Launchbury

After just 4 days of flying and 10 missions with a French Escadrille, my pilot has been promoted from Sous Lieutenant to Lieutnent to Capitaine. I haven't shot down any enemy aircraft (I haven't even SEEN any enemy aircraft) but I've destroyed 4 ground targets. This seems somewhat meteoric, and not quite right. The war on our front, however, is monumentally boring. Not a Hun in sight anywhere. Escadrille 3, by the way, Nieuport 11's. Have a look if you're tired of getting killed your first or second time up.

Funny thing about scrambles. This section of the war in which I find myself is so devoid of germans that during a scramble mission none of them turned up.

No, you get on the phone and say: "Hello? I'd like to leave a message for the head of the Royal Flying Corps. That's Air Marshall Sir Hugh Massingbird Massingbird DCFC and BAR. Message reads "Where are you, you bastard?"

I play no TAC, no labels, but I do warp, because with my schedule, and the length of time it takes to just get through one day of the war in OFF, it would take me a year to progress just a month. How I do it, though, is I warp as normal, but when enemies force me out of warp I continue flying my assigned course, and checking the sky as I would do normally. Just because you're dropped from warp doesn't mean you're going to be attacked. Plenty of times I've dropped and then had the unseen enemy pass far enough away from me to enter warp again.

My main pilot just said hello to the grave after exactly 1 month (16 Sept. to 16 Oct.), 24 missions, 9 hours and 10 kills. I was wondering how long your longest guys have lasted, for length of career, number of missions, time in the air. Has anyone lasted a year? BTW my missions seem high but a lot of missions started in the rain so I scrubbed them immediately. It would record a mission but not any flight hours.

Woo! Finally it's here! :D I have a few questions, though, as I'm brand new to the CFS3 engine. I bought it specifically to play OFF and I find it the view commands to be far too numerous and clunky. I don't have TIR, so I have to track my targets to old fashioned way. Question 1: Is there a way to pan your view around the cockpit like in Microsoft Flight Simulator? Either a hat switch pan or a mouselook would be good. At the moment all that works is the hat switch that goes to pre-selected views (left wing, right wing, tail, etc.). 2: How does the padlock work? I toggle it on, select a target, but then it doesn't seem to track. At one point it looked like it was starting to track but then it abruptly stopped. Or maybe I was seeing things. The whole target-selection thing seems a bit odd. Any help appreciated!

The brainwave of briliance that came to me suggesting that I do a loop was because I already knew that nothing else I had tried to fly could loop, therefor the Nieuport on my tail which was rudely removing important bits from my flying machine, surely could not follow me through such a manuever. Afterall, an Albatros with that lovely big Mercedes up front should be able to power through, right? Wrong. Turns out the better way to get rid of a little Nieuport is point the nose down and go home for lunch. When I first saw everyone talking about the "17-hour mark" I thought it was pretty cool that something so trivial-seeming could be such a landmark. My current German pilot (in fact my only pilot, as everyone else had an untimely arrangement with a west-bound transport) has had I think 4 airplanes shot to ribbons around him, having put them down, dead-stick, into various little fields through France, and one total-loss after being ignomiously shot down by a DH2 on the Allied side, came out of the sky like a brick, but still survived the crash and got chased around France by allied patrols before sneaking back into Hunland (19 days wasted, but very relieved as I'm on DiD). So really, my hats off to the OFF team, this really is a priceless work of art that you have all put together.

Yes indeed. I thought to myself "you know what would be the best? Looping the loop." So I built up 150 mph, came over the top in my Albatros and stalled out before I was half way done. Poor show.

< Real pilot. I just need to adjust to the...crudeness of these planes. I'm doing quite well in an Albatross now, having given up on the Fokker Scourge (more like the ground scourge).

Thanks for the help everyone! (Very timely as well) I've already killed probably 6 or 8 pilots so far. Most of them crashed at low altitude fighting. Fokker Eindeckers, DH2's, Halberstadts, etc. Got my first pair of kills on a gaggle of Soppy Strutters. Very satisfying. One more question, though: When I post my claims and I want to add more than one name as a witness, I seperate them by commas, correct?

I dislike the TAC screen intensely and have it turned off. Is TAC required for padlock?

I was going to order BHaH about a week ago but I balked and waffled and considered waiting for ROF (forget about that old cow) and I could have sworn it was listed as 39.99. I just ordered it today and it was only 29.99. I have no problems with paying less for the game, though, but did this have anything to do with the ROF release or did you feel it was just time to lower the price?

Have a look at these and tell me they don't bring back some serious memories: Just the best damn intro music ever. :)

Lissete. I was a very young boy and I recall that at that time I was rather taken with her brown-haired, green-eyed 256-colour beauty. I was rather upset when she was shot, as she was rather nice to have around.

No, it was the same game but it looked better, though I'm not sure why.

Funny you should say that, because that video shows exactly how Red Baron looked on my machine. I believe it was upgraded some time after that, as I went to my friend's house one day and he had the newer version and it sure looked sweet!

Well it was Newton who developed the theory of gravity (the ultimate killer of pilots) and you can't reinvent that wheel, I'm afraid. As to #2, I don't have OFF yet (waiting on the mail, you know) but I used to devour Red Baron and Wings of Flory. My preferred mount has always been the Camel and I can't think of my most difficult enemy, but maybe the D.VII.

Now now, be kind to them, gents. As you can no doubt tell by their disjointed gibberish, they both knocked themselves rather hard about the head during their pricelessly whimsical attempt to defy that British hero Sir Isaac Newton, who I believe is entitled to add these two Teutonic aerial humourists to his list of about 50,000 victories. Yes, we allow the Prussians their fun and let them BELIEVE that Manfred v. is the top-scoring ace, and so on and so forth, but you watch, Sir Isaac will come upon him suddenly with a Vickers loaded with incendiaries, tracers, and the laws of physics, and he'll have him.

[Grabs OvS by the shoulder and claps him in handcuffs] If Ohlam is currently having crumpets in the RFC mess, and OvS is with him as well, then naturally OvS has suffered the same abrupt flight cancellation as his companion. But that's fine, chaps, I'm sure you were utterly confounded by the recent rapid advances of the Royal Army, and thus unaware that your aerodrome had been seized while you were flying back from buying sausages in Hannover. Speaking of the 'terrible twins,' however, we have them over here: Hmmm...Yes...I quite tremble at the mere sight of them. A rather comic landing routine you two have, no wonder you call it a flying circus. However Herr OvS, one of the brighter Camel pilots of my squadron pointed out that the Fokker D.VII undercarriage is actually on the other side, and that if you intend to extend your career in aerial slapstick you might care to utilize it, as damage to the upper wing makes it hard to keep out the occasional rain and hail and incendiary bullets, though I'm not the one to tell you how to run a comedy troupe. Now if you'll excuse me, my friends and I are off to Berlin to bomb the Kaiser and his fat wife. Cheeri-o, chaps!

California, but British born.

Well, crumpets for tea would lead me to believe that you're a guest of the RFC, probably from a Vickers-induced failure of your aircraft's more critical flight-sustaining devices; your guest status does of course allow you to have whatever you like for tea.

I don't think the Kaiser would appreciate you recklessly spinning his new weapon of war.

Splendid. That man in the Dr.1 had better be careful - no hostiles to speak of, of course, except the Dr.1 itself - own worst enemy, that kind of thing. Read somewhere that at high speeds the top wing of the Dr.1 was exerted to 2.5 times more lift than the other two wings, with obvious implications to death and disaster. Anyone know if the first Camel (with the polished cowl and hump) had a rotary or radial? The filmmakers didn't seem terribly inclined to show the engine compartment except for shaky, high-contrast shots, which leads me to believe radial. At 2:38 when he goes into a loop you can see the rigging get pulled taut, then go slack again when he comes out. Great stuff.

I want to go! All I have to do is figure out a way to get to Australia...Hmm...Oh wait I work for an airline - problem solved! I'll bring the beer if I can crash on your Kangaroo couch. :)

Don't know if you're following it, but it was supposed to come out tomorrow but it's just been pushed back another week. Now June 25th.