Hellshade

How about instead of graphical feedback in the cockpit, they added audio feedback instead to add to the immersion even more. If your plane gets hit, your pilot will say "Son of a..." (or some such variation of suprise/anger). If you get hit, of course, you scream. High stress turns will make your pilot grunt against the strain, etc. Optional "Pilot Sounds" able to be selected / deselected in Workshop, naturally. You'd probably want 4 different voice sets. One for each country. Can't be having the Huns yelling "Bloody Hell!" in an english accent when their planes get hit now, can we? Hellshade

Maybe we could compromise and get a single finger salute? I'm sure it happened, historically speaking. Hellshade

Thanks Widowmaker. The honor is mine to fly her. She is stunningly painted. First Campaign video is up sir. They scratched the paint up a bit (maybe a little bit more than that) but not before I retired a few Allied crews. I made the screenie my wallpaper. She looks at home hunting in dark, stormy skies! Hellshade

Well now, maybe that's what the Workshop options are for. Actually I suppose if there was going to be something else added to the cockpit to make the game more immersive, I'd say the ability to salute a foe as their plane went down would be awesome. Not asking for it in P4. I'm sure there are a hell of a lot more useful things the Devs could spend their time on to make the game better, but that would be sort of cool. Especially if the AI pilots would occassionally salute foes they defeated as well. Think of the screenshots and videos... Well, maybe for P12. Hellshade

It was all just a ruse. I was hoping to call my CO and ask him to come pick me up at the crash site. Then when he saw the wreckage of my kite mingled right in with the Albatross, I thought maybe THEN he'd credit me for the kill. It's hell trying to get a confirmation around here. Hellshade

Sept 4th, 1918 on patrol with Jasta 7. To quote the Brits "It's bloody Hell up there." Hellshade's Campaign Video #1 (6:10) HD Enjoy Hellshade

I think it's a question of intended audience. Young children shouldn't be subjected to such blood and gore in video games any more than adults should be forced to watch Hanna Montanna all day. It's not guaranteed to make you crazy but it probably doesn't help anything either. For myself, if I'm playing a game using swords and other barbaric weapons, I kind of expect to see barbaric results. That said, I pause the game and turn off my monitor if my 6 year old walks into the room. A little active parenting goes a long way. As far as what seems to be turning more and more people into apathetic pseudo-sociopaths, I'd personally have to point my fingers at a world where people are increasingly disconnected from other people. Plugged into our ipods to tune out the voices, having more conversations in text on our computers and cell phones than we do talking face to face. Anything you don't want to see or hear about you can turn it off with a click of the mouse button. I think people are just getting very used to tuning out the environment and people around them on a whim. Or maybe we've always been this way. It just gets reported more with a 24/7 worldwide news network. Hellshade

Hey Widowmaker, do you mind if I use the plane you painted below for my Jasta 7 Campaign videos? I will of course be happy to give credit to you wherever it is featured, good sir. Hellshade

Well things do tend to get a little more violent if you have a sword as the following very quick video shows. I got him (0:04) HD Deadly Reflex 5 lets you cut off arms and legs as well as disembowel people too. It's about as graphic as it gets for a fantasy game. As for the "stripper", well lets just say that there are Oblivion mods out now that let her do things that make the "Hot Coffee" GTA mod look like a Disney movie. Seriously. She has several talents besides killing. And beneath the skimpy outfit she is very well rendered, top to bottom. Not going to show that here though. Hellshade and GTA is cool too, btw!

Widowmaker, You can find the mods at www.tesnexus.com. There are thousands. I have 108 running. Here are a few of the ones I consider essential, personally. Start with Oblivion Mod Manager. It's essential to manage all the mods. Deadky Reflex 5 Female EyeCandy 1.0 Martigans Monster Mod 3.5.5 Z Fatigue Gone Realistic Force Low Realistic Magic Force Low Natural Weather - by Max Tael (amazingly lifelike weather) Symphony of Violence (changes combat sounds to be more realistic Supreme Magika (reworks the magic system - awesome) SkyCaptains Blood Time Adrenelin Fueled Combat (locational damage!) "Duke Patricks" various combat mods (just search by authors name) Arrow Effects (for flaming arrows, etc) That should be enough to get you started, bud. You'll find plenty more. Rabu, I'm looking forward to the new campaign videos too. I've been doing some flying in Jasta 7 with their all black planes (very cool looking) and there is certainly plenty of action in late July & August of 1918. I run out of bullets long before I run out of Allied planes! Hellshade

