Patch 1.26 observations and comments

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Well, I sneaked away for a ten minute QC and it looks good!...saw many wings ripping off, and spiralling death dives.... all good stuff

 

(until I bought it, thanks to this DVII)

Edited March 9, 2009 by UK_Widowmaker

[Parky 8]

Aileron troubles UK? Looks like he shot 'em up quite nicely. Wonder if that's Olham in the cockpit.....

[Crossbones 1]

New updates are great. I've never seen a sim with so many options to tweak it just the way you like it.

 

Love the new digs too CA! I feel right at home here.

 

Crossbones

(Croz)

[Dirk98 0]

1.26+Hotfix make the best OFF game so far for me.

 

Thanks,

Dirk.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Aileron troubles UK? Looks like he shot 'em up quite nicely. Wonder if that's Olham in the cockpit.....

Yes...he got a good burst in..I was slow to react...therefore the end was swift!

[Interlocutor 0]

The Sop Tripe, however, has gone from bad to worse. It was way too tail heavy in the earlier versions and now is even more tail heavy. It pops up off the ground in about 10 feet and is very erratic in level flight. It's very hard to keep the nose on the horizon. It's impossible to line up the front and rear sights using TIR. It may be worth taking another look at it.

 

I agree with tttiger's observation on the Tripe. I fly the Tripe & the N17 almost exclusively, and though I'm pleased that the Tripe's tendency to speed up too quickly in a dive has been corrected with 1.26, it now seems almost unflyable to me, stalling in the blink of an eye, and falling off readily into spins. In his great WW1 book Sagitarrius Rising, Cecil Lewis, a combat pilot and test pilot in WW1 who flew almost every plane which served with the RFC/RNAS/RAF, said the Tripe was the most pleasant plane to fly of them all. He said you could set the throttle about 3/4 open, pull back slightly on the stick, then let the stick go and the Tripe would loop continuously of its own accord! The Tripe, it seems to me, should be a very stable aircraft in flight.

 

The adjustments made to the N17 seem fine to me. As for the gunnery changes, to my taste the new "Normal" setting makes gunfire too effective, so I'll fly with the "Hard" option (i.e., the same gunfire effectiveness as we had pre-1.26), which always seemed about right to me. I wish I could shoot like Tommy Slater , but I can't and I know it, so my need to use lotsa bullets to down a plane seems right to me.

[Bigfish2 0]

Yes I like it very much and thanks to the developers once again for such excellent and responsive support. The behaviour of EAs when shot down seems much closer to what you read in first-hand accounts. The Camel's FM seems much twitchier and it spins much more readily if flown in ham-fisted (ie often in my case) manner, as per accounts of flying it. I'm looking forward to seeing what's happened with 2 seaters, especially as I picked this up in a 2nd hand bookshop yesterday - Kilduff , P, The Red Baron: Beyond the Legend, Cassell, 2002 - which contains in an appendix a translation of Richthofen's "Air Combat Operations Manual", including how he went about shooting down 2 seaters. Very interesting read.

[77Scout 3]

The Sop Tripe, however, has gone from bad to worse. It was way too tail heavy in the earlier versions and now is even more tail heavy. It pops up off the ground in about 10 feet and is very erratic in level flight. It's very hard to keep the nose on the horizon. It's impossible to line up the front and rear sights using TIR. It may be worth taking another look at it.

 

For what its worth, I just had a campaign in the Tripe and had none of these problems. Easy to fly and easy to align gun sight using Trackir.

[Interlocutor 0]

For what its worth, I just had a campaign in the Tripe and had none of these problems. Easy to fly and easy to align gun sight using Trackir.

 

77Scout, was the Tripe campaign you refer to flown with the new 1.26 patch?

[LE~Hex 0]

I wish I could shoot like Tommy Slater , but I can't and I know it, so my need to use lotsa bullets to down a plane seems right to me.

 

Perhaps you need more frequent cat naps... We'll wake you when we need you to gonflez the rest of the squad!

[tttiger 0]

For what its worth, I just had a campaign in the Tripe and had none of these problems. Easy to fly and easy to align gun sight using Trackir.

 

Scout,

 

Were these all AFTER the new patch?

 

I just flew a couple Tripe missions and it just confirmed what I said.

 

I spent the whole mission fighting the airplane, which keeps trying to climb unless I hold the stick forward quite firmly. If I let my grip loose while I'm looking around it will try to go up and will begin to stall.

 

It's simply too tail heavy.

 

I fly with the default pitch settings (which in real life couldn't be changed in flight except in the SE5a, which actually had adjustable trim tabs). I suppose I could pound on the Numpad 7 key but I shouldn't have to do that.

