rotagen

What most of these sims ignore is the fact that combat sims are about combat, adrenaline, death grip on the joystick....NOT about eye candy. Sure, I want both, but if you ask me such a game does not exist. I will get around to playing ROF again since somebody told me they fixed their damage model so you don't have to put 1000 bullets through a wood and canvas airplane to do some damage... but..I remember the SP missions were dull, and the online stuff always bores me after a while, especially when you have a game that is drudgery to bring down one plane. The other HUGE problem with some of these games, especially anything CFS2 or CFS3 related is the terrible AI.. useless wingmen and sitting-duck enemies. CFS2 however is still fun for me because they had the best damage model, really realistic cool little flames and smoke on the aircraft right where you hit it and appropriate strength/weakness of the materials, and CFS2 has a TON of add-on material, I used to fly over death valley satellite accurate terrain, etc etc. So sorry, RB3D stock still wins... only because I don't like the ugly canvas jacket skins much.. You can adjust bullet mass and get the damage model about right for what these fragile planes were like... and single player dogfights are addictive and fun. I noticed Thirdwire First Eagles was not in the list - if I remember correctly they had decent AI, VERY moddable game, and easy to make missions with LOTS of planes in the sky around you. I've played pretty much every combat flight sim out there over the years, except the IL-2 flying circus since I'm getting sick of their greedy business model... and at the end of the day it's the old ones, it's Jane's WW2F that wins...(I know it's not WW1, but those other geeks could learn a LOT from the AI of this sim, you can have 30 flights using ACD, takes 5 seconds to make a random mission....within a mile or 2 of you and they will cut you to shreds...beautiful fire and explosions too...). secondly RB3D, and thirdly CFS2 for modding fun and great DM.... Wings of Prey had the most amazing realistic terrain and was a lot of fun before they turned into a same-old boring multiplayer game... that terrain / scenery was amazing, such a sense of speed when flying. OFF I won't touch because I only need one microsoft cfs sim on my comp, I played CFS3 standard, but since their AI is so bad, all I did was uninstall a few weeks later.

Well I guess I want everything, but I'm not happy with ROF. Why?, well the Mission Builder is like a trip to the dentist. Just try it, you'll see what I mean...and its buggy too. Software is normally written to SAVE time, here you might as well be entering the 100010101011 I hope that translated to "no software at all....just an excuse to say ""we have a mission builder"" Actually, if you combined First Eagles greatest feature, the random campaign generator, with ROF easily superior flight dynamics, and then gave them both the superior graphics of Wings of Prey...well you get my drift. Noone has made a combat flight sim (prop sim) that I can say did it right. CFS2 was amazing, it was endlessly customizable, down to geographic positioning, I flew over death valley with data from real world 3d, etc, in a Heinkel he51 all free add ons...if only it didnt have terrible AI and buggy mission builder. If anyone gets it right before I die, I would be willing to pay 100 bucks for the game, they need to get it all right though....customizable everything with endless add-on planes like CFS2, random missions and lots of planes in the sky like first eagles, beautiful terrain like Wings of Prey, etc Not holding my breath, will die of cancer first....so I guess I'll continue to play one for a few hours , get extremely bored with it, then play another. Oh yeah, you guys that are playing OFF, how did you avoid the extreme boredom of flying forever before you see an enemy and then having your wingmen wander off nowhere to be seen ?? I've never played a mission where there was any action near my drome. Maybe I should try it again, but I found it very dull, time compression may help I guess. And are the campaigns dynamic and random? If so I may try it again, but if I can get my old RB3D to work I still think it has way more "fun factor" than any other ww1 sim. Alot of it was just the way the planes handled, and little fun things like the customizable sounds...my pilot scream was Sam Kinison. yours truly, cranky old fart.

Anyone playing Wings of Prey? , I know the diehard realism geeks may not like it, but the Terrain is easily the best I have ever seen in any sim. And the youtube vids make it look like a LOT of fun. Not only the terrain but the cockpits and planes look fantastic, as well as that feeling of speed that very few sims have (from the vids). Reviews are favorable. Anyone like it? OH yeah, and its not a bloated cow that will bring your system to your knees and bore you to death like Rise of Flight.

