Interlocutor

This is my first post since spring of 2009. I've been away from the game since then, and I'm just trying to get it all running again on a rebuilt system. Everything is working fine, latest BHAH patch applied, etc. But for some reason, I can't get the game to "recognize" my joystick's own profile software. Is it possible that with the latest "superpatch" I can only program my joystick from within the game? I'd rather set up my joystick with its own software profile, but BHAH doesn't seem to recognize the joystick's own software "profile". I've got a Logitech Force 3D Pro. Back in the spring of '09, when last I flew, I used the "Logitech Profiler" to program my joystick, and it worked fine with the game. Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks, Lou, the "global profile" setting did the trick. I've got the profiler working again. Many thanks!

Thanks, Lou, that might help, I'll check it out. Which executable do you point your global profile at?

Thanks, uncleal, for "hanging on by the bushy tail" on the "F12 to the joystick" issue with me :wink2: . Back in the early days of OFF3, when I visited this forum often, I learned to respect the efforts you made to help other players. And though your responses are sometimes blunt to the point of incivility, I can understand where that comes from, having to repeat the same advice over and over. So thanks again. I re-read the old Tips & Cheats item you mentioned carefully, applied the suggested solution, and now have F12 on my joystick. But allow me to mention a couple of things. First, the solution suggested in Tips & Cheats was not mine, only the "How do I get F12 onto my joystick" question was mine. The answer came from someone else. Also, I never applied that solution back in the day, because I programmed my joystick using the Logitech Profiler software back then, and the Profiler allowed direct assignment of F12. Unlike you, I did use, and prefered to use, the Logitech software. It worked great for me with OFF3 back then, and I would prefer to use it now (I like having 8 programmable positions on the POV hat), but cannot. Which leads me back to the main question I keep asking, for Polovski and/or any of the other developers: is it some change made to OFF3, via the superpatch or in some other way, which prevents the Logitech Profiler software from interacting properly with OFF3? If so, then then I'll settle for "one assignment to the POV hat within OFF3" and get on with playing the game again. I'm just holding out the hope that someone can tell me how to get the Profiler software to work for me within OFF3 again.

Hmmm. From the above responses, it seems that there's now no way to put the TIR "Center View" action (F12 in vanilla TIR4) onto a joystick button? That's interesting. When I last played OFF, back in the spring of 2009 (and thus before the superpatch), I programmed my stick via the Logitech Profiler software, and OFF took it just fine. I was able to put any keystroke I wanted onto my stick, and was able to use all 8 ordinal points on my POV hat if I wanted. Mine is an XP SP3 system, BTW. So I would guess that the "program your joystick from within the game" changes that were included with the superpatch now prevent the game from recognizing the Logitech Profiler settings? I keep hanging on about this because I've lost a significant percentage of my joystick capability, and I'm wondering if there's any way to retrieve it.

Thanks Polovski. I guess I'll just have to get used to setting my stick in-game. I'd be okay with that, but for two things: First, I can't figure out how to assign the TrackIR "Center View" command (F12 key in my TIR4 setup) to a joystick button "in game". Second, I'd like to be able to use all 8 of the POV hat "points of direction", or at least 4 of them, to assign OFF keystrokes. But doing that "in game", I can only seem to assign one OFF command to the POV hat. Any further suggestions would be appreciated, and thanks in advance!

Sopwith built only about 150 Tripes. It was originally ordered by both the RFC and the RNAS, but the 60 aircraft ordered for the RFC were exchanged by that service in February 1917, before delivery, for 60 Spads ordered for the RNAS. Thus the tripe was flown only by naval squadrons. Naval One was the first squadron to fly the Tripe in action, in April 1917, though it began "working up" with the aircraft at rear airfields somewhat before that. According to both German and British sources, it completely outclassed the Alb D-III as a flying machine, being able to outclimb and outturn the German aircraft, and it was 15 mph faster as well! Naval Eight and Naval Ten re-equipped with the Tripe in April and May of 1917, respectively. Due to procurement and production issues, no further Tripes were ordered after the initial run. Spares became hard to get in the summer of 1917, and the aircraft in service began to wear out. By November 1917, the last Tripes had been replaced by Camels. The first Fokker Dr-Is came into service in August and September, 1917. Werner Voss got his Dr-I on August 28, MvR got his on September 1st, so the Tripe was concurrent with the Dr-I for a brief time. Interestingly, only six (6) Tripes were ever equipped with twin Vickers, all others had only one gun.

