Herr Prop-Wasche

I've always been an nVidia user, not because I am a fanboi, but because the cards always seemed to give the best bang for the buck (or pound, euro, etc). Lately, however, nVidia seems to have had some quality control problems, along with buggy drivers. Time to consider an ATI card for my next purchase...

Outstanding! Great video, Jammer. Very nice the way you synchronized the dramatic moments with the music from the USAF band. Now, is anyone up to the challenge to produce a video from the perspective of a pilot from the Central Powers?

Yes, I am running XP and am using DirectX 9.0c with the February update. No problems so far! I now yield the floor...

Slartibartfast--Did you have a chance to fly either the Spitfire or the Hurrie? What other aircraft did you fly? Please describe, if you can, what it was like to fly any of these air-beaters!

This update is dated February 2010, so anyone who hasn't updated DirectX recently will probably also want to get this update. Olham--I believe they have updates for both users of 9.0c as well as 11. NVidia users may also be interested that they have released new video drivers this week.

Another update and a small bump. Still testing and tweaking the DM. The last major hurdle is getting the wings of the Nieuport's and Albatross' series correct so that the lower wings are hard for the enemy to shoot off, but still come off when overstressed by the pilot. Generally, if the wings shred from overstress, they can also be easily shot off; but if they can't be shot off, they also can't be overstressed. However, I think I am making progress with this problem. Another problem is that some airplane wings do not display much visual damage until they totally fail. The DH2 is a prime example of this. Sometimes I can pump round after round into the wings of a DH2 with little visible effect until the wing suddenly departs the fuselage! In general, the wings on the DH2 seem to be tougher than the wings of comparable aircraft. Has anyone else seen this? I could probably keep tweaking until I get everything just right, but then I might never release the mod. OTOH, I could release now, even while some glitches remain. What is everyone's preference?

I feel the urge for a rant tonight. Why doesn't the game accurately report what truly happens to your squad mates? Instead of accurately reporting whether your wing mate was shot down, MIA or KIA, it seems that CFS3 randomly generates outcomes to your squad without any reference to what really happened on your sortie! This really kills the immersion factor, especially if you take pride in taking care of your wingies and like watching their kill tallies grow. This is one part of RB3D I really liked that I wish could be transplanted to OFF. Isn't there any way of accurately keeping track of this? Doesn't the CFS3 engine keep track of the names of your wingmates? If not, is there any way to link the aircraft ID number you see in the AAR's with the names of your mates and so keep track of them that way? This is not a knock on OBD, as it is my understanding that this is a CFS3 game limitation. Even so, it seems a major cock-up on Microsoft's part. How could they design a campaign game that doesn't accurately track the progress of your squad? Am I supposed to win the war all by myself? OFF would be nearly even more perfect if this could be fixed. Okay, I feel better now.

12o'clock--I enjoy playing Silent Hunter III as well. In fact, until BHaH came out, that was about the only computer game I was playing. Not to hijack a thread, but I assume you have heard about the release of SH5 in about a week? The community over at subsim.com is in a huge uproar about the DRM scheme Ubisoft has slapped onto the product. Seems to play you have to have a constant online connection to Ubisoft's servers, similar to the one that existed on ROF when it came out. Many people have stated they will refuse to buy SH5 unless the DRM is removed. Also, the periscope interface has been seriously dumbed down and looks like something out of Windows 7 rather than an authentic U-boat.

Well, I have finally finished making all of my changes to the .xdp files of all of the QC airplanes. After I do a little more testing, I will upload the mod for others to evaluate. Keep in mind that this will be a BETA version for use in QC only, so expect a bit of oddness. Please report anything that strikes you as unusual or unrealistic, here. Ideally, the mod will make most of the aircraft a little more sturdy in certain areas, and a little weaker in other areas. My ultimate goal (when the full campaign mod is released) is to make most of the aircraft a little easier to cripple, but somewhat more difficult to fully destroy. Hopefully, this will increase the survivability of both human and AI pilots, as I think it is currently a bit too bloody out there, IMO.

Thanks for the explanation, Pol. However, I still can't understand how OFF can track AI aircraft position, shots fired, craft downed, etc. if the CFS3 engine doesn't track anything about your AI, as you seemed to indicate in your above post. BH makes a good point and possible suggestion. If there is any way to link the AI pilot name with the ID number in the mission report, then we could at least manually track the fate of our squad mates. I can certainly live with the random deaths--it's easy to die in a war zone, after all!

Thank you , Bullethead. So, it seems that the game tracks at least some of the information about what happens to other aircraft during your flight. I guess the question is whether it tracks enough information to help you sort out what happened to whom and then makes that information accessible somewhere in the game files so that an automated program can assemble and display the data for the player. Still doesn't get rid of the random death roll problem, unfortunately. I like your attitude about the random deaths. Still, quite a bit of lazy thinking and programming on Microsoft's part.

This looks like a fantastic mod, Creaghorn! I am currently downloading it and will test it whilst testing my DM mod. Thanks for the contribution.

That is most excellent news, Lou! I suppose this also means that my virtual pilot can now "somehow" find himself in possession of a Pour le Merite. (Any rumors that he came into possession of such a prize by scavenging it off a deceased German ace are only rumors, and scandalous at that, requiring pistols at dawn)!

I assume you are talking hockey? Care to make a wager on the U.S. vs. Canada match Sunday evening? I'd offer America's best beer v. Canada's best, but I don't know if it would be fair to send either to the winner!

