Herr Prop-Wasche

No worries, Madmatt! I know you are busy and don't have much time to test. Thanks, anyway for taking our DM's up for a spin. Let me also congratulate you for your work on the MP Files AutoInstaller. I haven't tried MP yet, but may try soon thanks to your easy to use installer. Do you know if you could modify your program to accept alternative DM's, such as mine or Fortiesboy's? I'd like to see how my Intermediate DM might perform in MP. Back to the discussion of the threshold values in mine and Fortiesboy's DM's. Before we altered any of the threshold values (TV's), we both decided to use my Intermediate Damage Model instead of the OBD "hardcore" DM. As you probably know, my DM simply adjusts the hit points for several critical aircraft components and leaves all of the TV's alone. Fortiesboy then suggested altering the TV's to see what effect that would have on visible damage to the airplanes. Working independently from each other, Fortiesboy reduced the TV's much lower in his two files than I did in mine. Even though I was able to see damage effects with my higher settings (for an example, see the following picture), Fortiesboy claimed that he could not obtain the same results with my higher values. If you did not notice any differences with our files, it may have been that you were using my values instead of Fortiesboy's. As I indicated to Fortiesboy, I am still tweaking my values and may reduce them further if others are not getting enough visual evidence with my models. OTOH, I also feel we need to be careful not to reduce the values too much so that there is little or no difference between my DM and the so-called "normal" DM. Ultimately, what I would like to strive for is a DM that retains the difficulty of shooting an enemy plane down that exists in the hardcore DM, but with a little more visual "eyecandy" such as seen in the above picture. This brings up one final point for anyone who has, or will, test either mine or Fortiesboy's DM. Beyond the visual effects, please try and take note of any differences in either the aggressiveness or the flying ability of the AI when using either of our models. Perhaps I am biased, but I could swear that the AI gave me a better, and longer, fight when using my DM with TV tweaks. If anyone else can confirm or disprove this, I would be appreciative.

Holidays, or a severe case of spring fever! Of course, Widowmaker and Olham alone, who are on holiday at the moment, are probably responsible for 40% of the posts on this forum!

Shhhhhh! If you are very quiet, you may hear the crickets chirping. "chirp...chirp...." Ah, there they are!

C'mon, guys! Fortiesboy and I are very interested in hearing your reports and comments. We particularly need you to settle our dispute about which has the better damage model! Would people prefer if we offered identical airplanes to directly compare models? The four planes currently offered were more or less randomly chosen by Fortiesboy and I, but we can upload additional models, IF there is any interest to do so. Shipping and handling included. Please allow a few days for delivery...no refunds or exchanges!!

Hi Gaw. Any luck getting the files to install properly?

From the History channel: June 4, 1916 Brusilov Offensive Begins On this day in 1916, the Battle of Lutsk marks the beginning of the Brusilov Offensive, the largest and most successful Allied offensive of World War I. When the fortress city of Verdun, France, came under siege by the Germans in February 1916, the French pleaded with the other Allies, Britain and Russia, to mount offensives in other areas to force the diversion of German resources and attention from the struggle at Verdun. While the British plotted the offensive they would launch near the Somme River in early July, the first Russian response came more quickly—a failed offensive in March at Lake Narocz, in which Russian troops were slaughtered en masse by the Germans with no significant effect at Verdun. Still, the Russians plotted another diversionary attack in the northern region of the Eastern Front, near Vilna (now in Poland). While the Vilna offensive was being planned, General Alexei Brusilov—a 63-year-old former cavalryman and aristocrat given command of the Southwestern Army (the Russians divided their army into three major groups, Northern, Eastern and Southwestern) in March 1916—pressed his superiors at a meeting in April that he be allowed to attack as well, although no action was planned for the southwestern section of the front. At the very least, Brusilov reasoned, his attacks would draw troops away from the other area and ensure the success of their offensive in the north. Though he was given the go-ahead, the other Russian generals had little confidence in Brusilov's strategy. Brusilov's troops began their attacks on the Austro-Hungarian 4th Army at the city of Lutsk (now in Ukraine), on June 4, 1916, with an impressive bombardment from nearly 2,000 guns along a 200-mile-long front stretching from the Pripet marshes to the Bukovina region to the southwest, in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. Though the Austrian troops at Lutsk, led by the over-confident Archduke Josef Ferdinand, outnumbered the Russians—200,000 men against 150,000—the success of the barrage obliterated this advantage, along with the Austrian front line, as Brusilov's troops swept forward, taking 26,000 prisoners in one day. Within two days, the Russians had broken the 4th Army, advancing 75 kilometers along a 20-kilometer-long front, and effectively ending Josef Ferdinand's career. Some 130,000 casualties—plus the capture of over 200,000 prisoners—forced the Austrian commander, Conrad von Hotzendorff, to close down an offensive against Italy in the Trentino region to divert guns and divisions back east. On June 15, Conrad told his German counterpart, Erich von Falkenhayn, that they were facing the greatest crisis of the war so far—a fact that took Falkenhayn, who was optimistic about an imminent French surrender at Verdun, completely by surprise. Confronted with the Austrian panic against Russia, he was forced to release four German divisions from the west, a weakness that allowed a successful French counterattack at Verdun on June 23, just one day before the preliminary British artillery bombardment began at the Somme. Dubbed "The Iron General" and respected and beloved by his troops, Brusilov relied on absolute preparedness for battle and on the execution of even the most minute detail of his orders. The June 4 attacks began a string of crushing victories against the Austrian army across the southwestern portion of the Eastern Front, forcing Germany to abandon plans for their own 1916 offensive in France in order to bail out their hapless ally—even as they confronted a new British offensive at the Somme in July. By September, Russian resources had began to run out, however, and the Brusilov Offensive reached its limits; it was shut down on September 20, 1916, having cost the Austro-Hungarian army a staggering total of 1.5 million men (including 400,000 taken prisoner) and some 25,000 square kilometers of territory. Though turmoil and revolution shattered Russia in 1917, disintegrating its army and leading to its subsequent exit from the war—a fact that caused the success of the Brusilov Offensive to be largely forgotten—the offensive permanently secured more enemy territory than any other Allied offensive on either front. Moreover, a permanently debilitated Austria-Hungary never again played a significant role in the war. Its army was reduced to holding trenches against the weaker Italians, and Germany was left to fight virtually alone for the final two years of World War I.

