Siggi

All you beastly Bosche, please address all questions to Herr Olham. All rules are subject to amendment, depending how we find things as we tootle along. One thing I really do stress, and especially with xmas hoving into view, if you can get your flying-mittens on a TiR grab one with both of them. Make the most of that uncluttered screen and really put your head in the game.

My one and only:

The general idea is to add more units if and as when more people join, otherwise we'll end up with loads of units with just a couple of chaps in each. The German side doesn't have this problem, us allies will just have to bear it, hopefully only for a while. Mixture and trim will be player's choice. The website is up. I may change/add/screw around with stuff still, but it's functional. http://www.hetzer.talktalk.net/

I need to learn W7 for my work, but it just so happened that the day before W7 arrived I started to get multiple crashes in at least three games with the dreaded "nv4_disp" error. That was after I'd been trying lots of different drivers with my new GTX285, and it had clearly corrupted the OS. I am getting minor jerks and stutters with OFF in W7, despite very high FPS, something that didn't happen under XP with a lesser card (GTX8800), but it's not a show-stopper, just irritating.

Pappy, check your messages. :)

I believe this already exists in OFF (somebody will correct me if I'm wrong).

As outlined to Olham, I'd like to know what you chaps think of this (it was an organic development that followed from the idea of starting in bombers)... We all start in bombers/recon. In order to transfer to the respective fighter-units a pilot must have 17 hours on bombers or five kills, whichever comes first (kills by yourself as pilot or observer, or kills by your AI crewman, all are good). To quote again: "The sweet is never as sweet without the bitter." It will make the attainment of fighter-status all the more rewarding and pleasurable, and the loss of it all the more painful. And put a brake on crazy behaviour as a fighter-pilot (focus on survival over kills/glory). A grittier experience overall, kind of more in keeping with that of the real chaps we remember. As for the allied choice of fighter-squadron, I believe it boils down to Se5 vs Camel as the ultimate plane at the end of the upgrade line? Personally I'm not bothered, I like both (both have their pros and cons) and I'd flip a coin. But if enough of you have a real preferance the only fair thing to do is have a show of hands. If not I'll just flip that coin. Oh yes, the question of mixture...auto on or auto off. What say ye (this question is to the pilots of both sides)? I don't have a lever for it but I'm happy to do it off my keyboard with numbers 1 to 10 (10% increments). It's a handful but I'm sure it'd become second nature after a while. A show of hands on this too please.

Damn, you've given me a taste for a bit of the old Absinth.

Ok, we have enough to start with this. We'll start with the horribly inglorious and beastly business of two-seater recon and bombing, from Nov 5th 1916. The allied will be flying for the British forces, 3-Wing RNAS with Sopwith Strutters out of Ochey, Verdun sector. The axis will be flying the DFW C.V. out of Wasquehal, Flanders sector. I will subsequently institute a fighter unit for each side and pilots will be transfered to theirs upon request, on the proviso they have flown a minimum of XX hours on two-seaters (surviving character). Once in their fighter unit they will be subject to transfer back to two-seaters upon character death. I believe this little facet will hugely focus the mind upon survival over glory and make for a very realistic and immersive state of mind...survival to get into the fighters, survival to stay in the fighters. Hope that meets with everyone's approval. :) I've asked Olham if he'd take over command of the German side, at least in the RPG role, and hopefully also the web-site side of it if he's up on DW etc. Talking of which, I'll get the site up and running in time for our launch-date of 5th Nov.

You wouldn't have to fly all the set missions, real pilots didn't all fly the same number of missions each day. You'd fly as many or as few as you wished, on whatever days you wished. All you'd have to do is advance time after missing a day or more and keep the game time in sync with real time. :)

Thankyou, that seems to have done the trick!

Hmm, I tried but it doesn't seem possible to change a thread title. Thanks for the count Olham. How many do we have for the German side?

Multiple units, unless attended by a large number of participants right off the bat, would defeat a significant part of the exercise...there'd be units here and there with only one pilot in each of them. The two-seater idea seems to be the way to go, kind of a delayed-gratification thing. Slow everyone down, get used to flying defensively and all the esprit de corp to be had from flying in the same outfit (on each side respectively).

