elephant

If you, by any means find this offensive or insulting, (it was not my intention and apologize if so), I will duly remove it...

Please don't flame me as my intention is to motivate OBD finishing Phase 4 to the best and to protest about the user unfriendly externals of OFF, but I guess this isn't OBD's responsibility!

Came on OBD surprise us!

I was flying a lot OFF lately...I was sucked into it's great historical Campaign!

Yesterday, after taking the last update of RoF, I fired it up for a spin.

RoF may be years behind OFF regarding historical backround, planeset and dynamic environment but...

Oh man, I had forgotten it's visual awesomness!

The complicated flight model and complex engine managment also. Planes in OFF seem so stable comparing to this!

I put myself in the cockpit of my beloved Alb. D.Va to continue my Pat Wilson's, long ago interrupted, Jasta 34b Campaign.

To my surprise the date was the 2nd of February 1918 and the mission objective to perform a patrol over the Verdun front with Fwbl. Maxim Bauer as a wingman.

(I am Oblt. Kurt Jurgens, an ace with 26 victories so far).

From my Combat report:

"We went on a flight of three Spads today, flying, surprisingly, a bit lower than us . We attacked from above with the sun behind us and caught them completely by surprise. I fired upon the extereme left one, of their vic formation first, as I was diving too fast on them and had to adjust my aim. The poor Frenchie after the first blast on his upper wing and fuselage, probably, in a state of shock tried to break, exposing me his belly. A well placed second burst, lit his engine up. I turned to see where the others were and saw the right wingman flaming from Fwbl. Bauer's spandaus. The FL was trying to flee gaining altitude, but as we both hadn't lost much energy, as we didn't really manoeuvre so much to shoot the others, we caught him easily. Two or three bursts form low behind to his "soft underbelly", and he lost control and crashed, with no trace of fire this time, almost immediately."

The Spad Flight Leader is off, (probably dead already)...

Downfall...

The wreck...fuel is still pouring out.

Half burried into snow already...

All the inner structure can be seen through the holes...

Trying to locate the Spad crash site...

Albatros' Glorius Beauty...

28th Victory confirmed...

Back to base...

Plane skins by Ansirial (modified by me)

Pilot skin by me...

Absolutely essential for a decent dynamic single player Campaign experience!

Cudos to Pat!

This is Great!

I've got them all allready...Thanks!

PS: Time to go for the two seaters 777

We need more, even if only AI.

Great shots, Wodin!

I was flying a lot OFF lately...I was sucked into it's great historical Campaign!

Yesterday, after taking the last update of RoF, I fired it up for a spin.

Oh man, I had forgotten it's visual awesomness!

The complicated flight model also. Planes in OFF seem so stable comparing to this!

I put myself in the cockpit of my beloved Alb. D.Va to continue my Pat Wilson's, long ago interrupted, Jasta 34b Campaign.

To my surprise the date was the 2nd of February 1918 and the mission objective to perform a patrol over the Verdun front with Fwbl. Maxim Bauer as a wingman. (I am Oblt. Kurt Jurgens, an ace with 26 victories so far).

From my Combat report:

We went on a flight of three Spads today, flying, surprisingly, a bit lower than us . We attacked from above with the sun behind us and caught them completely by surprise. I fired upon the extereme left one, of their vic formation first, as I was diving too fast on them and had to adjust my aim. The poor Frenchie after the first blast on his upper wing and fuselage, probably, in a state of shock tried to break, exposing me his belly. A well placed second burst, lit his engine up. I turned to see where the others were and saw the right wingman flaming from Fwbl. Bauer's spandaus. The FL was trying to flee gaining altitude, but as we both hadn't lost much energy, as we didn't really manoeuvre so much to shoot the others, we caught him easily. Two or three bursts form low behind to his "soft underbelly", and he lost control and crashed, with no trace of fire this time, almost immediately.

The Spad Flight Leader is off, (probably dead already)...

Downfall...

The wreck...fuel is still pouring out.

Half burried into snow already...

All the inner structure can be seen through the holes...

Trying to locate the Spad crash site...

Albatros' Glorius Beauty...

28th Victory confirmed...

Back to base...

Plane skins by Ansirial (modified by me)

Pilot skin by me...

Your Tomcat stuff is pure awesomness, Massimo! :good:

My only objection is the clouds you are using... they don't seem very natural to me...

Hey Lou, before uploading, please, consider giving a second look at the Iron Crosses...

It seems to me like the Cross is not "blending" with the backround and ribbon as the other medals do.

I hope in final release you'll include both Classes of the Iron Cross...I'm not so much, into the Turkish medal, as there isn't a relevant Front in OFF, although it looks pretty fine.

Great addition the velvet backround BTW!

Thank you sir!

Great, thanks Lou!

