epower

gaw - sorry to hear that. My only noticeable frame rate drop happened but for a few seconds when I was strafing 6 parked DFWs. Not recommended , btw, as all the gunners remain active and will ventilate you most profoundly. Would you mind posting your system specs for reference. Cheers.

Oh Hell. The Fokker DVII. Just when I'd grown accustomed to those pesky DR1s. This Fokker chap becomes tedious...

Classic stuff. Now you've done it , Catch, luring me down another rabbit hole. HERE is a link to the complete film "The Rink" (1916) Sir Cecil Seltzer, C.O.D. Sounds like a good name for a Wing Commander.

BB - My my, aren't we judgy. Truth is I was long a fan of the single malts, Oban and Talisker being my favorites but as I grew older, the morning brain dwarf with the ice pick started showing up. No idea why. Good old "Murican Bourbon on the other hand treats me more gently the next day. Catch - Look closer, the tumbler isn't quite empty... Funny you should mention CC. You'll appreciate this. When I was a lad in the early 70s, my father would take me to an old theater in the Fairfax section of Los Angeles. It was run by an elderly couple who maintained, apparently, an archive of original newsreels, celluloid prints of old Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton films among others. Talk about time Machine! I don't recall seeing any of the great war 2 reelers though. Rick Rawlings - Oh, I think you'd be surprised by how much oomph those Pebble V3 speakers pack. In any event, I fly with Arctis 7 Steelseries headphones for the important missions like those of the DID Campaign. As for the Sopwith grip, it has completely transformed WOFF flying on a number of levels, not the least of which is the added immersion factor when it comes time to reload the Lewis gun.

My Dear Catch, So very sorry that you spilled your single malt. That doesn't sound very pleasant. I would have thought a man of discernment and sophistication, one who holds the immortal Roger Livesey in such high regard, would have a specially designed single malt holder. I understand that 22 years hence a Hun named Adolf Galland will install a cigar holder of similarly inspired design in his BF-109. Once you've secured said single malt, I do hope you'll give my protocol a try. Pushing buttons, while amusing for a short while, soon loses immersion. Each must fly as he sees fit but I'm just suggesting that there are other options. Example in pic below. Note the shocking absence of bourbon holder mid left. Cheers! p.s. I hear you re: the wishlist item. Logged that one on the SimHQ thread many moons ago.

In 1917, Oliver Manners Sutton of No 54 Sqn. RFC invented the Harness which bears his name and became standard issue for the next 30+ years. Annoyingly, Sutton Harness does not have a Wikipedia page but if you google it you'll see numerous sites which detail the construction. The three key features being shoulder and hip belts The single D pin release a single rear attach point allowing side to side movement by the pilot There's one at this link. It's the WW2 variant but the design didn't change much between the wars. https://www.historicflyingclothing.com/en-GB/raf-aircraft-parts/raf-aircraft-sutton-harness/prod_10252

Catch, I can only imagine programming an upwards firing Lewis to be a staggering amount of work. The whys and wherefore are a topic best left for a separate thread. As for increasing the difficulty of the reload, more in keeping with Cecil Lewis' description during his 1963 BBC Great war interview, simply use the following protocol: All key combinations must require the use of both hands. Left hand on the shift or Control Key, Right hand on the G key. If you're not flying straight and level when you do this, good luck and God bless. To simulate the changing of the drum you can do what I do and set a desk lamp over the monitor which you then need to place your hand upon for a slow count of 6 before hitting the reload key. For early war AC lacking a Foster mount, I suggest remapping the reload command to a two key press - L Shift+ R perhaps. Make sure stand up at your desk/ Simpit and perform the same slow count of six, before pressing the two keys.

Got jumped by 7 of the Baron's men, who shot my DID character about and sent him to hospital for 12 days, the swines. Wounding occurred on 24 April 1918. Exit screen attached showed 12 days elapsed but the game returned pilot to action on May 1, 1918. I'm not certain but I believe I remember the same thing happening in WOFF PE when he was wounded on 26 August 1917, and the program returned him to action on Sept 1, rather than the stated 10 days later. Not game breaking by any means since one can time advance to the correct date but thought you should know just in case it's connected to something else. Cheers

Thanks, Pol.

