CaptSopwith

Still here. I've kept the boards bookmarked under my "Daily Links" section and they've never left. Been busy with RL, and didn't have WOFF until this week. Finally back though! Always pop by when time allows.

After spending a few days home sick as a dog, I began tinkering with the computer and two days later I have this to show for it. Behold, I have the ultimate gaming computer! (At least in my mind ). I now have, in one place, the ability to run everything from OFF to Wolfenstein 3D and all of the games in between. By my count, my PC now covers every game I've ever owned from 1993 until last Christmas. And I still have 200GB free! Not bad for a couple of sick days! The best part is, for some reason, with the latest set of nVidia drivers, everything runs smoothly without any major tinkering. Now the hard part is going to be deciding what to play next! PS: You'll notice, however, what shortcuts are on my desktop, ready to go at a moments notice.

Well now - it's been a while since we had a new post here so I thought I'd share some OFF screenshots from the last few days. I recently discovered the amazing AnKor mod for WOFF and found, thanks to Widowmaker, that it works in OFF as well! (Albeit with a LOT of tweaking on my part to get rid of some dreaded micro-stutters that users were seeing in WOFF). If you you're interested in how I adjusted my settings, see our discussion here: http://combatace.com/topic/82497-does-ankors-mod-work-on-off/page-2?do=findComment&comment=663286 While it took some work, the added immersion to the sim was more than worth the effort. Even OFF, which isn't nearly as graphically optimized as WOFF, looks like a class-leading flight sim! That added depth of shadows filtering across your cockpit is absolutely astounding. And the shadows have an amazing amount of depth to them - you can see shadows cast from the air cooled jackets of your twin Spandaus against the cockpit, or the shadow cast by a guage mounted on the cockpit's dash. The shadows also add depth and immersion to dogfights: wing struts pop as the sun glints off of the canvas that's tightly bound to the struts underneath, shadows cast across enemy pilot's faces as they whip their planes around to attack. The effect, whlie subtle at first, makes a tremendous difference in the look and feel of the sim. So, to celebrate this little breakthrough, I've posted some before and after photos. The first is from a dogfight I found myself in last week - before installing the mod. While it's certainly beautiful, it's nothing comapred to the screenshots that follow. Hope you enjoy them!

Hi All: As promised, I am going to post my settings. They should be attached below. I'll also note that I have aircraft textures set to normal in the workshop (high seemed to bring back the stutter a bit.) I've been playing with them yet again this morning and I think (knock on wood! I've gotten OFF smoothed out). My system is also woefully out of date, so if you have a better system, you can up several of these settings (both in the workshop and in your respective video card settings). I found that the biggest help in reducing the stutter in game (which only appears when D3DSWAPEFFECT_COPY_VSYNC is disabled - and has to be in order for AnKor's mod to run in OFF), is enabling Adaptive V-Sync. For me, choosing Half Refresh Rate had the best results. OFF now runs locked in around 30fps and while it doesn't have those moments of liquid smooth FPS, it does reduce the immersion breaking FPS drops when the sim suddenly plummets from 65fps to 18. I also notice so far that the instances of FPS dropping into the teens is much reduced, even with regional activity set to high. Again, this hasn't been tested completely, but Quick Combat, and Quick Scenarios look good - even the missions with 20v20 and a few campaign missions in 1918 with high regional activity. So... fingers crossed. Of course, the easy answer would have been to just yank AnKor's mod out and play as it was - my OFF worked fine before - but the shadows are just too good of an immersion enhancement to give it up. It really looks like a top class, current gen flight sim now! At any rate - I hope these settings helped! Sorry for my prolonged absence around here. RL, as always lately, has been very busy but rewarding! Cheers!

Hi Andy! I will post my settings later today. I'm still having some micro-stuttering issues with my OFF... which is why I've been hesitant to jump into WOFF. I just don't think my rig has anywhere near enough power to play it... and, being a grad student on a super tight budget, I don't see that changing anytime soon. Looks amazing though, wish I could try it out! I'm still playing with my settings trying to see if I can get the stutter to disappear once and for all. Once I remove AnKor's mod, the problem disappears. I really think if there was a way to enable D3DSWAPEFFECT_COPY_VSYNC that would sort out the problem as it is the ONLY setting that is different in the workshop from what's there when I'm not running the mod.

Hi Mud! I narrowed down the issue that was preventing OFF from starting for both Widow and I. It appears that checking the D3DSWAPEFFECT_COPY_VSYNC option under the Texture Info part of CFS3.cfg was causing the problem... ...removing that problem opened up a whole host of other issues for me. Without that option checked, OFF starts having the same stuttering issues that appear to have been a problem in WOFF. After two hours of checking the WOFF boards and tweaking my options, I seem to have it working but man, it took some effort!

