basilhare Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 Just bought the game yesterday...enjoying it but I would like to ask a few rookie questions about DIF...I have read over the helps, overview and newbie tips posted but am still unclear on some points.... 1.Campaigns: A.I assume you can only set up and play campaigns online, even if you just want to play solo? B. Is anyone having trouble with the Camapign Display? Evidently my browser or something else is effecting the display to the left of the campaign map, during play...I assume that there should be some information on how to set up and execute battles generated from the campiagn map, but there is no way for me to set up/execute these... 2. Discards: A. Im not exactly sure what effect discards have on card draw....do you get an extra draw for each card you discard? B. I am sometimes prompted to discard when diving...I thought you only discarded for climbing? What am I missing? 3. Bursts: A. I do not understand the concept of the burst rating and how that effects gunnery....is this based on theortical firepower of the aircraft or ammo or both? B. So you have to have a certain number of bursts available to use a gunnery card? 4. Is it common to get the &*%$ beat out of you for the first dozen/score/hundreds/thousands or so games? I am getting whacked every game by the AI! I am afraid to even get online to play...I would be humiliated! 5. Fatigue: A. Does getting shot down or damaged add even more to your fatigue level? B. Is there anyway to rest your Pilots other than to fly missions? All of my Pilots are heavily fatigued and have heavy minuses - no fresh ones left! Thnaks in advance for your answers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 1.Campaigns: A.I assume you can only set up and play campaigns online, even if you just want to play solo? Yes campaigns are only online B. Is anyone having trouble with the Camapign Display? Evidently my browser or something else is effecting the display to the left of the campaign map, during play...I assume that there should be some information on how to set up and execute battles generated from the campiagn map, but there is no way for me to set up/execute these... Which campaign? 2. Discards: A. Im not exactly sure what effect discards have on card draw....do you get an extra draw for each card you discard? It depends on Performance, Horsepower, and what altitude you are at. Performace is your max cards, Horsepower is max cards you can draw at the end of your turn. Altitude can effect these. B. I am sometimes prompted to discard when diving...I thought you only discarded for climbing? What am I missing? Could be the enemy has the Shake Him Off Skill 3. Bursts: A. I do not understand the concept of the burst rating and how that effects gunnery....is this based on theortical firepower of the aircraft or ammo or both? You should look at the manual as it will explain bursts B. So you have to have a certain number of bursts available to use a gunnery card? Yes 4. Is it common to get the &*%$ beat out of you for the first dozen/score/hundreds/thousands or so games? I am getting whacked every game by the AI! I am afraid to even get online to play...I would be humiliated! Yes you are supposed to be humiliated. It teaches you that I am just too sexy to shoot down! 5. Fatigue: A. Does getting shot down or damaged add even more to your fatigue level? Yep B. Is there anyway to rest your Pilots other than to fly missions? All of my Pilots are heavily fatigued and have heavy minuses - no fresh ones left! Create 4 pilots for your country. Play on a rotation basis. It will usually give you a fresh pilot to play. -Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basilhare Posted September 24, 2006 Author Share Posted September 24, 2006 Is anyone having trouble with the Camapign "Display? Evidently my browser or something else is effecting the display to the left of the campaign map, during play...I assume that there should be some information on how to set up and execute battles generated from the campiagn map, but there is no way for me to set up/execute these..." "Which campaign?" Flying Tigers Thanks for the reply....basilhare Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 Flying Tigers should be fine but I will look into it for you. I have had some troubles with the expan camps Not sure what you mean about information??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartbert Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 Originally posted by basilhare: 1.Campaigns: A.I assume you can only set up and play campaigns online, even if you just want to play solo? That is correct, but you can still play solo against the AI for any of the campaigns. B. Is anyone having trouble with the Camapign Display? Evidently my browser or something else is effecting the display to the left of the campaign map, during play...I assume that there should be some information on how to set up and execute battles generated from the campiagn map, but there is no way for me to set up/execute these... I think I have heard that Firefox browsers mangle the instructions for how to click the "Preview" and "Execute" buttons with the historical background text. Basically, the steps for playing a campaign game is to assign your pilots to regions on the map by selecting a region from the drop-down list next to each pilot. You can click the "Preview" button at any time to show where you have assigned aircraft on the map. Once you are satisfied with your pilot assignments, click the "Execute" button to lock in your choices. The map will show where you and the AI have assigned pilots. Every region where both sides have assigned pilots will be a mission that you will need to fight out within the game. Start up the game, log in, then go to the "Online/Campaign/Play a campaign mission" menu item. Pick your campaign from the list and start up the mission. 2. Discards: A. Im not exactly sure what effect discards have on card draw....do you get an extra draw for each card you discard? Performance is the max number of cards you can hold in your hand. Horsepower is the max number of cards you can draw each turn. These two ratings work together along with your current hand size to determine how many cards you may want to discard. For example, suppose your Performance is 6, your Horsepower is 2 and you currently have 4 cards in your hand. There would be no reason to discard any cards because you are only going to replenish 2 cards anyway (4 cards plus 2 for Horsepower brings you back to 6 cards which is your Performance rating). But suppose that you currently have 5 cards in your hand. If you don't discard any cards, then you will only draw 1 card even though your Horsepower rating is 2 (5 cards plus 2 for Horsepower would be 7 cards which exceeds your Performance of 6). In this case, you might want to discard 1 non-useful card in hopes of getting something better. B. I am sometimes prompted to discard when diving...I thought you only discarded for climbing? What am I missing? If you are currently advantaged on your enemy and he dives, and you decide to follow him, then you will have to discard a card first. After you discard and follow the dive down, you will then receive a card for diving. If you are tailing the enemy, you don't have to pay the 1 card penalty for following. 