ArgonV

These are shots from FS-WWI, the Caproni Ca.42 being the latest project under developement.

Over the next several months FS-WWI will be getting a host of new aircraft. I'd like to share what some of those will be! First up the Caproni Ca.42. This was started by Wakeup Tailgunner (3d model) and myself almost 9 years ago. The project was dropped because we got busy with other aircraft and this one would always crash the game. Well that problem is now fixed! I am still working on 3d model refinements, a cockpit and a refreshed texture. Next the R.A.F. F.E.4. This aircraft 3d model is by LesterBoffo from the Targetware: Richthofen's Skies group. He first brought us the R.E.8, and now this is getting prepared to be imported into the game by me. Now we have something completely different, the Caudron N Racer from 1912. This is the first of what I hope will be many pre-war aircraft into FS-WWI. LesterBoffo once again is the creator of this 3d model, and he is doing the importing process himself with a little help from me. Lastly, the Morane L! This was just started by LesterBoffo, and the 3d model is not yet complete. Him and I will import it into the game once the projects listed above become more or less finished. I hope this spurs some interest for this old gem of a mod! The fun never ends. :D

Today I sat down and hacked together a more decent looking skin. The one it had was... Low res and blurry. I'd been slowly putting one together bits at a time, as you can see in the older screenshots. This is a hack job, and it needs to be weathered and probably color corrected but it's making this kite look real good!

Ok, most of the damage model is in place and working. Rear gunners are in, prop generators are in, low detail lods for the wheels and engines are in, 3d shadow is in, as are the flares for night missions. I still need to add the ripped off wing damage model bits, as well as tweak the collision points. Then, on to the cockpit and rigging! And lastly, I need to spruce up the texture a bit for the wings, hstabs and do the damaged textures. Anyone have any decent cockpit photos of this thing?

Yes, totally. I'm running on Win 7 64 Ultimate. Also, a new Patch is being created to take advantage of widescreen resolutions and to fix the horrid texture banding with new graphics cards.

Thanks Stary! Widowmaker, probably not... :( That and a Nieuport 28 are on my wish list.

It's starting to look like an airplane: The engine, exhaust, prop, front Vickers gun, wheel struts and wheels are now inplace: As you can see, the rudder, VStab, Hstabs and wing struts are in place. Also, I added the pilot and the gunner. If you look closely, you might even spot the bomb racks for the wings. Also, I have distributed and sized the inertia placement: Rigging in as well as some other small things: An in-game shot: Anyone care to do a proper hi-res skin for her?

Many of you may have noticed I have not been very active around these parts and a bit slow to get back with you. The main reason for this is the Zeppelin L-11. After quite a bit of rethinking, I decided to tackle the Zeppelin damage model to make it even better and more realistic than before. After months of retooling, I have finally done so. I did not wish to reveal this beforehand, as I did not know what I wanted to do was possible or not within the current game engine. Well, it is! :D Here's what I've got: The Zeppelin never blows up the same way twice. This means that when she goes you might see it stall out after the gas bags explode, then head straight for the ground intact and break up upon hitting. Or, you could see it burn up slowly floating to the ground intact and crash landing there if the altitude is low enough. Perhaps you blow it up, and it floats down for a while intact at a steep angle to the ground, hits hard and breaks up. Or, maybe it slowly spirals down, only to break in half mid-air because the massive fire has taken its toll on the airframe. If the Zeppelin crew is unlucky enough, there will be a total frame failure and the Zeppelin will come crashing down in four sections (As it did all of the time before) and the crew won't have any time to even jump out to avoid burning. Next, there is now a MUCH better looking damaged skin. When the Zeppelin blows, the skin blows out sections, now with holes in the canvas and burnt looking. This of course burns away after a short time (About 2 and half minutes) and all that is left is the frame. When the Zeppelin gas bags blow up, the crew will now jump out of the fire ridden airship to avoid burning to death. You can blow this Zeppelin up anyway you wish, and the game will not CTD on you (A problem before under certain rare cases). There are many many combinations on the path to destruction... There are 4 large cells, in any order and the frames supporting those cells and of course when it blows up it could stay whole, or not. The Zeppelin of course will lose its engines when it blows up if it stays whole.