 

Whatever was done in the last patch to move the center of gravity to make the other planes more tail heavy needs to be done in the opposite direction with the Sop Tripe.

 

As far as aligning the sights with Track IR, I've never been able to do that in the Tripe (I don't like using the iron sight setting because it doesn't allow me to look around; it's locked on that view). My sight picture in the Virtual Cockpit always has the rear sight much lower than the front sight (this is not a problem in any other plane). I get around it by aiming low because I know the rounds are going to go high. If there's some magic method you have, please share it

 

ttt

Edited March 9, 2009 by tttiger

[+Polovski 460]

Well it seems some see and feel completely different sensations to others with the craft. For me the tripe is slightly tail heavy (gently) not hugely, or horrible, or needing huge amounts of pressure, strange... anyway we'll look at....

[Interlocutor 0]

Perhaps you need more frequent cat naps... We'll wake you when we need you to gonflez the rest of the squad!

 

Mais oui! I can see that some one else is a Falcon of France .

 

BTW Hex, back in the RB3D days, I was a member of LafEsc, recruited by Uriel circa 1998. I flew with the squad in the great MP "Wars" of that era under the name LE_Mac.

[Red-Dog 3]

This sim is just getting better, i'am flying a SE5a and have had nothing but perfect missions,the SE5 flies like a dream,the wing men follow me every where,the enemy shoot me up, i shoot them up, bits coming off all over the place,it's gaming heaven.

Well done to all concerned for making the best flight sim ever........

[tttiger 0]

Well it seems some see and feel completely different sensations to others with the craft. For me the tripe is slightly tail heavy (gently) not hugely, or horrible, or needing huge amounts of pressure, strange... anyway we'll look at....

 

Thanks, Pol!

 

ttt

[Bletchley 8]

I made a test flight in the Albatros D.III, and I am very pleased with the changes to engine performance at changing altitude. I can now fly this aircraft up to 15,000 + ft. without having to touch the mixture control, which is just as it should be, I think (it had no manual mixture control). The D.III powered up nicely to 5000-6000 ft without any apparent loss of power, and I could see that best rpm was obtained at around 3000-4000 ft (indicating that the carburettor has now been leaned slightly for take-off, as I believe it actually was). After 6000 ft there is a noticeably loss of power and fall in rpm, but the D.III can still get up to 10,000-12,000 ft fairly comfortably, more slowly up to 15,000 ft, and then much more slowly thereafter which fits the historical data very well. I havn't tried any other aircraft yet, but I am hoping similar adjustments will have been made. Hats off, and a big thank you, to the developer chaps - I notice other players are also finding these and similar adjustments to be an improvement. I am looking forward to trying out the rest of the aircraft :)

 

To those that are experiencing problems with the Sopwith Triplane, note that this aircraft (like other Sopwith aircraft: Strutter and Pup, although I am not sure if the one on the Pup was needed or was even functional) had a horizontal stabiliser trim wheel within the cockpit - so you could legitimately use the CFS3 trim controls to make the Tripe a little less tail heavy in flight.

 

Bletchley

Edited March 9, 2009 by Bletchley

[tttiger 0]

To those that are experiencing problems with the Sopwith Triplane, note that this aircraft (like other Sopwith aircraft: Strutter and Pup, although I am not sure if the one on the Pup was needed or was even functional) had a horizontal stabiliser trim wheel within the cockpit - so you could legitimately use the CFS3 trim controls to make the Tripe a little less tail heavy in flight.

 

Bletchley

 

Wow! Looked it up (ain't Google amazing?) and you are absolutely correct!

 

AND the elevator trim wheel is modeled in the sim! In the Tripe it's that big silver wheel on the right side of the pilot's seat!

 

I've been making models of Sopwiths for at least 50 years and never knew you could control trim. Ya learn something every day!

 

Numpad 7 and 1 are about to get some exercise....

 

Thanks, B

 

ttt

Edited March 9, 2009 by tttiger

[77Scout 3]

77Scout, was the Tripe campaign you refer to flown with the new 1.26 patch?

 

Pretty sure it was 1.26.

 

Just to be sure I just re-flew the Tripe just now in QC with 1.26 Hotfix.

 

Flies good for me, no jitters, no stalling. Climbs easily. Turns rapidly. Loops easily. Can even do a barrel roll (which I couldn't in earlier versions).

 

It does require some forward stick to fly level (tail heavy, yes), but that seems correct, as I believe I saw quoted once by a Tripe pilot that 'hands off' the plane would loop continuously.

 

Funny that folks are seeing different things with the same bird.

[Olham 164]

Thank you for test flying "my" bird, Bletchley. Yes, I think, there's quite some improvement on her climb.

And Pol - you were right - she is a bit tail heavy. But that can be solved easy with elevator trim.

