Hauksbee

I've had OFF for a month and a half and the Hat Switch on my Logitech Extreme 3D has never worked...until the day before yesterday. It worked in CFS3 when I installed that. It showed as working in the Test Calibration. But in OFF, it did not. Suddenly it does. And periodically, the Targeting Cone pops up and I don't know why, but I find I can ignore it.

Seeing as WWI planes were mainly wood, doped canvas and fuel [Fokker fuselages aside] I would expect to see planes catching fire more often than I do. And it is rare in QC as I've played it. Wing spars shatter, planes come apart, [i'm ignoring planes that simply spiral down because the pilot's been shot.] but not much fire. Is this the way it was? Were flammers more the exception than the rule?

My heart sank when the non-recoverable spins started. I had visions of every QC ending that way just as the action got hot. Seems my fingertips have learned how to avoid those impossibly tight corners. Now it only happens when I get so fixated on my soon-to-be victim that I fail to notice that the nose is getting too high, or that I'm flat, inverted and stalling. I decided it's OFF's way of telling me that I'm not in a P-51.

Ain't that the truth! [LOL] Allright then, throttle back smartly, apply opposite rudder...or not...lots of altitude...'think I've got it. Here we go!

I'm a QC devotee...but I could not be happier.

'Been at it for twenty minutes, and every time, it wants to slide off on one wing [right or left] just before it gets to the top of the arc. This may be an exercise in futility since the E.III can't catch anything anyway, but someday I may get to pounce on a cripple limping home.

Well, it did it. Up and over. I tried repeatedly to do it from the cockpit, but it kept sliding off on one wing. I changed to my old fave: the tail-chase view. The first thing I found out was that my Logitech stick doesn't move the rudder except for the most miniscule amount. [as opposed to the DH-2, and others, where it moves a great deal.] Horizontal elevators move well. While in tail-chase I tried again. This time it went. I suspect it worked because I had a better view of the horizon and was holding the stick steady.

Hasn't worked for me yet. Sometimes, just as it's starting to go, if I take my hand off the stick, the plane will settle down and recover. Sometimes it just stalls anyway, but doesn't spin. But once in the spin, there's nothing I can do.

I am finding that shooting down a Sopwith Pup is quite difficult. As opposed, say, to the Camel. I can get off good shots at the Pups and even get them to smoke and stagger out of formation. I presume that they will spiral down eventually. But to get one to fold up is near impossible. I've hung on the tail of cripples and poured long bursts into them and they just keep drifting along. Camels, on the other hand, seem to shed wings and explode relatively easily. Same with SE-5's. Anyone else having a similar experience?

Good. Glad to know it's not just me. Herr Prop-Wasche: I'm flying QC, my Dr.1 against a Pup and five wingmen. So unless the AI slips in a Strutter or two...

Nothing and nobody is more passionate than a convert! I had my computer techs put together a 3D-modeling/animation system for me about four months ago. I don't have the spec. sheet in hand, but it's either the Core 2 Quad, or the Core 2 Duo [i suspect the latter] that I'm running with 64-bit Vista and 8 Gb RAM. So I think the computer will put the E.III over the top if the E.III is up to it. My version of an Immelman? Basically the Split-S but going vertical.

Excellent! I'm not familiar with his work, hence, I thought I was looking at a photo until I started reading down further.

It is. The Microsoft CFS3 is being distributed by XPLOSIV. Even if you go to Microsoft's website, the copy of CFS3 is from them. Read the fine print around the rim and you'll find, "DISTRIBUTED UNDER LICENSE BY EMPIRE INTERACTIVE, EUROPE....." I had a copy a while back, didn't like it. When I had to get another to run OFF, I thought I had received a bootleg copy when I saw it. Then I checked Microsoft's site.

Funny you should mention that. There have been two or three instances where I drifted up close to a crippled enemy and put a burst into him and I'd have sworn that sombody yelled out. Thought it was my imagination.

Now that I'm spending a lot of time looking at the butt-end of my guns, I got to wondering if the cartridges are collected in a bag/box or allowed to fall out the bottom?

They're still plowing up unexploded ordnance in French fields from WWI. Some of them poison gas rounds with dangerously thin corroded walls.

As I understand it, this was added to the game to simulate a heat jam, also to discourage newbies with unlimited ammo from just holding down the trigger and hosing the area. [there was a long thread on this jamming in the past few weeks] Your guns will cool, however. I favor snapping off single shots as fast as I can. The guns don't jam, and I can walk the rounds in, then finish with long bursts.

Not really. Lately I've been mostly flying German planes. The question occured while I was in a D.VII. I was looking at the belt feed in, and the cloth tube over the ejection ports and wondered if this was just a way to keep the cartridges out of the pilots face and they just vented out below, or were they saved and reloaded?

I spent a good chunk of morning doing QC; me in a Dr.I chasing six Sopwith Pups. As noon approached, my deflection shooting was getting smoother. When I approached from oblique angles, like 5 o'clock [or 7] I could match my arc to his and hold a fair lead. The one thing that kept kicking my butt was the dead-astern, 6 o'clock shot. I couldn't finish these guys. My plane was weaving/bouncing all over the sky. Now, there were big cumulous clouds all around. Does the game engine create turbulent air to match the clouds, or am I just have a crummy day of shooting?

Indeed. Hard luck. But...patrol tomorrow early. Need every man.

Thanks, Pol. Don't want to re-hash old topics too severely. I asked only because I was not in the clouds but they were on three sides of me. In the future I'll just assume that clouds in the area will make the air around them choppy.

...but immersive!

Having got a grip [however fleeting] on the E.III controls, I decided to see what the 'Fokker Scourge' looked like. I checked Wikipedia and found that the B.E.2's suffered a particularly bad patch in 1915 at the hands of E.III's. OK. B.E.2's it is. But I find that if you don't get above them in the opening moments of QC, you never will and after that, they fly away from you. Slowly, but steadily. There's no overtaking them. R.E.8's the same. Any tips out there on E.III strategies? Is there anything in OFF that the E.III can catch?

Every now and again, in the early dawn light, at 15,000, I get the urge to just get in formation with the rest of the Jasta and just cruise a bit, admire the paint schemes and maybe take a picture to send home. But no matter how much I throttle back, I creep out ahead and they all disappear behind. Then I stall. Is it possible to match speeds with them?

Done. Thanks.