Hasse Wind

Yes, it does have spectacular effects. You really can't see it from the characters that they are computer-generated. Now imagine a real 3D OFF - though maybe it would be a bit too realistic and exciting for old people.

Hmm, is that some kind of an Entente secret weapon? A flying train? Should we Kaiser's pilots be worried about this development?

Poor 24 Squadron. First they have to fly the DH2 far beyond its date of expiry, and then they get saddled with the DH5. Sounds like a plane I'm going to avoid in OFF.

This affects our DiD campaign seriously, as we krauts are flying in Jasta 6. I don't mean to sound like an ***hole, but do you have an estimate when the patch might be ready? If it takes a couple of weeks or more, we may have to switch to another Jasta, but this would of course mean some extra hassle with Siggi and others. Thanks for you patience.

Thanks for the good support!

I have the same problem.

The E.V is a bit too nervous for me, just like the Dr.1. But as the Dreidecker is a real killer in the right hands, I imagine the E.V behaves equally well, if not better, if you know what you're doing. Speaking of rudder turn, the D.VII is very good at it, just like OvS said. But the SPADs excel at that maneuver too, in fact it's one of the moves I do often when flying the S.XIII. With enough speed, you can dominate any situation in the SPAD, and choose whether to have a fight at all. I suppose the N.28 we have in OFF performs somewhat better than the real plane, because the awful problems of its Gnome rotary engine can't be simulated in OFF. As far as I know, the problem with the engines was a more important reason for replacing the Nupes in American squadrons with SPADs than the occasional wing failures, which were fixed quite quickly in the end.

That's a very good point, Waldemar. I'd also like to see this changed in the future. It should be easier to change the performance of an existing crate than having to build completely new types of aircraft for the sim. (But what do I know!) And we already have variants of Albatros and SE5, so why not the BE. And as for the French, it would be nice to see the Dorand AR series of two-seater recon planes, which were used by quite a few French squadrons in 1917-1918, before the much better Salmsons and Breguets became common. And of course the Salmsons and Breguets are a must in the future, because they were extremely important recon/bomber planes for the Entente, with very large numbers built. The devs sure have their hands full with our wishes for new crates.

I'd be willing to buy an expansion pack dedicated purely to adding more 2-seaters to the sim. Currently we aren't lacking many important fighters, as HitR filled some gaping holes in the Entente arsenal, but OFF has only a few 2-seaters compared to the huge number of different types there were in service historically. The French for example don't have any of their own 2-seaters included. From a purely historical point of view, 2-seaters should be on top of the list when thinking about what to include in the next expansion pack.

And hopefully some day we'll get Caudrons and Farmans and Aviatiks and all the other important early war (and not so early war, many of the 2-seaters were used also later in the war) 2-seaters and 1-seaters, Fokkers included. Though as far as I know, the Fokker D.II and D.III weren't exactly huge successes, but better than Eindeckers in any case.

Merry Christmas! Looking at those old cards, I think how strange it must have felt for them to celebrate Christmas and think about its message of peace on earth when everybody was doing just the opposite and breaking every rule of how a good Christian should live his life. Too bad the message of Christianity (nor any other religion, except maybe some forms of Buddhism) has never prevented people from slaughtering each other. Here's hoping to there will never again be another Great War, except on our computers.

Quite a few people seem to be using Avira, but I'm not sure it's a very good program at all. Surely there are better free programs available. I'm no expert though, as I've never used free anti-virus software. I don't know about the latest Norton, but the version I had a couple of years ago was simply AWFUL. It seemed to eat up all of my PCs resources and was clumsy as hell to use. I switched to F-Secure and haven't had any problems since. The latest version is really quick and light on my PC.

If I remember correctly, the Hanriot was offered as a replacement for the N.17, but the SPAD VII was chosen instead. And that wasn't a bad decision at all, considering how well the SPADs, both S.VII and especially S.XIII performed as fighters. Belgians usually had to do with what their allies decided to give them, and since the French had no use for the Hanriots, the Belgians got them instead and were pleasantly surprised by the type's performance. But the Italian air force was the biggest user of Hanriots - most of their fighter squadrons were equipped with them.

Interesting. I haven't shot down any 2-seaters in HitR yet, as I've only been encountering fighters (or flying as a 2-seater pilot), so it's good to know there has been progress. Maybe next the Fees will start performing that Lufberry circle.

