griphos

This is very different from my experience. I "always lead" and usually just give an Attack signal as soon as I see the enemy, and I've never really seen this behavior. My wingmen are pretty efficient, generally, in air combat. My last mission, for instance, had us jumped by three EA (we were three) and I took one and when I finished him, the other two were downed already by my wingmen. We were jumped again by five EA a bit later, and some were aces. I got two and ran out of ammo, and as I bugged out, my two wingmen were in a furball with the other three. Hope they came out all right! Usually, they get a kill between them, and most of them survive unless the odds are 2 to 1, but they only once shot at me, and almost never attack my target (I've attacked theirs before when I've finished mine). I've never gotten them to Regroup, really. They always seem to try to once the enemy are gone, but they're usually too far away before that for me to be able to call them back. I've never even tried to order Help. But they do suck at attacking ground targets. Perhaps I'll have to try this TAC target trick.

Hey Warthog, She's too much fun, isn't she?! To turn off the warnings and the HUD, as Catfish said, you need to click on Graphics Config in Workshop (bottom toward the right...gray box). But the checkboxes are a little hidden. You need to click on custom settings, and accept the warning that changing things may cause problems (it won't), THEN look for the "Window" tab at the top above the graphics sliders, then from that drop-down list, click Overrides. You'll see a lot of radio boxes you can check to disable things. Manuals can be accessed from the "Hangar" while in flight, or by looking in the manuals subfolder of the main OFF folder, which should be called "CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields" unless you changed it at install. I don't know how to get the "Brakes" warning to stop for sure, but I suspect it will when you disable warnings in the Overrides. Of course, there are no brakes, and if you don't tip the pedal forward, it shouldn't show that text (at least on my CH pedals). But in a dogfight, I tip the pedals constantly! You can't reload the Lewis gun. It's fully loaded with all canisters to start with. You can activate a little animation of pulling the gun down for reload, but it doesn't reload it. It may be Ctrl-C as Catfish says. I don't remember. It's just for show.

I believe Gary's preference for the Nieuport Lewis was due to its secret weapon of being invisible in MP. Sorry, Gary, let the cat out of the bag!

I'll second what Aussie said. I have been flying with these guys for a few weeks now, and I'm always the slowest connection (fast computer, but wireless connection with an older g router...time to run some cable, I think). My lag is always somewhere between 100ms and 200ms (yikes!), usually about mid-100s. It makes for some pretty strange enemy aircraft behavior, and it is a good idea for people to know that going in. Thanks, Aussie, for adding that to the conversation. HOWEVER, as I said on the last session online, what could be more fun than shooting at your friends?! I've been having a blast. And in some ways, it makes me a better pilot, I think. Yes, the planes I'm flying against behave in ways no plane should at times, and I've been shot while drawing a bead on a plane right in front of me (BY THAT VERY PLANE...and no, it wasn't a two-seater). At first I thought flying this way was counterproductive as I had to learn skills not useful in more realistic battle simulation. But because of all this, I can't just rely on the superior turning rate of my own plane (I try to get the best turners to fight in) as I'm wont to do. I have to learn other strategies, and this carries over into my offline pilots. Bottom line, I shoot down lots of planes and get shot down a lot (SOMETIMES because of the lag, but lots because the other guy just flew better or had better strategies). And it's a blast! But I'll second as well Gary's and Aussie's suggestion that playing missions online is the most fun I've had. Lag is much less of a concern there. I can hold formation very tightly and have done very well against ground targets and enemy AI. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I don't really notice any difference in flight behavior of AI while in MP. Perhaps they are spawned on my machine? I don't know, but I don't get any of the lag foolishness I see in dogfights against live opponents. And flying in a group with live pilots against an AI enemy is perhaps the most fun I've had with this sim. It's a close call, and less immersive than offline campaigns, but flying with live teammates adds something special. So, for me, even with serious lag, dogfighting is fun. It's just a different way to enjoy this sim. But online missions are what will keep me coming back to MP. BTW, I think it may be a few weeks before any dogfight league gets going. I know Stump has his hands full as a result of some changes in the real world.

Hey Ax, Those look great! Can't wait to see them over the Alps.

Hey Pol, I've been using the Hardcore at hardest settings and I think I like it best, but I haven't tried Hardcore at normal yet. I'm still curious, how do the DMs compare between Hardcore at normal and Normal at hardest?

That's where I looked, but just found the old files there.

Hey Ax, I couldn't find 'em there. Where do I look?

I couldn't find it in the skinning section, but you can download this little thumbnail viewer here: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/dds_thumbnail_viewer.html And it works with whatever card. It's just a program that lets you see the files as thumbnails in your folder window.

My first screenshot. Finally tried it. This one is of me admiring my handiwork after landing. The boys in the hangar were a bit worried about that one!

I just joined to test and you can join this game with either 1.28 patch or 1.28a patch. You will need Hardcore DM though. Join in at 7:00 if you can. The Alps are beautiful to fly around in.

TS and TSO work for me without the two boxes checked ("Disable Visual Themes" and "Disable Desktop Composition"). If other Vista users have my experience, then they may have to try the TSO install several times before it works, and it may not run from a shortcut (mine doesn't).

Okay, I'll try to make it then as well.

Seems to be. Want to meet me on Outlaw and test it?

