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Everything posted by Madmatt
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Okay, so I just had another instance of this abrupt Mission Exit and now I am thinking that maybe I am encountering a game bug or something with my install of OFF is corrupt. Let me explain what happened. I was flying a Alb III for Jasta 6 in June 1917 on a Bomber Escort mission. I was cruising at 11k feet, having already linked up with the bomber flight, when we detected a 8 ship flight of Sopwith Tripes (which was cool as I never tangled with those before!) closing fast. Anyway, the dogfight began and I was rolling and diving and I took a short burst across my upper wings. I sustained some slight handling issues but I was still in the fight. As I maneuvered to get one of the pesky Tripes perfectly lined up, suddenly the mission ends and I am back at the campaign screen where it says that I successfully landed behind enemy lines but that I escaped 20 days later. Well, good for me, but I was still at about 10k feet a few moments ago. Now, is THIS the way the game is supposed to act? I haven't played another mission yet so maybe there is a log file or something I could look at/review to see what really happened. My plane, to the best of my knowledge wasn't on fire, wasn't out of control and hadn't really sustained all that much damage. One minute I am about to fire a burst at my victim and then POOF, I am magically whisked away back to the campaign manager and told that I had landed, been captured and escaped! Hopefully someone can shed some light on what happened and if its supposed to behave like that or not. Thanks! Madmatt
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I certainly don't mean to do any dead horse beating (and I am known for that, so appologies in advance), but I have to wonder if it would be possible to at least revert the "death" scenes in PH3 back to how they were in PH2. One of the most wrenching and abrupt immersion killers in OFf for me rigt now is how I could be at 4 thousand feet, get riddled with enemy fire, and BEGIN to plummet to the earth, only to suddenly be back at the Campaign Manager screen with a message that I died. I don't have a problem with the fact that I got shot down, what I have a problem with is the utter lack of presentation of my alter-ego's death. Now, maybe I am remembering things differently, but didnt Phase 2 handle this much differently than what we have now? I am pretty sure that in Phase 2, had the same occured to me, I would have been able to watch as my plane went all the way into the ground, regardless of if my pilot was dead before the impact or not. I had an issue last night where one of my pilots got his wing blown off at high altitude, and just as my plane began to make that long death spiral to the ground below, the game again brought me immediately back to the manager. I would have preferred having to stick with my plane, all the way down, even though I realize I couldn't have saved it. I realize that much has changed between Phase 2 and Phase 3, but for me at least, this was one area of the game I preferred how it USED to be, as opposed to how it IS. I guess what I was asking, is if this old behavior could be reimplemented or not. I suppose the answer is NO and that's a shame. Madmatt
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OT - Got bored, picked up some new WWI books for my collection
Madmatt posted a topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
Hey guys, since I have been playing so much OFF lately (and reading with interest about RoF) I decided to augment my WWI collection of books a bit this past weekend. Most of these titles will be familar to you, but you never know. Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea, Robert K. Massie This one came highly recommended on the Jutland forum so I decided to pick it up. So far, very good but I have just been skipping around a bit and just began to read the Dogger Bank account. So far, I like it. Gunning for the Red Baron, Leon Bennet An extremely technical book covering the science of aerial combat. The title is very misleading as the coverage of the Red Baron as such is really only secondary to other issues although I like some of his theories on the true cause of his death. The books covers a nice variety of topics including, gunnery, use and misuse of tracers, optical illusions and their influence in dogfights, bulletspread, plane performance comparisons, the methodology behind various aircraft designs, and more. It is a bit dry, and sometimes reads as a science textbook, but I actually find it interesting to get down to the nuts and bolts of some of this stuff. It actually reminds me a bit of Keagan, and how he describes the technical details of the battle of Agincourt. So if you like that style of writing, I think you will like this. Who Downed the Aces in WWI, Norman Franks So far this book has earned a permanent place next to me as I fly OFF. Its a month by month synopsis of the entire Western Front airwar and what aces died, how, and by whom. For me at least, its an invaluable reference to get some more details on aces I fly with and against in OFF. I also like to check the details of a particular ace when the OFF newspaper says he died. This book helps give me the details on the real fight. The book claims to cover over 300 different air aces and their eventual fates. I also use it to help me pick a good campaign date and squad to fly in as it includes so many detailed accounts of who was flying what and where and when. The actual dogfight depictions are not as detailed as in other books, but you get the flavor enough. Highly recommended. Terror of the Autumn Skies: The True Story of Frank Luke, America's Rogue Ace of World War I, Blaine Pardoe So far I have only browsed through the appendix at the end of the book but whats nice about that as it includes a