77Scout

Beautiful work Sandbagger. Thanks for whetting our appetites :)

The warnings usually are informational only, and more an annoyance than anything serious. I believe the 'out of the box' OFF install has a workshop setting to turn off warnings, but that button seems to have disappeared in one of the patches (or I've gone blind). Maybe someone else can add more insight. Yes, you can hit the pilot; gunners too I am pretty sure. Sometimes you will hear them groan/scream when hit.

BUB is correct. The instuctions for installing OFF are shown on the case and could not be simpler...put the OFF disc in the drive and let it install. Nowhere do the instructions say you must to pre-install CSF3 (although it works fine if you have). The OFF leads you through all steps of the process.

I have no proof, but suspect the best results will come from typing a two-word response for the witness like "ground troops", as the system is expecting a first-name last-name response.

When I run a review of a campaign mission, there are typically many many planes showing as destroyed; way more than I would expect anyway. My last flight had what I estimate to be close to 100 planes that were destroyed, which is the worst I have ever seen. . The review was just... Triplane destroyed, Albatros destroyed, RE8 destroyed...one after the other in rapid succession, on and on. I'll attach a picture from the review phase that shows all the destroyed planes within about the first 15 minutes of my mission, to show what is happening. Any idea what is happening here? I know some of these are AA kills, as I saw one of the destroyed planes get hit right beside me, but they can't all be AA hits can they? Must be hoards of planes just flying into ground? Anyone else seeing this? As a note, I have air activity on 'Heavy' which will contribute to lots of planes in the air, but just wonder why they are all being destroyed?

A final report. I switched to 'moderate' air activity and ran another four 10 minute trials. Averaged 14 planes destroyed (specifically 17, 13, 10, and 15), using 'normal' flak, so it doesn't seem to make much difference from using 'heavy' air activity. Oh, and the three SPADs that crash like clockwork at the 8 minute point aren't landing or taking off, they crash in German territory with no enemies around so that is some weird 'let's fly into the ground' thing, or some uncanny repeatable triple flak kill. I'll leave it there. Interesting but nothing too definative.

Very interested to know what system you have (CPU and vid-card) that will enable no white triangles. My E8400 with 8800GTX doesn't cut it in that department. Or is it the new drivers that make it so?

OK, just for fun and experimentation I ran one mission four times over. I didn't fly the plane but just sat on the runway for 10 minutes (so as not to affect results by my own actions) then exited and reviewed what happened. I ran it two times with 'normal' flak and two times with 'easy' flak. I stayed with 'heavy' air activity to hopefully get lots of crashing data to assess. On 'normal flak' there were 15 planes and 14 planes destroyed within 10 minutes each test, while on 'easy flak' there were 11 planes and 11 planes destroyed in 10 minutes each test. Some events happened exactly the same each of the four times. For example three SPADs crashed in rapid succession at 8 minutes every time. I am guessing these are takeoff or landing crashes (as Bullethead mentioned). Other plane crash events were never universally repeated from mission to mission, but did show some roughly similar patterns of crashes, but varying in details of plane type or timing. So... My not-terribly scientific conclusion is that of the planes being destroyed: about 25% are takeoff and landing crashes (a known issue) about 25% are flak hits when using the new 'normal' flak setting versus the old 'easy' flak (maybe a tad too deadly? Up for debate), and about 50% are some other cause like either being shot down in combat or perhaps just crashing due to some bad AI flying (like the occasional stall and fall back into the ground we sometimes see in low dogfights?). Anyway, basically it shows it probably isn't any one thing, but several things all conspiring, that gives this relatively high rate of craft destroyed in the game. Don't know if any of this is helpful, but hopefully it is of some use. I might try 'moderate' air activity now to see if the percentage of AI crashing is reduced with less planes in the air.

Thanks Olham for filling me in on the reporting. I wondered about that. Does it report bullet hits for Flight 1 too, or just my flight? Yep, I do understand how switching to medium will lower the number of destoyed planes...simple mathematics. But still, there just seems to be some kind of a glitch in the system if about one-third to one-half of the the planes flying in a theatre are destroyed within 15 minutes. Didn't the allies lose no more than a couple hundred planes in a whole month even in Bloody April times? So seeing 20 plus planes destroyed most every time you fly an hour mission seems like an indicator that something unusual is causing an excessive number of deaths. Anyway, Phase 3 is done and works very well so not expecting anything to be 'fixed'. Just reporting what I am seeing in case the info is of some use to the team during future development. Hmmm...I suppose I could test if super-sniper-AA is killing all these planes, by doing a 'refly last mission' but selecting 'easy AA' on the refly. Think I might try that and report back.

