Interlocutor

Yes Siggi, without the TAC I think I'm missing many action possibilities, especially given that my two pilots, one LafEsc and one Storks, both fly in the spring & summer of 1916, respectively. BTW, by keeping two pilots active and alternating them, I find that when one gets killed, I still have the other to console me while I start out another "rookie" in the recently deceased guy's slot. But missing action is okay. As Olham says, at least I tend to accumulate more flight hours than previously. In fact, since going DiD about a week ago or so, I've yet to lose either of my two pilots! (hurriedly knocks on wood...) Anyway, I guess I've decided to go into this for the "long haul" now. I think you said it well in the intro to your OFF3 kill board website, that immersion has become the thing for me now, rather than combat. I'd love to be the first OFF flyer to put French pilots on your killboard, but I just won't give my pilots up to Archie anymore. When I'm assigned a mission behind German lines, I at least fly to the terminal waypoint and make a token show of carrying out the mission, and with "AI Gunfire (range)" set to "Realistic", I lost 3 out of 4 pilots below 5000 feet on such missions. It's only 10% off my realism rating to go from "Realistic" down to "Normal" on this one, and I get that 10% back anyway by setting my guns to "Hard" :yes: .

Olham, you are very welcome :yes: . After all, isn't it the responsibility of true believers to spread the faith ? For my part, I can see now that I had to build up a certain basic skill level with the help of the "crutches" like TAC & labels before I could hope to survive even one mission without them. But once I had kind of "learned to fly my plane" and such, I was able to let go of TAC & labels and all, and take the plunge. And though I'm having to "unlearn" some habits, and to learn some new skills, I find it much more rewarding and "real". Yes, you'll get jumped on. Yes, you'll miss a lot of action. But you can use the map ("M" key), so at least you shouldn't get lost . As you fly more missions this way, I would be curious to hear from you about any habits you need to "unlearn", and about any new skills you might find you need to work on.

Hauksbee, What Rabu said above. TrackIR makes all the difference in the world, believe it. No problems that I know of, though as Rabu said you'll have to tinker with TIR settings and such to get it right for you. I have TIR4 with the "TrackClip Pro" thingee, works great for me. You can still get any outside views you want, should you choose to access them, but I never do anymore, I just live in the cockpit...

Olham, I agree completely. That has been my experience so far, though I am flying in 1916 when density of flights is probably less.

Siggi, in another thread, called "Uber Flak" I believe, the poster, Sqha, says he is always getting killed by flak over enemy lines, like I was. Polovski responded, saying "Stick AI range on normal and all should be well...". Since I've had the same experience, I do think that the "AI gunfire (range)" setting does control flak effectiveness.

Thanks for the link to your killboard, Siggi. Until OFF3 BHAH came out, I'd been away from flight sims since 1999, so I must have missed the development of DiD. But in looking over the DiD standards, I see I don't qualify. I conform with everything except that I set "AI gun fire (range)" to "Normal" rather than "Realistic", because I lost too many pilots to Archie on the "Realistic" setting :black eye: . Also I set both "Main guns" as well as "Rear guns" to "Hard", instead of main guns on "Normal". But I'll check in on the board now & then to see what's up, and thanks for the invite.

Yes, much harder to find the enemy without TAc or labels. Yesterday I finished my 8th mission with a full-DiD Storks pilot, flying N17's in Flanders in the summer of 1916. In those 8 missions, I've seen German aircraft only twice. I suspect that this is more like it really was, at least in 1916. But if you want constant combat, as opposed to constant tension , then DiD is not likely a good place to find it.

I've entered claims for multiple kills (same type of enemy a/c) in a mission, and had them confirmed with the same frequency as single-kill claims.

Siggi, I have to admit, somewhat shamefacedly , that I don't know what a killboard is...

