Hasse Wind

That would be quite the fight I'm sure! I'd be very careful when attacking a flight of Fees led by such a talented pilot. But even though the AI can't put up such an effective fight and use all the right tactics when flying the Fees, I can't go attacking them carelessly - they can easily shoot my Alb down or disable it by damaging its engine. I consider Fees to be much more dangerous opponents than Quirks, which are easy prey for Albs, as the poor guys can't even shoot back properly when attacked from behind. Fees are also more manoeuvrable than Quirks.

I think you'll be delighted when Jasta 10 gets the Alb. D.III - then it gets even better! For a real challenge, try to stick with Jasta 10 when they start flying the Pfalz D.III. Then you won't have it so easy anymore, but if anything, it can be even more rewarding when you accomplish something. :yes:

I must confess I'm something of a Fee man myself - they make about half of my confirmed kills in my current MFJ I career in Jan. 1917. There's nothing better than meeting some Fees with my faithful Albatros D.II. Or maybe there is - meeting some Quirks!

I come back from a short work-related trip and what do I find here - an incoming super-patch! Excellent! I'm especially looking forward to the Spad improvements. Do you care to elaborate what else has been changed in addition to their stall speeds? Are they now a bit more manoeuvrable perhaps?

I can recommend this to all players who want their pilots to stay alive as long as possible. Having enough altitude is often the most deciding factor in air combat in OFF.

Bullethead, there's nothing new in your post about the difficulties of space travel that people who are seriously involved in space programs or are interested in them as amateurs don't already know. I don't think any of us here belong to that "on to Mars!" starry-eyed crowd. This is the real world, not Star Trek. Heck, it may well be that interstellar travel will never be possible, because the distances involved are so ridiculously enormous. But who knows what technological development will make possible for the human race - it wasn't that long ago when people thought flying machines were impossible, and look at where we are now. However, extensive space travel and eventually colonization and taking advantage of the resources in our own solar system is far from being impossible to achieve. It sure as hell won't be easy, but the first steps must be taken some day if anything is to be accomplished. :yes:

Soon all that remains of that great generation is distant memories and historical records. Sad, but inevitable considering it has almost been a century since the fighting died down on the Western Front.

Olham, try flying as high as possible. The lower you fly, the more easier it's for each enemy and his cousin's friend to find you and attack you. At least I've noticed staying high makes it easier to control the situation, and is practically the only way to go in some planes, particularly the Pfalz. There's a setting in the workshop that let's you adjust how high your flight tries to stay even when using warp. My tactic is to use warp until I can't do it anymore because of enemy activity, and then fly higher if I'm not already.

It depends on the plane I'm currently flying. In a Spad or a Pfalz you can't be a shooter, at least I don't know how to do it properly and live to fight another day. But give me a Nupe or a Dr.I and I'll eagerly attack almost everything that moves (which usually ends my career quite prematurely!). But even in a turn fighter I've never shot down 6-9 planes per mission as some people seem to be doing, I'm not THAT reckless! And with full realism, no TAC and no labels it's much harder to shoot down anybody. :yes: I guess it tells something about the usefulness of each tactic on the long run that all my longest living pilots have been careful tacticians. My MFJ I pilot is now approaching the 30 hour mark, and he has just 9 confirmed kills.

You guys keep releasing these DMs too quickly! How can I decide which one to keep using? TSmoke, it's perfectly safe to use these mods. I've been switching between different damage models a lot lately without any problems.

Bullethead, where's your boyish sense of adventure? I hope you aren't getting too old! As to money, well, a manned mission to the Mars is really cheap compared to waging war. And with proper international cooperation, the costs wouldn't have to be the burden of only one nation. (Think of ESA but in a much bigger scale.) Besides, just think about how stupid uses the governments have found for taxpayer money during the latest economy crisis? Why go to Mars? I think Mr. James Cameron put it nicely in his address to the International Mars Society in August 1999: Why are we gonna spend billions of dollars to do this? People are always saying we've gotta solve our problems right here on Earth before we go spending money out in space. It makes me puke, frankly. Check back in 500 or 1,000 years and people are still gonna be talking about all the problems that need to be solved. We're never gonna reach some utopian plateau where everything is solved so we can kind of with lordly confidence look around for worlds to conquer as some kind of hobby. You know, not spreading ourselves out within the solar system now, when we have the capability to do so, is one of the problems we have to be solving right here on Earth. We're really at a turning point: We either go forward or we go back. By stopping and stagnating, we actually go back. I look around at the turn of the millennium and I see a prosperous, powerful, technologically unparalleled society, which collectively has no purpose but to feather its own nest. It's a goal-less, rudderless society dedicated to increasing security and creature comforts. Our children are raised in a world without heroes. They are led to believe that heroism consists of throwing a football the furthest, getting the most hang time during a slam dunk, or selling the most movie tickets with your looks and your boyish charm. This is not heroism, and these are not the valid tests of our mettle as an intelligent race. Young kids need something to dream about, something to measure their value system again. They live in a sea of mind numbing affluence, a point-and-shoot video game world where it's hip not to care, where death and violence have no meaning, where leaders are morally bankrupt, and where the scientific quest for understanding is so not cool. Going to Mars is not a luxury we can't afford. It's a necessity we can't afford to be without. We need this. We need this, or some kind of challenge like it, to bring us together to all feel a part of something and to have heroes again. The problem is there's no challenge on our horizon like Mars. If we rise to a challenge, we're gonna redefine ourselves, and we're gonna ratchet ourselves up another notch in the evolutionary ladder. In return, Mars will reward us with answers to profound questions and with a renewed sense of self-worth as a species. Survival on the red planet will not be easy, but neither will it be impossible. Rather, it will be just difficult enough. Mars is a place we can just reach standing on tiptoe. To live there will be an awesome task, but one which we can meet. Mars will be the next great test of ourselves. It will test our intelligence, our bravery, our endurance, our questing spirit, our ability to cooperate, and indeed, every noble and worthy aspect of human potential. Just as an Indian boy on the cusp of manhood walks alone in the wasteland on his vision quest, confronting Mars will be a right of passage for our adolescent children -- or adolescent civilization. It will be our collective vision quest by which we will know ourselves and find the next clue to our destiny. When the first man or woman sets foot on Mars, every human being on Earth will stand vicariously in those boots at that moment. We will all as one be uplifted and ennobled. We will be energized by the exhilaration of the accomplishment, and of being part of the greatest adventure of all. In an age when the horizons have grown near, when the lands of mystery are as close as the travel channel, when everything seems known and tired, when all the wildernesses are conquered, the human soul is starved for challenge. Only our outbound quest can satisfy this hunger, which is a very real hunger that is at once spiritual, psychological, emotional, as well as intellectual. We do this for knowledge and to hone our technical capabilities. But most of all, we do it for our deepest hearts, which yearn outward.

Oh yes, plenty of useful stuff has been done by unmanned probes and Spirit and Opportunity have been extremely succesful in exploring Mars. There are many real geniuses working at the University of Arizona. But since the Apollo program, nothing *really* spectacular has been achieved with manned space flights. Again, a lot has been done with the shuttles and space stations and whatnots, but they are small things compared to what the Apollo program achieved, ie. taking men to another planetary body (a moon) and bringing them back home safely. That was truly a great moment in American history and human history in general. It all comes down to money - no bucks, no Buck Rogers. With serious international efforts it would be quite possible to achieve so much more than is currently being done with national space programs only. Sadly it seems governments are more willing to spend money into devising new ways to kill people rather than supporting space exploration.

That is truly a fantastic website, obviously even more so if you are interested in the history of space exploration. Too bad decades have been wasted without achieving anything as great as the Apollo program. It's kind of sad to read about the visions people had back then about what we would be doing in space in the 21st century. No mission to the Mars, not even to the Moon...

I haven't played QC lately, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the AI planes in my campaign games, and I'm definitely using the latest patch. So if there's something broken in the code with the patch installed, it isn't affecting all computers. However, I can feel your pain. I would also be angry if my favourite sim stopped working correctly!

I think I'm going to give this alternative DM a try now. I very much like what Prop-Wasche (did I spell that right?) did with his DM.

Sorry to hear that, Widowmaker. It seems drives are carefully engineered to destroy themselves some time after the guarantee has expired. I lost one laptop just like that last year, and it was only 2 years old.

I think it all comes down to Hitler's miraculous charisma, his incredible luck during the early years and that he seemed to achieve everything he had promised and then some. I've read from many sources that even in the final months of the Third Reich he was still able to convince people who had doubts about the final victory (Endsieg) just by talking to them. He must have been a really convincing and charismatic personality to make so many intelligent people follow him to the bitter end. I've also read comments about people who were completely under Hitler's spell when listening to his speeches and talking with him in person, if they were privileged enough to meet him, but when they read his book Mein Kampf they felt it was very awkward and not at all convincing. So it was his personality and not his writings which made normally quite sensible people believe in him like he was a god. Hitler had no need to give specific orders about matters such as the mass murders of Jews and other people, because he had more than enough willing believers under his command who were eager to do what they thought their beloved Führer would want to be done in each and every situation.

Okay, those look fantastic! Paarma, tästähän oli puhetta, hyvältä näyttää...

Let's just say it's got the best single player campaign system in any WW1 sim ever made.

Like Duce Lewis, I found OFF when I was looking for some RB3D stuff. Pretty soon after that I forgot all about RB3D.

Welcome! This is a very nice forum, so don't hesitate to ask questions. And be prepared to spend a lot of time flying (and dying!), because this sim won't let you go easily when it gets a hold on you.

Herr Leutnant, please go and shoot down some krumpets. It has a known effect of greatly improving dull moods.

Yes, makes sense. If flown with the right tactics it's certainly possible to stay alive long in the OFF Pfalz. I found the challenge very enjoyable when I had my quite long-lived Jasta 10 pilot flying the Pfalz. Now wouldn't it be great if I were able to switch from the D.III to the D.XII in some Bavarian Jasta?

The final line really made me laugh out loud, but will probably only have meaning to anybody who's ever tried to fly the plane in question in campaign. Then it's so very true... The whole parody is pretty much insider stuff though, if you haven't played OFF there's not much there to laugh about.

Fascinating reading, as these are always. Thanks again for posting these! It's interesting that the British tests showed the Pfalz D.III to have better handling characteristics than the Alb D.V. In OFF it's the opposite - the D.V isn't that bad, whereas the Pfalz D.III is pretty horrible in anything but boom and zoom. Maybe the flight model could be improved somewhat to make the plane a bit more responsive to stick movements? I do hope the Bavarian Jastas get their Pfalz D.XII in some add-on pack. I remember it was included in RB3D. :yes: