Tailspin

Great pit Aladar! Thanks.

Hello MajorDickBong and welcome to CombatACE. Yes, it is a great sim. I'm not sure about my squadron mates sometimes. They do get the occasional kill. TK said some of the old radio comm keys (keyboard TAB) work for squad commands (we'll have to assume they are hand signals 'cause they didn't have radios) . To tell you the truth I've not played with that aspect of the sim yet. Certainly worth a try. I'd be interested in the results.

Good idea Okland. (I just love that emoticon. )

IMO its just as easy to pretend you've already done all that. Easier in fact, since nothing is required to be added to the sim. Anyway, this horse hasn't only been beaten to death, its had all its hide flailed off and the bones rendered into dust. Lets wait and see what TK does. Oh, and whats the old saying, Indio? "Its a good idea to check your fact before you hold court."

Sorry Mike. I was directing my initial comments at Indio. I wasn't questioning your post. You got me thinking about the momentum vs. air flow thing and I agree. Kinda mixed up two answers in one place.

The default versions of these files are stored in the various .cat files and are used by the game UNLESS there is a modified version in the folder outside the .cat file. When you add modified files to the folder game reads these first. You can revert back to the default files stored in the .cat file by simply deleting the modified folders. Leave the .DLL files where the are. I believe the [/p] is a typo and it should be [/b] as in bold. This is all probably as clear as mud, isn't it? I'm pretty sure everything pertaining to this mod goes in the Flight folder.

Read my post again. WWI aircraft did not have an onboard starter. A blip switch is not a starter. It interupted the spark so the engine would not fire. It worked AFTER the engine was started. The pilot could not start the engines by pushing a button in the cockpit. In aircraft that used the blip switch the engine was restarted by the mechanical action of the wind spinning the prop. Just like the ground crew had to spin the prop to start it on the ground. Hmmmm....Perhaps it was the momentum of the engine and not the force of the air that restarted the engine, probably makes more sense. Regardless it wasn't because the blip switch added any type of mechanical action to restart it.

Thanks Mark. Another good indication of where TK stands and why.

Hold on a minute. Having an engine start up by pushing a button in the cockpit of a WWI plane is TOTALLY unrealisitic. These planes didn't have onboard starters. IndioBlack says: "2. No I do not think that. I don't know who Stiglr is, and I have very little contact with TK. I don't know TK's views on Sims, and I have never read about TK telling Stiglr not to buy his Sim. If I had read a response like that, I would have been very shocked, and never forgotten it. Maybe I should get out more often, or maybe TK's views on Sims should be more accessible. Being "accessible", doesn't mean if you search message boards all over the net and piece certain bits together, you'll get your answer." I disagree. You will get your answer. I don't know TK and have no contact with him either. But I think I do know TKs views on sims. It can be discerned rather easily from reading his online comments and you don't have to go too far back. "Sim lite" isn't an excuse. It just a different way to make money. Shame on TK for selling out the hardcore market and actually making simming FUN.

You are quite right. I'm exceedingly irritated with certain events lately and I should refrain from speaking out.

What happened to your little rant from earlier today? It was quite enlightening. Do you think someone is picking on you? You asked a question. You didn't get an answer you could accept. You keep posting. You'll keep getting the same answer you don't want to hear. Sorry.

You should have seen the post that disappeared. The facade fell away. What was exposed wasn't too pretty.

I hate it when I'm right. :cray: Hmmmmm....a whole post just disappeared.

You were asking about TKs "mission statement". Just pointing you to some of his own words on the subject. What I want or don't want and whether I get it or not is not going to affect my enjoyment of the sim that much. There is sufficient entertainment value in it already so anything else is just icing on the cake.

More thoughts from TK on the subject this time in reference to having engine start/stop implemented. Thanks Wolfar, Well, I might consider it for future patches, but I'm hesitent to add this in because I see this as one of the "threshhold" item defining the line between the "lite air combat game" (like the ones we make) and "hardcore flight sim". By leaving this out (and few other key features like trim and mixture controls), we're making sure everyone understand that the game in the "lite" category. In general gameplay, I really don't see any reason for having this on a key since there really isn't an alternative - in the aerodrome attack scenario you describe, player gains nothing by not starting the engine as quickly as possible. There is no reason to turn engine off in mid-air, and at the end of mission, there is no reason not to turn it off... So it seems to me that we can get by with automatic engine start/stop, without introducing additional key just to add to the procedure. TK

