Posted by: Moose *Flying Pigs*

Message:

: Finding myself back in the tower, I figured "when you fall off the horse, climb back on until you get it right" and jumped into another Hawg...and immediately got several radio calls to "relog or get out of the game, bud!!!!!" Huh? Relog?

First of all, welcome to the jungle, baby (to quote Axl Rose). :)

Second...chances are the people were telling you to "relog" (short for "re-log in") because your connection wasn't very good. WarBirds is very intolerant of dropped packets and slow Internet connections; these things manifest themselves as "warps", where planes will magically zip from one place to another, freeze in mid-air, or even disappear and reappear. You can check out connection tips on Interactive Magic Online's WarBirds pages, or maybe on the Training pages (I'm not sure), but here's some general tips that have worked for me:

- Assuming you are on Windows 95, set up a *separate* Dial-Up Networking connection just for WarBirds.

- In that connection, set your maximum connect speed to 19200 bps and turn error correction OFF (important!). WB is just fine with a "slow" 19200 bps connect, and error correction OFF keeps packets from being re-sent, which messes things up. If you're on a cable modem or other godawfullyfast thing, try just turning error correction off if you can.

- Get an excellent utility called "WBDetect" written by "Sickboy", a WarBirds pilot. WBDetect will automagically check each of the four possible connections to WarBirds and pick the best one for you. Somebody else is going to have to come up with the URL, but it's on the 487th Fighter Squadron ("Hotel Oscar") website. Scroll through some messages on the board looking for a 487th member to post and see if they have a URL in their message. :)

- Watch your "beacon" light when in flight. If it keeps flashing yellow a lot, your connect is bad and you are almost certainly warpy. It's common courtesy to avoid fights, land, and log off at that point--assuming that it isn't a problem that's affecting everyone, which sometimes does happen. If you keep getting yellow beacons, try switching routes in WarBirds (Setup/Network).

- If push comes to shove, consider switching Internet providers. I just dumped my Mindspring account for Earthlink because the local Mindspring node had started giving me awful connects. Earthlink has been good so far. The best providers will depend on where you live--ask around.

: After turning a quick question into a lengthy dissertation, I'm wondering where I can find a good briefing on Warbirds "nettiquite". I know that everything at this stage will be a learning experience, but I'd prefer not to make a complete idiot out of myself.

As for training and stuff, three more pieces of advice:

- Go ahead and fly in the main arena. If you've been flying offline for a year, you should be able to handle stalls, spins, etc. You should go ahead and fly with all the realism options turned on, because when it comes to historical scenarios and other events, they're all run with full realism.

- Get thee to the Training Arena. Hard already gave you the info on it...take advantage, it's very valuable.

- Don't worry too much. You're already way ahead of the game by coming here and asking nicely. :) This is an intimidating game and an intimidating community at first, but believe me there are one heck of a lot of highly supportive people that are willing to answer any questions you might have.

Moose

Flying Pigs