I just bought Rise of Flight and well.........BIG disappointment, all eye candy, way bloated, little content., bottom line ZERO FUN to play. Then I came upon "Wings of Prey"...saw some youtube vids....easily the BEST TERRAIN I have ever seen in a game and runs FAST and smooth. Needless to say I bought it. The vid alone convinced me.

Glad I'm not the only one that noticed that neoQB is completely clueless. It's as if they wanted to insert the death blow to combat flight sims.

Gee, maybe thats because many are like me and found the sim to be pretty much a waste of money, since the hardware requirements are so steep. And the mission builder is intolerably complicated. And the multiplayer servers have few people and require long boring flights to get anywhere near enemy aircraft. Everything about ROF is overbearing and time-consuming. While I like the sim/realism aspects as much as anyone else, sometimes I want a little action and variety, and I don't care if the screen looks perfect, its all about options. Every decision they made alienated a huge portion of the gaming population, and combat flight sim enthusiasts are a tiny portion of that to start with.

ROF single player seems to suffer from the "same old" mission syndrome. Fly around for 30 minutes till you get to the front, then see the enemy planes right where they should be, never a surprise anywhere along the route, never an attack on your drome. The multiplayer is just as boring since the dromes are so far apart. I dont find the AI very skilled, certainly nowhere near the AI implemented in IL2, gee, in fact everything in IL2 is done better.

I'm having trouble gettin any sort of enjoyment out of ROF, as are so many others who don't have a top of the line rig. I tried this but actually got the opposite experience with my geforce 9500gt, turning physX off slowed the game down. The developers of ROF have zero business savvy. Its a game that I wish I never bought, it alienated many who might have really gotten excited about combat flight sims, but I won't go into that. Maybe in 4 years time when I buy a new motherboard gpu, and all the expensive goodies to go with it.

Put Santa Claus inside, just to make the Mythology complete.

I still have one of the original fs-wwi downloads somewhere on a cd, and I am interested in trying it again, but I remember while the planes and terrain were very nice and realistic (better than cfs2), I found there wasn't much dogfighting to speak of. Certainly nothing like some of the great furballs I got into with RB3D. So I lost interest. Can someone give their opinion? Should I give it another shot? Seems like some great people have worked hard on it.

If you're a ww1 aircraft fanatic like me you buy all of them, as soon as they come out (not very often). But RB3D is a must buy. Because none of the others ever got the knuckle-bending adrenaline-rushing dogfighting right. The ai is just too weak, and there aren't enough planes in the air, this is always the problem with the real sims. And the arcade ones are too unrealistic. Also, why can't anyone write a decent "mission builder"? It is important if you want an addictive game. I find myself playing IL-2 and Jane's ww2fighters (that ancient game); because ww2f has a great simple mission builder that works, and you can randomize things. Life can be frustrating. For ww2, cfs2 is almost the perfect sim. You can even download any place in the world to fight, and add-on planes are unlimited. Too bad the friendly ai is so crappy and the mission builder so buggy. If you could combine the unlimited add-ons of cfs2 with the ai and mission builder of IL-2, now this would be the perfect sim. IL-2 is very "closed", you get only what they give you, in terms of planes, terrain, etc. avoid cfs3 like the plague, and I didnt like OFF when I played it last spring, looks pretty but the ai is crummy and VERY little action.

Anyone know if the great-looking (so far) sim "knights of the sky" is dead or alive? Can't find any updates.

Thanks for the update. I am a WWI flight sim addict, so I wish there were more, I even buy all the "arcade" ones but I'm really itching for a real sim. It seems that flight sims in general are just not coming out. I guess noone wants to put in the work required, so they just keep churning out boring 1st person shooters. And its the only gaming genre I really like. Of course, I will have to buy a new system when/if KOTS comes out, so I guess it's saving me money, hehe.

Hey, I hate to be a nitpicker, but I'm pretty sure the AlbD3 had square wingtips. I wonder if anyone is handy enough with the 3d models for first eagles to change from the current "pointy" DV-type wingtips to the proper DIII orientation? Or am I wrong and only the DII had square tips?<br /><br />It's just that the early albatroses are some of my favorite planes.<br /><br />Just wonderin, Rotagen.

Hey I am trying to fly a fokker EIII in a campaign, and the game always seems to change my Jasta to one with a Fokker DIII. Is it impossible to fly monoplanes in the "campaign" engine of first eagles? Just wondering, thanks for your help!