Hi Widow! Hope you're doing well. I popped in earlier and saw this thread about AnKor's mod. I had the same trouble you did getting it to run - I kept getting dumped back into the OFF main menu. Go into your CFS3.cfg settings in the workshop, set everything back to default, and the mod should run. For me, I was able to adjust the graphics settings and the overrides without any glitches. The mod doesn't seem to like having the texture settings messed with. If your setup is like mine, you've probably customized it a bit over the years to eek out that extra bit of performance. Setting the cfg file back to its defaults seems to have fixed it for me. And WOW, what a difference it makes! Even OFF looks as good as any ultra-modern day WWI sim I've seen. Great stuff!

Greetings from the Rocky Mountains where I am spending a lovely Christmas away! I just wanted to join in and wish everyone, especially the WOFF team, a very very Merry Christmas! Thank you for giving us WOFF in time for the holidays. I can't even imagine how much time, effort, and work went into WOFF. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there might be a super budget gaming computer under the tree this year so I can enjoy some flying time in WOFF. In the meantime I'm enjoying everyone's After Action Reports, screenshots, videos, and every review I can get a hold of. It looks absolutely fantastic... I think you have created the greatest single player flight sim ever made - in other words, everything I've wanted since I was a 12 year old kid playing Wings of Glory. So to Pol, Sandbagger, Winder, Shred, and the rest of the team, and to everyone here I know, Olham, Lou, Wodin, Robert, Hellshade, Shiloh, and everyone else... a very Merry Christmas!

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but... I feel like $60 is more than a fair price. A big budget game like Battlefield 3 expects you to happily part with that much, plus another $50 to become a "Premium" player, and then your online subscription of choice, be it Xbox or PlayStation, expect that you'll hand over another fistful of cash to play other people. And yes, I know that we're talking about a flight sim, not a multi-billion dollar title, but for me, that's all the more reason to pay $60 plus another bit for 4000 + aircraft skins. I've known Pol, Winder, Sandbagger, OvS, Shred, and the rest for going on fifteen years now. And they have, in their time away from their day jobs, created a flight sim that would have been released by a major publisher back in the 90s. It's the most complete single player recreation of the Western Front in World War I. It gives you 55 aircraft to play with out of the box, and it immerses you in the most completely dynamic campaign that we are likely to see - possibly ever again. And I also agree with 33Lima... value is in the eye of the beholder. For me, this is the sim I've wanted to play since I discovered WWI aviation in the mid-90s. So for me, $60, even on my budget, is one heck of a good value.

I'm still praying for a gaming computer this Christmas... in the meantime, my first campaigns will be lived vicariously through my friends here at the boards! I will definitely be picking up WOFF after the new year (read: when the next loan check arrives for school... call it a morale booster ) and whether it will run on my rig or not, I want to show my support for the team. Cheers!

Good to see you, Fortiesboy! Hope you're doing well. I don't have WOFF just yet but after reading over the list of modifications to the AI code for the game, I was deeply impressed. It sounds like WOFF really is one of the last (if not the last) great Single Player, Dynamic Campaign Driven, flight simulators of its kind. In addition to the comments left above, I thought I'd direct you to Hellshade's preview videos which demonstrates the breadth of knowledge that the AI now possess - particularly at low altitude which used to be their Achilles Heel. See what you think! :)

...everything changes! Hi guys! I hope all of you have been well in the weeks / months since I last posted antyhing of note. As usual, RL (particularly school) has taken up all of my time, and much of my "free" time as well! It's fantastic to see everyone returning now that WOFF has come out. I only wish I had a computer with even a snowball's chance in hades of running the thing. My 2008 era desktop is struggling to run OFF with the graphics cranked up, let alone anything new. And, as an incredibly poor grad student, that probably won't change anytime soon. (I really need to publish that best-selling novel about WWI pilots while working on my dissertation! ;)) So... if I may return to the BoC, I'll have to grab one of those new badges for my signature. And, if I can ask: How the heck has everyone been!?!? Would love to hear what everyone has been up to. It's great to see Olham, Lou, Hellshade (fantastic videos, sir!) all back and chatting busily at the bar. I'll be traveling for the Holidays - which means my beloved OFF rig will be left behind, but I will have my laptop with me - so hopefully I'll be posting far more often than I have in the last few months. Cheers!

That might just be the best news I've heard in months! Thank you for letting me know Shred - how is life treating you these days? Hope you're doing well!

Hiya Lou! CaptSopwith reporting for duty! Hope I'm not too late for roll call, and a pint of Guinness at the pub! I have updated my pilot's badge accordingly, as befits the occassion! And remember, Guinness is good for you!

Great post, Widow! Gave me quite a good laugh this morning. And about that Snipe, I'd say you bent some of the main support spars but like the other say, some straightening, a little elbow grease, and some PC-10 doping, and it'll be good as new! And take it easy on those landings! Those Snipes don't grow on trees, you know!

Hey Shiloh! I didn't know you were a fellow graduate student! Mind if I ask what you're studying? I'm a history PhD, not surprisingly!

I'd say "Grad Student Stanard Time" where five minutes is actually closer to six months! Good to see you too plug! That power supply you sent me is still going strong! Hope you're doing well!

