Creaghorn

uncleal is your father in law??? didn't know that . sorry, it was very inviting...

i like it because the lords birth (although historically wrong date) is celebrated. but if you mean about commercialism, i do not like it. the main purpose of the day is lost nowadays. it's a day celebrating getting presents. playing heal world for a day. celebrating the big fat and scary coca cola man etc. if you mean the main purpose. i definitely like it, if you mean how it is celebrated nowadays, then rather not.

if you watch the p4 vid, then you will see in the sequence where the new manager is shown that it is assigned which pilot today flies with which observer. so all of them have names and dossiers. just have to watch the vid and you'll know.

happy birthday old chap :drinks: :drinks: :drinks: :drinks:

IMO in most sims the world and main purpose is just created for being in the air while beeing on the ground feels kind of strange and temporary. like knowing that actually most of the time is in the air and therefore no need to create a real world at the ground. hard to explain what i mean. the ground is more or less just there to have one with maybe some eyecandy to give the impression of a world, but that's it. in the vid of p4 you have IMO a completely different feeling. beeing on the ground is full of life and looks very realistic like the view we know 99% of the time in real life . you don't feel strange beeing at low altitude or at the airfield. it's rather like you really belong there because human is not supposed to fly and the strange thing instead is beeing in the air like it should. and after the sortie you are happy to be on the ground again. hard to explain. but that's just to show how alive and realistic the world at the ground and low altitude looks.

is it just me with the impression that the shadows are overhauled and more accurate?

until yesterday i was always humming to myself the main theme score of "Game of Thrones". now it's this score.

great video and great score, pol and matt especially from 6:53 it looks like the opening of a new HBO WW1-aviation series . if one looks closely one can already see many of the new features. some are subtle but still visible. the headmovement of the pilot, the G-force from the gunner, the throttle management, the evasive movements from attacked two seaters, the new features in the menu like how many AC are available, how many spare ones are there, how many are in the hangar for maintenance, what troubles has the squadron (lack of fuel, material etc.) the low altitude action of the camel chasing the dreidecker is absolutely great. there is a scene when an albatros gets attacked from behind, and he immelmanns quickly to face you head on etc. absolutely marvelous

if you are awake such a long time, reading your books etc.doesn't it turn slowly to be similar like this?

i've had in my german campaign just a sortie in 12th of april 1917. as i patroled the lines at Cambrai, i saw the long street which connects Arras and Cambrai through nomandsland under heavy barrage bombardement. the very next day the next heeresbericht appeared as news and it said exactly that: Der Verlauf der Kämpfe bei Arras Im Raume von Arras, an und östlich der Linie Souchez-Neuville-Vitasse, tobten auch gestern lebhafte Kämpfe. Wie selbst englische Berichte betonen, wurde der englische Angriff bei Arras unter einem Einsatz von Artillerie begonnen, der alles bisher Dagewesene übertrifft. Es wurde auch Gas angeblasen. Durch die gutliegende und äußerst starke englische Feuersperre wurden Teile der deutschen Besatzung in den vordersten Gräben vollkommen abgeschnitten. Der Verlust beherrschender Höhenrücken in der vordersten Linie, die vom englischen Artilleriefeuer systematisch abgeriegelt worden waren, machte an einigen Stellen ein Ausweichen bis zu 4 Kilometer notwendig. Die Geschütze, die dem nachstoßenden Gegner überlassen werden mußten, wurden unbrauchbar gemacht und gesprengt. Bei Givenchy-en-Gohelle an der Vimy-Höhe griffen die Engländer gegen 3 Uhr nachmittags an, wobei sie kleine örtliche Vorteile errangen. Ein englischer Angriff bei Farbus am Fuße des Ausläufers der Vimy-Höhe, 2 Kilometer südöstlich des Dorfes Vimy, scheiterte indessen vollkommen. Weiter südlich trugen die Engländer seit Mittag schwere Angriffe unter Einsatz dichter Massen und Sturmhaufen gegen unsere Linie an der Straße Arras - Cambrai vor, die sämtlich ergebnislos verliefen und dem Gegner schwere Verluste kosteten. Ein Engländernest wurde mit einem Verlust von 80 Toten für den Feind gesäubert. Südöstlich von Arras versuchte der Feind eine schon im Herbst 1915 für ihn verhängnisvoll gewordene Taktik zu wiederholen, indem er voreilig starke Kavalleriemassen versammelte. Sie wurden durch gutliegende Feuergarben zersprengt. Auch weiter südöstlich bei Bullecourt wurde der Angriff zweier englischer Bataillone nach starker Artillerievorbereitung unter schweren Verlusten restlos abgewiesen und Gefangene eingebracht. Aus dem Bericht von Sir Douglas Haig geht hervor, welche besondere Wichtigkeit er den Vimy-Höhen beimißt. Er durfte dort daher die schwersten Kämpfe erwarten. Bezeichnend ist es, daß er seinem eigenen Bericht zufolge gerade an dieser Stelle die kanadischen Hilfstruppen einsetzte. Die Fliegertruppe hat einen neuen schweren Verlust erlitten. Leutnant d. R. Frankl ist am 8. April gefallen. the fat part exactly describes what i have seen from above the day before . isn't that great?

