OT, anyone Flying CFS3 BoB or ETO?

[Lewie]

I've been getting better acquainted with the other patches for CFS3.

 

I have to say the OzForum downloads for both the Bob and the ETO 1.20 patches are a hoot.

 

I've been customizing my installations to have a more Dunkirk to post BOB English Channel / North Sea RNAS, and Coastal Patrol War with the Avro Annies, Whitleys, Wellingtons, and Short Sunderlands doing Sub and anti shipping patrols. Great fun and there's nothing like chasing down big streams of Hienkel 111's with your squadron Hurri's all diving in and out of the bomber stream. Just keep an eye out for the occasional BF110 and 109.

 

They can make your day unpleasant if you don't have any Spitty support.

[NS13Jarhead]

I haven't flown either of those, but I did give Mediterranean Air War (MAW) a go. I loved the scenery and variety of planes/skins, but I had to stop because I do so hate the stock CFS3 interface. If either BoB or ETO (or PTO for that matter) have a lovely interface like OFF, I might be interested.

[RAF_Louvert]

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I fly BoB, ETO, and MAW, (my personal fav of the three). But none come close to OFF in terms of a CFS3 redo. Still fun though when I'm feeling WW2-ish.

 

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[Flyby PC]

I don't suppose it's a secret that I really didn't like the way ETO was launched, especially due to the way it wrecked the Sim Outhouse database, but setting that personal beef to one side, Pat Pattle and his airfields & landscapes, and Viso's vehicles were tremendous volumes of work, and vast improvements to what was there before. There were other ETO things I liked too, and some things I didn't like, but without being bitchy about it, I just wasn't bowled over by ETO in the way I was with both OFF and MAW.

 

I think the sign of a trully great Sim is your desire to change things. With OFF, and MAW, I rarely find myself wanting to change anything, in fact I often find myself trying to import their 'good stuff' and get it to work in my own unique mongrel CFS3 'stew'.

 

One day, if I have nothing better to do (and no new WW2 Sim on the market has done it for me already), I might try to integrate OFF's spectacular scenery with my 'big' CFS3, add in Pat Pattles Airfields, Viso's vehicles, and MAW's effects (especially those beautiful night flares...), and then I might have a WW2 version of CFS3 that I like to fly. Maybe... To be completely honest, it's been so long since I've even tinkered with CFS3 I'd have to go back to the beginning and start all over. I just don't see that happening.

 

Meantime, OFF has no equal as far as I'm concerned, but there's also something keeps drawing me back to MAW too. Might just be all that ammo in those Beaufighters...

 

What I would like to see is the OFF team waking up one morning with an urge to apply themselves to create a new WW2 theatre on a par with OFF. I fully respect them sticking to their prefered era, and what specifically interests them, but when you look at OFF, you begin to realise what CFS3 can do in the right hands, you can begin to see just how far short of it's full potential the WW2 CFS3 has ever reached. (And no, that isn't a dig at any past or current CFS3 add-on, but a hopefully dispassionate observation that none of them are on a par with our OFF).

Edited August 27, 2011 by Flyby PC

[Lewie]

Well I'm not saying that the scenery of either BoB or ETO is an improvement, compared to OFF. But the sheer number of unusual aircraft, some of the new special effects, and the ability to create your own missions and to add and customize new aircraft into these missions, through the mission editor, makes these patches more fun, at least to me. What Flyby said about our esteemed OFF crew taking on the task of improving these CFS3 patches has merits, but I'm all for the free nature of these uploads and the relative ease of customizing the scenarios. CFS3 with the add-ons has become my favorite sim in this past year. It's in a way carrying further what SDOE tried to do earlier. I mean I've been able to customize a Gloster Meteor vs. V1 buzz bomb scenario that I believe no other sim has.