Bullethead

They used to, you know, back in the days of the Boeing Clippers.... When I worked in an airplane chopshop and we had a contract to repaint C-5s, I always wondered why they always put "delivery" as the last step on the schedule. After all, the very 1st thing we did was strip off the old livery.

Welcome aboard! New guy buys the drinks As for your question, there's a way to look at the models outside the game, but not to specify which skin they wear. Create a new shortcut with the target the same as for playing the game, but with the command line parameter -m3dview. When this comes up, you'll see a small window with just menu options. Select File/Open, then go to the \aircraft folder and pick whichever plane you want. In the plane, go to the \models folder, and pick the .M3D file that doesn't end in "_c". This plane will then appear in the other window, and the usual POV commands will move your POV. To view the skins outside the game, you need a 3rd party program that can view .DDS files. I use WTV, but I forget where I found it.

You should thank your missus for nixing this. I mean, this is a Mk IIB. What did that one ever do? Your friends would laugh at you if you showed up at the RC field with that, especially since you didn't build it yourself. Now, if you could find a Mk I, Mk V, Mk IX, or perhaps even a Mk XIV or XVI, she might say OK .

IIRC, the IAF observers at least preferred the bigger mags.

"The time has come", the Walrus said, "to talk of many things. "Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, "And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings." I recommend listening to Dr. John's song "Why Come?" (a Lousy Anna expression used instead of "How come?") . He asks many such questions. But he didn't touch some of the weightier issues, such as: If a man says something and no woman is there to hear him, is he still wrong? Why is that when I'm unhappy and she's happy, I'm happier than when I'm happy and she's unhappy? Why do we drive on parkways and park in driveways? Why does it hurt when I pee?

I always lead for a lot of reaons, this being one of them. And when I do a real 2-seater career, I never get in the back, either. But as a new experience in OFF, I'm trying that interesting idea somebody (You? ZoomZoom? I forget.) had about just being a gunner. It's HARD to hit with that tail gun. First, the AI pilot is always bobbing up and down, so it's hard to keep the sights on target. Second, the Lewis doesn't have a sight and the bullets appear to go to an unmarked place high and left of the bore. And third, with the realistic gunner accuracy setting, your bullets scatter so rapidly that shooting beyond 200m isn't likely to do serious damage in the time available, and beyond 300m it's a complete waste of ammo. But the AI rarely gets within 200m, being perfectly content to blow you away from 300-400m. I only really get a good shot in during the 1st rush, when an enemy closes in on either me or (more often) a wingman. When they're after me, they're usually coming from outside my field of fire (and view). And besides all this, most gunners are standing up so are big targets . But all that aside, I wanted to kill MvR SOOOO badly as an RE8 gunner. Man, that would be bragging rights . So when I'd see him hanging there 550m behind me, I couldn't resist squeezing off bursts at him. I must have fired 200-300 rounds at him that way. My tracers sprayed in a circle all around him, but I never hit him. Maybe the bullets ceased to exist before they got there, maybe it's just impossible to hit anything that far away with the tailgun.

But it's exactly 3x 97-round drums .

To determine how many drums were carried in real life, look in the game to see how many rounds you have in total. Then divide that by the number of rounds per drum and you'll have the answer. When OBD set the planes up, they did this in reverse because the underlying engine doesn't allow for changing drums.

