Schnitzel von Krumm

Could you move the zip file to another computer, say on a USB key, unzip it, then move it back?

Can everyone stand one more thread praising the new expansion? The wind effects are particularly nifty, I must say, although they certainly make things a bit trickier all around. The first thing I did after install was to set up a pilot in Naval 10, based at lovely St.-Pol-sur-Mer in March of '17. I fired up a quick combat, just me and my trusty Tripe against three DIIIs, starting at 5000 ft. They came in at me from off the water. Not sure what they were up to out there, but as they neared the beach line it was clear they were up to no good. They were moving fast too, as it was a breezy day, with a strong wind off the water. I had only a few seconds to fiddle with the mixture and hope for the best. As we closed, the leader opened up on me with both guns (The Germans carry two, you know. Seems they can't hit anything with just one, even though they're machine guns!) Fortunately, my erratic flying style saved me, even though there were an awful lot of bullets coming my way. Through luck more than anything, I managed to put a few shots into his crate as I bobbed like a yo-yo, barely clearing his top plane. I spun around, aided I think by the wind, and immediately got on the leader's tail. I was close behind him and it didn't take long before their flight of three was down to two. The other two had split up, so I picked the one that was going my way. We turned and turned and I eventually closed the gap, taking pot shots now and again. Shooting from a distance is a lot trickier with the wind, I must say. We were pretty close to the ground by the time I managed to get a decent burst into his cockpit. By then his cohort had managed to get around behind me, and tracers started whizzing past my head and took a few chunks out of the wings. I used what height I had to gain some speed and maybe turn the tables on him. Once again, I was fortunate to be turning with the wind. I managed to get in position for a couple of shots, but that's all it was. I was out of ammo. I suppose I really ought to have brought a second machine gun. At this point, I figured it was best to call it a day, and maybe head back to the field for a cup of tea, in a hole in the ground, behind a lot of sandbags. First, though, I had to find the field, which wasn't going to be easy, given that I was now a mile or two up the coast and had all of about 12 feet of altitude. All that turning and getting blown about left me a bit disoriented. and it's hard to see much when you're barely above the trees. I skidded around and got myself pointed in what I thought was the right direction, with the surviving Hun a hundred feet behind me and fifty feet up. I figured I'd had it, but I kept on, dodging through the trees, slipping sideways in the wind. I had to chuckle as my pursuer's bullets constantly went wide, thanks to my unpredictable flying. Then, up ahead, was home. I started to relax, getting ready to kill the engine and roll my plane up next to the other half dozen triplanes sitting neatly by the hangars. I was confident one of the boys would be good enough to put down his egg fork and tea cup long enough to come out and fire a few shots to ward off my pursuer. I killed the engine and steered for a nice gap through those trees. A few more seconds and I'd set her down nice and pretty, hit the escape key and call it a day. Ah, but the wind. One gust too many it was. Anyway, once again, kudos on the new expansion. The unpredictable wind is a great addition. And the new trees look great too. I know, because I got a really close look at one.

I'd be interested to read the prequels to The Goshawk Squadron to see what gets the main character, Woolley, to the point he's at in that book. For those who haven't read it, a central theme is that chivalry in the sky is a myth and the whole point is to defeat the enemy by enemy by any means possible. Interestingly, Raymond Collishaw, who I personally admire a lot, and who was generally regarded as a thoroughly decent, easy-going chap, expressed similar sentiments in his memoirs, about the absurdity of the notion of "knights of the sky" that was developed mainly by the British press. Collishaw describes regularly getting to within little more than a plane length before putting a burst in the other fellow's back, preferably without ever being seen. If anyone wants to read further on this sort of mythology, I can recommend Christopher Duffy's "Through German Eyes". It's about the ground war, but it goes to the same cultural mythology. It mainly focusses on the Somme in 1916 and the persistence of the notion of "sportsmanship" that the British carried onto the battlefield, and their assessment of themselves as "lions led by donkeys", which they believed the Germans shared. To the contrary, he describes accounts of British prisoners attempting to shake hands with their captors and receiving a swift kick between the legs in response. I've never been in the military, Bullethead, so I really can't say where Catch 22 falls in relation to reality. I've seen a lot of human stupidity, though, and I can well imagine that the more extreme and absurd the circumstances, and the more arbitrarily rigid the maintenance of that absurdity, the more darkly humourous the situation would seem, from the outside at least. So, I guess my answer to your question is: d) all of the above. The Bandy books start with the premise of absurdity, and they're more personal from the main character's point of view. They're really a different type of book, despite the underlying darkness that develops in the character as the series progresses, they're primarily about humour and are very cleverly written. I'd highly recommend them, if you can find them. And not to harp on it, but Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden is a fantastic book. There's no humour there, but the book definitely leaves something behind. Cheers.