bunch of day by day combat reports as submitted by Luke and some of his squadmates. Might be useful for those of us that can't ever seem to get our claims approved. I don't really have any particular interest in Luke, just looked like an interesting book. I will report more once I have read it through. Aces Falling, War above the Trenches, 1918, Peter Hart I had seen other recommendations for this book, but I haven't had a chance to really get far into it yet. I will say that I am not crazy about the font style they used for some of the quoted text, but thats just a personal taste. From just flipping through it, it looks like it has some good combat accounts, which is usually what I prefer. And last, but not least is this gem. Tank Warfare. The Story Of The Tanks In The Great War, F. Mitchell MC This is a great book. Details the evolution of tanks and crew training as used in WWI and written by the tank commander that waged the first tank on tank duel in history. Lots of great anecdotal stories and first person battle accounts. This book reminds me of when I was very young and my Grandpa would talk about his experiences in the great war to my brothers and me. My Grandpa was a combat engineer and saw a lot of action, and basically hated the British and was often in fist fights with English soldiers and officers (Yup, like me, Grandpa was a scrapper!). He always used to say that we were fighting on the wrong side! He also got busted in rank a couple of times FOR fighting. I remember he told me once that the Germans were fighting for the Fatherland, French for the Motherland and Americans for souveniers! Anyway, I know this book has been reprinted in later years with a different title I think, (I have the original version on loan from my brother) but I would assume its essentially the same book, now as then. This book gets my highest recommendation! Reading this book makes me wish my Gramps would have written down some more of his own stuff, and I had been a little older and wiser to take better notes... Okay, so there are my newest additions, now to read them all! ;) Madmatt -
OT - Got bored, picked up some new WWI books for my collection
Madmatt replied to Madmatt's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
Hi Rugbyfan, Yeah, you know they had the Somme book and I was going to pick it up, but to be honest, my best OFF pilot is flying a 1918 campaign, and that more than anything else, is the reason I picked this particular one up. I started reading Aces Falling last night and so far I really like it. I have gotten used to the odd font issue I mentioned above and, typesetting aside, its a very well written and engaging book. I would assume his earlier work is as such and will probably check it out once I have gotten through my latest batch of new material. I also began watching the PBS series "THE GREAT WAR AND THE SHAPING OF THE 20TH CENTURY" and was pleased to see that Robert Massie (author of Castles of Steel) was a consultant on the show and provided several interviews. Nice. Madmatt -
Interesting... I just had a pilot loose a wing, plummet into the ground at over 50 mph and the mission exited immediately. I figured, oh well, he is a goner. But sure enough, I get back to the campaign screen and he isn't even shown as injured! I don't have campaign vids enabled so I don't see the coffin scene as such, but I doubt I would anyway since the game didn't record me as dead. I do have DEAD IS DEAD enabled in the Workshop too. Now, I began this campaign with it set to "Roll the dice" but recently I changed it as I wanted to bump up the realism some, but since I made that change, I have seen it occur, more than once, where it seems that my pilot should have surely died due to a bad crash, and to the campaign engine at least, I had not taken any damage at all. Perhaps I need to reset my workshop settings? I would hate to loose my stable of active pilots though. If I see this happen again, what file should I submit for review? Madmatt
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I had brought this same issue up before as I feel it is a slight immersion killer and I had actually really liked (and gotten used to) how in Phase 2 the game didn't immediately end when i was brought down and I was able to watch my pilots last few flaming, twisted moments of agony at my leisure before returning to the main menu. Perhaps 6 seconds is just a tad to quick on the trigger as it were? I certainly understand the technical reasons for it, and no one wants to see the games physics engine go all wacky all the time BUT often times we are talking about a very large investment in time, sweat, excitement, fear and anxiety that we have put into our pilots and to see all of that go POOF, with barely a moment to sit back and watch his demise and say to ourselves "ahh F*&^", does kinda suck. A compromise solution (if feasible) could be to add another Workshop setting which would allow either a longer (or user terminated) "death cam" view as it behaved in PH1 and PH2 or allow it to continue to work as is. That way, if someone complains of what they see after they die, you can just tell them to put the setting back to its default mode (how it is now). Madmatt
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Latest Nvidia XP Graphics driver V185.85
Madmatt replied to Cameljockey's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
I am running these on my 8800GT equiped Windows 7 box and so far they seem real nice. For now, I would recommend you turn off Ambient Occlusion as not many games support it. One thing I did notice is that the little white triangles that used to appear when I moved my TiR4 around really quick have disappeared. Not sure it's a product of the drivers or not as I also made some other Workshop graphics adjustments recently, but whatever the cause, they are gone and I am happy. Madmatt -
28" widescreen monitor rocks! (for pretty cheap too!)