3. Bursts: A. I do not understand the concept of the burst rating and how that effects gunnery....is this based on theortical firepower of the aircraft or ammo or both? The Burst rating is a measure of how many rounds per second the aircraft can fire while the Damage Bonus rating is a measure of how much damage a round of ammo does when it hits. Aircraft with lots of machine guns get high Burst ratings while aircraft with lots of cannons get high Damage Bonus ratings. B. So you have to have a certain number of bursts available to use a gunnery card? Think in terms of how long your pilot has to shoot rounds at the enemy. If your current position is Neutral, then you can imagine a head-on run in which your pilot has very little time to fire before he and the enemy have passed each other. If your current position is Tailing, then your pilot is spending a lot more time actually firing his weapons at the target. An aircraft with lots of machine guns (ie, a high Burst rating) could still get off a shot even at Neutral position. An aircraft with a low rate of fire (i.e., a low Burst rating) needs to get to Advantaged or Tailing position before he can get off a decent shot. 4. Is it common to get the &*%$ beat out of you for the first dozen/score/hundreds/thousands or so games? I am getting whacked every game by the AI! I am afraid to even get online to play...I would be humiliated! Even if you play online, you don't have to play against other players. You could just play against the AI. 5. Fatigue: A. Does getting shot down or damaged add even more to your fatigue level? Yes. Flying a mission is 9 points of fatigue. Getting damaged adds another 9 points (for a total of 18), and getting shot down adds another 18 points (for a total of 36). B. Is there anyway to rest your Pilots other than to fly missions? All of my Pilots are heavily fatigued and have heavy minuses - no fresh ones left! You can have up to 4 sets of pilots per nationality. When one pair of pilots flies a mission, all the other pilots for that nationality regain 9 points of fatigue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basilhare Posted September 25, 2006 Author Share Posted September 25, 2006 Originally posted by Sixxkiller: Flying Tigers should be fine but I will look into it for you. I have had some troubles with the expan camps Not sure what you mean about information??? I dont know what I mean either...there is a hidden "picture" beside the campaign map....I assume that unreveiled infomration/picture/whatever has the controls to set up and execute the battles pictured on the campaign map....thanks....basilhare Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basilhare Posted September 25, 2006 Author Share Posted September 25, 2006 Thanks for the detailed reply, Bartbert....that was very helpful....I appreciate you taking time to help a feeble newbie...! Basilhare Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartbert Posted September 25, 2006 Share Posted September 25, 2006 No problem. Glad it was helpful. Down in Flames is unlike most any other game, so it can take some getting used to. The mechanics are actually fairly simple once you get the hang of it, but there is still a lot of depth to explore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilentAce Posted September 25, 2006 Share Posted September 25, 2006 Hi, I got the game yesterday and have got to grips with the basics faster than I expected. Not tried any of the online stuff yet. My first question to the experienced player base is this. What would be the first 3 perm skills you go for in the Leader and Wingman role. Also I could troll the website but I wondered if anyone had a link to more portraits for the pilots to add. SA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted September 25, 2006 Share Posted September 25, 2006 Hi Silent, welcome aboard. Popular opinion would be to buy skills in order of expense. This will help later on as they get rather pricey. I usually go with... Leader Quick Reflexes, Redline, Marksmanship Wingman Spoil Aim,Sweep Tail, and Anticipation. For you I would suggest starting out by buying Natural pilot before the other skills though as it will help you survive in the first few planes. As for pilot pix, you can add your own from the manage pilot screen for both leader and wingman. You just upload them to the server with the "upload image link" and send me a check for $29.95. The photo size has to be under 20kb. Btw, I was joking about $29.95, you can just send me $19.95 if you tell me how sexy I am. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilentAce Posted September 25, 2006 Share Posted September 25, 2006 Thanks for the welcome Sixx. Do you advise lots of offline play against the AI before trying campaigns or should I toss aside the swimming aid and dive right into the online campaigns and take my lumps? Also on a more serious note is "being sexy" actually a required asset to being a legendary pilot or would you say "being modest" is a more useful skill??? SA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted September 25, 2006 Share Posted September 25, 2006 I would advise never playing offline as we cant tease you for getting killed after 3 missions. Only I am sexy so I dont think that will help you and it isnt modesty as a skill that shall help you, getting a cute puppy might though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bewildered Posted September 25, 2006 Share Posted September 25, 2006 Originally posted by Sixxkiller: Btw, I was joking about $29.95, you can just send me $19.95 if you tell me how sexy I am. That's OK then. $19.95 would probably buy you about 15 minutes of therapy. You'd need more, but at least it's a start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted September 25, 2006 Share Posted September 25, 2006 Everyone is always picking on me and you wonder why I need therapy???? And I will remember these comments when we fly!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bewildered Posted September 25, 2006 Share Posted September 25, 2006 Originally posted by Sixxkiller: And I will remember these comments when we fly!!! No - you won't. Not if you keep taking the medicine. You know - the medicine that makes you delusional and think you're so sexy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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