Herr Prop-Wasche

Another brief update, of sorts... Due to an unfortunate series of events, I have been without home internet access for the last several days. This situation is likely to continue for the next week or so, so I will not be able to post very often for the forseeable future. However, I am still working on the FM and making (slow) progress. I will also try to post a second installment of the FM tweaking tutorial within the next couple of days. Cheers, HPW

My apologies if anyone misunderstood my instructions, but the above statement is incorrect. The backup program is designed to work regardless of where OFF is installed. In fact, the computer that I use has OFF installed on the D: drive, so I am sure it works even if you do not install OFF to C: It is true that the backup files are stored in a folder on the C: drive, but that is only to insure that the files do not get erased if you have to uninstall OFF. I hope this helps to clear things up. Only 20 downloads so far!

Nice summertime camouflage, WM!

A small update... Only after starting the tutorial did I realize how little I actually knew about all of the variables in the FM. Thus, why I haven't posted anything in this thread recently. Since then, I have done a little more studying and experimenting and feel that I have a much better grasp on things. A few of the things I have discovered: In case of an inconsistency between the .cfg file and the .air file, the values in the .air file take precedence. Previously, I thought it was the opposite. I discovered this after trying in vain to change the speed at which an aircraft takes damage in a dive by altering the .cfg file. Instead, I found you have to change an entry in the .air file (which is a hex file) to make this variable take effect. Now, I can make the Alb DIII start to take damage from over-speeding in a dive. Also, taking damage in a dive is independent from taking damage due to high G maneuvers, so I think I can more realistically portray the Alb's tendency to shed a wing in a dive while making it less likely to shed a wing in a high G turn! Good news for Olham! I am also working on re-working the dive rates for various craft. This can be changed by altering another .air file entry for parasitic drag. Many of the aircraft in BHaH seem to have incorrect dive speeds. I have already mentioned the Sop. Tripe, for example. For those who are interested, here is a list of some of the other variables that can be altered in the .cfg and .air files: engine HP (among many others), center of gravity, stall speed, induced drag, positive and negative G tolerance, max airspeed, cruising speed, maximum dive speed, climb rate, roll rate, turn radius, crash "tolerance" for fuselage/wings/tail, among many others. As you can see, lots of variables to play with and keep one busy for awhile!

I have been able to O/C my Asus MB and AMD 4000+ approximately 12.5% on air cooling. Although it is rock solid at that setting, any attempts at all to go beyond that have ended in failure.

My TIR4 with TIR5 software usually starts up without a hitch, but it does occasionally freeze the first time I start it. As Olham said, closing and then opening it again always seems to get it to work again.

Pol is probably referring to several factors that most likely have an affect on dive speed, including maximum speed, cruising speed, zero lift drag, aircraft weight, etc. Drag seems to have some of the most effect on a number of factors. It not only effects dive speed, but also level speed, climb rate, and even ceiling, as demonstrated when I lowered the drag coeff. of the Alb DIII early. I was able to attain an altitude of 19,000 ft.--a full 1,000 ft. more than it should be capable of! Almost too many factors to play with.

Interesting information! The DrI's lower drag coefficient probably comes from its shorter wings than the Camel's, giving it an overall lower surface area. Off the top of my head, drag coeff. is probably affected by some of the following factors: length of wing, wing chord, number of wings (all 3 contributing to overall surface area), "straight" vs. tapered wing, thickness of wing, and dihedral. Can you think of any others? Do you know of any readily available sources that might give me some of this information, especially data about zero lift drag? In the game, the aerocraft with the lowest drag coefficients are (with lowest listed first) the Sop. Pup, Triplane, Camel, and Se5a viper, followed by the DrI, Spad XIII, and the Bristol Fighter. The planes with the highest drag coefficients are (from lower to highest) the Nieuport 17, Fokker DVIIF!!, Halberstadt, Nieuport 16, Nieuport 11, and Fokker EIII. What do you think? I'm not sure I agree with the ordering of the planes in the game in terms of drag. However, this is only off the top of my head, as I do not have any hard data in front of me to compare.

All right, it's done and awaiting approval by the mods for download! The program has been tested on one XP machine (mine), one Vista machine, and one Win7 machine. There was one small hitch at first with the Vista machine, but that was because OFF was setup with a non-standard installation. The program has been patched so it should now run correctly no matter where you installed OFF as long as you remember to extract the two files in the zip file to the CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields directory. Although the program does not alter any of your Windows files or your OFF installation, use of the program is at your own risk. Please report any problems, error messages, etc. to me here at this thread. Thank you and I hope everyone enjoys and gets some use out of the program. You can download the file here: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=10890

Completely understandable, OvS. Still, a sad state of affairs.... I look forward to seeing the "previews."

Good one, Olham!

I don't hang out at many of the other flight sim forums, but I have to assume we are talking about a recent WWI competitor whose name shall not be mentioned on this forum. If what you say is true, it is truly despicable! There is a name for lifting intellectual property and ideas from a competitor. It's called industrial espionage! No wonder your posts over at "their" forum were promptly discounted and deleted. To do anything else would be for them to admit their guilt. This really burns me bum! OVS, Winder, and Pol, among others have gone out of their way to avoid letting threads on this forum turn into "other sim" bashing threads, and have taken every opportunity to emphasize that they are not in competition with any other sim, etc. Unfortunately, their courtesy has not been reciprocated. If OBD were composed of "wealthy" game developers, bwahahahahah, I would advise them to turn their crack legal team onto those wankin' thi**es! I'm sorry, but I had to vent. Mods, if you wish for me to delete this post, just let me know.

Thanks, Olham.

'allo Dave. Try this. Edit the .cfg file for the plane you are working on. Save the .cfg file. THEN, start Airwrench and load the .air file for that aircraft. Briefly look around to see if your changes "took" and then exit Airwrench. This should update the .air file with the new .cfg setting. If you don't start Airwrench and load the changed file, the .air file does not get updated and you get a "mismatch" or whatever and OFF thinks it is an uncertified craft. This is the process I have been using lately with success in both QC and campaign. Let me know if this works for you or not.

Looks like my suspicions were correct about the "Cdo_fuselage_drag_coeff" variable. Currently, this variable for the Sopwith Triplane is set to .60. I raised it to .135 and observed a reduction in the dive speed from 270 mph down to approximately 190 mph. OTOH, it also lowered the climb rate, so more tinkering will be necessary. Curiously, the two triplanes are near the front of the pack in terms of lowest drag coefficients. I would think they should be higher, given they have an extra set of wings with braces and struts to slow things down. I think the next thing I will try is to lower the drag on the N28 and see if I can overstress her in a dive.

I have sent the program out for testing.

Soon....I hope.

There is a setting in Workshop you can use to delay the game exit until you crash. Actually, there are two settings. One is named "Auto Exit CFS3" and the other is "Auto Exit Mission." I'm not sure if you have to set both to off or only the Auto Exit Mission one.

Hi Dave! Odd that you can fly in QC but not in campaign. I have found that the altered planes either fly in both or not at all! Are you saving your settings using Airwrench or are you making your changes directly in the .cfg file? I found that doing only the latter will work.

You are right, hairyspin. However, while you can't use Airwrench to save certain information while in evaluation mode, you can always use it to observe what happens when you make any changes to the .cfg file. You are also right about AirEdit being an airfile editor. While the .cfg file and the .air file both have entries that control identical variables, each file also has unique variables. For instance, using AirEdit, you can edit a variable in the .air file called "Cdo_fuselage_drag_coeff." This variable does not seem to be available in the .cfg file. Might this be key to controlling dive speed?

Odd that Airwrench is only allowing you to edit the contact points, BH. What plane were you working on, or was it one of your own creations? I have noticed that some of the planes in OFF cannot be "opened" in Airwrench.* For those, you have to directly edit the .cfg file. There is a section for contact points in the .cfg file, unless you are building one from scratch. If that is the case, I would suggest looking at the .cfg file of a roughly similar plane to yours and using that as a template. *I believe the reason some planes are not editable in Airwrench is that they have had their engines set as turbocharged in the .cfg file. Non-turbocharged aircraft can be edited in Airwrench. This is probably due to the limitations of the free version of Airwrench, as described by hairyspin, above.

Close call--never attempt to land during an artillery bombardment.

You are welcome, Bullethead, san. Thanks for the drinks!

