Manual's Content

• Register
• Creating Missions
• Reporting Missions
• FIBOW: Introduction
  • FIBOW: How It Works
  • Conquering Enemy Sector
  • Supply Missions
  • Capturing Towns/Cities/Airfields
  • Rescue Missions
  • Time Of The Day
  • Airfields
  • Cities/Towns
  • Flights
  • Attack Combinations & Plane Organization
• FIBOW: Rules
  • Pilot Rights
  • Pilot Obligations
  • Allowed and Forbidden Actions, and Consequences
  • Host Procedure
  • Host Recommendations
• FIBOW: Point System
  • Experience Index
  • Fair Play Index
  • Kill Points
  • Mission Points By Task
  • Other Points

Register

Fighting Irish Barbarians Online War (FIBOW) registrations are independent of forum registrations. The forum uses a completely different database. FIBOW is an online campaign based on Bellum War and all matches will be launched via HyperLobby. So the very first thing to do is to install the Hyper Lobby client and register a pilot name. Click on HyperLobby button below to access the client:

In order to register in the FIBOW as a pilot you have to fill out the "Registering New Pilot" form. You need to provide your name (your Hyper Lobby callsign) and a personal password. Additionally you can fill in your email and add an avatar image link. When this is done, you can edit your profile, join a squad, create a squad, etc.

Notice that if you have already flown a FIBOW mission sometime in the past, you are automatically registered as a pilot. The password assigned to you is your HyperLobby name (case sensitive). In this case, you may skip pilot registration, and go straight to "Edit Pilot" so you can change your password and complete your email and avatar information as desired. Then you can join or create squadrons.

Squadron Registration: if you are the CO of a squadron, go to "Squadrons -> Register" and fill out the form with your squadron’s information. Once the form is completed you will be automatically incorporated into the squadron, and your stats moved to the squadron’s stats. Then you can go to "Squadrons -> Edit" and add an XO to your squadron. Only the CO and XO of a squadron may accept pilot applications. Once the pilot is accepted, his stats will likewise be incorporated into the squadron’s stats.

Creating Missions

To create a mission, each side must create an attack request, then the person who will host must "combine" the two attack requests. Here are the steps:

1. Load Generation page.
2. Look for host in one of the FIBOW slots, click on the FIBOW # Allied if you are RAF, or FIBOW # Axis if LW/RA. Enter username and password.
3. A new page will load, click on the "Click here to receive actual reconnaissance data!" to show the current operational states of airfields, damage and radius of supply for all cities, a front map, and a supply map. Decide on your attack and select the target from the pulldown menu. Then, select the distribution of the airplanes (defence, attack). Finally fill in the name and passwords fields.
4. Once your request is sent, you will receive a confirmation message, with your name, the total number of planes, and an identification code. Send this message to the person who will host the mission.
5. When the host has received both "Ready" messages, he will see a download link directly above the 2 request slots. Once download option selected the host is requested to enter username and password. The mission files are then populated as a ZIP file. These are downloaded, extracted and placed into your prefered il2 coop folder. Advisable to create a FIBOW folder so the files are easily found.
6. The total number of planes must be predefined before requests are made. The number of planes is shown on each request confirmation message so the host can verify that each side will have the correct number of planes as predefined/previously agreed upon, before he combines the two requests to create the mission.(8x8 12x12 16x16 8x12 12x8 12x16 etc...)

Video: FIBOW Request

As you can see, the host needs not make the request for either side, although he may do so for one side if desired. Mission requests may be done by any pilot.

The plane distribution will be split between Defense and Attack.

• "Attack" planes will be assigned to: (a) escort bombers or ground attack planes when attacking a city or airfield, (b) escort supply transports, or (c) as fighters, provide air cover to our tanks (in the case of a tactical attack).
• "Defense" planes will be assigned to: (a) patrol to defend against an enemy attack on a city or airfield, (b) intercept an enemy supply mission, or (c) escort of our bomber group(s) scheduled to attack enemy tanks (in the case of an enemy tactical attack).