[Over50 0]

Great job with the difficutly balance now with essentially (3) settings for the novice, intermediate and full realism players and/or a mix of the three to suit. And really, really like the "normal" settings. Still get shot down but I can finally return the favor even with the SPAD - if, that is, I can resist getting into a turn-with-'em fight...

Edited March 10, 2009 by Over50

[Hiccup 0]

Please Don't Change The Tripe!! I think it flys great! It does take a little getting used to so as not to go into a spin but man can that thing turn. Almost feel like I'm turning in a helocopter at times. And I am using 1.26 Hot fix. I just compared the Camel and the Tripe against the Fokker DVII OAW with the pilot on ACE and the Tripe was much better in my opinion. Really enjoy flying at tree top level.

[Jimko 0]

Just got back home from a few days away and installed the 1.26 patch and hotpatch. After flying some QC and not much else, I LOVE it! Great changes to FM and DM as far as I can tell. Better AI behaviour in maintaining altitude during a fight.

 

Although a relative newcomer to OFF, I did fly a lot in CFS 2 so I hope that I've still got some sense of FM behaviour.

The Camel, which admittedly is my favourite, now has the kind of FM characteristics that I think is as close to realistic as is practical in a sim.

Just for interest sake, following is an excerpt from my own earlier post in the 'old' forum about the flight characteristics of the Camel.

 

Well done OFF dev team! ...and many thanks!

Quoting myself:

 

Victor Yeates, the author of "Winged Victory" gave some good impressions of what flying the Camel was like. It is generally accepted that although his book is fiction, not only did he choose to write a fictionalized account of WW1 flying experience rather than a biography but he also drew heavily upon his personal experiences as a Camel pilot. So I take what he has said about flying it to be a valid, honest description.

 

Many of us have read his book, but I'll quote a few of his comments here about flying the Camel:

 

Re training:

"Camels were wonderful fliers when you had got used to them, which took about three months of hard flying. At the end of that time you were either dead, a nervous wreck, or the hell of a pilot and a terror to Huns…"

 

Re turns:

"And in the more legitimate matter of vertical turns, nothing in the skies could follow in so tight a circle..."

 

Re the half-roll (Split S):

"The same with the half-roll. Nothing would half-roll like a Camel. A twitch of the stick and flick of the rudder and you were on your back. The nose dropped at once and you pulled out having made a complete reversal of direction in the least possible time.

Thomson, the squadron stunt expert told him that it (half-roll) was just the first half of a roll followed by the second half of a loop; the only stunt useful in fighting. If you were going the wrong way, it was the quickest known method of returning in your slipstream."

 

Re the loop (he didn't like looping a Camel)

"But a Camel had to be flown carefully round with exactly the right amount of left rudder, or else it would rear and buck and hang upside down and flop and spin."

 

Re general flight:

"…a Camel had to be held in flying position all the time, and was out of it in a flash. It was nose light, having a rotary engine weighing next to nothing per horse power, and was rigged tail heavy so that you had to be holding her down all the time. Take your hand off the stick and it would rear right up with a terrific jerk and stand on its tail."

 

Re ground strafing (which he hated due to ground anti-ac machine gun fire):

"Unfortunately, they were good machines for ground-strafing. They could dive straight down on anything, and when a few feet off the ground, go straight up again."

 

Re speed:

"…a Camel was a wonderful machine in a scrap. If only it had been fifty per cent faster! There was the rub. A Camel could neither catch anything except by surprise, nor hurry away from an awkward situation, and seldom had the option of accepting or declining combat…You couldn't have everything."

[Creaghorn 10]

sorry, but i seem to be a little confused :cray:

please explain somebody to me like to a 3 year old child.

when going on AI guns (range) whats the difference between easy and hard? does it mean his bullets have more impact when hitting me on hard so destroying me quicker?

i noticed on hard there is mor AA fire, which is fine.

the second new thing. AI guns and my own guns, front and rear. what is the difference between hard and easy? i noticed on hard the spray factor is greater, which also is fine.

so to explain it differently:

i do not want to down an enemy with 2 bullets, but want to earn my kill,having me hitting him often to down him, like before. but i also do not want to get hit a by 2 bullets till i am spinning down. i want to earn my kill with hitting him often till he breaks apart,.

so which setting do i have to set?

[+Polovski 460]

Um AI Guns (Range) affects.. the AI guns... Range :)

 

and the words apply to you, the player, not the AI ;) so Easy, is easy for you.

 

 

Other settings below are for BOTH you and the AI as the hover over text tells you.

Stick it on hard Craig to be like the older difficulty before 1.26.

[Creaghorn 10]

thanks pol,

i'll give it a try. although it seems for me even on hard it's easier to get a kill than before, so that's why i was confused.