zoomzoom

Alrighty. Attached is a jpeg of my rebol window. Let me know what you think Lothar. Thx. ZZ.

"I shot him down over the lines once, in a fight very low over the mud. But he must have climbed out of the wreckage and entered another S.E.5a. Next day he wanted revenge." OLHAM! Hello old friend, and fellow Albatros aficionado. Well Olham you gotta understand Ball's position, when your old crap bag canvas covered flying tractor of an SE5-A gets its tail feathers burnt by a superior pilot in a superior Albatros type, the only way to really beat that combo is to shoot-em up on the ground before that invincible pair can even get in the air, just like he did to Mudwasp! That's his only hope really. Mudwasp.....next patrol, drop a pair of old boots with an insult attached on their aerodrome aka-Dawn Patrol style, and get his blood boiling. Olham, good to see you are still "ventilating" these sub-par species of aircraft as well. ; ) All the best, ZZ.

Oh, well ok. Thanks Lothar, I will give sending you a text copy of the rebol screen a try tonight once I get a chance. Many thanks. ZZ.

Thanks Lothar. This seems like a really cool Add-on, kudos to you and all who created it. Unfortunately I have not yet invested in Trak-ir, so it probably won't be helpful until I do. Second, it is still hanging on the load screen with the same xml error once I've "fixed the corrupted pilots as you outlined. And when I try to load through Off-base it simply hangs on the "generating squadron" window, and never loads. So, looks like it's time for a clean sweep and a fresh install. Can't say we didn't try though. : ) ZZ. PS. Thanks for your help none-the-less!

A question or two. Sorry for being so thick about this. So if you want to play OFF the regular version, you just go in the regular way through the OFF icon, but if you want to play the OFF-base version you use the "Play Offbase' icon. Then why can't I seem to find the OFFbase squadron window or Off-ramp? Everything in game still looks the same as in regular OFF. 2nd. Is there a way to fix my pilots corrupted xml files without converting them to be played in Off-base? ZZ.

Hey thanks Lothar, I will give it a whirl. By the way, is there a way to switch your "Office" mod on and off, for instance if you want to play OFF with the immersive campaign mode one day, and then without the next? Just curious. If not, to accomplish this, would this require two seperate installations or something akin to that? ZZ.

I'm getting back around to playing OFF again after a hiatus, and am having an odd loading issue. I get all the way to the black screen w Richtoffen and Ball right before the mission loads, but it never loads, and when I exit out I have this error window on the screen: End tag 'Unlimited pilots' does not match the start tag 'CFS3Pilot'. Error on line 673,position 3 in file:c; documents and settings etc etc all the way to cfsww1 over flanders fields/UnlimitedPilots.xml. Anybody got any idea what the heck this means? Oddly enough the game has worked fine the past two days I've used it. This is new, and I'd hate to have to delete all my old pilots to fix, but anyway. If anyone has some ideas I'd much appreciate it. Many thanks, ZZ.

You guys gotta try this. It combines all the fun of fighting games with miniatures, and real life (its pretty realistic as well) WWI combat. My son downloaded it for me from Xbox live, and I havent put it down since. I'd call it an instant CLASSIC!!!! ZZ. PS......OF Course OFF is THE BEST serious sim for WWI. But this one is just plain daffy fun. You can even play head to head against another player. It also has two campaigns 1 Brit and one German. I would have paid 40 for this as a standalone game! As it stands you can download it for around $13.00 on Xbox live. amazing

Twas a jack of all trades, and a good one too. ZZ.

Well you know what, ........what offends my senses most, more than the slightly overrated for effect plane speeds ( a matter of debate), and the silly pretencious and unrealistic, (not to mention badly done) love stories mixed into the film. What I'm dead sick of seeing is a 25-foot tall freak of nature playing Manfred Von Richtoffen in every frickin movie. I mean you dont even have to KNOW history....look at the flaming photographs for Petes sake! In Richtoffen and Brown, as well as the latest Sweighoffer flick, these people are ridiculously disproportionate...they are even taller than the guys cast to play Lothar, who was clearly the taller of the two. Again...at least the Blue Max was closer to the mark, in that he wasn't flying the plane with his knees in his face cause he couldn't get his spider like legs into the cockpit. ZZ.

