CaptSopwith

Once again, the skies of OFF left my palms sweating and my heart racing this morning as another patrol ended in near disaster! Attached is my Claims Report from this morning's action in the skies over Arras. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMBATS IN THE AIR: REPORT 9/8/1917 8h17 Flanders Ste-Marie-Cappel Balloon Defense Flying: Sopwith Camel. On this day claims: 4 Alb DV . 45 Squadron - B Flight was designated to defend an observation balloon just north of Arras this morning. While en route to the patrol area, our flight encountered a large formation of Albatros scouts. I am unsure of how many Boche scouts there were, as our formation turned due East rather suddenly and I found myself quickly surrounded by Hun aeroplanes. I also lost contact with my own formation as I followed one German scout down several thousand feet. His craft was painted with black diagonal stripes down the length of this fuselage and his tail was painted in white and black stripes as well. I managed to lead shoot rather well, and damaged his control wires which sent him into a spin. Being low to the deck, it led to his crashing just about a mile East of the friendly RFC field due North of Arras. As he was going down, another Boche chased after me to avenge his comrade. We entered into a turning fight which eventually allowed me to put my sights through the Hun flier and open fire. This time his engine was hit and I saw huge bellows of smoke pouring from the plane as he caught fire and subsequently crashed. I then spent the next several minutes trying to locate B Flight, but to no avail. As I climbed to gain altitude I noticed more Archie flak bursts behind me and, much to my astonishment, saw two more Albatros fighters, painted in the same colours, diving towards me. The next several minutes were a terrifying blur. The two Boche pilots worked together to trap my Sopwith Camel. Thankfully, the Camel out-turned the Huns, and I led them back over the same RFC aerodrome I had flown over a few minutes earlier. The ground gunners began pouring fire into the sky and the Huns were left to Zig-Zag all over to avoid being hit. This allowed me to circle back again and down one of them, leaving his scout stalled in the air until he fell tail first to the ground. The Final Hun then attacked and, unfortunately, severely damaged my Sopwith. As I led him back over the aerodrome, the ground fire clipped his Albatros, allowing me a killing shot on the Hun, which also saw him crash near the base. All scouts crashed somewhere in the vicinity of the Arras Aerodrome. Due to the severity of the damaged sustained in the final scrap with the Hun, I was forced to land my Sopwith at the base and file this report from there.. Witnessed by: Quentin Powell, Rob Ackland Status : Pending . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Simply stated, I am yet again amazed by the intensity of a mission in OFF. Even on the sim's stock settings, and without mods, the work done by OBD leaves me astounded at how well they replicated the danger pilots in World War I faced. Also, I have to say that flying an entire mission without Warp is, quite possibly, the most rewarding flight sim experience to be had. Our formation of Camels took off, circled our field a few times, and headed out to our patrol area. I spent most of the ingress sipping my morning coffee and struggling to get my Camel to match the speed and altitude of my wingmen. As we drew to within three miles of the observation balloon we were assigned to defend, I finally joined the formation. I spent much of my time focusing on keeping my scout in line with the rest of my formation when my flight leader broke formation and banked hard right to the East. A quick check of my map showed me that we were nowhere near a waypoint change and, as I glanced up through my upper wing, I could see a flurry of white flak bursts in the sky... but no planes. Clearly there was trouble but I couldn't make out what. Half of B-Flight trailed, also unsure of the danger and I stuck close to them... after all, some wingmen are better than breaking formation and being separated. As I trailed behind them I suddenly saw three German Albatros DV's dive between us. My pulse jumped immediately and I could feel the taste of adrenaline in my mouth. My wingman broke formation violently and from there, the fight was on. Initially I performed gentle turns left and right and kept checking my six o'clock. The difference a TrackIR setup makes cannot be understated in a moment like this. Being able to simply glance behind me over and over again is what kept me alive this morning. Then the fight began... An Albatros dove for me and opened fire - I violently kicked the rudder and rolled my Camel out of harms away and, again, glancing for my attacker, brought my scout around until I could get my guns on him. The dogfight described in my report was incredibly nerve-wracking. Even in a Sopwith Camel, the most successful scout of the war, I found myself on the ragged edge to keep the German pilots at bay. The Camel is also incredibly twitchy, and I frequently had to remind myself to pull back easily on the stick. 3/4ths input usually worked better and prevented me from snap spinning my camel and leaving it hanging helpelessly in the air. The interlude between my two violent engagements was also a moment of pure tension and worry. After downing the first two Germans, and I only just downed them - they put up a terrific fight - I was completely alone over a friendly base. I started circling gently again, adjusting my mixture, trying to climb quickly to get off the deck, and desperately looking around for my wingmen... which I saw none. Then, glancing up through the centre-wing cut-out once more, I saw more flak bursts about 2000 feet above me. Then, as I'm wearing headphones with my TrackIR rig, I could hear bursts directly behind me. Glancing back, sure enough, there were two more Albatros scouts and they were angry! They dived through the flak, their wings wagging as they opened fire on me. This time, I yanked the stick as hard as I could, snapped the rudder, and dropped my Camel out of the sky like a rock, leaving them to overshoot. The hard part was regaining control and any semblance of speed. The next several minutes were the most intense I've yet had in this sim. Diving, banking, turning, and snap shooting - just like Cecil Lewis describes in Sagittarius Rising. It's all really just a blur of colour, ground, and sky, and you're desperately hoping you're going to catch a break. Thankfully, I was able to drag the Germans towards that friendly airfield again - and here's where having good Situational Awareness is key - as the ground fire hampered their ability to get me. Still, that last German shot my Camel completely full of holes. There is no feeling to rival the sickening sensation you feel in your gut when you glance behind and realize that you're cold meat. The German pilot opened fire on me and I could hear his rounds tearing my plane to pieces. In that instance, you pray that your scout holds together and that you and the engine are spared. Later, it was out of pure luck that I caught him climbing away from the base's ground fire. Had the airfield not been there and had I not had the where-with-all to fly back to it, I would have most assuredly been killed this morning. As that last German crashed, I frantically looked around to make sure I was at least temporarily clear - as I could feel my Camel struggling to stay aloft, and banked hard right until I was at least mostly lined up with the field. I immediately cut the engine and, though my descent was rapid, I held my breath until I was safely stopped on the ground. I sat back, took a deep breath, and wiped the sweat from my hands. It's amazing. This sim has been out since 2009 and, when I stop modding it long enough to actually play it, I am always left breathless by just how nerve-wracking the thing is. I also play Battlefield 3 in my spare time, and I never, ever, feel that sense of sheer terror that I get in OFF. Here, I always feel as though I am on the kife-edge of disaster and death... much like the men who experienced the war nearly a century ago. Nicely done OBD! A four year old flight sim based on a graphics engine that's over a decade old beats out a Triple-A, multi-million dollar game every single time. There are no words for you guys: Pol, Winder, Shred, Sandbagger, and the rest... you guys are incredible! Can't wait to see WOFF!

