Tips and tricks

[wgkieboom]

Has anyone some tips and tricks? please leave them under here (like what you should upgrade and crew gear)

[Too Many Urkels On Your Team]

Originally posted by wolfydude12:

Some tips to make things go faster, not only do you not need the mechanic to use the engine extinguishers, I'll usually use my navigator, but you also can leave the seat immediately after pressing the button. Same goes with the bomb doors, click the button and you can immediately move your guy and they'll close.

Those are both good and true. One addendum: Lean, and Boost DO require an engy be in the seat. If you get up, those will immediately cease. One upside, it appears that when they cease, and begin to recharge, the recharge begins where the boost or lean was left when it stopped. In other words, if you think of boost or lean like a bucket, if you only use a 1/4 of the bucket, you need only refill the 1/4 of the bucket you used before you can go to the bucket again. The skill has to recharge, but the recharge appears to start from where it was stopped. (at least that seems to be the case in my experience).

[Demerzel]

I'm seeing way too many streamers not understand, or at least not use the damage indicator icon, so I made a quick pic in paint:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1176623723

When you're back across the channel on your way home, BEFORE YOU GET ON FINAL APPROACH, check this icon to see if you still have two good sets of landing gear. If one of your landing gear icons is blacked out, it's unusable. At this point you should pump all the fuel left in the wing on the gearless side out, because it will drag once you touch down, and any fuel in that tank explodes. If the tank is empty, you just drag your engines, no explosion and its much safer for your crew.

[Too Many Urkels On Your Team]

Originally posted by John:

If you have spare bombs, when you have to take a pic of a target, drop also a bomb on it, it gives extra exp.

I did not know that. Honestly I hadn't tried it. Good info!

[Blizzard]

You can put ammo boxes on empty equipment storage place. I dont know why whould you need it but ok

[Too Many Urkels On Your Team]

Originally posted by Lord Bono:

You can put ammo boxes on empty equipment storage place. I dont know why whould you need it but ok

You can also dump ammo boxes in the bombardier's spot. Just grab a belt from the main box, click on the bombardier slot, and the guy will drop the box when he hits the prone position. Because it's in the nose and that position is in it's little ditch in the nose of the plane, the ammo box will stay there even during dives, climbs, maneuvers, etc. I normally dump 4 or 5 extra clips in that little spot for the bombardier/nose gunner to use in case **** hits the fan and I need a quick reload. Those quad 50 cal mounts eat a lot of ammo...

[Patarack]

Originally posted by Too Many Urkels On Your Team:

You can also dump ammo boxes in the bombardier's spot. Just grab a belt from the main box, click on the bombardier slot, and the guy will drop the box when he hits the prone position. Because it's in the nose and that position is in it's little ditch in the nose of the plane, the ammo box will stay there even during dives, climbs, maneuvers, etc. I normally dump 4 or 5 extra clips in that little spot for the bombardier/nose gunner to use in case **** hits the fan and I need a quick reload. Those quad 50 cal mounts eat a lot of ammo...

This is what I do as well, but for the pre-beltfed guns on the tail as well at the beginning of the game. Drop a bunch back there by grabbing ammo, then pick up the first aid kit from the rear equipment rack. Your guy will drop the ammo to pick up the first aid, then put the first aid back into the rack. I'd do it 4 times before I took off...just an early game tip.

[Too Many Urkels On Your Team]

Kind of a fun easteregg, the spitfires will return home when they run out of fuel, but they don't disappear, they actually fly all the way back to london. If they decide to return home when you're on your way home, 1 or more (depending on if they were already chasing you when their timer ran out) will fly in formation with you all the way back to your airbase. Makes for some pretty nifty screenshots. :D

https://i.imgur.com/gbqG8VN.png

[David]

To get the one engine achievement, you can use one armored and three lightweight engines.

You can see unresearched intel items up to double your current intel, if you don't see anything then you have nothing coming up for a while.

