Bandy

I doubt it but are you questioning whether the film is real war footage? No, AFAICT it was taken with a modern camera on a gyroscopic mount. Is it CGI or real footage/reinactment? Looks like real aircraft, and quite well executed, except for the fact that the 1st Spitfire isn't really trying to get away... unless he was a total goober for a pilot, i.e. Natural Selection. Just my opinion.

Bring the Aldis back!!! It is an excellent long range site and very effective even over short range once the magnification is reduced and you get used to how to use it. Historically many pilots removed them, most likely because they were completely weird to them. WWI pilots (and perhaps beyond) tended to avoid anything unorthodox, take for example the Sopwith Dolphin.

By all means I most respectfully post this link to the FE forum HERE Jan Tuma released his much anticipated 12 month terrain mod for First Eagles, and it is simply spectacular. Please see for yourself. Two versions available, one for 1st generation FE, another for FE2 (which has bump mapping for skins!). I fly both OFF and FE for different reasons and love them as a parent can love two children.

Well, I used to think the FE flight models were a little too spritely for canvas and stick aircraft, BUT I agree with you that OFF flight models seem to be at the other extreme and are on the heavy side. [Damage models are completely different kettle of fish, and OFF just rocks there! Well, maybe not the one hit=50% aileron reduction, I hear you there...] Then a few years ago I saw Howard Hughes' "Hell's Angles" for the first time (yes I know, sacrilege! But I'm not that old) which used period aircraft in the production (as well as period pilots from WWI ). When you see those Fokker DVII's buzzing around, diving, climbing, doing flick rolls, loops, etc. etc. etc. I'm pretty sure that FE is closer to the truth, even if the DVII was one of the best in WWI and not representative of all crates/buses. And besides, the FE stalls and spins seem to be much more realistic AFAIK (no pilot here), or at least the aircraft get into a spin and then responds to a spin the way they are supposed to. Pros and cons to each, and I love simming in them for different reasons.

Trek, I agree whole-heartedly, and thus the title of my OP, "For those addicted to WWI sims". I don't fly just one, and if that makes me 'unpatriotic' in any particular camp, then that is their loss for not crossing fences. @ Dutch, I apologize if my post to you was offensive re: file swapping abilities, I certainly and sincerely wasn't implying what you mentioned. I bought FE on THE day it was released as well (I think it was Nov 24, 2006???), found CombatAce a few days later, so this site and that sim have been a favorite with me ever since. I agree Fe was d@mn rough when released, and I do not blame you for putting it aside, but there wasn't much in the way of alternatives at the time. RB3D would not run on my new system (or would have required too much time/effort) and OFF2 came later for me. I came this close [--] to buying RoF when it was on sale for $20 and regret not doing it b/c I thought FE and OFF were a great 1-2 fix. I've had really intense campaigns in FE, but of course OFF excels at that. In FE I've found you have to fly campaigns in a way to save your wingmates from certain death and see THEIR scores rise, see them become aces more than you, a unique perspective on altruism in a combat sim that just works, at least for me... I fly them both for different reasons and as time permits, each has strengths and weaknesses. Nothing more nothing less.

All I can think is that there is some corrupt file. I downloaded 4 times before I got it to work, but still haven't tried all terrains yet -- I can't seem to leave Vogesen! The transformation is simply amazing with ground shadows, the masses of trees, and yet GREAT frame rates! One thing I did try was to rename the backup folders I noticed in each terrain folder, and they appear to be unnecessary for the sim & terrain to work.

Thanks for reply Peter01, Yes, in fact I've been using CH pedals for more than a year now (what a difference!). In my defence, most of the time in missions past I did not have issues with Eindeckers and simply out turned them. Perhaps my anecdotal post was colored in some way by, well, that single mission. On reflection my N17 may have been damaged in the initial merge, I cannot recall after a few fingers of single malt... I ended up doing a few low and high yo-yo's and got some good deflection shots on the straggler before split-arsing out of there through some clouds and loosing them. Rather foolishly I tried to see if my wing man was still about, and dallied a little too long 'cause the EIIIs found me again, and without altitude and a smaller engine I was toast. As I've mentioned in other forums (and in a distinctly positive way!), Peter, your AI makes a grown man weep!!!

Will give them a go Peter, and thank you. I was trying out the new N17 FM just yesterday in single mission against some EIIIa's and found they could bank and turn as well as I could --all three of them almost in formation! They were cutting the edge and making it look so easy while my FFB stick was shaking in my hands all out. It was fun, sure, and why I didn't take a screen shot I don't know, but wing-warpers can't have been that good could they?

