Olham

I know, that RAF_Louvert and you are doing this. Would you say, that the towns, roads and rivers in OFF are accurate enough to follow them with a paper map? I'm pretty sure I had such a screen recently. In the center, I still saw everything in front of me, but the edges were red. But that was, when I had crashed into a wingmate in midair, and I was regarded dead or dying; aircraft out of control. I also sometimes heard my own cry from the pain of an impact. When I then looked at the health points, they had sunk. But as you say - it doesn't seem to have any further effect. I also think, injuries by bullets should appear more, and depending on the lethality of the injury, you fade out sooner or later through the loss of blood.

I have now flown a mission with the ATI SmoothVision setting "Edge detect" (see also: Screenshots thread). Firstly, I was surprised: although "Edge detect" does 24 samples of AA, my 4870 card performed it without problems. Here is a picture close abouve the ground - the graphic parts of the trees seem to "merge" better.

Just had one of my finest fights against a French Nieuport 24 pilot from Escadrille 78. He parried my attacks with great style, as these pictures may show. It was an honour to fight him. It wasn't his flying, that made him loose, but the terrible fire power of the Albatros. I had hit him with a short burst; he carried on fighting great, but suddenly - as if a cable had snapped - his agile craft lost it's ability to turn tight. He flew a wide turn, I crossed into it, and shot him down. It felt really sad, when it was over. (By the way: these screenshots were made with the ATI setting "Edge detect")

UncleAl: ...while the Albatros without it's engine, is akin to gliding a cinder block The Bordeauxred Baron: "Bleech! You ignorant rotary fan! Der Albatros glidez fine, when you know how too doo itt!"

Aaaaahhhh! Now that was helpful for a simple mind - I always understand things much better with graphics. Thanks again, BirdDog!

The front line in WW1 moved forth and back many times, and the ingame map doesn't show all these changes. My advice: if any possible, don't land close to the line; fly further into your territory. Yes, I also observed this - I think there were more injuries before the last patch (not sure). A WW1 aircraft without it's engine pulling needs another way to produce forward speed/energy, to keep the airflow over the wings carrying it. If the airflow is too little, you are short before a stall, which makes your craft far less controllable. You may be frightened to crash the craft, and keep it too much in a horizontal level, which means loss of airflow. So, against all fears, you need to keep the nose low enough to keep up the right airspeed. You will have a good airspeed, when your controlls like ailerons and rudder work fine. A heavy craft like an Albatros may request a steeper landing approach angle than you would like normally; and only short before touch down, you bring the craft to level. I don't know advice for the light Sopwith types though, there must be other specialists here. But it should be similar.

Well, perhaps it's all part of becoming the "Global Village" ? Everyone has debts everywhere, no one can pay them, and so we all have to put our faces back into the dirt and work hard like medieval farmers. It only needs "politician talk" to sell that as the biggest progress mankind could make - we're all pulling on the same rope together now!

Wayfarer: I fly 'Die Roll on Death' (I know - some people view it as cheating) Wayfarer, I think cheating is only when you try your outmaneuver your own personal rules in life. When you say to yourself, well, I need to develop my abilities, but therefor I need some time to get there, these settings are absolutely okay. Once you have "grown" into it, you will set it up harder anyway. We are not real life pilots, who only get one chance - and maybe die after short time. The devs have given so many setting choices in "Workshop" to us with good reason: because this sim, in kind of "full reality settings" is so damn hard, a newbie would be dead the same day, a veteran in a week, and an ace in two months. I have never survived for only even one year; or if so, it was, because I was a POW for the rest of the war. I'd like to recommend to everyone: set the sim up to your personal needs firstly, to avoid early frustrations. Sooner or later will come the point, when you WANT it harder and closer to reality.

Balloon defense was successful for Jasta 21 today; 5 Sopwith Strutter sent down in flames. Balloon unharmed.

Well, I hope you Brits won't suffer from a giant hole in your annual budget after we have made the last payment now!

