OFFbase: the Barmy Automated Squadron Experience for OFF

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

Hello all. Sorry for the long absence--graduate school.

 

Anyway, I've posted a new version of OFFbase (0.6.7). Give it a try while you wait for OFF2/Phase4.

[Herr Prop-Wasche]

Thanks, Lothar. Even though I am out on the road today and not on my computer, I will download your mod. That's why I always carry around my memory stick/thumb drive!

 

Glad to see you back!

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

Version 0.6.8 has been posted. Fixes a couple bugs, but more importantly I enabled multiple personality traits for pilots. Just a couple of quick tweaks to the interface really, but will ultimately allow more customized character development and generate deeper investment in both player and non-player characters... making losses in the air all the more painful and small victories much sweeter.

 

The idea is to start with a trait representing your pilot's background and earning more traits as achievements from gameplay as you earn higher ranks and prestige over the course of a career. As a result there are hundreds of millions of potential combinations of traits--unique pilot personalities and histories. The upgrade process isn't in place yet so while NPC pilots have such diversity (especially at higher ranks) for now player pilots simply get a background trait and at a certain rank a primary trait, still 442 different combinations.

 

Plus there's a quick-and-dirty but fun new squadron memorial, which taps into AI memory to show how the legacy of your great aces fades (or holds up) over time.

 

First time I've recommended starting a new game (deleting your pilots and squadrons folders), but this'll help bring in more of the new traits and encounters.

 

Give it a try, the reviews speak for themselves.

[Herr Prop-Wasche]

Nice! But don't expect a lot of feedback from many posters. OFF3 is getting a little old in the tooth now and some have moved on to other games. But, I expect a lot more interest in your mod after P4 comes out.

 

Personally, I love your mod. In fact, I wish it could be fully integrated into OFF to create the ultimate simulation of life in a sqaudron/Jasta during WWI.

[gaw]

love this......4 versions in the same thread!!! DL'ing now and will certainly weigh in......but wait...oh, crap...tomorrow's Monday??? someone please put unthinking youth and vigor in a bottle.....i'll buy the lot

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

Nice! But don't expect a lot of feedback from many posters. OFF3 is getting a little old in the tooth now and some have moved on to other games. But, I expect a lot more interest in your mod after P4 comes out.

 

Personally, I love your mod. In fact, I wish it could be fully integrated into OFF to create the ultimate simulation of life in a sqaudron/Jasta during WWI.

Thanks HPW. Since P4 actually tracks your fellow pilots activity in the air, OFFbase should add even more immersion. It'd be cool if the new interface was hookable with mods. At least it'd be nice if a beta tester could me know if ODB's changing anything in the pilot data files...

 

I wonder if any of the devs have played OFFbase?

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

love this......4 versions in the same thread!!! DL'ing now and will certainly weigh in......but wait...oh, crap...tomorrow's Monday??? someone please put unthinking youth and vigor in a bottle.....i'll buy the lot

Let us know how it works for you, gaw.

 

If anyone wants to post stories/screen shots of memorable moments playing OFF with OFFbase, that'd be pretty cool.

[Herr Prop-Wasche]

I'm still madly working on version 2.0 of my FM mod, but once that is through (as if), I'll have much more time to devote to OFFbase. I'll try to write up something then.

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

Version 0.7.0 of OFFbase has been posted here on Combat Ace, which will serve as the official home for my mods and tools. The next version will restore support for Combat Ace user verification which will allow multiplayer campaigns in future versions.

 

Download it now!

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

OFFbase 0.7.1 has been posted. In addition to a few bug fixes, the biggest change is support for both OFF forums.

 

The basic Settings dialog. Choose your forum, or play Solo if your gaming PC doesn't have an internet connection:

 

 

Combat Ace makes its user list public, so you can just enter part of your name and Verify to search for a match:

 

 

Found me!

 

The rest of my name is filled as the callsign is now verified. SimHQ doesn't support this as its user list is not publicly-available.

 

Right now all this sets is where the links to support and download in the About dialog take you. Ultimately I hope to support multiplayer campaigns, players flying in the same squadron, sharing the same squadmates.

 

As an additional incentive to upgrade to 0.7.1: you may catch your musically-inclined squadmates performing in the mess in the evening.

 

Download it now!

[Herr Prop-Wasche]

Coolio! Downloading now.

 

Thanks, Lothar.

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

Thanks, Lothar.

Solo mode just for you, HPW. How's it working for yah?

[Bletchley]

I am using solo mode as well, and it is working fine for me. Thank you for the latest version, Lothar, I like the addition of ground crew :)

 

Bletchley

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

Installation Note: the OFFice folder must be installed somewhere outside your main OFF installation for the program to work.

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

OFFbase 0.7.2 has just been posted but may take a little time to be approved by the mods. This brings in a key feature of WOFF (P4), tracking the actual in-air results of your fellow pilots. No more watching your wingman crash behind enemy lines to return and find him "In Service" as if nothing happened. This relies a bit on you, but also fits OFF's way of handling claims--you can basically serve as a witness to your squadmates' claims if you observe them in-game, and see them recorded on the roster with a chance to be confirmed later.

 

 

It only took a couple of hours to implement, but still needs some testing. Go get it at the Download page and let me know how it works for you.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Lothar of the Hill People

[+elephant]

This is a great new feature, I would say legendary, Lothar...