As promised, here is part one of my basic flight model tweaking tutorial. Basic Flight Model Tweaking Tutorial, part one. Recent discussions about the flight model for the Albatross D III got me interested in whether the individual user can tweak OFF's flight model to one's personal tastes. The simple answer is, yes! A more sophisticated answer is yes, but it's not easy. There are at least three reasons for this: 1) While you do not need to be an aeronautics engineer to adjust the FM, it helps if you have a basic understanding of physics, and more importantly, you can use Google and are willing to learn stuff. 2) The FM settings in CFS3 are not intuitive and do not allow you to easily see the results of your changes. Fortunately, there is a 3rd party tool you can use called Airwrench which helps tremendously in this regard. Unfortunately, Airwrench itself is a source of a third problem. 3) Airwrench has a glitch which make it frustrating to use to alter OFF's FM settings. Ultimately, I had to stop using Airwrench to change the files and instead use it only to observe the changes I make manually. Fortunately, it does this rather well. N.B. HairySpin has pointed out another flight editor called AirEdit is available and is the "standard" in FM editing. I have no experience with AirEdit and so will confine my comments to Airwrench, at least for now. Now, on to the tutorial! 1) If you decide to go ahead and toy with the aircraft FM, you MUST first back up two critical files: the aircraft.cfg file and the *.air file. Both of these files are found in the Windows folder of each individual aircracft in OFF. Failure to do this may result in an aircraft that OFF will refuse to load. Make a copy of both of these files and rename them so you can use them again if something you do causes OFF to throw a hissy fit. 2) Download Airwrench (or AirEdit). In order to see the effect of your FM changes "on the fly," you have to use one of these tools. Airwrench shows not only the many different components and parameters that can be altered in OFF, but also calculates and displays the result of these changes on such things as turn radius, cruising speed, climbing ability, and many others. Here is a picture of the main screen in Airwrench. You can find Airwrench here: http://www.mudpond.org/ 3) Okay, we are now ready to tweak! Virtually all of your tweaking will take place in the aircraft.cfg file for each airplane you are interested in tweaking. Open up the file with a text editor. I use Textpad, which is easily obtainable on the web and works much better than any of Microsloth's text editors. Next, start Airwrench. Click past the "activation" prompt, and click on the "Select Air File" button in the upper left. In the dialog box, be sure to pick EXACTLY the same aircraft whose .cfg file you just opened in your text editor. The boxes should now fill up with data. These are the FM specs for your selected aircraft. Go ahead and look around. Click the tabs to see data for all of the components of your aircraft, including weight, aircraft dimensions, engine type, wings, etc. Although there are 12 tabs, we will be concentrating for the most part on only three: the Specs, Dynamics, and Tuning tabs. A word of caution. NEVER, EVER answer "yes" if prompted by Airwrench to save your file. The only major glitch with the program is that saving your airfile with Airwrench can cause your .air file to get out of sync with your .cfg file. If this happens, OFF will get very angry with you and refuse to load your aircraft, making it unuseable. Obviously, we do not want this to happen. So, even if Airwrench begs and pleads with you to save your file, politely decline and ignore it if it complains. Instead, all of OUR changes will be made in the .cfg file. We will use Airwrench simply to read the results. 4) Okay, let's go back to the Airwrench Specs tab. Although there are a lot of boxes with data in them, there are only a few which can be changed if Airwrench is in "evaluation mode." The most important are listed on the left, under the Performance Specifications label. There we have settings for Vmax @ sea level, weight used to calculate climb rate, and weight used to calculate estimated stall speed (which mainly effects turning radius). There are other boxes, such as clean stall speed, Max Load (G's), and Static Margin which can be changed, but we will not fool with them now. Notice that you can toggle between mph, knots, and kph by choosing the appropriate radio button near the top of the page. Also, leave the "Edit" button alone for now. You don't need it to change values and it can mess up your .cfg file, causing a mismatch if you are not careful. 5) Although we will not be using it, go ahead and click on the "Dimensions" tab. Basically, this page controls all of the settings for the control surfaces of the aircraft. Unless you know something about the dimensions of the aircraft that you don't think OBD already knows about, I would leave most of the settings on this page alone. There is one setting that you may consider adjusting, if you are careful. That is the setting for the "Oswald Efficiency Factor," a calculation that estimates the lift ability of the wings on your aircraft. Airwrench will automatically estimate this for you, but I have noticed that most of the airplanes in OFF have this setting set manually higher anywhere from as little as several hundredths to as much as one or two tenths higher than that recommended by Airwrench. I think that's enough for now. Later, I will go over the contents of the Dynamics, Engine, and Tuning tabs, and then will describe where you can find all of the variables we have already talked about in Airwrench in the aircraft.cfg file for each plane. Until then, happy flying! HPW