Now I'm really stymied. I did a fresh installation of OFF and it STILL kills it the moment I start to record. Hellshade

Ok guys, I have what I firmly believe to be the solution and anyone with a TrackIR can test it for themselves to see if they can duplicate my findings. The TrackIR screen tearing, unlike normal CFS3 stutters, is inversely tied to the refresh rate of your display. Meaning if you lower the refresh rate of your screen to around 25, you'll see some pretty big screen tears with TrackIR. Conversely, if you bump it up to around 60, you will see them all but dissappear. Of course, the higher your refresh rate, the more likely you are to have stutters. This theory - as I've experienced it - explains the following: How at least 3 people, some with modest systems, can run TrackIR without the tearing issue even though they obviously DON'T have SSD drives. My guess is their FPS is set pretty close to 60 or higher. How I could remove most of the tears with Lou's settings, but they show up the moment I turn on FRAPS. It wasn't the HD access that was causing the tears, it's that FRAPS has an option to select the FPS capture rate and mine was set at 25. As soon as I bumped it up to 60, no more tears in FRAPS while using TrackIR. Here's a video I made of me running FRAPS at 60 FPS. You'll notice some stutter as my HD tries to keep up with the textures (and SSD drive would probably fix that!), but you'll also notice the screen tears are almost non-existant. Jaggies Be Gone (1:51) HD Try it for yourself guys if you have a TrackIR. Go to C:\OBDSoftware\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\default and edit the cfs file with notepad. Change 'MaxFPS="0"/>' to 25 and try using TrackIR. Lots of Jaggies. Bump it to 60 and see if they dissappear. The exact number they dissappear at may change with your slider settings, etc. But Jaggies are definately more prominate at lower refresh rates. Hellshade

Welcome back Capt. Watch yourself in the skies up there. They work pretty hard to make you a part of the historical landscape. Hellshade

Well done RAF! I can only imagine what it took to sneak into the OBD fortress of solitude and snatch such vital proof of P4s development. It all looks fantastic. Just one question.... Do you think the Snipe will come in different colors? Hellshade (Great video bud! Well done!)

I didn't have much time to fly the campaign last night, but I did manage to get a nice little Quick Combat in. Hellshade's Air Combat Video #11 (5:01) HD Hellshade

Hey Guys, I'd like to get some video of the heaviest possible air campaign action. Obviously late 1918, but does anyone have a particular squadron (on either side) and date that they have been in where you've gotten into huge furballs? The more planes the better. Shredward pointed me towards August 8th, 1918 and gave me a bunch of squadrons on both sides to try (and I am starting to now with Jasta 4)) but he also said someone on the forum might have a better idea. I've been shooting QC videos but I'd really like to be able to share what the campaigns themselves have to offer. Any assistance is appreciated. Hellshade

All we know for sure is that it will be a highly modified version of the Legos: Star Wars engine. Should be good. Hellshade

Hey Widowmaker, I'm starting a campaign in late 1918 with Jasta 7 flying Fokker DVIIs. I love your Red & Black paintjob. Mind if I use it in any videos I make of the campaign? I promise to always give credit to you for your fine work. Here's a pic I took of her on my maiden flight with the squadron. Hellshade

Of course he was smoking. He just got done $%ing you and your 3 friends. I had the same thing happen. I started with a 9 to 4 superiority in numbers as well as height advantage. By the time it was all over, 2 more flights of Spad XIIs from ESC 102 and 3 Nieuport 24s from Esc 76 had joined the fray and cut us to peices. I swear they are trying to win the war up there. I went home in a box. Basterds. Hellshade

I'll do my best to make the Kaiser proud. Thanks for the tips guys. I'm signed up with Jasta 7 on July 24th (as Druce suggested)...and I'll be using Windowmakers Red & Black with a skull custom Fokker DVII paint job. Now I just have to hope I can fly her with the same skill and artistry that he painted her with. I'm going to need to with 2:1 odds. Campaign starts tomorrow after work, assuming all goes well. Hellshade

I decided to have some fun and put the guns on "Stronger" in the workshop. Then I did a 6v6 QC of DVIIs against Sopwith Camels. Fun fight! Got some GREAT close up kill shots in there. Hellshade's Air Combat Video #10 (4:29) HD Hope you enjoy it. The intesting part of this video is I took all sliders down to 2 except terrain, which I kept at 4. Turned off AA and because of how FRAPS takes the video...it still looks pretty good. Hellshade