I agree that $60 is a lot of money these days for just about anyone... and believe me, as a broke grad student, I can sympathize! That said, there really aren't any flight sim developers left anymore - at least, not in the WWI arena. The ROF team has largely moved on to work on other projects, and the kickstarter funded resurrections of RB3D and Wings look great, but they're not going to be a hardcore, technically researched WWI sim that puts every squadron at their resepctive bases at the correct time of each month of the war... there's just no market for that outside of our merry band of Barmy OFF'ers! And you know what? I've known Pol since I was what... 17? I remember posting back and forth with half of the OFF team back when I was in High School and they were modding Red Baron 3D. I know it's biased, but they've been killing themselves now for going on four years and with - it seems - a lot less manpower than they once had. So really, even on food stamps, I'm willing to kick them 60 bucks for their troubles. Right now, it feels like the least I could do. And I agree with you on consoles! 60 bucks for a half-baked, over-hyped game that's going to force me to pay another 20 bucks here and there for DLC to finish a game that should have been done when they printed the thing? Yeah... not so much. At this stage, if I had to choose between as PS4 and a new gaming rig? WOFF would win me back to my keyboard and mouse - not to mention my ancient Microsoft Sidewinder Joystick! Cheers!

Lou, you are absolutely one of the foundational members of this community! I have missed reading your writing and especially enjoyed your recent publication of the Illustrated BOC News. I read it this morning over coffee and attracted quite a few puzzled looks from my girlfriend as I laughed hysterically at my laptop. Thankfully, she knows I'm a flight simmer and she's even okay with my TrackIR setup! Just wanted to say thanks for posting this - it was a fantastic read and a much needed laugh after several months of hard work in RL. Cheers Lou! And a very Merry Christmas to you sir!

As far as I know, Matt finished scoring the soundtrack for OFF / WOFF back in 2011 or 2012. So it's been finished for quite some time now.

Hi Andy! Just wanted to let you know that I gave your new mod a run through and it sounds fantastic! I really like what you've done to adjust the sound distances. The enemy can really sneak up on you know and the echoes of the big guns near the Front are much more eerie at a distance. Fantastic stuff! My thanks for posting this so late in OFF's lifespan.

Sounds great Andy! I'm currently using Lothar's OFFbase program - how would I incorporate the new mod into the program, or is Lothar planning a version update that will do so in the near future? Can't wait to hear it - your current mod leaves me frequently jumping in my seat! Thanks for all of the hard work! Sounds great Andy! I'm currently using Lothar's OFFbase program - how would I incorporate the new mod into the program, or is Lothar planning a version update that will do so in the near future? Can't wait to hear it - your current mod leaves me frequently jumping in my seat! Thanks for all of the hard work! Cheers!

My fellow OFFer's: I've been following the boards closely for the first time in about a year. And over the last few weeks, I have to say, I think we are in dire need of a release of WOFF - and soon - or we might not have much of a community left. I know that it's the summer months and many of us are off on holiday or busy working, but the lack of activity around both here and SimHQ is, to be honest, disheartening. I hope the quiet is only an indication of happy fliers off enjoying the original OFF while patiently waiting for the next version and not, what I fear, the silence of a community that isn't really here anymore. While I am happy to see familiar faces, and we do get the occasional new pilot popping in with questions, the silence is otherwise deafening. Even the after action report I posted a few days ago only received a few replies. Worse still: on SimHQ, I posted the report again to try and garner some attention for OFF, only to have OFF confused with Rise of Flight. While the mods released for OFF is keeping things going for now... this is beginning to have the eerie sensation of the old Red Baron 3D boards when the sim started to finally die out. It's disheartening and, worse still, seeing just how good WOFF already looks, the increasing passing of time while we wait is, I fear, beginning to have a seriously deleterious affect on the community as a whole. People aren't reading the boards, they aren't visiting, and I worry that when WOFF is released, the number of people who hear about it will be far fewer than a sim of its undisputed quality truly deserves. I sincerely hope that we start hearing more about WOFF and soon: It's going to be a major release and I feel, given the passage of time now and the continued aging of the CFS3 engine - it's going to be the culmination of what OBD can do with this engine. Pol, Winder, Shred... you know that I have the highest respect for everything you've done over the years and OFF is still the most fun I ever have sitting at my computer - it fuels my passion for my own work - but please, give us a sign soon that things are at least progressing and that all is on track. I sincerely hope that my post is read as intended: with all due respect and as a heartfelt hope that things get busy around here soon. The quiet around here is beginning to worry me.

Hi All, I had a quick question for you. I know that many of us here are avid readers of World War I aviation works. I have a collection of memoirs, but have noticed that they are almost entirely written by Allied pilots. With the exception of Richthofen's book, I cannot find any other works written by German aviators from World War I. Would any of you have suggestions of works, in either English or German, that would have been written by German aviators either during or after The Great War? Many thanks, CaptSopwith

Here's a fantastic video of Kermit Weeks taking you for a walk-around tour of the Sopwith Snipe! Quite informative: I learned a lot about the plane!