CaptSopwith

I thought I had written off yet another pilot last night - and on his first mission too! Flight Lieutenant William Dearing (the younger brother of Charles Dearing from Wings of Glory) had just joined 8-RNAS in October of 1916. Their first mission was a bust, a patrol of the lines was called off due to bad weather. The next morning, the squadron was ordered to fly South to a new aerodrome. What should have been a simple transfer mission culminated in two separate dogfights with German Halberstadts. Of course, Dearing was piloting his trusty Nieuport 17 - which by all accounts was more than a match for the Halberstadt. Indeed, Dearing did fine - flaming one Halberstadt and watching as his wingmen systematically destroyed the Germans - after all, the entire squadron was airborne in two large formations - so being outnumbered was never going to happen. Regrouping, the squadron continued south and nearly made it to their new home when a second flight of DII's - this time only four in number, were courageous (or suicidal) enough to dive on a full compliment of N17s. This time, Dearing came under fire - not from the Germans, but from an overzealous wingman who opened fire on a German and instead, hit Dearing's plane - severing some control wires - undoubtedly contributing to the unpleasant turn of events later in the battle. Dearing's Nieuport was still flyable, but he soon wound up in another tangle with a lone DII. He followed his target lower and lower - until they were dancing at treetop level. Dearing, his eyes fixed on his target, failed to notice that the nose of his Nieuport had dipped too low, and by the time he looked out of his windscreen again, the ground was there to meet him. Boom! The Nieuport was literally in splinters. It was a high speed crash - even for 1916 standards - Dearing must have been traveling at over 90MPH when he hit the dirt. I sat back, released my controls, and swore. Dammit - another one written off. After all, I fly close to the DiD standard - and my workshop has the "Dead is Dead" box clearly checked. No one could walk away from such a violent crash. The medics would be scraping Dearing off the ground with a squeegee after that kind of wreck. Only as the menu came back up, OFF announced that Dearing had, in fact, arrived at safely his new base - the rest of the squadron - minus two pilots who had been lost during the skirmishes along the way - were all accounted for. I knew damn well one of those casualties should have been William Dearing. And yet, his career continues... for reasons surpassing understanding. My advice for the rest of the squadron - stay away from William Dearing - he's probably bad luck, or a member of the undead horde!

Ah Ha! I answered my own question. I was enjoying Olham's thread on early war Brit pilots (my usual starting point as a WWI pilot, I know 24 RFC like the back of my hand, and I've died so many times I've lost count!) and found a link to British_eh's Survival In The Air series. http://combatace.com/topic/60942-sia-flying-and-air-fighting-pilot-primers/page__p__463192?do=findComment&comment=463192 If you haven't read these yet, you owe it to yourself to download the lot. I have them saved now in a folder with a shortcut to my WWI library link on my desktop. Perfect!

Hi Gents. I hope all is well in your corner of the OFF universe. I was reading up on the forums and enjoying some hot cocoa when I thought of a question. Quite some time ago a kind soul on the boards released a series of flight handbooks for the various planes in OFF. I loved reading through these and learning some pointers on some of the trickier aeroplanes to fly in the sim. Then they upped and vanished and after my hard drive died last October, I lost them as well. So, whatever became of these great pilot's guides and where can I reacquire them for my virtual pilots? S!

Hi guys, thanks for all of the feedback. As for my wattage - I'm limited to 400watts. As I'm in the middle of a lot of RL projects at the moment, I don't want to get too involved upgrading my PSU - my flying PC is also my working PC. Hope this helps with any suggestions regarding what kind of card would be a suitable upgrade. Cheers!

Does anyone have some suggestions on a comparable or slightly better card to replace it with?

That's what I was afraid of - yeah the fan ramps up when I run high end games - but it doesn't seem to be dispersing the heat very well. Also, I clean out the case every 3-4 months but when I removed the card - which has the fan facing down in the case so I never really was able to hit it with the compressed air - the thing was chocked with dust... I'm thinking that might have done it in.