I ran out of interesting pilot names long ago and gave up trying the DiD thing back in late December 2006 (inside joke), but those were still green days for me. Just my personal opinion and no judgement on anyone else, but I think it is kinda silly. You're gonna die in the sim skies sooner or later... I know what you mean though, you want to be successful on every mission possible. Try to fly defensively to save your wingmates and build up their experience and scores, it is very interesting and a fun way to change the perspective on the sim. I absolutely HATE when I'm outside and look into a fur ball to see AI wingmates getting holed, or worse flamed, and know that if I help I am not making it back to finish the campaign. I almost always jump in though, seriously, there is something heroic about doing it and feeling good about it. Sometimes I get away and they are memorable flights, most times not. If you're flying against Peter's AI then just enjoy when you can get away and/or make an emergency landing in a convenient field. With all the trees Jan has put on the ground now, I can't even pretend to do that anymore...

OK, got the terrains to work on reboot, re-download, and re-install. 4 is the charm I guess... This was VERY weird, even once I managed to get flying above Jan's awesome terrain (seriously, I love it!) on my first test flight my sound was intermittently cutting out and TIR was acting strangly. It was like when you sell a long-serving and faithful car to a friend, all sorts of things start to happen . Another reboot later and all is well, or seemingly so, and I see no visible impact on my performance/fps, which is surprising smooth on take off. Very nice work. Vogesen is especially lovely in the winter, I like to fly up the valleys when clouds are low, surprise and strafe the trenches... Now that I mention it, do the trenches have terrain bump maps associated with them like the river banks? The trenches and craters look like you can reach into them! One thing, I do notice some shimmer to the deciduous trees, and have tried to increase graphX settings (AA, AF, Catalyst AI, etc.) but to no avail. I know Z buffer settings help with building shimmer, which there is still a wee bit, but trees?

@ Stary or anybody... How many downloads did it take you Stary, and are you sure it was a corrupt file that was the cause? I have not been able to get back to my computer and work to get Jan's fabulous terrains running. Thanks.

Still don't have FE2, yet, am still on the fence. The only screen shot of the crashed LOD that I've seen posted so far was not all that impressive, kinda looked like a steaming turd. Can somebody please post a better image? I trust they can be refined to look more like, well, wreckage. Laton, I think your FX mods are great, thank you for your efforts. But can you make the smoke off the wreckage somewhere in between your mod (which is a bit too chimney-like) and the stock (which is too dispersed)? What variables are involved?

Yes, for many of us Cannucks the mud of Vimy ridge, Ypres, etc. is in our blood via a lost relative, distant or close. So many great WWI pilots came from Canada as well. Many have remarked a disproportionate number of pilots given the population size at the time, but for the most part their achievements were lumped under British tallys, not that kills ultimately matter or make a man courageous. Thank you for the post Olham.

"Feeling"??? But you use the "hit notifications"!?! or whatever they're called in game. I find that strangely incompatible with the edict of immersion you espouse. Honestly, not trying to start a fight...

I'm not sure whether to dignify this with a critical response or not. Dutch, if you have not taken the time to mod a First Eagles install with 3rd party content like Peter01's flight models,various sound mods, and the most aircraft available in any WWI sim (yes, somebody added it up and FE exceeds the Red Baron days...) then you don't know what you're talking about. The 3rd party AI in FE will make you cry, and when you see your wingmates go down in flames, they are really gone, they don't show up like JC on the roster next mission. TK makes his sims to be easily modded and they have inspired numerous communities of great friendly people. Anyone can go under the hood, mod, and have it just the way they like it served up if they are willing to take a bit of time. Being able to fly over terrain that you, personally, just polished up in Photoshop to your liking is an amazing feeling. If you don't like the stock proploop sound, then change it, or are you incapable of simple file swapping? FE is not an arcade shooter any more than OFF is.

Watched the vid Olham, nice long range shooting! Wish I checked six as often as you did/do; was that just for us? Have you tried to use TIR and head shifting to the left/right to line up the iron sights? I find it a lot of fun to actually get more physical in the cockpit, hunch over, lean forward, squint one eye, line up the bead and groove, and get that target in the ring... It seems to improve my accuracy quite a bit and I waste less rounds. As far as setting priority for TIR, and this was mentioned in another thread (which I'm pretty sure you partook of, but heck, what thread does Olham not partake of? ) do not set priority for any process beyond "above normal" no matter how tempting "real time" sounds for something like TIR (which when you think of it is what you'd want to be as real time as it gets). Embarrassed to say I made that mistake but was set straight...

The last thing I read from a reputable source was that sound should not be an issue on any recent computer running games/sims. It used to compete for system resources, but is not a relative factor anymore. Graphics, graphics, graphics!!!

Well, my well intentioned post seems to have gone south despite some more noble posts. I Suppose I was naive enough to think that most WWI simmers would like to hear other good news and options for flying the not-so-friendly skies... As my OP states, I fly both OFF and FE for different reasons. I will not get into the details, I have before and elsewhere, but suffice it to say that if the two [OFF and FE] were able to melded together and the best of both brought to the surface, then we'd all be much happier with only one WWI option. Please let this thread die.