If you use the TAC, you can "cycle through" TAC settings until the TAC shows only aircraft. Then the "next target" command switches from a/c to a/c, ignoring other target types. The specific target selected does have a bearing on wingman commands, if you are flying as flight leader. If you fly without TAC, just keep your eyes peeled and your guns ready ...

Not alone, I always saw them in threes, as I recall.

When I flew my summer 1916 campaigns with my Storks pilot(s) using TAC, I used to see two-seaters on about a quarter to a third of my missions. Never saw them again, though, once I stopped using TAC.

Well, I haven't tried MP yet, but I'd assume, if you're flying in vee formation, that the leader would do the looking around for enemies, while the wingies would have their hands full just keeping formation . IIRC, by early in WW2 the Germans, having had more combat experience, had abandoned tight formation flying in favor of the loose "finger four", and after the BOB starte the RAF soon gave up the vic as well. Perhaps you MP types should invent the finger four early ...

Pol, is the addition of additional 2-seater missions to the campaign mode something we players can do as "mods", or is it something you folks have to do? A vibrant modding community often helps a game increase sales ... Fair enough, thanks for the answer. Pol, for my part I hope you understand that my comments about things like AI sight range and density of 2-seaters on missions are not made to aggravate you or to speak poorly of the wonderful sim you have built. Quite the opposite. In fact, it eeems to me that the types of "constructive criticism" you have been getting over the last month or so about various aspects of the sim speaks to the dedication and diligence which you and the development team have exhibited in trying to make BHAH the very best WW1 flying sim it can be. Your efforts in fixing the few real "bugs" and in addressing various players' "points of view" about how things "should be" have been exceptional. In my case at least, I've come to look on the BHAH dev team as "wonder workers" who will do anything within the limits of the CFS3 engine itself to engineer a truly immersive WW1 flying experience. Thanks for what you've done so far, and for answering my questions about what more will and will not be done. And I've never stopped playing the sim .

Thanks, Winder. I'll buy whatever you offer .

Thanks, BH, if your description of the way missions are built is the correct one, then I'd agree that the conclusions you draw are valid. Sometimes, though, the innate mechanic in me wants to understand "how it works", why the things that happen to us happen that way. I freely admit that I don't know how PC sims are constructed, and though I was a software engineer in a previous lifetime , that was in the days when VAX/VMS was hot stuff , so my prior experience isn't very informative. But I would love to hear a brief description of how the innards of campaign missions are put together from the devs themselves, even if it's just "BH got it right in his suppositions"...

Hmmm. Well, since my chest isn't very hairy , I regret it if I've given any impression that I think flying without TAC or labels is in any way better than any other way of playing the game. It's just the way I like to fly myself now (that could change someday I'm sure), so I've been making comments & asking questions about how my own prefered way to fly could be made better for me. Please take all my comments in that light. Others should play as they like, no better or worse at all, just different. I've got a question now, given BH's last observations, about how the game engine "constructs" the environment we fly in before each mission. As a preamble, I'll say that I flew many campaigns (i.e., got killed lots ) with the Storks in N17's in July 1916 with TAC & labels & warp before I stopped using these features. My pilots used to see German two-seaters a lot, usually 3 Roland C2's in a formation well behind Allied lines. Now I've been assuming that when a campaign mission is "constructed" for us by the game, that there's some coding whereby the game "pulls together" different stock "mission templates" for different German & Allied squadrons and off we all go. So how hard would it be to mod the game to generate more 2-seater flights for both sides, particularly solo 2-seater formations, and populate our skies with more such targets. Regardless of whether one chooses to fly with our without various features such as TAC/labels/warp, having more 2-seaters around would make it more real, it seems to me.

