Swordfish Campaign

[_AH_Prop]

S! All, I've downloaded a Swordfish Campaign from FlatSpinMan of Ubi Forums. I have no idea how to make it multiplayer, but they're intense quick missions using the Swordfish and Fulmar. Here is the readme on it.

Thanks for downloading Fleet Air Arm Pilots!

Just extract it (or paste the extracted folders) into your main IL2 folder, generally located in C: > Program Files > Ubisoft > IL2 Sturmovik 1946.
If you want to do everything manually, make sure you paste the folder named Swordfish into the Missions>Campaigns>RN folder.

You NEED 4.09m plus UP2.0 or higher to play it.


This campaign is just for fun. I started it as a way to try out the new Swordfish and Fulmar. Most missions are inspired by some of the most dramatic ones of the war – (most of the details are taken from "I sank the Bismarck" by Lt Cmdr John Moffat, a real-life Swordfish pilot) - but a lot of artistic license has been used.  Laziness too. The time of day and weather has in some cases been changed to make things more atmospheric or enjoyable. For the sake of appearances I have chosen a few things that are not correct, notably locating Taranto harbour on the coast of North Africa as the map has a much better harbour to work with. IL2 lacks a lot of the ships and places in the campaign, so I have just substituted whatever came to hand. If you look carefully at the ships you'll be bombing and torpedoing, you'll notice flags of all sorts of nations. Don't worry about it. If it bothers you, just pretend the enemy are treacherous liars flying false colours.


Notes for flying the Stringbag
When I started making this campaign I had a bit of a learning curve to surmount as the Swordfish is a bit different from other planes in IL2.
Take-offs
DON'T extend the wings immediately! Usually there will be other planes in your flight which will explode if you do so. Instead, either wait about 40 seconds for the others to leap ahead of you and take off, or else throttle up slightly, release the chocks and move slightly ahead of the other planes. When you judge you have enough room, re-engage the chocks, extend your wings and take off as usual. I mostly do this.

Be careful of doing this in rough weather. In bad conditions it is almost impossible not to hit the object on the deck that holds the landing wires. This results in you going nose-up and ruining the engine. In rough weather I advise waiting for the others to take off first.

Another option is to hit "Autopilot' and wait until it moves you forward to the catapult. Then just get yourself set up and hit the "release Chocks" key to fire the catapult.

Climbing
Once you have left the deck of the carrier, don't expect to climb away quickly. Even the AI pilots have trouble doing so. The Swordfish is slow. Very, very, very slow. Slow, slow, slow, slow, slooooooow. S-L-O-W. Just fly along as straight and fast as you can and you will eventually gain height. Operational height in most missions is only about 1500 – 2000 metres anyway.




Waypoints
Except for mission 1 you are generally given only a couple of waypoints in each mission. They should point you in the right direction but then you will need to use the briefings, the compass and your own judgement to complete the mission. This will mean that your AI friends will be unable to return to base without you, but don't worry – most of them are for the chop anyway.


Targets
Targets are usually of the recon variety. Fly over it and you have passed the mission. Note that often the target icon is placed only in the general area of the actual target so you will need to use the briefings and your own eyes to get you the whole way. Intelligence in war is rarely perfect.


Flight distances
Take-offs are fun from a carrier so I thought it a shame to do air starts close to the target. At the same time, the Swordfish is so damnably slow that realistic flight distances would be stultifying to most players. In the end I opted to position the carrier very close to the target so that you get the best of both worlds. I don't pretend that it is at a realistic distance. Mission 1 is probably the longest flight you'll have on the way to target.


Survivability
Fear the flak!
Your AI friends face almost certain death each and every mission.  The combination of aircraft type, mission profile, and ground attack behaviour are fairly lethal for your Cylon wingmen. Forget them and save yourself!
The AI has some problems with torpedo attacks in some missions. Chalk it up to nerves. Concentrate on getting yourself to and from the target area mostly alive.
There's an awful lot of flak in some missions, really just a horrible amount. Add to that the fact that you'll be flying in night-time or heavy weather conditions at very low speed just metres above the tops of the waves directly into the path of capital ships that are trying their best to shoot you down.

You will almost definitely be killed sometimes. It is possible though to complete each mission alive though.

Dropping torpedoes
In one of the recent changes to the game, maybe 4.09 or maybe one of the changes inUP2.0, torpedo launching behaviour was improved. It's now necessary to be flying low and level in order to get your fish to run properly. There's also some kind of distance issue before the torpedo arms itself. Drop it too close to the ship and it won't explode.
These changes greatly add to the experience I think.

Views
The cockpit for the Swordfish has not yet been made. Accordingly, the views forward and rear are a bit 'unfinished'. Don't let it distract you. In most missions you'll either be looking over the side of the cockpit to spot gunfire, or else you'll be so fixated on the target looming up in the centre of the gunsight that you won't notice.

Skins
There are almost none beyond the defaults. I wanted to keep this little project as simple and hassle-free as possible. I think the default skins for most planes used are pretty good anyway.
Thanks to the skinners whose work does appear here though. I looked long and hard finding suitable skins.

I think it would be fun to fly the missions on slow nights. Could anyone be able to make them multiplayer? Thanx!

Prop

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Slow nights would indeed be the operative word! He says he's cut down the flight time, but even a short flight in a swordfish can take a long time. We don't seem to be into that sort of thing of late. Can you put up a link up to download these missions?

DW

[_AH_Prop]

The missions are max 20 minutes long  :cool:

http://mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads3&file=details&id=693