Winston DoRight

Well this raises a question from me. Will the IM damage model even work under the new patch? I'm using hardcore DM right now because we just finished MP, but tonight I wanted to go back and install the IM for my single players campaign. Is installing the 1.6 intermediate damage model for campaign going to cause any problems under the new patch?

If you've never played a multiplayer game in OFF, please do not vote. This poll will also give us an idea of the number of multiplayer users at this forum.

All MP sessions are now conducted by starting MP from the OFF manager. No further CFS3MP.exe starts have been permitted in our group in order to make the bug reports valid to you. Vasco will be getting the "fix" for 1.31L from you and we will test it and let you know. The problem of the AI in our flights crashing on takeoff is now solved by entering MP through the OFF manager. This is welcomed and appreciated information, hence the new rules that require all of us to start OFF MP from the manager from now on. I'm hoping Vasco will take the duties of reporting the problems we encounter to you, as it would seem that would be better than having several people try to explain a "bug" to you in different ways, and the format of reporting would then always be the same. One problem down, a few to go, and thanks for your help so far!

Well.... a monkey-rigged fix is better than no fix at all! I'm sure something better will come along. This is the easiest and fastest way to take care of the problem for our Sunday sessions.

This is completely untrue. MP for the original CFS3 and the ETO mod is alive and well and flown each weekend. See the posts at SOF here: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/forumdisplay.php?f=7 Sitting duck and I hooked up in the original CFS3 multiplayer just a few weeks ago to veryify that none of the problems that we currently have in OFF are present in any way in the original game. I have since then flown several multiplayer sessions in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) mod and also see none of the jittering, warping, and spinning issues that are present in OFF multiplayer. And Microsoft didn't abandon the CFS3 servers because CFS3 no longer worked. They simply do not support their older products forever. If it doesn't make money for them anymore, it's simply dropped. When's the last time you saw any cool updates for Windows 98? I love this sim and will probably never quit playing it. I may give up on it's multiplayer half though as some from my weekend ETO group has done. The word is getting out that MP is broken and that's not a good thing. I fully understand that single player is the focus of the OFF teams fixes, and I think this is the greatest single player WWI sim available, but please try not to give out false information to the forum members here. I'll accept any MP fixes you can muster. I'll accept it if you can't fix the MP issues we have so diligently reported to you. What's hard for me to accept is not trying, or denying that these problems exist. I have full confidence in you guys and that you can do something about this when you have some time to devote to this side of the game. We now feel that we have you listening to our problems and that is a great start and much appreciated.

Until another fix is available, here's what to do for multiplayer after you install MiniPATCH 1.31L ALERT! After you've installed the MiniPATCH 1.31L trying to enter a multiplayer game will result in "aircraft mismatch" errors. Before joining any multiplayer sessions you must do the following IF you have installed patch 1.31L If you have not installed this new patch, you probably need to do nothing. Try joining as usual through the OFF manager. All MP sessions will now be run from the OFF Manager. Please, no more entering through the CFS3MP.exe executable. 1. After installing the MiniPATCH 1.31L, feel free to play around with the new FOV settings in workshop. When you are done experimenting with this, please write down your new favorite FOV settings to use when playing single player as this is what's causing the problems entering MP. We are now going to restore MP capabilities in the next step. 2. Re-run the Hardcore Damage model, followed by Madmatt's essential MP autoinstaller program, IN THAT ORDER. You should now be able to enter a multiplayer game without the mismatch errors. Just remember, from now on everytime you change your FOV in workshop you'll have to do step 2 over again before multiplayer. It is my sincere hope that the OFF team will start to test for multiplayer functionality before releasing new patches. It is my greatest fear that some day the multiplayer problems will have accumulated to a level that they cannot be fixed at all. Let's all hope that doesn't happen and that multiplayer issues will soon be addressed with some of their time and energy given to this most important aspect of the game. Maybe a patch or two just for multiplayer?