I agree with what BH said above about the murderous intent of AI pilots , and about the effect that has on the lifespans of our own pilots. But I also think there's yet another factor in the short careers of our DiD pilots at least, also raised by BH I think in another thread, and that's the "edge" the enemy AI aircraft have in terms of sighting and detection. I've flown about 50 DiD missions now, TAC-less & label-less, using 7 pilots; one of the 7 got up to 25 missions/15.45 hours). These 7 DiD campaigns include 2 in 1916 (including the 25-mission guy) and 5 in 1917, all Allied. Five of those 7 pilots are dead, two still flying. Of the five dead, one was killed in a collision with a fellow squaddie (the 25 mission guy), the others have all been shot down by enemy a/c. Now in all of those missions, I have yet to see an enemy 2-seater. I have never succeeded in surprising an enemy formation. In those missions where I have encountered enemy single-seaters, they have always had an advantage of altitude or numbers, and often both. I'd been musing on that when BH made a post in another thread, suggesting that enemy aircraft must always have their TACs and labels turned on, and TACs with a full 8-mile radius at that. If this is indeed true (devs?), then naturally the AI flight leaders will choose to avoid combat when at a disadvantage. This would explain why I've never seen enemy 2-seaters; they must be programmed to turn away when first sighting single-seaters at 8 miles out. It would help explain why my summer 1916 N17 French Storks pilot, he of the 25 missions, only saw German single seaters on about 6 of his missions; Fokker EIII's, his only possible German single seater opponent, may often have seen themselves at a disadvantage against N17's and thus avoided combat (or they may have simply been unable to keep up with or climb up to the N17's). So DiD pilots who fly without TAC & labels will almost always be caught at a disadvantage by enemy aircraft, if BH is right about the way the AI is "programmed" to choose its fights. At least, at a disadvantage as perceived by the AI's programming. All of us have read accounts of real WW1 pilots in which they describe how they surprised enemy aircraft unawares? Also, many WW1 aces ran up their scores against enemy 2-seaters; how many of our TAC-less/label-less DiD flyers have ever seen an enemy 2-seater in the air? I love the game, I love its immersiveness, it's been effectively the only game I've played since it came out, and that for 2 or more hours each day. And I can't see that changing anytime soon. But I would be very pleased if, for those of us who like to fly without TAC & labels, Pol/Winder would consider, if it is possible, reducing the effective visibility range for enemy AI pilots to 2 miles or less, to put them on an even footing with us mere mortals :yes: . Now I also agree with what Pol & Winder have been saying about how we human pilots are not as careful with our lives are real-life pilots would have been. But we never seem to get the chance to "pounce", unseen, on an enemy formation when we fly TAC-less & label-less either, so easy kills cannot be had. And I can submit that as a DiD pilot I try to be very careful with my pilots lives, but even then, with a couple hundred cumulative flight hours now, I can't imagine accumulating several hundred in-game hours with one pilot without getting killed, let alone flying throughout the war safely. I guess the question, for me at least, is therre any way to change the AI so that it doesn't always see you far enough away to avoid fighting when you have the advantage of numbers or height?

Since starting to fly DiD, my longest-lived pilot got to 25 missions/15.45 hours before dying in a collision with a fellow squaddie . I just now lost another campaign DiD pilot on his 5th mission in Tripes over Ypres in Bloody April, shot down by a flock of Albatri. I suspect that 5 or 6 hours is my average for 1917+ campaigns, but I think that flying N17's in the summer of 1916, with only EIII's for single-seat opponents, one could log some impressive hours if you could avoid collisions.

Winston, how did you order your wingmen to attack the AA guns? I didn't know you could do that.