Finally, the maximum per group is 8 planes. So, the only possible distribution for a 16x16 mission is 8 defend + 8 attack. With 12 fighters in a mission , possible defendattack combinations are: 8-4, 6-6, 4-8. With 8 fighters, options are: 8-0, 6-2, 4-4, 2-6,0-8.

Reporting Missions

1. From the home page, click "Report" in left margin to load the page .
2. Find your eventlog file and fill in the mission number you are reporting (ex: badc_30278).
3. Enter your name and password.
4. Press send, and wait for the report results. This can take up to a minute, depending on the mission result and server download speed. This time is further lengthened when new front lines must be plotted.

Video: FIBOW Report

Notes:

In the case of a refly mission, you don't need to edit your eventlog file. The parser will seek out the last mission matching the mission number.

It is important to wait for either an ERROR message or a success status from parser. If neither result occurs, the images may be broken or not updated, or the mission may have been incorrectly reported.

FIBOW: Introduction

Do You want to push back the enemy and take his territory? Do You want to destroy his air bases, encampments and troops? To cut his provisions, to isolate and capture formations? To rescue downed friendly pilots? Then FIBOW is the place for you!

In FIBOW, the territory is divided into sectors. Each sector is a square measuring 10Km on each side. These sectors are depicted by the existing map gridlines, and each sector belongs to one side or the other at any given moment. Whoever controls a sector controls everything within the sector: cities, airfields, and encampments. Each side advances by capturing these sectors.

The objective of FIBOW is to "win" the map by conquering the most territory. Each map begins with either side controlling half of the map. Each side then tries to advance and capture enemy territory, seizing cities and airfields along the way, while defending against enemy attacks at the same time.

To achieve victory on any given map, one side must either capture all the enemy's towns and/or cities with supplies, or capture all the enemy's airfields. If one side (red or blue) loses all their airfields, they are defeated because they can no longer provideany air support to their ground forces. If a side loses all their towns or cities, they are defeated because they can no longer supply their ground forces.

In either case the map currently in play is finished, and the next planned map will load, unless that was the last map in the campaign. In that case, the campaign itself is over.

Each city has a strategic value: its capacity to support friendly troops within nearby zones. Each city has a supply radius, depicted by a ring on the Front Map. All friendly sectors within this operational supply range will have strong encampments, making these “supplied” sectors well defended against attack.

As you can tell, the sectors, cities and encampments are interrelated: controlling a sector with a city means that city belongs to your side. The supply radius of the city allows you to maintain well-armed encampments, offering stronger defenses for those sectors around the city.

This interaction creates the possibility of "strategic attacks" within FIBOW. That is to say, attacks on cities to reduce their operational supply range will eventually weaken the surrounding sectors, making them much easier to capture. Each side can also resupply its cities, with the dual outcome of both increasing the city’s ability to defend against attacks as well as increasing its operational supply range, thus strengthening more adjacent sectors.

The air bases (aerodromes) play a very important role. The greater the distance between your bases and the zone of conflict, the harder it is to provide aerial support. So, within FIBOW it’s possible to sustain attacks on an airbase to the point where it is totaly inoperative. Even then, if the base isn’t captured, it’s still possible to resupply it and return it to operational status, or to reduce the damage level when the base is anything less than 100% operational.

This introduction should provide a sufficient understanding of the general operation of the Bellum system used to run FIBOW. The next section includes detailed explanations of the attack types, the consequences, the amount of obtainable damage, and other data to be considered during strategic planning.

FIBOW: How It Works

In every mission, both sides will be asked to choose an attack point on the current front map. There are two different ways to perform an attack: tactical and strategic.

In FIBOW, an attempt to capture a map sector near the front line is termed a tactical attack, and in this case a group of tanks are sent to conquer the area.