I was browsing through French squadrons and making notes of their quality, their locations and equipment throughout the war. I noticed two Escadrilles have erroneous 'Craft not available yet' texts shown in their descriptions. Esc. SPA.154 gets the SPAD XIII on 30 March 1918 and uses it through the rest of the war, but the red text says 'Craft not available'. I'm pretty sure SPAD XIII is indeed available in OFF. Esc. N.312 flies the Nupe 17 from 22 March 1917 to 20 April 1917, but the sim tells me the crate is unavailable. I beg to disagree. Has anybody else found similar mistakes from the squadron lists? If you have, please post them so they can be fixed in the future.

So it seems I'm going to start using the historical AI. Excellent support from OBD, as always.

Exactly, Olham. And we must always remember OFF is a simulation, nothing more, nothing less. It's not the same thing as the real WW1 - how things actually were in the war (for example did it matter much whether the real Alb had a full tank or a half-full tank) is different from how they are in OFF. And in OFF, it definitely does matter how much fuel I take in my crate. The Alb for example becomes noticeable more maneuverable in OFF with less fuel. And devs, if you read this, please don't misunderstand my criticism. I really like the improvements HitR made to the game - OFF was the best WW1 flight sim before HitR, and it's in many ways even better now with the expansion pack. Especially the wind effects make flying and fighting more exciting. But this fuel/ammo management issue is a big disappointment for me, and apparently also for some others. I don't want to hide that fact.

I agree completely with Bullethead's opinion. If we are forced to always use a full fuel load from now on, then there should be some changes made to the sim - the AI is now getting a major advantage against human players who have too much fuel to burn practically in every mission. Unfortunately I don't have any historical sources to support my viewpoint, but I would be amazed if the air forces of WW1 didn't do any kind of fuel management. Thanks to the Entente embargo, Germans had such a huge problem with their fuel supplies throughout the war (synthetic fuels were in their infancy back then) that it's hard for me to believe they always filled their tanks to the brim. But I will of course change my opinion if somebody can prove fuel management was out of the question during the Great War.

I don't think any of us are complaining about the lack of casualties with the current AI. The problem is the awfully passive behaviour many of us are seeing, the inability of even ace pilots to respond to attacks in a beliavable way. The biggest problems of the earlier AI were its lack of decent low-altitude behaviour and the suicidal attitude of the pilots in combat. When the AI decides it's willing to fight, the fighting should be fierce and not some parade ground formation flying - but there should also be a mechanism in place that makes it possible for AI planes to decide they've had enough and try to flee the battle.

Knowing Udet, he may have been just bragging. And even he would have been stunned if he had met that tank at 10 000 feet.

Good thing it didn't take off and go after you - it wouldn't be easy to shoot down that kind of steel monster with a machine gun!

Well at least we are on the right track now, making progress with the AI. With some tweaks this can lead to something extraordinary.

I shot down a Sopwith Pup a short while ago. I was flying the DFW, of all planes. The Pup behaved much more like a two-seater should behave. It could have been believable with a green pilot, but the guy was an ace from RNAS 3. If it had been a two-seater, its maneuvers would have been appropriate. For a fighter, I think it was far too passive performance for an ace pilot. Transfer this behaviour to two-seaters and make the fighters again more aggressive, and OFF will be perfect.

CFS3. Need I say more? But seriously, I have great trust in the devs of this great sim. They've already overcome so many problems that there's no reason to believe they couldn't fix the current batch of problems lurking in the code. Our opinions may sometimes sound heated, because we are very passionate about OFF. We wouldn't grumble so much if we didn't care.

If we can't have both the skins and the fuel/ammo management, then I'm all for adding an option to the workshop to choose which one we can use. If that's impossible, then I'd rather see OFF going back to where it was before this skin problem and enable the fuel/ammo management with no individual skins. What's the point of taking off with a full tank if you know're only going to fly a short mission behind friendly lines like it was often the case with the German air force? And Germans had a serious shortage of fuel all through the war, so it would definitely make sense that they didn't use it any more than was absolutely necessary. If having ammo and fuel management is seriously ahistorical according credible historical sources and the same sources tell us the real air forces of the period never did anything like that in the Great War, then I'd better understand our current situation. But then we should also get rid of throttle for rotary engines and plane trim while flying, because those engines had no such throttle as the inline engines did and only very few WW1 planes had trim, as far as I know. Having no ability to adjust fuel and ammo before taking off makes OFF less fun and enjoyable for me to play, which is a shame.