Another interesting thread, Olham :yes: . For my claims, I've been getting well over 80% of them confirmed, but I have to admit that I'm a bit wordy . Here's a typical claim from the logbook of my current best pilot, who flies N11's for the LafEsc over Verdun in the spring of 1916. At the time this mission took place, I was still using the TAC on 2-mile radius to spot enemy formations, after which I would take it down; I was also using labels. I've since switched to full DiD, and now I'm getting far less kills (about 10 missions per kill instead of the former 2 missions per kill), but my claims are still getting confirmed above 80% of the time. 27/5/1916 6h11 Verdun Behonne Artillery spotting Flying: Nieuport 11 Bebe. On this day claims: 1 Fokker EIII . While leading my flight of 3 aircraft northwards for a patrol over German lines just west of Verdun, I sighted at about 06h35 a formation of 5 silver gray Fokker EIII's at our same altitude of 6000 feet, approaching from the north. The odds being long in my opinion, I led my flight away from the enemy back towards our own lines. However, my wingmen did not respond quickly enough to my signal to retreat, and though I got clear of the Fokkers, I could see behind me that Leblanc and Bertrand were in trouble. I turned back to help them, against my better judgement. Engaging two Fokkers who were pursuing Leblanc, I put two long bursts into one of them and saw him spiral down out of the fight, heading back behind German lines. I then saw another Fokker pursuing Bertrand and flew to assist him, firing a long-range burst of about 20 rounds which caused his pursuer to break off his firing pass. I looked around then and could not find Leblanc, but I noticed, well above and just to the north, another formation of 7 more Fokker EIII's coming to join the fight. I signaled to Bertrand to rejoin me, and dove for our own lines. Looking back, I saw Bertrand go down in flames just over our own lines. I now fled for home, pursued by a single Fokker. Once well behind our own lines, I turned to engage my single pursuer. I got behind him rather easily and put a burst of about 20 rounds into him, which caused his motor to begin smoking. But the Boche was very mordant, and continued the contest, which turned into a turn fight at low altitude. At about 06h48 I got behind him again and put another 20 round burst into him, at which point he rolled over and dove into the ground, about 1 mile north-northwest of Brocourt-en-Argonne airfield. My ammunition nearly expended, I then flew home to Behonne. Witnessed by: None Status : Confirmed . Pol and the other devs have been very, ahh, circumspect about how claims "should be written" in order to maximize the chance of confirmation, and I respect that. It helps me with my sense of immersion to write epic lengthy claims reports , but I suspect that much less than the above is needed. However, I try to work the following items into every claim: 1) a reference to altitude, e.g., "6000 feet"; 2) a reference to the color of any enemy aircraft, e.g., "silver gray"; 3) the type of enemy aircraft; 4) the time of combats or victories in the format given in the briefing, e.g., "06h48"; 5) the names of key geographic features near which the combat took place, e.g., "Verdun", "Brocourt-en-Argonne airfield", etc.; 6) a reference to ammunition used, such as "20 round burst"; I always use the words "burst" and "rounds"; 7) some reference to a compass direction, in my case I spell out like this: "north-northwest" or "southeast"; 8) some refernce to distance from a cited geographic feature where I saw an enemy plane crash, e.g., "about 1 mile north-northwest of Brocourt-en-Argonne airfield". Everything else, for me, is just the fun of composing a realistic account of the combat. I suspect the game uses a simple parsing program to look for certain keywords, but more than that I don't really want to know...

Yes, I agree. I'm lucky enough to be retired, so I've been flying several hours almost every day since OFF3 came out. I started out using ALL the aids, even the target cone. As I got better, I shed the aids one by one. Now I'm flying full DiD. Each day I fly one day's worth of missions for my current active pilot. Makes it more real for me...

Olham, your question is a good one. My current "best pilot", and indeed the best I've ever had, flies at 110%. I use Automixture, have "AI Guns" set to "Normal" (I found AA too strong for my taste with AI Guns = "Realistic"), and fly with the "Normal" damage model. He's up to 16.75 hours and 11 confirmed victories, flying N11's with the LafEsc over Verdun in May 1916. I'm not sure what you consider a "trick", but I'll admit that early in his career I warped a lot, used TAC on 2-mile radius to "sight" enemies, then turned TAC off but used labels in dogfights. Admitedly, my LafEsc pilot has an advantage flying the N11 against the Fokker EIII, which is the only single-seater the Germans have in May 1916. But recently I've begun flying with no in-game aids. I use TrackIR, and I now live in the cockpit always, I've disabled in-game messages, and I never use TAC, labels, the "Z" key, or warp. I guess that's what Siggi calls full DiD. Without labels I find it very hard to keep track of planes in a dogfight, and without TAC or labels I find it much harder to spot aircraft formations in the air. But I'm keeping my pilot alive so far by resisting the kind of "hunting fever" you describe. I always fly as flight leader, and my role now is to get home alive, and get as many of my flight members home alive as well. If I can accomplish the assigned mission while doing this, fine, but keeping myself & my wingmates alive comes first, mission comes second. As others have mentioned, I'm much more cautious in full DiD mode, and even more so with any pilot who has survived long enough to accumulate significant flight hours.

