themightysrc

I'm thinking of one or two changes in .wav files. How about when you're downed in Hunland, getting the worst German accent since the horror that was 'Ello, 'Ello cackling something like "For you, Mein Herr/Tommy/Britisher, ze var iss over....."? On successful completion of a mission, Porky Pig frantically intoning "Tha, tha, tha, tha, that's all folks!"? This one, I'm now convinced, has legs.

Poor chap - it seems to remain a mystery why he died when he might have saved himself, one presumes. A terribly sad end to a marvellous pilot.

Well, it looks like the Police now have Moat in a situation where they're parleying with him - I presume that they will be trying to end the episode without further bloodshed. But, chin up, you never know, he might decide to go out in a welter of bullets and pain, which should at least provide subject matter for a few more posts.

I'm considering - funds allowing - to build a new rig in the next 12 months, so recommendations are pretty useful to me as well. Given that being on the (b)leading edge of PC technology is invariably a painfully expensive process, what I'm really after are recommendations regarding hardware that isn't white hot technology, but has dropped in price (due to new chipsets, video cards, etc), but which will deliver me a steady, thumping 30-50 fps, and still come in at a reasonable price. I'm thinking about £500 all told for case, RAM, fans (where necessary), mobo, video card, etc. Can it be done, or will I have to put up with my current 2006 vintage rig for another couple of years? Cheers, Si

"Mentioned this some time ago, and suggested that if possible some code-based morale check challenge be implemented, i.e. if the odds were against one side they would turn tail and run 1 out of 2 times (well, that would only work for the German and French sides, mad dogs and Englishmen being one-and-the-same... ), or have a morale check if the AI flight leader was shot down, or a certain percent of aircraft in a flight were lost. Of course this may not be possible given the code environment of CFS3." If AI can fight aggressively, I'm sure they can be programmed to scarper aggressively! I entirely agree, and that was more or less one of the reasons why I welcomed the HitR AI changes. I'm obviously not good enough to bag 1/2 dozen enemies in one combat, as others clearly can, but I would have thought that a truly realistic AI would lead to - at the very best - one or two victories most of the time. If you check out the service records of real WWI pilots, they accrued kills slowly, and over dozens or hundreds of hours. OFF, whilst still the best there is available, is still arcadish in this respect. If I fly in 1917, I can expect to fight every time I do so. Very few enemy flights will avoid combat. What's more, I can expect to encounter these seeming daredevils more or less every flight. I don't believe that this is realistic, even if it makes for an exciting game - which is perhaps a stronger motivation for the OFF chaps. That's not meant to be prejudicial in any way, BTW, but simply a recognition that a game that genuinely mirrored WWI in the air, with lots of quiet patrols where the enemy flee (possibly unseen) or are never encountered would not be a top selling game. People, understandably, buy WWI air sims in order to fight enemy aircraft, rather than to relive in absolute detail the tedium (and terror) of the times. Incidentally, if any OFF peeps are reading, and without giving too much away to them, can you tell us whether any additional planes for P4 will be based upon historical usage (ie, the numbers in which they appeared at the front) or upon some other criteria? Cheers, Si

"And in the Albatros, I can still outturn a Pup, a Nieuport, a Triplane or a Camel in a left turn - with a bit of skill, maybe." - skill +luck!!!!! I'm dying to meet you in MP, Olham!

"The man shot a cop, which means he will not hesitate to shoot a civilian." In this case, the fugitive has a major league downer on the Police. Seemingly he blames them for destroying his home life, breaking up his marriage, etc. Given that he believes that a cop is knocking off his ex, it's hardly surprising that his targets have been (a) the cops, (b) the bloke his ex was with when he caught up with her (he died) and © his ex. It seems unlikely - although obviously not impossible - that he'll go on the rampage and take out people at random. It's all rather targetted. If it hadn't been, then one might have expected to hear of shootings in Rothbury, but that didn't occur. What's more, he actually held up a chippy the other night (allegedly) and ran off with some money without shooting anyone. I would have been tempted to also make off with haddock, a large chips, mushy peas, gravy and a buttered barm, but there you go.

Bruce, He who fights then runs away, lives to fight another day. Or, put even more succinctly into OFF argot - he who simply runs away unless possessing superior numbers, height, a better plane and proximity to friendly territory is indeed a wise man. I certainly remember the shock of OFF having been used to cuddly old RB3D and even vaguely cuddly FE. This game is not cuddly. I managed to lose my first dozen pilots pretty quickly, on pretty much full realism (I only had automixture on) and over 100% 'realism' under the original release. The first kill took some time to come up, not unnaturally. It'll take time to get into it, but hang in there. Also, find yourself a Sopwith Triplane squadron if you must fly Briddish, and learn how to hand back the brickbats to the Huns! Cheers, Si

The facts seems to be that Moat served his sentence and therefore the authorities had no grounds on which to further detain him. The fact that he has a massive chip on his shoulder about his (ex)missus allegedly seeing a cop - as evidenced by a 48 page letter to the Police - is evidence that he's now (if he wasn't before) a profoundly disturbed individual. I vaguely know the area where he's supposed to be in hiding (UK_W probably knows it better), and Rothbury is a relatively isolated community in a relatively sparsely inhabited area of the North East, so it's not like he's got a lot of places into which he can disappear and intermingle with the locals, as would be the case in a city. It's a tragedy for all involved that he's clearly not compus mentis, and who can say whether - for him, from his own POV - he doesn't want a shootout to take as many cops with him as possible? That is the message that the UK media (bless them) have been putting out. I personally won't be cheering, whatever the outcome.