Madmatt replied to Hellshade's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
Hey SD, I meant to try and get on Sunday and began playing solo to pass the time, but I was so involved with my own campaign that by the time I came back to check to see what the IP was, you guys were already done for the night. ;) Also, not being able to get MP to work under Win 7 is a pain, even though I can still dual boot into XP on this system. Madmatt -
28" widescreen monitor rocks! (for pretty cheap too!)
Madmatt replied to Hellshade's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
Hellshade, I noticed a return of stutters as well a few weeks back when I upgraded my 8800GT drivers. With Nvidia drivers, they really are never meant to *upgrade in place*, rather it's always best to uninstall them completely, then use a driver sweeper program (I use the one recommended on www.guru3d.com, Driver Sweeper) and then reboot and reinstall them fresh. Once I did that, my stutters went away. Might be worth a try to see if it helps you out as well. For whatever reason, some games just perform better doing that than others and unless I am feeling really lazy (which I was when I upgraded that one time), I always do a fresh install of video drivers as opposed to installing them on top of older versions. Madmatt -
While I am certainly in no position to comment about the mating rituals of Germans (actually I have dated my share of German women so maybe I am, but that's another story altogether), I have seen the same thing occur from time to time with enemy formations. I thought it only happened when they are very distant (7-8 miles) from my own position, but maybe not if they were closer in your example. It doesn't seem to be just German flights though, last night I saw this with a pair of Spads. I watched the *merged* flight for a couple of minutes but I eventually had to attend to matters closer to my own plane so I am not sure how long they stayed 'in-touch" with one another and if they ever separated or not. I do know that the two planes did shift positions slightly so I don't think it was just a matter of a single plane being mistakenly cloned or something else video related. My own slightly unenlightened guess was that the game engine sometimes *approximates* plane positions slightly when enemy flights are very far away to save on resource use and this sort of phenomenon is likely to occur every so often if that is indeed the case. Would seem to make sense, but as I said, it's just a guess and if they were close to your position, then I guess its something else. So, when in your game, did they eventually become unmerged when they dove down on you? Madmatt
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Quick Question, why does my debrief say I wrecked my plane?
Madmatt posted a topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
I have noticed that very often, even though I make a very smooth touchdown with no damage at all that I can tell, and come rolling to a nice peaceful stop, often times, in the mission debrief I will get a message that says something to the effect of "Sorry that you wrecked your plane". So whats up with that? Now, during a few of those same missions I had sustained light damage but it was never as if my crate was bullet-ridden and on fire. I am making very gentle lands too! I am not bunnyhopping across the field or anything. My speed is as low as I can maintain without stalling, my Vertical velocity is nearly zero, these are about as text book landings that I can perform, yet I keep getting that message (although not always). Now, I have landed a time or two in the opposite direction as I think I am supposed to (meaning I land facing the same direction that I took off from). Could that trigger the "you wrecked your plane" message? I am pretty sure I got that same message a few times when I did land in the proper direction though... Also, I have never died or been injured when this has happened. To be honest, if I hadn't read that statement in the debrief I would have never known anything was at fault at all. Just curious if others had seen this, or what might be causing it. Thanks for any ideas you guys may have. Madmatt -
Slight Immersion Killer, abrupt mission ends
Madmatt posted a topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
Overall I applaud OFF for its tons of immersion and enjoyable gameplay, but I have noticed that when really bad things occur, for example when my plane catches on fire and explodes, or a wing rips off and I BEGIN to tumble toward the earth below, or if my pilots body gets riddled with enemy bullets and yells his death scream, it seems that the sim VERY abruptly exits out of the flying engine code and drops me back into the OFF manager system with nary a chance to sit and dwell on my former pilots death. In Phase 2, this didn't happen so abruptly and I was given a chance to watch the smouldering ruination that had once been my plane and pilot. I assume that this is just a byproduct of Phase 3 only needing the CFS3 game engine for the flying parts, but it would be appreciated if the game didn't drop out of flight mode QUITE so quickly when my pilot crashed or was killed. Any chance some slight delay could be