themightysrc

scouserl13, I'm shoulder to shoulder with you on this one. RIP the 96 - they deserve a full public enquiry. YNWA. Si

Hiccup, That's a splendid vid - I'm most impressed. Just as a matter of interest, what are your slider settings?

"It's a lot easier to learn to control your blood lust. I'm rather cheap with my ammo in a burst." Absolutely. I doubt that any of my bursts exceed about 10-15 rounds. Am I the only person who instinctively fires a couple of rounds when setting out, just to ensure that I'm not kicking off a flight with a gun jam?

Jammer, I wouldn't be so hard on your fellow countrymen/women. I can assure you, as a subject of Her Most Brittanic and Imperial Realm (well, sort of, you know...) that most of us can point to people of our own nationalities and the noise you'll hear is the grinding of teeth. I find most of my compatriots OKish, but put them together in a large crowd, invoke John Bull, wave the Union flag and you'll notice me leaving in the opposite direction. I'm utterly bemused by the attitude of many Brits who feel that Europe (as in the EC) is some sort of conspiracy to bring this Sceptred Isle low, and that the damn forns should learn a proper language, like English for example, without a shred of irony. Equally, these are generally people whose exposure to the outside world is restricted to a fortnight in Teneriefe,or doing Goods Inward and encountering a fluent English speaking German artic driver from Dusseldorf and vaguely wondering why it is that Germany is so much more successful commercially than their own country... Yep, I suppose that's well OT too. But I'm not going to apologise at all. Cheers, Si

"Why was that? Are there reasons? Did the Americans pay more for them (Lol!) ?" As far as I know, the French decided against them because they weren't quick enough and were still liable to fall to bits when stressed, which probably isn't a good combo if you've just hopped out of a Spad XIII. Well, that was what I'd previously heard. Anyone else know better?

Hi HB, I'll have a crack at it later at home - I don't have TrackIR (boo! hiss!) - but i'm guessing that ditching much of the stuff crowding Program Manager's process list will unleash the beast in my PC. Hurrah and thanks! Si

Have to agree catch - realistic FM is the answer. I can assure you it's not scary in any way.

I was interested to see that in the section concerning what browsers did after viewing the Amazon page that a few discerning people bought "Bloody April" by Peter Hart. if you've not come across it before, I can thoroughly recommend the book, as it gives not only a good in depth view of the Arras offensive and its air component, but also provides an insight into the human and logistic problems associated with that period of the war. The book, along with Arthur Gould Lee's "No Parachute", is essential reading for students of the air war.

Hi Homeboy, That looks like absolute gold for people like me whose systems gasp a bit when running OFF. Thank you very much indeed for the link - I'll be butchering my processes later. One quick thought - do you have a list of those processes you've already excised? That would be helpful (assuming you're running XP, that is...). Cheers, Si

Hi All, Here's a bizarre one. I've been enjoying the range of sounds in OFF since I loaded it, and whilst it still gives me the legendary OBD 'miaow!' and a drum roll when I fire the beast up, I find that I've lost in the in-sim (in-flight) sound. I haven't changed any sound settings in Workshop, my sound card's unaltered, nothing's fallen out and clearly I'm getting sounds on start up. Can any kind soul suggest what the problem is? Is there anything in the files that I can amend by hand? Thanks, Si

I have to say that I'm quite impressed with 71 kills, 4 DFCs and the VC in less than a week. I suspect you'll be able to dine out on that at the Dorchester for the rest of the war/decade.

"But new planes? Why is everybody so keen on new planes? Have you really flown all the planes and their various types in here?" Yep new planes. The reason I'd like to see new planes is to fill in the gaps in the squadron/jasta profiles - well, that's the main one. The other one is that I'm immensely curious - given the skill with which the OFF team have put the current planes together - to see how other aircraft would be rendered, and how they'd compare, and how I'd get on with them. Actually, scrub that last point: I know how I'd get on with them; I'd get killed in them just as regularly as I currently do in the existing aircraft. I'm just curious, full stop. I know it'll take me months to get the measure of the existing aircraft and campaigns, but I see so many possibilities now that OBD have done so much work that I'm interested enough to see how much further it might go. At the risk of outraging some people, I'd be happy to pay for those new aircraft if an expansion were offered that I liked, particularly if it were to cover different geographical areas. If a 1915 pack came out, yup, I'd grab it like a shot. Ditto Austro-Italian air war. The point is that the engine is done: at this time - and probably after a very well earned breather - *if* sales of BH&H justified more effort then additional aircraft would be less effort (I'd have guessed) than any other option for OBD, including what I've seen amusingly described as the "final divorce" from CFS3. But this is all for another thread, I suspect. Until then I'll keep on being a rubbish pilot avoiding dodgy looking fights in whatever BH&H has to offer.

"fortunately we should be getting some new planes soon." Oooooh.....when! yes please! As for aircraft, squadrons, kills, hours, etc: I prefer early war, so I clock up a fair number of hours in rubbish aircraft patrolling empty skies and never shooting anything down - well, certainly never hitting very much on the off chance I see one of the blighters. As a result, my 130% DiD pilots look immensely brick.

