Dej

Well, I'll be buying OFF Gold should it materialise. Even though my flight time has dropped to almost zero these days, on principle of rewarding the Dev. Team for the work, I'll buy anything they release.

I hope, once the lights are off, they'll release their skin templates, models and model structure trees etc. so that a community of modders could carry on. But it's valuable intellectual property so I'm categorically not suggesting that they are in any way obliged to.

Greetings All,

I've been away for a while, moving house. I'm now living in Felixstowe, Suffolk, where the beauty below comes from. Always wanted to be by the sea and Felixstowe has a wealth of history (WW1, WW2 and well before, as well as England's busiest container port - the other end from us, though).

BTW, the above is a work in progress, being something of a hybrid F2A early/medium/late. I've always loved Seaplanes and Flying Boats, if ever they decide to build a replica F2A here I'm in, even if my contribution is limited  only to painting dope on!

C'est incroyable... fantastique. Bien fait, monsieur.

A 1080p Full HD projector should handle at least 1920 x 1080. At a throw distance of say 4m that will give you a virtual screen size of approx 350cm on the diagonal.

When I was a smoker, one Summer's evening outside a pub I successfully swatted a wasp with a Camel. Looks like I may need to do so again!

Great skin Hauksbee. Mind you, if you added the silhouette of a Hawk on the side you'd have the name pun complete.

I realise the cost of international postage makes purchases that much more expensive (witness my 'Italian' collection!) but for hard-to-find examples I can recommend this site: http://www.aviationbookhouse.co.uk/bcats/catworldwar1page1.htm as the chap who runs it is a real aviation history enthusiast.

Being as I'm away from home most of the week, I've been doing QCs up until now. For the same reason. I wanted my first WOFF campaign to be easy on the flying time, easy on the flying skill, and easy on the eye. And as I'd never flown a D.VII in campaign before I decided to join Jasta 74 as a Leutnant in October '18. Also as I could see one of my favourite ace paint jobs (it's not there yet, but never mind).

Anyhow, first campaign flight was a reconnaissance. I wasn't leading and this formation flying malarkey is a #%&*$# so I was concentrating on that. Nearing the end of the patrol, my flight leader suddenly snapped right and there straight ahead was an enemy aircraft!. With a bit of rudder-punching (very inelegant) I got on his tail and sprayed the sky around him with a short burst. He spun away and I watched him as he spiraled down, expecting him to recover any moment, but he was very, very low and still spinning before I had to stop looking.

When we landed I was prompted for a claim. I duly filled it in, expecting nothing because the stats said I'd had one hit out of 90! But...

I've spent the evening doing an analysis on the WOFF skin files, including the Skin Pack, all 6127 of 'em, in MS Excel. Laborious task because the file naming convention is not followed consistently!

I've broken them down by year, nation, model, unit and ace.

I thought I'd upload it because some people may find it useful for picking units with a good number of skins (a real 'circus') or for following their favourite ace around et cetera.

Those of you with an understanding of Excel filters and Pivot tables will be able to do more with it but even novices should gain some insight.

I don't think I'm giving anything away here because this is just an analysis of file names, but I'll remove the post if the Devs desire.

OTOH, if someone has not yet bought the Skin Pack, a file count comparison may persuade them to do so! I haven't made the comparison because I started the analysis after I'd bought the Skin Pack... I was only really looking for Wilhelm Hippert's Jasta 74 DVIIF chequered 'Mimmi' paint job, actually and dumped my directory listing to a file to search for it... kinda snowballed after that!

Two files in the zip, one for Excel 97, the other for 2007.

WOFF_Skin_Analysis.zip

I was questioning that one myself but I had taken 'Ligny de en Barrois' directly from a 1915 survey map.  However, it was an English-made map so therein lies the rub.

Really? Well, that's interesting in itself. But then, you can't trust the English where matters French are concerned. After all, the British Army was built to fight them, not the Germans!

As to the Saint-/Sainte- thing, that's just me being pedantic, it's entirely your choice. The important thing is that it's a jolly spiffing map.

Sterling work you're putting in there Lou, I'm recommending you for the Médaille militaire.

One point though and I don't know what the WOFF map says 'cos I'm not flying over that area, but shouldn't it be 'Ligny-en-Barrois' rather than 'Ligny de en Barrois'?

I'd be inclined to change all St. and Ste. to Saint- and Sainte- too, pedantically. But only because French place names have given me no end of grief with lookup forrmulae trying to match aerodromes to places, so I always write them all in full now, including all diacritics!

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listes_des_communes_de_France will help.

Cappy. From 12/04/1918 to 20/5/1918.

Have I missed something or has Lousy Anna's finest dropped off the radar?

Haven't heard anything from him since September.

I'm surprised he's not already testing the late war years in WOFF... always seemed to love adversely stacked odds! :-)

Anybody have any news?

Javito, you may find what you want here

Not sure how much use the Pilot Primers will be now that the FMs have changed, but the prinicples expounded therein are probably still valid.