Hey, congratulations 12 o'clock! Great news and great to hear that you are finally experiencing OFF in all of its glory! I am now looking forward to hearing about your exploits in the main forum.

Ooooh, a Dr I, boat model! Is that triple decked too? Sounds like it leaks too much for my tastes, though, with all of those holes. Since you live in BC, any chance to go see any of the Olympic events? I bet they are horrendously priced.

I don't own ROF, but from what I've heard and so take it with a grain of salt, the FM in ROF is supposedly more "challenging." In practice, I think this means the aircraft are somewhat more difficult to fly. Whether the FM in ROF is more realistic is a completely different question, and one of substantial debate. Same thing with the DM. Some argue the DM in ROF is more accurate, while others complain it is too arcadish and repetitious. Only way to know is for you to try it out yourself. I think ROF now has a demo. I've also heard rumors that they are relaxing their DRM requirement. I wonder why that is???? And, yes, you can play a bit with the damage model in OFF.

carrick58--I like the stock HITR DM, too. My only real gripe is the wings blowing off so easily. These are not 20 or 30 mm cannon rounds being fired at these aircraft. OTOH, many people (myself included, if I am in the mood) get a certain satisfaction from blowing the wings off of an adversary's crate. Ultimately, I don't intend to totally eliminate the chance of blowing off an opponent's wing. I only want to reduce it to a more realistic (IMHO) level. Dej--I'd like to eliminate this discrepancy as well. Unfortunately, even the rookie AI's are real sharpshooters and seem to know exactly where all the critical components are on your aircraft. I think I've found some success lowering the hit probability on the aileron cables from 100% to 90%. Instead of the aileron cable being the first component the AI will hit on your crate, it is now usually something else--usually the aileron itself, interestingly enough. Seems these diabolical AI have a plan: first cripple your aircraft's ability to maneuver, then kill you! Cheeky devils!

Here’s a bit of a progress report on my alternate DM mod for HITR. I have been doing lots of fiddling and testing on various aircraft in QC and feel that I am just about ready to release a “beta” version of the mod. Due to the sheer number of aircraft now available in OFF, I have not been able to thoroughly test EVERY aircraft, so I hope that anyone who decides to give my mod a try will let me know about any weirdness or anomalies they find. Although most of my changes to the HITR DM are fairly small, some changes may have unanticipated consequences for certain aircraft. In particular, I am most in need of feedback about the performance of the early war airplanes and any of the new HITR aircraft with the new DM. The following is a list of most of the changes I have made to the aircraft damage model in OFF and which I am still currently testing: DM changes shared by all aircraft: 1. Probability of striking an aileron cable reduced from 100% to 90%. In stock HITR, the first thing the AI almost always seems to hit on the player’s aircraft is one of the aileron cables—a very thin and hard to hit object. This change seems to reduce, but not eliminate, the tendency for this to happen—especially on the AI’s first pass. 2. Oil and coolant reservoirs hit points slightly reduced; making it slightly easier to eventually cripple aircraft by hitting these vital areas (also produces more smoke trails in combat). 3. Pilot and observer hit points reduced by approximately 15%, resulting in a somewhat greater likelihood of disabling/killing the pilot. Together, 2 and 3 aim to increase the number of kills from shots to “meat or metal,” as UncleAl likes to say. 4. Engine hit points increased slightly and threshold values altered to make engines less vulnerable to minor damage but slightly more susceptible to fire damage. 5. Wing hit point strength weakened slightly overall and .xdp threshold values adjusted to allow for more visible damage effects on more airplanes. 6. Wing roots made stronger with wing tips slightly weaker, resulting in fewer wings getting blown off an airplane, but with wingtips crumpled or damaged more often. Planes with wing damage should now be harder to control, but less likely to experience total wing loss from enemy gun fire. This should reduce the proportion of kills due to total wing loss from something like 40-50% down to approximately 15-20% (Percentages based on my experience using normal gun settings. Your percentage will vary based upon your own realism options as well as your flying and shooting skills). The lower percentage, I believe, more accurately reflects the historically rare event (in WWI) of a given airplane’s wing coming completely off due solely to enemy fire. Miscellaneous DM changes: 1. Hit points on the lower wings of sesquiplane airplanes such as the Albatross DIII, DVa, and Nieuport series reduced to reflect smaller surface area of these wings and to make these airplanes more susceptible to damage from high speed dives and high-g maneuvers. 2. Hit points for upper wing on the Nieuport 28 reduced slightly to reflect potential weakness of wing from prolonged high speed dives. Enter a prolonged full speed dive only at your own risk! 3. Hit points for upper wing on the Fokker Dr I reduced very slightly to reflect possible weakness of upper wing strut on some Dr I’s due to errors in manufacturing. Please feel free to comment or make any suggestions about these proposed changes. I hope to have a beta DM for QC flight only ready for release within the next couple of days. A full DM for campaign use should follow soon after.

Really good advice there. Think I'll call it "Lou's dicta."

I enjoyed it as well. Thanks, WM.

I assume you have checked your power options under control panel?

When I first heard the "Contact! Clear!" I thought that Ringo Starr had been hired to do the voice over for OFF. I was just about to delete it when I found out the voice is Pol's. Didn't have the heart to delete it after that.

I found this at the nVidia drivers page for their beta 196.34 driver: New in Version 196.34 Fixed a bug with v196.21 that prohibited GPU overclocking.