J18Dread

If you haven't tried this, you should. Good way to sharpen your fighting skills. Haven't found the AI to be too daunting, but then I'm flying one-on-one in a D7. Will try 2 v. 1 soon. Hope to see you in the CK servers. Beware the red wings.

Been away playing IL2 in expectation of Canvas Knights and trying to get some online time via Red Baron Redux. Would like to try FE again, so need to come up to speed with latest changes. When I left the last update was the Nov08 that fixed some CTD caused by the Oct08 patch. Only problem for me was the AI became sitting ducks - took all the fun out of Instant Action and Single Missions. Just was playing Instant Action and had a CTD. The question is: Has the AI problem been fixed in the Nov08 patch? Was not able to see any subsequent patches, but I could have missed it. As an aside, is anyone playing FE online? Never was a vibrant online community, but maybe that has changed.

Spungie; Waited until 2015 (1815pacific) at Strike Fighters checking Wings over Vietnam occasionally, then went back to Red Baron Redux.

Spungie' My apologies. I have forgotten more than I knew. Do you use anything other than hyperlobby chat? Really would like to get away from any in-game typing. I will try to find you this Monday (08Feb10) - 2000 Central (1800 Pacific) is a good time for me. Any others are welcome to join us. I have not tried the WOV server. Any other setup tricks than copying/re-naming the wwi.exe? Also, I fly either the Oct08 or Nov08 patch, which is the Expansion Pack, if I remember correctly. Never easy.

Quack; Not sure, I do not think it came up before. My 'guess' is that if you host, they will; if you don't host, they will not appear. As I recall, we all load the host's config including planes. I think that will include skins, but I do not really know. Does anyone?

Spungie; Mr. Craig has pretty well fallen off the map. Moving to La La land made him disappear. Since when did you start flying First Eagles? See post to Quack74 and maybe we can get together.

Quack; Online play is not easy. It can be frustrating because the setups have to be pretty close to identical. That said, FE can be a lot of fun, but you have to be patient. Dogfight is the only real option, but that is my preference anyway. We have the choice of hyperlobby, hamachi, or the in-game connection. Eons ago, hamachi gave the best results. Not sure which is best now. I am usually online around 1900 central. I haven't been hanging around a teamspeak or ventrilo server for quite awhile, but that is how it starts. We have to agree upon a communications medium - especially during setup. If you have a favorite - teamspeak, ventrilo, skype, google talk, yahoo, live messenger - let me know and we will try to make contact. I am leaning towards Skype, but have never used it for game play - j18dread, if anyone is interested. Anyone who wants to join us, feel free to make suggestions. Post here or send me an email and we will make it happen.

To build on what quack said there is no easy way to play FE online, which is a real shame. However, if you are willing to invest a little time, it is possible. I have outlined what I think are the appropriate steps at http://j18dread.home.comcast.net look under the online tab. The key is finding like minded folks that are available when you are. Hanging out at the team speak server is not very effective, given the paucity of online players. Setting up a Yahoo FE friends may be an alternative, but you still have the problem of finding players. I have all but given up on FE online and have switched to IL2 in the expectation that Canvas Knights will soon be available. FE is such a great game that I would be willing to give it a go again. So if you are anywhere near Central time zone (OTC -6) and like to play after 1900, let me know.

FE is not optimized for online play. If you like one on one or small teams, it has real possibilities. Tailspin is right. You cannot cheat because you fly the whatever fms and dms the host has (because of no standardized fms you end up flying the same plane). If you don't have the plane (you can have more, but not less) you will not be able to join the game. Configuration is a problem, so I suggest that you have a separate install of the latest stock setup and try an coordinate with others before game time. I use the October patch for Instant Action and the November patch for online play. Let me know if I can help.

Hugo36; If we can find a way around the time zones (-6 here in Houston), then I would be most interested is some 1v1 - more, if we can find other participants. FE's greatest weakness is online play. Let me know.

Yes, I noticed it too. It is limited to IA, as far as I can tell. I went back to the October patch even with the CTD problem, but then I fly IA during every session.

You may have to thrash around a bit, but it should be straight forward - just need to know the ip and pw (if any). Recommend using headset with mic as opposed to stand alone mic and speakers. If there is an IM that you use, we can start with that to ease the setup hassle. Happy to help any way I can. Gets kind of lonely up here all by myself.

Not many. See my post on 29Aug08 for some details. Let me know if I can help you get started. The key is establishing a common configuration. Good luck Anyone know how to link posts? Would be nice to be able to add the link to another post to save typing.

DaSpungie; I am on about 1900 Central most weeknights and various times during the weekend. Best way to meet up is to monitor a teamspeak server. I use KoA's server at 82.214.27.152:8769 no pw. First Eagles channel is near the bottom. Open to any other coordination tool you suggest. Staying in a game server alone is very boring. At least, I can fly missions while listening for prospective targets in a voice chat server. Let me know. I suggest using the fully patched (April 2008) + EP with standard planes and Vogesen terrain (more visually interesting), but am open to any suggestions for a standard configuration. Would be fun to get it going again.

