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Rick Rawlings

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Posts posted by Rick Rawlings

  1. Posted

    First, I'm basically a 'Battle o' Britain' kind of guy. Never developed a taste for jets, and never found a WWI sim that satisfied, even Red Baron. No matter what I've been flying, I've always disliked the in-cockpit view because it was so restrictive. Just give me a 6 o'clock, tail-chase view where I can see my plane as part of the larger action and where I can see what's coming at me. In this respect, I found OFF very satisfying.

     

    But about a week ago I was in a D.VII and hit the F4 to cycle views. I paused as the cockpit view came by and it was so dramatic, I've never switched back. I love this. I love the groaning and straining of the airframe. I'm chewing on the carpet waiting for TrackIR to arrive.

    Wait a minute, are you saying that you used to play OFF in 3rd person?!?!? Wow, that seems quite hard!

     

    RR

  2. Posted

    So since 1.26 I have been flying as Rick Rawlings in #40 squadron trying to get through Bloody April in one piece but never really lasting longer than 20 missions or so. So just to blow off steam, I started up one of my goofy pilots, a Scot named Dirk McGurt. I placed him in Detached Naval Squadron #2 in the fall of 1916 stationed at Vert Galant.

     

    I just finished his 40th mission! Apparently, a doofy name and a lighter approach are the key. Also, I think the winter of 1916 is a little lighter in the air than the spring of 1917. The fact that I am flying in an elite squad also seems to help. I started in November of 1916 and am flying on light mission frequency. It is now the end of January. I have flown 40 missions with 32 hours in the air and have 19 confirmed kills. He is at 100% realism and on dead is dead selection. For full disclosure, he did die once due to a graphic stutter that caught me on the take off roll and caused him to nose over, which seems to be always fatal, but that was his only re-start. He has seen the Neiuport give way to the Sopwith Pup, which, despite it's loving reputation, has me a flying wreck. That thing starts shuddering in a gentle dive and I am always worried that it will break up at any moment. As I approach April, I can only hope to survive till the camel.

     

    If anybody else feels like they are in a rut, try getting out of your usual squadron/plane/timeframe and see if that makes anything happen! Report back here with your successes, or, as I am sure I will soon, the eventual failures!

     

     

     

    RR

  3. Posted

    Living in Semi-Rural Florida as I do, the mailbox can be 1/4 mile from the house. Along with upwards of 100 others. When I checked with Binoculars, if the little metal flag was down ( the indication that mail's been delivered ). It was, so as I'm confined to a wheelchair, I removed my plastic leg ( only 3 times I use it; Use of the commode, Driving my Car, and the Rudder Pedals of OFF ) and wheeled down to my mailbox. Now next to the mass of mailboxes, is a huge pin-oak tree that offers shade throughout the day. It's a spot where a small crowd gathers to tell lies, and shoot the breeze. Now They're Not close friends, but the pleasentries of the day are exchanged.

     

    NOT Today, everybody gave me wide birth, some of the women had the the look of Horror on their faces. I actually checked I was zipped up, sooo I pick up my mail ( 3 Bills) they could've waited, and headed for home. Upon arriving at my house, I threw the bills on the kitchen table, and looked in the mirror, then I relized what I had done. I had worn my Trackir Hat to pick up the mail. Must've really freaked them out

    Well, at least they won't be able to tell what you are thinking! We always have to be on the lookout for them!

    shhhhh! rr

  4. Posted

    Good shot. Has anyone's plane ever been hit by a falling pilot? It would be a most ironic fate to be 'shot down' by the falling pilot of the plane you just creamed.

    No, but my best German pilot so far was killed by the plane that they jumped out of. I follwed them into a climb and flamed them in my Albatross DII. They jumped out, I dove down and to the right; the abandoned, flaming crate turned over and fell...down and to the right. Flash of red, flash of black, I'm not allowed to say what happens after that, you just have to wait and find out :)

     

    RR

  5. Posted

    It's been overcast and grey in my bit of the South of England today, with dark cumulus clouds being the only respite from the leaden monotony... not at all dissimilar to the skies over Flanders most of the time, in our favourite game.

     

    So I'm on a shopping trip with the wife going to Hedge End, a big shopping complex just outside Southampton. One of the DIY stores there is flying one of these advertising blimps you sometimes see, only bigger than usual.

     

    My brain is immediately into OFF-mode, scanning the sky around it for Huns and wondering why there isn't a TAC on my car's dash. Thus pre-occupied I sail past the slip road for the junction.

     

    Wife: "What are you doing? You've missed the turning?"

     

    Me: "I thought I'd attack it from the East... try and catch the archie napping... ermm." (embarassed silence)

     

    Wife: "Twat!"

     

    I'll be a while living that one down. :blush2:

     

    For me the funniest part is your wife saying "Twat", which is quite a bit further up the name calling list in the states than it is in England, apparently!

     

    RR

  6. Posted · Edited by Rick Rawlings

    On occasion, I've seen pilots leaping from their planes...a little black lump drifts away and disappears. This morning I had a pilot and gunner both bail and they [or one of them] passed within a few feet of my Tripe. [Not the best screen shot.] My God! There's a whole person there. With flying suit. Incredible. [i think I dated that guy's sister last year.]

     

    Actually, the two that jump out are the stow-aways. The reason that two seater was flying so passively is because there were two more people hidden down in the bowels of the plane trying to catch a ride to Paris. Little did they know that all they were hitching passage to was their deaths. The extra weight made the crate so un-manueverable that you had no problem shooting it down. As your bullets rattled around the fuselage, the hidden ones got scared and cried out. The pilot and gunner, realizing only too late their mortal error, grabbed the stow-aways and cast them to oblivion. If you look closely, you will still see the pilot and observer seated in their seats, grimly resigned to their fate.