Yeah, it doesn't really matter how good a surge protector you have if the bolt comes in on the phone line. My brother had that happen....amazing money spent on surge protection with the power supply....bolt came in through the phone....fried it all. Unplug it in electric storms folks....thats all. ZZ.

Sounds like you are getting closer to beating your "jerk fire" issue. A coupla things that might help. The main reason a lot of people jerk when firing is that they EXPECT a gun to go off. Sounds kinda ironical doesn't it.....cause a gun DOES go off! and kick too. But from what I've seen, we train ourselves to do this as kids when we play fight....what do we do?....we fire the gun (imaginary) and we jerk to simulate the effect. This takes root in the subconcious. I've often helped freinds of mine who have the same problem when firing real weapons. One way that works is to have them aim and fire an empty weapon while keeping it smooth and on target before AND after firing. Its amazing, they jerk just as much when the guns empty as when its loaded. ITS ENTIRELY MENTAL! But after a while, they stop jerking and realize that they are the problem, and can stay on target all the way through the shot. Breathing control, squeezing the trigger like a lemon not whacking it back like a railroad switch, helps too. So maybe one, or a combination of these mind tricks will help you keep focus. Whether when you fly you tell yourself, this gun is empty, so it takes the boom out of the mental image, or (this is a fav of mine for flying) you tell yourself mentally, This trigger fires a paint squirter, and I want to paint a particular part of that guys plane up there, or maybe the guy himself right in the back of the head, and to do that, I will focus on where my targeting dot (I know not in OFF, but if you know your plane, you know where that should be) is, and not the fact these are simulated machine guns. You keep your focus on the targeting, and not on the fact that you are shooting guns, and your accuracy will improve....its mind over matter. One last method is to fly without firing, put your finger below the trigger as a training exercise, and do some quick dogfights, and simply keep your plane, (end of your machine gun) on the enemy plane AS IF you were firing. Fly to keep him the best target, and work to control your plane to put the tip of that machine gun regularly on him where you want it. After a while you can then squeeze the joystick SOFTLY (but not the trigger) at the point you feel you would fire. Your aim will calm down and your accuracy will improve. Give it a go. ZZ.

Will they still let you own medieval weaponry in the overly restrictive UK? Nothing like a crossbow bolt through the neck to discourage an intruder! And it makes a lovely gurgling sound as they get hung trying to run back out the door. Oh wait, thats a longbow shaft, the crossbow will likely go all the way through....my bad. ZZ.

This is something I'd never do, even with a mail gauntlet. I'm more than happy to watch others do it, however, because I always enjoy it when idiots remove themselves from the gene pool. Amen. Now fishing with dynamite, thats different!! Boom, and you just watch everything in a 10 foot radius float to the top. Well, thats half a stick....full stick is about a 20' radius. ZZ.

Fascinating info on the indigenous copper Bullet. I'm currently reading John Smith's original accounts of exploration, and its clear that copper was not unknown to the natives, just not very prevalent in the South, obviously much more so where natural ore occured as you point out, clearly around Michigan. As an aside, had a friend who was also into flint knapping and moved out to the western US, where he would scour creek beds for very nice occasional pieces of black obsidian. Lovely stuff, but one day he found an odd looking bit, and decided to work it up into flints for his flintlock instead of arrow points. Another friend of his came over to see him and noticed the pieces he had finished, and almost fell out of his chair, because being a stone expert, he realized he had made gun flints from a very rare and potentially valuable chunk of Jade! Bet they'd make some pretty turkeytails! lol He said they sparked his rifle just fine though. As far as ancient medicine is concerned, yeah , modern medicine's amazing, but then there are drugs all around us and we just don't know it. For instance, my mother whenever she used to get a headache, would strip a bit of bark off of the old weeping willow in the yard and chew it a while. How bizzare a modernist might think. Not really. The weeping willow bears in its bark and outer skin the self same drug that is refined and used in aspirin. Primitives would chew the bark for a quick-light dose, or gather a good bit and render, "boil it down" in a tea for a heavier dose. Who knew!!?? Well..........they did. ZZ. PS. U-K, they'd probably look at you funny if you tried this too: But you guys probably dont have catfish in England. Personally, I'd pass on Noodling without a chain mail glove....but then sticking my hands up dark holes in river banks under water isn't a practice of mine either!! Who knows what you might pull out!