Hi guys. I hope all is well. It's been a busy semester so far but I've been trying to keep up on my reading here. I've encountered a graphics card problem and I need some help. My system is a Gateway FX7024 with 3 Gigs of Ram, a 500GB HDD, an Intel Core 2 Quad processor, and an nVidia GeForce 8800GT graphics card. Well, over the last few days I've had the entire computer lock up - complete with whatever the card is rendering at the time - in both cases it's been Call of Duty Modern Warfare - breaking up into pixilated bright pink and white dot goo. Then the whole system has to be hard rebooted by holding down the power button for 5 seconds. It only seems to happen during COD. I played OFF and even tried ramping up ROF - thinking that it should strain the card - and didn't see any issues. I have the latest drivers, and tried rolling them back to see if it was a driver issue. I thought the problem was fixed until last night, when it happened again on COD. I've taken the card out and cleaned it as best as I can with compressed air and even a vacuum (it was completely unplugged at the time). The card is getting white hot during gaming duties - the temperature is hovering around 90C and the max operating temperature is rated at 105C. I'm at a loss for what to do here guys - is it possible that the card is going bad? I always thought that if a video card went bad, it just died, not do this. Any advice would be welcomed - and if I do have to replace it, could you point me to a comparable card to the 8800GT - as the power supply in the Gateway is a bit limited and I don't think it can run the latest and greatest video cards out there. Thanks in advance for your help.

Well, it might help if I spelled his first name right... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderic_Dallas Ol' Roderic was Australian, which might account for not being able to find him if you were checking the Aerodrome - I believe they group them by the pilot's nationality. He was a pretty spectacular pilot, with 45 kills to his credit before he was killed. His SE5 featured very forward thinking camo work. I've dug through my archives... was this pilot by any chance the one I used for my first avatar?

Hi Olham! I had a hunch you'd be the first to welcome me back. I'm glad things are well with you. The avatar is Roderick Stanley Dallas, a WWI pilot I've always admired - I still remember "flying wit him" in one of my more successful RBII careers many years ago. I'm amazed you remember my first avatar - what was it? Even I can't recall as I've changed it so many times! As for the resolutions - I think you're on the right track. There's not such thing as too many pledges - aim high my friend, and all will turn out well. I too am planning on getting into batter shape this year - I had surgery over the break to fix a long bothersome hernia, now I can actually get in shape for good once I'm healed up!

My stomach turned when I read this Hellshade. We've lost a real giant and even though I never met him, I felt like I knew him. I echo the sentiments expressed - we should all lead such exemplary lives.

Hello Chaps! I hope all had a restful and joyous Christmas. I am finally back after three weeks away. I had a great break, it was wonderful to be away from the computer for a while - after being practically chained to it for the better part of a month writing papers. Santa Clause - or more specifically, my family and friends - were very kind to me this year. I have expanded my gaming library considerably with F1 2010, Assassins Creed, and Black Ops for my Xbox 360 as well as a copy of Rise of Flight for my PC (purchased by my fiance, can you believe it!? ) So my WWI sim library continues to expand even more! I also added a great movie to my library: the Steve McQueen classic, Le Mans (thanks Dad), so I'm in great shape for the new year, and the last few months of my MA program! I'm snowed in, which means more time to study up and work, as well as fly. Should be a great New Year! I hope the holidays were as kind to everyone else. How is everyone doing? I look forward to hearing from all of you! Cheers and, as always, S!

Looking forward to reading the revised editions. Quick question: What is the pilot personality profile file do? Cheers!

British_eh, Thanks for reminding me about the SIA Series! I had a hard drive failure back in October and I forgot to require those guides when I reinstalled. Keep up the great work on those - they are immensely enjoyable and informative reads!