Thanks! Give it a try, it's in the latest FS-WWI Plane Pack + Patch. :)

Thanks rabu! Here it is: The only thing this kite lacks is a proper hi-res skin and damaged skin. Who would like to do one for her? Features: Detailed 3d cockpit Mannable gunner position Mannable camera view Aldis gunsight view when you press G Lean-over-the-side view for bombing, takeoffs and landings when you press X Please read the readme file for installation. You MUST have the latest FS-WWI Plane Pack + Patch installed for this to work properly. I would like to thank LesterBoffo for the use of his model, textures and beta testing the FM and Jerry for also testing. I would also like to thank Recon3 for some of this texture work and 3d model work I borrowed to create the cockpit. Enjoy! Download here: (5.34mb) http://www.fsww1.com/Downloads/Aircraft/RE8_Beta.zip

Here you can see the Lewis drum holders, the camera and the turn crank to lower the wireless antenna Here I've modeled the backup elevator control stick for the gunner incase the pilot were to become indisposed... And also the gunner's seat. Towards the front cockpit you can see the ammo box for the Vickers. I've still got a few more details to add. There is a switch that's supposed to be mounted outside on the left side of the front cockpit, then the wireless set itself for the rear gunner's area. Also in the front cockpit there's a small wooden box forward and inbetween the rudder pedals I have yet to create, as well as an instrument and another copper tube for the panel. Lastly, a small crude bomb site on the left side when you lean over.

I've been working a lot on the cockpit this weekend... Still a work in progress, but much done!

Tamper, I feel different than you. To each his own but to address some of your concerns: I feel the flight models are the best in a sim, any sim. Are they perfect? No, then again no flight sim has perfect flight models. Are they the closest to represent the real world on a PC, most certainly. As for the damage models, yes the fuselage stays around (Though it looks beat up and crushed in.) But it doesn't just blow up and go away either which is what most flightsims do. I find the latter more lame. No flight sim has truely dynamic damage models. I fear that is impossible with current PCs. But ROFs is the best I've seen in any sim, ever. Most have planes smash into the ground, blow up completely and just have a wing bit or two left. Much less realistic than ROF. Which aircraft don't respond correctly to you when damaged? I've flown them all, and all respond as I would anticipate. The campaign engine is being addressed as we speak. It is sad that ROF did not ship with one yes. Given the option to release the sim early to gain some income however I approve, if the other option was to go bankrupt and us flight simmers not have a sim at all. ROF is an ever evolving product. In an ideal world, I would of liked to have these things from the get go. But that's just not how the real world is right now. I'm glad however that the developer is going to address the lack of a campaign issue. Thus far, the developer is delivering. It has taken a bit of time, but a year is not that long considering. The limited viewing distance is annoying... I agree it needs to be fixed. It sadly limits the on-line play and mission making... :( This right now is my only complaint.

Thanks! Though I just did the assembly and the coding. The model is by LesterBoffo from the Targetware crew.

I should mention, you need an internet connection to register and log in once... It is odd but I can see the reasoning. A hacked ROF would be almost useless without a campaign mode (Obviously it wouldn't be able to go on-line if it's hacked).

No longer to play single missions. However, yes to play the campaign.

Thanks for the plug Wildfowler! :D

Wow very awesome skin UK_Widowmaker! If you want, e-mail it to me at ArgonV @ AOL . com and I can post it for download at www.fsww1.com :)

These ground units were built and textured by Mossie! I converted them into the OpenPlane format, scaled and did the OpenPlaneStudio coding. These all will be in the upcoming FS-WWI Plane Pack 5 Patch. Renault Armored Car Renault Covered Truck French 75mm Ammo Carrier Benz Truck Benz AA Truck Horse-pulled ambulance German Horse-Pulled Artillery Limber British Horse-Pulled Artillery Limber Motorcycle Balloon Winch Ford Model T Car Renault Flatbed Truck Ford Model T Truck British Mk.IV Tank Male Staff Car And even more!!!! Leyland Tanker Leyland Truck Ford Truck AA Thornycroft Truck Covered Thornycroft Truck Thornycroft Truck AA

Ha, it's great fun creating a mission with all sorts of ground units and going around blowing them up with the external cam. Or crashing aircraft into the ground units so see what happens. :)

UK_Widowmaker, you can. All of the aircraft files reside in the Data15.PAR file located in the FS-WWI\Media folder. These *.PAR files are much like data zip files, you can use an SDOE created tool called BigMunger to extract this file (I would do it on your desktop). It will extract it like a zip file, with files and folders in their proper order and place. Then you can copy\paste them in their proper place inside your game's FS-WWI\Media folder. The aircraft skins are located in the FS-WWI\Media\aircraft\aircraft-name\textures folder. You can get BigMunger in this package: http://www.fsww1.com/Downloads/Tools_Tutorials_FAQs.exe It is true that the Zeppelin in FS-WWI has to be flown much like a slow flying aircraft that is hard to handle. But given a 15 mph head wind it can float rather nicely. But, I was never fond of flying Zepps, rather blowing them up instead! ;)

Hello all! Glad you got it sorted. Sorry I was out of town and away from the internets. :) UK_Widowmaker, I did not know people were having problems getting it from ModDB. Glad someone offered to host at Stratedgyinformer. ;)

There is multiplayer support through Hyperlobby. It is not an open dogfight server however. Everyone has to join in at once. Great anti-cheat in place though: Everyone has to have the same aircraft and weapon files otherwise that person will not be able to join in. Online play has been scarce for a while... But you can get a group together. Also, you can man the gunner positions online and offline. However no multi-crewing. When you switch to a gunner or bomber station the AI takes over the station you first occupied. You can play the same mission over again as many times as you wish. It will affect your Pilot profile score however depending on how bad or good you do. You could even fly the mission one time as a pilot and another time as the gunner. If your aircraft is so equipped as the bomber or recon camera man if you wish. Though it might be boring ;) . You have to have discipline however, it takes a lot to not want to take back over the pilot position from the sometimes crazy AI flyer. In the mission editor, you can set the sanity level. On some missions, it has been set quite low. ;) A great Zeppelin DM is this: The Zeppelin does not blow up and just disappear. A frame is left over on the ground. You can see each gas bag blow, and the underlying structure when it goes. Lots of smoke, fire and explosions. The Zeppelin can be blown up in different ways with a different outcome each time. Some screenshots and explanation here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/fighter-squadron-world-war-one/news/in-the-pursuit-for-a-better-zeppelin-damage-model P.S. Those screenshots are old. The final version in the Patch I mentioned above has much more smoke and fire, with the underlying gas cells modeled with holes burst through them.

Hello gents!! As an owner and player of many a WWI sim, I can tell you that for the pure pleasure of flying I find RoF and FS-WWI unbeatable. The flight dynamics in RoF are superb (The engine management is very nice!), as are the graphics if you can afford it. That said, for campaign action and really awesome dogfights I get the most out of OFF P3 BHaH. If I want to get nitty and gritty in the WWI air war OFF's attention to detail and accuracy are bar none. Now with that done, some clarifications on FS-WWI :) : The campaign modes are a series of scripted missions tied together with a story. Some are long, some are short. The actions of one mission do not affect the other. That said, you can play each of these missions dynamically. That is - You can play each mission from every side, every squadron and even pick your own aircraft from the flight to fly in. You can do all of that real time, from the start of the mission. So really, the dynamic aspect comes out through you. Now by default, the missions are written so you pick a side before hand, and start the campaign with only the Entante squadrons showing as an example. But you can change aircraft and sides in-game mid-flight. FS-WWI is now stand-alone and you do NOT need the original SDOE game CD anymore if you get the All-In-One package. It's a free WWI flight simulator that for the price cannot be beat. The selection of aircraft, campaigns, training missions and senerios are vast in number (Over 55 aircraft to fly). You can get the All-In-One here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/fighter-squadron-world-war-one/downloads/fs-wwi-plane-pack-5-all-in-one-exe-installer And Patch v1.0 to it (Just released not too long ago) here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/fighter-squadron-world-war-one/downloads/fs-wwi-plane-pack-5-patch-v10 FS-WWI review by Rock Paper Shotgun here: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/05/10/tumult-in-the-clouds-fighter-squadron-wwi/ P.S. We have the best Zeppelin damage model of any flightsim, ever. ;)

A new aircraft has been announced! http://riseofflight.com/Blogs/post/2009/12/11/NEW-PLANE.aspx Also, in case any one has not yet, please launch the sim and updated to 1.009. Many new features and bug fixes. RoF flies much more smooth for me on my lowly PC. ;)