Herr Prop-Wasche

After much debating and thinking about the issue, I finally voted too hard--but just by a little bit. I was torn between choosing OK or too hard and finally chose too hard because of three factors: 1) AA gunnery a little too tough, especially 1915-1917. 2) Not enough two-seaters to shoot at and the ones that do exist all seem to have Ace observer/gunners! 3) Killer clouds. Okay, four factors: 4) Enemy AI that attacks in packs and usually from higher altitude, while friendly AI either ignores enemy or flies off on some random jaunt while my butt is getting shot off! (pause). Four factors? Did I say four factors? I meant five factors. 5) CFS3's annoying habit of killing your pilot on a so-called "crash" landing. Seems too many pilots are dying from blood poisoning or something after stubbing their toe on a bad landing. Admittedly, these are all minor problems and most can be adjusted in the settings. Furthermore, I know I have overstated some of these issues (such as the AI "problem") a little bit. However, because of some of these problems, the campaign game has become a bit of a chore for me and I now almost exclusively fly QC. I'm all for keeping OFF as realistic as possible--just make sure there is enough spread in the settings to accommodate the more casual player, as well.

My sincere condolences on the loss of your comrade, CW3SF.

I like the idea of random settings, too, but probably not available until OFF 4, Between Heaven and Hell: My First Marriage.

Is OFF too hard? Hmmm, in a way this is a philosophical question, as it depends on your view of the true level of difficulty of surviving as a pilot in WWI and the inherent limitations of a computer simulation of that difficulty. Debates about whether it is fair (or historically accurate) or not to use the TAC to spot distant enemy aircraft is just one example of this problem. Another example is the "17 hour average lifetime of a fighter pilot" premise. In my opinion (probably not shared by many others on this forum), :tomato2: the 17 hour average tends to overestimate the number of rookies who only survived one or two missions and underestimate the number of aces who lived for dozens, if not, hundreds of missions. Again, in my opinion, it is more fun for the sim to simulate life as it was for the aces, rather than the rookies (again, prob a minority opinion). Of course, even MvR and most of the aces on both sides didn't survive the war, so the sim pilot should only survive that long in maybe 1 in 500 (or more) chances. Having said that, I am generally very satisfied with the current level of difficulty in OFF, with the possible exception of ground fire accuracy on the "realistic" setting. OTOH, fans of WWI dogfighting should be careful not to make OFF so difficult that it turns off the more casual gamer, because that will hurt sales and ultimately whether OBD will be able to continue producing an even more fantastic product in the future! Of course, the scalability of OFF helps to offset that problem, too. OK, rant mode off! Don't misunderstand me, I am very happy with OFF, and I think Pol, Winder, and the boys have done a wonderful job! I just hope they are able to withstand the continued blatherings from idiots like myself without going crazy!

Make sure you have picked up as much speed as possible before trying the loop or Immelman. Your climb angle is probably also important. Has anyone else been able to do these maneuvers in an EIII? If not, maybe the devs would consider moving the center of gravity on the EIII slightly aft to perhaps improve its climbing/looping ability.

Are you sure they are not Sopwith Strutters? There is a small error in the .xdp file of the Strutter that makes the wing strength of these planes much stronger than they are supposed to be. I'm not aware of any problem with the Pup, however.

If you are experiencing stutters, you can go into the OBDSoftware\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\default folder and adjust your maximum framerates in the cfs3.xml file. This may be what he means.

Good luck, Sir. Keep us informed. With any luck, your saga will become as famous as that Beowulf fellow!

PJ, Wipe it all out--OFF, CFS3, hidden files--everything. Restart computer. Run a disk clean up program like CCleaner to get rid of invalid links, old shortcuts, invalid dll files, etc. NEXT, run scandisk to check for errors and defrag your hard drive. Restart your computer. NOW, either start in safe mode or boot as usual and run EnditAll or AlacrityPC to terminate as many programs as possible. BE SURE your antivirus is NOT running. NOW reinstall OFF (place OFF disk in first. You will get a message if it wants you to install CFS3 first). Finish installation and restart computer. Before starting OFF, stop all unnecessary programs using EnditAll or AlacrityPC. Go to Workshop and adjust graphic settings. Then try a QC mission.

I think you can survive when flying in a cloud, as long as the wind speed is less than 5 knots. Anything above that, however, and you are risking your (virtual) life.