The problem is, if this is an issue between FFB, CFS3 and W7, nobody's going to fix it. So it's no FFB for OFF and W7 users.

I think that's happened to everyone at some point. Certainly did to me, and the monitor was lucky it didn't get my fist through it.

Your call old chap, the real people had their ways of getting around stuff. ;)

Dej, you could change the AI names if you'd like, but that might become a little tedious once chaps started dying. But you'd be the only one to see it, so that'd be a personal-immersion call I guess. I certainly wouldn't stipulate it as a rule. Choosing the squads/jastas is a sticky point. Everyone has their personal favourites amongst the a/c, immediately flyable or ones to come in a particular unit. Not sure how to cover that, unless a shed-load of chaps want to come aboard right off the bat. It's a tempting idea to start everyone off in bomber units, one squad for each side, and as numbers of players increase the older hands could transition to fighter units (as it was in reality for many observers/pilots). Stats on the sq page would be: Forum nick. Date joined. Rank and name. Hours flown. Total claims. Confirmed kills. Awards. The mind-set would need to be one of survival and hours flown rather than kills. Kind of a reality-vs-Rambo ethos. And that's also the thinking behind making this a pure-DiD deal. And I'm obviously aware of hardware-limitations faced by some players, but then I figure that can be encompassed to a point by the individual frailties of real pilots...lack of TiR = poor eyesight for example. Anyway, this is at a chomping-over-ideas stage at this point, and seeing how many people are up for it. :)

Bloody hell, no it hasn't. It needs the web stuff done before it starts, and unless a good number of people want it there's not a lot of point. Ideally we'd want a full sq on each side, but I can see barnies happening over sq a/c, so there'd be more than one sq per side inevitably. But the numbers of people playing OFF have increased a lot since RoF went down the pan, so 24+ per side would seem achievable if enough like the idea, spread over two or three fighter & bomber squadrons per side. It'd be a role-playing gig kind of thing, sort of tie us all together in a common time-line and unit-formation deal. Obviously we wouldn't be physically flying together, that would require an online war, but it'd be the next best thing. The great humam imagination would fill in the blanks. I just think it would be nice to play the game that way, and for pilots to have a common home as it were, a squadron/jasta web-page with stats and stuff on it. Anyway, as I say, if enough people show an initial interest I'll get it going, and hopefully more people would join along the way. It just needs a good seeding.

It would be offline. People could fly for it as and when they wished and fly other stuff too. It's not a competition or anything. :)

I don't think anyone would be keen on doing the whole war, they'd be locked into very crappy planes for a long time. Thus 1916, I think the planes from oct or nov of that year are tolerable for both sides. As for which units, a player can choose his own from those available in the campaign, but it would be preferable if as many players as possible could agree on a common unit for each side and properly fill them up. :)

Currently using a Saitek Cyborg 3D Gold, after I found my Cyborg Force 3D doesn't work properly under W7.

When a pilot dies the player will transfer-in a new one, to start at the date current at that time. KIA and POW entries will be moved to the bottom.

Just to gauge possible interest. It's a DiD thing, but under the full 'pure DiD' settings (no T, L etc). Set a start date (eg, a week from now) and apply that date within the campaign, to run in real time. So Oct or Nov in 1915 or 1916 as a start (not even sure if the game runs from oct/nov 1915). Everyone joins a squadron/jasta of their choice, but it would be nice to see as many people as possible in the same sq/jasta (respectively). Fly when you like. If you miss a day just advance the time in the game next time you fly to keep sync with real time. Stats recorded on nice sq/jasta pages on my website. Hopefully you can see where I'm going with this, but any questions fire away. I kind of feel it would be a pleasant new twist, community-spirit thang, all on the same page sort of deal. Each pilot's entry could have a link back to a logbook/diary here. Waddaya reckon, any interest? If enough people say "yes" I'll do it. I think the current killboard has died the death because it lacks that all-inclusive pull, if that makes sense. New DiD website is now here: http://www.hetzer.talktalk.net/