Rickitycrate

Sorry Red Dog... look what I did to my Reed Chambers Spad. I feel like the kid the crashed his dad's car. What was that thing doing there anyway?

When dropping bombs or firing rockets do you watch with the F9 Bomb/Rocket view? Not a realistic view mind you but it is fun to watch and hear. You see the impact better.

Gromit, here is my Blue Max. It cost me $10 plus shipping back in '98. It is of course a replica. I'm glad I bought it then.

I recently saw a degredation in my OFFing. Framerates were good one time, s**te the next. Good for QC, s**te for missions. I adjusted my settings downward and still things declined. Got to thinking of trying enditall. Then I realized I had too much crap running. So I deleted lot's of stuff and did a Registry fix. The laptop temp was way too hot. The main thing that helped me was to take the cover off my laptop and clean out the dust. My laptop runs a good 20C cooler now and the fans are more efficient in cooling. I added an exterior fan because my laptop heat had nowhere to go the way my desk is set up. I was able to reset my graphics card and sliders and I am back in business. This may have nothing to do with your situation Widow. I'm sure you are more informed than I was about keeping the rig clean and cool. I am considering enditall yet but I am a bit of a fraidycat. If I become confident that it will have the desired effect and that it is Rickitycrate proof I'll give that ago too. I hope you find an answer before your Snipe is in the hangar. Best wishes.

It does seem like a really fun thing to do. Your wings look very nice. 11 years ago I got a blue max on ebay. I didn't deserve it then and I don't now, hehe.

"Quite soon now". Yes, I look everyday. I am so glad that there is a level of support from all sides to keep making this wonderful game/sim a growing and improving endeavor. OFF for LIFE!

Welcome back VonGuber. You say you are rusty, are you just now playing P3 for the first time after playing P2? If so then you find that your survival time of 4 hours is not so bad. P3 or Between Heaven and Hell has much more aggressive A/I than P2. But you probably know all this. Are you on Olham's OFF Flyer's of the World map? Enjoy OFF on your new rig, I'm jealous

Rabu, you ask some interesting questions about assigning targets for the pilot. I do not know the answer to that either. I know that when you switch positions the A/I pilot does take over until you switch back but I don't know if you can influence him. Something to investigate and it would be nice if you could assign a target and therefore have him stay in the action. Otherwise it seems to me that the A/I pilot is fixed on flying the waypoints and heedless of the situation. Good question. Hauksbee, regarding the last photo: I believe the ground damage to be a fallen aircraft onto a tent. I can make no claim. I don't know the type of plane (theirs or ours) or if it was ground fire that brought it down. It may have happened while I was white-knuckled during that tree brushing landing the pilot made. I did not think we were going to survive that, hehe.

To possibly improve my OFF experience I am considering d/l enditall. I know Alacrity has been suggested here also. If you use either one of these programs may I ask you to share your experience? I am woefully inept with the pc so I hope that if these programs improve OFF performance are they also idiot proof or at least nonthreatening to my machine and programs? Thanks, Jim