It's taken me all day to get over this experience and try to rationalize it. After analysis, it doens't appear to have been really as dangerous as it appeared at the time, which is too bad. But you asked, so at the risk of jading you a bit, here's what I think..... My survival was due to a mix of AI behavior and pure luck. It really wasn't due to anything I did. This is my tailgunner career, so all I do is take off, land, and drop bombs. The rest of the time I'm just along for the ride. Here's the AI behavior part.... Even when flown by MvR and his crew, AI fighters apparently do NOT like to attack 2-seater formations. They only press their attack on the 1st rush, and then only when they initially approach the 2-seaters from a direction other than dead astern to start with. This 1st pass is very deadly, usually killing 1 or 2 2-seaters. from a direction that's hard to cover and from a range beyond which tailgunner bullets spread so much that shooting back is pretty ineffective anyway. But after that, they always reform behind more or less at the same altitude as the 2-seaters, where they hang around getting no closer than about 550m. They only rarely fire once in this position, no matter how long they stay there. Typically, they'll very gradually overtake the 2-seaters, but once they reach the 550m point, they break off, circle back, and gradually close in again. The only exception to this is that periodically, 1 of them will climb off to the side of the 2-seaters, pulling even and a couple thousand feet higher, then turn in and dive toward you. However, even these guys stay out of range and usually don't fire, ending up back 550m behind you again with no harm done. I think this is just a ruse to get you to break formation (see below). It's SO tempting to turn into this apparent attack, which will of course ruin your formation and bring in the wolves. Being a tailgunner, I can't do this, and so I lived, but I imagine this kills a lot of 2-seater pilots. The above unwillingness to press the attack only applies to 2-seaters maintaining good formation. As soon as the formation comes apart, the fighters jump right in guns blazing, and this is just as deadly as one of their 1st passes. Stragglers don't stand a chance. But the AI appears to define straggling as distance from the flight leader, not proximity to other 2-seaters. Thus, when you turn and all your wingmen keep on straight for a little while, the AI seems to considered them all stragglers even though they're still together and you're off by yourself. Also, if the flight leader is the only plane left, then he's a "straggler" and all bets are off. Lastly, it appears that the AI fighter flights also establish "dibs" on the 2-seater formation. If you've got 1 mob following you around, others will pass you by. But if they're still in the area when the "owning" flight decides to break off, the other flights will charge you, sometimes more than 1 at once. But again, 1 of them will establish "ownership" of you and when that happens the others break off. Thus, you seem to be fairly safe from being totally gangbanged. Now, the luck part.... The AI seems to like to start with the rear planes in the 2-seater formation and work its way to the front, even when they're making their initial pass. Thus, being the flight leader GREATLY improves your odds of survival. But this is somewhat due to luck. AI planes WILL target the flight leader on their 1st pass, it just doesn't happen all the time. Otherwise, luck comes into play during the long, relatively peaceful chase. The 550m distance is measured from the flight leader, so your wingmen are closer to the enemy. They're close enough to get shot at now and again. Interestingly, this often happens when the enemy and your wingmen are both lined up with you, so you often collect a few "overs" meant for your buddy. Finally, you WILL get hit at some point along the line, but if you're lucky it won't be immediately fatal. The most important part of luck, however, seems to be in when various enemy flights decide to break off and give up their "ownership" of you. The sooner they break off, the more often you get attacked by a different flight, so the more deadly 1st passes you face. The safest thing is to be "owned" by 1 flight for a long, long time, because really they're pretty harmless when just following along behind you, and while they're doing that, you won't get swooped by anybody else. However, you have no control over the "interest level" of the different AI flights. Sometimes they get bored quickly and break off nearly at once, sometimes they follow you 30 miles all the way home. It's just luck of the draw. So here's how I survived.... On the way to the objective, we got attacked by 2 different flights, neither of which had a long "attention span" with us. The 1st flight made its 1st pass, knocked down 1 of my wingmen, and flew off without ever getting into "tag along" mode. As soon as they turned away, the 2nd flight swooped but did only minor damage, then did go into "tag along" mode. MvR n' The Boyz came along at this time but totally ignored us because we were "taken" by the 2nd flight. Then 2 things happened in quick succession. First, the 2nd flight broke off, which alerted the several other enemy flights, including MvR's, that it was their turn, so they were already heading towards us. Second, my AI pilot reached the objective waypoint and turned through about 330^ back for home. This sharp turn right naturally broke up the formation--my 3 surviving wingmen did the usual thing of flying off straight for a while before turning to rejoin, so got way off to my left. Before they could catch up, MvR pounced. But his whole flight went for the wingmen, not me. The above screenshot was taken just after this. You can see my last wingman off to the left, although is proper place was on my right--he's still trying to rejoin me. You can also see the smoke trails from my other 2 wingmen, who very quickly died under MvR's assault. There were at this time Albatri from various other flights closing in. However, MvR quickly established "ownership" so they broke off. But 1 wingman survived long enough to MvR got into "tag along" mode, and he also decided to follow us a long way (although not before dragging somebody over to me and getting me badly shot up, too). Thus, not only was MvR not shooting at us, but he was preventing other Germans from attacking us. Of course, the deeper on our side we got, the less likely we were to meet other Germans, and the more likely some friendly fighters would show up. I was really surprised he followed us all 30 miles back home--once we got out of sight of the Lines, I figured he'd break off. So we went on in fairly perfect safety for nearly 30 miles, being "escorted" by MvR. Neither side was firing at all, but Archie was taking a toll on the enemy. By the time we reached our field, Archie had claimed Schafer and Allmenroder, plus one of their no-name hangers-on, leaving only 3 of them. All this way, we'd been flying at 7500'. However, 1 mile from home, my AI pilot hit a waypoint that required him to lose a lot of altitude while going straight ahead. Even though my last wingman followed us immediately, this dive switched MvR from "tag along" to "feeding frenzy" mode, probably because we quickly got so far below him to put him back into "initial pass" parameters. So here they came again and shot up my last wingman. I stayed in the back seat until we leveled off just above the trees, still more or less in formation with my now-smoking wingie. I had absolutely no intention of sitting through the interminable AI landing approach, nor get out of range of the airfield's AAMGs. So I was going to land immediately and turned hard toward to line up with the runway, naturally leaving my wingman behind, hoping MvR would chase him and let me land. But at this point, the surviving Germans simply flew away. For whatever reason (damage, fuel, ammo?) they decided to go home. Thus, all I had to deal with during my landing approach was messed-up ailerons. It was soemthing of an anti-climax, but I was quite happy for it. And I immediately hit ESC to kiss the sweet earth before MvR had 2nd thoughts Don't worry there. He who dies with the biggest club bill wins

