Hasse Wind

Well, at least for me having the option to choose my plane's fuel and ammo load is a lot more important than having a personal custom skin. The latter has no practical impact in the battle, while the fuel and ammo loads can be the deciding factor in the plane's behaviour.

Thanks Creaghorn, I'm going to give this a try. It would be great to see these also officially supported in the OFF workshop settings, so you could turn them easily on and off as you like. The next add-on or P4 maybe?

I just had a quick combat with a Nupe 11 against a couple of Eindeckers flown by expert pilots. Getting hits was really challenging. And having less than 200 rounds to feed the Lewis ain't helping much.

Speaking of the actual buffeting effect, combined with setting the main guns to less accurate in the workshop, it makes shooting down anybody MUCH harder. I've been testing this in my current French SPAD XIII campaign (early 1918), and now I really need to aim well and also be a bit lucky to bring down anything. I haven't tried a really nervous crate like the Camel or Dr.1 with these settings yet, but I imagine it will be much more challenging than with stable fighters such as the SPADs and Pfalzes. There are reasons why every pilot didn't become an ace in the Great War or shoot down 30 planes in 10 hours, and this improved wind effect brings us one step closer to experiencing the actual challenges of the early air war. I recommend everybody who wants a more challenging and humbling OFF experience to use these settings in campaign mode.

Now that you mentioned it I've noticed exactly the same thing. I tried various amounts of fuel in various planes (DFW, Tripe, Pup, SE5a, Nupe 17) and they all had 100% fuel at the start of mission. And the fuel gauge of the DFW didn't seem to work at all. I could see the consumption of fuel only by moving the mouse over the gauge. All other gauges seem to be fine though.

Mr. Widowmaker, aka Hawk-Eyes. We all make mistakes, and this was a particularly funny one. Your threads are always the best around here, Widow.

This does make it rather challenging to gather many flight hours in the DiD campaign. Oh well, there's more time to play HitR now, so all is not lost.

BuB, I didn't have to do any adjustments at all to my settings. Everything went really smoothly from purchasing to installing and then of course flying. Couldn't be any easier than this, IMO. The wind effects are much improved over what they used to be. This should make shooting down enemies more challenging and reduce those unrealistic "I shot 7 fighters down today!" combat reports that are far too common here. I just hope the AI planes use the same rules as we humans. OFF is steadily getting better and better. This expansion pack made the sim absolutely the best one available on the market anywhere.

Just gave a try to the Nupe 28. I like it and the new wind sounds and wind effects. The screens that change according to your pilots nationality is a very nice touch. OBD, I think you have just made OFF an even better simulation than it was before! Amazing! People, go buy this pack NOW! Everything went really smoothly, and the download was very fast. Couldn't be any easier than this. And for Euro people it's a real bargain with the current value of dollar. Just amazing.

I've bought it too. Maybe I was number two? My download is progressing steadily. Is there something I need to do after I've installed the pack or can I start flying with the new stuff instantly?

It can't be denied that the CFS3 engine is old and clunky - but the devs have done absolute miracles with what they got and turned that mediocre sim into the best WW1 flight sim ever made. That's no small achievement. One can only wonder what they could achieve with a completely new engine. That being said, when I put OFF into the highest settings that my rig can possibly run, the game looks gorgeous. There's more than enough 'eye-candy' there to satisfy my needs. The most important thing for me anyway is that the sim runs with a decent framerate. Nothing worse than getting less than 10 fps in the midst of a fierce dogfight! (I also enjoy playing extremely old DOS games with ugly graphics, so maybe I'm just a grumpy old dinosaur who doesn't care that much about pretty graphics anyway.) But new engines cost money. Considering how few people actually play flight sims and how very limited the market is, I imagine OFF has to sell ridiculously well to make it possible for OBD to get something completely new for the next phase(s). Then again, who knows what's going on behind the scenes. The best thing we can do is to support the add-on packs with all we've got.

Happy birthday! Too bad they haven't released the Hat yet, that would have been a fine present...

Well, the boys did come home by Christmas - Christmas 1918, that is. I hope we won't have to wait 4 years for the Hat.

Ah, snow! I'd instantly feel myself at home there with all that white stuff, though I've used seeing much more of it. Bullet, you're going to have to buy yourself a pair of skis if the global warming in your area continues like that. Skiing is a very nice hobby and helps to keep my old joints in good condition.

I would like to see more variation in the AI behaviour - currently it feels like almost every enemy fighter I meet is flown by an expert ace who knows his crate like his own pockets and is always able to make the maximum use of the plane's performance. In reality, most pilots of the war were nowhere near that level of expertise. Maybe I've just had bad luck meeting elite squadrons all the time, but it really seems to me there are no unskilled, green pilots flying over the fields of Flanders - except as my wingmen. And I know I'm no great pilot myself, but it would be comforting to my ego to sometimes meet some AI pilots in OFF who are as lost as I am in the air. But I think it's also true that veteran flight sim players usually know a lot more about air combat and its theory than the average pilot back in those days, so of course it wouldn't be fun to meet only mediocre AI pilots and shoot them all down with no effort. Combat is also too bloody in OFF currently, as has been mentioned. The casualty figures should usually be much lower than they are now. The AI should learn to flee. I guess there's nothing you can do to force human players be more careful - nothing is as effective in that as flying full DiD! And I wonder what the limitations of the CFS3 engine are. Is it even possible to make dramatic changes to the AI behaviour? Or would a new engine be needed? But generally speaking, I'm quite satisfied with the level of AI in OFF as it is now. But if it can be improved, please do so and you'll have my money!

I think historical studies made over the last 10 or 20 years have shown more and more that the claims of the leaders of Wehrmacht after the war about their dislike of Nazis were mostly politically correct crap they propagated in order to look better in the eyes of the world and the disappointed post-war German nation. It is true that there were some resistance cells among Wehrmacht officers, but they were few and far between. Many also grumbled about the radical style of the Nazis, but deep within their souls they seem to have been quite content that Germany had finally risen out of the disaster of Versailles and that somebody had devastated the Communists, which the conservative officer class regarded as their worst enemies. And what finally won Wehrmacht's support to the Nazis was Hitler's continuous successes in the 30's - he seemed to be invincible and achieve his every goal. The loyalty of the Wehrmacht was most clearly proven on the Eastern Front, where they quite happily participated in war crimes or conveniently looked the other way when the SS was doing their worst (who honestly believes top generals like v. Manstein when they said they had no idea what was going on behind the lines?). If there hadn't been brave men such as Count von Stauffenberg and many others, there would be absolutely nothing positive to say about the morale of Wehrmacht's highest leaders (I'm not talking about the ordinary guys) during the war. The absolute majority of Wehrmacht's generals seem to have been morally weak, almost spineless, men, who didn't dare to try anything against Hitler even when it was clear to everybody but the most fanatical Nazis that he was leading Germany into complete annihilation. It was a really terrible and disappointing period in German and European history. Who knows what kind of a general MvR would have been if had lived. He might have been great, or not. Not all officers make great generals, which was clearly seen in the Luftwaffe - they had an abundance of tactically brilliant commanders, but not many seemed to have an excellent grasp of strategy (least of all Göring!), unlike the best commanders of the Allied strategic air forces.

I guess the moving bolts and ammo belts are something that other sims do better than OFF and there's probably no chance of ever seeing them here - a newer engine would be needed I guess. But that Parabellum sure would look great in my observer's hands with the belt hanging from the gun and the bolt moving...

I'd also like to see something like this, but with the option to turn it off in the workshop if I don't always want to go all the way to the extreme hardcore. There's a fine line between an enjoyable flight sim and an excercise in masochism. OFF is not the same as the real world, and in a sim there are many limitations that you won't have when flying a real aircraft - the visibility for example. Even though TrackIR is a great help, it cannot be compared to what you can see with your own eyes in the real world.

That Brisfit looks really menacing. Great pics!

I just noticed the price, and it is VERY reasonable for all those things we'll be getting. I've seen some VERY limited extra content being sold for some other WW1 sim that shall not be named, and compared to that, this is a real bargain. Thanks OBD!

DiD can be extremely frustrating and sometimes makes me want to throw heavy objects around the room and out of the window, but nothing in any sim beats the great satisfaction you feel when you achieve something without any 'crutches'. No pain, no gain.

I can hardly wait! So many improvements, including: • Personalised AIRCRAFT skin! • auto exit on damage on/off setting

Being a Nupe fan, I'm anxiously waiting for the add-on. That N.28 sure is a beauty, and finally a Nupe with two guns! I've had several American pilots in OFF, but most of their squadrons with the S.XIII start so late in the war that I felt like I missed the most interesting period of the year with the German spring offensive and the Allied counter-offensives following in the summer. But now I can fly through the whole tour of duty of the American squadrons - if my pilots live long enough, that is.

You constantly set the bar so high that your competitors have no chance at all. Isn't that a bit unfair?

And they call us, the noble servants of Der Kaiser Wilhelm II, Huns and barbarians? *** Wels, those are superb pics! Though as I think about it, I've never seen any bad screenshots here. The sim is so good that everything one captures on the screen will look great on the forum.