Hellshade

IT System Administrator. (for the chicks) Hellshade

An excellent topic. When not scraping my pilots corpse off the front lines in OFF I enjoy: Other video games : Oblivion (heavily modded), Call of Duty (the entire series), Rainbow Six (entire series) Age of Conan (MMO) - looking forward to Torchlight from Mythic when it comes out on the 27th and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Movies - WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, ancient times (like Troy), pure fantasy like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and action / adventure type movies. I have over 370 movies on DVD, just gave away 400+ that were on VHS. Documentaries on nearly any war Upgrading my PC (since my video game habit depends heavily on having keeping it near cutting edge) Hanging out with my wife Playing with our youngest daughter, Jacqueline, who just turned 6. Hellshade

So I'm flying along in my N17, surrounded by a horde of buzzing huns in their Alb DIIIs, every one of them angry as hornets who's nest I just stirred up. I'm flying defensively, taking shots of opportunity to damage as many different Albs as possible. It is so much easier to survive against 5 damaged DIIIs than it is 3 fully capable ones. As is often the case, the fight descends lower and lower until I am barely 500 feet off the deck. Three Albs are around my altitude and two more are still circling higher above. As I latch onto the tail of one the huns at my level, I spend just a little too long hammering home extra rounds of Allied anger into the fellow before me. Sure enough he begins to smoke and descend rapidly, minus a few extra parts of his plane. In my exhuberance, I lost sight of the two huns above me and one of them evidently noticed that I had stayed fixated on my target just a bit too long. The first I became aware of his diving attack on me was a long burst of tracer rounds ripping through my port side wings and just inches from my cockpit. He dove almost straight down past my damaged N17, missing colliding with me by scantly a yard. Tipping my craft to the left I peered over the side to see which direction my antagonist would pull out of his dive and saw him attempting to pull up hard as he neared the ground. With great skill and daring, he leveled his DIII off just a few feet from the ground, but it was not to be enough for right before him loomed a line of trees. His plane collided through the forest and shredded his wings, set his engine on fire and finally exploded in a tumbling mass of wreckage. Another 10 feet of altitude and would he cleared the trees and probably gone home to brag to his squadron mates about his daring diving attack on the fool in the N17. Man do I love this game. The intensity of it is unmatched by any other air to air sim I've experienced. Hellshade

I think maybe there was a nickel painted on the side of the plane, come to think of it. :P Hellshade

I have been playing around with the Noop 17 in QC(and enjoying it very much!), however I noticed the bottom wings tend to come off fairly easily during hard turns or pulling up from steep dives. No problem. I understand this was a known issue with some of the earlier crates, so I decided to turn Aircraft Stress OFF in the workshop. Unfortunately, it hasn't helped any. Even when I haven't taken a single round of damage and there is no AA fire going on, my lower wings can still rip off during evasive manuevers. I also turned G-effects to OFF as well, but no dice. Any ideas on what's going on? I thought the purpose of Aircraft Stress On / Off was to remove stress from the plane that caused structural failure. Any feedback would be appreciated. Hellshade

Nope. It's not sounds. Even with Aircraft Stress set to OFF in the Workshop, I still hear the creaking sounds. Any other ideas? That said, I am starting to see why some folks enjoy the Noop 17 so much. What a wonderful little dogfighter she is. Had quite a long service life as well. The Huns went through a number of Albatross models before the N17 saw the end of it's service life. At least it has better FoV that the N11 and N16. Hellshade

So it's really Aircraft Stress SOUNDS are turned on or off, but your craft still suffers stress effects? Well alrighty then. Thanks for clearing that up. Hellshade

I am not for any kind of bashing of other sims, but that is quite funny indeed. Hellshade

Since you already must have CFS3, why not pop a few bucks and get the incredible OFF Between Heaven & Hell? With all of the current patches installed, OFF BHaH is absolutely one of the finest WWI experiences available today. P2 simply doesn't hold a candle to it. Graphics, AI, Campaign, Workshop options...P3 is just incredible. Please consider it seriously. You won't regret it for one moment. Hellshade

So will the ones that are delivered to the OFF BHaH front have the wing structure deficiencies already corrected? Hellshade

I'm sure it looked "nuts" to them too...until somebody showed them the trenches. Hellshade

I just got my CH Pedals today and they are a blast in OFF! I followed all of the advice and made sure to turn off Brakes, alierons and elevators on them then set rudder to X Throttle. Turned off rudder access on the Logitech joystick. I can tell it's going to take awhile to get used to using the pedals instead of the twisty stick (since I'm not a pilot), but it will be worth it. It seems like I can turn tighter with the pedals for some reason. Not sure if thats true or if it just feels different. The pedals seem a lot more sensitive than the twisty stick was. Anyways, I'm glad I got them before the force feedback joystick (which will be next). I have to learn to fly all over again so I'm just setting up QC against a lone DIII, me in a very stable SE5a and trying to stay behind him. Keep upping the skill from novice to veteran to ace and then bump up to a better EA to try and stay on the next guys tail. Talk about immersion though. I'm working up a sweat just trying to follow a DIII, which used to be a cake walk. Hellshade

My guess would be for you to check your squadrons morale status and see if you can find out what the hun squadrons morale is too. If your squadron is poor and they are average or elite, you're probably going to be toasted. Hellshade

I'm far from the best pilot out there, but as for combat tips I use a few general rules to help me live longer. 1. I rarely if ever do stall turns to get the drop on an EA unless I'm sure he's the only one in the sky or nobody else is even close. Lack of speed means no manueverability and that leaves you a sitting duck for the bad guys. 2. In fights against multiple EA, I try to switch targets and damage as many of them as possible first, especially in their wings. 5 damaged EA are easier to fight than 3 fully capable ones because you have turn superiority over them. 3. If I have a target in front of me and a pursuer closing in from behind, it's better to break off and turn towards your attacker to put him on the defensive. The first few minutes of combat for me is usually defensive and aimed at damaging planes as opportunity presents. 4. If I'm outnumbered and being out flown, I head for the deck. They aren't quite as aggressive just above the trees, but you also have the added danger of groundfire and less room for error, so don't let yourself stall out. 5. Don't waste ammo shooting at EA doing spinning dives towards the earth as they try to escape you. They are very hard to hit and you waste ammo. Besides, they HAVE to pull up eventually, providing you with a better target. If they don't, problem solved anyways. 6. Learn your effective gun range. Sniping EA from a distance is usually a waste of ammo. Have patience, check your 6 and close in for the kill shots when you can't see any clear attackers lining you up. 7. If you don't have it and can afford it, get TrackIR Pro. The ability to look around at will is a HUGE advantage to staying alive in the air and finding suitable targets. Check out some of the user made videos on the web page to see some nice combat action and maybe pick up some tips. I did some risky flying in a few of mine to make for more exciting video footage, but I wouldn't last long in a campaign if I kept flying that way all the time. But no matter what, it's just plain damn dangerous up there. Good luck. Hellshade

Last time I checked, a few of the developers were running Windows 7 without any issues in the single player campaign and quick combats. I don't know if 7 throws any monkey wrenches in the multiplayer side of things. Hellshade

It's not a top wing. It's a visor for the pilot to block the sun. Hellshade

Typical playmate. All looks, no depth. A month later you're looking at something else. Perfect choice, if you ask me. Hellshade

Realism % is gone? Out-flipping-standing!!! Great call guys. The only purpose it seemed to serve was to make people argue about what constituted "real". Thanks for getting rid of it. I think it detracted from peoples excellent experience of the game because their idea of what was realistic was different. Hellshade

The commitment to quality just never ends here. You've already got the gold medal for quality and you're still trying to improve. Simply amazing. Hellshade

Interesting. 1919? In the movie "Mephis Belle" (a WWII flick) one of the crew was supposed to be a poet and before their last flight..which was repeatedly delayed...he claimed to have written a poem and his crewmates badgered him into reading it. It was the same exact poem, word for word. I swear it. Anyone else have a copy of the movie that can verify this? I forget his name but the guy in the movie was Irish. Danny something. Hellshade

I can't fly early SPADs at all. I'm a turn fighter and I just can't master the energy attacks strategy, especially when more often than not the enemy starts above me. The field of view is, I'm pretty sure, the worst of all the aircraft available, so I can't see to shoot even if they are right in front of me. And with only 400 rounds to burn through guessing where the huns are at, I end up being just another flying target for the kaisers boys in no time at all. At least they fixed the stall speed, but even if the plane could turn well and had two guns, the incredibly poor FOV just ruins the experience for me. Sopwith triplanes are the best all around fighters for my style. Great FOV, excellent turning prowess, relatively stable firing platform, decent climb and dive abilities and, because of all of that, one gun is enough to make my shots count. The twin gun version (of which I am told only 6 were built) feel like the most powerful thing in the sky. When I use it in QC, I am a one man air force against the kaisers best. The Fokker Dr1 is a beautiful plane too, but it's a bit too twitchy for my tastes, making it hard to shoot accurately when you need to make small firing solution corrections. In the right hands though, I am quite sure she is a beast. Hellshade

Outstanding work as always. Never anything less. Thanks to all the devs. Hellshade

Oh that is hilarious. Never mind the part about them always wanting more no matter how great you are to them and their kids. Just the idea that a chick would be willing to spend money on a man instead of expecting him to spend it on her. Really now, that's just silly. /sigh - I think I pulled something I laughed so hard. Sorry if that offends anyone, but I have yet to live the counter example. Hellshade

Excellent argument for a plane I love too. But I don't know that there will be any other patches. The Devs are still working on a plane pack and Phase 4. Additionally, I seem to rarely if ever have wing failures and I like to whip her around pretty good up there. Dives followed by hard pull ups, barrel rolls to get into a kill position behind an EA and even the occassional loops, not to mention tight hard lefts and rights in the turn fights. I even posted a couple of videos of me toasting Albs in a tripe and there were a handful of violent manuevers in there. How often do you seem to have the problem? Did you perhaps already have some wing damage due to hun gunfire when they shed? Worse case scenerio, you can always turn off G-force effects in the workshop settings. Hellshade

I'm sure it's probably already on the list, but I would love to see the heavy bombers included in Phase 4. I imagine attacking a formation of Gothas or HP 400's with fighter escort, possibly amid clouds of exploding flak, would make for some truly spectacular experiences (and videos!). Just make sure there are lots of great damage effects on those lumbering beasts. Flaming engines, missing wings, etc. I can see it all now...and hope to experience that and more in P4. By the way, is there a working title for P4 yet? Hellshade