themightysrc

Hi all, I'd just like to post a thank you to Sitting Duck who spent some time with me late yesterday evening (BST, that is) helping me to configure Teamspeak and my new Tesco 5 quid mic/headphones. Turned out to be unfinished business, but it certainly wasn't for want of trying on SD's part - more ignorance and bewilderment on my part! I'll try again on Saturday to get it sorted (busy tonight doing board games/eating/drinking!), then it's chocks away for some MP stuff, so you can all take turns at blasting me out of the sky... A final apology to those on Teamspeak last night: I logged in with my external speakers on, and could distinctly hear you damn'd colonials chatting away in that strange patois of yours, however I think I was probably the cause of the echo/feedback that was subsequently mentioned. My bad, as I believe you chaps say, and I'll be properly sorted soon. Cheers, Si

Hi SD, Just a quick update on the above. You remember I said that I thought my wunnerful £5.83p at Tesco 'value' headphones and mic might not be ideal? Well, I went and bought a proper logitech USB phones/mic set, and, lo and behold, it works a treat - once a few kindly souls from Sunday night's beano had taught me how to 'push to speak'. Memo to all: avoid Tesco 'value' products like the plague. Except the 'value' kidney beans which are rather nice.

Hasse, I feel your pain. The only Pflaz pilot I had met a sad end trying to do the customary 'run away from the Camels' thing. I dived away at high speed, feeling quite smug about getting out of jail yet again. Unfortunately, even Pfalzs have a diving speed beyond which you go at your peril. I can't actually tell you what rate of knots that is, but something went 'ping!' then something else went 'crack!' as I neared the ground. Suffice to say, they didn't actually have to bury him: just pop a few yards of soil on top.

Olham, OK - you're on. My current 'funny two seater' is a Brisfit......

I'm afraid I've worked my way through dozens of pilots thus far, with one or two making it to about a dozen hours before they checked into the Great Mess In The Sky. I have, however, become increasingly cowardly in my tactics. Not only do I avoid unfavourable situations, but I probably also avoid more situations where there's parity than is strictly appropriate for an officer and a gentleman. As a sergeant and non-gentelmanly low life, I have no qualms about this! A fun tactic for BE2c drivers is to make your way to the nearest friendly airfield if the damned Bosche are about and land el pronto. You can then enjoy the spectacle of the local anti-aircraft artillery and machine gunners beating the hell out of the would-be attackers before you rev it up and take off again. Rather more fun than becoming target practice for EI jockeys.

Hi, Interesting discussion! As the recent owner of an MS Sidewinder 2, I was pleased/suprised to find the twisty ruddery thing on the stick, and disabled auto-rudder. I'm a little perturbed to read that I won't be getting full left/right rudder though. I wonder if it's configurable in some way via the stick. in the same way you can change TrackIR to have more game head movement with less real head movement? Finally, all comments above about the functions of rudders are spot on. Just one more to make explicit - it helps make landing much easier, as you can make fine adjustments to your approach without disturbing your level flight.

Morning all, Thanks for the friendly help yesterday evening. Sorry I couldn't join in the fun - my link went down and stayed down. Can't make the next two as I'll be on holiday, but I'll certainly be up for the one after. Cheers, Si

"since I can rock slightly forward and back in my seat to get the same effect." That's funny: I've noticed that my attempts to actually survive for more than about 1/2 hour as a pilot generally tend to have me rocking back and forth in my seat too. That's prior to the gibbering, crying and adopting a foetal position, of course.

Hi All, Damn. Looks like I've been booked up for this evening by my wife - ah well, them's the breaks. Perhaps it's just as well as I'm still working on getting my sound rig sorted out. Given that the duration of this is likely to be, what? 2 to 3 hours? is there any chance of my looking in around 9 to 10pm BST (London time)? Is it actually possible to watch MP without taking part? Sorry if it's a stupid question, but I'm very new indeed to MP (although keen, I hasten to add), and it would be very interesting indeed to be able to watch proceedings and hear the banter/warnings/swearing/yells of success! Cheers, Si

"(Not to mention our British cousins who are joining in the fun more and more. Hearing those authentic accents makes it all the more realistic)" Jolly good show, what!