An aerial attack on a city, town or airfield, with a goal of decreasing the supply radius or the operational status, is termed a strategic attack in FIBOW.

Conquering Enemy Sectors

A tactical attack may only be performed against a sector on the front line. The only action necessary to initiate the attack is to specify a tactical attack on the intended sector.

During a tactical attack, ground troops (tanks and vehicles) are sent to the targeted sector. The attacked zone may be within or outside of any enemy supply radius. If inside an enemy supply radius, friendly troops will engage enemy ground troops (enemy tanks and vehicles) during the assault, along with any enemy bombers trying to stop their advance.

So obviously, it’s easier to attack sectors outside of the enemy’s supply umbrella whenever possible. Even with no enemy supply influence, assaults can fail due to enemy air action. This of course means it's important to always provide aerial support to assaulting ground troops. If the area under assault has no opposing ground forces, a strategic attack against the enemy’s nearby airfields may be in order, with the goal of disabling them to the extent that the enemy’s air support will be forced to originate from more distant airfields, possibly lessening their influence on the ground assault. Such actions are key to a successful ground assault.

Supply Missions

To create a supply mission, select the SUM-"city_name" target. A flight of 4 cargo planes will be planned. Supply missions may only be performed by human players (for now at least; later on we will have AI supply). To resupply a city, the transport planes must take off and fly to the waypoint (“WP” hereafter) at the city, designated by a smokestack with a white smoke plume. When within 5km of the WP, the human pilot must turn on wingtip smoke for a few seconds, then turn it off. You are allowed 3 smoke attempts, and at least one has to be within the 5km radius. Then you can go land at any friendly airfield you like, and that airfield will also be resupplied.

*** In order to achieve a valid resupply, you must load default weapons and 100% fuel. The resupply must also be performed within the 30 minutes time limit shown in the briefing. ***

Currently there are just the Blenheim MkIF on the allied and the Ju-52 on the axis side for this purpose available only.

If you want to resupply an Airfield only, simply plan a supply mission to a city near the intended airfield. Then perform the normal supply mission to the city, landing at the intended airfield.

Supply effectiveness is variable. Each allied plane successfully completing a supply mission improves a city’s supply level by 7%-14%, and adds 5% to an airfield’s operational status. For each axis plane the numbers are 7%-14% for cities and 5% for airfields.

Capturing Towns/Cities/Airfields

If a sector is captured, any towns, cities or airfields within it retain their existing operational status. So, if we capture an enemy city with a 30Km supply radius, it becomes a friendly city with a 30Km supply radius. The same principle applies to captured airfields and their operational status.

To capture a sector containing a city, the city’s damage level must be >50%. However, this does NOT apply to isolation captures (see multiple conquests, next section).

If you are defending a sector, you have 40 minutes from mission start to destroy the attacking enemy tanks. After this time limit expires, the tanks are still counted as ground objectives, but destroying them has no effect on the outcome of the attack mission. The intent is to force bombers to attack before defending fighters run out of fuel.

Examples

In the next image, blue side has the possibility of a multiple sector capture:

Red side has a bridge-head which can be encircled if the blue side attacks as depicted by the arrow in the next image below. In this case, blue captures that sector, also encircling the sector marked with the red “X,” thereby capturing both sectors with a single attack:

If these situations arise, the opposing side must anticipate the encircling attack and immediately work to create an alternate supply route with their own attack, as shown by the red attack in the next image below:

Rescue Missions

First of all, remember that only pilots considered as captured by IL-2 may be rescued. When the game displays the message "[pilot name] has been captured by enemy forces", the named pilot becomes a candidate for rescue by any other pilot from the same side.
To rescue a captured pilot, the rescuing friendly pilot must land near him, wait a certain period of time simulating the time needed for the downed pilot to reach his plane, takeoff, and return to any friendly airbase.
The following paragraphs provide a more detailed explanation of how the parser handles the rescue simulation. It’s not “required reading,” but may be helpful if you want to avoid a failed rescue attempt. When you rescue a pilot, most of your actions are not logged (IL2 does not record them), so the parser must later try to piece together your actions using very limited data. The only information logged by IL-2 and available for the parser to use consists of 3 pairs of coordinates: the captured pilot’s location, the rescue plane’s landing location, and its takeoff location.
The landing location is the spot where the rescue aircraft first comes to a complete stop (speed = 0 Km/H). Note that these coordinates are unrelated to the direction of approach/landing, the touchdown point, or how long/far you taxi before finally stopping. If at any point your speed drops to zero before you reach your intended stopping point, that spot will be recorded as the landing location.
As you’ll see soon, the landing location is one of two possible spots where the downed pilot can be loaded into the rescuing aircraft. One condition for successful rescue is that the distance between landing location and capture location must be less than 5000 meters (5 KM or 3.125 Miles). If the distance is greater, the parser assumes that the downed pilot could not see the rescue plane after it landed, so the rescue wasn’t possible.
The takeoff location is the spot where the rescuing aircraft is no longer touching the ground, and is several meters above ground with flying speed. However, the nothing tells the parser where the plane began its takeoff roll. So, the plane may have begun its takeoff roll from any point on a circle around takeoff location. (A 1500 meter takeoff roll is assumed.)
In next image below, the blue dot represents the recorded takeoff location. The shaded circle has a 1500 meter radius, and all points around the edge of the circle represent possible starting locations for the takeoff roll. Points A , B and C are 3 such possible takeoff roll starting points, all of which result in the plane being airborne at the blue dot. Any point on the outer edge of this circle is a potential loading spot for the downed pilot. The parser will assume the best fit direction, such that the takeoff roll starting point will always be 1500 meters from take off point AND in the direction of the rescued pilot.

So, whenever you try to rescue a pilot, the parser will measure the distance from the capture location to two possible loading points: (1) the landing location, and (2) the closest point on the outer edge of the “possible takeoff rolls” circle. The lesser of these 2 distances is considered to be the distance to walk (or run).

Let's take a look at an example:

The landing place is the big black X at the center of the 5 Km circle and the takeoff place is the red X.
Pilot 3 is outside 5Km range, and thus cannot be rescued.
Pilot 1 has to walk/run 700 meters to the landing point (the shorter of the 2 pink distance lines).
Pilot 2 is closer to the takeoff circle, about 1200 meters to point "A". So the parser will assume you landed
at the black X, taxied to point A, loaded Pilot 2 and later started your takeoff roll.

Now we’ve learned the possible loading locations for the downed pilot, and how the distance to walk/run is determined. Next we’ll look at how the captured pilot reaches the rescue plane.
The “captured” pilot may be either healthy, wounded or heavily wounded. His condition determines how quickly he can walk or run to the rescue plane. A healthy pilot can run at a speed of 5 meters per second (18km/h). A wounded pilot can only walk at a speed of 2m/s (7.2 km/h, as a fast walk). Finally, a heavily wounded pilot can’t move at all. Instead, the rescuing pilot must land, run to his location, and carry him slowly back to the plane. The speed for this round trip is averaged to a normal walking speed of 1m/s (3.6 km/h), however the distance is doubled to account for the situation described.

At this point, with both distance to walk and walk/run speed determined, the "time required for the captured pilot to reach the rescue plane" can be calculated. It’s impossible for you to know exactly what this time is while in game, but generally the closer you land to the captured pilot, the lower the time you’ll need to wait before taking off. If you have comms, you should ask the pilot whether he is wounded or not to get an idea of the required waiting time. (At the end of this section the author posted a table with values for distance/speed/wait time).

To simulate rescue, we assume that the pilot starts running (or walking) toward what will be the eventual loading point one minute before the rescue plane lands. Heavily wounded pilots are the exception, since the rescuing pilot cannot start toward these pilots until stopping their plane at the loading point. The "walk time clock" is cut off 20 seconds before the rescue plane takes off (a 20 second takeoff time is assumed).

