CaptSopwith

In the old Delphi days you could alter your handle to include a nickname - I added in Prof, which a lot of folks called me, half jokingly because yes, I was in high school! RB saw me through HS and College, and OFF will keep me occupied during grad school (if grad school and my wonderful g/f weren't enough! lol). I remember those names! I was very saddened to hear when Pat lost his wife earlier this year. It's a funny thing, these forums. We all come here for a common interest and we wind up forming "friendships" of sorts with the other members around us. Pat was always an all around great guy and it was so terrible to hear about his loss. You really form a bond with these guys.

This video was posted earlier this week by another forum member. Since then, I've listened to Lay Me Low about a dozen times and felt compelled to share this video again. It's worth another look for anyone who may have missed the original posting. And this is a video that OvS came across some time ago, and is so powerful I had to repost it. There's no reason why we can't remember these brave souls on a regular "non-remembrance day" Friday. World War I In Colour - Hell In The Trenches And finally, a clip from The Great War In Colour - with interviews from some of the last veterans left alive. The Great War In Colour --- Never Forget

I think I started writing up some history on terrain modeling, but I never finished it, a lot of RL crap interfered and it wound up lost. Truthfully, that history could have been a lot better - both stylistically and in terms of content. I barely scratched the surface, listed the major UOP's, talked about FM/DM and called it a day. I was hoping someone else would come along and add to it, but alas. I still don't know how you guys find the time. You do a hell of a lot of work and manage jobs and families at the same time.

Wow, Gremlin. Absolutely! I had forgotten that Wings of Honor had that old article posted over there. Thanks for hanging on to it! It's not my best work, but I enjoyed writing that over Christmas break back in college. Yeah, I have no idea why Wikipedia took it down - I'm just very thankful that it's been preserved in a few places. Would have been a shame to just lose all of it. S!

I'm running OFF on a pretty mainstream gaming computer. It's a year old Gateway FX 7024 gaming PC with an overclocked GeForce 8800 GT. I run in 1200x800. So, doing some comparison, I would argue that you would want a very high end system. Newest nVidia card, a lot of ram, a high processor speed (though multi-core doesn't really help in OFF), etc. It's a high end sim in terms of the visuals it's cranking out - even though it is using CFS3 (though I would argue that it's been modded to the point that only the base skeleton of that graphics engine is left so comparion system specs on stock CFS3 is pretty useless). In short, you want a lot of horsepower. If you have one of Google's servers lying about with one of those suitcase nuke sized nVidia portable graphics processors, you're off to a good start! Hope that gives you a basic idea. Cheers mate!

Hey guys, I've got a quick question for you and I'm a tad embarassed I need to even ask. I'm using an old Microsoft Sidewinder 2 joystick in Vista for OFF. I cannot seem to remember how, or perhaps it has changed, but at any rate, how do I remap my button commands to apply some keys to OFF? Is there a setting somewhere in OFF or do I need to do it in Windows? Mind you, the Sidewinder 2 software is not installed - Vista simply recognized it when I plugged it in. Thoughts appreciated in advance. S!

Awesome! Thanks Rickity, I appreciate it!

Yep, this looks like the one Turner Classic Movies used to run back in the day. No Ernst Borgnine to be found!

I remember when Karel relased his first Fokker Dr1 model back in, what was it? 2001? Heading over to SWWISA and checking out his page and thinking "wow! I had no idea we could do that!" The difference between the paper cutout we had in the RBII and the living, moving model he made - complete with wires, a rotating engine, machine guns that were more than black rectangular lego blocks. My jaw hit the desk. The detail, at the time, was phenominal. And the best part - and this was the magic he brought to the community - he did it all without sacraficing FPS. You could fight a swarm of these high detail Fokkers and not drop a single frame. He really was a miracle worker. And a genuinely good guy. I enjoyed the few messages we exchanged before he passed. I imagine he'd be incredibly pleased with OFF. In my own way, I see the Fokkers and Sopwiths buzzing around OFF as the grandchildren of those first Fokker and Sopwith models released seven or eight years ago (wow, has it really been that long already??). S! Karel. I know you're loving the show!