Thanks for the tip, Duck. But my current setup works well for me, and I'm a great believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Campaign only, though I do "test fly" new aircraft in QC to make sure I can at least take off and land ...

Yes, I love the twin Vickers Tripe, too. But one of my WW1 aviation sources tells me that only 6 were ever built , so I feel a little reluctant to start a campaign in that plane, because I'd surely be the cause of losing 1/6th of all the aircraft ever built ...

Agreed, Pol :yes: . It's one thing to be sitting on the ground, stationary, looking up at the sky for specks. I suspect it would be quite a different story, sitting in an open cockpit biplane, vibrating with the power of the engine, buffeted about by the wind, peering through a none-too-finely manufactured windscreen coated with a film of oil, through goggles covered with the same, looking for specks. And particularly against the backdrop of the ground. Since my earlier post in this thread I checked out Bletchley's link to a thread in the Aerodrome forum. There's a quote from Raymond Collishaw, the RNAS Tripe ace, which is worth repeating here I think: "At that time, we had some excellent pilots in No. 10 Naval Squadron. A series of tests were made over the aerodrome: several teams of two Sopwith triplanes each were to take part. In each team, both aircraft were to go to 18,000 feet. One aircraft was to remain there and take notes of what he could see and the other aircraft was to fall out of control to the gound. These experiments were repeated at 18,000 feet, 10,000 feet and 5,000 feet. The general result was that the observer pilot above had great difficulty in seeing a small 1917-type fighter when 5,000 feet above it and he could certainly not see it in suffiecient detail to know what was happening to it. Incidentally, in the test conducted at 18,000 feet all experiments indicated that the observer lost the descending triplane at 12,000 feet. These tests showed there was much ignorance amongst pilots as to what could be seen below from various heights." I've been flying BHAH for a month now without TAC & labels, and for me at least, 5,000 feet or so is the limit at which I can spot an aircraft below me against ground clutter. And that's if I have the leisure to just look down while I'm flying level. If I'm maneuvering briskly in a fight, I'm sure it's much less than that. I agree that I'd be curious to see what the game would be like, TAC-less and label-less, if the AI also labored under such constraints. But for those who do fly with TAC and believe that setting it to 4 miles radius better simulates the reality of spotting aircraft in the real world, well, maybe an argument can be made that it does so for aircraft seen against the backdrop of the sky. But the TAC will also show you, when set at 4 miles radius, any aircraft as far away as 20,000+ feet straight below you, and I submit that is an absurdity . Given this, it seems to me that using the TAC set at 2 miles radius would be a potential compromise with reality; if looking down you should only be able to see a WW1 pursuit aircraft at 5,000 feet in reality, but looking against the sky perhaps out to 15,000 or 20,000 (3 or 4 miles), then setting it to 2 miles (10,000 feet for the sake of argument) is arguably reasonable I suppose. But for my part I prefer to forgo the TAC & labels entirely, and just assume that the mile to two miles at which I can see "specks" in the game, coupled with the "zoom" feature to simulate focus and/or binoculars, is an adequate simulation of reality given castor oil & whatnot :yes: . I don't think TAC/labels are in any way "cheats", I just like the game better without them.

It seems to me that there would be, in real life, a big difference between what one might see against the backdrop of the sky, versus what one might see against a backdrop of ground clutter. Radar (the TAC) takes no account of that. Simply put, I suspect the assertion that a typical pilot (decent eyesight) could see and even identify an aircraft out to 3 or 4 miles is overly optimistic.

I agree, I feel that the "Pilot Attrition Rate" (PAR? ) from "Realistic" AI Gun Fire (Range) was, err, unrealistic. But I suppose it's a matter of opinion. BTW, I use "Main Guns = Hard" instead of "Normal", and got that 10% back; my guys thus have 110%.

I hear you, Siggi, and tend to agree :yes: . Note that I said "miss a lot of advantageous encounters" (emphasis added). Anything at all disadvantageous, and I'd just as soon miss it...