Rabu, interesting thread. Here are a few of my observations ,tactics and practices. Tactics depend on the craft to a large degree. Some two-seaters serve as decent scout types. The Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter and the Roland CII for example. These are planes that I have first piloted more or less as a scout with the observer covering my tail and helping to give the alarm when E/A are on our six. When I deplete my ammo as pilot I switch over to observer and when I empty that ammo we head home with myself piloting. When switching positions back and forth you will see that the A/I pilot will most likely follow the waypoints not the action. He may try to leave the area so if you want to stay you will need to pilot the plane back into the thick of it. The other Two-seater types, generally the high flying observation types, I tend to only observe. I have fought , pursued and brought down Fokker EIII's with the BE2c as the pilot. So that is possible, but with these craft I like to role- play the observer most of the flight. It's rather leisurely but interesting. It can get hot and you will see that your flight can fend off the attackers quite often. Your flight holds formation until damage causes a crate to breakoff or fall behind. As observer I use a gamepad for controlling the gun and viewing. I simply leave my HOTAS plugged in and add the gamepad to an empty usb port. My pad defaults(no setup) to: Left thumbstick = move/aim gun Directional pad = snap views like hat switch Button One or Two = Fire weapon Button Seven = cycle targets Now maybe the gamepad can be better confiqured, I have not investigated this. The Hotas controls still function when using the gamepad so your settings are available and for myself I have not had conflicts. Here are some pics I took today. DFW's on the move to a new airfield, simple enough. After takeoff I assumed observer the whole flight. Uneventful, so I warped part of the way, until we encountered E/A near our destination. I flipped on some aids. Tac,outside view and labels. Along with the flak puffs I could see where they were. The labels told me they were Nieuport 17's. They were at a greater height and passed off to my right without attacking. If I were pilot I would have soon landed as we were over the field. The A/I pilot did not land but continued on. Eventually he doubled back and flew over the field again and past, hmmm. Soon the Nieuports reappeared and at lower altitude. I viewed the Nupes directly by hitting the Tab key. Soon the were winging over into a steep dive toward my flight. They were inept pilots or afraid as they never came within effective firing range. They raised some hell at the new airfield and then moved on. Now my pilot decided it was time to land. He came in hot and low to my liking but I held on and watched. Man we clipped some treetops but landed safely. Now I was worried we would collide with the crate that landed just before us but we turned to one side as we got close. We sat there and idled for awhile listening to the sounds and myself waiting for a chance to take some shots if the Frenchmen came too close, none did this time. So, that's some input from myself. I'm not saying I'm right or that there is only one way to do things. I am exploring this sim and having a gas finding out what is there for us to experience. It's deep, deep and up to us to discover what we may. I fear the 2-seaters are over-looked by many but they offer a very fun and immerssive exprience. Thanks to Olham for instructing me on how to arrange the pics.

Hi guys, I run OFF on my laptop. It does a fair job but I want to switch to a desktop as soon as I can because I am a bit concerned about the heat generated while playing OFF for extended periods. My question is; does anyone have experience with those laptop coolers you can set your laptop on? Are they a gimmick, can anyone recommend a brand? Any advice is appreciated. I try to keep the dust off the little screen but it seems to collect fast.

Update: Thanks to the many suggestions here I have seen an improvement in temps and performance. What I did so far was I cracked open the laptop and blew out the dust by the fan and sink. I see temps of 48 to 50C with low processing load and around 78C after a long OFF session. Framerates went up and steadied. I was able to increase my AA and sliders. So I'm happy to do this every three months or so to get the best from my underpowered laptop. I did not see what I would call a lot of dust but what there was made for problems. My advice, keep 'er clean.

Well we only care about OFF right?

Now that's action. And no worse for the wear.

Baldric, survival is the only real victory. Well at least it's immediately gratifying. No waiting for conformation, hehe.

Yep. Maybe Screen resolution.

Baldric, I am fond of the CII "Walfisch" myself. I do also enjoy being in the observer position. I find that I can control the machine gun better and more realisticly with a gamepad contoller rather than stick. I just made a post at SimHQ regarding this. Then I flew another mission in a DFW. Many times I do not encounter E/A directly but I watch furballs in the vicinity. I cycle through the aircraft with the Tab key and watch the show while my A/I pilot takes us to the waypoints. I hope you don't mind a few pics. Night camo in broad daylight but it's pretty. I found a different bombview today, check the last pics.

SHARK!

Thanks you guys. So you use it, but does it help gaming performance noticably?

Thanks guys. I have started using Photobucket for uploading to have URL's for posting at SimHQ. Photobucket has edit options and effects available all at no charge. What you see above is really very simple to do. I can claim no special talents and I don't deserve any praise. Widow, I love what you do and have often used your things as desktop for awhile. I just haven't said much because I don't want to be responsible for causing your head to burst. You guys should all know that your many contributions are appreciated, but you know how us guys can be. The image above is too large for what I intended for it as a banner like Rabu and Widow and so many other guys have. I will see if I can reduce it a little. BTW the pic is straight from OFF no enhancements. The skin is The Rising Sun by Burning Beard, thanks again Mike.

I would really like an Age of Sail simulation. Has anybody around here played East India Company? If you have can you share your impressions please? I suppose the trading aspect is important but I am most interested in the ship to ship action. Thanks.

Very well done fun and entertaining.The actions followed the lyrics extremely well. Thanks for posting.

I like your philosophy UK Widowmaker .

Good Lord Lou, that was good. Puts my little verse to absolute shame.

The simple American wiener is not an attractive food item when you consider how it's made. But they get eaten every day by the tousands and fed to our children. Hey if it doesn't kill ya it makes you stronger.