     

    This sim goes even deeper than you imagined, my friend!

     

    RR

  9. Posted

    Yeah, realistic ground fire seems anything but... more like Annie Oakley trench fire! I keep it at normal after forced landings on three ground strikes in a row with just one pass over the trenches! I also wondered if the AA that explodes around enemy flights over our territory could ever miss and hit me. Well, it can. I took a near hit from my own AA a few weeks ago and was lucky to bring it down in one piece! My grandfather told me that they had night-time curfews in WWII and no allied planes were allowed to fly over after dark. He said that one night he heard the easily recognizable whine of a mustang passing overhead and then, much to his dismay, the sound and fury of a whole series of AA batteries lighting him up, so, unfortunately, friendly fire happens even in the air!

     

    RR

  13. Posted

    I have to say I'm not crazy about that targeting sight/cone/whatever in the cockpit, but in that second shot, I was lined up to start sawing on the left lower wing all the way through the cockpit to the right lower wingtip if only I could do more than yell curses at him! I don't have a good feeling about this Lewis gun!

     

    Prior to 1.3 it was lined up with the seat and was actually very useful. I actually got a 56% accuracy on a campaign mission shooting down 3 Albatross DIIIs, which I have not even come close to on any other plane. Post patch, you just have to get used to the new hit point, somewhere alolng the lower edge of the sight it seems. I find the F6 view to be largely useless as it is too zoomed in. Overall the Neiuport series are great planes, although I might just be saying that since I have spent 90% of the time since I got this game in RFC #40!

     

    RR

  14. Posted

    Hey Rick,

     

    Those are great.

     

    Here's one from my first mission with a new pilot tonight. Lined up beautifully on an ACE, and my gun jams!!!!

     

     

    Oh my God! Tell me about it! I swear the bounding box on the N17's Lewis gun is twice the size of everything else on my plane! At least 60% of the time that I am hit at all, the Lewis goes down and I have to bluff my way out of the flight!

     

    At least you got a good picture and lived to tell the tale, however!

     

    RR

  15. Posted

    Like Mk2 says, sometimes you live when you feel like you should have died, sometimes you die when you feel like you shoulda lived. Like you said, you had some control, so it's plausible that you brought it down in one piece but the experience was so traumatic that you blocked it out of conscious memory! One thing that I have noticed is that I never go to the hospital since 1.28 or so. I either die flat out or live flat out. So I always feel free to "put" myself in the hospital via manual time advance for a week or so if it seems appropriate. While this is absolutely the best flight sim I have ever owned, I certainly don't mind helping out to role play a little better!

     

    RR

  17. Posted

    I've had a couple of careers with no enemy aircraft for many missions (no encounters before I quit). I believe it is a wierd, hard to reproduce bug. Try starting a new career. Just to be sure, I also did a clean install before I updated to 1.3 just to clean the crank-case, as it were.

     

    Hope that helps!

     

    RR

  18. Posted

    F6 is the view to use if you do not have Track IR in previous N17 lewis, and current.

    The normal default cockpit view is NOT aligned in either version, you have to move with TIR or use F6.

     

     

    Hey Pol, thanks for the quick reply. I followed everything except the quote above. It seemed that before the 1.3 patch, I was looking straight down the sight and the bullets were hitting where I looked. Now, I have to aim a little high to get the tracers on target. Are you saying that the pre-patch version was just an illusion the way the sight was set up? I'm just not sure what you mean by previous N17 and current. Do you mean pre and post patch?

     

    Thanks again! RR

  21. Posted

    I just started my first campaign in the N17 post 1.3 and noticed that the gunsight view in the cockpit is skewed down, as if my alter ego shrunk or someone lowered the seat 2 inches. The screenshots below show the difference. Was this intentional? or some sort of bug? The first notch of shift+enter unfortunately moves the seat too high, and it reverts to normal anytime you switch views anyway. Is this something that is easy to fix?

     

    Thanks!

     

    RR

     

    post-45922-1239028503_thumb.jpg

     

    post-45922-1239028512_thumb.jpg

  22. Posted

    To be fair, you can spot small aircraft in real life much easier than you are able to in the game even on a large monitor at high resolution. Also, any cpu or gpu sluggishness can "smear" the ground and make it difficult to track. I always go through the motions of zooming in and scanning the skies using the number keys when dropped out of warp with an "enemies nearby" before turning the TAC on, and can often find them, but it can be more of an nuisance than the little bit of "extra real" feeling I get. Having the TAC on and set to 2 miles or 4 miles is a good compromise.

     

    RR

  25. Posted · Edited by Rick Rawlings

    I am pretty bloodthirsty as well. May main problem, though, is flying a Nieuport, I always feel I have to crawl up someone's butt before shooting them to conserve ammo. 70% of my deaths are due to collisions, either with the plane I just shot, my wingman trying to steal my kill, another plane that my wingman shot down right above my head or the ground that I hit after stalling to avoid all of the above. Not having Track IR and having to quickly cycle through padlock and snap views makes it much more of a pain. I just yesterday mangaed to finally acheive my goal of being "recruited" by 56 squadron and called up with the big boys at Vert Galant. With 15 mission in and 11 hours in the air, 8 confirmed kills and another 4 pending, I am hoping I can enjoy some more stand-off fights where my constant, constant fear of collision begins to settle down. I need to go on leave for my nerves! :good:

     

    RR

     

    edit: Yay! I'm now a valued member!

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