WW FLYERS

Quick Start

← Download pageWatch the videoWays to playInstallBomber EscortWorld War IIControlsCannon gunnerReading the HUDScoringMultiplayerHosting

Watch the intro first: Classic Dogfight, Bomber Escort and Cannon Gunner in about a minute. Full HD version (84 MB)

Ways to play

WW Flyers is arcade air combat in two wars - World War I and World War II - with three ways to fight and a public server that mixes them all. Everything runs on one battlefield: two armies of infantry, tanks, artillery and supply trucks fight below you, and every unit can be hit.

Play Single Player against bots, Host a game for friends, or Join the public server 3wcircus.com (UDP port 7778). The public server runs all four combinations - Classic and Bomber Escort, in World War I and II - and moves on to a different one each round. At the end of every round the game tells you what is coming next, and anyone can call a vote to skip to it (press V, then Y or N).

1. Install

Run WWFlyers-Setup.exe (Windows 10 / 11). It installs just for you - no administrator prompt - and adds a Start Menu entry and an optional desktop shortcut. If Windows SmartScreen appears, choose More info → Run anyway; the installer is code-signed. To remove the game use Windows Settings → Apps.

Mac: download WWFlyers-Mac.zip (works on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs) and double-click it to unzip. Drag WWFlyers.app into your Applications folder, then right-click it and choose Open the first time - the Mac app is not notarized by Apple yet, so a plain double-click says it cannot verify the developer. Choose Open again in the dialog and it starts normally from then on (if there is no Open button, use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway). If macOS asks whether to allow incoming network connections, click Allow. To remove the game, drag the app to the Trash.

2. Your first flight

1. Choose Single Player, pick a side (Allies or Central Powers - Axis in World War II) and an aircraft - the preview turns so you can see it, and the bars compare speed, agility, armour and bomb load - then Take Off.
2. You start high over your own trench line, heading for the enemy. Push the mouse to steer - the plane follows where you point.
3. Hold the left mouse button to fire the guns (they are fixed: rounds always leave straight down the nose, so point the plane at what you want to hit - only heavy bombers have turrets that fire in other directions); right-click to drop a bomb. Bombs fall forward of where you release them, so let go a little early. A dropped bomb whistles on the way down - you will hear other pilots' bombs coming too.
4. Damage shows: the more a plane or tank is hit, the more it smokes - a faint wisp at first, thick black smoke when badly hurt, and flames when nearly gone. Planes are tough and can take a lot of hits - but two aircraft that collide are both destroyed, so keep your distance in a dogfight. Tanks are tough too: they smoke first and go up in a huge explosion when finally destroyed. Use it to spot who is about to go down - yours included.
5. Throttle. You always take off at full power. Ease off with Ctrl / F (D-pad down on a pad) only when you need to - to keep pace with slower aircraft such as the bombers in Bomber Escort - and open up again with Shift / R (D-pad up). The POWER figure in the left panel shows where you are. In Bomber Escort a fighter can throttle right back to about 50 km/h; the bombers cruise at 55-70 km/h.
6. Shoot down enemy aircraft, strafe infantry, bomb tanks and artillery. Every kill scores for your side.
7. The ground is not flat: rolling hills and gullies run across no-man's-land, so you can hug the terrain to hide your approach - and tanks and infantry use it too. Soldiers and tanks walk round rocks, trees, bunkers and barricades, and when they are under fire they slip behind the nearest rock, bunker or barricade and fight from there, so they are harder to hit once they find shelter.
8. Watch the ground (tanks fire slowly, but every shell counts; armour and guns shoot back at each other as well as at infantry): tanks and artillery fire flashing, smoking shells at clusters of infantry. You can follow the smoke trail back to the gun, and each shell lands in a huge fireball that kills every soldier in range and throws them into the air. Each kind of blast looks different so you can read the battlefield: plane bombs burst yellow-orange, tank shells land in a napalm fireball, and artillery shells go up in the biggest orange fireball. A tank or gun destroyed by a bomb goes up in a giant napalm-style blast. Keep your altitude up over enemy tanks. Every artillery piece has a gunner standing beside it.

Bomber Escort mode

A different kind of round: instead of two armies, you and your wingmen are all on the Allied side, escorting a stream of heavy bombers across the map to a German city. In World War I the bombers are airships; in World War II they are B-17 Fortresses.