These are absolutely fantastic Lou! Terribly sorry I missed them back in the day! Would be wonderful to see a new edition printed sometime soon. *wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more...*

Crikey Lou... can't believe it's been two years already. I'm now in my early thirties and I am astounded as the speed at which time now passes. I'm also feeling mildly depressed that we've been discussing P4, WOFF for that long already. It doesn't feel like that much time has passed (graduate school does funny things to your perception of time) but my, my, I do so wish they would release this thing soon. For those of us who remember older flight sims, WOFF is starting to feel a bit like Falcon 4.0 - the proverbial king of vaporware in the 1990s...

This is a fantastic list fellas! Thank you so much for your help. I wasn't getting too far on my own and now I have some excellent avenues to pursue!

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

Hi Robert! Olham has created a few skins for my German pilot. So far I have an Albatros DII in two variations and a brand new DIII. I do wish I had some proper photo editing software so I could take a stab at making some new skins. I remember doing that back in the RB3D days, although I fear Microsoft Paint no longer cuts it as an editing tool. Cheers! CaptSopwith

Hi zoomzoom! Nice to see you back on the boards again. I think, given the amount of time being put into WOFF, that the devs are aiming for a one shot, complete install of everything. Now granted, I'm just guessing, but I can't fathom something taking this amount of time and not being a complete, out of the box experience from day one. In the meantime, I'm still finding more and more things in OFF that I haven't seen before. My latest batch of pilots have run into new squadrons, all flying new paintschemes that I haven't seen before in this sim. OFF... the gift that keeps on giving. Cheers!

