Vasco

View File The Observers Manual A 7-page document produced to offer the player a basic understanding of the operation ofdefensive armament of multi-seat aircraft in Rise of Flight. The sections cover setting up the basic controls, how to use the available gunsights, the use of TrackIR in the Observer’s position, crewing aircraft offline and online, and the use of voice communications in multiplayer games. Submitter Vasco Submitted 12/01/2011 Category ROF - Miscellaneous Files

Hellshade, I certainly hope so, but we did it without the MS CFS3 servers. I bought the game long after they were decommissioned and the MP community ran 'Winston's Early Birds' and 'Vasco's Volunteers' events using one of the player's PCs as the host. It allowed up to 16 players to participate in the same mission (albeit with a certain amount of 'rubber banding' until you were close enough to the enemy aircraft for the graphics to load fully). From memory (and it's been a while) I believe it was increasing the quality of the aircraft models far beyond what was anticipated when the engine was originally designed that caused certain problems with MP, but we simply couldn't work out whether that was the case for the incorrect rendering of the target aircraft's attitude when flying against each other (the aircraft would look as if it was in a nose-up slip turn when it actually in a level turn - the only way you could determine what it was doing was to look at the exhaust smoke). Polovski stated in the thread below this one that it was the demise of the MS CFS3 servers that started the problems with MP in OFF, but that must have been for their development team as the MP community worked around them and got it operating reasonably well. I don't think the original CFS3 network code has ever been touched and the quality of the graphics has outstripped its ability to function well. Considering the hard work that OBD have done disecting the CFS3.exe to discover what the code affected and amending it accordingly, there doesn't appear to be any reason not to do the same for the network code for MP or replace it with a better engine if they so desired - update that to bring it alongside all the other improvements they've made and MP in OFF would be a direct challenge to that in RoF; with the size of the map and the OFF plane set in P4, could you imagine historical scenarios, campaigns and possibly even a persistent world we could develop for a dedicated player-funded server if they updated the network code? .... but they've got to be willing to do it and until I see some form of committment on these forums or as a response to this thread, I'm afraid that experience has taught me not to expect anything from OBD in this respect. Vasco

I for one would be over the moon if they repaired MP functionality in P4, but I'm not going to hold my breath. The MP community really were the bastard sons of this sim and had to work hard just to keep the co-op aspect alive for as long as we did (Dogfight mode in P3 i.e. players vs players was impossible because of the incorrect rendering of the aircraft in flight). There are members of this community (virtually silent these days) who put their heart and soul into helping players to set up OFF in order to be able to fly online with their friends, and OBD couldn't even be bothered to test the aircraft they released in HitR would work in MP; quite a few didn't - it was up to our small community to identify the problems and make modded versions of the aircraft. OBD couldn't even be bothered to fix them for everybody when we told them how we did it. Anyway, the majority of the old MP community are happily flying and shooting each other down in 'that other Great War flight sim'. If OBD wants us back, along with all the knowledge and experience of how to make OFF work properly in MP gathered over years of supporting this sim, they're going to have to demonstrate that they've changed their tune on MP development and support. That doesn't mean to say we won't purchase P4 and fly it offline (I certainly will be), but after participating in the organised MP campaigns of 70+ pilots and aircrew (Bloody April anyone?) and experiencing the stability of the RoF MP engine, it'll take more than a brief mention of 'MP functionality' on the box by OBD to bring me back. Vasco

Beard, I've PM'd you the Black Haze TS3 details. Jump on and grab me and I'll talk you through the settings. Some of them are designed with very powerful systems in mind and give a real performance hit for not much extra eye candy. Vasco

