Lothar of the Hill People

New version 0.5.4 has been posted. Lots of improvements: New mission results dialog gives more feedback on how your flying affects your career. Rebalanced encounter and mission results. Encounter selection biased by personality, so for example two priests will never engage as drinking buddies, while two heavy drinkers are more likely to. Added a new encounter to test bias. Go get it!

Thank you for 3P in the first place, Bletchley, giving purpose to my OFF modding. Just posted version 0.5.4, which should be a real crowd pleaser. Herr Prop-Wasche, I think you'll appreciate what happens when you crash your plane and survive to face a tyrannical leader, bully, or natural enemy as flight leader. Creaghorn, a step in the right direction: at least priests will no longer become drinking buddies or fops engage in boxing with each other. Gave fops something else to do with each other May take a little bit for an admin to approve the upload, so if the download fails wait a bit and try again. To update just unzip over your existing OFFice folder, replacing all files. I'm worried the encounter class bias I introduced in 0.5.4 will improve squadmate relations too much, leading to prestige accumulating too rapidly. If you could let me know if it feels to fast to you after several days and missions of flying, I'd appreciate it.

Glad you like it, Creaghorn! Now I've been working on giving players more/better feedback and fleshing out squadmates so they have encounters and develop relationships with each other. Ultimately I'd like to make a multiplayer version so we could do like the old DiD campaign and see other players pilots in our shared squadron rosters, etc. I've been thinking about this. Right now the only was is to visit the Adjutant often and over time remember, which actually isn't so bad as there aren't that many squadmates. One thing I'm thinking is being able to spend a point of prestige to know another's type going into an encounter. "Oh, I forget who you are, remind me." So far I've just implemented the 3P system, which has 36 encounters and a purely random selection of them, and not much actual conversation. Since you're asking I'll see if I can't customize it a bit, restricting the encounters based on the squadron type. Adding a separate list of observers/gunners is a good idea too, I'll think about it and see how it might work. I'm terrible at writing dialogue, especially with the different nations. If at some point someone wanted to help with this we'll see. I appreciate the feedback, Creaghorn, glad I can enhance your OFF experience!

Thanks, HPW, that's very helpfully laid out. So far I've managed to implement most of it, except for training missions, meeting the CO, leave, and tours of duty . Also it was easier to do the roommate outlook adjustment when you first meet rather than waiting two days, and promotions are always granted if you have the points to spend (otherwise you could just keep resubmitting until they are).

Hey carrick58, I just fixed a bug where it was getting stuck if you didn't choose your name from the list in the verify callsign window. Try downloading the new version, though it may take a few minutes for the file to be available. But now that I reread your note I'm not sure that's the problem. So when it shows your membership in the forum in the window that says "Combat Ace Callsigns" on the top, you click on your name and click Accept. It should then return you to the "User Settings" window, and the status bar on the bottom should say "Callsign carrick58 verified." You can now Save your settings. At what point is this going wrong for you? If all else fails, just click Cancel. But it works for me when I use your name.

You're in luck, Bletchley, I just posted a new version, 0.5.2, which only needs internet connectivity to verify your Combat Ace username when you first run it. You can now play OFFbase offline. If you're offline when you first run the program and it asks you to verify your Combat Ace username, just hit cancel.

I just tried it and it worked for me. Try it again, might have been a slight hiccup as the new file had to be approved by a moderator.

I just tried it and it worked for me. Try it again, might have been a slight hiccup as the new file had to be approved by a moderator.

New version posted, which only needs internet the very first time you run and gives some additional feedback to help you make decisions. To update, just download the newer version and unzip on top of your existing OFFice folder, replacing existing files.

New version posted, which only needs internet the very first time you run and gives some additional feedback to help you make decisions. To update, just download the newer version and unzip on top of your existing OFFice folder, replacing existing files.

HPW's news mod is great to pair with OFFbase. Anyone try the weight mod?

Thanks for the feedback and extra advertising, Creaghorn and Olham. If you'd like you can add your reviews to the file download itself here. It should only merge careers of pilots in the same squad, Olham, and only when you play that squad. So your other pilots will be untouched. I'll answer other questions and concerns in the discussion thread for the mod.

OFFbase reads your system registry in order to find your OFF installation. It will of course edit your pilot files (that's the point of squad-based play with shared rosters, promotions, transfers, etc) and save its own settings in its own folder to track your pilots and squads. OFFset does a bit more, capable of changing the settings in your system registry, OFF workshop settings, and CSFS config. Neither should do anything to mess up your install or do anything else to your computer. Just back up your pilots and unlimitedpilots.xml on occasion (you should be doing this anyway!). And OFFset can restore all your settings if you do need to reinstall OFF for any other reason.

Thanks for the feedback, Creaghorn, good questions. The online requirement is to load the user interface code for the programing language I used, Rebol/alpha. If it's an issue for some people I might try to include the gui code in the install. No automatic updates unfortunately--this would be nice but is low on my priority list. Yes I would like to add pictures and a duty room with a list of your squad. Since the programming language I'm using is an early alpha version itself, there're some issues with the image code I haven't worked out yet. Funerals for killed squadmates is one of the next features I was thinking of adding to help flesh out your relationships and their consequences. This would be a part of a larger project for NPC pilots to have relationships and encounters with each other. Not sure how OFF tracks major offenses and stuff so that's less likely to be added.

Okay, this is the proper thread to leave feedback and discuss this mod. Anyone have any luck with it yet?

Hello, all. Over the past two years I've been slowing working on and off on some software for OFF. Today I'm releasing alpha versions of two components of OFFice: the OFF incomplete campaign editor. Included so far are: OFFset - the OFF settings manager. Backup and Restore all of your OFF settings (including system registry, OFF workshops, and the CFS3 config), either in full or in part. Easily restore your OFF experience if you need to reinstall the game, or quickly switch back and forth between different settings profiles for different play styles (multiplayer, campaign, DiD, etc.). OFFbase: the Barmy Automated Squadron Experience for OFF. This is the big one, a full meta-mod of OFF: - OFFbase features squadron-based play. Take turns flying multiple pilots in a squadron while sharing the same roster and more. Separate wingmen are assigned and flights split as much as possible. Keep flying as a rookie pilot in your favorite squadron while taking your long-time veteran out on the occasion you work up the nerve. - OFFbase implements Bletchley's Pilot Personality Profiles to give each pilot in the squad character and build relationships between squadmates over time. This enhances the squadron-based gameplay by fleshing out your squadron's infrastructure and morale, which affect the development of your pilots' careers. - Together, these aspects bring additional features to the game, such as transferring between squadrons. This software is very generously classified as Alpha, so your mileage may vary. READ THE INCLUDED README FILES!!! Let me know what you think. If you run into crashes or serious bugs, give me as much info as possible including any errors that appear in the console. Good luck! LINK http://combatace.com/files/file/12391-office-the-off-incomplete-campaign-editor/

Cool, thanks Polovski! When I posted the file in Downloads it created another post in the release thread. That one has the updated description, so let's move any discussion and feedback over there. I'll make a post there in a minute so it's the most recent one. So sorry for the mess, this is my first mod.

That worked, Olham, thanks! Go get it! To bad I can't edit my previous posts and add the link above.

Okay, the initial alpha version of my software has been posted over in the mods section of the forum. Check it out!

Gentlemen, While we're all waiting for P4 (and Skyrim), you might want to check out the software I just uploaded to the mods section. Included is a complete overhaul of the OFF campaign experience with squadron-based gameplay built on Bletchley's Pilot Personality Profiles. Check it out!

Hey HPW, you've done so much good mod work to make OFF more immersive it's only fair I return the favor. I've been working on such a project on and off for the past year, integrated with some other useful features. I'll post an initial alpha version of the program for testing in the mods section of the forum maybe as soon as the end of the week if I get transfers working. Bletchley, I've ended up making a few minor changes to your PPP system for the software program. Automating encounters makes it easier to play through a lot of them, and I found relationships were a bit too capricious. I've given more inertia to outlooks so it may take a few encounters to lose a long-term friend or turn things around with an enemy. Basically relationships can take any positive or negative value, with [-1, 0 ,1] all treated as neutral, +/- [2,3,4] treated as like/dislike, and +/- 5 and above/below for friendship/enemy. Furthermore, if friendship is at 6 or higher, it takes a +2 outcome to increase it by 1 deeper, same on the other end for enemies. This would be a pain to have to deal with manually, but in software it's transparent to the user and makes changes in relationships more dependent on the history between pilots. Also, since the software does all the work of tracking personality classes this is something players have to learn from experience, can't just lookup in a table. Conversations with the adjutant are the only thing that reveal NPC pilots types, since this is more important I've made it that you can visit him as often as you want, with a cumulative -1 to your roll for each visit in a day, so he'll reveal less and less if you keep pestering him. To make this more useful I've expanded the player type bonuses for the adjutant: +2 for CL, CB, +1 for CO, SY, -1 for EG, MV, and -2 for IV, LN. Let me know what you think about these adjustments. No interactions with CO or Aces yet, as I can't figure out how OFF stores which aces are in which squadron when. Any ideas?

Hey guys! At long last, the new DID campaign website is live: http://quaero.unm.edu/~justin/off/did/ I rebuilt it from the ground up (staying true to Siggi's beautiful design) to make the eventual automation of updates easier and added a few new features. More to come. Comments, suggestions, and feature requests are very welcome. Cleared most of the old out-of-date stats to start fresh so I need new combat reports from y'all. If you've got an entry for the Fallen Aces page submit combat reports as you will. I'm requesting more info now so it might just be easier to send me your pilot files if you know where they are. Same update schedule as before, so today is Central Powers day. Thanks again to Siggi for the setting up the campaign, the rules, the original website, for everything.

Click on the colored bulls-eye, Rabu, just like with Siggi's old site. Maybe I should put a note at the bottom or something.

Hey Siggi. I'll do as you suggest and download the site as is. I won't be using DreamWeaver to maintain it anyway--working on my own back-end to make automating updates easier. If you could stick the so-far unused min-medal images in a folder I could access, I'd appreciate it. Thanks again for all your hard work in starting and maintaining the DiD campain.

Hey folks. School's been busy and I haven't had time to fly the DiD campaign lately, but once the semester's over I'll be able to take over hosting and maintaining the kill board. Won't be able to do anything until mid May, but since you won't be able to turn it over until the end of May, Siggi, it may just work out.