HomeBoy

Now you're talking! Me too! My wife is Asian and she turned me on to sushi years ago. YUM!!

Hi Steve, If you go to CFS3-QC and go to the Controller Configuration screen and find the "elevator trim" axis assignment screen. Once you have the proper axis selected you click the "new assignment" (or something like that) button and it will wait for you to move the axis you want to assign. You may have to move your controller a few times to make that axis appear in the window. That's all you have to do to assign a controller axis. If you bring up the controller configuration screen while sitting out on the airfield, you'll be able to test it immediately. Some of the planes have a visible mixture control so you will be able to see it move and thus verify that it's working properly and moves in the proper direction. One of the help guides I've been planning to do is a guide on setting up your controllers. This aspect of OFF is one of the ugliest parts of the game as it is MS Flight Simulator showing its ugly head. I love MSFS but controller configuration is not one of it's strong suits. So, give that a try and let us know how it goes. Take it out on the treadmill and give it a spin!

Here are the commands I think are most important. I've listed them in order of importance. Most sticks (e.g. Logitech Wingman) have at least eight buttons so the first eight are the ones I think are the critical ones. Fire all guns (Space Bar) TrackIR Center (F12) Virtual Cockpit (unassigned, must set this to something) Go to gunner/bomber position (F7) Toggle Aircraft Labels (CTRL SHF l) Mission Map (m) Info (z) Auto Pilot (CTRL SHF a) Zoom In ( ] ) Zoom Out ( [ ) Toggle TAC (Shift t) TAC mode select (t) TAC range cycle (CTRL SHF t) Weapon Select (Backspace) Float View (SHF F6) Pause (p) Quit (CTRL q) If you still have available buttons, these are also important to me: Start Engine (e) Accelerate Time (CTRL SHF e) -Much better than using warp IMHO Decelerate Time (CTRL SHF r) Next Waypoint (SHF w) Previous Waypoint (CTRL w) Finally, if you have two extra axes on your controllers, these axis assignments are very handy: Mixture Elevator Trim Since moving all my Wingmen "hand signals" to voice commands (Game Commander 2), I don't take up any more button space for that. If you are cramped for button space you could consider that. Another thing I highly recommend is go to the Game Controllers utility (from CFS3-QC) and carefully look through all the axis assignments and delete any unwanted axis the idiot MS game interface might assign in it's attempt to be helpful (NOT!!). For example, you may find that your CH Pro Pedals toe brake axes (X & Y) are assigned to your pitch and roll axes (I've seen that)! This will certainly make flying the plane rather difficult with two controllers trying to control your elevator and ailerons. Also, you may want to un-assign all key commands you know you'll never use (e.g. Toggle Cockpit, all the PadLock commands) so you don't accidentally hit them while flying. These are the ones I've settled on. For a while there, I was shuffling things around almost every time I flew. Hope that helps -mark

Update! I finally finished the speed and altitude tests. I haven't updated any of the individual aircraft pages yet but I have summarized my findings on the Main Page. Check it out if you like. Let me know if you find any mistakes. Over the next week, I will update each of the airplane pages with speed, altitude, cockpit views and firepower data (which is all I have done so far). Next comes flight characteristics tests (stalls, climb, dive, etc.) I'm hoping that will go a little faster now that I have more of a system worked out for testing. I sure do wish QC would save my last settings! It is driving me crazy to have to enter all that EVERYTIME I start a flight. Oh well, when it's over hopefully I won't have to be doing that all the time anymore.

There could be indeed! That's Aces High. Good eye there Olham! <S>!

My homemade rig!

Great pictures Gous! We were at that very place just two months ago (Here are our pictures). My family all agree that we enjoyed Greece the best. We wanted to get out to the islands and just didn't have the time. Sure enjoyed the trip to the coast and that little park there along the coast was beautiful! Thanks for sharing!

HomeBoy's HomeStead. Yeah, I know, needs a little work but it's very nice on the inside. The area has sorta gone to pot over the last few years but it's home.

WTG Lou!

...gives me even more motivation to finish the aircraft evaluation web site. Anyone that takes a look at that cannot possibly claim arcade!

As I'm sure you know, there are six "hand signals" that you can communicate to your wingmen while flying: Reply Affirmative Reply Negative Wingmen Attack Wingmen Rejoin Wingmen Help Wingmen Split Just for fun, I decided to implement these as actual spoken commands. Now, while flying, I can simply call out verbally "Help" and my hapless wingmen will wander over and try to help undo the mess I've gotten myself into on the deck against a dozen Dr.Is. Well, it wasn't much work actually since I've been using this software called Game Commander 2 for a very long time and has since gone out of business and thus (see the hyperlink) can be found for free. In Lockon (I know, I know, a jet game!), I've been using it to do very immersive things like "Tower, request permission to taxi" and the like. Since I already have a microphone (which is primarily used to house my TrackIR "antlers") building a GC2 profile for OFF was a piece of cake and finally gives me a use for the microphone in OFF. I know it's not realistic to talk to my wingmen in WWI using a "radio" but since I have this TAC "radar" on the screen already, well, why not. Just thought you might enjoy yet another peek into the HomeBoy Laboratory.

Guess what I received in email from amazon.com just this morning? An advertisement for ROF! Rather irritating I must say. Of course I understand the financial aspect of this but something is just wrong with this picture. A game which they themselves admit was prematurely released and features two, TWO airplanes and we are plodding along with our 39! Sheesh! Ok, sorry about that, I'm feeling better now. Heartbeat's back to normal, blood pressure's dropped. I'm ok. I'm ok.