I've only read the Goshawk Squadron. I'd like to read Robinson's others, but they're hard to find and/or very expensive. I'll get them one day, though, I'm sure. By the "Banty" series I assume you're talking about the Bandy Papers by Donald Jack. That is a fantastic series and I would highly recommend them to anyone. The writing is superb. There are nine books in the series in all. I actually talked my wife into reading them, and by halfway through the first book she was hooked. If you love good puns (and most puns aren't good puns, but Jack manages far more than his share) you'll love the writing. There's also an incredible flow and development of the character, from his start as a simple reverend's son, to a flying ace, to whatever it is that Bandy is. He's just Bandy. The Goshawk Squadron is far darker. There is a definite underlying darkness in the Bandy Papers, much like with Vonnegut, but Robinson flat out hits you over the head with it. I'd compare it in tone to Catch 22, although with perhaps less humour. For anynone looking for a good read, I just finished reading one of the better novels I've read in a long time. Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden tells the tale of a pair of northern Cree who serve as snipers for the Canadian army. Be warned that it is not a cheerful book, and it's very graphic at times. It is, however, an oddly positive book, but only if you're willing to do a bit of thinking. I haven't read any of the Flashman books, but Bandy fans seem to like them, so I think I'll put them on the list. Cheers.

Lol, yeah, that's a bit of a flaw in my "coding". You can click a cow twice if you're fast enough. I didn't realize the flaw was there because, well, I'm not fast enough to click a cow twice. Later when people started emailing to let me know about the problem, I tried to think of a way to fix it, but then realized, looking at how I did things, that I was lucky to have figured out how to make it work at all. When you're stymied by Javascript, you fairly quickly come to the realization that programming is not in your future. So, I decided to have a nap instead. Read "What Would Harry Do?" for an elaboration of this policy.

I'll have a bit without so much wool in it, please.

Well, I do tend to fling her around a bit. The manoeuvrability and responsiveness of the Tripe is her biggest appeal, though, so it would be nice to be able to use it without fear of the wings falling off prematurely. While just about any aircraft from that period could likely be induced to shed its wings with violent enough manoeuvring, it seems to be that the wings come off the Tripe a bit too easily in this game. Anyway, thanks to all of you for the suggestions. I guess I'll just have to learn to be a little more gentle with her.

As a big fan of the Sopwith Triplane, I spend a fair bit of time flying the three-winged wonder, both in career mode and quick combat. I love the plane and how the OFF devs have modelled it, with one significant exception - my wings keep falling off. While I admit I'm not the greatest sim pilot in the world and I do tend to be a bit abusive, I think that the plane as modelled in OFF is a bit weak in the wing department. There is/was a misconception that the Triplane was structurally weak. While a few Tripes did shed their wings at inopportune moments, it's probable that they suffered from a deficiency not present in most of the examples in service. As such, I'd like to make a case for the strengthening of the wings on the Tripe in OFF. As my first witness, I'd like to call the plane's number-one ace, Flt.-Lieut. Raymond Collishaw CB, DSO, DSC, DFC (34 of his 60 victories were in the Triplane). If there's an expert witness to be had to speak to the strengths and weaknesses of the Tripe, it's Collishaw. Here's a passage from his memoirs, The Black Flight. The emphasis in bold was added by me to bring out what I thought were the most relevant parts. "We had not been at Droglandt long when Squadron Commander Bell called the three Flight Commanders into his office and explained that he had a problem. During our time at Furnes, and even before I arrived on the Squadron, there had been several accidents resulting from structural failure of the Triplane in the air. The notion had taken form in the heads of some of the pilots that the Triplane, despite its virtues, could not be trusted and was likely to fold up without warning. As the Squadron Commander pointed out, it was quite impossible to re-equip Naval Ten with another type of machine, and it was essential that the pilots' faith in the Triplane be established. I had noticed no signs of weakness in the Triplanes that I had flown and obtained permission to take one up and fling it about over the aerodrome, to demonstrate what it would take. I took a machine up to around 4,000 feet and went through a series of dives, rolls looops and spins, finally coming down in a power dive and pulling up as violently as I dared. The Triplane stayed in one piece and I think that my little demonstration helped to re-establish its credit. In fact, there were no structural weaknesses in the Triplane but for some reason the sub-contractors who turned out machines under license from Sopwith substituted bracing wires that were thinner and weaker than those fitted by the Sopwith company. This, I believe, resulted in a theoretical built-in weakness in the machines thus produced, but even so there were very few failures from this cause." So, how about some Sopwith-spec bracing wires for the Tripe in the next patch? Pretty please?