Your navigator will update the objective course as fast as he can, this is unnecessary, and custom headings even make it obsolete. Your pilot can self-navigate to targets within his LOS. This makes navigator a good gunner imo.

Lean boost recharges fast, which makes Engineer a good reserve navigator or radio op imo, he can switch between stations easily. Lean mix is also on a universal cooldown so two Engineers can't spam it faster than one can.

Enemy aircraft can spawn from airfields and radar. Long ranged aircraft can track you from outside your radar range from an airfield. You can destroy airfields & radar by setting an accurate custom heading over them, this removes them as a threat and awards additional xp.

You can of course farm radar and airfields for extra kills & xp besides blowing them up.
If you've already wiped out all enemy response aircraft, then radar seems to be no threat and won't spawn any enemies.

Successfully bombing the main objective often results in multiple fighter wave spawns so is a predictable measure of when to expect additional company. Good use for Spitfires & Auto Tag.

The ways to earn the most cash & intel are actually reversed:
Optional Intel missions gives you far more cash than completing the actual missions. If you need cash, do all of the optional intel.
Late game missions provide huge boosts to your Intel for unlocking new stuff. If you need unlocks, advance into the campaign as far as you can and do tougher missions. The intel rewards are much higher for just finishing a mission.

You still get easier missions from previous stages on later campaign stages, you can always fight Aces on the easier missions. You can tell which mission is from which stage by how much Intel and money it awards, as well as the risk assessment.

Running out of bombs before destroying all targets results in total mission failure. You can still get rewards from Intel.

You have less fuel efficiency on bouncing bomb / dambuster missions.

Many enemy fighters will abort chasing you if you travel over friendly territory. Enemy Aces also flee if they get low on health.

If there is a lot of low altitude flak defences between you and the target, you can travel at medium altitude to avoid taking damage.

Radio for Recon has long range, and Radio for Spitfires take time for them to arrive. You can use both in advance.

Running out of O2 or fully freezing results in an instant down. Wounded characters will be downed faster. There's no indicator for low O2 until you run out completely and it results in a rapid down but you need to be above medium altitude to be susceptible at all.

Keep your Gunners and Pilot heavily armored unless you move them around a lot. Gunners especially take direct enemy fire the most often.

Use Auto Tag during bombing runs if new enemies appear when you are close to the target, otherwise you'll overshoot. You can combine Auto Tag with manual tagging for superfast tagging.

If you have an excess of First Aid Kits, a level 3 Medic can use them on heavily wounded crew before they are downed for a fast full heal.

Engine Extinguishers recharge. If you have a relatively tough plane with tough engines, you can get by with MK1 or MK2. This is an efficient way to save some plane weight.

Try to get 2 of Enemy Damage/Armor/Flak down bonuses when starting a Critical or difficult mission. Try to take on Aces during easy missions, and ignore objectives to focus down the Ace as soon as they arrive.

The plane uses some fuel while taking off, even though the fuel duration marker doesn't appear. So you can effectively use Lean Mix straight away.

Special ammo does not use up any of the regular ammo supply and is simply time-based. Makes veteran gunners great for 4X ammohog guns and when out of ammo, and can last for over 3 belts worth of normal ammo.

The game remembers the last direction you were looking in when you press spacebar to toggle tagging mode. For one thing this means if you get a fire while tagging, you can quickly extinguish it and then go straight back to tagging. For another you can exit tagging mode when its already facing a favourable direction.

[David]

Originally posted by Too Many Urkels On Your Team:

Those are both good and true. One addendum: Lean, and Boost DO require an engy be in the seat. If you get up, those will immediately cease. One upside, it appears that when they cease, and begin to recharge, the recharge begins where the boost or lean was left when it stopped. In other words, if you think of boost or lean like a bucket, if you only use a 1/4 of the bucket, you need only refill the 1/4 of the bucket you used before you can go to the bucket again. The skill has to recharge, but the recharge appears to start from where it was stopped. (at least that seems to be the case in my experience).

