Tailspin

Oh yeah. I agree with B Bandy. Losing the targeting aids changes the game entirely. There are several things you can do to improve gameplay. Think outside the box. Whether you fly the whole mission in real time or use time acclelerate, fly the last leg all the way in to the IP or at least leave yourself enough real time before the IP to scan the sky and try and find the ememy as far away from the target as you can. I use the mouse look to scan and zoom to "focus" on a certain area for this. Thats the way TK designed it to be used. IF you can spot the enemy this way it is often 2 or 3 times distance (thus warining) the 2.0 nm the target boxes give you. This way you get to set up your attack or plan your defense better. As its hard to fly and watch at the same time the enemy is also easy to lose sight of and sometimes difficult to find again. Especially if you are above them. Camouflage can be very effective at longer distances. Playing like this adds a certain unpredictability to the sim. You are not always guaranteed you will see the enemy...especially with cloud cover. After a while you'll be wishing there was more AAA. If you like to "warp" (like I do), before you take off go to the planning map and drag the IP (you will warp to the IP) further away from the target area. When you hold your mouse pointer over a waypoint it will show the ETA so you can drag the IP and give yourself several more minutes to the target area to set up. I guess what I'm saying is if you let the sim "fly you" all the time with all the cheats on it can seem rather simple and predictable. The player can do a lot of things to change that. :yes:

Yes, there are other missions going on. You can use the F6 key to look around for other aircraft.

The SPAD loading screen is the default screen so something probably isn't set up right in your folder(s). While I don't think Caps matter the rest of the filenames have to match exactly. Ie. DH4_loading / DH4_loading. Make sure there isn't a "space" in the .bmp title instead of the "_", etc.... If that doesn't work, try using the default loading screen as a "template" and replace the picture cropped to fit on the screen?

It'll likely sell more games. Then they can sell more of the next plane set.

Anybody ever seen a known Ace in a single mission? During offensive patrols you will occasionally run into different aircraft types in the same mission but I've never run into MVR. I would also be nice to mix up enemy A/C in the same Jasta. Like a couple of Dr.1s mixed in with the Albatros'.

I think maybe it works better if your torque and gyroscopic inertia are opposite +/- wise. You guys can try it different ways with different values. I've gone up as high as +/-750. I still can't get off the ground at high torque values. Wildfowler...are you getting the same impressions I get about the handling? Does it seem to skid around a bit more?

Re: the gyro thing. This is where I decided I wasn't seeing what I thought. I think increasing it tends to cause the A/C to keep its nose pointed in the direction its pointed. So if you are nose up in a turn the nose will tend more to stay up and your tail will tend to slip into the turn. Maybe... Try -700.

Smart move on their part.

Yep. It sure would make single missions a lot more interesting.

Well, sounds like you have the Decals working. Is this a problem with certain skins or all of them for the Alb? About all I can offer is basic troubleshooting. Make sure there are no folders "nested" inside others. This happens sometimes when unzipping directly to a folder of the same name. Again, check the filepaths from the Albatros.ini file to the Texture sets, ect. You can compare with other planes that work to get an idea of whats correct. Make sure all the skin .bmps are in the correct folders with the correct names. Have you modded any .ini files lately. If so which ones? This may help you track down whats wrong.

Another handy thing to keep is the activation code you get when purchasing from Thirdwire online. It allows you to re-download your purchases in case you lose your backups.

Shadows have always been a drag on framerates with 3rdwire sims. I've got a system close to yours... C2D e5200, 1G 9600, 4G Ram and run shadows on med. Only A/C cast shadows. I think I have everything else set to High, with only Ground Objects set to Unlimited. I haven't noticed the ground shadow problem but when I'm flying low over an area that has a lot of objects to render, like airfields, bigger cities, etc. my frames drop below 20 sometimes. Since the sim doesn't utilize dual cores IMO the bottleneck is the CPU. At only 2.5 ghz per core its like running a 2.5 single core. I wish I had gotten a bigger single core CPU especially since I don't buy many new games anymore. Still yet in the open skys, in cockpit fps are 50+ and there's not much of a slowdown in dogfights. Anyway, probably the best thing to do is try and turn other graphics settings down to compensate. Maybe someone else will have some ideas?

