CaptSopwith

Thank you for that Lou. I've lost count of the number of Stories of the Season I've read but I always look forward to them. Cheers

I've been doing something of a deep dive into the 1915 campaigns in WOFF. It's a completely different world from the one we come to know in the following years. Lots of long, empty flights in extremely fragile aircraft. The tedium of flying to the lines ends quickly when the enemy flak bursts begin. But I noticed on my French campaign tonight, that the observer in the Caudron G4 might have the worst job of any airman in the French Air Service. While I know he could normally sit, I hadn't noticed that the front gun requires him to be on his knees, which would be incredibly uncomfortable while being buffeted around in the air. Worse still, the propellers are horrifyingly close to his body! I'm trying not to think of what would happen if he slipped and fell towards either of the engines. Flying the Caudron is also a hair-raising experience. Thanks to the wonderful engine sounds that accompany the plane are intermittent sputters that sound like one of the two rotaries are going to cough themselves to death. Turbulence is also a jarring experience - mostly I try not to look over the side and notice that there really is nothing under me in the back of this flying bathtub. Truly not for the faint of heart!

So I've been splitting my flight time between WOFF and the new Microsoft Flight Simulator and my jaw hit the desk last night playing through my 1915 British campaign. As our patrol of Bristol's headed out I could see the cloud cover break and the small village below. MSFS uses a technique they call Photogrammetry, which creates some genuinely convincing images of the ground. It's surreal to fly over your own home as the sim models the weather just outside your door. But for a 20+ year old game engine to do the same thing - to essentially create 1915 Photogrammetry? I'm genuinely astonished! It's hard to complete missions because I keep pausing the sim to take more screenshots!

Hi VBH, I wanted to let you know that it looks like the exploding plane issue was an error on my part. I copied over several careers from a different version of EAW in order to continue them and that started the problem. Creating a fresh career sorted it out! CTD's seem far less common now that I've dropped ExtraSquads down to 2, I had been running at 3 or higher. Hope this helps sort out some of the mystery (really, it was just me!). Cheers guys!

Hey VBH, Hope you are doing well! So the issues I'm running into involve CTD's when running the stock campaigns in the GoG version of EAW. The exploding planes issue was my fault - attempting to run the stock campaigns with just EAWPRO and I had loaded a previous campaign from a different version, so that was my bad. Otherwise, no exploding craft. Just random CTD's - especially in the German campaigns with a large formation of bombers to intercept. Not sure if that helps but I wanted to give you as many details as I could. Cheers!

Any chance that this could cause CTD's during a campaign VBH? Say when you're in the middle of intercepting bombers on a target run? I've been having random CTD's across the stock campaigns in EAW, but I'm playing with the GoG version of 1.2 or I'm playing with 1.28.

No worries Mark! Your site actually had the answer - I just didn't look! " Intended for online play and offline single missions only, campaign mode wasn't adapted. " Really appreciate your site, mate. I've been going to it nonstop this week as I play around with the different EAW options available.

I am absolutely including you Mark! Your site is incredibly helpful! I'm also interested in setting up a separate EAWPRO install. I've tried dropping in the necessary files ( -(EAWPRO Core Download!) - EAWPRO1.0_Basic.zip and -(EAWPRO Update) - BASIC-update-2.zip ) into my GOG 1.2 install but I'm having some odd issues with planes exploding on launch in the campaigns. Wondering if you could provide any advice on how to set up EAW Pro on the GOG version of EAW. Thanks so much! Hope you're doing well and staying cool!

Thanks Trooper! Hope you are on the mend!

I don't blame you there Rick! I'm sticking with the squadron assigned Bristol Fighter for as along as I can... the parasol is a handful!

Hi Gents, Hope you are all doing well and staying cool! I just wanted to write a short note to say thank you to this community. I know the history of the EAW group is long and has it's friction points - but I genuinely want to say how grateful I am to each of you for keeping this sim running in your own ways. I got EAW in the summer of 1999, at just 17 years old, as a get well present from my parents after I almost died in a car accident. That game kept me company that year as I played through the Battle of Britain, imagining myself a young Spitfire pilot who was lucky to walk away from a bad landing. Years later I started modding the game, thanks again largely to the group here. I remember digging through Cord's EAW site, downloading STAB, and spending HOURS downloading skins on a dial up modem, so excited to see what new livery I could slap on a Fw190 or my favorite American plane, the P-38. And then... well time and technology marched on and EAW sat pretty much dormant through much of my Windows XP, Vista, and 7 days. Until around 2015 I saw that the game was still alive and running, now on Windows 10. I've been insanely busy in RL - moving, starting jobs, getting married - and it's been tough to find time to work with the old sim. But over the last week, thanks in large part again to your help, I've gotten the sim running solidly again. I have to say how impressed I am with the GoG patch that Mr. Jelly put together. I badly misjudged how much of improvement it would make, and after finally giving it a chance, I have to say that flying 1.29 in DirectX at fps I never dreamed of in 1999, let alone at these kinds of resolutions, is something to behold. I took your file structure and made my own home-brew Max188 inspired Classic EAW set to run with all of the benefits of 1.29 and man am I loving it. The sim seems more stable - though I do wonder if my mad ExtraSquads=5 didn't have something to do with the last CTD I suffered lol! So while I know this board is pretty quiet, especially so in the summer, I wanted to say thank you - you've kept a genuinely beloved part of my younger days alive and it's a real gift to be able to revisit it now. Thank you guys!

Hi Gents! Hope you are all well and getting in some much needed flight time. Here's another collection of photos from my most recent 1915 campaign. I have a whole new level of appreciation for Cecil Lewis wrestling the horrible Morane Parasol!

A few more from my 1915 pilot training with Captain Triggers

I think this falls under the category of "be careful what you wish for!" I've lost count of the number of crew I've sent to an early grave. Accomplishing any mission objectives while being blasted at by AA fire, hounded by enemy machines, worrying about mechanical failures on our own plane... it really shows you just how much the two-seater crews had to manage. It's a constant stream of worries from take off to touch down!

Beautiful images, everyone! Inspired me to toss in a few from my last mission. Hope you like them!