The new rescue system allows you to land before the downed pilot reaches the ground. So, you can actually plan your rescue and land while the chute is still descending! Just be sure your landing location is close enough to where the chute will eventually land, wait long enough after it does so (as discussed above), take off, and complete the rescue normally. In this case, the "time to walk" clock will begin as soon the chute touches the ground. The only drawback to landing before the chute is that you can’t be certain that IL2 will status the downed pilot as “captured” until the chute finally lands.

No matter how close the landing or takeoff points are to the captured pilot, a minimum of 50 meters walking distance is always assumed. So the rescuing pilot must always wait a minimum of 10 to 50 seconds for the downed pilot to be loaded, depending on his condition. But, remember that the downed pilot starts walking when he sees your plane on approach to landing (1 minute before you land), so the wait time can be little or nothing if the load point is very close. Once again though, heavily wounded pilots are an exception.

You may think that the wait times are excessive, but they’re not because since the parser assumes a best fit take off direction, you essentially have a 1.5 kilometer “handicap.” In most cases you’ll land about 3km or less from the downed pilot, taxi close to him (lets say 1km or less), and later take off. In a worst case situation, you take off in the direction opposite of where captured player was. In this worst case, the distance to walk will be 500 meters or less, so waiting time is between 1.7 minutes and 8.3 minutes, depending on pilot health. If pilot is not heavy wounded, the time to wait is 1 minute less, because he’s walking in your direction before you land. Check the table below for other distances.

In most cases, if you taxi close to the capture location before stopping, the distance to walk will be the 50 meter minimum, and because pilot started walking before you landed, wait state is negligible. Again, the only exception is the heavy wounded pilot, where you have to wait slightly longer.

Below you can see how events are handled by the parser with an example taken from mission badc_54096 used for testing. Distances shown are in meters. Time in seconds is measured relative to day start (hour 00:00:00)

14:18:48 LeLv69_Masi captured at [ 91828.68 , 22845.912 ] 
14:20:18 LeLv28_Lana landed at [ 90949.62 , 22897.652 ] inside 5km limit 
14:23:06 LeLv28_Lana take off at [ 90016.07 , 22906.1 ] 
- distance to land place: 880 meters 
- distance to toff place: 313 meters 
- distance used: 313 meters 
- captured_secs:51528 
- land_secs:51618 
- toff_secs:51786 
- start_walk_secs:51558 (land secs - 60) 
- stop_walk_secs=51766 (toff secs - 20) 
- walk_time=208 ( stop_walk_secs - start_walk_secs ) 
- wounded=0 walk_speed=5 walk_distance=1040 meters 
- Looking for LeLv28_Lana return to base: Found! 
*** LeLv69_Masi rescued by LeLv28_Lana   

The 3 first lines are the 3 recorded location coordinates (and times) involved in the rescue. Later the distances are measured, and the lower distance is selected. In this example, the takeoff point (-1500 meters for takeoff roll) is closest, at 313 meters distance. The walk time was 208 seconds (just over 3 minutes). LeLv69_Masi walk speed was set to 5 meters/sec because he is not founded, so he can cover a distance of 1040 meters in 208 seconds. Since the distance to load point is 313 meters - lower than 1040 meters – LeLv69_Masi is considered to have reached the plane. Later LeLv28_Lana returned to base, successfully accomplishing the rescue.

The programmer tried to keep the new rescue system as compatible with the old one as possible. It is almost 100% compatible with the old method, so, doing a rescue the old way should work fine. The only difference that must be taken into account is wait times.

The new system is more flexible, since allowing the landing point to be as far as 5 Kilometers away makes better landing locations available. That condition aside, there are no limits on how close you have to be. Distance can be anything up to 5 kilometers. The rescue will now depend on the time you wait for the pilot and the distance to his downed location.