Stop the presses! I uninstalled and then, for the heck of it, installed again. This time it let me install without the error message and was already configured to run in XP mode and as administrator (so I guess Vista instituted those settings). Anyway, it's working! That was weird! Okay, I figured it out. I made a shortcut to my start menu for it, and when I try to start it with that, it gives me the hacked .dll error. If I just start it from the .exe, it runs fine. Still don't know why it wouldn't install at first. VISTA!!!!

Hmmmm... I already have TS set up in XP compatibility mode and set to run as administrator. But I checked the two boxes too. Then I tried to install TSO. It gave the same error message and stopped the install. But, as before, Vista gave me a warning that the program failed to install correctly and asked if I wanted to install it with the recommended settings. I said yes this time and it installed. However, when I set it to run in XP compatibility mode and as administrator and checked the two boxes you suggested, it opened with the beta warning, then the nickname in options instructions and then gave a hacked .dll error message and quit. It does this no matter what I do with its settings.

Hey Ax, I'd do all that if the download would install. It won't. It starts to, then tells me it won't work with my OS. Is this perhaps a new beta feature? Perhaps the older versions will install and I can change the settings as you suggest.

Hey Homeboy, Thanks for offering that profile. I guess I'm going to have to get some of these drug store glasses! I'll echo Homeboy on the importance of side to side movement as well. That's the one mod I've made to my profile. I have that axis set to VERY aggressive. I have a big dead spot, but then, when I lean left or right to look past the nose, I want to be at the limit pretty quick. Sure makes it easier to spot those head on closings and also to land and taxi.

Hey Fortiesboy, Hmmmm, I've been flying QC the past few days as I've gone on a kick to try out all the planes, even the German planes! :blush2: I fly each one in a couple of dogfights against two or three enemy just to see how they fight and how much damage they can take. Anyway, I've been off from work, so have spent a good few hours at it. I've noticed a number of explosions (I have to get very close and hit him repeatedly...I usually get seared by the heat I'm so close!), lots of spins down to crash, lots of debris flying off the planes. I don't think I've seen any wings coming off (in QC, I have recently in campaign with 1.28 patch before DM mods on AlbDIIs I've shot). All of this has been with 1.28 before DM mods and 1.28 with Hardcore DM mod with settings at hard. Some of them stall and fall still, which is fine with me, but they mostly die in a number of interesting ways. And it doesn't take that many bullets to do it either, no where near the old 1.25 and prior models. Anyway, that's been my experience the past few days. I'm running settings of 54454, if that makes any difference

Hey Duck, Great work so far!! Just a small note. The Teamspeak overlay will not install on Vista machines. Just gives an error message that the overlay is not programmed to run on this OS. Everything else looks good. I'll email you the .doc with screenshots from P2 on joining MP.

Well, I'm just part of the way through Kennett's The First Air War, so I'm no expert, but it seems that the bombs and rockets in OFF are more of a anachronistic artifact of CFS3 than they are realistic models of WW1 air combat options. The rockets seem far too powerful and accurate in the sim, which, I suspect, is because of the CFS3 engine. I don't think there was much successful bombing of any sort at all throughout the war, and certainly not early in the war. I'm happy to be corrected, but it seems to me that sticking to aerial combat missions even when ordered to attack a ground target has a good argument for "realistic."

Duck, I think you just vo-lun-teered. Seriously, I made a start on this in another thread, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to tackle the larger project you have in mind. Happy to contribute to it, but you really know a lot more about most of it than I do. Wish I had taken better note of what I did to fix some of those common errors I experienced.

Now, Siggi, is that any way to win a war?! Yeah, super realistic, that! I must not have the optional historical warp drive installed on my crate! Jammer, I'm like you. I take the mission seriously. Protestant work ethic and all that. I will jump a significantly smaller group of EA in route. But in campaign, I've only been assigned a ground target for my actual flight just once. And there was no enemy encountered on the whole long flight on that one. I've done a lot of ground target attacks in MP, and I've found that I can avoid enemy MG well enough by staying low after dropping ordinance and cross controlling. Throws their aim off. I will faithfully guard my bomber flights on escort missions, even ignoring EA that don't jump us; though, as often as not, they get to the area and circle a bit and then head home. I guess they couldn't find the target. The more I fly this sim, the more it's about survival for me. I've started to get very invested in these pilots I create, and I want them to do well, but mostly I want them to live. It's gotten to be about the farthest thing possible from an arcade shoot-em-up for me, and that has made it immensely more enjoyable.

As I said, I think the original question is interesting, and I'm curious about it as well. I've now flown with Normal DM at normal and at hard, and Hardcore DM at hard (not normal yet) and it's hard for me to see much difference between any of them, to be honest. Perhaps I haven't had enough time on the newer settings to me (or perhaps it's different in QC). Anyway, I'm still curious as to what the differences are in terms of bullet strength and DM "hardness." I'm not curious out of any desire to be told which to use, nor do I think Redwolf was. We can figure out which we prefer. And I was totally fine with the new DM options in 1.28. This patch seemed to really perfect the sim for me, and I've been slow to go beyond it. I installed the new Hardcore DM yesterday b/c it seems the Doves and Hawks will be using it and everyone needs to be the same for MP to work. But for me, at least, curiosity was piqued by the ambiguity created by options like Normal:Hard and Hard:Normal. Inquiring minds want to know. As Redwolf said, H P-W offered some very interesting info above, but I think he was just comparing the original DM with the Normal and Hard of the new "Normal" DM option.

Thanks for the report. I'll give it a try.