I know what you mean, Lou. UncleAl also knows this soooo well. He keeps teeling time and time again, how much information is to be found "in the sticky north of here", but people don't read it. Life can be tough...

The Bordeauxred Baron: "Vott? It vas not over yet? Vy did not anybody tell me zatt??? Vere iss my Albatros?!?!" Well, I did not know this was still being paid. Still for the 1. World War? Shall we now start to pay for the 2. World War then?

Lou, I know you did, and I kept it in mind, until I allowed myself to spend the money on the CD. I didn't mean to claim this being a new discovery of mine. But since Mr. Pearson gave allowance for me to post some of the skins, I just wanted to show them here. So, to put that right: you posted it first - but I added some candy.

Some minutes ago, I had again one of these moments OFF happiness - my wingmen had split away from me when we crossed the last waypoint, but I spotted two Strutter and attacked those on my own (bang goes another claim). When I had shot them down, I approached our airfield at Bantheville, when I saw them coming in for landing. Like always, when I see that, my heart beat faster. Pleeeeease, boys, pleeease get it right!! And they did!! They touched down, rolled to the end of the field, and one craft even taxied round! Now, Bantheville airfield lies on a plateau. To the west, there are trees, but when we come in from the east, the plateau just ends there - no trees nor houses. And then they can do it right! What a touching sight!

Widowmaker, you will love it! I know you will!

Thank you for the good explanation, BirdDog!

Indeed, Widowmaker - long shall she fly!

Some days ago I received my CD with Bob Pearson's "AIRCRAFT COLOURS & MARKINGS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR". As a hobby skinner, I must say, I'm simply overwhelmed by the amount of profiles, and I hope we will get additional planes with P4, on which I can try to do some of these. There are countless profiles of the following nations on the disc: Austria-Hungary Belgium Commonwealth France Germany Italy Japan Norway Poland Russia Soviet Switzerland Turkey Uruguay USA Yugoslavia I asked Mr. Pearson for his allowance to show some examples here, and he gave it to me. I will not show more of my favourite Albatros here, because we have most of them in OFF already, but there are lots of them, of course. Here is one of Jasta 39, flown on the Italian front, in a "barber pole" type of design. The other is a reconnaissance craft with a camera built in. I have so far only seen the "most important" ones for our Western Front; I'm sure I will spend hours in there happily, like a "pig in the mud". If you are interested in the CD, here is Bob Pearson's website: http://www.cbrnp.com/RNP/CDv2/index.htm

I have a suspicion: could it be for rooms? The names "box", "narrow tent" and "wide tent" sound, as if they could be different perspectives for inside rooms? Like using different lenses, from very wide (and more distorted) to more "normal"? Just an idea. If anyone has a game on his rig, that is playing inside buildings, perhaps you try?

nbryant: ...sometimes I find myself compelled to provide aid when I see one of my poor bastards being peppered by an EA. Yes, I have that, too. It works better to only do the RIGHT things for YOURSELF first of all - but it may leave you behind with nausea, when you're back safely. Fighting OFF AI is not yet perfect. From what I've read, fighter groups clashed and when they were quite equally strong, they had a short tango together, but then they assembled agin under the cover of some higher flying comrades, and turned back home. In OFF, this breaking up of the fights is not yet simulated - they fight 'till their or your bitter end. So you can only decide: help your wingmen out and die much earlier, or follow the Dicta Boelke and do the right things for yourself firstly - but maybe feeling queasy very often. Creaghorn had once told his method to bring back wingmen AND have a rather short fight: he attacks only if he is in a perfect position. When his opponent goes down, or the attack failed, he flies away. When he can get away from the fight far enough to make "Warp" work for him, he uses it very shortly. That way, all surviving wingmen are back with him, and he leaves "Warp" again and flies back. A clever solution - I tried it and it worked.

Oh dear, this could cause severe problems for Lou, like long debates, in which his wife may have the better arguments (...from all the things we need most urgently, these goggles surely are not.... etc. etc.), flying saucers (in his kitchen), and god knows what more! Don't click it, Lou! Don't....