Simon, Here's an interesting fact - none of the servers available are provided by the developer. A PC with a good ISP can host games pretty much the way we used to. The proper servers have been rented by squadrons like The Syndicate and Les Harlequins from professional providers and are paid for by their squadron members for the benefit of the community. Black Haze also has one but we're running stress test before hosting our own campaign. One squadron is even planning a persistent enviroment so the community can take part in an ongoing war (very ambitious and very worthwhile). There have been several proper events hosted on line like 'Bloody April' that ran over 4 weeks. We've also found that the missions generated by the new offline campaign can be coverted into online cooperative missions quite easily like I used to do with OFF so the game's potential is increasing rapidly. The multiplayer engine is rock solid, the aeroplanes are beautiful to look at and chalenging to fly well with the amount of engine management involved. Overall, the game still has a long way to go before being able to offer the plane set available in OFF (and the front line still looks a little too pristine for my liking), but the multiplayer experience (especially when flying with your mates) is a thing of beauty. In the early days of RoF I pre-ordered the sim and bought OFF to give me something to do while I waited. In those days I was so impressed with OFF that when RoF was released I installed it, flew in it for about 3 hours then when back to OFF because it was so much more immersive. But things change, sims evolve and the terrible lack of support by OBD for MP in OFF finally took its toll. RoF isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination - one of the things that OFF got right was the comparative flight models of the aircraft (e.g a well-flown N17 can cream an Alb DII or DIII in a turn fight) and the flight models in RoF need (and will soon be receiving) a much-needed review, but with regard to WWI MP, it has become the only game in town. It's a shame really - as I've said many times if OBD had made OFF MP a priority RoF would have been stillborn as it simply couldn't compete in the early days. RoF is now available free to fly with two aircraft available so it's worth investigating. If you want to drop and and talk/fly with us in game I'll PM you the TS3 address and password. When I mentioned this post to Red Dog, Loopy, von Guber, etc they all started reminising about the OFF campaigns and how much you and the other MP players were missed in RoF (that YouTube video of our gang encountering Mick Mannock and his whole squadron and von Baur swearing on the track when he fudged the first pass made us all chuckle). Guys, your old friends are all here and we'd love to fly with you all again, even if it's only to touch base before going back to await P4. Let us know guys. You'd all be most welcome. Regards, Vasco

Hi Simon, I sincerely hope that P4 will actually support MP, but in all honesty I doubt it. OBD have stated that MP functionality has never been high on their list of priorities and as those who've flown MP would know, when HitR was released it included aircraft that would not work in MP without our little community creating modded versions..I even emailed one of the developers and gave a step-by-step breakdown of the problem and how it could be rectified in P3 (the solution was curtesy of Stumpjumper) and I never even received a reply. I'm afraid the most of our old gang have made the transition to Rise of Flight where MP was and continues to be a priority of the development team. if you (or von Baur, Burning Beard, Winston, etc) would like to get in touch with any of the old gang I've made a list of where they can be found below. Black Haze (Jasta 7) Dutch Schultz Osten von Guber von Dudley Firecage Vasco Red Dog Loopy Old Fokkers Sitting Duck Axgrinder You can find the squadron websites easily enough and we'd always enjoy seeing members of our old club dropping by to say hello. You never know - perhaps we can even temp you into coming over to the dark side! Regards, Vasco

Count me in also. I'm afraid that when no one turned up for Vasco's Volunteers two weeks on the trot, I gave up and headed off to RoF where a few of the old regulars had migrated. But I'll come back if we get the numbers. Vasco

Plainsman, I use a G940 with OFF with no problem. Although it's been a while since I set it up, I think the problem was that the CFS3 engine maps the axes of every controller to the main flight controls (all X and Y axes are roll and pitch, etc). You have to select each controller (joystick, throttle and pedals) in the CFS3 control setup and delete the unwanted axes for that controller and make sure that the ones you want are mapped. I hope this helps. Regards, Vasco

Guys, My apologies for not being able to run the campaign for the last two weekends due to work and visits from relatives. The good news is I've made sure there are not going to be any distrubances for tomorrow. Meet on TS at the usual time. Regards, Vasco

Guys, I got called into work this morning for what I thought was going to take about 3 hours. I'm still here and it doesn't look like I'll be heading home anytime soon. Can somebody host some fun missions for guys in my absence please? Vasco

No worries Beard, We didn't notice anything after the dog barking. Vasco

Great to have you back Mac Vasco

Stump WILL be back - he was on TS this evening but had his away flag up for hours. I'll try yelling down the mike again tomorrow evening. Hopefully he'll actually wake up and answer next time. Vasco

Jump on TS sometime in the next three hours and I'll help test your installation Mike, Vasco