Sorry to hear about your travails. Hope to see you online ASAP. Will the timezones be a problem? I assume you are on GMT (0 UTC), whereas I am -6 UTC. Anything I can do to help, let me know. It is lonely up here, need company.

Peter01 Interested in anything you do for the April patch, except the D7f (it is just about where I want it to be). I have the SE5a in some of my missions as AI, so will be happy to pick it up when you are done. Let me know. The other planes I use as AI are RE8, Salmson2A, Camel 150, Spad13 and Alb D5. Appreciate all your hard work. Thanks.

Topo and others: The link below should take you to a simple guide to FE multiplayer setup. http://home.earthlink.net/~drhanksa/id2.html Any comments to make it more useful will be appreciated.

Topo; To my knowledge there is no multiplayer tutorial. Getting started can be difficult due to the rigorous configuration requirements, but it can be done. The easiest way is to meet up with someone (me) on the KOA Teamspeak server (85.214.27.152:8769). I hope that language and timezones are not going to be major hurdles. I am on for about and hour or so after 1900 Central time. Look for me down in the First Eagles channel. We have used Hyperlobby and Hamachi, as well as direct P2P connections. The best results were from hamachi. My Hamachi server is Jasta18, pw 18, but we can sort that out later. In HyperLobby, we use the Strike Fighters room and there is a trick to copy and rename the WW1.exe file to flightsim.exe and then have Hyperlobby find the file. Again, I can walk you through it. The configuration I recommend is the FE+EP+April update, only stock planes. The Vogesen terrain is more interesting and highly recommended. Let me know if there is anything else I can do. The online community has shrunk to almost nothing, but since it is only really good for dogfighting, it does not take many to have good time.

I salute the master. How did you figure this out? I now have the D7F (EP+April update) just about where I think it should be - maybe still needs a little more power, but now able to make multiple loops. Changed the CDL by .3 and the AlphaTables by 2 integers (19 changes in all). If at all possible, please collect these thoughts/insights into an FM guide. I would never have known where to start and I am sure to lose this forum note.

Peter01 Eagerly await the new FM/DMs. Suggest you give DM's Cold War patch for RB3D a try. The St. Mihael and TerraNova versions, while primarily for MMP, are the most playable flight sims out there IMHO. May be too energetic to be realistic, but certainly the most fun. If that energy could be transported to FE, I would be one happy camper. There used to be a timing change for single play that accelerated play, but I lost it and cannot find it again. Anyway, it did not work for online play, but did make Instant Action and Single Missions more exciting. Again, thanks for all of your work on our behalf. Try Cold War 4.1, it works with ROTJ, or it did several months ago.

For me it is only in Instant Action. My Jasta 18 D7F is as white as beached whale, teammates paint is OK. It is also fine in Single Mission and Multi-player. I am using the Jasta 18 D7F skins from the original game - not real fond of the EP re-paint. Tried a number of different approaches, all to no avail, so awaiting your solution. Good luck.

Too bad, still the best terrain. Any chance for the worn dromes and parked planes? Makes the dromes a bit more interesting. Nice to have, but not essential. Could do it myself, but the idea is to have a 'canned' install. Again, great work. Thanks.

Great. Been using Vogesen as the standard terrain for all single play, augmented with worn dromes and parked aircraft. Currently we use un-modded Flanders for multiplay. Would be great to have a Vogesen with the worn dromes and parked aircraft for standardization. Any chance to have a mountain or two? The hills are great, but higher might be a little better.

Peter01 Red Hammer and I were testing the different standard EP planes and were pleasantly surprised by the performance of the Dolphin, with one significant exception. It seems to slip to the side in a most curious and extreme way. In viewing the data.ini, I noticed that sideslipdamper had been disabled. I will be testing this later with it enabled, but if I am not successful, are there any settings that may account for this behavior? Never seen this setting or behavior before. Otherwise, the Dolphin may serve as the 'normalized' model for mmp. Any suggestions or settings appreciated. Thanks. //SideslipDamper=0.0 //AutoTrimLimit=0.0 Activating the SideslipDamper seemed to do the trick. Will not know until next dogfight. New problem: Seems to want to nose over. Moved CG to 0.00,-3.00,0.00 from 0.00,0.00,0.00. Some improvement, but not much. Expected more. What does AutoTrimLimit do? Found no info. It is active, but set to 0.0. Is there an appropriate setting for 'nose heavy'? Also, has anyone done any work on a cockpit for the Dolphin? The split wing spar could make for an interesting view.

Peter01 Really appreciate this. On re-reading the SF notes, I noticed that most of my changes only effect the AI. Reverting to the standard data.inis and starting over. Each time I get a little smarter. Too bad the increment is so small. Again, thanks. Appreciate your help.