Sorry, went back to work Wed. for a few days. My initial enthusiasm has been tempered somewhat because, A. I'm not so sure changing those values make that much difference, and B. I'm totally lost when it comes to stalls and spins.

I've noticed that too, occasionally. Its like the A/C is stuck in the air and just sort of floats down.

The menusystem.ini is in the menudata.CAT file located in the MENU folder. You'll have to use the SFP1e Cat. extractor utility. Its located in the WO* downloads section under tools and utilites, I think...or something like that.

Stupid boat ramp! Its too steep. :yes:

Thought I'd drag this one up again. I have been using it since Laton released it and have only seen the mid air smoke plume maybe 2 or 3 times since. So its not such an issue, really. This mod does add a lot to the game. Thanks again, Laton.

I think you can turn the blip off in the engine section. That reminds me. I think I may have turned up the throttle rate because I thought it sounded better when you blipped it. Thay could be part of the problem.

Cool! Now you know why I don't do flight models. I think I was more wishing it was pulling left because that seemed to work better with the Gyroscopic Inertia thing and the nose attitude in the turns. I've done some more flying today and I think maybe increasing the Gyroscopic effect tends more to just keep the nose pointed in whatever direction its pointing (makes sense and the torque direction probably doesn't have as much affect as I thought). However I think that (increasing the Gyro) forces you to use more rudder correction and with the increased inertia she can get "out from under you" if you aren't paying attention. Anyway, IMHO cranking up the gyro inertia changes the feel of the Camel. Seems a little looser but maybe quicker. With Peter's enhanced head shake its a pretty good ride. I always had trouble the those d****d pesky little Pfalz DIIIs. Today, I almost felt sorry for the b....., er, poor fellows. Ok, I may be exaggerating. As I mentioned, I can't seem to get the 130 off the ground (without autopilot...which I use a lot anyway) with much over MOI of -15.0 without crashing. Of course when you hit the gas the Camel goes to full throttle and it just rolls over into the ground. Doesn't bother the AI though. I guess they're using the AP. edit...Almost forgot...now if we could just figure out how to get her to fall into a spin quicker she may be closer to the dangerous beast she can be. What about the AI, you ask? We don' need no steenkin' AI.

Hi Bucky, do you have any handy references on the Camel? One I found at the Aerodrome says a Camel pilot needed to apply full RIGHT rudder on take off to counteract torque. If it pulled to the right I don't think you would want to add right rudder??

Ok, one final report and then I'm going to bed. I reset the MOI to a positive 10 (you can try more but you'll have to take off on auto pilot) and set the Gyroscopic Inertia to a negative 550. Now I think I'm getting the desired effect. In a right turn the nose tends to drop or at least requires some left rudder to coordinate. In a left turn the nose tends to rise and requires left rudder to coordinate. Coordinated 360 degree turns still seem to be fairly equal in time. However I was flying at low altitude where I couldn't really let the nose drop too much in a right turn to help with the turn rate. Haven't tested it enough but this also seems to increase the tendency to stall if you're too aggressive with the initial bank beginning a turn. This is with the stock Camel 130 FM. Good night, folks. See you later this morning.

Ummmm...wait a minute. Doesn't the torque effect for an engine rotating clockwise cause the plane to pull to the LEFT?

Well, I'm having trouble getting off the ground with anything much higher than -15 for the MOI. At that setting ground handling is a bit more difficult but managable. In the air there is a definite drift/roll to the right. Doesn't seem to affect turn rate in either direction that much. I did stall twice trying a snap roll and turn to the left though. I'll play with the Gyroscopic Inertia values too. Maybe there is a combination of the two that will work better.

Actually the stock Camels don't fly straight and level hands off. They tend to climb and roll slightly to the left.

Not sure what you think is "correct" but a lot of these fighters in fact got into the air very quickly...much quicker than an F-18 for sure. Looking at a known example, the N 28 flown by Tallman and recounted in "Flying the Old Planes", had a takeoff roll estimated at 220ft. A quick in-game test with the N28 in FE comes very close if not spot on to that distance.