77Scout

Yep, I fly a two-seater campaign occasionally just for a change and a challenge. Currently flying a Roland CII campaign to try and have something to post on Siggi's DiD killboard. Nothing like doing things the hard way. :black eye:

People ask about FreeTrack all the time, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone say they were up and running with it. I never tried myself so can't say what the difficulties might be.

The csf3.exe might come into it if, as euphemistically mentioned above, he has illegally bypassed the need to have the CD in the drive (has been known to happen), or maybe if something was way messed up with the install (not likely). p.s. I know there was a rule back at SOH not to mention 'crack'...is that the case here too or can we speak plainly? Just wondering why we are all beating around the bush in discussing this.

I have seen Polovski post about the difficulties getting the FMs tuned correctly so it works for both the player and the AI, which I alsways interpreted (perhaps wrongly) as there is only one FM used by both. However, I too have begun to suspect that maybe the AI us a different FM than the player, or has some other physics boosts, as Scott has mentioned above. Just wondering which is the true state of affairs, if someone in the know can shed a bit of light.

The zoom is not persistant unfortunately. (It can be done but you have to edit the correct 'viewui' file.) Pretty easy to just hit the '[' key once or twice at the start of each flight. Two clicks is fully zoomed.

Prior to the summer of 1916 there should be no Halb DIIs or Alb D2s showing up, as correctly stated. Perhaps I am missing some point of logic, but why use planes from other time periods of the war as stand-ins when there are correct-period craft available for the job. The EIII is available to cover that time period in the game. Why not just use the EIII as the default stand-in for any fighters that are not modelled (like the Fokker D2, EIV etc.).

There was along post back on the SOH Forum about flying the Eindecker. If you loose roll control (stuck in a side bank) the trick is to slow down and roll control will return. The roll-lock simulates increased resistance wing warping with high air speed over the wing perhaps? Also turn with heavy use of the rudder. Still not easy but I have been able to turn-fight with a Nieuport 11 and survive. Regarding numbers of aircraft... The Fokker Scourge lasted from mid 1915 to mid 1916. During that period the main advantage of the Eindecker should be their numbers and their firepower. The Entente had some good planes like the N11 but they should generally show up in small numbers and of course carry little ammo. After July/August 1916 the scourge is basically over and flying an Eindecker should become increasingly hazardous due to increasing numbers of FE2b and DH2 pushers and the N17 arriving. In the fall of 1916 the Spad 7s, Pups arrive and the Fokker pilots are pretty well decimated until the Albatroses arive to save them. I believe OFF is supposed to model the ebb and flow of firepower by tweaking sizes of flights and number of flights for the combatants, but I have no specific information on how it works.

Pretty sure it was 1.26. Just to be sure I just re-flew the Tripe just now in QC with 1.26 Hotfix. Flies good for me, no jitters, no stalling. Climbs easily. Turns rapidly. Loops easily. Can even do a barrel roll (which I couldn't in earlier versions). It does require some forward stick to fly level (tail heavy, yes), but that seems correct, as I believe I saw quoted once by a Tripe pilot that 'hands off' the plane would loop continuously. Funny that folks are seeing different things with the same bird.

For what its worth, I just had a campaign in the Tripe and had none of these problems. Easy to fly and easy to align gun sight using Trackir.

Real pilots didn't have the luxury of an electronic mission replay and had to make reports and claims from what they saw in-flight. I think the way it is done now in the game models this quite well.

Tried it. Setting main guns to 'hard' surely does make hitting targets much harder. The tracers seem to fly off at about 10 to 15 degrees from the centre-line of the gun so quite a wild bullet scatter. I guess the AI will have the same problem so will only hit you from short range (no sniping), which could be a good effect. Still undecided....

Ahh, OK!! I had previously had it in my head that 'virtual cockpit fog' was the whiteout effect in a cloud and the 'in cloud effect' was the turbulence. Glad have this straightened out. (p.s. If 'in cloud effect' is the fog, then do we know what 'vitual cockpit fog' does?)

Should be fun. Starting a new V1.26 pilot to have a go. My only small quibble would be 'in cloud effect', which has been almost universally recommended to be turned off for realism. (Although rumour has it the setting may not even be functional). If I set 'main guns' to 'hard' (Realism score 130%) is that a disqualifier?

Thanks Pol...I get it now. Basically same as before; hard means wide spread for both me and the AI (the hover-over text box doesn't really explain that). Hmmm...I am going with 'hard' on both main and rear guns then, as each gives a 10% bonus on the realism score :yes:

I am a bit confused (like usual, ha ha). What does the hard/easy actually mean in terms of the effect in the game. For example, 'Harder' to me means my guns are weaker and less accurate, or else the AI guns are stronger and more accurate, yet the setting affects my guns and the AI guns equally??

Seven kills in one mission is a extremely unrealistic result...not something most of us would consider a 'good thing'. Maybe indicates a problem of some kind...too many planes simply spinning and crashing?? Hopefully it is just a fluke.

From the FAQ... Q. OK but what if I already have Phase 2 installed do I need to uninstall it? A. It depends. The OFF BH&H installer can take care of that for you if you do not want to change paths or settings, AND have enough space there (15GB) however, When upgrading Phase 2, BH&H may cause a problem with being unable to choose a different drive/location to install to see Q21 (Misc Questions). If you have other issues it's possible some remnants of P2 are around so a clean manual remove and install is required. So installing over P2 is fine and it is not known to cause problems, which was the question asked. P2 does need to be removed if you want to change the install location, or if problems arise and you want a totally fresh install (rare).

Looks good Siggi. I will report to the killboard if I ever survive long enough make it worthwhile (which is rare for me). I like the use of the annotations to indicate use of TAC, labels and warp.

1. Best to use the A key to be sure your wingmen attack. 2. No need to assign a dogfight target, the wingmen are smart enough to know what to do. 3. Nor sure...I would like to know this also. 4. 'Pilot never dies' simply means that the OFF Manger will undo the death that you just experienced flying in CSF3. If you don't want to die in CSF3, then you need invincibility turned on.

The [ and ] keys will zoom out and in. Zooming in will increase your FPS but will also greatly reduce your field of view. I zoom fully out so I can see a broader view of the world around me, but have a big monitor and a semi-fast machine to keep the FPS up regardless. Hope you can find a happy compromise.

You can install right over P2 if desired. No problems.

Thanks!! Just got it. Great list of improvements in this one.

1. AFAIK, the death and injury of squadmates is random (as you say, essentially a dice roll) within the OFF Manager. There is no connection to actual events during your flight in CSF3. Maybe some day. 2. Winder has posted that CSF3 AI are programmed to mimic human behavior. This includes picking an alternate target if the main target is heavily defended, or sometimes attacking the wrong target ( basically getting lost). I see this as a very realistic aspect of the game. Real pilots did not have a magic-waypint-line to follow...just think, if you weren't using the TAC for help would you have been able to find the target on your own?

Nice new diggs Glad to be here.