A little late to the feast but nonetheless... Having consulted with the sage characters who inhabit this forum, I finally got hold of a Microsoft Sidewinder 2 FFB stick, and I wish I'd done it years ago (when I didn't even know what FFB was!). It's made - in a very short time - quite a difference to how I 'fly'. I was immediately caught out prior to take off, as with a non-FFB stick you can more or less let the revs build, the ground roll by, and, with some correction for torque effects, lift off without a hitch. This damn thing immediately started shaking like a jackhammer as I began to roll under power - not at all what I'd been expecting! And, obviously, once in flight you become so much more aware of the stresses on the plane, and the infamous pre-stall 'death rattle' is immensely useful to ensure that you don't plummet to your doom, as well as making you fly your aircraft more sensitively and efficiently. So, let's hear it for FFB - if you haven't got one: get one. Number two purchase after the even more vital TrackIR. My 2d!

"it had a better rate of fire than the single guns in front of the pilot the Entente were so fond of using in most of their fighters. It is definitely an advantage in firepower." I'm sure I read somewhere recently (can't remember where) that the advantage wasn't real or apparent, because the mounting above the wing was not as 'fixed' as the fuselage mounted weapons. If I can suss out where I read that I'll post the link. Cheers, Si

Hello again Vasco, I've just scored a Mickey$oft Sidewinder 2 FFB off Ebay - I'm hoping it'll be here by the weekend - and I'm off tomorrow to buy a megacheap headphones/mic from the local Tesco! All being well, I'll be sorted to start learning the dark, satanic arts of MP by the weekend. Any chance of a run out?

Hi Vasco, Sorry, i didn't spot your reply until this morning (ie, just now). I'm still trying to source a reasonably priced mike/headset and FFB joystick. As soon as I have these, I'll drop you a line. Cheers, Si

I hate to be a curmudgeon, but why bother flying Spads when there are so many more interesting aircraft in the game? Yes, I know that Spad VIIs and XIIIs are all part of the experience, but it's really like flying a brick. I'm afraid that I'm with the Pups and N17s of this world: delicate and classy - and ideal for pouncing on bewildered DIII pilots, the poor suckers. Ah well, serves them right.

Ta Davy! Makes grim reading. If I were NeoQB I'd be s**tting it about now.

Hi CJ, Can you post a link to those? I must have been at yet another site - it certainly didn't have that amount of traffic! Cheers, Si

Well, I've had a toddle round wargamer.com and simhq.com - I'm sure there are other fora, but I don't know which ones are worth visiting - and it seems like there a fair number of unhappy people out there having problems. The main issues seem to be registration, control mapping - which, curiously seems to be done outside of the game - and the general slightness of both documentation and, well, the game itself. I picked up on dark mutterings concerning DTDs, BSoDs - which I thought were now extinct and a plethora of other technical issues, ranging from the trivial to potential game killers. Someone was even using the dreaded 'porked' to describe his experience of ROF. And it looks like the servers might be flaky too. I think, on balance, I'll wait for them to iron out these basic problems before I even consider getting a second hand copy. From what I've been reading, there may well be plenty available, and quite soon.

Very nice look plane that Noop. That last picture is particularly enticing. Any more WIPs for us to salivate over?

HI Vasco, I'm in the UK, so how about Sunday evening 19.00 BST (I think this is GMT +1 hour)? Let me know all the relevant details and you can find out just how crap a pilot I am!

Vasco, I'll be happy to oblige - I've never flown MP before in any sim, so you might find that I'm rather too easy to shoot down (the standard SP AI would probably agree with that assessment).

OvS, I'd say that it's a tough old life in a BE2c, but it might be a tad less tough if that bloke sat in front actually had a machine gun to train onto the hordes of Bosche.

16 - happy with that, given I did it in about 90 seconds.

"It will have many more flyables, certainly AI. There must be 30 or so models, many with cockpits that have been seen over time." Hi Peter, I'm afriad that this begs the obvious question: if there are so many potentially available, then why not release RoF with them in the sim, even if they are only AI? I know there's the revenue stream question, but given that so many people seem to have doubts or are holding back on potential purchase partly on account of the lack of aircraft, it would surely make sense for Neoqb to release the game with the maximum inpact, and, frankly, from my POV, a paucity to aircraft is a major disincentive to buy, even before consideration of the vexed issue of the online business. I can't imagine that I'm alone in that.

"I've got a board with a 1.2Ghz AMD Athlon and the memory, vid card, etc." <gasps> That's shocking! I'm typing this on a 1.3Ghz PC of dubious provenance with about 2MB of RAM. Of course, it's running linux - good luck looking for ancient treasures, even though some of us still run them!