Nice bit of info there Shred, thanks for passing that along. I love this forum, I learn something new everyday!

I just noticed this was still up over at James old HASP site. For anyone in the mood for some decent (I wouldn't call it great) reading about the devleopment of RB3D's mods over the years, I wrote a brief history of it and James was kind enough to host it. This was quite some time ago (2004 I think?) but I figured if we were on a reminiscence streak, it might be fun. http://www.hellsangels.firstflare.com/history.htm

Creaghorn, I noticed something on the stahlgewitter site you linked to. If you look under the video's section you'll find the full versino of the 1930 Release of All Quiet On The Western Front for download as a Divx file. Just thought I'd pass that along to the rest of us here.

Awesome find Creaghorn! Looks like a great source, and a great way to practice my German outside of Rosetta Stone.

Oh wow! Now that takes me back! HASP is still a damn pretty patch - shame RB3D runs like it's hopped up on speed on my new PC. Nothing I can try will ever slow it down and OFF calls just a little too loudly to me.

Alright gents. I have killed off every pilot in my original crop of fliers from when I first received BH&H. It's time to start again. My question to the forum is this. In terms of creating some varied and satisfying campaigns, where should I start? I typically fly British (56 Squadron). I'm open to suggestions from all sides - including those damn dirty Huns! (Hell, I'm learning German in my spare time anyway!) What are some great squads/time periods to get into some great action and really enjoy the meat on OFF's bones. Let me know what you think and I'll enroll my next class of brave flying men and send them off to the front. With any luck, I can Shepard these chaps through a bit more successfully.

Three Cheers for the RAF! Happy Birthday!

Nice one tttiger! I think I'm going with an RNAS career. I've flown the SE5 a lot lately and perhaps it's time to give old Tommy and his crates another go. I've been so leery of the Camel that I've ducked the challenge. Time to change that. I'm surprised I haven't heard any Hun suggestions yet. Is it the name, fellas?

That is a remarkable collection. The historian in me would love to see it, and the WWI aviation buff in me is drooling! Thank you for sharing!

Excellent work HomeBoy! I'm saving it for when I get a printer to actually print it off with! Thanks for passing this on to the rest of us OFF'ers!

Indeed! Fantastic screenshots. I'm getting the itch to go flying again!

I agree, I'm all for any enthusiast who wants to add a little WWI to their flight sims. The more the merrier. In response to what you said, Yes, dear God I got so sick of my pilots screaming at me for leaving formation in IL2. Excuse me if I'm evading fire as a pack of 109's start shooting us up from 6 o'clock! Depends on how much free time they have. You know forum people!

Shred, your historical work, as always, is first rate. And this comes from a soon-to-be professional historian! Greatly enjoying the thread mate, keep it up!

Welcome to the board mate! It's always a pleasure to see new pilots finding their way here and discovering the joys of this sim. It's also an added bonus when they are as courteous and polite as yourself. I hope you enjoy digging in to the sim, there is much to be found in OFF. A new experience waits for you each time you roll off the grass fields and into the skies over Flanders. Best of luck, fly safe, and fight hard! Salute!

I think I may make a 1st RNAS pilot. Been about 10 years since I tried that campaign - and that was back in RBII. I remember losing Roderick Dallas over a patrol. As stupid as it sounds, I've always felt attached to him somehow after watching his Tripe go down on a patrol. Strange what these sims do to us.

I do as well! It's nice to see that Karel is still being remembered after so long. RBII was my baby for years. It was the first sim I ever patched, the old Delphi Forums the first group I ever met online, and I remember flying against quite a few of them back in the day. I'm trying to remember my old RBII handle - I've been CaptSopwith on the forums since 2000 but online I think I flew as "Udet". I was 17-18 back then, so I was usually the youngest one on the severs lol. OFF, for me, feels like the spiritual successor to the RBII/3D years. While it is a vastly improved sim in every possible sense of the word, it still has that "feel" to me that I had back when I was sitting in the loft of my parents' house on a school night, flying one more mission before I had to get to bed. Those are some awesome memories.