CaptSopwith

And then in the world of the macho PC sim flyer, Pour Le Merite is the new 130% Pilot 1: "I'm really enjoying P4, what a great sim." Pilot 2: "What medal do you fly?" Pilot 1: "Iron Cross, 2nd class..." Pilot 2: *Scoffs* "Sissy..."

I also voted no. Flight sims have realism settings, it's the nature of the genre and the type of game that we play. It is a reflection of how "realistic" in terms of difficulty, the simulation is set for. Even a simple shooter like Call of Duty has an Easy, Hardened, and Veteran setting. I wouldn't give much credence to those gripping about a number. If you remove the number, then players will boast and compare based on which check boxes are ticked. I wouldn't worry about trying to please everyone out there, you'll never get there. However, I would love to see efforts directed towards P4 and some plane packs - I think that's the most positive direction for the sim to go, now that we have the majority of the issues ironed out. Just my two cents, your mileage may vary.

I think that was the squadron that took me out! They were light sand color and several had a large number 1 on the upper wing. Very talented squadron.

Ugh, I can relate to this one a little too well... My German Jasta 4 Pilot, Wilhelm Reinhart, who had nearly 10 hours, 5 confirmed kills and five more pending, and an Iron Cross, met his bitter end last night, all during another Scramble missions. We were jumped by a flight of DH2's - nasty little buggers I should add. Sadly though, while I was being chased and harrassed by two of the British scouts, it was the ground that ultimatley claimed Wilhelm's life. While circling, I dipped my left wing a little too low, clipped the ground, and just like that, my career was over. I actually yelled "NO!" at my desk. To say I was more than a little invested in my German pilot would be an understatement. So for me, my pilot mortality rate is now 100% as opposed to the slightly better 99.99% when young Wilhelm was still alive. PS: Oh yes, and hi guys, I'm back and safely moved into my new apartment. PSS: Don't fly drowsy. I killed Wilhelm while flying a late night mission half-asleep. A poor decision...

Thanks guys. Moving day is Saturday, so I'll be in touch for a while longer. After that, it might be a bit, what with trying to get electric and internet (not enough money for TV...) hooked up and paid for. Ah the life of a grad student with loans and a shoestring budget...

Just a quick note for everyone here on the forum. I will be in the process of moving to a new apartment for the next week in preparation of starting grad school! Unfortunately, I'll likely be offline for several days. No biggie, but just in case someone here asked where I was, now you know. Now to pack up my gaming PC, and most importantly, my antique Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 flight stick!

Sounds fantastic Winder, you and your team really have spoiled us with the excellent service and constant updates! Thanks again!

So what are you studying Revthought? I'll be working on an MA History degree for the next few years.

Wow, glad you're alright Bullethead! That was a frightening read! Having been in two serious crashes in my time (one in which a van hit my two-seater Miata at an intersection) I know how unnerving those moments can be! Glad to hear you walked away from a very near miss. So did they ever figure out why this woman was driving the wrong way on the highway? Please tell me it wasn't something completely moronic like texting while driving...

Wow...

You're right Olham, but it is pretty easy to get a little fired up and angry when you're being shot at by half a dozen enemy planes all while trying to take off! So the second patrol of the day wasn't much better than the first! Reinhart and his trusted wingman, Max-Wilhelm Lammertz joined August Nitzsche on a patrol behind friendly lines when we attacked a flight of Sopwith Triplanes. I must admit, I'm surprised by how well the now aging Albatros DII fighters cope with the much more nimble Tripes. Unfortunately, while I was zipping around in the dogfight, I must have had a collision with someone as my right wing took some massive damage. Thankfully, with liberal use of the rudder, I was able to keep fighting for a few more minutes. Looking around for a friendly field to land at, I started to work my way out of the dogfight. One Tripe, however, noticed and wouldn't let me out of his grasp; firing away at me until my scout was well and truly shot up. Control wires damaged, nearly no elevator use, and a damaged engine left me to limp at ground level back to the nearest field I could find. Thankfully we were over our own lines, a definite advantage to flying as a German (as we usually patrol our lines and wait for the enemy to come to us). I sat down my scout, which was then written off in the debrief. I think this is the third plane now that Reinhart has lost to enemy fire! A little tip, if you're being attacked and you can get low enough fast enough, try tree hopping. Weaving in and out of the trees seemed to deter the chasing tripe from completely shooting me down. Then again, it might have been more luck than strategy. What was it MvR said? If I survive this war, I will have had more luck than brains? Reinhart lives to fight another day, though I'm beginning to question my choice of posting about his career - the war has become much more serious since my post last night! PS: Here's a screenshot of Reinhart's shot up Albatros DII. That was quite the interesting landing!