1. The bombers fly one straight line, side by side across the whole battlefield, at three different heights. They do not turn and they do not fly home: keeping the bombers alive is your job.
2. German fighters (at least twice as many as there are escort pilots) take off from the city end and go straight for the bombers. Shoot them down - each kill scores for you. Your bot wingmen each guard a bomber, flying in tight at its wingtip, and only break away for a plane that is actually shooting at them or at their bomber. Press T for the team orders: 7 - Defend the bombers is the default, and you can send the bots after planes, tanks, cannons, troops or transports instead.
3. The bombers carry their own guns and fire on fighters that attack them. An airship has a single gun in its gondola and cannot fire upward.
4. As the stream nears the city an air-raid siren sounds. The city is defended by anti-aircraft cannons, in front of it and among the streets. Each is worked by a gunner: kill the gunner and it falls silent until a replacement walks up; destroy the cannon and a new one is rolled in. Machine-gun fire or a bomb destroys a cannon (and scores for you).
5. Over the city the bombers unleash a massive bombing run, flattening it block by block - the escorts can bomb the city too once the bombers are over it. Buildings burn for minutes afterwards. When the bombers have cleared the map the round is over.
6. The ground war carries on below you, with supply trucks and armed cars driving the roads. When a bomber is shot down its crew may bail out, and now and then a bot pilot leaves a stricken fighter: paratroopers drift down under the canopy (nobody can shoot them on the way down) and, once landed, fight on as ordinary soldiers.

World War II mode

WW Flyers fights two wars. Besides the Great War there is a full World War II edition: new aircraft, new armies and a few new tricks. Everything in this guide applies to both wars; this section covers what is different.

• The sides. The Great War's Allies and Central Powers become the Allies (American-led) and the Axis. Controls, scoring and the minimap work exactly as before. Your propeller spins, and so does every other plane's.
• The armies. Allied infantry and tanks are American (Sherman, Pershing and Chaffee tanks); the Axis field German infantry and a mixed armoured force (Panzer IV, Sturmtiger, SdKfz 222 armoured car, Wespe). Field guns are Howitzers - the barrel rises and falls with the elevation of each shot, for bots and human gunners alike (this is true in the Great War too).
• Wrecks. A destroyed tank or gun is no longer a box: it is the same vehicle, charred black and burning - a tank has its turret blown off, a gun its barrel dropped to the ground.
• Heavy bombers. Any plane with a big bomb load (the Royal Biplane in the Great War, and the B-17 bombers you escort in World War II) carries tail, top and belly gun turrets as well as its nose guns. When you press fire every gun fires: the nose guns ahead, the tail gunner behind, the top turret up and the belly turret down. The turrets also shoot on their own at any enemy plane that comes into their field of fire. Bot bombers hunt guns, tanks and troops - not aircraft - and when a fighter lines up on them they jink and climb while their gunners fight back.
• Names and chat. The bot pilots fit their aircraft: Allied bots sound American, German pilots in Messerschmitts have German names and talk Luftwaffe, and pilots in Zeros have Japanese names and Japanese phrases. Chat them and they answer in character.
• Random skies. Every round (in both wars) starts under a different sky - overcast, cold sunset, glorious pink, blue sunset or a clear cartoon blue.
• First-person view. Scroll the mouse wheel in past the closest chase view and the camera glides up to your plane's nose and hides your own aircraft, leaving just your crosshair - like flying the missile. Scroll back out to return. Z still switches to the cockpit view.

3. Controls

4. Cannon gunner

Prefer artillery to aircraft? On the side screen, under Choose how you fight, click Cannon Gunner instead of Pilot (Spectate just watches the battle). Pick your side, then press Man the Cannon in single player or a hosted game, or Enter Battle on the public server. It works in single player, in a hosted game and on the public server. You take over a field cannon on your side's artillery line and there is no plane to fly. Pilots and gunners fight in the same match.

• Aiming. A yellow arc previews the shell's flight and a marker shows where it will land, with the range. The panel at bottom left shows traverse (degrees left or right of straight ahead), elevation, range and reload. Shell power is fixed, so range comes from elevation: about 1,700 m at 45 degrees. The barrel moves from 5 to 80 degrees up and 85 degrees either side.
• Shell camera. When you fire, the camera rides the shell all the way down, then stays at the crater for a few seconds so you can see what it hit. You can keep aiming while it flies; fire again and the camera follows the new shell. Right click (or C) goes straight back to the cannon.
• Hitting things. The cannon reloads for 4 seconds. A shell's blast kills every soldier within about 26 m and hurts tanks, guns and aircraft near it. A shell takes many seconds to land, so lead anything that is moving.
• Staying alive. Enemy tanks and guns shoot back at your cannon, which can take 90 points of damage. If it is destroyed you respawn at a fresh one after a few seconds. Your kills score for your side exactly like a pilot's - see the scoring table.