Yes, thanks Homeboy, a big LE S! from me :yes: .

I love the Nupes, too . For the past several weeks I've been flying either N11's with the LafEsc in May 1916, or N17's with the Storks in the summer of 1916. The Nupes are a pilot's dream, turn on a dime and no real vices. AI-flown Eindekkers are no match for them. Rick, have you or anyone else noticed that the N11's wing-top Lewis seems to pack a harder punch than the N17's cowl-mounted Vickers? Has any Nupe pilot tried an RFC/RNAS campaign with the N17b and its wing-mounted Lewis?

My stick is also Logitech, a Force 3D Pro. I use TrackIR, and like Rickity I've have had no problems whatever with my Logitech stick, it works great for me.

Not sure if I should ask here, or in the modding subsection of the forum, but here goes. It's my understanding that in campaign mode, the game code "chooses" names for the active pilot's AI squadron mates by randomly selecting a "FirstName" and a "LastName" of the appropriate nationality from the files in the "CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields/CampaignData" folder, e.g. "FranceFirstNames" & "FranceLastNames" for French AI pilot names. Now the name files for British and German pilots are very "rich" in terms of choice. The Brits have 134 first names and 456 last names for the game to use in constructing pilot names, the Germans have 90/150 respectively. But for French pilots, there are only 20 first names and 13 last names. I like to fly a lot as a French pilot, and I find my AI wingies names too repetitive for my taste. I recall that back on the old SimOH boards, I remember an OFF pilot from France who constructed a more extensive set of name files for French pilots, but I can't find that thread now. Also, one of my favorite campaigns is to fly with the LafEsc :yes: . But since the LafEsc is "technically" a French squadron, names are chosen from the French lists, meaning that AI LafEsc pilots do not have American names, something which sadly affects my immersion factor. Given the above, my questions are: 1) Does anyone have more extensive FirstNames/LastNames files for French pilots? 2) Can I just create my own "FranceFirstNames" & "FranceLastNames" files (with perhaps American names for LafEsc campaigns), put them in the CampaignData folder, and use them instead of the vanilla files? 3) Does the campaign game "name" any AI pilots outside of the active pilot's chosen squad? 4) Is there a way to have the game pick "complete" AI pilot names, rather than "construct" them from the FirstNames/LastNames files? I'd like to be able to fly with specifically-named AI squadmates, e.g., (for Falcons of France fans :yes: ) Charles Selden, Gordon Forbes and Tommy Slater in LafEsc campaigns, and I'm wondering if there's a way to "force" complete names for AI pilots. Any help or advice on this admittedly quirky immersion issue would be much appreciated, and thanks to the OFF BHAH team for a great sim!

Thanks, Royce, that'll do the trick .

At Rhinebeck in '99, many RB flyers showed up, and I met Beery there, among many others. It turned out he lived near me in Boston, so he & I became friends and he got involved in miniatures wargaming with my Boston crowd. But he moved away from the Boston area, about 5 or 6 years ago I think, and I've since lost track of him. The old LafEsc squad still exists, and has an online forum where a number of the old hands still hang out; SilverStorm, who was at Rhinebeck '99, is the C/O now, and they still play RB in MP. I dropped into the board when I first got OFF and tried to drum up interest. Here's a link to their board, if any of you want to drop in and give a friendly S! http://www.le.ezhost.nu//cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl For all of you who've mentioned that you were at Tim's (Albert's) memorial flyby, I'd like to repeat again, nearly 10 years later, how grateful & awed I was at the response back then from Tim's fellow WW1 flyers. Tim was a good friend of mine, we went bowling once a month for years, and he played miniatures games with me & my group as well, I still miss him. His wife Sarah, his mother & sister were deeply moved by the flyby. Thanks again to all who participated.