Gents, Just thought I'd go ahead and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I'm heading home which means my computer, and my access to the internet, will be left behind until I return in early January. I promise I'll check back in once I return, and I'll be reading the boards right up till tomorrow morning when I take off for home! It should be a fun Christmas - spent with family, friends, my fiance, and then recuperating after a hernia operation lol! That should be loads of fun. It's been a blast to be back and I assure that this will only be a temporary pause. See you guys in three weeks! Merry Christmas! Or Frohe Weihnachten von der Westfront. Depending on which side of the mud you're on!

You gents are reminding me why I love reading this forum. I'm really enjoying hearing your thoughts on this topic - as well as getting a glimpse as to what you play when you aren't patrolling the front. Overall, the impression I get is that OFF is more satisfying because there is a psychological and emotional investment in the game. And I have to agree. Back in my younger days - playing Red Baron II while I was still in high school and had no idea just how much damn free time I had back then! - I would use a separate program to keep a running journal of all of my pilots' experiences. Unfortunately, the program I used was CM11 which was tied right to RB, so the moment my pilot died, he vanished from CM11, right along with his journal! What I would give to have written all of that down in Word - I'd have a novel by now! Anyway, there was definitely an emotional tie to my virtual pilot. Ten plus years on and I can still recall certain missions like they happened yesterday. One involved me flying with Lanoe Hawker in No24 squadron in February 1916. We wound up in a horrible furball and once I ran out of ammunition - found myself faced with the need to retreat from behind enemy lines for the first time. I played RB's system for all it was worth - ground hopping and using the giant river basins that cut through the trenches to avoid ground fire. OFF would never let me get away with that but back in 1999, you could! And that's the interesting thing. I can remember certain moments in games like Call of Duty, or Fallout, that stick out. But ten years later, I still remember that mission. And here's an interesting point that I'm sure Olham will enjoy - I flew that mission in real time. And darn if I don't recall it as if I actually did it! Every mission I time compressed my way through is a blur, but the real time, real world, real danger missions that I managed to escape from are the ones I recall. I'll be curious to see what Black Ops is like - if I wind up getting it. My old college friends and I tend to bond together over games of Call of Duty. I've never been able to convince them to give flight simming a try. The few that have crashed instantaneously and refuse to even attempt to fight me - even though I assure them that only 1 pilot has ever survived the war in the ten plus years I've been fighting the Great War! They don't seem too convinced! But I bet any of the veterans on here could hand me my butt any day of the week.

Hi James, and welcome to the forum! Glad to see you got your copy of OFF and you're already acclimating to life as a pilot in World War I! I don't have much I can usefully add that the other chaps here haven't said already. Start with a fairly easy plane to fly - the SE5 is my personal favorite. The old Red Baron II manual used to say that the SE5 could make even a mediocre pilot look good - which is certainly the case for me! The other plus is that it's one of the few allied planes with twin guns, which will certainly be useful once you get to where you can put sights on an enemy. A good way of acclimating yourself to flight in OFF is to play several quick missions and quick scenarios - just make sure you check the box that says "pilot can't die" or else you'll lose your campaign pilot! It's a great way to get your feet wet without subjecting yourself to the complete rigors of the Front, with all of its perils. Once you start getting comfortable, jump into a campaign. My recommendation - as I've always played my sims this way and enjoyed the experience more for it is this - if you feel like it, try playing around with OFF with all of the realism settings turned up. I tend to find I learn quicker working with the rules the way they will ultimately be rather than learning an easier system and ramping up the difficulty later. And hey, it'll give you an idea of what it was really like back then. Too bad those early Camel pilots didn't have a setting to turn off gyro effects! Again, welcome to the front! We're always glad to have another new pilot in our midsts. Keep asking questions, and we'll keep giving answers (some more useful and or more sarcastic than others! ). And hey, we like the company! New guy buys the first round!