Veeeeeery nice work Bullet. You've obviously been practicing for some time. You are definately at the "artist" level, I'm somewhere around the "it'll make due for now level"! There definately was a trade system of sorts throughout these periods, as you mention, as too much non-indigenous material found its way to other places it shouldn't be if it was otherwise. Your example of foriegn flint types being trafficked is dead on. As I mentioned, we only have the white quartz where I live, and you have to go out West to get into regions where the black obsidian is found. Non-theless, back in my arrowhead hunting days, I managed to find one (the only one I've ever found, and I've found many hundreds) Black Obsidian point in a field we were farming. I'll bet it was prized as a unique and exotic item by whomever got hold of it.....or, it was carried by nomads who moved into the area, and was simply used, and forgotten as they switched over to the local material....that being the very unpleasant to shape and easily fractured White quartzite. ZZ. PS. So are the cherry red "rose" colored tips the local type you mentioned that need to be heated to work? Makes a very pretty finished point. most unique Sorry UK.....we'll stop hijacking!! Hey....maybe some fishing with an atl-atl......added to your repetoire!?

Hey Bullet, How's your accuracy with that atl-atl? I hear once you're good, you can get pretty good distance and penetration. You using flint/obsidian, for your tips locally found, or do you have to settle for the white-Quartz crap the poor buggers had to fashion stuff from up here in the Eastern woodlands? All I know is the black Obsidian knaps nicely, the white milky stuff we have here though, is a royal pain, and after seeing what was done with it by the "first Americans" I'm even more impressed with thier skill. It took me a loooong time as a young-un to produce anything close to looking like a sharp edge with a decent tip. Where'as the originals could probably knock one out that was a work of art in less than 20 minutes!! ZZ.

"Sun cream factor 4000" Isn't that basically white latex paint!? ZZ.

Or the Viper, thats a fine machine as well. ZZ.

Well, its funny anyway. Well, kinda funny, probably kinda painful too. ZZ. PS........stay off the airstrip.

Oh... I thought this was a question about the sim.. Woops, sorry for the misleading title Rabu. ZZ.

Hehe, yeah. I was also kinda amused at the old-timer pilot, who walks up and see's the guy he just plowed over, regards him for a few seconds, then proceeds to focus on whether or not his plane is ok!!! ZZ. PS......guess he figured, "well if you're dumb enough to 'camp-out' on the airstrip!"

Yeah, Bullets' right. Had that happen a few times and at first thought it was supposed to represent extended stress fracturing the spar....but now, me-thinks its a bit too frequent. It could use a visitation from the Dev's it seems. Your tactics are sound Olham, I have used the cross controlled side slip for many a chase down maneuver, and it is a fine solution to overspeed stress and wing shedding. Its also great for mis-judged landings where you came in too hot....just watch the snap at ground level, cause there aint not recovery from that one. You'll either come away wearing the robe of luck.....or a body bag. most likely the latter. ZZ.

I think at least a cracked windscreen with some tastefull blood spatter as an injury notice would be quite appropo. I seldom can tell, even after an in-mission wounding, that I've even been hit, when in reality, you'd know right away!!! So yeah, a somewhat shocking in-flight heads up would be most realistic. ZZ. PS...Looking down and seeing an incendiary round burning itself out in my boot would be for the "High Graphical Realism" setting.

Some more ideas. If they are Hannovers, I fly above and overwatch, as others here have mentioned, swooping down on any attackers. For Rolands however, I change up tactics, as they are such a formidable armada to attack, I will often fly right in with them as a large formation. As soon as enemies are in range, thier rear gunners begin to chatter, (a helpful alarm) and we can then use them as cover for turning attacks at the same level, usually driving down attackers due to the volume of fire from the mixed fighter/rear gunner tactic. From here, you can either stay in the group, or, if at an advantage in numbers, pique down on the now lower aggressors from a position of safety. The only time this became messy was when we were assaulted by two different large groups of enemy planes. Then it simply broke the formation and a huge free-for-all resulted. This didn't go too badly though as the Rolands all made it back and our losses were minimal. ZZ.