Hasse Wind

When I'm flying DiD missions, I use the plane's compass and the in-game map. But when I'm not doing the hardcore DiD, I leave the TAC on and make it show only ships. No ships on the Western front (at least I haven't come across one yet), so the TAC acts as a waypoint guide without showing any aircraft and ground units/buildings. Just follow the line and have fun on the way.

Wow, that's really hardcore. I'm such a lousy navigator that going successfully from place A to place B in real life is difficult enough. I'd be completely lost in OFF without the in-game map. Yep, I'd have sucked as a WW1 pilot.

Yesterday I was again browsing through squadrons and found two French Escadrilles with missing aircraft. Escadrille 15 is equipped with the N.11 from 19th March 1916 to 2nd July 1916, but the manager tells me the craft is not available yet. Same thing is affecting Escadrille 102 from 19th June 1916 to 15th July 1916. Could some of you gentlemen be so kind and check this, so that I know this is a bug and not some glitch in my OFF only, and that OBD can fix it with a patch some day? Thanks.

Maybe that was the guy who invented laptop PCs. Anyway, thanks for looking into this devs. And don't let such a minor bug delay the development of P4!

It seems to me it was just one of those unfortunate cases of basically conservative people in charge not really understanding the rapidly advancing techonology of their time and thus making a bad decision based on pre-war experiments with monoplanes. But it's understandable things like that happened - just think about how new the whole aviation thing was during WW1. It's remarkable they did even half the things they did with such primitive methods and very limited understanding of the physics of motorized flight.

Fortunately the installation process is very smooth and not difficult at all. Just install CFS3, update it, and then install OFF and possibly its expansion pack. It's really simple compared to what you have to go through with many other sim modifications.

What a finale! I was sure the Americans were going to win the match (I even bet some money for them) and when they scored just before the end of the 3rd period, I was absolutely certain the Canadians couldn't turn the tide. But I was wrong. Amazing match. Congratulations to all the medalists. It was worth waiting four years for these Games.

Creaghorn, do ANY of your pilots live less than hundreds of hours? Do you sometimes lose your pilot after a couple of sorties just like us mere mortals? Amazing, and perhaps the most remarkable thing is that you don't have 2000 kills after such a career. Your kill/flight hour ratio is very realistic.

The rear gunners seem also affected by the quality of the squadron, or is it only in my imagination? At least it seems to me that two-seaters from better units have rear gunners that hit more accurately than the gunners of poor quality units. The best two-seater units I've found are rated good, though I suppose there might be some elite squadrons somewhere (flying the Brisfit for example). If not, there really should be - many two-seater pilots and observers were just as good at their work as the fighter pilots in theirs.

Great pics! Olham, the Royal Navy has a tradition of keeping the same names for their vessels. Some of them have been in use for centuries (the names, not the ships). Too bad the modern Royal Navy is but a shadow of its former glory. Britain doesn't rule the waves anymore.

You also need to be a bit lucky when attacking those nasties. If I'm using a DiD pilot, I'm very wary of fighting the Brisfits. The surest way to get yourself killed or at least shot down with a wrecked engine is to attack one of them behind and try to turn with him. Making a frontal attack is also a viable tactic, as the Brisfit has only one gun firing forward. With luck, you can kill the pilot and hit the engine. Just remember not to fly straight behind the Brisfit when you pass the plane.

I was testing various planes and their sounds in quick combat this morning. I was flying the Nupe 17 (the French model with Vickers) and after doing some loops and other maneuvers in order to get some distance between me and my wingmen, I noticed the engine sounds of the wingmen suddenly disappeared. I flew around them and turned off my own engine to hear better, but they continued to fly silently. I've never encountered this kind of thing with the default sounds. Anybody else seen this or was it only some random glitch? Otherwise everything seems to work well and sounds really good.

I've rarely seen them play THAT badly. It was embarrassing to watch those grannies fumble on the ice. And many of them are supposed to be experienced players who've seen it all and did well in their careers (in the NHL for example). Just unbelievable. You'd expect some kind of standards from the Olympic team. One of them should be taken behind the nearest sauna and shot as an example for the rest of the team.

Okay, downloading now. I'll let you know if I run into any problems.

Well, you sure work fast Creaghorn. This version has no problem with the Nupe engine sounds, correct?

It's going to be a very tough match. The Yanks have put together quite a team. But I'm confident we'll send them off to play for the bronze medal. But whatever happens, at least we did better than the Swedes.

Are you planning to release an expansion pack or two (or three or four ) for P3 in the meantime? I'd be extremely happy even if such expansion packs didn't contain any improvements to P3 but just added new planes to the sim. Would be a nice way to make some extra money for P4 development and you could use the new planes in P4, so nothing would be lost in the development process.

You can of course use many words to describe the German aviators of WW1, but pampered shouldn't be one of those words. It insults the memory of those men who fought and died in the Great War on German side of the lines. No frontline pilot of any air force who participated in the war could have had very easy times, especially in the final phases when fighting became truly fierce, least of all Germans, who were outnumbered, undersupplied (lack of rubber for example meant that they couldn't always have proper tires on their wheels, something the Entente pilots never had to experience) and had to fight against a growing number of enemies.

Fatal accidents aren't as high as I had thought, but quite a few pilots must have suffered at least minor injuries in accidents, which those numbers don't show. It's easy to see which Jastas were in the midst of the toughest fighting, just look at the losses suffered (and enemies shot down) by Jasta 2 and 11, for example. Makes me wonder about our kill numbers in the OFF DiD campaign - in Jasta 6 we have already shot down more planes in a couple of months than the real pilots did during two years of war. And we've also lost quite a few wingmen.

Yeah, I noticed that too when I tried a Nupe 28 a minute ago. Inline engines don't seem to have that issue.

I tested various planes in quick combat yesterday, and these new sounds really do make a difference. It sounds a bit strange at first, because I'm so used to the default effects, but Creaghorn's sound files are definitely an improvement. Not that the default effects are bad in any way.

When I fly late war campaigns with German pilots, the Brisfit is always the enemy I respect the most. When you encounter them, you know it's going to be a hell of a fight, no matter what late war German plane you're flying. Those twin rear guns make attacks against Brisfits almost suicidal.

Creaghorn, these modifications are great. You must be some kind of a sound wizard! Please let us know if your magics solve the question of frontline sounds.

Maybe we'll see the Belgians in OFF some day. Would be interesting to fly for them. The Brisfit is a killer, and looks good in those colours.

Looks very good, Olham. If you want to experience some really fierce fighting, joing Jasta 5 during the spring/summer of 1918 when they have the D.VII and are right in the middle of the big offensives. But don't expect your pilot to live long...