of course leaving out the waypoints completely and fly by map is by far the most realistic way . but it's often a matter of time which makes warping necessary (and to regroup your mates). and if someone warps, then the way i described is IMO very useful. also flying in real time up to two hours or so is quite filling the memory and the chance that you get kicked out in the end, and all flying for nothing, is increased. at least this is what happens to me occasionally. i also think that with short distances to get to the intended area, and with rather more often patroling, the memory has more recources left because it won't be stuffed so much with data of terrain etc. you actually don't need but just fly by.

sounds good. i will bring a good old selfmade croatian grappa

it won't happen i guess. the first day the german pilot won't start because of mantaining his aircrafts engine, the second and third day is cancelled because of dull weather and after that time the servicetime of the snipe and the war is already over...

FF joysticks are absolutely great and very useful. you always have some sort on force while flying, especially when manouvering, when landing and rolling, it makes shooting more difficult because the slight rattle puts you off target. when close to a stall you can feel it rattle heavier, depending how close to the stall you are. i think uncleal called it rattle of death. if you can get one, get one.

hi CW3SF, OFF and HiTR work great with win7-64bit. probably even better than with 32-bit. P4 will be a completely different ballgame. it will not be like an expansion of OFF with HiTR etc. but something completely new. do you play rather campaigns or more QC? because AFAIK the campaign AI is better than in QC. cheers

as you can see in my first post not only skinners will notice it, but non-skinners like me also

that's exactly what HPW's DM and my various tracer/notracer and effect mods equalize. with using those mods you will have to get close as it was in real. the effectfile mod for instance takes away those smokepuffing, dusty effects when far away. the reason why it's easier in stock p3 to hit from the distance is because you know if you hit him or not, and because of this you automatically adjust. that's like aiming with a laserpointer. no problem. with the mod you won't know if you hit him or not, until beeing close. and if you are far away shooting without knowing if you hit him, then you don't know if you have to adjust, if you are hitting him or if you are just wasting your ammo. HPW's DM equalizes the "wounded animal" syndrome where you shoot him slower until finishing off. with his DM they fly almost as agile as before until there breaks something up. that DM, together with the effectsmod, together with the different tracer-versions (and additionally having FF joystick if you have one, which makes shooting accurately also tougher) makes long distance and deflectionshooting much more harder. then you will have to get close

i wouldn't recommend a package of mods. i did that in my homebrew compilation and it was IMO a mistake because people can't pick what they need but download first everything before deciding what's necessary. there is also a hughe overhauled news mod with over 300 original heeresberichte etc. which obviously fell through the radar because of beeing just a part of the homebrew file. it would have been better to upload every mod for itself and let the people decide IMO. about the number of downloads. my soundtweak II mod took about a year to get over 500 downloads. you achieved over a hundred in couple weeks. with this pace i think you don't need to be worried

IMO the best 3rd party work made for OFF 3, yet immersion taken to the next level

WOW :yikes: can't wait very well done, sir

what i like on the new albs is that the visible pattern on the sawed wood is not the same on each one

might be a tough nut to crack since AI is getting victory-numbers anyway within the time. and if you see them actually shooting others down, then they would get even more gifted than the system gives them anyway. so wether keep it as it is and let the system give them kills by skill and chance as it is now, or deactivate the system of giving them victories but just those they really made. downside of course would be that they would only get kills when you are witnessing it. otherwise not. that was the problem in Rb3d. AI made only victories if they were in the same sortie as you or at least at the same time as you were in the air.

something which might be a cool addition is if someone saves your arse in a dogfight or vice versa. maybe when entering OFFbase in the screen where you can choose "successfull landing on own airfield", "argument about kill" etc. additional two options where you can choose "someone saved you" and "you saved someone". when you tick the apropriate one, then the list of the available pilots appears (like when encountering someone) and you choose the person whom you saved or who saved you. that might lead to more prestige or prestige losing or better/worse relationship when there might occure an argument why one was so careless, or losing face etc. or to conversations one shaking thankfully the others hand or buying champagne. of course if there wasn't such an obvious situation where one saved another one, then it should be left unticked. another thing is that when you make a victory in the sortie and then go to the adjutants office, then he shouldn't congratulate you for the kill immediately. because it's still pending actually, but tell you instead he'll send the claimform to headquarters, hoping it's going to be conclusive enough for you to earn the victory. and congratulate then when it's confirmed. i see that in the pilots folder there are still the plt files left of the NPC's of former squadrons after you've been transferred to another one. a cool, but absolutely unnecessary future-feature might be that if you befriend somebody or more in a squadron really well, and then you get transferred, that OFFbase remembers this former squadmate and although you are in a new squad with new guys, OFFbase informs you occasionally what happens to your former mate(s). or at least if the former mate dies (simply by dice roll). that would simulate still having contact to him.

today in germany is the so called volkstrauertag. the pendant to remembrance day. no loud music is allowed today. clubs had yesterday to shut down music as soon as it's midnight, to remember the fallen. first of ww1 and nowadays to remember any victim of armed conflicts. many people today are visiting monuments and graves of fallen soldiers etc.