Siggi

24/12/1916 12h18 Flanders St-Omer Balloon Defense Flying: Sopwith Pup Flying time 118 mins R:110 Weather mostly rain. Patrolled at destination for approx 20 minutes. No enemy encountered.

Use of in-game map (m) causing crash? This is a possible fix for this problem, sent to me by Winder: there is one way you could reduce the draw on your video card whilst looking at the maps. which is supposedly cuasing your CTD. (I dont actually think this is the case) in the folder C:\Program Files\OBD software\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\uires\map you will find 3 bitmap images. alt_high.bmp alt_low.bmp alt_med.bmp if you open the High and med images with say paintshop or even paint (which is a standard MS image editing program) and resize them to the following sizes. alt_high.bmp 469x461 pixels alt_med.bmp 938x922 pixels this will greatly reduce the size of the image, but is barely noticable in game.

This is a possible fix for this problem, sent to me by Winder: there is one way you could reduce the draw on your video card whilst looking at the maps. which is supposedly cuasing your CTD. (I dont actually think this is the case) in the folder C:\Program Files\OBD software\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\uires\map you will find 3 bitmap images. alt_high.bmp alt_low.bmp alt_med.bmp if you open the High and med images with say paintshop or even paint (which is a standard MS image editing program) and resize them to the following sizes. alt_high.bmp 469x461 pixels alt_med.bmp 938x922 pixels this will greatly reduce the size of the image, but is barely noticable in game.

This is an observation and a recommendation. Human gets new toy, has lots of features, plays with it and has a ball. Gets used to it, wants more features, gets them, plays some more (shorter time than first one), gets used to them, wants more. Toy finally ends up in cupboard. Imagination vs physical reality. When I was a kid I used to pretend a matchbox was a tank. And I could smash it and actually set fire to it (in the garden of course, where I had my little wargames). My imagination kept me engrossed for hours. Kids now get perfectly formed miniature replicas, with buttons and batteries, sound-effects and flashing lights. Soon as the batteries go dead or a light fails the tank gets kicked under the bed. OFF is both a matchbox and a replica. Weird, huh? We know it has a few missing planes. And there are a 101 more features it could possibly have (would the end of that list ever be reached?). But it is a perfect matchbox...and has sound-effects and flashing lights. So, my recommendation is this...let's draw a line under it right now, as it is, consider it a done deal and get on with engaging our imaginations, assuming the role of pilots and just PLAY IT. For the next year at least. That's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to think about anymore patches, planes, features...nada. I have my plane, my world, my infrastructure, it all works, the immersion is 100%, nothing jars so much that I'm kicked out of my suspension of disbelief...any time I have the time I can be my pilot and do my thing. So fly, fly, fly. Rack up the missions, the hours, the claims and the kills and survive for as long as possible. And forget about anything else. You've been given (sold) the full enchilada. Play the game, not the drive for new stuff.

Fighters. I got about one mile from the aerodrome in a 2-seater in a bomber-campaign I'd started, thought "sod this" and threw it into the side of a hill.

I'm trying to think of a good analogy... We've been served a glorious feast. Then, even as were were still stuffing it down, the waiters brought more tempting dishes to the table. We burped, maybe a little green around the gills..."More!" we cried, even though we had yet to fully digest what had already been served. And the chefs and waiters...tired, and thinking "greedy, ungrateful pigs..." So what I'm trying to say is this...let the chefs go home, let the waiters go out back and have a glass of vino and a smoke, and let us continue to eat our meal and gently digest it. For sure, let's chat and dream and wonder about next year's feast...or the one in six months time...whenever...but let's also fully enjoy what's on the table in front of us right now, with the kitchen closed for the night and the staff taking a break. Draw a line under the sim as it is now, stop worrying about what is or isn't in it, and concentrate on being pilots for the forseeable. Meanwhile the devs can chill out, keep an eye on what we dream of and wonder about, but rest content that for now their job is done and the customers are one happy bunch enjoying the hell out of the product as it stands. I wouldn't be so arrogant, and hope nobody thinks it, to assume my assessment of the sim is writ in stone. But I'm aware that I have a reputation for being way too hard on games and have often been accused of being a "glass half empty" kind of chap. To which my response, funnily enough (see Widowmaker's comments above), has always been along the lines of "If mankind wasn't, we'd still be living in bloody caves!" So when a game strikes me as pretty much nigh-on perfect I figure not many people would disagree with me. And so I make all my comments about the game etc in this thread on that basis. If we don't play it, full-on, and concentrate instead on what's 'missing' and what might be to come, we'll lose a great deal of the pleasure that's to be had from it. Let's not make that mistake is all I'm saying. It's a superb sim, a masterpiece, so let's wring everything we can from it, right here and now. :yes:

I'm not sure how much the average pilot would have been able, or prepared, to chuck his plane about in the sky. At least not until he'd flown a good number of hours in it, and even then. Probably only a very small minority were able/willing to do what we players do as a matter or course. In the real war, if we'd flown in that as we do in the sim, we'd have been the most notable of aces with a list of kills as long as our arm. So un-naturally competant AI does do a valid job of keeping us 'honest'.

Bugger off, nancy boy. :f***: Damn, I've been itching for a chance to use that smilie for ages, and it doesn't work.

I think some of the planes are just no-hopers when flown by the player. Flying the DH2 against AI EIIIs, they are like UFOs. Switch to EIIIs and fly against DH2s, the DH2s become the UFOs. The AI seem able to get incredible performance out of certain planes, such that the era in which they appear becomes no-go territory for the player. Moving on to later planes and the player is more able to fly the plane nearly as well as the AI, and in certain cases can do better than the AI. I can't fly the Alb DV series as well as the AI, but I can fly the Camel better than the AI. The DH2 is just about doable, but you're going to go down if you meet a sizable number of DIIs or EIIIs (eg, a flight of two or more in greater number than your own). I wouldn't touch a campaign flying the EIII with a pole. The Pup is a perfectly viable campaign platform (and transitions to the Camel, if you live long enough), and I may try a German campaign starting with the Halb or DII.

I saw exactly the same in an earlier version, so it's nothing to do with the hotfix or any of the patches I think. As it happens it was in the same convoy where German troops changed into Allied troops (labels turned from red to blue, it was very weird).

They were there on a semi-official hush-hush mission to boost the morale of the Jasta 6 chappies.

The RFC can stuff their railyard targets from now on. Started a new pilot earlier, three of us went to do the job, one was hit by archie about a mile from the target and went down in flames. I was met with a hail of MG fire from the ground, wounded, engine knackered, put down and captured. From now on, any ground-attack mission, I'll point my nose down from 4000ft, let off one short burst, then go looking for something safer.

I'm finding the game just stops when it decides my plane is done for, instead of letting me struggle (or scream) all the way to the deck. It really craps on the immersion. Would it be easy to fix? It's not a show-stopper, just it jars badly.

I turned with one and beat him. One of the last two couldn't keep with me and crashed, the last one got me.

http://www.hetzer.talktalk.net/index.html

Woowie! Six DVa vs six Camels, I got two Camels (blew parts of the wings off both of them), ended up with two on my tail, one flew himself into the ground, the other finally managed to turn well inside of me and hit me with a deflection shot and that was me down and out. I think the trick is to use superior speed to get clear, wait until they're all engaged with the others and then go back in, pick one and do him and then carry on out the other side and repeat. I made the mistake of getting into it with them.

I believe there's a dedicated forum for it now. :yes: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showforum=207

It's hardly going to disqualify you if you make it harder than required.

Then I'd like to find myself sticking out of the lawn until I chose to hit the "End Mission" button. Just feels more wholesome to me, a well-wrapped finale. Kind of like getting to read the final page instead of finding some bugger's ripped it out.

No, pilot death is instant black screen. Plane death is the sim freezes for a second or two (can still see the world) then dumps to the GUI.

The dogfights are ROCKIN'!

Funny you should mention that, I've been flying quite a few QCs today and for the first few goes my pilot was surviving everything. I thought the team had turned off death in QC, but just now I started dying again.

The setting is at the end of a labyrinth so convoluted that if my life depended on me finding mine again I would probably die before I succeeded.

Good to see you back old bean.

