SirMike1983

My head typically causes increased wind resistance and a loss of 2mph in whatever plane I fly in OFF.

It sounds to me like they printed the electronic shipping label, but the actual package never made it to the postal service. On the other side, USPS tracking is also notoriously slow to update, and sometimes the package makes it before the tracking even catches up.

We took a pretty good beating here in MD.

This one is a fun plane to fly. I enjoyed it back in the early RB days, and it's fun now too. I'll admit I think the D.VII is the better aircraft of the two, however.

Has anyone else had this problem-- after installing HITR the game runs ok the first time. But then after you go out to windows that when you try to come back in, the overrides and cfs3config go totally missing. I found that tonight-- now I'm getting an error that these things are missing and need to reinstall OFF entirely. What could have done that?

I agree-- on certain missions you don't want the weight of a full tank. For example, I take very little on scramble missions. I want as light and agile a plane as I can get in those circumstances and I need very little range. The ability to get up and down quickly and effectively is vital in those missions, as is the ability to shake a pursuer. I usually hang close to the defensive help of the field guns, so a bullet hole in the tank just causes a quick landing. This fuel business was a bit disappointing to find. But I really do like the content of the add-on, a lot.

You're right-- it looks like it did a driver auto-update without telling me at some point after I exited the game. Interesting that it loses those files though, never come close to having that before.

I got Hat in the Ring tonight and flew a couple missions. So far I like it. The Fokker D.VIII is twitchy and agile-- quite a handful but a great dogfighting machine. The N.24 series is a delight-- fairly neutral in handling but very agile still. The N.24 has a nice, light feel to it and is very responsive, but without the negatives that come with agility. It's not as fast or powerful as a Spad, but I'll take it any day of the week compared to a Spad.

Though it is true that pilots who had achieved highly enough did end up with their own aircraft for missions. The French especially seemed open to that as Guynemer flew a one-off Spad with a cannon in it for a time, and Nungesser often stuck with a Nieuport over a Spad (though he did fly Spads too). Others featured modified weapon layouts using existing weapons. History wasn't quite as rigid on the point as the manager is on the whole. I am not sure what kind of trouble this would play with the CFS3 engine end of things though, transfers as well. CFS3 was pretty rigid in its own right on certain things, and the plain CFS3 campaign feature wasn't good. The custom paint ability is a really nice addition. OFF is still the best campaign going currently.

One of those planes sabotaged by outside construction and quality control factors. The design itself is a pretty clean one with a lot of potential. Favoritism towards the Spad XIII hurt it too. It's also a shame the N.29 never saw active service-- it supposedly combined very high speed with good agility and superb durability.

I'm on Vista 64 (new computer came that way). I was pleasantly surprised by Vista 64-- it actually was workable. The early version Vista 32 my parents have on their machine is the most awful OS I've ever used (worse than WinME). But this Vista 64 has been ok, though not as smooth as XP in running games. I recently got a chance to work on a Windows 7 machine and I do think Windows 7 is the way to go rather than Vista.

The one place I did notice the AI became very difficult is when you have a plane that is entirely outclassed by the AI's plane. Back when the D.VII vs. Spad was a truly lopsided match, it was VERY difficult to shoot down D.VIIs. The same could be said if you're stuck in the Eindecker against a Nieuport or even a DH2. I'm just searching for a more dynamic AI. It behaves a bit predictably and seems to always fall back on turn-turn-turn. An AI that can accurately simulate a human opponent is really the grail of offline flying. I flew regularly online for a number of years in both RB and OFF, and it's really a different world, fighting human opponents. I think P4 has a ton of potential, and I am happy to hear of new AI work to push it ahead. I'm also glad to hear that the project continues- RB3d left us in a lurch and it really became up to the community to keep it going.

Disagree- I think that's a bit generous to the AI. It's certainly better than stock CFS 3, but it stills wants to turn against me, even in the wrong plane.

Smithsonian or Old Rhinebeck should buy it-- it would be great to have an original in flying shape available to the public for demonstrations. We have several local small airports here in DC Smithsonian could use-- perhaps they could partner with the College Park Air Museum in buying the plane and doing joint demonstrations at the College Park Airfield.

Because the sim is a game on a 2d screen, it can be difficult to notice aircraft at distance. What I tend to do look more slowly scanning an area. There's a temptation to do a quick scan with your eyes. This works in real life better than the screen because on the screen 3 dimensions are crammed into 2 and things can sometimes blend together. Work slowly across the area with your eyes, searching more for movement than for colors (many of nature's great predators are partly color blind, but in fact have excellent sight for movement rather than color). Work slowly across the area with a sweep looking for a small dot moving around or changing position. It helps.

