[bbosen]

Welcome to LAC guys! Today's regular Wednesday LAC event is just winding down. Here's a brief, 8-minute video clip showing what it was like about an hour ago, as the "BlueTeam" was finally able to win the "desert mission" you ("FlightSimGuy") must have been exercising:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9pDUdTOYhw

As you can see in that video, the LAC crowd makes good use of voice comms through the free, well-known, open-source "Mumble" VOIP application, which is deeply interfaced into LAC's cockpit for seamless use as the official voice radio. I highly encourage you to configure mumble and to get comfortable with its use, since it is also the "social hub" of LAC, where we meet up and arrange network flights.

We hope to see you with us for tomorrow's "Thursday Evening" gathering. We are a small group, but the best time to catch us in an organized activity is Thursday evenings Central USA timezone. Things tend to start up around 6PM CST and people will hang around, on and off, for at least 2 or 3 hours. Sometimes nobody shows up, but you can usually find at least 1 or 2 others. If you don't have mumble yet, just start flying in Network Mission 2 or in Network Mission 3 and somebody will probably find you there. Better yet, if you do have mumble, tune to the "root" channel at "LinuxAirCombat.com" and just start talking. We'll hear you and negotiate more fun than you ever thought was possible in a LINUX flight sim!

[FlightSimGuy]

Nice video. Sorry I missed last Thurs. Couldn't be helped. I hope to join tomorrow about 7PM Central/ 8PM Eastern. I can't get home any sooner than that so I will miss the 1st hr or so.

I tried the Peabody mission again and again. Wow. Is it even POSSIBLE to win that one? I keep trying to defend against waves of bombers coming in high but I can't even get up to their altitude before they are blasting my base to bits. Then right after that waves of low alt strafers and raiders come in with rockets and they all have tail gunners that whack my plane to bits. Should I switch to something more rugged like a P47 to last longer when theyre shootin at me?

[lacsim]

The Peabody mission is written to require teamwork, and in Realm 01 (which you were evidently using) it is populated by a vicious set of RedTeam "Replay Blokes" that fly as coordinated squadrons to ensure that it is very difficult to prevail on the BlueTeam. If you want to see what victory looks like, I suggest you just switch to the RedTeam.

It is POSSIBLE to prevail while flying solo for the BlueTeam. I've done it myself, but only after weeks of practice and my victorious session required more than two hours of white-nuckle, sweaty-palmed intensity. I was flying a P38 at the time (my favorite).

If you switch to one of the other Realms you won't run into Replay Blokes. In that case it's easier to prevail in the Peabody mission, but you'll still need to keep the pressure on in order to damage/destroy both enemy airbases faster than their ground crews can repair them.

A couple of months ago we had a goodly group flying one Thursday evening and we all decided to join Peabody's BlueTeam to battle the Realm 01 RedBlokes as a team. We were able to win in about 45 minutes. I think there's a video showing that session. Just a minute and I'll try to find it....

https://youtu.be/BRNZ09eyTPg?si=PfMhaKIRoe20SZQ1

I couldn't find the exact clip I wanted, but that one shows what it's like to fly Peabody's mission with a wingman. We inflicted a lot of damage that time!

[lacsim]

...And the clip includes a good example of how to deal with those high-altitude bombers. The trick with that is to notice them EARLY and to immediately start climbing as hard as you can. You get some warning whenever an enemy heavy bomber is detected beyond your current visual RADAR range setting. Your RADAR display's background color switches from the usual green to yellow. Whenever you see that, zoom your RADAR range out and check to see if there are high-altitude heavy bombers approaching from long range. Then climb up and shoot them. Even if you don't get them all you can usually weaken their formation and that will help your bases survive and give your repair crews a better chance to keep your side in the battle.

[lacsim]

TODAY is Thursday, not tomorrow lol! We hope you join with us tonight. We usually get started around 6PM Central or 7PM Eastern. If you join about 7PM Central you'll probably still find activity going strong. Tomorrow (Friday) you might still find somebody, but there won't be the usual amount of organization.

BTW there is now a new web page showing who is online. It gets updated about every 60 seconds. It's a little tricky to interpret, so the page first shows instructions and a commented sample. You have to click a link at the top of the page to see the current report. Here's the link:

https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LacCurrentOn...