I tested this just now, didn't work for me. Just a single test on Lean+, activating it, then changing stations back and forth, and it was still on full cooldown. I'll also test it with AP/Incendiary ammo. If I don't edit this post, it didn't work for me.
edit: confirmation didn't work for special ammo for me either.

Are you sure it wasn't just because Lean+ has a superfast cooldown?

[Too Many Urkels On Your Team]

Originally posted by Hopeless Situation Warrior:

Originally posted by Too Many Urkels On Your Team:

Those are both good and true. One addendum: Lean, and Boost DO require an engy be in the seat. If you get up, those will immediately cease. One upside, it appears that when they cease, and begin to recharge, the recharge begins where the boost or lean was left when it stopped. In other words, if you think of boost or lean like a bucket, if you only use a 1/4 of the bucket, you need only refill the 1/4 of the bucket you used before you can go to the bucket again. The skill has to recharge, but the recharge appears to start from where it was stopped. (at least that seems to be the case in my experience).

I tested this just now, didn't work for me. Just a single test on Lean+, activating it, then changing stations back and forth, and it was still on full cooldown. I'll also test it with AP/Incendiary ammo. If I don't edit this post, it didn't work for me.
edit: confirmation didn't work for special ammo for me either.

Huh. That's weird. It seemed to recover really fast if I canceled early.

[David]

Lean already has a fast cooldown (even before you unlock Lean+), so maybe that was it. Usually it recovers before I even notice it was on cooldown.

[finalsolution49]

Originally posted by ScientistMan96:

Originally posted by Tavingon:

Who's the best guy to man the belly guns?

I tend to eventually speacialize my crew for High alt operation, so at that point the top gunner moves to lower gun, as nothing will be flying above you, and at med alt things are uaually below you, or at your alt, so move him down then. Also better protecting I think, since he's inside the plane, not in a glass bubble.. Otherwise, engineer takes it when he's not franticly sprinting all over rearming things, repairing, putting out fires, or manning the front gun for the bombredier while the latter is aimng the next drop. Which is a thing, by the way. You can have a spare crew take the nose gun, while the bomredier is laying in the bomb sights.

going high altitude has its weakness also, u must equip ur crew with thermal outfit in order not to get harm by low temperature, hence the less mobility to get ammo and engineers to move around, if u sacrificed it to less protective vest and helmets, itll gonna be one hit kill for ur crew
i personally like going around low and medium, except for the grand slam bombing and the very last campaign mission, because it forced u to release it at high alt.

[[SHERPA] Infernos]

I Just installed the Ventral Turret and I was wondering if there was a way to get a gunner for it, like a new crew member

[__MiD]

i have almost all my crew lv 12 skill (top lv)
kill all ace before finish the main quest 4

give your piolt, nevgator, radarcontroller heavilest protection
repair guy (mobility is most important)

second skill
gunner (heal)
radar (repair)
engineer (shoot)
aimman (shoot)
you can choose any skill to nevagtor or pilot (but they better not left their seat)
my pilot learn nevagtor skill but he won't work wthout nevagtor

important take off skill
1. guide 2 your gunman & aimman to ammo box (each gun support max 3 clip but default is 2 clip so u get 1 clip more if u do this step)
2. set the heading point
3. take off
4. raise the landing gear
5. activate the enginner skill "lean+" (that save a lot of fuel)
<<after you see ocean below you>>
6.aimman to bomber seat & select your weapon
7 engineer to front gun


when you see ...
- one engine aircraft
- two engine aircraft (tell your engineer mount the lower gun)
- Me262 (mount the lower gun and always watch your back, use all HE,AP you can)


engine upgrade:
2 outter engine w/ more protection
2 inner engine just standard engine

body
seems not one is attacking the nose, use lightweight armor
tail, mid, front heaviest armor

[__MiD]

Originally posted by ToXiC_450:

I Just installed the Ventral Turret and I was wondering if there was a way to get a gunner for it, like a new crew member

Nope tell your engineer to mount it when you saw 2 engine aircraft or Me262
you left the front gun empty or tell your aim man to mount the front gun