I completely agree with what everyone has said here. As usual, Hellshade, you completely hit the nail on the head. This passage particularly hit home: If you make a kill, you don't even get automatic credit for it in OFF like you do in WoP and CoD. You have to prove you got it to the powers that be. And kills are hard in OFF. Because they are hard, when you make one, you feel like you've accomplished something. In CoD, if you havent made 20 kills in 30 seconds you are considered a terrible player. The easier something is to have, the less emotionally valuable it is to you. The harder you have to work for something, the more it means to you when you finally get it. So CoD gets your blood pumping and you all hyped up about making kills before being killed...but it isn't emotionally satisfying no matter how many you get because most of them come so easily and so often. In OFF, your blood starts pumpng when you see the dots in the sky and you realize that your squadron and theirs are probably going to end up in a dogfight that could cost you your characters life. You don't get to reload the last mission if you die. You're dead and have to create a new pilot. Everything you've worked for with that pilot is on the line every moment that you are in the air. So with OFF kills being harder to get and with dying having a real penalty that makes you feel like you've got something to lose, OFF is always going to offer a deeper, more emotionally fulfilling experience. I think that is a brilliant summary to why sims like OFF keep us coming back for more, years after they're released. Heck, why else would RB have lived on so long? As Otto pointed out in another thread, it was hardly a perfect product when it was released and it needed years of patches to bring it up to our standards. But it had the same core elements that OFF holds today - the creation of your own pilot, the choice of flying missions in a way you think will work best, and the ultimate investment - death = death. There is no respawn point, only the black and white animation of your pilot being buried. It hits home in a deeply emotional way. And while the technology has moved forward since those days - OFF models airplanes with details that the modders during RB3D's glory days could only dream of - that core dynamic (pun intended lol) is what makes sims like these magical experiences.

Nice find! The site says RB and RBII are compatible with XP and Vista - I wonder if they've done anything to make the games run properly or if it's still on the user to get them running. I have my original RBII disk but the game runs far too fast on my Windows 7 machine and applications like Turbo can't help me - as I have a quad core processor. Still, nice to see the old gal kicking around!

Wow, another great find Olham! My bookmark collection always expands when I spend some time on the forums!

Okay guys, bear with me. I'm finishing PhD applications and writing my final papers over the next 12-24 hours and Lord knows I need a break! So I thought I'd write up some thoughts on something fun as a respite from the labors of an academic. During the 15-20 minute breaks I've taken in the last few days while working, I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty 4 on my PC. I've played all of the COD games and I'll likely wind up with Black Ops for Christmas - as I asked for it a few months back (I should have asked for TrackIR lol). And I've noticed a perceptible difference in how I feel after playing a CoD game versus flying a mission in OFF. Now, take the following with a grain of salt - your mileage may vary - these are just my own odd opinions. First, both are immensely fun - no doubt. But a game of CoD (which on the PC features up to 50 people all blasting away on a single map) is a frantic, run and shoot affair. There are always targets in front of you. You sit, clicking away on your mouse, sending rounds downrange while taking fire from all directions. Push too far up the map and your opponents start spawning behind you (we call it a spawn flip). Take cover for too long and you're labeled a "camper" (can you imagine what they'd think of Trench Warfare!? ). Do too well and you must be hacking. Etc. I end a game of CoD feeling hopped up - like a junkie getting a fix, wanting another kill, but never feeling really satisfied. Fire up a mission in OFF, on the other hand, and it's a completely different experience. By COD comparisons its a much slower game. You fly, you look around, you wait. On any given mission you might have one or two dogfights - but usually you'll see dots in the distance and never encounter much trouble (at least when you fly in 1915 as I am). And I feel so much better after a mission in OFF. Is it tense and exciting? Absolutely! But it is so much enjoyable than a quick, manic game of shooting up in CoD. I feel satisfied with the time (and I'm very aware of my time these days lol) I invested in my choice of game. OFF feels great to play, immensely satisfying to fly, and after I'm finished, I feel refreshed and inspired to get back to work. I played one more game of CoD today - and wound up being banned from a server. Why? Because I took cover for too long and hopped to get out of a window. Silly me! It was at that moment when I came to my senses, thought "What the hell am I doing here?" and went back to my OFF career. I flew another Fokker EIII mission, saw no trouble over the lines, and landed safely without ever firing a shot. And I felt great! I guess my rambling point is this. While the gaming community at large seems to view us as a group of fringe oddballs who worry about details that your average CoD player could care less about - I'd much rather be a "fringe oddball" of a "niche" community, than continuing to battle among the masses who think war games should be fought by running into the streets, shooting as many people as they can before they are mowed down, and then repeating. While CoD had its hooks in me for the last three years - I just don't get it anymore. It reeks of the mindless lather, rinse, repeat gaming that seems to be flooding the market these days. It's time to suit up again - put back on the goggles, dust off my old pilots and give OFF the attention it deserves. Thank God my old Sidewinder 2 joystick (which I've had since 2000) still works! Cheers!