It's probably not lag/latency that gave you an unpleasant multiplayer experience. Multiplayer in OFF is quite broken and we're hoping the developers will start to repair these problems. Planes appearing to fly backwards, jittering, warping, or spinning in circles along their flight path happens quite often and is not a connection issue. I've flown both the original CFS3 and the European Theatre of Operations add-on and can assure you that no such similar problems exists in these products even with rather high latency marks. Your LAN connection should be fairly free of latency compared with an online connection that may be thousands of miles away. We have a few dedicated users who play OFF multiplayer almost every day and we have just recently begun to give the development team some multiplayer bug reports and hope to hear soon that they will begin to solve these problems for us.

I've been customizing the TAC colors for years because I never liked the stock colors in CFS3. Here's a great webpage that shows you the html colors and the codes required to get them: http://www.immigration-usa.com/html_colors.html You can change to any color you want by changing the last six characters of the item you want to change in the viewui.xml file.

I'll pass on this one as I never fly QC. I will continue to use your intermediate DM 1.6 in my campaigns though. It's the best DM available IMHO.

This looks similar to my LG 22" widescreen 2ms USA specs monitor. It's very good and my favorite feature is the easy switch over to 4:3 aspect for my older games that look too "stretched" on wide mode. My only complaint was that I had to buy a DVI cable seperately as the monitor did not come with one.

Thanks to all who stopped by to day. 1. Vasco 2. myself 3. sitting duck 4. von Baur 5. Burning Beard 6. Stumpjumper- Great formation flying! 7. FRO 8. Dudley 9. SRC 10. Axgrinder 11. Alpha8 12. Jokerswild The MP list is growing! Apologies if I missed anyone. Thanks to Vasco for the GREAT missions and for hosting. Thanks to Duck for hosting as well. Three more "points earning" sessions to go in July. Hope to see you guys back next Sunday. Everyone else welcome as well. Check the calendar for details, contact Vasco, sitting duck, or myself for help in setting up MP and/or teamspeak.

It appears the OFF team could use one more member. An advertising administrator.

I'd like to extend the invitation to anyone who want to give multiplayer a try. We'll be flying coop missions all day with perhaps a Team Dogfight at the very end. At the end of July I will award two prizes to the top participants in "Winston's Early Birds" Sunday multiplayer sessions. There will be two different categories of judging, coop and team dogfight. 1. On coop missions, points are given for following the orders of your Section Leader, the ability to fly in formation, and attention to the mission goals. Points are deducted for breaking formation and chasing non mission specific targets (unless ordered by your Section Leader). Staying alive in your first aircraft can earn you points as well. 2. Team dogfight high score. This will be tallied for the last Sunday in June session and all Sunday sessions in July. Due to the method I'm using to tally points it would be hard for someone to attend just one or two sessions and win a prize. Your best chance would be to do well in as many sessions as possible. So come one and come all to the early sessions on Sunday. By "Early" I mean setting an early time for USA flyers to accommodate the European time zone, not necessarily flying in "early" war years although Vasco may be able to provide some early war campaign missions converted for us to fly if there's enough interested in this. Info for Early Birds will be found on the MP calendar ONLY. I will not be posting the info as a topic any longer. The calendar is here: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?act=calendar Just go to the bottom where it says "Calendar Jump" and change the "Community Calendar" to the multiplayer calendar. For practice, drop by teamspeak whenever you can, we try to get something going as much as possible, especially Saturdays. If you've never flown multiplayer contact me, Vasco or sitting duck and we'll set you up with a short training tutorial that will get you going. First you'll need to read the multiplayer tutorial instructions by sitting duck here: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=38466 And the essential multiplayer files auto installer by Madmatt here: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=42089 It's a painless process and you'll be up and online flying quickly. Here are the prizes that will be awarded: 1st prize is a 24" X 18" framed P-51D Mustang "Big Beautiful Doll" flying over the Dover cliffs, with full combat cockpit photo. 2nd prize is the Osprey 1994 photo book of "Classic Aircraft of World War I" by Melvyn Hiscock. I think it may be out of print as I can no longer find it anywhere on the net.

A good ping is VERY important in OFF. We do have some flyers here in California, so you should get a good connection when one of us is hosting. High latency marks cause the other players to warp a bit and jump around. It's the only thing I dislike about multiplayer.

Just remember that you will need a headset. If you leave your speakers on, you'll get a terrible feedback into your mic. That's why we recommend a headset w/mic and turn off your speakers for MP sessions.

I'll be on teamspeak starting at about 1pm pst tomorrow, Friday, that should be around 9pm London time. I'll bet Vasco or sitting duck will be on even earlier than that. If you can, check your teamspeak settings as best you can in the test mode and log-in. Be glad to check you through. If you can log in to teamspeak, but can't get it working, we can try typing messages to each other to troubleshoot. Look for the menu that allows you to send text messages. See you there.

Oh my! I thought my -60 was bad. But I do so like the strong gun settings.

Looking forward to having you join us. Try teamspeak in the late evenings your time on any day before Sunday, see if Vasco and I are there testing missions. Mission testing is a great way to get in some practice, flying formation, etc. Funny, I have a similar favorite downward manouver. It involves trailing a thick black smoke. Is that anything like yours?

I really like this one! Great job. Will you make this available for us to download? I may be able to keep track of my wingies now if they're dressed like this!

Multiplayer is alive and well on OFF with sessions almost every day. Check the calendar for info and topics in the multiplayer section for the required files and setup instructions. If you don't see a session posted, just log onto teamspeak and see if anything is going on. Often there's some players just waiting to fly. The majority of flights are co-op missions and plenty of help to get new MP flyers up and running. We have regular flyers in the USA on the west coast, central, east coast, and in the UK, so it would be easy to set up a training or intro session for you. Just get Teamspeak and the overlay installed and tested on your system and log in. Info to do that at this topic: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=43258 We don't seem to miss the old CFS3 servers. We fly with one of our own members who hosts the game, and anyone of us can host if they want. I cannot say multiplayer is without some small problems, but they are minor and perhaps one day the developers will spend some time on some problems within this aspect of their product? ?

We had a great turnout, Burning Beard, Dudley, Franz, Vasco, von Baur, Joker, Alpha8, sitting duck and myself, with apologies to anyone I've missed. Special thanks to Vasco for hosting his converted campaign missions, of which we flew many today in coop action. Truly the most fun you can have while keeping your clothes on! I'll be hosting more of these "Early Bird" Sunday sessions, intended to attract our European pilots by making the mission time "early" for the USA players so it's early evening in Europe. Check the MP calendar at: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?act=calendar Look at the bottom of the page in the center where it says "Calendar Jump" and simply change the pulldown from "Community Calendar" to "Over Flanders Fields Multi-player" and press "Go". I'll not be posting my sessions as a topics here anymore to keep the board cleaner looking, you'll have to check the calendar. Congratulations to Dudley for top score in the final mission of today.... the Team Dogfight. So if I've neglected to mention you, if you were a player today, please add your name with a reply here. I'm tossing about the idea of offering a monthly prize to the person who excells in "Early Birds" coop missions and dogfights.

I'm in southern Cal so that will be convienent. PM me when you get a mic. We're going to need to talk a bit on teamspeak to get you set up. Walmart has a few $15 headsets and I just got a great one at newegg for $15 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16826502004 They ship pretty fast.

I hope you mean we'll need the order number from the Add-on Pack purchase and not the original order number from the intital OFF purchase. The March email from Avangate I have deleted long ago.

When you get Teamspeak and the overlay installed (as per sitting ducks instructions) log on to teamspeak. I'm usually there around 2 to 7 pm pacific time, and Vasco is often there somewhat earlier. Once you get teamspeak working, the rest will be easy. Where are you in the real world? Tips on teamspeak: 1. Turn off you speakers, wear your headset and mic only. Sound from your speakers will feedback through the mic. 2. Use quick connect. Leave the box "Login name (optional)" blank.

Sounds like a job for Super-Stumpjumper!