggins]

Just to officially have a post in the right thread about it. I think if Syndicate had a "co-op Saturday" in conjunction with the "Vintage Sunday" with an official start time just like the Vintage missions it would be nice to see how people find the gamestyle when plenty of pilots are on.

I like the sound of that, you definately find yourself flying differently in Co-op mode (at least I do) than the way I fly in DF mode.

Might make an interesting diversion from my usual spawn-die-spawn-die cycle. T&T used to be a great arena with some really nice co-operative objective based missions in the rotation.

I'm off on holiday in a few days, and tonights hq night was pretty much my last flying for a while (unless I can convince the missus that I HAVE actually packed everything I will need for holiday), so I'll probably not be around in the skies for a little while, but I'm definately up for some co-op sessions when I return.

[O_Taipan]

Saturday co ops for sure. These new missions with the AI are great. I actually cared about keeping myself alive much more. Life comes first, kills come second in co-op

Vander - they need a little tweaking though. Missions where we accomplished the objective showed as failed in the completion points page:
1. In Albatros, we destroyed all the Russian N17 and got the message but failed in stats.
2. In Dolphins we destroyed the two balloons but failed in stats.

Other than that performance has been good, it handles the AI quite well!

[HotTom]

I had a good time flying Coop with you guys today. First time I ever saw a whole group flying there and it worked out very well!

I think if there is a regular Coop Saturday it would draw a good crowd.

S!

HT

[SYN_Vander]

Saturday co ops for sure. These new missions with the AI are great. I actually cared about keeping myself alive much more. Life comes first, kills come second in co-op

Vander - they need a little tweaking though. Missions where we accomplished the objective showed as failed in the completion points page:
1. In Albatros, we destroyed all the Russian N17 and got the message but failed in stats.
2. In Dolphins we destroyed the two balloons but failed in stats.

Other than that performance has been good, it handles the AI quite well!

Thanks Taipan, I'll have a look t this.

For coop saterday, just all show up as the missions already run on a dedicated server!
But we need more missions and I don't have the time right now…

[SYN_Jedders]

Love the idea of an organised time for co-ops. It certaintly is a very different style of flying and the gametype really is fabulous for inter Sqn stuff aswell.

I find that is a better arena for training also with squad members. The server runs constantly so its all good!

[SYN_Jedders]

On another thread the subject of vulching has come up again. We have undertaken a poll privately over at http://www.thesyndicate.tk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">www.thesyndicate.tk to try and get a feel for whether removing cold engines would help.

We would appreciate YOUR thoughts aswell, please

AAA increase, tighter administration, warm engines, only running huge mission based maps in the rotation…all of these and more will influence behaviour…

[Flying_Dutchman]

Awesome!

[SYN_Jedders]

Warmed engines will be reintroduced on our server for a trial period.

(fingers crossed)

[A.S.Pushkin]

[gavagai]

Good move, Jedders.

[Parazaine]

I posted on another thread about vulching. I think warmed engines combined with expert AAA at airfields (you would only need 1 or 2 per airfield) and the medium to large maps would go a long way to limiting the vulching mindset.

That combined with airfields that are not too close together and at least 2 airfields per side and the majority of vulching would disappear.

While I love my DR1, the maps where it appears all seem to have airfields very close to the front and quickly descend into prolonged mass low furballs…not i'm sure, the desired effect.

+1 on Saturday CooPs but a designated start time would be necessary imho.

[O_Taipan]

Saturday co ops for sure. These new missions with the AI are great. I actually cared about keeping myself alive much more. Life comes first, kills come second in co-op

Vander - they need a little tweaking though. Missions where we accomplished the objective showed as failed in the completion points page:
1. In Albatros, we destroyed all the Russian N17 and got the message but failed in stats.
2. In Dolphins we destroyed the two balloons but failed in stats.

Other than that performance has been good, it handles the AI quite well!

Thanks Taipan, I'll have a look t this.

For coop saterday, just all show up as the missions already run on a dedicated server!
But we need more missions and I don't have the time right now…

Thanks Vander,

Also today Boris and I plus a few others played a few co op missions. But the timer is too short.

Boris's Handley Page had only managed to bomb the first bridge and I was still in a dogfight with the first enemy plane and the timer ended it.

Any chance of making the timer 1 hour long? It's always possible to end it early if everyone finishes flight.

Cheers

[BroadSide]

Co-ops are the best flight experience RoF has to offer IMO. Sounds great!

+1 on warm engines and more AA at the fields.

