Macklroy

I always try to keep my wingmates alive. Usually I will send them into the fray and circle above. If it looks as if the enemy might get into position to attack my friends THEN I will come down to help! This helps keep my scores realistic and helps me stay alive much longer. Sometimes I dont even need to help out if the numbers are in our favor. First 7 sorties flown I didnt even have a claim form to fill out. But still plenty of action.

So I hear there are some crazy chaps flying biplanes over the fields of flanders again. I thought I would come check it out. Ya'll still fly on saturday's? S!

Ill be online (on TS) an extra hour early tomorrow before the missions start. At this point I think I have everything ready except maybe a few extra aircraft ya'll are using.

Excellent. Ill try to arrive a bit early on Saturday to get the last couple aircraft files I need. I know how important a timely start is to the saturday campaigns. Ill do my best to be ready by takeoff. Looking forward to it.

Thanks gents. I connected to MP sessions before without any problem. But that was prior to the HITR expansion. Is it recomended to do a complete reinstall vs. trying to update/patch what I currently have running? Currently I have steps 1-6 completed and also madmatts MP files installed. Guess what I'm asking is if I DL the HITR expasion and then the extra MP mod files (step 10) will that bring me up to speed? This saturday may be a trial run for me. With fingers and toes crossed.

Im in. Just call me "Black Mack" See you there BB.

Welcome to OFF 12High. I too find that when I'm looking for my flight sim fix i turn to OFF more often than any other sim I own. (and i own quite a few of em) For me the immersion that I get from filling out a claim form and trying to be as accurate with the details as possible is one of the cool aspects of this sim. I agree that there are some claims that are rejected for seemingly no reason. ( scramble to defend the home aerodrome and knock down 3 german craft within 100yrds of the field and having them rejected?) But overall I would say I get credit for close to 85% of my claims. Writing down wingmen names before the flight. Writing down the proximity to towns/airfields/rivers/etc. of claimed kills. Taking note of the altitude of engagements. Even the enemy sqn if i recognize them (I dont play with icons) But some pilots dont enjoy that aspect of the sim as much. My only recomendation would be to follow DuceLewis's advice and change the setting in the workshop for claims to either medium or simply easy if you dont want to have to fill out the form. On the easy setting the game will simply keep track of your kills for you and you will recieve credit for 100% of enemy planes downed. S!

Was looking for a good way to share my great grandfather's story with you all and decided on a simple approach. I skipped through a very good portion of the journal to todays date in 1918. I thought it would be a neat idea to post snippets of the journal in relation to todays date. If people are interested in the storry Pre- 4/8/18 I can post those as well. But todays entry happens to be a convenient place to start as he has already arrived in France and is just getting "settled". From the Journal of: C.P. Strickland (Charles, Percy) Date: April 07, 1918 - "added for historical references" "We are running along the Seine River. The sun is shinning brightly and after our miserable night is a welcome change. We opened the sides of the car for light. The country is very beautiful and reminds me so much of So. Calif. All the fruit trees are beginning to bloom and the grass is green. Every few Kilometeres is a group of houses, in the centre of well kept farms. We passed thru several cities Rouen, Versailles, Et~(illegible)~per, Orleans, and several times were served hot coffee or broth. Every where are soldiers--few men are not in uniform. Arrived at St. Aignan about 9:00pm and were quartered in barns and houses for the night. Twenty of us were in our barn--it was a dandy hay loft and we had our first good sleep since leaving Camp Merritt. Had to climb a ladder to get into the loft!" ----------------------------------------------------------- Date: April 08, 1918 "After breakfast we were marched to the Headquarters offices and our personal history and qualification cards again filled out. Our barrack bags were given to us afterwards. They surely looked good too for all of us were sorely in need of a change of clothing. I was pleasantly surprised to meet Willie Bagg and R. Dunham here at St. Aignan. They are in the 116 Engineer Detach. located here at camp. We had a lot of news to exchange. Our company was split up this afternoon--part of the men going to the Infantry and part to the Ammunition trains. All of our little crowd drew the infantry except Jimmie Mann and Chas.Ward. Our bags and packs were loaded on trucks and at 2:30pm we started out again for "someplace" . No one ever knows where he is going or how far it is. Almost every town is a military camp. Every house is marked with the number of men it can accomodate. It is an unusual sight to us to see so many little cafes and wine shops but ofcourse no one thinks anything of it here. I have yet to see the first drunk Frenchman. Our hike was 20 Kilometers long (amlost 14miles). We didn't lose any time on the way either. All our men had blistered feet and sore shins. Mine were no exception. Finally arrived at Montrichard on the Chere River (tributary to the Loire). Here we were again split up and placed in different companies of the 163rd Inf. N. S. of Montana. Fourtunately, Elmer Ranker, S. Proodian and myself all went to "B" Co. John Adams went to "A" Co. Had "chow", got our bags and packs and were again assigned houses or barns to sleep in. We drew a little room, second floor, in a house facing on an alley barely four feet wide. Had to climb a little winding stairs to get into the room. These old houses surely are wierd." -------------------------------------------------------- I have been pleasantly suprised at how easy the journal is to read, even though many of the pages are very worn. I am writting the entire journal down on a pdf file to have a backup of the original. I hope you enjoy the read. I will post more of tomorrow's entry tomorrow.

Missed a few days of journal entries (mainly due to family in town for a visit over the Rodeo weekend). Some of the entries are more entertaining than others. I try to hand pick specific entries of interest that others might enjoy. Date: April 17th, 1918 "Got off the train early this a.m. at Gondrecourt. This is to be our home for some time they tell us. We now belong to the 164th inf. ----Co. "A". gondrecourt is one of the huge schools for officers and enlisted N.C.O.'s. We are now in the advance war zone and everything is strictly military. Men of many services swarm thru the streets. At night the guns at the front can be heard plainly. Aeroplanes dot the sky at all times. There are 5,000 Russion troops here----men who have volunteered to fight for France. They are a husky lot of men-------well dressed. Italians, British, African troops and ofcourse our own and the French mingle as one people. Ths place has been raided by Boche planes several times. I have met lots of fellows from Ventura here in Gondrecourt. Harry Peck, Victor Weldon and several otheres. Walter Argabrite is here to but I haven't seen him. The boys all in the --(-illegible-)--- have been here three months. "Heince" Sanchez and most of the others are at the front. We are in portable barracks here and they are not the warmest house in the world. The bunks are double deckers. The first day in camp we three -"vets"- went down town in quest of hay to fill our bed sacks. Finally found a French "poilus" who directed us to a place we could get some. Didn't have any money tho so Proodian gave the woman his ring as a guarantee that we would pay. Can you see me walking up Broadway with a bed sack full of hay over my shoulders? Anyway we three were the only ones who slept in comfort that night!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------

S! Lou I've been away from the forum for a while (more like lurking in the shadows ) It's good to take a break from the game or even from the comunity from time to time. I imagine when p4 is launched we will see the return of many old friends and faces. Until your return I bid you happy trails and clear skies my fellow flyer.

Well I chose the "It can have a possative effect, which is..." basically because it was the best way to describe how i feel about 'war' sims/games. Although I suppose the "depends on the game/sim" option would be just as well or even "a history lesson." But i had to choose one. ;) I have probably learned MORE about history and geography in my gaming/simming time than I ever did reading a history book. Granted some of that knowlege may be slanted towards the opinions of the developers of said games/sims, however no more so than the slant that publishing companies put in their books, or history teachers slant their lesson plans. Also my exposure to these games/sims has also driven an interest to research other aspects of the period via video clips, documentaries, and books leading to further education. Although this may be a secondary effect of a war game, it IS directly related. Just one quick example: Being an 'average' american in my ignorance of foreign countries I couldn't even begin to explain the geography of europe, africa, asia, etc. Hell, I would be hard pressed to properly place all 50 states in MY OWN country. However, ever since my extensive interest in the Total War serries, from Rome, to Empire and the latest Napoleon, my knowlege of those areas has improved 1000%. I really had NO idea how close Italy's boot heel was to the countries in the eastern block of europe....NONE! So there IS a possative effect that these games can have, even if most of the game time is spent in an effort to kill. Knowlege is power, ignorance is folly. Macks-2cents

Olham: To a ripe age into his 90's. I even have a picture of me as a mere toddler, sitting on his knee outside his ranch home in southern california! Lou: I believe you are correct sir. I can see Etampes in that illegible bit. Even the ` over the E is vissable. Thank you as that will help in my PDF copy! I am glad you all enjoy the entries. I get a lot more out of them the second and third times I read over them, and do enjoy sharing the history. What doesn't translate so well from text to type is the 'style' in which he wrote. Even leaving blank __________ underlines in between the text when he might have thought to go back and re-enter information he was unsure about at the present. (The city of 'Rouen' in the last entry was an example of a space left ______ and then entered at a later time. As noted by the fact that the entire entry was in pencil with 'Rouen' being entered later in pen.) Todays entry: April 9th, 1918 "We are settled once more (for a while anyway) in a permanent outfit _______ even tho it is a Nat. Gaurd outfit. Hope we can get into the regulars or someplace else. Anyway we are here only for training ______ ten days at the most they tell us. Wish we would get settled for a month or two so we could get our pay. Montrichard is a typical little French village. It is ideally located on the Gher River, and Broad green meadows entirely surround it. Low, rolling hills are not far away. In the center of the village is a high spot upon which is located the old castle of Richard Couir de Lion, from which the town gets its name. The castle is constructed of heavy rock blocks, with massive towers and walls. The chapel is just below it. Of course the castle is more or less tumbled down now but still maintains its majestic view over the surrounding country. It costs 50 centimes to go thru it (10cents) but none of us are that rich. Can you immagine it!? Reveille is at 5:45a.m. From then on to 6:00p.m. we're hard at work. This is no joke. Our time is short and what we get here is all before we go to the trenches for our final instructions. Great stress is laid on our proficiency in the use of the rifle, bayonet and gas masks. We have two masks_____British and French styles. During the drills, we play games for a rest and change. The drill ground is about a mile and a half from camp. There is to be a big field meet soon so we have an hour each day to practice our respective stunts. We also have a ball team." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spaces were left blank ______ that were not filled in on this entry. I can only immagine that the name of the National Gaurd unit and maybe the full extent of the training stay were to be entered later but never filled in. I especially enjoyed this entry as I could only immagine a young man from a small farming town in california seeing such sights as French castles and churches, and how magnificent it must have all been. There is not another entry until the 13th so I may go back and post some entries pre Atlantic crossing that I found rather interesting. The ammount of detail that my grandfather puts into describing the American landscape from west coast to east was of special note to me. Hope you enjoy it.

Greetings all. Earlier last week I made a discovery that I thought would be of interest within the ranks of this forum. Last week was helping my mothers father move from his long occupied residence to a smaller lakeside appartment in southern california. Durring the packing of many personal belongings (it's NO exageration being sons and daughters of the 'great depression' to say my granparents kept everything!) I came accross a very old journal. Turns out this journal was my great grandfathers journal and was dated September 1917 - March 1919. Needless to say I was more than extatic with my fourtune of finding it and spent most of my return trip to the north state reading through it. The old and tatered pages document his enlistment into the army. His travels accross the nation from west coast to east (quite a feat for a farmers son in 1917). His atlantic voyage to england, as well as his deployment to France. And his attempt although disapointed attempt, to join the ranks of the pilots that were stationed near his post. Although his regiment saw little action, reading his accounts of seeing an aircraft for the first time made my eyes water with wonder and pride. The accounts in which he notes on are a step back in time for me as Percy Strickland passed away when i was just a baby and I never really had the honor of being aquainted with the man. Even tucked away neatly in the pocket of the journal were two passes to visit the city of Nancy, an artical from his hometown newspaper which published an entire letter writen home to his mother and a small tattered american flag. I hope to share some of the more noteable passages with you all as I continue to read through my new discovery. S!

WOW! GREAT finish to a GREAT sport. Grats to Canada and our boys for never giving up. Hats off to both teams. Also a big congrats to the Fins for the bronze!

First period WAS a stunner. Good on the Fins to not allow another goal in the last 2 periods. (PS - Miller has allowed 0 goals in those 2 games. with about 10minutes to play they pulled him for a rest and put in backup goalminder thomas who allowed the Finns only goal.)

Dont tell our boy Miller that (0 goals allowed in last 2 games) Canada "Squeeks" by the slovaks 3-2 in a game they dominated for the first 50 minutes. Canada - USA rematch. Should be a good one. Lets hope anyway! Goooooo USA!!!

No love for the USA - Swis game? 2-0 USA for those keeping score at home. Im betting on a USA -Canada rematch for the gold medal match.

I use HiRes always. You wont be able to see the small bullet hole marks, but all the heavy damage (wings breaking off. wingtip damage, etc) is still visible. The attention to detail on some of the skins is really only fully realized on hi res. You can even read the small print on the sides of the craft. I would say its more even (as to those who fly hires and those that dont) than uncleal would lead you to believe. But it simply comes down to a matter of preference as the hires setting for AC has little effect on FPS in game.

Dej THAT is a great *modified* pic of the all red nieuport. My new desktop now. TY sir!

Looks like a lot of fun Winston! I am really hoping to get back into OFF MP once i can get back to regular work and into a place with a stable internet conection. For those people interested in getting into MP but hesitant about getting started. This looks like the place to be. GL gents!

<---jealous. All i can say.

Found this on one of my random rompings through Youtube. Very well done. Music is a bit "hairband" but fits well with the action. S!

I think people also need to realize a couple things... 1 - This thread was started as a "poll" to find out what people would "prefer" to fly on sundays. No decision has been made yet (as far as i can tell). 2 - This is NOT a decision setting the standard for ALL MP sessions. Only the Sunday campaign sessions hosted by Vasco. From the tone of some of the posts it sounds like there is a strong opinion 'against' the stricter settings. Understandable ofcourse, we all want the game to be as FUN as possible (yes it is a SIM i know but yes, this is a game). But at the same time people have different opinions of what is FUN. Some of the posts here have become quite defeatest (*spell check please) in my opinion. Again remember, this topic started as a poll to find out how people would like to set up the sunday sessions. No one here is TELLING you how to play, only ASKING how you prefer to play.

My 2 cents (I didnt vote as I'm not sure I will be able to attend the sunday sessions) Being one of the few that still have not purchased trakIR, being out of work limits my tech budget, I still use padlock for tracking my targets. Without TAC the padlock feature does not function properly. I love playing W/O labels in a sim like this but without a very suitable 'view' system it becomes very dificult to maintain a visual on the enemy I am pursuing or my wingman for that mater. I usually set the TAC limits to 2 miles (that way i'm not picking up bandits on radar waaay before they come into visual range). Seems to be a nice balance between realism and fun playability. Anyway, like i said, just my 2 cents. Mack-

Well fellas. Real life situations have pulled me away from the game. More than likely I wont be flying any mp for at least the next few months. I hope to be back by the late spring early summer. My moving arrangements will probably keep me w/o internet for quite some time. Happy hunting! S!