I'm not 100% positive, but I don't think you have to reinstall CFS3 before reinstalling OFF. Just insert the OFF disk into your DVD drive and start the install program. It should call for the CFS3 disk, which it uses merely to copy the needed files to run OFF. After OFF gets the files it needs, there is no more need for CFS3, and you do not have to install it.

Thank you very much, Siggi. Happy Easter!

Question: In Nvidea control panel, should I select CFS3.exe or OFFManager.exe to launch my customized application settings? I have been using OFFManager.exe but was wondering if that is wrong, based on Madmatt's post. Thanks.

Hi, phantomjoker. Welcome back home. I'm sorry to hear that OFF is STILL giving you trouble. It is late, so I will keep this short and answer your question about deleting CFS3 from your computer: YES, you can delete it safely after installing OFF. I did so, and have not had any of your problems, nor any other major problems. I don't think it will hurt to try deleting it. Good night and good luck.

Welcome to OFF, Fokker! I think you will enjoy BHaH very much. While waiting for your DVD to arrive, be sure to read the threads on how to configure OFF to run best on your computer. Arrivederci!

Only a reproduction of the bicycle shop, sad to say. However, it is in the exact location where the original building once stood. Mr. Henry Ford stole the original bike shop and hauled it up to Detroit to be part of his Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. There is another replica of the bicycle shop in Carillon Park in Dayton. The park also has the original 1905 Wright Flyer III, reputed to be the world's first practical airplane! Huffman prairie is still there. Although it is located inside the air force base, it is part of the National Park Service, and can be visited by the general public. You can also go to an overlook about 2 miles away called the Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center and view more information describing the work that was done by the Wright's there. And, of course, there is the National Museum of the United States Air Force (more commonly called the Air Force Museum by us locals)! I usually visit there two or three times a year. If anyone plans to be in the area, be sure to let me know! P.S. One of the administrator's of CombatAce also lives here and works at the Air Force Base!

Madmatt, from Battlefront Games, no less!! Welcome to the skies over Flander's Fields! I also see you live in Zinzinnati, too. I am up the road a bit, in Dayton. Will we see you at the WWI fly in at the Air Force Museum this September? Glad to see you around. Take care!

A couple of suggestions, but I haven't heard of this particular problem before. When you hit escape, can you go to the controller menu and assign keys to your joystick? Is your configuration set to "Mine?" Try the Graphics Config button in the Workshops menu. Make sure your video sliders are not set too high for your system. You might also click on Window and select Overrides to make sure that everything is set as recommended. It that does not work, try clicking the "Reset CFS3 files" or the "Reset OFF" buttons in Workshop. When you uninstalled OFF, did you make sure to delete all files, including hidden files, before reinstalling? Make sure to delete the OFF folders in your My Documents folder, too.

I don't fly DiD, currently, but may I suggest a compromise? How about permitting AI guns to be set at "Normal" for the period 1916 until July 1917 and then switch AI guns to "Realistic?" This would reflect the increased ability of AA guns from mid 1917 until the end of the war.

Got it! Thanks a ton (or tonne)?

Make sure that you do not have auto-trim enabled.

Thanks for the great service, as usual! And thanks for the credit regarding the DM tweaks! (sheepish grin). It was my pleasure to help.

Just for fun, I thought I'd start a poll asking which aircraft players would like to see next in Between Heaven and Hell. This poll is not meant to put pressure on the developers or to insist that any of these planes actually get put into OFF anytime soon. Therefore, please keep the discussion light, but serious. You may select more than one plane, but keep your selection to four or less. For other, please list your plane and explain why you think it should be in OFF before any of the other choices. Enjoy!

Turbulence is definitely related to wind speed at the start of the mission. My rule is, NEVER fly through clouds if the wind speed at the start of the mission is above 5. I was trying to chase down some aircraft at a higher altitude but had to go through some clouds to get there. The wind was listed at 9. When I entered the cloud, I was around 9,000 ft. By the time I exited the cloud (unwillingly), my airspeed was almost 200 mph and I had lost 2,500 ft. I'll have to do more flying to see if I can fly through clouds at wind speeds less than 5.

I run my QC's through the Quick Campaign button on the MAIN OFF page, not the QC battles on the Workshop page. I don't think the workshop QC's are supported by OBD.