implemented so that the flight engine didn't immediately exit back into the OFF manager as it does now? I have been dogfights that my plane was struck by enemy shells and before I knew what happened I was back in the OFF Manager reading about my pilots demise. I guess my point is that when the game exits out of the 3D mode so quickly it causes a loss of immersion and I get somewhat frustrated that I was denied the "closure" of seeing my guy barrel into the ground. Ideally, it would be nice if when a player crashed or was killed or the pilot was wounded, the player could opt to STAY in the flight engine mode until they decided to exit back out to the OFF manager. Even if the view was locked and i wasn't able to see anything else, other than the crash site, I would still prefer being able to exit back out on my own terms. Perhaps thats not possible with the CFS3 code, I don't know, but it did seem like in Phase 2 at least, the dropping back into the manager wasn't as abrupt as it is now. I thought that it actually showed the crash site until I manually exited out. Maybe I am just spoiled from all the other flight sims that let me sit and stare at the big pile of rubble and debris that was once the pilot that I had such high hopes for, only moments before everything went down the crapper. By the way, I did try both the options in the workshop that are supposed to control wheter or not the game exists back out to the CFS3 frontend or the OFF Manager. I noticed no difference with either setting. Just my observations, for what they are worth. Madmatt -
I play with the Gun Jams option enabled and while I try and fire quick short bursts, on occasion my bloodlust gets the better of me and I have gone in guns-a-blazing. Of course, this has sometimes resulted in a jammed MG or two. I thought that in one battle, after I had jammed my MG, that I warped ahead and the gun seemed to have been unjammed. I have never been able to get that to occur again (and it could have just been something with my joystick and not a true jam at all) though so I was wondering what, if anything, I can do in game to unjam my weapon(s)? Do they stay jammed forever, or is there some chance they might get repaired while still inflight? Does warping actually help in this case? Anyone have any insight into this? Thanks! Madmatt
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I did some more testing and have found that with a little patience *usually* I can get my weapons to unjam. Of course, the best bet is to not jam them up in the first place, but it's cool to know that this is modeled as well. In fact, I have even had instances where I got both guns to jam, but then only one of the them unjammed! If you listen real close you can even here the empty "click click click" sound when you try and fire a jammed weapon. I love little details like this! Madmatt
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Want to see your tracers and smoke trails better?
Madmatt replied to Winston DoRight's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
Just letting you know that I really like this new mod. Makes seeing ground fire much easier as well! I am using the lighter color varient that rabu just posted and its easy to see in most weather conditions. A good way to test it is to fire off a long burst while using the FLYBY camera view. Very cool! Madmatt -
Questions for the experienced Camel drivers
Madmatt replied to Dej's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
I have retired my former E-III pilot's and began to play the campaign flying with the 17th Aero Squadron up North in the Camel. While intel doesn't report much activity "officially", I am in the later half of June 1918 and been getting my appetite quite quenched with skies full of juicy enemy fighters and bombers. Right now I have 6 claimed air victories (plus one Ballon) in eight missions and a nice new medal to show for it. My secret to keeping my crate on the huns six has been to cut my throttle when in tight turns and really use that rudder pedal to keep my line of fire true with a slight lead. Doing this, all the fancy manouevers in the world won't shake me and about the only real risk I have had is my own loss of Situational Awareness with regards to where exactly the ground is during some real close in knifefights. Clipped the tops of a couple of trees and had to emergency land once due to some incedental close encounters, but so far this has been my best piloting experience to date. I can't recall all the different German squadrons I have been going up again most often, but they are kitted out in some nice colors and the missions have been a lot of fun. The 17th doesn't seem to have any famous personas flying for it, but I like it as right now I am the lead on the kill board. I have been going through a ton of wingmen though... :( Anyway, just wanted to say that I have really grown to like the Camel. Just treat her with a steady, but somewhat gentle, hand and she will glide right into the slot where you want her. For me at least, once I learned to nurse that throttle and ride that rudder, the true potential of this crate really began to shine through. What a great game! Madmatt -
Want to see your tracers and smoke trails better?