As for getting rid of the smaller maps, perhaps I can add a different view. For those of us behind the time zones of Europe/US, there are usually only a few on when we fly. Case in point: today at 5pm my time (10pm EST), we had 3 pilots on the syndicate server. It was a smaller map for N17 and DII planes. We had some great matches. Larger maps would have been unworkable. Smaller maps would have been even better (since we had only 3 pilots flying).
The current mix of missions are quite good (except for the balanced/yet non historical aspect of limiting [and even deleting entirely]the 2nd most prolific plane of the war in most of the missions )

[Chill31]

If you want to build a realistic picture of WWI, you absolutely need to have AI 2 seaters flying over the front that respawn when killed. They need to be at 3000m and fly through areas of concentrated AA (the big guns at low skill). Then players can hunt the enemy and then there will be other to hunt the flyers hunting the 2 seaters. My understanding is that this is possible now with 1.016b…

On top of that, you can incorporate mission objectives whether its ground attack, high alt bombing, or recon escorts.

[gavagai]

Chill31, your two-seaters mission might be my favorite mission on the server. It's one of the few that actually reminds me of what I've read about WW1 air combat.

That said, put the two-seaters even higher. Go for 4km if it's 1917 or later.

[BroadSide]

On the Dogfight near Reims mission today, I was hit by flak while just over the enemy lines, not near any airbase at all, and at 4000 feet or so (at an approx. airspeed of 110).
I understand the AA around the air fields being accurate (they are too accurate I think now), but the random AA in the fields shouldn't be this accurate. It makes it so even crossing the lines is suicide.
Please lower the AA accuracy a few notches, and perhaps one notch at the air fields (they are deadly accurate now which means that you cant even get close, or wander near a base–bad for small maps).

On the bombing of Lille mission, the AA was so accurate that if you strayed off of Lille, or followed a fight, the AA would destroy you. Happened a few times to me and others.

Thanks for an excellent server!

[gavagai]

I have bitched about aaa that's not merely protecting aerodromes in the past, but on the other hand, I can see a historical argument for it. I suppose it depends on whether the map is intended as a true simulation, or merely as a place for satisfying air combat. There are certainly many maps of the latter type in the rotation, so your point seems valid.

At the same time, I wouldn't mind more maps where going lower than 2km or so over the lines is dangerous.

[SirFreddie]

Having read recently (thanks to a thread on ROF) Rickenbackers 'Fighting the flying circus', it seems that flying through the AAA over the front lines was a 'rite of passage' for a pilot…
…the old hands flew aerobatics through it until the artillery ran out of shells…the Rookie crapped himself as his plane was thrown upwards/sideways with holes in his fuselage.

Absolutely Gav…We should be thinking twice about flying low over the Front lines.

Who killed BvR!

[BroadSide]

Then all dogfights will only take place over nml, rendering the rest of the RoF map useless.
Low AA accuracy below 1000ft and above 10,000 ft. would be more realistic, but I dont know if the RoF engine makes any distinction between altitude.
That's beside the point, however, as the current issue (AA accuracy being too high) can be addressed and fixed on the Syndicate server.

[gavagai]

If you're talking historically, 4000ft was in the kill zone. Err, maybe I don't get what you mean. The other part of the map useless?

[O_Taipan]

I love it now with the warmed up engines. Enough time to get an extra flight in, or at least finish my final flight.

A request - can you please remove the "cold engines" from the server title? I have a feeling people still think they are cold and they are going off to other servers instead like the Corsairs v Mercenaries.

I know that I made this mistake, when I haven't got a good 3 hours spare, I couldn't be bothered with cold engine warmups, and I generally fly inline. Rotaries are ok but not normally what I fly. So I have been jumping in other servers for shorter flights. If we fix the title hopefully can get more people back in.

[SYN_Vander]

Good point!

[BroadSide]

If you're talking historically, 4000ft was in the kill zone.

Yeah, I was thinking that below 1000 ft. the AA was useless, and above 10,000 it was rarely close. I recall reading that, though I dont have a source to post on it.

Err, maybe I don't get what you mean. The other part of the map useless?

If the AA is left in a mode where it's deadly accurate, not just the AA at the air fields, but even the AA that is scattered around the map, then you MUST stay away from it or you will get killed by it.
That would render NML as the only place on the map that's safe from AA. Even then, if your fight wanders too close to the lines (this happened to me today a couple of times…right on the edge of NML and some random AA starts obliterating me), you're toast.


I was just making the point that AA cant be that accurate everywhere. It destroys the game entirely.
As it stands now, it's ridiculous.


As for your thought on flying low over NML, I agree. It shouldnt be suicide, but it should have *some* danger. It would be realistic if 1000 feet or lower, or something like that, being able to draw "ground fire". I know it's been mentioned often, and Naked Squirrel has made some strong points on this in the past. I know they cant put too many objects on the ground, so we may never see this integrated into the game.