The still smoking bits of debris and longer smoke trails are really nice! Making the smoke particles smaller and more of them just works, more realistic, but does it affect frame rates? Is that a photon torpedo in that last image???

Apologies for the cross post, but I thought the question of whether FE2 will support seasonal terrains was important enough to have a thread. Those who have bought it said that FE2 does not display seasonal changes with calendar dates. I somehow doubt TK has eliminated this very nice feature, but for some reason (perhaps he had a senior moment?) he did not include it in FE2. >>>EDIT: SCRATCH WHAT I SAY BELOW! There is a simpler way. Duh! Shouldn't have to do this from first principals. All somebody needs to do is transfer over their Terrain folder from FE1 to FE2 (if the terrain folder structure hasn't changed, I don't know, I don't own any of the 2nd gen series). Anyone? Bueller??? <<< Well, regardless, it should be a simple matter to test whether seasons are supported in FE2 (I haven't bought it yet, so someone else will have to make this plunge...). While seasonal terrain textures may not be included (as one poster mentioned), you should be able to edit the terrain.ini file in each terrain folder (my copy from FE Cambrai folder below as a start, NB: I have changed the weather settings so revert to stock values if you like...), and then make sure you have the season folders and associated tiles (!) in the terrain folder. Make sure that the folder names match the seasons you inserted into the ini code as below. Grab the seasonal tiles from your 1st gen FE (if you like monochrome), or use 3rd party tiles here at CA. If this works, let us know, I'll buy a copy then [Terrain] TerrainFullName=Cambrai, France DataFile=wwiCambrai_data.INI TargetFile=wwiCambrai_targets.INI TargetTypeFile=wwiCambrai_types.INI MovementFile=wwiCambrai_movement.INI NationsFile=wwiCambrai_nations.INI BriefingText=wwiCambrai_briefing.INI DogfightFile=wwiCambrai_dogfight.INI DogfightOnly=FALSE Longitude=5.221 Latitude=49.176 [Map] FilenameFormat=wwiCambrai_Map%d.bmp Width=250000.0 Height=250000.0 NumZoomLevels=3 [WeatherChance] ScatteredChance=25 BrokenChance=25 OvercastChance=17 InclementChance=8 [season001] Directory=Deep Snow StartDate=1/1 EndDate=2/26 ScatteredChance=25 BrokenChance=25 OvercastChance=17 InclementChance=8 [season002] Directory=Spring StartDate=02/27 EndDate=05/31 ScatteredChance=40 BrokenChance=25 OvercastChance=10 InclementChance=5 [season003] Directory=Summer StartDate=06/01 EndDate=08/31 ScatteredChance=25 BrokenChance=25 OvercastChance=10 InclementChance=5 [season004] Directory=Fall StartDate=09/01 EndDate=10/31 ScatteredChance=25 BrokenChance=40 OvercastChance=10 InclementChance=5 [season005] Directory=Snow StartDate=11/01 EndDate=12/31 ScatteredChance=25 BrokenChance=35 OvercastChance=10 InclementChance=5

I thought he [the voice of "contact man"] sounded like Ringo Starr... EDIT: Oops! Going back and reading the whole thing I now see someone else thought so too...

My first attempt at download/install has consistently resulted in CTD for different terrains in single mission and QC, Verdun, Vogesen, Cambrai ... Going to try another download based on your experience Stary. (BTW, your terrain work is very much appreciated). EDIT: Nope, still getting CTD with loss of mouse control and error message as below. I can see each terrain.ini is pointing to the seasonal tile folder, and the folder hierarchy is just fine. Well, if there is one thing I've experienced before, keep banging that head against the wall, and it should work EDIT2: Three downloads same thing. I did notice that each month in the terrain.ini's have 31 days, but I doubt that is an issue if others have the mod working. I mean WTF am I doing wrong? Correct me if I can't see my ... from my ... but it is a simple matter of unpacking and installing the terrain folder in the WWI folder, right? FE runs just fine with (and have reverted back to) my heavily modded terrain folder in the meantime. I'm not going to sleep tonight... @ Jan Different question, what files are in the backup folders in each terrain? Some of them only have ini files, others seem to have complete duplicates of the tod files. That's a considerable chunk of disc space if they are unnecessary...

Peter, sorry I missed this thread earlier, but am trying to get caught up now. I just discovered Jan released his terrain! Man am I behind the times... Many thanks for the Nieuport FM's!

I second that motion, but am afraid my feathered friend that FE is the poor sister to the jet jocks. As it is our combined FE forum is buried within "WWI sims" forum and doesn't even merit it own space! Is there no justice?!!!?

Thanks Jan! We've been patiently waiting for this and you most certainly have delivered!!! Now hopefully this will attract some extra attention to our oft forgotten WWI sim...