Time Of The Day

There is a day-system in this game. Each virtual day corresponds to a determined number of missions. For FIBOW, each virtual day will consist of 30 missions.

Cities/towns and airfields perform a certain percentage of damage self-repair at the end of each virtual day in the game. Caring for your cities, towns and airfields - and defending against enemy attacks on them – are some of the most important tasks in FIBOW. Correspondingly, to decisively defeat the enemy, you must inflict maximum damage on his cities and/or airfields.

Airfields

Airfields remain operational until their damage is reaches 60% or higher. When damage is this high or more, the airfield becomes inoperative and no flights can originate from it. However, all friendly aircraft may still safely land there at the end of a mission. As airfield damage increases, fewer and fewer AAA guns, artillery and objects will be found there.

Cities/Towns

Just as with airfields, the greater the damage to cities and towns, the fewer AAA guns, artillery and objects will be found them.

Each city/town has a maximum supply radius based on its importance and/or size. Any damage to a city reduces that radius by an amount proportional to the damage level. Cities and towns provide the ground forces with supplies: food, ammo, fuel etc. So, the circle described by the supply radius determines whether or the surrounding map sectors will be defended by ground forces.

Flights

All flights, whether attack or defense, will originate at least 40 km from the target area. Sometimes the target area is much further away from the origination point, and in these cases the designated landing airfield will be the closest possible one to the selected attack or defense zone. This is designed to allow the mission to be ended as soon as possible.No flights will start from two enemy airfields too close to each other nor finish in an airfield too close to the target area because that is considered a high risk situation.

Attack Combinations & Plane Organization

Since each side can choose various of attack and target combinations, there are several overall mission possibilities:

1. Tactical Vs. Tactical:

   In this case, both sides are trying to capture enemy map sectors. The mission setup will be as follows:

   Allies: A bomber group will try to destroy enemy troops/tanks invading the allied sector with or without escort fighters. This is classified as a DEFENSE FLIGHT. In addition, there could be a fighter group trying to give aerial support to the allied ground attack in another sector (classified as an ATTACK FLIGHT).

   Axis: A bomber group will try to destroy enemy troops/tanks invading the axis sector with or without escort fighters. This kind of mission is known as DEFENCE FLIGHT. Also there could be a group of fighters giving aerial support to the axis ground attack at the chosen sector (know as ATTACK FLIGHT).

2. Allies: Tactical Vs. Axis: Strategic

   In this case, allied troops are trying to conquer an enemy sector of the map, while axis troops are simultaneously attacking an allied town/city or airfield.

   Allies: An interception group will be deployed near the town/city or airfield being attacked by the axis (DEFENSE FLIGHT), while another fighter group will be deployed over the sector being attacked by allied ground forces, to support them (ATTACK FLIGHT).

   Axis: A bomber group will perform the strategic attack (against the town/city or airfield) with their fighter escorts (ATTACK FLIGHT), while another bomber group and their fighter escorts try to halt the advancing allied troops. (DEFENSE FLIGHT).

3. Allies: Strategic Vs. Axis: Tactical

   This situation is identical to scenario 2. Above, but with the roles reversed. Now, allied pilots will have two bomber groups, each with their own escort fighter group: one attack flight and the other a defense flight. The axis side will be have the two fighter groups.

4. Allies: Strategic Vs. Axis: Strategic

   This is the final possible situation in a FIBOW mission. In this case, both sides are trying to attack an area generally far from their starting airfields. The situation is very similar to VEF2 campaigns flown in the past.

   Flights setup is as follows:

   Allies: A bomber group with their escort fighter group (ATTACK FLIGHT), and an interception fighter group (DEFENSE FLIGHT).

   Axis: Also a bomber group with their escort fighter group (ATTACK FLIGHT), and an interception fighter group (DEFENSE FLIGHT).

