Siggi

I didn't say they were tiny, I asked. But I guessed they probably were.

You don't need 1 and 2, BH&H is a standalone product. BH&H Super-patch 1.32 Mini-patch (hotfix) 1.32g Expansion HitR (optional) HitR patch. Edit: You do have CFS3 installed and patched?

Is it photo-realistic with smooth-as-butter FPS because the maps are tiny?

Panzer Blitz was made by Avalon Hill.

I still have Panzer Blitz, with about ten extra boards and loads of extra counters. Squad Leader, Over the Reich (or something like that), a WW1 jobbie. Me and my brother used to set the PB up on trestle-tables and play it for days at a time. Then came the PCs and games like Combat Mission (which I accurately predicted, circa 1980, before personal computers had even been invented ).

I believe the first 'sim' I ever played was a wire-frame F14 Tomcat on my brother's Amiga Commodore 500 in 1980. It mainly involved taking off from a carrier and trying to land back on it. We had a few hours of competitive fun, because back then it was state-of-the-art. But deary me, if I saw something like it now I'd give myself a hernia laughing. I remember playing Aces Over Europe, and predicting how "one day these planes will look almost real...probably after I'm long dead and buried."

I'm not entirely ignorant. No, I haven't played the game, but I've read, and still read, extensively at SimHQ. From that it's very clear to me that the game is still, effectively, a beta. If there was no DRM and I spotted the game in the shop for the usual bargain-bin price at Game of £10 I'd probably grab it, just to experience the visuals first-hand. I wouldn't be expecting anything more of it than that though, at least not for another year or so. I've bought only three flight-sims in my life that didn't end up collecting dust on a shelf within a couple of weeks/months...RB2, IL2 and OFF. I've bought everything that was on offer since SWotL in 1994. RoF is actually the first 'biggie' I've completely declined, to the point of not even being interested in trying the demo (that's mainly because of it being a time-limited, connect-to-a-server-to-play download). The entire gig in fact is one huge overhead for very little substance, in my opinion. But that's all these posts in this thread are, people's personal opinions. I don't see any reason to be getting hot under the collar about it.

Eh? That's weird. Sequence should be: Install BH&H Install super-patch 1.32 Install mini-patch (hotfix) 1.32g Install HiTR.

You say OFF has been in development for five years and RoF out for only six months...what point are you trying to make there? The same one as RoF has been in development for five years and OFF out for only twelve months? How about comparing OFF's advantage of being a mod based upon an existing engine vs RoF's advantage of having a huge team of developers but being built from the ground up? It's all chatter really. The bottom line is "What do I get for my money?" The one and only thing RoF excells at is eye-candy. It has no dynamic campaign, it's supposed saviour is a woefully under-par MP, it's AI, FM and DM are highly suspect, it lacks planes to the point of absurdity and it needs to connect to the KGB before it'll allow you to play it (DRM). I'm so un-impressed by everything I've read I've not been even mildly tempted to try the demo, much less part with cash. If, and I say if, the RoF team can hang together for another year (at least), what's already available might be patched to an acceptable level. For a dynamic campaign, how many more years required, realistically? I was laughed out the door at SimHQ for predicting, in 2007, that SoW wouldn't see the shelves until 2010. Here's another prediction...RoF will be a ghost-town within two years. I wish I could believe otherwise, because RoF's graphics allied with everything else in OFF would be sublime. I just don't believe that's ever going to happen though, which is sad. I'm not down on RoF for the sake of it, I'm calling it like I see it. If they do somehow manage the miracle of making RoF an OFF with superb graphics I will be very glad.

In my opinion, ROF's greatest problem is that it's company will be gone long before all of ROF's myriad and substantial issues are sorted. Big main-line companies with deep pockets dump games with fewer issues, so I cannot see how ROF will manage. Once the revenue-stream dries up it'll be goodnight Irene.

The equation for me is quite simple and pertains to depth. OFF is deep enough to swim in; RoF is a puddle.

The old dear (my mother) has just been rooting through some old stuff and has found one of my grandfather's service/workshop manuals, official govt issue, dated 1916. It has all the RFC planes and engines up to that date, from the Longhorn. Loads of seperate type-written addenums also. Looking through it she reckons you could build one from scratch with what's in it. "I'll send it to you." she says. NO!!! says I. I'll be picking it up next time I visit her.

In a 3.5 Shogun at £1.10 a liter it might as well be Siberia.

The old dear lives up in Lincolnshire, 300 miles away, and it's pretty expensive to go visit her. I usually take the kids up two or three times a year and stay for a week or a weekend. My brother's up there too though, and due to visit me soon, so I'll try and get him to bring the stuff. I will, of course, scan the lot and disseminate it onto the web, where it'll be safer (amongst other considerations).

Thanks Ovie. I hope it continues to be as big a kick for the chaps as it is for me.

42 pages plus a mass of fold-outs in the back, plus all the type-written bits, the lot classified as Highly Secret.

Once you're at the briefing screen you can hit the 'Alternative Objective' button until you get a mission short enough to suit.

I loathe the N17 (the plane I'm currently obliged to fly in the DiD campaign), but I have the Sopwith Tripe to look forward to (from mid january). I think we'll see the allies going on their own rampage once we have those, though we won't ever see German 2-seaters flying straight and level like our Be2s.

You'll come back overly enthusistic and keen (rabid) and die very quickly. Happy new year though mate, hope you have a good two weeks.

They don't last forever, the cells 'die off' as they have a limited number of on/off transitions. But as there are so many of them and the data migrates they still have a decent overall lifespan.

A solid-state drive (SSD) is extremely fast (like RAM fast), with all the advantages that suggests. The current wisdom, with SATA drives (or IDE), is to have three, with the OS on one, the game on the second and the page-drive on the third. I believe you can have the OS, game and PF on one SSD and see a significant advantage.

This OFF community is like a small green shoot springing anew from the ashes of old long past communities. It's been a very long time since such as this was seen.

That's a problem from the old days of USB, having to unplug and replug to re-initialise the hardware involved. It shouldn't be happening on any new OS.

Yeah, I learned that while searching, but I could find no Webleys and I don't recall any being made by the Japanese airsoft companies even as far back as 1990.

You would re-access your download by following the email-link you used originally.