Herr Prop-Wasche

Sadly, I have confirmed what Winder has said above. Apparently, any modification to the FM causes the OFF Manager to recognize the modded aircraft as invalid. You can see this by going to OBD Software\CFSWWI Over Flanders Fields\Campaigns\CampaignData\ and clicking on the Off_text.log file. The good news is that this does not interfere with your ability to fly with the FM changes. The bad news, of course, is that the OFF Manager substitutes all ace skins with generic ones. In summary, you can use the FM mod and experience all of the FM changes. However, all of the pretty ace skins (not sure about the custom ones) will not show up. P.S. The damage mod does not seem to cause any problems.

Dear Winder, Ooh, ah, really looking forward to the announcement of the new features. That must mean that P4 is not all that far away! Maybe I will find a nice DVD box with a picture of a Aviatak under the Xmas tree? Regarding my damage mod: Please do not rule it out too quickly. It actually isn't all that much harder than any of my previous mods, and it is not that much harder than the OFF DM. It does tend to reward more accurate shooting and favors hits to the pilot, oil and coolant reservoirs, and engine over the massing of shots until a wing is sawed off approach. I think Hellshade can back me up on this. In particular, I would ask you to consider raising the hit points to the engine while at the same time lowering the threshold values, like I have done. This, in my opinion, is the number one change to the DM that makes dogfights much more interesting and intense. A few minor hits to the engine should not cripple an aircraft like it does in the unmodded version. The same principle applies to the main wings: raise the hit points and lower the threshold values so the wings break off at roughly the same rate as in the stock model--but before they do, the aircraft still retains most (not all) of its manueverability. To avoid planes that are too hard to shoot down for the average player, you can do the same thing to the elevators, wing-tips, rudders, etc., but maybe not so much as in my current DM. Of course, if you are interested, I would be more than happy to create a customized DM to submit to you for possible inclusion in P4. Send me a PM if you would like to discuss this further. Regarding the cable hits: I've had some luck reducing the hit probability to about 20% while lowering the hit points to about 8. This results in less of a chance of a hit, but a good chance of making the aircraft more difficult to control if it is hit. Flamers: It is an issue, but still happens pretty rarely with the damage mod. I'm fairly sure I can improve it so it is even less of a problem (see above post).

That sounds like it might work. I can easily insert a "fx_fuelleak_large" command immediately after the "fx_engine_fire_" command to prevent flamers from flying on indefinitely. Once they run out of fuel, of course, they will be without power and will glide into the ground. I can also see if inserting an "fx_explosion_med" or "large" just after the fire will cause the plane to go out of control.

I appreciate your vote of confidence, Olham, but I'm not sure we can rule out the FM mod yet because I am not sure that you have installed all of my mods correctly. If they are not correctly installed and they are causing the problem, that might be why your skins are showing up.

Elephant and Hasse Wind-- Can you give me exact details about what Jasta and most importantly, what airplane you are flying when the ace skins do not show up? Does it happen for every plane or just some? Olham-- Same request. It looks from your screenie you are flying a DV or DVa. Once Elephant and Hasse Wind report back, try a campaign mission using the version of Alb they are flying and see if you can still see the skins.

Wouldn't we get an error message saying the craft is not valid for OFF? I am not getting any such error message. Also, how much can a mod be modded? Most of my FM changes are pretty minor--a couple of horsepower here, drag settings, etc. I avoided any signifant changes to things like wing surface area, wing span, etc. Probably my most significant change to some aircraft was in the empty weight value.

Some are reporting the ace skins do not show if the FM mods are activated, and others are saying that the ace skins show up fine with the FM mods but the DM mod is causing them not to show?? This sounds like maybe an installation problem with JSGME. If a mod is not installed right, and is then deactivated, sometimes stray files get left around that might muck up your files.

I am not sure why several people are reporting that ace skins are not showing up when using my mods. None of my mods do anything to modify the textures or models of the aircraft, so I'm not sure what is going on. Perhaps there is a file name problem, but that is the only thing I can think of right now.

I have noticed this, too, Elephant. I think it is a hold over from OFF, but I have not really worked with the undercarriage in the modified FM. There is a section which controls the speed at which various airplane components can contact the ground before triggering a crash, so it should be possible to modify this in theory.

The break command sometimes leads to unfortunate side effects (like the entire engine flying out of the fuselage or the pilot jumping out of what otherwise appears to be an undamaged plane), so I tried to leave a little room between the last damage model effect and the break command. In this case, lowering the value for the break command would probably result in the fuel tank flying out and the plane running out of gasoline. If already on fire, it would then drift slowly down into the dirt, making the problem worse, I;m afraid.