Thanks guys. Sliders are close to maxed out at 55455, with good frame rates, so unfortunately no luck there. If planes are shooting each other down wouldn't this show up in the review? (this plane shot that plane at such and such range etc) Hmmm...maybe not if it happens far enough away from me? Anyway, 100 planes shooting each other down in 15 minutes over such a wide area just seems very improbable to me. My gut feeling is that most are crashing, but I really don't have anything solid to back that up. The campaign mission still plays well and I do still meet other aircraft (so not all planes are crashing by a long shot), so not a big deal. And yes, maybe 'heavy' is overworking something in the system, so I might try scaling back.

That explains it well...thanks Pol. I was thinking the setting effected volume of flak only, so this is very helpful to know.

Olham: No I wouldn't try this with you...instant death, hah hah! The BE2c only works on rookie AI pilots if and when I can find them flying alone. Bullethead: I didn't know about the observer's head-tracking. Thanks! Might keep me alive longer.

Excellent video Hellshade. Really shows how good OFF is. Good flying and shooting too!!

BE2c_vs_Albatros.wmv Wheee...got another one! Screw 17 hours, I am going for world's first BE2c ace :) I will try to attach a video.

Nuts, I knew someone would ask for a picture . Next time I will have FRAPS running! I would have loved to post a photo. In a BE2c you have to shoot the enemy yourself with the 'side of the cockpit' mounted Lewis gun. There is no gunner...just an observer in the front cockpit. His head blocks your aim, so he isn't much help. Hopefully he backs up my claim (I was separated from my flight so under witness I put 'my observer' :)

Yah, great fun. For a challenge, I also started a BE2c campaign recently (full DiD). Only gone about 3 hours so far in Bloody April 1917, so I have a long way to go to catch up to you Carrick. Wow, it is definately a different mind-set, wanting to NOT see any enemy aircraft. Last mission I looked behind and saw an Albatros sneaking up on my tail near Lens, which scared the crap out of me (I don't use TAC etc so thankfully this realistic experience was not spoiled). The amazing thing is I actually got on the DIII's tail while trying to turn sharply away, and shot him down with my BE2c. What a rush. Now that my pilot thinks he is hot stuff, I will no doubt get him killed in short order. Must remember...run away...run away...

I voted 'no'. It is just a number that tells me how close I am to full realism. It is not a reflection of how much fun a person is having or a measure of how much of a man anyone is...sheesh. Are people seriously not enjoying the game because of a number??

Maybe...the 'Review Mission' buttons have been there all along. Available on campaign screen and QC screen at the bottom.

The deaths and injuries in your squadron are randomly generated by the OFF Manager and have no connection to what happened in your last flight in CSF3. If the team can figure out how to get CSF3 to report back on who died (and they may have already, I don't know) then I would bet we will see see an attempt at making this work in Phase 4.

Enough for me. My only minor suggestion is someday change the name from "AI Gun Fire (Range)" to "AA Gun Fire", cause right now it sounds like it controls the AI plane gunnery if you don't know any better.

Hi Olham: So the TrackIR 5 software is noticeably better? Curious what you think about version 5 vs version 4. I had though I would just stay with version 4 (not broken, don't fix) but maybe I need to reconsider. Has the new version reduced the 'blue triangles' on rapid head movement at all? Thanks for any info.

Yes, you guys ARE nuts...but in a very good way. Thanks!!

Maybe you were the only smarties who knew about CNTR-Q. I never heard of it till now. Did not know there was any way to exit except thru the 'esc' menu.

The 'WW1 World Initializing' screen can be a while (particularly on an old computer)...how long did you wait? I think the OFF Manager goes to 'sleep' when passing contol over to CSF3 for the flight, so often shows as 'not responding' even when all is working fine.

Thanks for the update Winder. Yep, it makes good sense to move on now to Phase 4 and leave us all to play with Phase 3. To me Phase 3 is more than complete and is a well polishing piece of work that the developers should be very proud of. I will be patiently standing in line for Phase 4 if and when it should come along. I really hope the team members get to enjoy some free time prior to diving into any new stuff...well deserved. I have never understood how the team can do all they do and still maintain a real life and family.