Good advice there, Al. Also, stay high and don't be afraid to be very afraid! Avoid any fight unless it's on your terms, and the numbers are right. Essentially, follow the Dikta Boelcke, read the advice of those who really flew in the war and treat OFF as only marginally less dangerous than tap-dancing blindfolded on a busy three lane highway. Do that and you might even get to 11.00am on 11.11.18...

I haven't voted, but my brief flirtation with RoF in trial form was not a happy one. I simply don't possess a rig good enough to run it, and I am well aware of the limitations WRT the sort of things that I valued in RB3D and value in OFF:BH&H. FE is a great WWI 'lite' game, IMO, although it's fair to say that the plane selection due to the open source nature is better than anything other than RB3D with the Western Front Patch (which, irritatingly, I never got to work properly). I'll probably be wedded to OFF until such time as NeoQB start ponying up more two seaters, have a decent campaign system and finally drop the ludicrous online stipulation. As it stands, OFF is a f***ing bare-knuckle ride, and I'm looking forward to P4, assuming my rig can run it...

Hi Winston, "Loopy, Red-Dog and myself still fly multiplayer every day" Really? OFF or WWII stuff? If it's OFF - or even better, Lou's MAW based OFF offshoot - please let me know the GMT time and Teamspeak address, and I'll be there! Cheers, Si

Bit if a bugger having he 4th July on a Sunday! Do you still get a day off tomorrow instead? Anyway, have a great day, and never forget the USA is simply on loan to you until we decide we want it back!

Good topic! As a British pilot, I've been Willy Coppitt, Vic Timm and I.P. Knightly, with nods to Arthur Putey (not one of mine, I should admit). If I fly French, I'm invariably Emile Fortou, when German, I'm Kurt Remarx, Ernst Remarx (presumably the Remarx brothers) or Axel Griese. I've not come up with a truly witty (only to me, I hasten to add!) name for an American pilot, probably because so many American surnames are derived from other nationalities. As you may have noticed, I rather like daft names, even if I try to treat the flying more seriously.

" They do kinda fly around like jets. What do U guys think?" I think that that clip is a huge pile of bum gravy, if you're asking. Best buy the BBC's reissued 'Wings' and watch how it should be done (albeit on probably 1000th of the budget).

Hi Bruce, As noted, you'll get a lot of opinions, so here's mine! I would plump for the Sopwith Pup. Go into a campaign as early as you can with the Pup, and you'll learn most of what you need to know about WWI fighting and flying. It's an immensely easy, forgiving and able scout and you should be able to outmanouvre everything else that you come across. You don't have twin guns, so you have to learn to shoot close up. What could be better? I know - the Camel; but it'll kill you in your first fight, so forget it for now! Cheers, Si

Hi Lou, Only just back from France - plenty of poppies in bloom over there - so not had a chance to put together all the files, but thanks for the PM! Will add that airfield RAR as soon as poss, although today might not be the day, as the crumpets and huns are facing off today, and I have an invite to a barbecue/consolation party... Cheers, Si

Hi all, When I first installed CFS3 prior to OFF, I let it install as Microsoft intended - for good or for worse - however now I'd like to have another install of CFS3 on my rig so I can add in MAW and enough OFF files to have a Middle East setting for Egyptian and Mesopotamian fun and frolics, unfortunately no matter how I try to access the first CD, it only offers me the options to run CFS3 or else uninstall it. Can some kind soul point me in the right direction here and tell me how I can end up with multiple CFS3 installs? Cheers Si

"creating what will become the first mission of the campaign" Hi Lou, You've got me thinking. Assuming enough people have MAW installed, would it be feasible to run it as an MP campaign, if the MadMatt installer were modified to ensure that it scooped up and copied all relevant OFF files to the MAW directories? Failing that, I'm sure that it would make a very exotic limited duration variation on the now famous Krauts vs Krumpets offline campaign? Just a thought or two... Cheers, Si

Hi Erik, Looks fab to me - a good job well done. And thanks again for being such an excellent and patient host - I very much appreciate it. Cheers, Si

Lou, Ta - I've had the same advice from Winston elsewhere - should really have sussed that out myself, but anyway. Thanks for the help. Cheers, Si

Winston, D'oh! It's that easy? <kicks self repeatedly in nadgers> Cheers, mate!

Lou (and anyone else in fact), How do you get more than one iteration of CFS3 on your PC? When I pop in disk 1 of the set, it offers to let me either play or uninstall CFS3. Is there a way round this. I've tried exploring the CD and clicking on install.exe but it simply then offers me the choice to play or uninstall... I'll also post this on General Help. Cheers, Si

Incidentally, issue 4 of Aviation Classics - as mentioned here earlier in the week - has articles on both RFC Egypt and Palestine campaigns. If you're interested in this niche period within a niche period (and that's not being perjorative in any way at all), I'd recommend reading Wings over the Desert by Desmond Seward. His father flew in Palestine and it's an interesting read.

Loving your work Lou - reminds me I have to load up the MAW stuff that you kindly put me onto last week. Keep on posting chuck, that looks brilliant.