I don't know why, but I seem to have lost, (not showing), of all my medals in Pilots Dossiers, both modded and default...

Yesterday everything looked fine... today no medals any more!

Any ideas?

Never mind...False Alert!

BTW Is it possible to have a higher resolution of the in game map?

It is so pixelated you can't see a thing...

Even more is it possible to replace it with something as the printable map that you, (Olham) and Rabu made?

Not to mention that I already have installed the enhanced in game map that can be found in the d/l page.

Pat Wilson...

For the experience of aprox. two weeks of constant flying OFF, I realised that the sim itself desides who's gonna live or die in virtual skies.

Several times the whole sqn comes back safe as there is no contact with the enemy and I get a message that a pilot is missing!

Another time that my flight was bounced by overwhelming swarms of bogeys and saw certain pilots going down in flames,

(when I down a plane I turn labels on to see who of my squadmates is near by, to confirm), the sim desided that everybody returned back safe and sound!

I do try to help my virtual squadmates in combat, sometimes it's more rewarding than a kill to force an enemy out of your mate's six, but I have come to the conclusion that the combat outcomes are randomly decided by the sim...

(the Spits were the most beautiful kites!)

May be slightly Off Topic but worth seeing...

Let's wait and see how Oleg's team can cope this...

And I like having the clouds at "5"...reportedly the AI cannot "see" through them - or so I read here.

I thought so too...I think I've read it in an uncleal's post.

But I can confirm that AI can still see through clouds at 5!

I was target fixated chasing a Sop. Strutter yesterday, approaching from its's low six when suddenly we both encloacked in a cloud...I didn't disengage, tried to keep my controls as they were, as there wasn't so muck turbulance in that cloud, hoping that when exiting I could continue the chase...

Suddenly my plane was pounded badly, by the Srutter' rear gunner! I must have been very close but still couldn't see a thing. I had to dive away immediately in order to save myself...

So AI not seeing through clouds=5 is a myth!

almccoyjr, this is a treasure!

The default "fish eye" view in externals, when closing up, is kind of irritating to me...

Thankk you sir!

I play with HPWDMv2.5 (damage Mod) on and mg efficiency on hard settings,(Main and Rear Guns set to Less Acc), to simulate early mg's lack of concentration of fire...

Makes a kill even harder to get...but rewarding as well!

OK, I set Composite Aircraft Texture Pool to 3D3POOL_MANAGED

and Composite Aircraft Texture Usage to 3D3USAGE_RENDERTARGET

I got back the "soft" damage and my visuals are great.

Must have been the changes to my graphic card configuration that caused the mess up.

Now I've reverted to my former settings all seems fine.

I like the pilot badge on top of the flag...Great Lou!

As Olham said the if we could get the medals in a higher resolution would have been perfect.

I followed your intructions and now having correct medals in the pilots Dossier.

My own medals look a bit distorted when shown in Dossier but look fine in the announcement screen...

Yours look fine in Dossier is there any distortion in the announcement screen?

In Dossier they look a bit stretched to the sides...

Well, unfortunately I got many crashes with the new settings...not only game crashes but computer ones as well, (blue screen twice)...

So I went back to my old settings...Everything looks brilliant, now I can see the difference between Normal and High but afaik no "soft" damade any more...never mind no big deal.

I may retry to fiddle with the Graphics Conf. again tommorow...

I know, I've created the appropriate folder sequence so it can be enabled via JSGME...

Essential Mod indeed Creaghorn, Thanks!

And Herr Olham, thanks a million! Problem solved...

You press your keyboard's PrtSc (PrintScreen) button,

NOT ! the button you have assigned for screenshots in Game, by default: (Control+;), as you will get a black picture as I first did.

You exit Game, (Alt+Tab), open a painting program, MS Paint that should be by default in your computer will do.

Paste and here you are.

+1

Thanks Lou, but I'm afraid you didn't understand me again...

I don't want to just rename the existing medals...

In German Campaign you get the same medal twice...a generic: "Iron Cross".

The historically correct order is "Iron Cross 2nd Class" and "Iron Cross 1st Class".

Meaning, there is a brand new medal to be established.

Look again at the pics above... the problem is not the name...(the default "Iron Cross" has to be split in two classes-medals)!

So I say that, somewhere in game, there must be some kind of text denoting the medals sequence.

Understood?

Wow, that's an easy one! Thanks!

Consider it done...

PS: I'm afraid it didn't work...I did it and got an error message, (medals are missing, reinstall OFF),that's because I don't want just to rename the medal but to add a new one as well...(Iron Cross 1st Class).

There must be some kind of text somewhere, with the awards and their order of appearance...something like:

Medal#1...Iron Cross

Medal#2...Iron Cross

Medal#3...Royal Hohenzollern House Order

Medal#4...Orden Pour le Merite

Medal#5...Red Eagle Order