To see how much ammo the gunner has, use F8 to jump into that seat and then F5 to bring up the HUD. Just as in the pilot's seat, the text block for the HUD says how much ammo the gunner has left. I'm too lazy to go look myself, so I leave that to you . But be aware that you're not supposed to use the HUD in the DiD campaign. I suppose it's no harm to check on the ground to see how much you have to start with, but using it flight probably isn't cricket. I don't think the crewmen could talk to each other, and could only communicate by nudges and gestures if they sat close enough to touch.

I was soooooo drunk..... Geez, I thought that was David Lee Roth at first

Here is truly the stuff of nightmares Amazingly, I lived through this. See the reports thread. Damn, I'm still shaking from this.

Ah, what the Hell........ You all miss some good parties

As I said elsewhere, the N28 is my always and never woman. I can't resist her, no matter how often it ends tragically.

The part about aircraft being assigned roles sounds quite interesting. I recall asking for that :).

Congratualtions to all concerned and I hope everybody comes through OK. We all expect cigars, of course

I drove for KLLM and they'd had so many trucks wrecked on that stretch of road that we weren't allowed to drive that way. They actually paid us to go around either way, I-40 or I-80. Thus, I never saw it. And I never had the road collapse under me, thank the Dark Gods. So to you. I-70 nearly got me once, though, heading west from Liman. This huge blizzard came through in the pre-dawn and somebody immediately lost it just west of the Liman coop, blocking the road. So we stat there for a couple of hours while 4 or 5 feet of snow fell horizontally, then had to dig ourselves out and start going through it. The convoy was led by a snowplow, then 7 trucks, then me, then miles of other trucks that had come along behind us while we waited. The snow was still coming down all this time flat out of the north. Anyway, before we'd gone more than a mile, the snowplow didn't see a turn in the dark and went in the ditch, followed dutifully by the 1st truck. The rest of us went on without them. Over the next 10 miles, the 6 remaining trucks ahead of me all went in the ditch 1 by one, leaving me up front to break trail, and still 70 miles to Denver. I never thought I'd make it, but somehow I guessed right about where the road was--it was really driving by Braille . But by the time I was my turn in the barrel, it was light enough to see somewhat, so I could stay centered more or less between the reflector poles on either side, just barely sticking up above the snow. Also, due to the wind, the snow on the road itself was only 2-3 feet deep so you could kinda make out its outline. My main nightmares in the mountains were on I-84 in Oregon. Once I was heading east through there and it took me 3 whole days just to get from Cabbage to Boise. Here are some pics of that trip, entering the aptly named Farewell Bend and about to start down the infamous 3-Mile Hill. IOW, just before things got really interesting. Strangely, it was no trouble getting up Cabbage that time--the sleet was down in the Gorge and the snow was on top, but the slope itself was bone dry. That stretch of road, especially Cabbage, was always an adventure even in good weather, though. Oh, I completely agree. I know what real snow looks like. Most folks in my part of the world can't even imagine it. But that's my point. Even this pathetic excuse for snow was a LOT by local standards, and it's been happening quite often lately.