Early nineties, I must have been thinking of Aces over Europe and SWoTL. DiD Rules for OFF P3 BH&H The OFF Campaign DiD Standard. This is intended for the added enjoyment of those vPilots who choose to make the OFF experience as realistic as it can be. "Realistic experience", in this case, will be my interpretation of it, as I apply that to the standard I created many years ago for RB2-3D, a number of other sims subsequently and a one-year+ online war...DiD (Dead is Dead). Some of the settings are open to debate. Mostly ones I've had in my own mind. Others may have differing opinions on them, and I'm open to consideration of those, but they will most likely make no way. This is not an expression of contempt, just that experience has shown that 'Rule by Commitee' doesn't work for DiD. DiD is not intended to express contempt for those who play the sim by a 'lesser' standard. People play the game in whatever way they like, for whatever reasons they like. And their reasons are entirely valid for their own private purposes. But (BUT), if one wishes to express one's prowess in the public arena (for fun, ego, bragging-rights, light-hearted competitiveness etc) one should rightly be held to a common standard, otherwise the expression has no substantive meaning or value. DiD is intended to provide that standard, to put all those of a like mind on a level playing field as it were. So...OFF DiD: Workshop: Weather mode: Historical Weather dynamics: Dynamic AI Weather Generator: Ignore Sound levels: User's choice Auto mixture: User's choice Auto rudder: User's choice Invincible: Off Unlim weapons: Off Unlim fuel: Off Sunglare: On G-effects: On Aircraft stress: On Force feedback: User's choice Player flight model: Realistic Player guns only: Normal User Interface: All options are user's choice Satistics: All options are user's choice Campaign: Date advance: User's choice Mission frequency: Historical (weather mode) Database warnings: User's choice Regional air activity: User's choice Aircraft spawn control: OFF campaign Flight: All options user's choice Graphics detail: Skins: User's choice Ground object density: User's choice In cloud fog: On Graphics & Detail: User's choice Difficulty: Realism: Normal claims ; promotion AI gun fire (range): Realistic AI gun fire Outcomes: Hard-Dead is Dead Main guns: Normal Rear guns: Hard Wind: On Gun jams: On Graphics Config Button: Graphics Config/File/Custom Settings/Window/Overides: The following boxes MUST be ticked: Disable targetting cone Disable HUD Disable chat Disable advisor messages Disable simulation warnings The following boxes must be UN ticked: Disable weather Disable clouds Disable fog Disable rain Disable in-cloud effect Disable sun Disable white-out All other boxes are user's choice. In-Game Functions: TAC: Allowed, but your DiD rating must reflect this by the annotation "DiD/T". Labels: Allowed, but your DiD rating must reflect this by the annotation "DiD/L". Warp: Allowed, but your DiD rating must reflect this by the annotation "DiD/W". If more than one of the above is used the annotation must show appropriately, eg "DiD/TLW". MAP: Allowed. The game map, real maps and the landscape over which you fly are not sufficiently corrobative of one another to make real navigation more than an unrealistically difficult and hazardous chore. Auto-Pilot: Allowed. It's a straight & level device, use of it will put you at a disadvantage in fact. Visual Zoom: Allowed, it's binoculars. Trim: Allowed. Rule. Only at the very beginning of a flight (on the runway) and not to be touched thereafter. It's use simulates a pilot and his fitters setting up his a/c on the ground to his liking. Fly your a/c in QC, find out how many clicks of each put your plane as you like it, then apply those same clicks to your a/c on the runway in campaign before each flight. External Views: Not allowed, except to take screenies while paused. All flying and fighting must take place while in the cockpit with cockpit visible. Padlock: Allowed. Inferior to TiR, which is most certainly allowed and highly recommended. Pilot resurrection: Forbidden, under any circumstances. NB: The sim's realism rating must be at least at 100% by whatever combination of settings available. That's the DiD standard for OFF. If you wish to be regarded by it you are on your honour to observe it faithfully and may indicate your desire to such end by the inclusion of the acronym "DiD" (modified appropriately according to use of Warp, Labels and or TAC as outlined above) anywhere you bally well please. I'll finish with the usual elitist bit..."DiD, sorts the men from the boys, the wheat from the chaff, the real vAces from the arcade wannabes!"