To make the AI truly great would require tailoring its flying to the airplane it is using. Since the early days in RB1, AI has been pretty good at turning fights, but pretty poor at more advanced hit-and-run, and pure energy fighting (much as it may try to zoom away sometimes). This is why, I think, the AI can be so deadly in a Fokker Dr.I, Camel, or D.VII (they're all good turn fighters), but gets beaten up in an Alb D.II or a Pfalz D.III or a Spad VII (they try to turn with you and unless you're damaged, you'll get them). I think ideally you would develop a couple of AI "models" in which the AI chooses to use an energy tactic strategy or a turn tactic based on the dynamics of the plane it is flying. And you know you've reached the Holy Grail when it chooses based on BOTH the plane it is flying AND the plane the PLAYER is flying. So far as I'm concerned AI has been plagued with automatically trying to turn fight since the rise of "modern" flight sim in the early 1990s. It would be a real coup to break that trend by actually having several AI attack/defense models based on the aircraft at hand. This feature has been supposedly built into several of the more modern simulations, but you can't prove it by me-- the AI always seems to default into a turn mode eventually in the fight.

The AI yo-yo, so far as I can tell, is the result of it coming within a certain distance of the ground. I saw the exact same results on an old PC and a brand new one-- the AI comes within a couple hundred feet of the ground and then begins to do stunts and yo-yo. It strikes me that the AI is attempting to perform some kind evasive move because the impact zone comes within a certain distance. I will also say I find the campaign AI to be in a different league from the QC AI-- in QC they always seem so slow and dumb, but in campaign they're much more dangerous.

OFF is worth the asking price right now. Hat in the Ring looks like a nice addition, so I'll be getting that when it comes out. The game is enjoyable and is the successor to the Red Baron series of games due to the depth and scope of the game. Although OFF is not yet as comprehensive as RB3d, OFF also is a lot more modern in graphics and realism. But it's up to you-- my own suggestion is to get OFF now and see how you like it. Hat in the Ring will be that much more enjoyable when it comes out if you're past the learning curve already.

Specifically on the AI: low level behavior of the AI is a bit spotty in the current version. They get down to a certain level and then seem unable to hold a straight course. Instead they flutter up and down, doing rolls and loops. I would think they should probably just fly more directly down low. I'm not sure if this is present, but the AI seems to have a distance at which it "locks on" to targets. Perhaps this distance in which it "locks on" and recognizes enemy air targets could vary based on what skill the enemy pilot is simulated to be (veteran vs novice vs ace etc). As for the engine, it seems to me that CFS 3 uses somewhat oversimplified physics for flight. Even on the most realistic settings, the aircraft seem rather easy to fly (perhaps with the exception of the Eindecker). This is present in plain CFS 3 as well, so I tend to think it's based in the game engine itself. An improved engine, I think, should have more difficult and complex physics at work, for example.

I flew Phase 1 and RB3d side by side for a period. With Phase 2, RB3d retired to the shelf. I briefly reinstalled it with HASP for a period a few months back, but it's dated compared to P3. I will say RB3d still holds the advantage in terms of volume of aircraft and variety of action. But besides that P3 is the stronger and more modern game throughout. Once the variety of airplanes increases in OFF, it will truly be better on all fronts. That said, it does concern me how dated the CFS3 engine is becoming at this point. Whatever P4 will end up being, I would imagine would need some kind of heavy-duty engine overhaul or even an entirely new platform. But I'm enjoying P3 and am awaiting Hat in the Ring. P4 is a long way off, but it's good to know there's interest in keeping the project going at least. RB left everyone hanging because the series just stopped with RB3d-- which is why we had to make do with it for so long. A quality, comprehensive WW1 sim has been a long time in coming. RoF is nice visually and realism-wise, but it's not comprehensive enough for me (having been a fan of the RB series for so long). RB is very comprehensive, but it's dated visually and realism-wise. I think OFF fits in nicely.

I miss the old RB feature of having your own personal aircraft to stick with through the war. That way you reach a certain rank and success, and then you get to fly the plane of your choice.

Great-- look forward to it.

The 17 had the "hinge window" between the cabane struts in the rear, and I guess you could drop those. The 24 was actually somewhat like the 11 in that it had a plain metal frame windscreen that was fixed in place. You're right.

The Nieuport vickers (French) is the better ticket. In real life the Aldis sight was an excellent addition the British made, but CFS3 is limited in not being able to really model it properly. The result is that it's more a hindrance than a help. The open ironsights on the Vickers are an advantage, even if the gun partly blocks the view. The N.17 vickers is the finest plane of its era.

The visuals on these look wonderful, and I'm sure they fly great. Of all the planes yet to come, I look forward to these the most.