CaptSopwith

I've been meaning to write this message since yesterday. I've been down sick with my usual sinus misery but I'm feeling much better today and I would be remiss if I didn't send out a very personal thank you to Hauksbee - who is one of the most generous members of our community. I posted in a different thread - about a month ago now I guess? - that I fly OFF using only my POV Hatswitch on my ancient Sidewinder 2 joystick and that I've never used TrackIR. To be honest, as a student who takes on thousands in loans every year, the prospect of dropping $150 on a peripheral seemed like lunacy, no matter the benefit. So, I soldered on - knowing that not knowing how good TrackIR was in my best interest. After all, how can you miss something you never had? But Hauksbee dropped me a message that left my jaw on the table. He wrote me to tell me that he had, through a series of little accidents, a spare TrackIR system, still boxed up, just sitting in his closet. Rather than offering me the system (which is a TrackIR 4) at a reduced price, he did something that only happens in the OFF community - he offered to give it away. I wouldn't even pay for the postage. I was speechless and, truthfully, almost felt like I was taking advantage of his generosity. I bumbled out a thank you response and said that, if he was really willing to give away a perfectly good TrackIR for free, I would happily take him up on the offer. Well, it arrived yesterday and after spending a few hours setting things up and getting it to work in my various flight sims (I had a few driver issues and getting it to work in IL2 1946 led me to search various message boards until I found that I had to enable TrackIR support in the config.ini file), I am beyond happy to say that... IT WORKS! And, oh my God, does it work! I know, I know, all of you have been telling me for years that "you've got to get this thing" and "it'll absolutely change the way you play a flight sim" and I begrudgingly yessed you to death but, wow, you weren't kidding! I started out my first TrackIR flight with a Fokker EIII sitting quietly on the runway in Quick Combat. I moved my head and watched as my perspective shifted around the cockpit. I had to adjust things a few times, but once I had the settings dialed in, I took off. I don't really have words to describe the difference. It ranks up there with the first time I ever used a computer, and the first time I ever flew a flight simulation. It simply left me gobsmacked. There I was, sitting at my desk, and able to freely look around me like never before. After taking up my trusty Eindecker (flown by Gerhard Roth's older brother, Wilhelm), I jumped into a quick combat. I set up a flight of Sopwith Camels as my opponents and put myself into a Fokker DVII OAW. I thought I had dialed in wingmen as well, but alas, I was alone. Six on one. And, I am happy to report, that I downed every last one of those Camels! Suddenly I could lean over my guns, adjust my aim, and fire more accurately than before (and, not to toot my own horn, I was already pretty good at deflection shooting). I popped the wings off of one Camel and set another on fire - all while quickly whipping my head around to make sure I was clear on my six o'clock. On more than one occasion, I had company and was able to quickly jink and bank away from trouble. In the old days, I would have been stitched full of holes and sent smoldering to earth. Not this time! Within ten minutes, I had dispatched five of the six Camels and left the final one to limp home, smoke trailing from his plane after I ran out of ammo. It was just... remarkable. Like I said, I have no words. I was up last night - sick mind you - until nearly 3AM playing with this thing. As if I wasn't already in enough trouble with my newly rekindled addiction to OFF - now I have even more motivation for taking up my best pilots - knowing that they are better armed and better prepared than ever before. The skies are mine to conquer. And it's all due to the generosity of one of our own. I hope, one day when I'm finished with school (and we're working on OFF 3!) I can repay another wayward member of our community. In the meantime, Hauksbee, I am indebted to you sir, and I hope I didn't cause you much embarrassment by thanking you publicly. I felt it was the least I can do. Cheers to OFF and the fantastic community that has grown up around this sim. It might be under-appreciated by the masses, but the faithful who fly the skies every day make this so much more than a sim. Thank you again! It's been a pleasure to be a part of this community!

Thanks Olham for the kind compliment! I hope this is more due to my having a sinus infection at the moment, but I keep getting a distinct feeling of vertigo using TrackIR - I even started getting a little motion sick, which was a first. Hopefully that will iron itself out when I don't have so much pressure in my ears from being congested!

I just had to say, quickly, that I'm so happy I got a phone that can browse the web. Say what you will about the iPhone (I bought a 3GS this summer) but here I am, stranded in the infirmary waiting room waiting for a doctor and I have all of my buddies with me; Widow, Carrick, Olham... All here in the palm of my hand. Makes the misery of the day a little more bearable. Cheers! *cough, cough, snort, wheeze*

Thankfully, nothing too serious. Just my usual sinus infection garbage that I pick up from time to time. It was nice to read some combat reports from the front while waiting to be see, though!