Schnitz and SD, thanks for the replies. I had a good trawl through the setup in the CFS config last night - even though I'd changed nothing there for some time - and found that the in game sound option had become unchecked for some bizarre reason. That was weird enough, but I've also found that for no apparent reason, my FPS rate has leapt from about 10-11 to about 20-22 without any intervention or alteration by me. moreover, I've found that I'm now getting some effects, such as pilot redout, which i've never witnessed before. I'd simply assumed it wasn't part of the game. So thanks for the advice. in the end, it was the obvious and easily rectified, but I'm still mystified as to why it changed in the first place, and equally baffled as to why I'm now getting these pleasing improvements in BH&H! Still can't shoot for toffee, mind.

Is everyone stumped, or is the answer so obvious that I qualify for remedial care?

Pol/Siggi, thanks for that - I'll check it out later. Cheers, Si

"Also depending on your mission frequency if you are on 3 missions a day 10 hrs is only a few days." Hi Pol, Is there a way of changing this? I'm not sat in front of OFF at the moment, but it would be nice to have periods when one is ony flying once a day, or every few days, depending on local activity (ie, if you're 'training' in the UK, or in a quiet sector in early 1916 for example). I will admit to giving Captain Coppitt the odd week off every now and then by multiple time advances. Good for morale and all that.

"Specially for RB3 I have an old P4/98SE/Voodoo3/MS-FF/22"CRT machine." Hi Dutch, Lucky you! Since I upgraded my video card my RB3D display's gone completely up the swanny - it just sits there blinking away at me in lurid inverted colours! Great shame, because, like you, I really treasured WFP and enjoyed flying around in those old, fragile deathtraps...

Hi Olham, "Is there anyone here, who flies with 100 % realism and without tricks, who has achieved a kill tally of 16 victories yet, and still has this pilot alive ?" I'm flying on 130% realism (according to the control panel!), and have at least one pilot with 20+ hours to his name, although no kills. Admittedly he's a bomber pilot (Strutter) and spent a while in Blighty before being shipped over to the hellhole in France, but I've achieved this mainly by RUNNING AWAY A LOT. One tactic that appears to work for me - particularly with the BE2c - is to dive for the cover of a friendly airfield when attacked, thereby giving the ground based machine guns the opportunity to spring a rather unpleasant surprise on my pursuers. I've even punctuated missions by landing at airfields, waiting until the local anti-aircraft people have dispatched my would-be killers, and then taking off again to complete the mission. You can't be too cowardly in this game.

Hi Havoc, At this point, I suspect you really want to be talking directly to the OBD people. If it's an install problem related to Vista(64) in particular, they've probably seen it before - or at least know what's going on under the bonnet and should be able to advise accordingly. From your last post, there's an implication that it might be a slightly dodgy DVD? I can't imagine that you should have to end up mucking about with your registry just to get the game to run.

zoomzoom, No really, the Pfalz is a great plane to run away in - just remember to dive vertically and keep jinking. If the AI's up to scratch there's no reason why a Camel would try to follow you. It works for me, but perhaps that's because I perform the most violent dives possible when trying to run away. The only way I'd bother attacking Camels would be if I outnumber them and have a height advantage. Even then, I'd be looking nervously over my shoulder unless at least one or more of the buggers had been nailed. Moral of all this: get a desk job until Fokker DVIIs turn up.

Hi zoomzoom, I share your pain. I've started a German scout pilot in Feb/March 1918, and my missions thus far - allegedly strikes on British airfields - have consisted of flying out with my illustrious comrades, running into Camels, and then, er, running for my life. The damn Pfalz does one thing very well: it can dive away from trouble at speeds the Camel can't hope to match. As a dogfighter, it is more or less a deathtrap. Oh well, I suspect that Kurt will be seeing a constant throughput of new pilots in his Jasta until such times as he's downed himself. OT (but not really), does anyone else miss the ground bail out that RB3D used to offer to the cowardly (ie, me)? When faced with an unenviable, near suicidal mission, I used to brace myself in the cockpit, hit the button 3 times and then listen to the feeble "aaaiiiiieeeehhhhhh!!!!" as my overcoated aviator launched himself into space - only to hit the deck about 7 foot below. Saved my eggs and bacon many a time, and was much easier than sitting around with my underpants on my head and a pencil up each nostril muttering "wibble" to the doctor.

" Please tell me that everyone realizes in this thread that it is just a package with planes and some objects and a map." Well, actually, it's probably less than that at the moment. It's bits and bobs that might - given sufficient time and effort - turn into a decent WWI sim. Given enough work on missions, it might even have a WWI flavour. "NO CAMPAIGN whatsoever, so what is even the point of any comparisons?" Not as yet, and perhaps never. I'm quite willing to let the designers prove themselves by coming up with an immersive campaign system. FE didn't, which is one reason it languishes on my PC, largely untouched nowadays. If this spinoff doesn't have campaign play, it'll go exactly the same way.

CJ, "Perhaps I should have said, "IL2 engine or not, it ain't no BH&H by a loooooong stretch, yet. Maybe then you wouldn't be so defensive. I just love how people take things out of context just to put heat into a discussion." I'm not being defensive of IL2, basically because I don't give a stuff as to the provenance of any software at all, and IL2 was a sim I could - and did - take or leave. My point was that we should simply wait and see what develops. If it's good, I'll snaffle a copy, if it isn't, then I won't. "BTW, I think I've been around flight sims long enough to be able to recognize when something is not finished, so you can give me a break there." Break duly given. My caveat remains relevant and intact.

"I'm surprised I haven't heard any Hun suggestions yet." Cap'n, I'd suggest the obverse of my post above - get into a squadron that flies Albatros IIIs, when you know that the Allied equivalents are weedy target drones. think of it as a feel good thing.