I think you're right, my friend. That's the trade off. Right now they might not sell millions of copies, but there is also no publisher saying "we want DLC in six months, there should be more multi-player maps, we don't need 5,000 skins, just paint all of the Dr1's red and ship the damn thing!" They can do as they please, add as much detail as their imagination and the hardware allows, and create something we all love.

Red Baron II / 3D was the reason I wound up here. The long version, in case anyone is interested (not sure why lol) is this: I played the Wings of Glory demo on a PC Gamer CD (it came with the magazine in those days, not sure if they still do that). I immediately fell in love with the game and played the 1 demo mission some 600 times. I even taped myself playing it and provided commentary in a squeaky 13 year old voice - that old VHS is kicking around somewhere! My parents bought the full version for my birthday some months later. The packaging on that game was amazing. Wings of Glory came with a big fat manual, a CD, and a giant (at least it seemed giant at the time) color poster of all of the aircraft on the Western Front in WWI. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Sadly, the game didn't work and the whole thing - poster and all - was returned to the store. I was crushed. WoG was a finicky little thing to run - and actually required more hard drive space than I had. I have the full game installed on my Windows 7 machine and even with the CD copied over, the thing takes up less disk space than the first 6 tracks of Sgt. Peppers! I can't believe we had so little space back then. Anyway, my WWI flying hobby sat dormant for a few years - from 1995 till the fall of 1998. That September we bought a new Dell computer and a month later, I came across one remaining copy of Red Baron II in the PC game section of Wal-Mart (those were the days lol). I begged and pleaded with my parents to buy it (I think it was $30 or something like that) and I've joked with them that it was the best 30 bucks they ever spent. We got internet access in January 1999 and I found the Delphi forum not long after that. Which is how I met OvS, Shred, Rabu, a guy named Rookie109 and Pat Wilson, among others. From there I started downloading patches - UOPs - and figuring out how Red Baron II's file system worked. In the summer of 2000 I worked some odd jobs and saved up enough money to buy a Voodoo 3000 card and the rest is history. Sometime around 2006, James sent me a message (probably on his old Hell's Angels board) saying hey, there's this new project I'm working on called OFF, you really should take a look. I had such an attachment to the 'old gal' as we used to call RB, that it was hard to see myself moving to a new sim. But as OFF improved and I got a new computer, I hopped on board. I can't really remember how long I've been flying OFF - I guess that's what happens when you grow up and years of your life feel more like months instead of the other way around. I remember flying P2 not long after it came out. Anyway, long story short. RB set me up with my obsession with WWI flight. It finished the work that WoG started. I'm a WWI and German historian now because I became obsessed with Red Baron II back then. Like I said, it was the best 30 bucks my parents ever spent. Cheers!

Glad you liked it Olham. Imagine what the team could accomplish if someone invested in OBD and paid them handsomely for their hours of toil at the computer!

Congratulations old man!

Wow! Damn fine work Olham! That picture sent a shiver down my spine.