Hi Test Pilot, Well, if you have to ask then you should be thankful (unless you don't use TIR). Snap lap (I call it "lap snap", whatever) occurs when you're flying along and you turn your head completely away from the computer (checking the hockey scores on the TV, etc.) such that TIR loses view of the reflectors and then you turn your head back to the screen and rather than TIR regrouping and begin tracking properly again (which it does correctly most of the time), it snaps to the down view (i.e., looking at your lap). To overcome the problem you but have to hit your "TIR Center" button and all is well. This problem has been around for a very long time and appears to have completely gone away with TIR5 (at least I haven't seen it nor heard of it). ...Thus the "Lap Snap"

Indeed they did. I got lucky when I bought mine as I didn't know to look for 3.1. If you have 3.1 you won't have to install CFS3 at all! If you haven't bought CFS3 yet, I highly recommend you make an extra effort to get 3.1. <S>! -mark

I have sorta come at this half-cocked huh! Thank you Steve for helping get my train back on the rails. I have to say it's the least you can do after causing all that "treadmill" trouble! Sorry Barn. Didn't mean to string you along here. Actually, as Steve points out, my profile may not be exactly what you are looking for and that's why I didn't just offer it up. If however, you want to try it, you can download it here. In addition to the changes I made to the Pitch and Yaw, I also added some vertical to the "Y" axis which makes it easier to stretch your neck up and look over the top wing better. I changed the "Z" axis by shortening the backward motion because with the default setting, I found I was moving my head "through" the headrest on such equipped planes and that was a bit irritating. You may not like that restricted movement. I don't think I touched the "X" axis at all. The profiles are kept in "C:\Natural Point\TrackIR5\profiles". You should make a backup in ANOTHER folder of your existing "default.xml" before you place mine in there. Be sure both profiles are NOT in the folder when you start up TIR5 else it will be confusing as you will see two default profiles. I would move the original to say the desktop before copying mine there. As for my TrackIR4 Guide, it will help you with the basics of TIR but the graphs and interface have changed a lot. It's worth looking at though as it will certainly help you understand how the device and software work. I have plans to write a TrackIR5 guide but between such things as my aircraft testing project, senselessly arguing over whether or not an airplane can take off from a treadmill and the fact that TIR5 has not come out of beta yet, I'll probably wait a few months. Good luck and sorry for not approaching this thread better. -mark

Hi Barn, Yes I know! These graphs are a bit daunting till you get used to them. From the default profile, you really only need to modify the Pitch and the Roll. One important thing to remember which will make changing the points on the graph much easier is to middle-mouse click (that is usually the wheel) in the graph first. That will scale the graph so you can see all the points very well. You can use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out of the graph but I have found that to be pretty confusing so you will probably want to do a lot of middle-mouse clicks to get back to something sane looking. Here are my graphs for Pitch and Roll: Ignore the red line. That's just my current head position. It's not part of the graph. Hope that helps get you up and going. I really wish NP would provide a more flight-sim type default profile using wider pitch and roll but it's not that hard to alter it. -mark

Hi Vince! No, I didn't mean to make that sound quite the way it did. None of you guys have EVER been anything but professional. I was probably getting a bit too dramatic with that and certainly didn't mean to imply you don't do a good job at support. My sincere apologies! -mark

No, "lap snap" has been around since at least 026 or so. At least I've had problems with it that long. Some people have never seen it, some (like you), only see it with 030, others (like me) saw it with all the 4.1 versions. It's a strange one. I remember trying to get Seth interested in fixing it and he could never get it to happen so I guess he blew me off as one of them kooks. Oh well. Those guys try real hard so I never complained about it. Glad it's gone with the 5 hardware and software. I tell you, the 5 hardware is so much better than 4 that I had planned a whole evening to get it set up when I got it and ended up pretty much done in about 15 minutes. It is incredibly smooth and responsive. All the little tricks I had to do with 4 just disappeared. TIR5 is a huge improvement over 4. BTW, the reason I say there is really no advantage to going to 5 software is that the 5 hardware has significantly better resolution and the 5 software is written specifically to manage that device. The backward compatibility they built in was just so they could eventually retire version 4. If I were you (and everyone else listening), I would stay with version 4 as long as you can and as long as you have 4 hardware (obviously).

I see no advantage with going with TIR5 software with TIR4 hardware. If I had TIR4 hardware I would stick with 4.1 software. Yes, I used to get the "lap snap" thing all the time. None of that happens with TIR5 hardware.

You will probably want to experiment with dragging the last few bubbles on the graphs up a bit for Roll and Yaw. It's a little confusing when you first start looking at those graphs but just remember the up axis (y) causes your "in-game" head to move faster as you slide those bubbles upward. You get immediate feedback as you move them so you should be able to adjust it right then and there before you get into the game. There is also a view of sitting in the cockpit of a Spitfire that you should select when you think you've got everything right so you can see what it will look like when you're in the cockpit. I intend to write a TrackIR 5 guide at some point but I've gotten interested in playing this game to the point where I can't get back to stuff like that. Good luck. Feel free to post, PM, email me, etc. if you need specific help. Glad to do it! -mark

Use TrackIR 5 Beta 4 (the latest). Yes, it's beta but it's getting close to production. It's very reliable.

Yes there is: Aces High

I hope you know I was just playing with you Jim. This is a big tent. There is plenty of room for us all. None of us have any right trying to tell one another how to play this game! Glad you got your viewing system figured out. <S>! -mark

Wow! I take that as a real complement! There's not very much truth in it but I'll take it! Thank you very much! I hoppe I can speill a lattle beter then Dale thow.