5. Reading the HUD

• Blue = friends, red = enemies, always from your point of view, whichever side you picked.
• Tags float over aircraft with a name and distance. Red tags are enemy planes (and enemy tanks that are close).
• Minimap (bottom right): your side is always at the bottom. Yellow is you; enemy aircraft pulse when they get within 400 m. Tiny dots are infantry; solid squares are tanks; small tan diamonds are supply vehicles; larger diamonds are artillery; big amber blips are bombers. The thin lines are the roads.
• Top bar: your side's score, the clock, and the enemy score. Left panel: speed, altitude, power, bombs, hull and your kills.
• Kill feed (top left) lists aircraft kills and crashes.

6. Scoring and winning

How the score works. Every kill adds its value to your side's total - whether you, a bot pilot, a tank or the infantry made it - and your own kills and points show on the left panel and as a +150 TANK popup under the crosshair. Bombs are the best way to earn big points on the ground; guns are best against aircraft.

How a round is won. The first side to reach 4000 points wins at once; otherwise the side with the higher total when the 10-minute clock runs out wins (equal scores = stalemate). Shot down? You respawn after a few seconds. Friendly fire is off by default; switch it on from the single-player screen, the host screen or the pause menu.

The Esc menu and the help card

• The Esc menu is laid out like in You Are the Missile: Enter Game (only while you are watching), Leave Game, Spectate, Quit to Desktop, sound and music sliders, and tick boxes for Mute Music, Show Player Names, Invert Dive / Climb and Friendly Fire. In single player it also pauses the game.
• Press H at any time (menus, cockpit, spectating) for the help card: six pages covering the match, getting in, every key, the cannon gunner, the armies and scoring, and the server. ← → or the page numbers turn the pages; H or Esc closes it.

Display and sound

• Full screen: the game starts full screen. F11 or Alt+Enter switches between full screen and a window, and the Esc menu has a Display button too.
• Sound: the Esc menu has an Audio panel with a Music slider, a Sound Effects slider and Mute Music. Settings are remembered. Explosions are loud close up and fade with distance, and are quieter while you are spectating. The title screen plays "Fate of a Generation"; each match starts a different random track.

7. Multiplayer

• Lobby: pick side and aircraft - or choose Cannon Gunner under Choose how you fight - see who is connected (gunners are marked) and chat.
• Spectate: press Esc → Spectate (or choose it in the lobby). Drag to look, scroll to zoom, WASD fly the camera (Shift faster). F is the only key that picks players: the first press follows the best score, each further press moves to the next player. The top of the screen shows who you are following with their score, kills and hull. Esc stops following (a second Esc opens the menu); to fly, press Esc then Enter Game. Choosing Spectate on the side and aircraft screen takes you straight into watching - no need to press Enter Battle. If you are still watching when a battle ends, you start the next one watching too.
• Chat: Y anywhere in a match or the lobby. Messages fade out slowly; @name talks to someone (the line turns gold on their screen). The bot pilots trash-talk, congratulate and answer back - in single player too.

8. Host your own game

1. Host Game from the title screen, enter your name, optionally switch friendly fire on, then Open Lobby.
2. Friends use Join Game and your address. On a home network they need your IP; for internet play forward UDP port 7778 on your router to your PC.
3. When everyone is in, press Start Match. Latecomers can still join mid-match.

Run a dedicated server (Windows or Linux): launch the game with -batchmode -nographics -server and optionally -port 7778 -teamsize 4 -matchlength 600 -friendlyfire -era ww2. Put a server.cfg next to the program to set the options permanently:

# server.cfg
port = 7778
team_size = 4          # pilots per side; bots fill the rest
match_length = 600     # seconds per round
score_limit = 4000
era = ww1              # ww1 / ww2 / random (a fresh war every round)
mode = random          # random (a fresh war and kind of round every round) / rotate (classic WWI, escort WWI, classic WWII, escort WWII, repeating) / classic / escort / alternate
escort_slots = 6       # Bomber Escort: escort pilots in total (people + bots), 2 to 8
escort_fill = on       # Bomber Escort: bots fill the empty escort seats
friendly_fire = off    # on / off
respawn_delay = 4

Troubleshooting

• Can't connect: check the address and that UDP port 7778 is open (firewall / router). The server is also unreachable if a match crashed - try again in a minute.
• Controller not working: the menus show a line at the bottom left naming every controller the game can see ("No controller detected" if none). Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro and most USB pads work; plug it in before starting the game or move a stick / press a button, and use the d-pad or left stick to move around the menus. If it still says none, tell us the controller model.
• Choppy frame rate: close other heavy programs; the game is light, but a hosting PC runs the whole simulation.
• Something broken? Tell us what you were doing and roughly when - the game keeps a log at %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\3wcircus\WW Flyers\Player.log on Windows, ~/Library/Logs/Unity/Player.log on a Mac.

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