Guten Abends Herr PropWasche! Hope all is well on your end. I was writing to see what the latest and greatest combination of the various flight and damage mods for OFF are these days. I fell out of the loop for a few months - between holidays and hectic spring semester stuff - and I've lost track. So I'm flying a vanilla install of OFF. I enjoyed the weight modifications that allowed me to keep up with my flight with greater ease and I found the improved rear gunner accuracy mods made my German fighter pilot sweat just a little bit more! So, at the risk of sounding too brief, can you point me in the direction of what's considered the latest "winning combination" of mods for OFF? My thanks to you in advance!

I'll take my aircraft with wings, thank you very much!

I just had to say, late on this Monday night, that OFF is one of those classic flight simulations that never, ever wears off (pardon the pun!). I've been up since 5:45 this morning. Today I sat through an 8am lecture as a TA, held office hours, attended a three hour seminar class this evening, and held a study session for my students for two hours until 9PM tonight. I've been home for a few hours and I'm utterly knackered. All I want right now is sleep. And yet... OFF is still so incredibly enjoyable that I cannot help but feel that excitement in my stomach at the prospect of firing it up for just... one... mission. I took up Wilhelm Roth (Gerhard's older brother) in his Fokker EIII for another patrol. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and while we didn't encounter anything, I enjoyed every second of it. From starting OFF and hearing the distinctive music, to clicking through the menu system, to hearing Pol shout "Contact!... Clear!" and then jumping into the sim. I just feel happy playing this wonderful game from the moment I start the program until I exit out of it with a twinge of sadness. Most games are a distraction. They are meant to pull our attention away from reality for a few hours and they usually do it with over the top sights and sounds. OFF just makes me very happy to play each and every time. I always finish an OFF mission (even the bad ones) feeling like I've done something meaningful with my time. And speaking of time, it's almost 1AM now. I need to be up in 6 hours but I still couldn't pass up the chance to say, yet again, what a great game we have. And how lucky are we that we get to enjoy this sim and talk about our adventures together here? I think we're a pretty blessed lot. Cheers my friends! Goodnight.

...

I think you read my mind Vidken! I wrote this on a post a while back... a year ago actually. It comes from a passage I found in my old Falcon 4.0 manual about flight simulation design. Here's what I had to say: And it comes from a jet sim - the mother of all jet sims actually - Falcon 4.0 I was reading through my Falcon 4.0 manual this morning and came across this passage. It was written by Gilman "Chopstick" Louie, the creator of the Falcon series and also a key member of the late, great studio, Microprose. His thoughts on flight sims were fascinating to read. This entire passage is tucked away in an appendix in the massive Falcon 4.0 manual. And while he's describing a jet simulator - something almost totally alien to what we usually fly - his ideas I think explain why OFF is a great sim. "Ask programmers and designers who work on combat flight simulations what features are critical, and most will define a great sim by how accurate the flight model and avionics are. Create a set of pre-scripted missions along with a few videos and voila... you have a simulation. "Unfortunately, to create a great simulation, a flight model, avionics, enemy AI, and good graphics are only the start. The purpose of the Falcon series is not just to simulate the aircraft but the entire fight pilot experience. Our goal has been not just to replicate the flight dynamics, avionics and visuals of flight, but to include the elements that make up the combat environment." "Falcon 4.0 is comprised of two completely separate simulations: the campaign and the air combat simulation (ACS). While most games focus only on the ACS, Falcon 4.0 spotlights the campaign..." He later elaborates on the compromise between total realism and the idea of immersion. "For experienced combat pilots, flying the real F16 is 99% boredom and 1% adrenaline. If Falcon 4.0 had the same ratio, nobody would buy the game. Falcon 4.0 like most games, increases activity levels to keep your interest engaged. The action you see in one Falcon 4.0 mission is equivalent to two to five real combat missions. The number of missions you fly in a day has also been exaggerated. On the other hand, Falcon 4.0 does not feature a super plane with unrealistic performance and weapons. Once in an engagement, the simulation realistically depicts what real F16 pilots can do." I could be completely wrong, as I can't read Winder's mind or anyone else on the teem, but these ideas strike me as close to what the OFF designers were aiming for; accurately simulating a combat environment as well as the aircraft that flew over it. While you may run into more flights than you would in reality, it is the simulation of an active and ongoing air war over the Western Front that is of paramount importance. Without that, you're left with pretty graphics and an accurate flight model, and little else. Every great flight sim I've ever played has featured a dynamic campaign system. All of the classics I've been dusting off this week feature that. And it's worth noting that even other current WWI flight sims are working to create such a system. Just thought I'd share. It seemed like some interesting reading. Cheers!