Hi Kaische! Thanks for the kind message. I had a few observations about OFFice's latest iteration with HPW's flight model. All is working quite well! The updated sound effects no longer stutter on my rather aged system - which is a massive improvement! As always, the dynamic interaction with my squadmates is satisfying and it feels good to get back to flying again. I am noticing that HPW's FM is still causing a lot of issues with the early war scouts. My DH2's frequently crash into the trees at the end of RFC 24's field - I easily lose half a flight on each mission. I've also seen a lot of issues with the Fokker EIII's in combat. During our RB3D days, we used to call the behavior I'm seeing "porposing" because the EIII will climb, stall, dive, and then climb again. Finally, the AI will lose so much altitude that they eventually crash into the mud. Which was the case here. So the solution for me so far is to fly with Buddy's DM and the stock OFF FM. Seems to iron out most of the issues. Otherwise, Lother, OFFice is running beautifully! I'd love to join OFFworld but, having just moved to a new apartment and being a grad student, my budget is beyond tight at the moment - a plight I'm sure you can understand. That said, good luck with the project - it looks like a fantastic idea! Cheers!

Hi Olham! Good to hear from you too! I don't think you did. You did do an all black DII with a blood red "R" for Roth which was gorgeous. I frequenly use both.

Hi All! Just thought I'd check in and see how everyone's summer is progressing. Things are pretty quiet here - which is a nice change of pace from the last six months. Diving back into my games - especially OFF (Olham: I'm still using your terrific Wilhelm Roth "R" skins). So, how is everyone here? What are you playing these days now that we're still in a holding pattern for WOFF? Hope everyone is well! Cheers!

Looks good Lothar! I haven't had a chance to fiddle with OFFice now for several months. Can you tell me what's new in the latest addition? I'll have to give it a whirl during my downtime this summer. Cheers!

It does?? Darnit Andy! I'm supposed to be grading exams this morning and now you're going to send me off to playtest OFF again! I think Shiloh is on to some important ideas here. It's a difficult tightrope to walk, and I too, can see both sides of this discussion. On the one hand there is a growing frustration with the seemingly endless wait for the next release of OFF. We've been teased beyond reason and, as with other kinds of teasing, there is only so much one can take before it becomes more irritating than enticing. If I recall correctly, the original Red Baron was released in 1990; it's successor in 1997. That's a pretty long wait between releases. I'll also add that our collective memory of RBII is probably one that was heavily patched and improved by the community - as the dev's released the RB3D Superpatch, a few server fixes and Sierra decided Dynamix could call it a day. The rest of the improvements - the ones we remember so fondly, are derived from the hard work of many of the guys who went on to work on OFF. As for hardware requirements, mine skates by on OFF (it's an early 2008 machine), and I'm sure if I dumb down the settings, WOFF will likewise squeak by until I can get a new machine (oh graduate school, when will you end?). But others who posted here are correct: WOFF, even at its peak, will probably not require the graphics processing power that a game like Bioshock Infinite will consume. It will require processing speed - as the CFS3 engine pulled much of its energy from the CPU and not the GPU. But again, most of us should be in good shape. And yes, there are thousands of encounters yet to be had in OFF! The campaign engine mirrors that of RB3D and the reason I played RB for so many years was because my missions were different each time. Yes, "other" sims might be plugging in feature here in there - and that's great! We should have a healthy and vibrant community of WWI simmers - but OFF, IMHO, is still THE game to get if you want to play offline - which I do most of the time. The AI, when set to aggressive, is still more than a handful for me and there are so many planes to tackle and learn, that I don't think I will be an expert on every kite anytime soon. The downside, of course, is the threat that it might never be released. But I doubt this would ever come to pass. If there was some terminal issue with WOFF and it's development, the devs would have told us. Pol, Winder, Shred, Sandbagger, and OvS are all straight forward guys. They wouldn't be leaving us hanging unless they were on to something. Patience is a virtue - not one I possess. But with my newfound OFF-time this summer (I am finally ABD and get a break for the first time in four years!) I know there is much left for me to explore in my current copy of OFF before I put the old gal out to pasture. Hang in there guys - keep flying - and keep the screenshots of your current exploits coming! Cheers!

Fantastic photos guys! Keep them coming! I promise to upload some more this summer once I'm finally, finally, finally free!