Good to have you back Olham. I hope you had a great time. Back to the Front for you now though. Somebodys gotta keep those damn Allies in line. Oh yes and umm...sorry about your plane. Hellshade

and I'm reminded of Uncleal and others who have nowhere near either of our system specs nor SSD drives and they claim to have no TrackIR jaggies at all. So, please explain to me what "you know" about Morris's TrackIR and SSD drive? Sounds like mighty flawed logic to me. Also, I fixed my TrackIR jaggies without an SSD drive...so really...what is your point? Other than beating a dead horse that is. Second, you have no idea what I paid for my rig, since you don't know when I built it. More importantly, when did "how much did you pay for your rig?" become a part of the solution to getting rid of TrackIR jaggies? It's not. It's just part of your endless quest to prove to everybody how superior you and your computer are to everyone else. But it never gets old, really. Ever. I look forward to your condescending tone in every post. It makes you a colorful new addition to an established, well rounded and very enjoyable forum. And what exactly would you be proving by posting videos? You don't have a TrackIR to replicate the problem. I didn't have jaggies or screen tears at all before I got a TrackIR either. They only showed up when moving my head from side to side quickly while using the TrackIR. How would you replicate that without a TrackIR? What exactly would the video be proving? That you don't have jaggies without a TrackIR? Neither do a lot of people. That's not news, sir. And it wouldn't prove that you wouldn't have them if you had the TrackIR. Hellshade

As I stated above bud, you can't duplicate the TrackIR white triangle / jaggies (whatever we all wish to call them) without the TrackIR. You can duplicate the settings, but the effect won't take place unless you are turning your head while using TrackIR. I don't have stuttering or screen tearing at all on my system normally, except sometimes when trying to record a video and my non-SSD drives are struggling to keep up with recording all the action on the screen. The only place I was having jaggies show up was with TrackIR fast head turns. For me and at least one other person, settings MaxFPS=60 (which happened to also be my screens refresh rate) got rid of about 95% of them. As long as my system is showing that I'm running at 60FPS they rarely appear and then only in minor bits. BirdDogICTs solution also worked for me and himself. Adjusting the TrackIR speed to lower numbers slows your head turn rate on the screen and that also helps reduce the jaggies. The faster you turn your head, the more pronouced the jaggies are. I'm hoping Over50 will try and see what happens. At any rate, without the device, I'm not sure how you could go about troubleshooting the issue. Hellshade

The TrackIR tearing is a totally separate issue from (for example) non-vsync screen tear or stutters. Simply having a faster rig in every way (for example) won't get rid of them as it might for screen stutters, as evidenced by the folks who have even modest setups yet had no TrackIR screen tears or jaggies. Yet some people with high end gear still have the issue. In other words, it's a gear independant issue, with the exception of course of the TrackIR gear itself. Solving screen stuttering problems, unfortunately, are not a guarantee that you wouldn't have this issue if you did add a TrackIR. As for trying to duplicate the problem, the only way to do that is by turning your head left and right (yaw) quickly while using TrackIR in OFF over a nice patch of land. It then causes white jaggies or screen tears on the far right or left side of the screen only(depending on which way you are turning your head) where the land is visable. Settings and gear that work perfectly well for you without TrackIR are no guarantee that you wouldn't have the problem if you added one. Duplicating someones settings who is having the problem probably won't be much help to you either, since without the TrackIR there's no way to experience the effect and it's entirely possible that they are having no other display issues besides TrackIR screen tears. So basically, there's no way to duplicate the issue without the TrackIR gear because the effect only shows up when using it. Best guess as to why it happens and how FPS or Refresh Rate can have an impact on it but not show up elsewhere is because it has to do with how TrackIR was programmed to interact with CFS3, which didn't happen natively. Pretty sure TrackIR support wasn't added to CFS3 until well after the game was out and the game engine itself may not lend itself well to the new technology. Old software can sometimes be very picky about how it works with new gizmos. That would explain why people can use TrackIR on more modern (and demanding) games and experience no jaggies at all with it there, but they immediately show up when running the CFS3 engine. As for TrackIR itself, I couldn't possibly recommend it enough. In fact once I got used to using it (there is a learning curve), I can't imagine myself flying any flight sim without it. Just too constrictive without the ability to look almost anywhere at will. It adds so much to the immersion factor that going without it now would be almost like going to a silent, black and white movie at the theater today. Cute, but just not the same. Hellshade