Madmatt replied to Winston DoRight's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
By the way, what file did you edit to change the default HUD text color? I would like to do the same as I like the color you have much better than the harder to make out default dark blue. Madmatt -
Interesting results guys but before too many conclusions are made from the reports above, let me add in my own observations and findings. On my 8800GT (driver version 182.50) under Windows 7 (64bit), I have to use the "Override application setting" in order to see any in game anti-aliasing. If I select Enhance application or Application control, I get NO AA at all. It's actually very easy to test this because on my PC, I can pause the game, alt-tab to the desktop and alter the settings in the Nvidia control panel, switch back to the game and see immediately what effect they have. You can't do this in all games, but the CFS3 game engine appears to reinitializes itself when you task switch, which is helpful for testing like this. So, for me, I run at 16x and "Override Any Application Setting" and I get smooth edges and fluid framerates. I actually get LOWER framerates with 16xQ enabled than I do with 16x (by over 10%). Also, unlike the report above, I AM able to use the profile feature in the Nvidia control panel and set up a specific config for OFF (set it to activate with the cfs3.exe) although the profile feature overall is somewhat problematic and seems to get broken every other driver release. My resolution is 1366x768 (I play on a 50" plasma!) and I selected 8x AA under the Workshops graphics tab (CFS3config). To be honest, none of these results surprise me at all. I have dealt with the annoying nuances of Nvidia drivers for years professionally and I often see how one set of drivers and hardware behave differently than another based on a particular OS or chipset. In fact, even though the 88xx family covers a wide range of cards (including the relabeled 98xx family), there are many internal differences in various cards and OEMs. I have seen situations where two different 8800GT cards from different manufacturers (but on paper, nearly identical) worked completely differently with the exact same game. Because of this, my advice to anyone looking to tweak some better visuals and frames out of their systems is to do your due diligence and play around with drivers and driver settings until you strike that happy medium. I guess my point is that what works for one person, even with similar/same hardware, might not work for you. Had I not spent the time to investigate this myself, I would have not found the correct settings for my card and drivers. Take care all, and happy flying! Madmatt
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Can't "go to field" ! (Problem solved now!)
Madmatt replied to Olham's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
Regardless of my work in the industry, I am first and foremost a GAMER and I love to support smaller development groups and games. Let me go on record and say right now that I "LOVE" Over Flanders Fields! I will also go on record and say that I actually LOVE flying the earlier war crates too! You can have your fancy smancy Se5's and D VII's and Camels and Pups and mules and tigers and bears, but I like tooling around in my frail little Eindecker at she wheezes and coughs her way over the blood stained and blemished landscape of Flanders. Now then, I wouldn't be who I am if I didn't notice a few things from time to time that could be construed as "bugs", but they have been minor issues at best, and they haven't affected gameplay in any major way so I am able to sit back and simply ENJOY the game. Madmatt -
Can't "go to field" ! (Problem solved now!)
Madmatt replied to Olham's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
Yes, I am he and he is me... I guess I couldn't stay in "lurk" mode any longer. ;) As to the fly in, I get up to Wright Pat frequently. In fact, I might head up this weekend if the weather is nice. -
Can't "go to field" ! (Problem solved now!)
Madmatt replied to Olham's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
Glad I could help. I am having such a good time in OFF that I want to make sure everyone is able to play! -
I am running Windows 7 and I have no problems at all in Campaign or QC mode, but like you are seeing, Multiplay is currently a no-go because there seems to be some sort of issue with the XML files and the "browser" statement in Windows 7. My guess is that MS changed something internally in W7 which is triggering this problem. That file "dlgMchat.xml' is actually located in the CFS folder and was able to actually get around THAT error, but then I got an error with another xml file (this time located in OFF's 'dialouges' folder) that is essentially said the same thing, that it couldn't work with the "browser" command. I did try running the MP module with all the different compatability settings, but none of them worked. I finally just booted up on my XP system and then got right in. I looked over the xml files themselves (some of you may recognize my name and know what my background is with computer games) and it looks like the error occurs right as the game is trying to bring up the graphic that allows a player to select which "seat" to be in. From what I could make out, this "browser" command I believe is the code statement that allows the window itself to appear as the other commands that follow it handle the background graphic, the size of the window etc... So anyway, not to get too technical, but for now at least, it looks like Windows 7 is fine in OFF, as long as your not wanting to play online. :( Madmatt I make computer games for a living so you don't have to!
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Can't "go to field" ! (Problem solved now!)
Madmatt replied to Olham's topic in WOFF UE/PE - General Discussion
Did you by chance change your windows or game resolution recently? I noticed the exact same thing recently when I went from my main gaming monitor to a different display and my max resolution changed. I had previously set the games graphics to run at 1680x1050 on my monitor but when I switched to play on my 50" plasma, Windows was now running at a lower resolution of 1366x768. I forgot to change the resolution for the game back down to 1366x768 and every time I tried to Go to Field, I got dropped back to the briefing screen (because the 3D engine couldn't initialize). The fix was simple, just reset the resolution in the Workshop by running the configuration program. Maybe the same will work for you? Madmatt