I'm mostly Bobcat with occasional gusts into Rabbit territory. Anybody else have the urge to come back in a plane and strafe those stupid sheep? There are no timing numbers, but I made a similar game for my dog's website a few years back when I was learning Javascipt. It's the Herd-a-Cow if anybody's interested.

I'd vote for the Dolphin and the Siemens-Schuckert DIV. If it takes five years to get them, though, it won't bother me, because I've only scratched the surface of what's already there, and I keep finding new favourites.

And they could also add it to the Dolphin I know they must be working on.

I have to agree that RoF has a lot of good points and lots of potential, but it's just not there yet. It's still full of oddities. One day, if they iron out all the problems and get a few more planes, it could be a really great sim, possibly one of the best ever. Right now, though, it feels like an early alpha, and they've already spent more time working on it than it took to fight the actual war. Well, good luck to them. I don't regret my purchase too much, because I was curious. Curiosity now satisfied, though, I've uninstalled it and moved on.

I appreciate your appreciation. I feel like a failure on the Hague thing, though. One day I'll just start giggling my head off and nobody will know why. That'll be the day it comes to me. And as for Southerners being slow, that's just that you want us to think. :yes: I'm Canadian, and I've see you guys let your guard down a bit when there's no Yankees around, and there's not a Southerner I'd want for an enemy. Except maybe that "Hey Vern" guy. Geez he bugs me.

Screenshots look amazing! Can't wait to try it out. Thank you so much for your work.

Damn you. Now I'm going to be up all night trying to think of a devastatingly witty pun involving the Hague, just to prove you wrong.

I know, but I still couldn't resist. It wasn't meant as a prediction for the future of ROF either. I just love a good pun. Or I would, apparently, if I ever made one, which apparently I haven't. Sniff.

Geez, no love for the the best pun I've come up with in weeks. Okay, let me go bit by bit and see if it works: - ROF is a WWI flight sim. - WWI was started by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. - Duke Nukem Forever was a game notorious for being over-hyped and taking a long time to finish. - Some people are saying that ROF is over-hyped and taking a long time to finish. So . . . you put them all together and . . . it's Arch Duke Nukem Forever. Huh? Huh? What are you people, an audience or an oil painting?

It's sort of an Arch Duke Nukem Forever situation then.

It just seems like it should give me more movement, both real and in game, than it does. I'm gonna have to suck it up and buy some pedals. Chances are my wife will never notice them there under the desk, right? I already take enough teasing over this hobby as it is.

Sorry, this is a bust for me. It won't accept twisting as an input. Is there a way to manually edit?

Problem is, it won't take twisting action from the joysick as input. Dang. I'll keep trying, and I'll let you know. Help would be heartily welcomed. Thanks.

I knew there'd way to do it in this game. Thank you so much. Krumm

I realise this has probably been asked, answered and stickied, but being a thick-headed sort, I'll ask again anyway. Please be kind. Is there anyway to adjust the amount of rudder response from a Logitech Force 3D Pro joystick? I'm a rudder nut (or ruddy nut as my wife says) and would like just a little more response from the back end (let's not bring my wife into that one ). Can this be adjusted? Am I missing something obvious? Should I just suck it up and buy some pedals? Thanks in advance.

Just in terms of narrowing things down, are you having problems in any other games?

As another option to consider, it could be your power supply. Video cards working harder draw more power. Maybe you were on the edge before and you're over it now with a few more details to render. Just a thought. I'd try with one card out, and see if the problem persists.