FIBOW: Rules

Every FIBOW pilot has certain rights, however just as in real life, there are also a few obligations. You’ll find a list of each below, followed by a list of several actions that are either allowed or forbidden while flying FIBOW missions, along with some consequences built into the software. Anything not listed as forbidden is allowable within FIBOW. After these lists come some procedures and recommendations for hosting FIBOW missions.

Pilots Rights

• When you join a mission by occupying a slot on the FIBOW page in HL, you have the right to be part of that mission.
• You have at least one hour to complete your mission task.
• You have the right to follow or not to follow briefings.
• You have the right to have all of your missions reported.

Pilot Obligations

• You may not leave the mission once started. (Filtering, or disco on purpose.)
• You may not complain if you are strafed or been chute killed – this is war. Bad stuff happens.
• You may not complain about other people using lights or smoke.
• You may not complain about other people choosing not to follow briefings.
• You may not read the opposing side’s briefings.
• You may not use any in-game or 3rd party exploits to gain unfair advantage. (To be expanded.)
• In general you may complain only if your rights were not respected; and all complaints should be through private messages. (Take notes if/when an incident occurs.)

Allowed and Forbidden Actions, and Consequences

• You can land and take off any number of times in one mission.
• You can use navigation lights at any time and any number of times.
• Strafing is allowed, at any time, at any place.
• Landing lights are allowed in the first 5 minutes of a mission (for takeoff), and within 5 minutes of any attempted landing. Any use outside these time windows results in automatic points deductions.
• Smoke is not intended for use in a wartime simulation. The ONLY exception within FIBOW is during the Supply Task. Any other use of smoke results in automatic point deductions.
• Chute kills are not forbidden, however points will be deducted for them since it was and is a cheap and despised, cowardly action.
• Team kills will be handled automatically by the parser, regardless of the reason for them.

Host Procedure

• As host, you are also a pilot, so all pilot rights, obligations, etc. listed above apply to you.
• When you start a mission, all pilots in HL slots have to be admitted. Joining via “backdoor” should only occur by exception. (Reconnects are an exception.) Recommend granting no more than 2 backdoor entries per mission.
• The mission needs to run for at least 30 minutes, even if all humans are killed/landed/ disco(nnected) before 30 minutes have passed. The mission must also run until all humans have left the game. If a mission has lasted a full hour, the host has the right to stop the mission, or to let it continue, regardless of the status of all other pilots.
• The game settings should be FR (Full real) plus speed bar at all times.
• Dotrange settings should be default (14km). No variation is allowed.
• Any change to the downloaded mission is absolutely forbidden (time, weather, or anything else).
• The minimum number of human players in each mission is 3 vs 3.
• Mission logs may not be edited or changed in any way.
• All missions must be reported (ideally as soon as possible).
• The host may not kick players during the mission.
• Hosts must properly set up the eventlogs in order to correctly report missions. To do so, edit the FB config file "conf.ini" in your game’s folder. Make sure these lines and values are present in the "[game]" section:

  [game]
          [...]
          eventlog=coop.txt
          eventlogkeep=1

  From time to time you have to manually delete the file "coop.txt", because it sizes gets excessive. The parser will not accept files bigger than 200Kb.

Host Recommendations

• Try to host with the max number of players you’re certain your connection can handle. The recommendation is to allow 10kbits upload per player. Use this link to check your upload speed: http://www.pcpitstop.com/internet/default.asp
• Restarts are not recommended unless at least 3 planes are lost. If 3 or more planes are lost, anyone may request a restart in chat. The host decides. If several planes are lost by the opposing side, while your own side loses none, offering to restart is highly recommended. This is a generous display of good sportsmanship; an example of the sort of good attitude we’d like to see all the time among FIBOW competitors.
• The host should set network speed to 14.4 kbits/s, regardless of the type of connection used. You can automaticaly force IL-2 to 14.4 kbit/s by editing your HyperLobby configuration file "hlpro.ini", adding this line to it: "serverRate=1500" as shown here:
  

  [Forgotten Battles]
          joinDelay=20
          clientRate=1500
          serverRate=1500

  Or if you prefer a default speed of 28.8 kbit/s:
  

  [Forgotten Battles]
          joinDelay=20 
          clientRate=3000 
          serverRate=3000 

• MaxLag is also recommended. To set this, edit the IL-2 config file "conf.ini" in your IL-2 folder. Then verify that these lines and values are present.