Confirmed for my part - Ol' Rusty Digits is very welcome and I'm sure Lou will confirm and confer upon him the Badger of Membership.

Therefore, following the grand tradition of new members buying the drinks - and because I know the Mess Steward just received a batch of Cork Blue Label Dry Gin from his cousin in the Emerald Isle - I'll have a Dog's Nose.

As to the WOFFlers question, I think the general consensus was in favour of remaining as 'OFFers' per the original formation of the BOC. However, it's all in fun so I think people may call themselves what they wish... for instance I prefer to be called [CENSORED] at weekends so I'm not going to split hairs over that one!

Hi,

I'm attempting to change my signature image doing what I think I did before which is:

Upload image to My Gallery, go to My Gallery, Select Options > Share Links, copy the Image Link code, go to My Settings > Signature, paste link code into Image dialog box. The image appears on my sig as expected but when I try to save it, I get the following error:

Unable to retrieve signature image dimensions, please try another image.

I've tried all link variations too - direct BBCode, HTML etc.

This is the code I get from Options > Share Links:

http://combatace.com/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=img_ctrl&img=26930&file=max

I've obviously got it wrong somewhere but I can't find any link code with a file extension, which I suspect is the problem?

Help please.

.

 

What image size are you trying to place in your sig block Dej?  Can't be any wider than 500 pix and no taller than 200 pix.

 

.

It's 500 wide by 100 tall. It's the same Barmy Airman song but with the new badge. I don't understand the problem, if I go to the image in My Gallery the dimensions are there. As it happens not a single image works - same problem all the time.

You're talking about one of these HD:

http://www.thebuttkicker.com/gaming/

or maybe something from this range:

http://xrockernation.com/

Ironic this is.

I've changed my signature to include the new badge, uploaded it to My Gallery here, copied the image link below from the Options dropdown and pasted into my signature code

http://combatace.com/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=img_ctrl&img=26930&file=max

All looks hunky-dory on the signature page, i.e. the image is there and working... I go to save it and get this error message:

Unable to retrieve signature image dimensions, please try another image.

Anyone got any ideas?

I've given Lou the versions with a CombatAce background (the 'official' version) as he's the official awarder of the badge. He also has the final word on how it may be used - and he may well frown on attempts to make it pink, for example.

But for those that can't resist fiddling with it here are two .png versions, one with all the drop shadow and illumination (DLT) and a transparent background, the other just with the transparent background (T)

Have Fun!

Bwoc, Bwoc, Bwoc!

I like the motto.

Well, the motto is meant to remind us of the 'Fifteen feet and he flies inverted' line. Everything 'BOC' should be upside down and/or back to front.

I hear tell that some ambitiously barmy members have experimented with reversed airscrews in hope of driving a machine backwards. Fortunately none have been injured when their engine has ripped itself apart!

Non-shiny version then...

However, prior discussions notwithstanding, I do believe that the momentous occasion of WOFF being truly in production, combined with the new barminess afforded our little band by the adoption of 'The Dodo's Chorus' warrants a change in the badge design.

I therefore offer the following for consideration, but if we prefer to stick to the old, all well and good.

... And I see you've added an exclamation mark to the 'tink...tink...tink'.  So the great debate continues still eh?

Non mea culpa est.

I lazily C&P'd Olham's last usage, but I'm in full agreement with you that it is rightly 'Contact! (tink.. tink... tink...) Clear!' Nothing exclamatory about a 'tink' after all.

We'll have to remonstrate with Olham most strongly for his non-canonical whimsy...

Stwike him, Centuwion, vewy woughly!

Thank the God of Punctuation for His most glorious colon!

Worshiping a demi-deity's colon IS barmy... but it's a truly good observation. OFFers we should remain, in my opinion too.

Practically speaking also, I did experiment with the original layered graphic of the badge, replacing the 'O' in the badge with a 'W' and whilst it kinda worked, 'BWC' simply didn't look right, and 'BWOC' looked awful.

I'm all in favour of 'Bwoc Bwoc Bwoc' though, listening to that particular carouser's chorus in the Mess last night was the barmiest thing I'd heard for ages!

Contact! (tink.. tink... tink...!) Clear!

Contact (tink ... tink ... tink) Clear!

By the way, the Mess steward respectfully informs me that the recently introduced habit of touching glasses for the (tink ... tink ... tink) bit, i.e.

Contact (clink ... clink ... clink) Clear!

... is going to have to stop, on account he's losing far too many glasses to inebriated heavy-handedness.

Let's stick to tankards gentlemen, and for the spirit drinkers I've taken a leaf from the Rittmeister's book and ordered a whole load of little goblets.

Not silver I'm afraid, these are made of the new Bakelite material... rather fittingly considering the inventor was a Belgian.

I'm going to have to try the beer and lanolin shandy trick - good way to get a last few pints when the bar closes!