Hasse Wind

I don't have an account at SimHQ, so if you or any other gentleman here wants to post that tip there you're more than welcome to do so. There was a thread over at the RoF forum some time last year where these problems were discussed, and this solution has indeed helped at least some people. It also works in some other games with similar problems related to Vista and Win 7. I hope MS does something to improve their Windows code for dual core processors some day. Or maybe they are waiting for the problem to solve itself in the future when nobody is using dual cores anymore.

OFF does consume the majority of my gamings hours, but I also play RoF and recently I discovered an excellent indie wargame from Matrix Games called Hannibal - Rome and Carthage in the Second Punic War.

That's the spirit!

One solution would be to sleep less so that you could devote more time into OFF development work.

Thanks, guys. It seems that once every five or ten years I can contribute something useful in solving somebody's computer problems. Usually I'm the one asking for help. Everybody should try to live by the Golden Rule, even in flight sim forums.

Good to hear it helped, Widowmaker.

Obviously I can't guarantee the compatibility settings trick will work, but it doesn't hurt to try.

Keep them coming!

Widowmaker, try right clicking the exe and then disabling desktop composition from the compatibility settings. That should do the trick. Vista and Win 7 are known to have these problems with some programs.

That looks interesting. Definitely a subject that hasn't been seen too often in video games. I guess you should be prepared to die a lot, if the battle of Verdun is modelled accurately in the game. I'll keep an eye on this one. This is the problem with indie developers - they can't afford to do much marketing. I had no idea about this game before you started this thread, Von Paulus, so thanks.

Looks bad. I hope nobody was killed. Everything else can be fixed over time.

Yes, but in the west the cavalry units mostly waited behind the lines for the breakthrough to happen so that they could then quickly exploit the success and advance deep behind enemy lines, cutting off their lines of command, just like the tanks of WW2 did. But we all know how well and decisively the breakthroughs in the west happened, with or without tanks. So much for the cavalry in the west. In the east, there were much less men per every kilometer of the front and every sector wasn't fortified extremely heavily, so there was more room for maneuvers and also for cavalry operations. Still, as the fighting in the east ended with the Russian Empire's collapse, the Germans started to dismount their cavalry formations and made most of them into infantry, which was then used in the west in the final operations of the war. But cavalry never completely ceased to exist in any army of WW1. And all of them relied heavily on horses for all transportation work, as the cars and trucks were primitive and unreliable and nobody ever had enough of them compared to the amount of horses. Only in WW2 were some armies (British and American) motorized so completely and effectively that they had no need for horses anymore.

I think my head is going to explode when I hear that P4 is released.

I finished reading the SIA guide for the Fee. Excellent stuff. Now I feel like a Fee expert, even though I haven't actually flown it that much (never outside QC). I wonder what happened to Sgt. Bullethead, the author of the guide? With those seven wound stripes, it seems he was leading a rather dangerous life! It will be interesting to see how the Fees behave with that fighter bomber AI. I've never tried that modification mentioned in the guide before. Just a couple of weeks (sim time) left in the Quirk squadron, and then I'll transfer my pilot to No. 20 Squadron. And if the pilot happens to die before that - everything can happen with all those Einies flying around - my new pilot will start his career in the said Fee squadron.

I don't know about you guys, but these mods have breathed a new life into my OFF experience. Now don't get me wrong - even without these latests mods I've been greatly enjoying my OFF sessions - but with the mods enabled the experience is even better. Historical immersion is very important to me, so Bletchley's mods are more than welcome. I also use Creaghorn's and HPW's mods and haven't had any problems with all of them together. It's great to be a WW1 sim fan these days!

Okay Bullethead, you've convinced me to give the Fee a chance. I'll blame you if the worst happens and the bathtub inferno consumes my pilot. But first I need to survive the Quirk phase, then I'll have to choose the squadron that gets the Flying Abomination first. Should be fun.

I've been seriously thinking of transferring my 1915 Quirk pilot to a Fee squadron in early 1916 after a stay in England. But the Fee is so ugly and has such awful characteristics that I'm having some doubts. And it would be an ignominious end to a fine career to fall down from the sky in a flaming bathtub.

I've had at easy for a long time. It feels more realistic that way. And it certainly doesn't make the sim too easy! Lewie, I think you won't be seeing most of the correct behaviour of the aircraft and AI in OFF if you fly it through CFS3. The OFF campaign manager does many tricks to improve things from CFS3. I don't even know how many, only that CFS3 and OFF P3 can hardly be mentioned together in the same sentence. The difference is really big.

P4 will have multiple types of aircraft available at the same time for each squadron? Nice. Very nice.

I agree completely. It would also be great if the AI knew better how to take advantage of the various types of aircraft it's flying, so that powerful energy fighters would use altitude more to their advantage, and so on. An experienced pilot flying the SE.5 or the SPAD would try to stay out of low-altitude turn fights, while somebody with a powerful turn fighter would try to get into a situation where his opponent's speed advantage is negated. I'm sure these are not easy things to program, but we can alwasy ask.

Olham, the Halberstadt was indeed a huge improvement over the Eindecker (which really was a mediocre fighter at best), but only very few of them ever saw service compared to the Albs, which came into action soon after the Halbies and were better and more powerful. These mods are like a taste of P4 and of better things to come. They improve the already great campaign mode by making it more realistic and historically accurate. Now there will be less need for so-called house rules in improving realism - your mods take care of the most obvious issues. I truly appreciate your work, Bletchley.

Try Bloody April in 1917. I've seen MvR many times with his Jasta around Arras in my RFC bomber careers. Not a very encouraging sight for a two-seater pilot! Edit: Of course MvR won't be flying his Fokker in Bloody April, but that's the time period when I've seen him most often.

Excellent news! I don't have any active pilots flying in 1916 currently, but if my Quirk pilot from 1915 survives I'll be using this mod when the time comes. That may happen sooner rather than later, as I should transfer him for home front duties soon and then a few months later back to France (in practice advancing time by editing the pilot files). Are you going to cover the whole war with these mods? That would be great.

Now wouldn't it be nice if a Gotha or two visited England during your stay there? P4, P4...

Yes, it seems the Flanders fields are quite popular in literature.