I remember you, too Homeboy :yes: . I remember you from posts on the old club board.. Say hi to Gil for me. I realized, after my first post, that the Rhinebeck thing was in the summer of 1999, not 1998. Tim's (Albert's) memorial flyby was quite a moving thing, wasn't it? Tim's wife Sarah, his mother and his sister were at my house the night it happened, watching on my PC. I'll never forget it. Attached is a pic of the LafEsc members at Rhinebeck that summer (note we have our teeshirts on). Front row: Tim (Albert), Photo, ? from Chicago. Back Row: Spinny, Byron Angel, me (straw hat), Budman (Gil), SilverStorm. Byron was an "honorary" LafEsc member then. He posts on many boards these days as "Blutarski".

Homeboy, I flew with the LafEsc in the old days too :yes: . I was recruited by Uriel in late '98, and flew as LE_Mac for a year with the squad, until my good friend Tim Brown (LE_Albert) died, when I kinda lost heart for it. Tim & I were at Rhinebeck in the summer of '98 with 5 other LE (Photo, Spinny, Budman, SilverStorm, and the ex-paratrooper from Chicago whose moniker I've forgotten ). That was the year that many Red Baron flyers from all over the country showed up at Rhinebeck for the first time as a group. I still have my teeshirt as well, also well-worn. Budman had them made up for us for that first Rhinebeck Red Baron "reunion".

File Name: Recon Map Swatch File Submitter: Interlocutor File Submitted: 14 Mar 2009 File Category: Maps, Missions, and Campaigns A swatch of "photo recon mapping" from Droglandt airfield north to the sea, as a jpeg file, with labeled landmarks. Click here to download this file

Hi Waldemar, I tried that as well :yes: . I enlisted a pilot in the RFC, more than one by the time I was through actually, given that some met untimely ends at the hands of German airmen . My "recon pilot" joined a BE2c squadron, and tried to run missions in-game, "photographing the front". But it became very difficult. First he had to leave whatever mission his aircraft was assigned & "fly his own mission", which meant he had no wingmates for support. Second, it took forever to climb the BE2c up to even 10,000 feet, and it couldn't go much higher. I switched to RE8's, which could at least get up to 15000 feet. But when Germans came calling, as did happen, the mission became a bust. I would have to stop taking "photos" (downward screenshots with momentarily invisible cockpit) to try and fend off the attackers, and frankly, I'm no good as an observer/gunner .

At Cptroyce's request I've uploaded a zip file to the forum "Downloads" section, in the OFF BHAH "Maps, etc" subsection. The file has a jpeg version of one of my "photo recon screenshots" maps, a "swatch" taken from Droglandt airfield in Flanders and running north to the North Sea. I've added some labels to the file using Paint, to show what might be done. The file is a 25% reduction of the original pasted together map, and it comprises sections of about a dozen screenshots. If I can figure out a way to reliably get my "recon aircraft" to fly the same course heading & altitude from "mission" to "mission", I could map the whole front this way...

A month ago I began a project to make an in-game map by actually doing "photo-recon" while in-game. After some trial and error, I was able to produce pretty good "swatches" of in-game maps, using the following method: 1) Start a "Free Flight" in Quick Combat, with a starting height of 15,000 feet (the maximum allowed). 2) Head the aircraft due north from its starting position (compass heading 0.00 with "Z" display on). 3) Holding the aircraft steady at 15,000 feet on course 0.00, set the autopilot. 4) With the aircraft flying on autopilot at 15,000/0.00, set an external view directly above it, and "zoom out" to the max. 5) Begin snapping screenshots of the terrain below, such that they overlap slightly; continue this until you reach some convenient stopping point. 6) Exit the game, and use some image editing tool (I used Paint) to cut-and-paste the images together, giving a long "swatch" covering the flight path of the recon aircraft. 7) Add labels (again I used Paint) to key terrain features such as airfields, railyards, towns, rivers, roads, etc. 8) Photo-reduce the map to 25% and save as jpeg, to make it manageable in scale ande file size. By repeating this process for additional north-south swatches, then cutting-pasting them together as well, I thought I could produce an actual in-game "map" of our real terrain, thus freeing myself from the crummy "M"-key map. But the problem I encountered was that I could never get the recon aircraft to consistently fly a true 0.00 degree course from mission to mission (swatch to swatch), nor get it to hold a true 15,000 feet altitude, before I set the autopilot. This though each swatch is internally consistent, and easy to cut-and-paste together, matching parallel north-south swatches was a real problem. So for now at least I've abandoned the effort. If anyone is interested I can post one of my completed swatch files to look at.