I'm afraid though, with the current AI the casualties figures may be unrealistically high...

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

This is a great new feature, I would say legendary, Lothar...

I'm afraid though, with the current AI the casualties figures may be unrealistically high...

Heh, something to watch out for elephant! There's still a chance your squadmates will survive their crashes or show up again if gone missing. If nothing else, OFFbase adds new squadmates to replace the dead faster than vanilla OFF.

[Herr Prop-Wasche]

Damn, Lothar. Don't you ever stop coding or thinking up something new to put into OFFBase?

 

I guess you'll have another version ready tomorrow?

[OlPaint01]

Double Damn, Lothar, your PhD dissertation must have been on OFFBase?

 

This is an absolutely marvelously immersive Mod. I am now even able to remember my squadron mates' names. Something I have never been able to do before! Without writing them down, that is.

 

Each new release brings things closer to how I imagine Squadron Life was in the Great War.

 

OlPaint

Edited June 1, 2012 by OlPaint01

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

Thanks guys. That last upgrade was just a matter of slapping together the dynamic form and getting it to feed into the simulation, really not much work at all. After doing "real" simulations or writing all day for my dissertation, working on OFFbase a little bit can be a nice break. It's certainly less stressful than actually flying OFF with my developed character!

 

You're right about remember squadmate names, OlPaint01, something I've noticed myself.

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

Version 0.7.4 has been posted. The goal of the last couple of releases has been to improve the presentation of the underlying gameplay stuff. To that end, character personalities are summed up by six Attributes: Aerial Skill, Aggression, Charisma, Intelligence, Physicality, and Professionalism. These measure in general how a character performs in a given dimension, given their unique combination of underlying personality Traits:

 

 

As this is an alpha version, the Help button in Squadron HQ in this version lets you view the personality info of all the characters in your squadron:

 

 

Wow, MFJ V's Munitions Officer is one bad hombre. Don't mess with him:

 

 

I pity the Allied soldiers dumb enough to mount a ground attack on Nieuwmunster. But don't get used to exploiting this full detail for gameplay, I'll disable it in future versions. But the textural descriptions of other characters in encounters has been enriched to describe their attributes as well as their status and traits.

 

As an extra incentive to upgrade, once the Adjutant was in it was easy to add other Ground Crew. Along with the Munitions Officer you'll find a Chaplain, Chief Medical Officer, and Mess Chief. Don't make him mad or your meals will suffer.

[Herr Prop-Wasche]

I'm having a problem getting Office to load the various mods when I click on Fly Mission. The windows hourglass comes up, but nothing happens for several minutes. Eventually, if I click somewhere inside the menu, I get a "This program is not responding..."

 

One question I have is: what mods do I need to activate with JSGME and which does Office load for me?

 

I am officially confused now. Maybe because it is past my bedtime.

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

Does it say anything in the console, HPW? It might just be taking a few minutes to activate all the mods, can be slow for all the FM stuff, but you should see the JSGME window open while it does this. If you never get the JSGME window the first time, it might be having trouble with your particular install, which probably is a bit of a mess.

 

OFFice will deactivate all of the mods it supports directly, then only activate the appropriate ones. It will also keep any unrecognized mods you have already activated, moving them to the top so approved mods overwrite. You shouldn't have to do anything in JSGME unless you're turning on/off other mods besides your FM mods and OlPaint's bundles.

[Herr Prop-Wasche]

Hmm, I'm not seeing my JSGME console after I click fly mission. I'm pretty sure I have JSGME correctly installed, though. However, I am a bit confused about the JSGME.ini file that is included in OlPaint's JSGME Bundles. Should I let that overwrite the existing JSGME.ini file that is already in the folder?

 

Here are some screen shots. I hope they help. Notice I have Explorer open to my OFFice\temp folder so you can see the files.

 

 

[+Lothar of the Hill People]

Hmm, I'm not seeing my JSGME console after I click fly mission. I'm pretty sure I have JSGME correctly installed, though. However, I am a bit confused about the JSGME.ini file that is included in OlPaint's JSGME Bundles. Should I let that overwrite the existing JSGME.ini file that is already in the folder?

Nope, you don't want any of OlPaint's JSGME.ini files. The main JSGME.ini alongside JSGME.exe in your ODBSoftware folder sets which mod folder to use, which OFFice reads to know where to look for mods. The JSGME.ini inside the mods folder specifies the active mods and dependencies, and is rebuilt by OFFice, but could cause problems if doesn't match your actual installed mods.

 

Open JSGME and deactivate all mods. Your .ini files should be good to go. Then just activate your CreagBullets and HPW front/rear guns mods.

 

Here are some screen shots. I hope they help. Notice I have Explorer open to my OFFice\temp folder so you can see the files.

That does help, thanks. OFFice calls JSGME to save a list of currently activated mods, so it can turn on your CreagBullets and gun mods, but it's not finding this file to read it. This backup.mep should be created in your OFFice\temp\ directory but isn't there. Can you spot if it was created somewhere else? Check your ODBsoftware folder.

 

If it's failing to create this file, it could be .ini problems as above. Or it could be a file permission issue? Seems JSGME needs to run as an administrator, so try running OFFice as an admin too. Open the OFFice\rebol\ folder, right click on r3-a97-3-1.exe to get properties, and on the Compatibility tab check 'Run this program as an administrator."