I thought 90 North was as far up there as you could go?

Yeah, my meth lab exploded, too, but there's really some snow under there :). Seriously, ANY snow at all used to be a rarety here, and getting any to stick more than a few minutes was even rarer. This was a LOT of snow for this part of the world, and it lasted a long time.

I'd say drunk. Before you got here, we had threads where everybody posted their favorite beer, then wine, and finally hard liquor. Feel free to search for them and bump them by adding your own favorites. It's time we went back to talking serously about booze--been too long

Thanks for the compliments on the house. Well, it was intended to look that old, but it really isn't. See that 1-story wing on the left side, with the bay window visible abvoe the front steps? That's actually the oldest part, built by my mother's parents in 1963 after the old house burned. It actually looks its age. The bay window is where its front door used to be. The bigger 2-story part is only about 18 years old now, but looks kinda like the original house. The long-gone original house was built in the 1870s. But the land under them all has been in the family since since the King of Spain gave it to my 4x great-grandpappy back in the late 1700s. Amazing. But don't worry, I'm sure you'll be snowed under in due time. Up there between the lakes, there's no escape. DAMN. Until I started driving 18-wheelers, I'd just heard rumors of "lake effect snow", but had shrugged it off thinking that was just something they said to avoid mentioning the obvious fact that living up north means you're practically on tundra, as opposed to living in Gawd's Country further south. Then I had to drive up there a lot in winter. I also got caught by blizzards in the Rockies a few times, but that's got nothing on lake effect snow. Geez! I don't see how any of you yankees stand it. BTW, we only got about 1.75" out of the thing last night, and it's all gone now except in a few shady spots.

I drink to his shade.

Sure. In the pilot dossiers screen, there's a button to retire the pilot (which erases him). NOTE: The pilot files are in {XXX}/CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields/campaigns/Campaign Data/Pilots, where {XXX} is either C:\OBDSoftware (if you have Vista) or I THINK C:\Program Files (if you have XP). Each pilot has 2 or 3 files associated with him: PilotXDossier.txt, PilotXLog.txt, and (if he's filed any claims) PilotXClaims.txt (where X is a number). You can do all sorts of things with these files, but there are some caveats.... First off, only use the game to create and remove pilots. If you don't, you'll screw up the game and have to reset it, which erases all your pilots. IOW, don't create pilot files from scratch and just put them in this folder, nor delete files out of this folder. Also, don't save a copy of a pilot, reinstall the game, and then move the files back into this folder. HOWEVER, you CAN edit the files within this folder. The game has no apparent problem with that. You can resurrect dead pilots, you can rename all your wingmen, add more, kill those you don't like, etc. You can change your squadron, you can change the campaign date, you can change your hours, and just about anything else. Search on these topics and you'll find all the details.