Good evening gents! I wrote a little piece over on my blog about some classic gaming. The example I wound up using was Red Baron 3D so I thought you might like to read the reasons I gave for why we still, even occasionally, fire up "the old gal."

That certainly is kind of you, good sir. To be honest, I'm not sure I'd want to give up my old hat switch - I've gotten to be quite a beast with the thing over the years. I can follow aircraft in OFF without padlocking with it and never lose them...

Hi Lou! If anyone wants to donate a lightly used TrackIR system to a poor PhD student, just let me know!

Taken together, these two comments create a terrible realization. Red Baron 2 has held that crown longer than your son has been alive. I'm just saying... I shuddered lol!

Say what you will about target audiences and the like... but I think we have the perfect marriage of the right target audience and the right developers. We risk becoming spoiled, I think. We politely mention a little immersion detail like having the time to walk around the plane, so to speak, before take off and before we even try to build an argument for its inclusion, we find out from Winder that it's already in the next phase. Does it get much better than this? Somebody, buy these people a state of the art graphics engine - we have an all-time classic on our hands!

These are phenomenal! Great find guys!

Yikes... sounds like my Christmas. Lots of family strife, and very unpleasant.

Hi Olham! I am coming out of my Christmas Coma. It wasn't the best holiday season I ever had but... I spent a glorious New Years Eve with my beautiful girlfriend, drinking champagne and dancing the night away in a beautiful ball room. I too am starting the new year with some physical activity. I'm visiting the gym here at my apartment complex every day (I'm taking today off lol), for about half an hour to an hour. It's made a huge difference in my outlook on my work and just life in general. You probably missed it because you were off on holiday but I had a terrible experience with customer service regarding my Laptop which has been broken since September. It looks like the story might have a happy ending. After blogging angrily about it, I got the attention of someone at Lenovo and it looks like they are going to get it back to working order (for the first time!), free of charge. We'll see how that turns out. How's things on your end my friend? I have to admit, the flight sim bug has bitten me harder than ever. I'm flying lots of patrols and even venturing into the civilian side of things with FS2004. My girlfriend is talking about buying me some flying lessons for my upcoming 30th birthday next month! (How cool is it to date a gorgeous woman who comes with her own flight suit? I kid you not!). I hope all is well in Germany. Good to see you back around the boards!

While my worries are not nearly as severe as Tranquillo's...

I wouldn't normally double post this (I also put this over in my normal, OFF Forum), but I need to get the word out on avoiding this company. I've been having a miserable time with my "work" laptop computer...

Hi guys, I've dived back into some great OFF flying in the last few days and boy, did I pick the perfect time to come back! I see HPW has a new DM - which I'll post my thoughts on over in his thread. I wanted to post this questions seperately so as not to derail the other thread. I'm wondering, Herr Prop-Wasche, if it's possible to run your new DM with the FM mods you released earlier this year, as well as 33LIMA's great Empty Weight Mod (which makes combat much more even handed and finally removes that always-frustrating feeling that I cannot keep up with my flight) and his Gunner Arc Mod. I just flew a few missions against some British FE2b's and they seemed utterly defenseless - so I thought perhaps the new Gun Arc Mod would help. A lot of little mods I know, but I am having so much fun flying that I can't help but see if I can make it even better! Any thoughts on this? BTW: The new DM is fantastic!

So Charles Lindbergh stayed awake for 33.5 hours flying to France... I don't suppose tonight will be quite that bad. That said, this is my second one in four days. I'm frantically trying to complete papers that are overdue - in fact, one of them involves World War I aviation. This is just a funny way of checking in and keeping myself awake. Feel free to comment back if you feel like it. I'll check in each hour until this thing ends!

Happy Birthday Widow! I share Mike's sentiments - you're actually less than twice my age (I hit 30 in February ). Hope it's a great night mate! Have one for me and here's to another 50 of good health and good memories with you and yours!

Lou! Good to see you my friend! I take it, from the expression on your face, that you watched the Phase 4 video? Yeah, it's pretty good...

Likewise Mike, should be great. I'm officially addicted to this video - I think I've watched it a few dozen times today. Just looks fantastic!

No one has mentioned this yet - but I'm totally digging the new OBD Software animation - the phonograph and the dog are fantastic! I love it!