That's a damn fine point, Widow! And, truthfully, I feel a bit ungrateful considering how much I have left to explore in OFF! In the nearly four years I've been playing BH&H, I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface of what the sim has to offer. There are still so many missions, so many squadrons, so many more fights to be had. I played Red Baron 3D for nearly 8 years before my love of the game started to dull. So, by RB standards, I'm only halfway through my journey in OFF. You're absolutely right though - they need to get it right, and I have every confidence they will - they haven't had a misstep yet!

For some reason - in my post exam haze - I thought those posts were recent. Then I checked the year... 2012. *sigh* and another year goes by... Fingers crossed boys - I think the community has reached a point where it needs WOFF to release soon. Been far too quiet around here!

Glad I'm not the only one. My TrackIR is mostly held together with crazy glue!

I know what you mean! I'm due for a reformat once this semester wraps up and I have some spare time. The rig has been showing signs of doing some flakey things lately and I've mucked about with it enough installing and trying out a lot of new games - Red Orchestra 2 being one of them! Desperately needs to be cleaned out.

Hey Widow! Nice to see your name again! How are you these days? What happened with the OFF install?

Thanks Lothar! Will give it a go and report back!

As I said in one of my other posts, I have finally gotten back to OFF after a few months away. I've kept my "good" pilots - those with a history, some kills to their credit, and some chance of success - in suspended animation; both for their sake and mine. I've brought out two new pilots, one flying Sopwith Camels in summer 1917 and another pilot flying the Fokker Dr1 in late 1917. I can't quite remember what Jasta he was with - their pattern is all blue with a blue cowling cover on the engine. At any rate, his career didn't last long. I don't even remember his name at this point! Our poor pilot lasted exactly two missions: a successful patrol over the lines which saw him get lost in a thunderstorm and finally cut for home. The second patrol was far less successful and ended with a quick and sudden death - yet another reminder of just how dangerous the skies of OFF are. Our patrol was once again in bad weather - heavy, thick cloud cover hung fairly low over the lines as we climbed up to start our patrol on the day after Christmas. We made it out towards the edge of the lines - this was a friendly aerodrome defense mission - and as we approached, I saw my lead flight of three Dr1's flying at about 2000 ft above me, begin breaking right. I wasn't sure why until I looked off of my right center wing spar and saw a field of black flak blanketing the skies. Leaning forward I could make out a few specks against the sky and knew we had company. I kept a close eye as our lead flight and the enemy flight of unidentified specks began to merge. I could make out the tracer rounds flying back and forth. And that's when it happened. I was so fixated on the merge and which target I could pick out of the furball that I hadn't checked my six in a few minutes. My wingmen were all a few hundred feet below me - the Dr1 has a nasty habit of climbing to the moon unless it's kept in check - which it wasn't during my period of being entranced by the start of a dogfight (a real rookie mistake given I've been playing flight sims for fifteen years now). And then... the hail of gunfire that you always dread as a pilot came blasting through my cockpit from somewhere behind me. I had drifted high and away from my flight - leaving me incredibly exposed and utterly unaware that a second flight had crept in behind us and caught us completely unaware. Wing spars, support wires, part of my controls, and my engine were all hit in the first past. Out of reflex I kicked the rudder right, shoved the stick down, and attempted to dive away as quickly as possible. In an Albatros or a DVII, this might have worked - but the Fokker just stalled, hung on its oversized wing, and went nowhere. Thankfully, the stall allowed my assailant, a DH5, to overshoot me. It didn't matter though, the damage was done. I circled again, lined up another DH5 in my sights, and peppered him with gunfire until he had stream of fuel spraying out of his overhead fuel tank. And then came the inevitable - the final blast of gunfire which finished off my Dr1 - left it uncontrollable and spiraling towards earth. And just like that, my pilot was dead. But that's life in the skies of OFF - quick, violent, and always dangerous.