Well, I guess I can count you in the "AI doesn't cheat" crowd at least . But what's the "wrong plane"? The choice between E-fighting and turnfighting is more dependent on initial E states than on plane match-ups. If you bounce an E-fighter, it will either run away or be forced into a disadvantageous turn-fight. If it can't run away, it has no choice but to turnfight. Consider an AI Albartros D.III and you in a Pup. At least in my experience, most fights start with you getting swooped by Albatri from thousands of feet above you. Initially, they use E-tactics. But as they bleed down, they they either run away or switch to turnfighting if they don't think they can outrun you. At high altitudes, the D.III can out-dive a Pup without ripping its wings off, but not so at low levels. So depending on how far down the Pups have gone before the Albatri lose their E-advantage, they either disengage, regain E, and try again, or they're stuck in a turnfight where they're only chance is for you to make a mistake. Sometimes, I've seen ace Albatros pilots get stuck in the low, slow turnfight, but not often. I don't fault them, however, because combat is a gamble and things can change. The point to disengage is hard to spot. Considering the HUGE number of human woould-be E-fighters I've killed in similar circumstances, I can't fault the AI for not always breaking off soon enough. There has to be some spectrum between novice and ace AI pilots, after all. Greed kills WAY more human pilots than I ever have even in 15 years. If it kills the AI sometimes, that's just more realistic IMHO. Now consider the SPAD XIII vs. the Fokker D.VII. The SPAD, at high speeds, is a pure E-fighter, but at low speeds it's a very good turnfighter by late-1918 standards--only Camels and Dr.Is are better. It can easily out-turn a Fokker D.VII at low speeds, just as it can easily out-zoom and out-run it at high speeds. The D.VII, OTOH, is just the opposite compared to the SPAD. Thus, regardless of who is flying which, and assuming pilots on both sides live long enough, as the fight continues both sides have to switch tactics completely. I don't know about you, but this is exactly what I see happen regardless of which plane I'm flying. Most fights start at high altitude with the SPADs higher and doing E-tactics. But neither side can maintain that altitude while doing ACM, so the fight gets lower and lower, and the planes in it get slower and slower. As this happens, hte SPADs switch from E-fighting to turnfighting and the D.VIIs from turnfighting to E-fighting. Why shouldn't they? They have the advantage turning at that point, and they want to kill you, after all. Now, if you're flying the D.VII, you can chalk this SPAD turnfighting up to the AI being too stupid to disengage sooner. But OTOH, as you see the SPADs outturning you, you might not consider this stupid. You'll be forced into using low-speed vertical moves and the famous D.VII prop-hang just to stay alive, let alone gain an advantage. Now turn the tables and put yourself in the SPAD low and slow against D.VIIs. No matter how non-vertical the AI D.VIIs fly while you have the E-advantage, once you're co-E or slower you'll see them doing this same low-speed yoyo and prop-hanging game down in the weeds. In both cases, no matter who is flying which plane, the AI switches from one set of tactics to another, just as you have to do, regardless of which you're flying. During the time in which the DH2 was in service, the Germans had nothing that could out-turn it. They didn't call the DH2 the "Spinning Incinerator" for nothing. Planes that spin easily always turn very well, after all. Now me, being a complete dweeb in the DH2, usually end up in an unrecoverable spin when I try to turn hard in it. But that's just because I don't know what I'm doing. There are a number of folks here who are quite good in it, and I can assure you that they LOVE it when a German plane tries to turn in front of them because that just let's them cut the corner and hose them at shorter range. Bottom line, a German with a DH2 in range on his butt is in trouble, unless he has the altitude to dive away quickly. If he doesn't, then he should try to run straight away, hedge-hopping if necessary, but NEVER making a seroius turn. All the turn does is give the DH2 a closer shot.

I dunno what sim you're flying, but to me the OFF AI does exactly this. It does E-fighting and turn-fighting both, and switches between them, flying the same plane in the same fight, depending on the situation. I'm not saying the OFF AI is perfect, but it's way better than any other I've seen before. If you're not seeing this, you have to understand 1 thing. This is that E-fighting is ONLY possible if you have a SIGNIFCANT energy advantage over the enemy. E-fighting relies ENTIRELY on being able to zoom up above the enemy's reach, repositioning inside his turn, and then attacking again before the enemy can catch is breath from his previous maneuver. If this condition isn't met, then the would-be E-fighter has only 1 realistic choice: run away! But if you're faster than the would-be E-fighter even in dive, then he has only no choice: he must turnfight even though it's not his strong suit, and hope you make a mistake. The OFF AI is smart enough to realize this. If it's flying an E-fighter (compared to what you're flying), and it has sufficient E-advantage at the get-go, it does very effective E-fighting. Otherwise, it tries to run away. If it can't, it knows that up front and doesn't bother, instead fighting you as best it can even though it's disadvantaged. But what else can it do?