From the History channel: May 31, 1916 Battle of Jutland Just before four o'clock on the afternoon of May 31, 1916, a British naval force commanded by Vice Admiral David Beatty confronts a squadron of German ships, led by Admiral Franz von Hipper, some 75 miles off the Danish coast. The two squadrons opened fire on each other simultaneously, beginning the opening phase of the greatest naval battle of World War I, the Battle of Jutland. After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, the German navy chose not to confront the numerically superior British Royal Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its strategy at sea on its lethal U-boat submarines. In May 1916, however, with the majority of the British Grand Fleet anchored far away, at Scapa Flow, off the northern coast of Scotland, the commander of the German High Seas Fleet, Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, believed the time was right to resume attacks on the British coastline. Confident that his communications were securely coded, Scheer ordered 19 U-boat submarines to position themselves for a raid on the North Sea coastal city of Sunderland while using air reconnaissance crafts to keep an eye on the British fleet's movement from Scapa Flow. Bad weather hampered the airships, however, and Scheer called off the raid, instead ordering his fleet—24 battleships, five battle cruisers, 11 light cruisers and 63 destroyers—to head north, to the Skagerrak, a waterway located between Norway and northern Denmark, off the Jutland Peninsula, where they could attack Allied shipping interests and with luck, punch a hole in the stringent British blockade. Unbeknownst to Scheer, however, a newly created intelligence unit located within an old building of the British Admiralty, known as Room 40, had cracked the German codes and warned the British Grand Fleet's commander, Admiral John Rushworth Jellicoe, of Scheer's intentions. Consequently, on the night of May 30, a British fleet of 28 battleships, nine battle cruisers, 34 light cruisers and 80 destroyers set out from Scapa Flow, bound for positions off the Skagerrak. At 2:20 p.m. on May 31, Beatty, leading a British squadron, spotted Hipper's warships. As each squadron maneuvered south to better its position, shots were fired, but neither side opened fire until 3:48 that afternoon. The initial phase of the gun battle lasted 55 minutes, during which two British battle cruisers, Indefatigable and Queen Mary were destroyed, killing over 2,000 sailors. At 4:43 p.m., Hipper's squadron was joined by the remainder of the German fleet, commanded by Scheer. Beatty was forced to fight a delaying action for the next hour, until Jellicoe could arrive with the rest of the Grand Fleet. With both fleets facing off in their entirety, a great battle of naval strategy began among the four commanders, particularly between Jellicoe and Scheer. As sections of the two fleets continued to engage each other throughout the late evening and the early morning of June 1, Jellicoe maneuvered 96 of the British ships into a V-shape surrounding 59 German ships. Hipper's flagship, Lutzow, was disabled by 24 direct hits but was able, before it sank, to sink the British battle cruiser Invincible. Just after 6:30 on the evening of June 1, Scheer's fleet executed a previously planned withdrawal under cover of darkness to their base at the German port of Wilhelmshaven, ending the battle and cheating the British of the major naval success they had envisioned. The Battle of Jutland—or the Battle of the Skagerrak, as it was known to the Germans—engaged a total of 100,000 men aboard 250 ships over the course of 72 hours. The Germans, giddy from the glory of Scheer's brilliant escape, claimed it as a victory for their High Seas Fleet. At first the British press agreed, but the truth was not so clear-cut. The German navy lost 11 ships, including a battleship and a battle cruiser, and suffered 3,058 casualties; the British sustained heavier losses, with 14 ships sunk, including three battle cruisers, and 6,784 casualties. Ten more German ships had suffered heavy damage, however, and by June 2, 1916, only 10 ships that had been involved in the battle were ready to leave port again (Jellicoe, on the other hand, could have put 23 to sea). On July 4, 1916, Scheer reported to the German high command that further fleet action was not an option, and that submarine warfare was Germany's best hope for victory at sea. Despite the missed opportunities and heavy losses, the Battle of Jutland had left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact. The German High Seas Fleet would make no further attempts to break the Allied blockade or to engage the Grand Fleet for the remainder of World War I.

A complete intermediate damage model for all of the aircraft currently in BHaH 1.30c, including all campaign aircraft, is now available for download! In addition to DM modifications for all of the aircraft in BHaH, this update also contains a few bugfixes that may have prevented certain aircraft from being flyable in previous versions. All aircraft in this version have been tested in QC to insure that this is no longer a problem. Just like earlier versions, this mod is meant to represent a middle-ground between the easy and hardcore damage models already present in BHaH v.1.30c. Hit points for ailerons, wings, and aileron cables are changed so that these components are now somewhat weaker than in the hardcore DM, but stronger than the normal DM. In addition, values for rudder and elevator cables are somewhat strengthend to be more similar to the values for the aileron cables. Values for all other components are unchanged. Installation instructions are contained in a readme file included in the IntDM1_6 zip file. Please note that this mod simply replaces the xdp files for each aircraft currently available in BHaH. No other changes are made to any other files. If you wish, make a backup of the aircraft folder before installation. I hope you enjoy this mod, which itself is a mod of BHaH, the wonderful mod of CFS3 by OBD Software. Thanks goes out to OBD Software for making BHaH such an enjoyable mod in the first place, and for their great support of Over Flander's Fields. If you have any questions or suggestions, or experience any problems with the installation of this mod, you can reach me on this forum.

I also think your tracer mod is the cat's meow! Second only to my damage model, of course!

Thank you to everyone who has downloaded my damage mod! Last I checked, the mod has been downloaded 111 times! I hope that you liked the mod and have continued to use it. If so, it would be great if a few of you would post your thoughts and comments about the mod, including installation and gameplay issues. Have you noticed any appreciable differences between my mod and either the normal or hardcore version? For better or worse? Are all components (wings, ailerons, elevators, etc.) working as you think they should? What changes, if any, would you recommend? For those who tried my mod but gave it up, a few brief words about why you went back to either the normal or hardcore version would be helpful. At present, do you think my mod is too easy or too hard? One reason I am asking these questions is because Fortiesboy and I are currently working on a possible addition to the mod which will add some lower threshold values to each plane's xdp file, which should make several sound and visual effects appear more easily than in any of the current damage models. Since these effects also have an influence on flight dynamics, these threshold changes should make it somewhat easier to shoot down enemy planes or for them to shoot you down. Currently, I plan to only offer these Threshold changes with my Intermediate DM, but if the consensus is that this make the sim too easy, then I will consider offering it as an addition to the hardcore DM, as well. All thoughts and comments will be appreciated.

A moving tribute, Jammer! You demonstrate a very nice sense of composition and dramatic emphasis in this movie. Congratulations and happy Memorial Day!

Okay, I believe the file is named viewui.xml and is located in your default OBDSoftware/CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields folder. Open the file with Notepad. Near the top of the file is a setting for "RotationRate." Change this from 1.2 to 1.5 or higher to increase your panning speed.

Nice camo markings! Would be nice to have as a skin in the game.

Yes, you can change the pan speed. There is a setting in one of the config files. I'll take a look see and post it when I find it.

I like playing the field!

Will do!

Hi, Pol! Ha, ha, Fortiesboy and I have to first come to an agreement about exactly what changes we want to make! Actually, we are still fairly early in the developing and testing process of the threshold values. He favors more of a "uniform threshold value approach," and I favor more of a "stepped value" approach, if that makes any sense. I think the stepped approach is somewhat similar to the approach you took with these values, just set somewhat lower to insure that more effects are triggered. Another thing we need to agree on is whether to make identical changes to all of the damage models (easier), or whether we need to make individual adjustments for each plane (more work). For instance, should an aircraft that has wings rated at 112 damage points have the same threshold values as a plane with wings rated at only 72 damage points? My initial thoughts on this are "no," even though it will probably mean more work. Once we iron these issues out, we will be more than happy to send you our changes. In the meantime, I can send you a file containing some changes to the Alb DIII. This is my "test platform" which I have been using to test changes to the threshold values and the overall DM. Look for it in a PM. Thanks again!

Thanks for your comments, guys and gal! I am interested in developing this idea further, but I am being held up at the moment by some serious RL issues that demand my attention at present. In the meantime, I can upload a "test" file for people to look at if they would like to see how some of our preliminary changes to the xdp files effect airplane performance. What Fortiesboy and I are aiming for is a DM that will have "kill rates" somewhat between the current hardcore and normal damage models. If we do this right, I think we will be able to have aircraft that get and show more damage than currently, but that remain relatively difficult to shoot down. Of course, these changes will effect ALL aircraft, including the player's, so YOU will also suffer the consequences! :black eye:

I'm glad you like it, Winston! I'm also gratified that you feel it is a nice compromise between the hardcore and normal damage models. That is just what I was aiming for. You may find that I have even better news about the effects I have been able to achieve with some additional modifications to the threshold values in the xdp files. It seems that what we are getting with current versions of the DM is a somewhat limited sampling of all the damage effects that can be achieved in the game. With a few modifications to these files, I think I can achieve aircraft that are both relatively difficult to shoot down, but which also suffer from more variable (and visible) damage effects! For an example of these effects, look at the thread in the main forum where I announced the release of the Int DM. There are several pictures of aircraft in various states of damage that I don't think you often see in other versions of the DM.

Is anyone interested in this? Hello! Anyone there? Anyone?

The following are some examples of the effects Fortiesboy and I have seen from playing with the threshold values in my Intermediate DM: If anyone is interested, I can upload a test file of the Alb III with these DM changes for you to test for yourself to this thread.

Hmmm, an FM mod? I wonder....