I finally cracked last night. I had had enough, enough of reading and note taking, enough of staring into my word processor for hours at a time. I needed a break. So I walked over, fired up the gaming computer, and started OFF. For the sake of my old pilots - who sit in suspended animation until this summer - I created a new pilot: Cecil Graves, and put him into a plane that, surprisingly (given my name) I haven't flown in OFF: The Sopwith Camel. Cecil's first patrol took him up over the lines on a patrol in beautiful clear weather. The patrol was eventful too! In addition to dodging flak and not getting lost (his patrol sector was in a location I wasn't terribly familiar with) we wound up coming across a low-flying formation of DFW's painted in lavender and green. I rolled my Camel over and descended - opening fire on the first DFW as I screamed past at a high rate of speed. After flying in the 1916 early 1917 era for so long, this new Camel felt like a jet fighter by comparison! I circled back around - the clattering of machine gun fire was deafening as all sides poured on the fire - also a big change from the intermittent rat-tat-tat's I'm used to hearing. As I came back around from my turn, I opened fire again - the force of the twin Vickers guns was tremendous and with my trusty Track-IR equipped, I leaned forward and looked through my gun sight to guide the rounds in. It was incredibly fast. It was incredibly violent. And, in the end, a DFW was left on fire, plummeting to the earth. It was a tremendous first patrol back. Cecil performed well - never losing control of the tricky widow-maker of the Sopwith Camel. We turned, headed for home, and descended across our side of the lines. And as I sat back, hearing the wind whipping through my cockpit, watching the sunlight dancing across the shell-torn landscape below, and looked off my wingtip to see my fellow Camel pilots, my mind finally stopped. It was glorious. And yet again, I owed a debt, not only to the devs - guys like Pol and Winder and Shred and Sandbagger - but also to you guys: The power supply in my rig was donated, as well as the TrackIR system that I can no longer fly without. Cheers!

Andy, seriously, there is no need to do this - I'm probably one of maybe two people having this problem and, additionally, I am up to my eyeballs in work preparing for comps at the end of this semester so there is absolutely no need to torture yourself fixing this! It's an awesome mod! I'm also due to reformat my computer and reinstall - I've had a lot of clutter build up over the last year of school and who knows, there could be a registry issue somewhere in Windows that's mucking things up. All that said, you've made an incredible mod! I wish the devs could just contact you and have you engineer the sounds in WOFF, it would be fantastic!

Well, it looks like the new version is much better - but crikey did I have a strange problem at the end of a mission last night. So I was flying with the 103rd in March of 1918 - figured that would be a good test of whether my system was up to the task of all of the mods. I should mention at this point that I have downloaded Lothar's OFFice with the included mods and installed Andy's latest sound patch. The mission was brilliant - OFF ran smoother than I'd ever seen it, consistently in the 60fps. I then warped - I wonder if there's something with the mods that makes this unadvisable - and when I came out of it the planes we were escorting were gone and my plane was looping towards the ground. I pulled out and found that me and a wingman had engaged a flight of Rumplers. Well, I shot one down and damaged a second but took a few hits to my SPAD 7. After the fight it was clear that my engine had taken damage - the revs kept dropping so I headed for the lines. As I made it to the Front, the revs finally cut and I lost altitude. That's when things got weird... I cut to a flyby view just to take in the graphics and see how the plane looked. As soon as I did, I went from 60fps to fractions of single digits. The game more than stuttered - it froze several times. Then I saw white artifacts on the ground at the trenches and the FPS continued to be in the single digits - there was a LOT of sound playing at the time: groundfire, artillery, flak, the whistling of wind through my cockpit... I'm not sure what caused the massive drop in my FPS. But when I removed all of the mods and played the mission again in its stock form - there were no issues. Any ideas? I'm really sorry to drop such a puzzler on everyone - the mods, when they work, are simply stunning. Great stuff!

Hi Gents! Thought I'd check in quickly. I hope everyone is doing well - been awfully quiet around here lately. As for myself, I'm finishing my course work in my PhD program as well as teaching and preparing to take my general exams. So, hopefully, that explains my absence around here. Olham, how are you these days? Good to see some of the old members posting around here - Lou especially!

Hi guys! Been far too long since I've posted an update but after reading gaw's report, I thought I could chime in. I, too, have an older system - from about 2008. And I've actually had to stop using Lothars Office with updates because I was having the same frame rate issues after Andy's awesome sound mod. The sounds are incredible but I am also having intermittent but definitely noticeable frame rate problems - particularly when I was close to the front. I think the increase in the number of sounds occurring at any given time seemed to be the cause of the problem - particularly when it involved flak or artillery sounds. My system runs an Intel Quad Core processor, 4GB of RAM, a GeForce 9800GT. My sound is, like gaw's, also on the system board, which I think is probably contributing to my issues. Any ideas on where to proceed from here chaps?