Indio....Here's a quote from TKs response to your own inquiry about a patch. It chock full of hints about where TK is going with sims. I'll highlight them since you seem to have missed the point. First your post, then TK's Thought I'd be the first moron to ask. The Sim is everything you'd expect from the SF/WOV stable. But I'd like to mention a few points for discussion. 1.It would be nice for an option to start engines. You can do that in "Over Flanders Field", the CFS3 add-on, and it does add a lot to the immersion factor. I know you've never had that in SF/WOV, but what a shame there too. 2. Shouldn't rudders have some effect on the ground? I can't taxy after I've landed - the aircraft will only move straight ahead. And yet in all those war movies, they always swing the planes around when they land. Surely everybody loves taxying to the Hangar after a tough mission. 3. It would be nice for a mixture control in the engines. Every other prop-plane Sim has this. 4. I don't like the engine sound loop - it's a sort of Chinese Water torture after about thirty seconds. 5. Unjamming guns is great. That's a neat idea from Red Baron that OFF can't do. And I like the idea of reloading the magazines. 6. I'd like it better if the time setting for "Dawn" was exactly dawn, rather than a variable to within a couple of hours. Sometimes, it's so long after dawn, it doesn't look any different to morning. I can set the exact time myself by picking "Night" and then advancing the clock. But if you ever use the Jump function during your flight, you're immediately thrown back to the time-setting you originally chose. 7. You know how I feel about the Comm menu for non existent comms. I guess what's even more embarassing was that I was using it for two whole missions before I realised what an idiot I was. 8. It would be nice for the black square around the duplicate Aldis sight to be removed. It blocks out important viewing area. 9. I'd like to see some ground troops. OFF can do it, because effectively it's a larger scale virtual World. But we had little guys running about in EAW when you blew up their trucks. Can't it be done here ? The trenchlines just seem so empty without that. 10. Frame rates are excellent. I took the same settings I had for fully patched SF/WOV and there's no difference. I have everything on full, except horizon on "near", which seems more realistic anyway. I always hate it when a new Sim from the same stable suddenly requires you to buy a new computer. First Eagles has not made that mistake 11. Enemy aircraft fall apart relatively easily when hit. In OFF, you have to expend a full-magazine to get a kill. I have no idea which is right, but First Eagles seems more like it is in the movies. 12. Landing seems unnecessarily tricky. It's very hard to get your speed down as you approach, and I would have thought the aircraft would have had enough drag to slow more quickly when the throttle is reduced to zero. Once your wheels touch, you now have a major problem in slowing. Again, there's little drag from the aircraft, but if you could switch engines on and off, then at least a dead propellor would add drag. Even swinging the rudder would help, but as we know the rudder currently has little effect on the ground. Your only chance is to hope that the speed bleeds enough that you can pull the stick back and slow the aircraft with the elevators. I think this should be examined. 13. Are those, endlessly repeated, little oblong white buildings, authentic French farms ? They look more Spanish than French. Scenery is very very good , though. The towns are lovely. I hope you'll do Paris later, because surely everyone loves flying around the Eiffel Tower. We'll have the patch when we feel we have have enough issues that need to be resolved resolved Smile Right now, we only have few minor issues here and there, so we want to wait until more people play the game and make sure they don't run into more major issues. Some of the things we're working for the first patch on right now include: some minor issues/tweaks to the flight model, missing shadows on some aircraft, minor optimization for (slight) frame-rate increase, and adding more serial numbers and personal marking decals. As for the disucssion points, they're all good points, but... 1. We currently isn't planning on adding engine on/off, thats just not part of our game design. 2. We can certainly look into the rudder effectiveness, but its pretty low priority at the moment. Our game isn't about taxing on the ground, but fighting in the air Smile 3. We won't hav mixture control either, not part of our game design. Just because everyone else has one doesn't mean we have to be lemmings and follow them Smile 4. Sorry, no new sounds for now. Maybe much later down the road... 5. You can already unjam using U key and reload guns using R key. 6. Its difficult to get the Dawn time right, since it depends if you're stating on the air or on the ground (ie, should it be Dawn at take-off or over target?), and other things like dates and location (sun rise/set at different time depending on season/date and lat/lon of the map)... We might look at it sometime later to see if we can improve it, but its very very low priority. 7. Comm menu stays, you're free to not use it if don't like it. In a future patch, we might change the comm to be more WWI specific (so it only has command that can be sent via hand-gestures), but this isn't a high priority right now. 8. We'll look into that. 9. Not in a patch. We won't be able to add mass of 3d soldiers without seriously affecting the frame rate. Unfortunately, we can't get away with paper-thin low res texture soldiers (like in EAW) these days, so if we have guys running out, they'll have to be high-poly 3d guys, which can have serious affect on frame-rate. Sad 10. See above, there are many trade-offs we had to make to ensure frame rates are good even on mid- to low- end machines. 11. Although we might tweak the gun effectiveness, it will probably stay about the same, we feel its more fun if you can see the enemy aircraft falling apart. 12. We'll look into landing and drag on ground. 13. No, they're probably not authentic. They're that shaped to keep the poly count low (see 10 about trade-offs being made for frame rates). We probably won't do Paris or any other major cities. TK -- Just one example. There are many more like responses. You can look for yourself if you don't believe it.

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Oh well. We all do things for different reasons. Wolf had his I'm sure. This whole episode was obviously about WAY more than criticising any particular model. Too bad.

I do happen to fly some of the WWII stuff. I know he can do what he wants with his planes and he doesn't owe anybody anything. I just don't understand the motive. Spite? Who's he mad at? The newcomers who will suffer most from his actions? I don't get it.

So is that supposed to make us mad at those involved in the spat? There are different levels of childish behavior and "picking up your toys and going home" is one too. The vast majority of the community who wasn't involved doesn't get any respect from this dude? Sorry, I can't see the big loss.

Good rant. I've been thinking the same thing. They are already building up excuses to slam the sim and none of them have even tried it. All I can say is; Good for them! Time to let it go and move on then, right?

Is that a GF 4 card? Have you tried SP4? I run SF/WOV patched to SP4 on a GF 3. Can't run with everything maxed but works OK.

Mean guy? Nahh...sometimes its just better to count ten....or twenty before hitting the send button. But of course, do as I say, not as I do? There's another guy that posted on that same thread that I've about had enough of myself but I ain't nobody to say anything.

I can't get in either. Happened within the last hour or two. Hmmmmm.....