Well, it looks like some sort of weird bug, I am using my "german defense" campaign, and when I start a new campaign and pick the jasta, the game actually uses a jasta of lower number. For instance, when selecting "jasta 18" it uses jasta 12, etc. Bottom line is I just kept increasing the number until it finally assigned me one with the Fokker EIII, which is what I wanted to fly. Any ideas what is going on? I believe I did add some jastas to the list in the campaign file. Perhaps there is an upper limit? It appeared that there were way more allied squadrons than german ones, so I wanted to compensate. Thanks!

Thanks for replying. I previously checked my data file for the fokker EIII, and the dates of service range were as follows (changed by me a few weeks ago I think) ServiceStartDate=06/1916 ServiceEndDate=11/1918 I'm wondering if there is another file that must be altered. If I find out the problem, I will post the solution. I may give firecages campaign a whirl.

Hey, I much prefer the overcast weather for ambiance and eye relief. Anyone know how to change the weather in campaigns? It only seems to work for single missions. Thanks for your help!

OK thanks.

<br /><br /><br /> nO replies yet?! this is a sleepy little place.

If it is from a russian team, they will release a new BUY-ONLY patch every 3 weeks, then release the full game once a year at 1/10th the price that the shmucks who kept updating paid..........SCUM.

Alright, Today is one HAPPY day for me. You see I am a ww1 sim freak. IMO, FIRST EAGLES is the first TRUE SUCCESSOR to that rusty old (but great for its time) RB3D. Why? It's not perfect, but it concentrates on WHAT COUNTS...immersion and GAME PLAY. OFF (over flanders fields) cfs3 mod didn't do this for me, it is clear that it is pure eye candy without the dogfighting fun, wingmen/enemy ai is terrible, too few planes in the air, etc,etc. FS-WW1 had way too many bugs last time I tried it and I saw at most 1 other plane in the air, clunky interface, etc. cfs2 with ww1 mods? see cfs3 above. Other ww1 sims (I try them all of course) were either too arcadey or strictly eye candy without the good dogfighting. NOTE: the add-on planes coming at a rapid clip are fantastic, as is the fs2004-based terrain tiles that someone uploaded on this site. While I have only flown a few times (just got the sim today); flying in bortdafarms fokker eiii and seeing LOTS of great looking friendlies and enemies on my screen with NO drop in frame rate, gives me a HUGE grin. I only wish there were a mission builder, and I am hoping for some really random missions in the campaigns, for once I would like to see a sim having enemies right near the airfield on takeoff......realism anyone? Only thing this game lacks is EXPOSURE, so please get the word out!!!! Signing off: and thanks thirdwire! Rotagen

Hey, I just uploaded a new campaign for FE, Rotagen's 1916 flying circus (German Defense). I've flied a few times and in one mission I got the result I was looking for....LOTS of enemy planes quite close to my drome right after takeoff. Get tired of hitting the warp key, takes some realism out of the whole experience. PLEASE NOTE HOWEVER; YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW THIS, BUT: I FORGOT TO NOTE IN THE README FILE THAT YOU SHOULD PUT THE ENTIRE 1916_DEFENSE CAMPAIGN FOLDER INTO YOUR WWI\CAMPAIGN FOLDER. I'M NOT SURE IF IT WILL WORK WITH JUST THE 2 NAKED FILES INSIDE. Hope Someone enjoys it............Let me Know! ROT

File Name: AlbatrosDIII flight Model File Submitter: rotagen File Submitted: 9 Mar 2007 File Updated: 10 Mar 2007 File Category: WW1 Aircraft Kept getting shot down in the circus, so I made a more stable Rig. Hope it works for you. Made for Bortdafarm's Fantastic-Looking Albatros DIII (available here). Just tweaked it to version2....was too much yaw oscillation and roll inertia. Rolls better now, but not as good as a fokkerD7; hopefully realistic. Click here to download this file

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autom...ode=sst&id=4304 File Name: Rotagen's 1916 Flying Circus (German_Defense)File Submitter: rotagen File Submitted: 9 Mar 2007 File Category: Missions/Campaigns Requires some planes from Here: (combatace.com) See "readme" file. I wanted a Campaign where I didn't have to fly to "egypt" to see an enemy squadron, I wanted to fly some early war planes, and I wanted to see lots of planes in a Random fashion. I liked the result. Hopefully you will too. I think you will get more action flying German, but try both. Click here to download this file