Excellent job, Hellshade, although I don't know if I can approve of the use of rockets with my "historical" damage mod! I didn't have the sound turned on. What was your final tally? It's a little tougher up there with more flies buzzing around, isn't it?

Yes, the flying funeral pyre is another one of those unwanted "features" found in CFS3. I have tried various settings to get rid of it or reduce it, but it is very stubborn. Generally, with the HPW DM, fires are caused by hitting the fuel tank instead of the engine. If you can put a few more rounds into the fuel tank, you may be able to trigger an explosion which should cause the aircraft to go down.

Brilliant work, Lou! I recommend that you give up your day job and focus exclusively on reporting for the Barmey Times (or BOC News)! If not that, than maybe Winder and Co. will hire you as OFF's official press agent, although it may be difficult to take OFF seriously once you are through giving it the RAF_Louvert touch. Ha ha! Wunderbar!

I may be talking out of turn here, but my thinking is that even if OFF can't access the extra RAM, it might still benefit from the 64 bit OS because other applications, as well as the OS, can access the extra RAM, meaning your machine can run more efficiently and thus better frame rates.

Ah, thank you, Olham! This is one of the great things about this forum. Even though we are talking about a game, there are probably more people on this forum (not including me, obviously) with more knowledge about WWI aviation than you might find at some colleges or universities. I love that you can pick up some of that information just by hanging out here. I will incorporate the information into my next update. Now, where is the contingent to include the OeFFAG Albs in P4?

Thank you for the clarification, gentlemen. The braces may have helped some, but didn't cure the problem because the engineers did not know at that time the stress was caused by high speeed and the air pressure it created causing excessive wing twisting around the base of the V-strut, eventually causing the lower wing to fail, correct? I had hear that the OEFFAG series did not suffer as much from wing failures, but it is hard to quantify how much success they had. If you look closely in the FM mod, you will see that the OAW Albs can dive slightly faster than their German bretheran--but not by much! I will release a minor update to improve (make worse) the wing failure problem on the DVa in a few days.

Regarding the Albatros DVa, I may have become confused about "when" the aircraft engineers managed to fix the wing breakage problem. My understanding was that the problem was pretty much fixed by the time the DVa came along. Perhaps it was not fixed until the DVa 200? If the DVa still had the problem, I should probably release an update to increase the odds of it happening to the DVa. As always, though, thanks for the input.

Sorry to not get back to you sooner, Olham, but I have been offline all day. I don't know what may be causing your conflict. I have tried all three mods in various combinations, including all three at the same time, and I never have had a warning from JSGME. Perhaps there is a JSGME setting that lets you know if two or more mods are using the same folders, in addition to the same files? Although all three mods use the aircraft folder, none of the files in the aircraft folder in the three mods are the same, so there should not be a problem. For example, the damage model mod uses the .xdp and .bdp files in the aircraft folder, while the flight model mods use the .cfg and .air files in the aircraft folder, so there should not be a conflict. Perhaps the order you are activating the mods is making a difference? Try activating the DM first, followed by the German, then the Allied FM mods.

The badge I have is from my gallery. How I got it from my gallery to my sig is sort of a mystery--even to me!

Hmm, no changes with the D. Va, you say? There should be some differences, especially in speed and ceiling, along with turns without breaking a wing. You should be able to dive longer in the "new" D. Va than with the D III's, but the wings WILL break if you dive long enough and fast enough. I'll check the files to make sure I loaded the right ones, just to be sure. Gaw, Sorry to hear about your pending unemployment. I hope you are back on your feet and not enjoying my mods as soon as possible.

The current FM mods may be used in either BHaH or with the HITR extension. The DM, however, contains planes that are in HITR that are not in BHaH, so if you want to use the DM, you will probably have to delete the extra planes added by HITR (although you can try it without deleting the planes and see if you don't get any error messages).

Very nice video, Hellshade. At first, I thought I was listening to the pilot of American Airlines--or was that Lufthansa, telling the passengers to put their seats back and enjoy the flight. You did an excellent job of highlighting the main benefits of the DM and FM mods. Sorry to say I can't seem to get rid of the bailing pilot, however.

My badge shows now, but is a little large for my tastes.

Thank you, Olham, kind sir and Knight of the sky. These image things aren't exactly intiutive, are they? And, why is my image so much, um, bigger??