  [MaxLag] 
          farMaxLagTime=2 
          nearMaxLagTime=1 
          cheaterWarningDelay=1 
          cheaterWarningNum=1

• Next, speed check is recommended. For this, once again edit the IL-2 config file "conf.ini" in your IL-2 folder. Verify these lines and values are present within the "[NET]" section.

  [NET] 
          [...]
          checkServerTimeSpeed=1
          checkClientTimeSpeed=1
          checkTimeSpeedDifferense=0.05
          checkTimeSpeedInterval=5

• Finally, setting Skin Download Off always helps to reduce network traffic.

FIBOW: Point System

Before we discuss points, an explanation of the indices that affect them is in order. After that, you may also check the task explanation page in order to understand why some tasks has no points for some ground or air kills.

Experience Index

The experience index is a way of expressing how good your actual virtual pilot is. When you start a new virtual pilot career (first mission, or first mission after kia/mia) your pilot experience is set to 1 (or 100%). Then, as long as you keep this pilot alive, his experience grows. It will never decrease. In the table below you can see what actions or events affect your pilot’s experience level. Once a pilot dies, experience reverts back to 1 (or 100%) on your next mission (as a “new” pilot).

This index in turn affects the points won in mission. For example, if your pilot experience after 8 sorties alive is 1.23 (123%), the mission points earned are increased by 23%. The bad news is that as your experience grows, so does the prize for your head! This is because with every air kill, the points won are affected by the downed pilot’s experience.

Let’s say you fly a mission, where a base amount of10 points will be awarded for each fighter destroyed. If you down an AI_Veteran (experience 0.8 or 80%) you will only earn 8 points. But if you down an expert human, say a pilot with an experience level of 1.68 (or 168%), you will earn 17 points. .

This index serves 2 purposes. One is motivation to keep your virtual pilot alive, so you win points at an ever-accelerating rate. The other is to establish the points earned with each specific air kill. We all know that defeating a bot isn’t the same as outflying a human. This dynamic scoring system recognizes and rewards that varying degree of difficulty.

When you rescue a pilot, your experience grows by 0.1 (10%), to simulate learning something from the pilot you just saved.

Fair Play Index

The Fairplay index works similar to the experience index, with some differences. First, the maximum value of the Fairplay index is 100%. It’s meant to reflect how well pilots follow the guidelines explained in previous pages. In FIBOW it’s not against the rules to use smoke or kill pilots in their chutes, but since both are generally frowned upon, each such incident on your part will negatively affect your fairplay index.

The table below shows the affect of each action on the fairplay index. The total points earned on the mission are affected by the index’s total percentage level at the end of the mission.

So, this index serves as “automatic punishment.” It can also be improved in 5% increments, with each mission flown without any “punishable” incidents. You must keep this index at 100% to avoid losing a percentage of points earned on your missions. This index also affects the awarding of any medals earned. If you reach the points required to earn a certain medal, but your fairplay is below 100%, award of the medal is delayed until your fairplay index recovers to 100%.

Rescuing a pilot resets your fairplay index to 100% as a bonus for this courageous and challenging effort.

Kill Points

The next table shows the number of points for each kill, which varies according to your mission task.

Mission Points By Task

This table shows the number of points earned for the outcome of your mission task. Each task has a different condition, so in FIBOW various pilots on the same side can have different resulting point totals for the same mission. If you are escorting a group of bombers, and they all survive, you are awarded the maximum points points possible. At the same time, the bombers must hit their target to maximize their own mission point totals.

Other Points

Finally, here are a few other events that earn points as listed: