Hellshade

I was half afraid they would have denied my claim anyways saying that either he died of "natural causes" or a training accident. Maybe even claim the camp mascot shot him down with a pocket slingshot! You never know with those rear eschelon brass. That's a great idea to use pause and then the Z key Olham. It never occured to me. Plenty of details to fill in the reports now. Thank you for that. Hellshade

After a fierce 1 v 1 duel with a Sopwith Camel over my airfield, I decided to make sure that THIS TIME the pencil pushers wouldn't deny me my claim! It was, indeed, accepted.

On a QC flying on a clear day at 5000 feet in my trusty DIII. A small spec in the sky ahead of me rapidly grows larger and I can barely make out the form of a lone DH2 headed towards me. I tap the stick slightly to the left, jinking my plane so that I will take him down my right side. Though my plane is better than his, I'm still anxious before the coming fight. I know all it takes is a few well places shots from him and my plane will lose its advantages. I never take my eyes off of him, preparing for the swirling dogfight about to begin. Suddenly, AA from my lines opens up and begins to fill the sky with dangerous black puffs of smoke. No matter, I will fly through it and meet my foe! Without warning, a few hundred feet in front of me, his plane is almost totally covered in a thick black ball of smoke! Flames immediately engulf his machine and both wings come apart, sending the craft plummeting earthward! His scream is mercifully short. He drops straight as a stone from 5,000 feet, flames and black smoke trailing the entire way down. I circle above watching the terribly long fall, hoping he died as soon as the shell hit him. I circle closer to his doomed craft but I cannot hear anything above the sound of my engine and the continuous AA fire filling the skies around me. He never had a chance, and neither did I. Though we fight amongst the heavens, the long arms of hell on earth below can still reach us with their black claws of death, pulling us 'would be angels' screaming and bleeding from the sky. Death steals from everyone. My victory. His life. If "war is hell", then all we mortals have done by learning to fly is stretch the hand of hell so far that even the heavens feel its touch. My God. What have we done? Hellshade

So you haven't had enemy planes doing swirling dives for the deck? Or one pulling off solo while the remainder try to get around behind you? Where I have noticed the biggest change is, yes it's easy to shoot them down but all it takes is for them to get a few rounds in you and then you can't manuever very well at all. So basically I find that I either win without getting shot at all or else I get shot down. Rarely do I make it home "wounded" unless it's down to me and one pilot I'm fighting who is also now flying a damaged crate. Hellshade

As most of you know, air combat in OFF P3 got a lot more intense as of the 1.26 patch. The bad guys die faster, but so do you. Ever since I installed that patch, I've had to modify my air combat tactics to survive. Most of you are probably better pilots than I am, but just in case I thought I'd list a few rules I set for myself that have raised my survivability considerably. 1. Never let an enemy stay behind you for more than 3 - 5 seconds without taking evasive action. It's tempting to stay in position and finish a kill you have lined up, but in that short period of time one burst from the guy behind you could easily damage your plane and devastate your ability to manuever. Once your manueverability is gone, it's usually only a matter of time before you become a statistic in the Great War. 2. Never willingly engage in head to head combat. It's too easy for your engine or flight controls to be damaged by enemy fire or even a collision. You never have the advantage in head to head. If they are an Ace, you are at a distinct disadvantage! Peel off. 3. Change targets often. Don't get fixated on a single foe. Better to be fighting 3 wounded enemy birds that have a hard time manuevering than it is to fight 2 fully capable foes. Shoot to wound and then peel off to find another target unless you are sure there is nobody else close enough to pounce on you. You can come back to him later when he and his friends are easier to line up. Look for every target of opportunity and take close range pot shots then peel off and put the next one of the defensive. 4. Shoot no more than 50 round bursts at a time. My guns never seem to jam when I do that. 5. When engaged against multiple opponents in the QC mode, always try to wound one of them as quickly as possible. Usually one will peel off on his own. I tend to track around on them immediately after the first pass and try to get a few puffs of damage on him right away then disengage to find where the rest went. I'd love to read about other folks general rules or tactics they use to stay alive, especially against multiple opponents. It's vicious up there since 1.26. No room for error. What works best for you? Hellshade

Sorry. For some reason the post didn't take. Anyways, I'll try again. So has anyone taken the time to send a copy of Over Flanders Fields Phase 3 to PC Gamer? I honestly think the game belongs on the front cover for a few reasons. First, obviously, to review it. It clearly is one of the best WWI Flight Sims to come along in over a decade. That alone makes it stand out. But just as importantly, I think OFF P3 provides the perfect example as to how a company should ship and support its product. Who here hasn't opened a brand new game from a big development company only to find it was shipped in an unfinished state and then it was months later, if ever, before it was patched to become playable? OBD took a very flawed product, MSCFS3, and completely overhauled it to look better and play smoother than ever all while transforming it from WWII planes and dynamics to the dawn of air combat. It's white knuckle WWI air combat at it's best from the moment it's installed and the timely, successive patches have only added to the historical accuracy, quality and excitement that the game offers. If OBD can do that on a shoestring budget, why can't the 'big guys'? If Over Flanders Fields were properly reviewed in a magazine with a large following, such as PC Gamer, not only would the gaming community be made aware of what a fine product it is, but also maybe the big developers might realize what condition a game should be shipped in and how it and the community that plays it should be supported. So my question is, what does it take to get the attention of PC Gamer for a total conversion mod like this? I'd really like to see OBD get the level of credit they deserve for making such a fine product and then supporting it with excellent patches the way that they have. Hellshade

Has

Can I just offer my sincere appreciation to the Devs for being 100% on top of the community feedback in an effort to make sure P3 is the finest WWI flight sim available? Really a first class effort guys. Thank you for all of your efforts! The dogfights are beyond amazing and the entire experience is outstanding! Hellshade

First, I would like to extend my congratulations to the Devs. OFF P3 shipped as an excellent, top quality WWI Flight Simulator. With each new patch, especially the 1.26 one, it has continued to improve upon an already outstanding experience. If there was never another patch for OFF P3, it would still go down in history as one of the finest Flight Sims, WWI or otherwise, ever made available for the PC. That said, the passion of the Devs to continue to improve on the quality of their product is a wonderful breath of fresh air and I can only wonder what they will come up with next. If I may, I'd like to offer a suggestion. I'm not sure how hard it would be to code this. In QC mode, it would be awesome if the pull down menu for the plane type we choose to fly against could include "Random German fighters", and "Random Allied Fighters" I wouldn't expect it to be broken down by year or anything. I think it would add even more to the excitement of QC if you don't know what's going to jump you until they are already nearly close enough to shoot! Maybe even add "Random" onto the pull down menu list for how many you will fly against too. Then you wouldn't know what type of enemy aircraft, how many or what skill level the pilots are that you'd suddenly find yourself fighting against. I think that would add heavily to the "Oh F---!!!" factor for those QC patrols. What do you guys think? Thanks again for a top notch WWI Flight Sim. It's going to have a place on my hard drive for many, many years to come. Hellshade