Well, that's what I get for posting about a relatively peaceful, smooth sailing career! After finishing my morning coffee, I decided to take old Wilhelm up for a morning patrol and what do I get? A scramble where we are attacked by an entire squadron of Spad 7 fighters that literally shot every single wingman down! I've never been so tense at the controls of a simulator in my life! After taking off and getting airborne as quickly as I could, I looked up and saw a swarm of tan Spads with British markings (Damn Krumpets!) diving on us at high speed. Worse yet, the bastards waited until we were just airborne, rather than risk strafing us on the field. As we're desperately trying to get some altitude, theses Spads come blasting through us, guns blazing, and immediately take down one wingman, sending his DII spinning into the trees at the end of our own runway! I did everything I could, downing three of them (and they had damn well better be confirmed, their flaming wreckage is literally on our runway!) After 11 minutes of the most harrowing flying I think I've ever done - spent circling, diving, climbing, kicking rudder left and right, evading, and constantly weaving to get yet another determined Spad off my tail all while taking pot shots at anything English that wandered into my Spandaus' sights - I was down to one gun and my plane had been shot up a few times. I was determined that I was not going to die within sight of my own damn barracks! I came in and landed sideways on our field, taxied up to the hangers, and bolted from my DII, running for cover, and for my life! Three of the Spads remained airborne after we gave them all we had, and our ground crews were busy firing away while the English menace continued to circle and strafe the field. I'd like to think old Wilhelm ran over to a machine gun emplacement and gave them some more wrath! That's one hell of a way to start your morning. I've attached Reinhart's claim sheet. You should enjoy his write up on the second page - Wilhelm's tone is just slightly more agitated this morning compared to his usual accounts of combat in the air!

You're killing me today Widow! I just watched the video at the top of the article and now I'm all choked up. Wow, the world could really use more men like Henry today.

They are all leaving us, 90 years after the guns of August fell silent on the Western Front... Soon all that will be left will be their pages in history, and the scars left on the land in Flanders. Truth be told, they are the reason why I'm in school to become a Professor of History. Salute! "Died in his sleep, age 113." I hope I'm that lucky one day...

I had that in my XP install years ago as well Widow, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I don't remember ever getting rid of the problem. IIRC, XP hits this glitch when there are more programs installed than the Add/Remove app is programmed to display. It doesn't really create any issues, and I remember solving it only when I reinstalled XP after formatting my drive. Bit drastic to solve a cosmetic problem, but there you go. Cheers!

Wels, I'm running an 8800GT card, which I know is slightly more powerful but... Have you looked at Homeboy's settings for improving your OFF performance? I was getting decent FPS, with some stutter and running at a lower resolution until I went through and followed his instructions (though he'll be the first to credit Rabu for coming up with the settings in the firs place ). Here's the link to the thread. Try Homeboy's suggestions. In the end, my slider settings remained the same, but my resolution went way up, and my FPS jumped from 15-25 to 30-65 with an increase in detail and graphical eye-candy. Just a thought, and a cheap alternative at that! PS: In terms of Homeboy's resolution, you'll likely want to adjust accordingly. Example, I'm not running at his resolution, rather I backed it off to my native desktop setting of 1680x1050. Hope this helps!

You know, I completely misread that in the campaign manager. Somehow I didn't see "no" in front of rank, so I've just been typing it in. I seem to have about a 50% acceptance rate. There was one mission where we pounced a flight of 4 N17's over our own lines and just utterly decimated them but received no credit. I can only assume that because the weather was so horrible and they were downed in the trenches that perhaps that contributed to it. I'll have to remember that in the future. Thanks mate!

I did some warping on Reinhart in the first few missions, and there are three missions which I aborted in under ten minutes (one was an aerodrome attack with bombers at 15,000 feet and us on the field, so I exited out) - so I think that's skewing the flight time. The rest of the missions have all been short hops near the lines, so I think that's keeping the hours a little low when compared to missions flown. Cheers!

So it looks like my Summer Campaign is going well. A while back I asked the members here on the board to suggest some campaigns to fly before I start graduate studies this fall and lose all of my free time. Out of their suggestions, one pilot has survived over 8 hours! The others have all bitten the dust, but Wilhelm Reinhart (a name I usually have a lot of luck flying under) has survived in Jasta 4 for nearly the entire month of March 1917. Bloody April is just around the corner, and the Albatros DII fighter has been a very enjoyable experience - not to mention productive. Reinhart has downed 5 enemy aircraft (unconfirmed means unconfirmed!) and has been in some very exciting dogfights. I've neglected to post about it for a few reasons. First, I was having too much damn fun to write! Second, I started to think I would jinx myself if I talked about an OFF pilot actually living past his first mission! Here's Reinhart's log as of this evening's mission.

I just checked out the thread in your link and wow, talk about inspirational. Thanks for passing that along Mark.

Wow, that was well and truly buried. I managed to back it up but if I ever have to reinstall I'll need to ask where to put my backup file! Thanks guys!

Thanks Homeboy. But where would I find this in Vista? I tried looking for a docs and settings folder but to no avail...

I know this is a tad more modern than our canvas and wooden planes but... To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the JFK library put together a truly remarkable website about the mission. It's all flash based and streams the radio transmissions between Houston and Apollo 11 through all stages of the mission. On July 20th they streamed the mission in real time but now the entire mission is archived and you can access all of it whenever you want. There are few websites I'd actually recommend, and even fewer that have truly wowed me over the years. This is one of them. For anyone who loves history and the history of manned flight, you should check it out. I spent hours there. http://wechoosethemoon.org/

Title pretty much says it all. Is there a file somewhere in my OFF install for my customized control settings? I've been tweaking them and I finally have a setup I really like but I want to be able to back these up in case I ever have to reinstall. Thanks in advance!

Widow, I went ahead and took a screenshot of Homeboy's post and saved them as two jpegs for future reference. They are saved on my portable Hard drive along with all of my OFF patches. Might want to give that a go so you have a copy for the future - he changes so many settings that I'd never remember them all!