Been playing with the newly discovered (for me anyway) waypoint alteration feature in the briefing screen. I feel much safer climbing out over Abbeville as opposed to the outskirts of Amiens. I have noticed that A Flight tends to go missing when I modify my flight path. Granted, the weather is lousy in April 1918 so maybe it's just clouds. Question: If A Flight are assigned to cover, will they also follow the new flight path or will they stick to the original waypoints?

Thanks Pol. Today I did get them to drop by auto piloting briefly on the final run in and then slid off to one side as they all lined up. That's a whole lot of aircraft in a tight space with an 8 ship B-Flight! It worked out. For immersive purposes I'm fine with the flight level bombing as long as I can dive bomb. TAC will be a last of last resorts for me but at least there's an option.

I notice the flight stays right with me when I go in on a dive bombing run during railyard or airfield attack missions. Very cool. They stayed up high in WOFF PE. Alas, now they do not drop their ordnance. Is there another way, without using TAC to get the rest of the formation to bomb? I know it can be done if I, as formation leader, stay level and use autopilot but this is a bit of an immersion killer.

Thanks Adger. I wasn't sure if this was the same phenomenon. I can always put it down to some sort of refractive aberration created by an oil droplet on the goggles.

Low mist and rain conditions for a 0445 dawn patrol on April 14, 1918. Flying from Bertangles West. Was seeing what the 'other' General Haig might describe as the Vortex of Clarity. Specifically, a circle clear view whereas the rest of my vision was misted. Screens attached.

KJakker - Thanks for posting those vids. I'd seen the balloon busting gun video he did but not those two on the Lewis. Interesting detail about the latching mechanism and the vane sight.

Gotta love it. I added some pics in case they would be helpful to someone struggling with the same issue. Cecil Lewis in his BBC great war interview said it was quite a job controlling the wallowing plane and getting another drum on.

Keep holding CTRL+G until the Lewis gun is in the fully lowered position. If you let off the keyboard too soon the gun won't go all the way down.

Is this a setting that only appears when one has multiple monitors connected? Try as I might I cannot find this in workshop.

Pol, thanks for the reply. I agree that moving the Lewis up and down the Foster mount should take some work and the Ctrl Shift G seems a good way to address that. My error was likely trying to use one hand for the 3-key reload combo and not realizing that holding down the G key would exhaust the reloads. I've remapped the reload to 'G' and now make sure I give it one quick tap. "one ping only, Vasily." While this works, I rather liked the way Ctrl Shift G made it impossible for me to do anything else with the aircraft, kinda like real life. I have a magnifying work lamp above my monitor so maybe I'll reach up, open and close the lid, then hit the G key.

Loving the new Lewis gun reload feature. I won't say that it nerfs the SE5a but it will definitely bring kill numbers more into alignment with historical CRs mentioning "drew away to change drum.' Very cool. FYI, the reload feature is NOT a discreet key press but a key repeat. Very Awkward and I hope the Devs will consider changing this feature. Holding down the Lewis reload Key combo 'CTRL SHIFT + G' will effectively toss your spare drums overboard. One discreet key press is the way to go otherwise you will see the "Drums remaining" spin down to zero. I have kept the key combo at the admittedly awkward 3 finger stretch press in order to simulate the difficulty of changing out a Lewis drum for purposes of immersion but this feature will be frustrating and off-putting to a new player.

For those of us stateside with TCM, the 1927 silent "Wings" is on tonight. It won the first Oscar for Best Picture. Dated, it's true, but a good cracking yarn and made only 9 years ofter the Great War. Worth a look if only for the vintage machines. Enjoy.

The first Warbirds Convention I attended was at Raliegh, NC in 1999. The two guest speakers of honor were, interestingly enough, none other than Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler. The experience was fascinating to say the least. Really an honor to meet those two men. I wish I'd asked more questions but I was a bit awestruck at the time and was cripplingly hungover from the previous night's ingestion of dreaded FlakPanzerOil. Fortunately my fellow convention goers brought up all the topics that interested me and more. The facts about the fateful encounter are pretty much out there, among them that Stigler already had two victories that day and had he shot Brown down it would have meant the Knight's Cross. What I remember vividly about the conversation with those two men was Stigler recounting that "there was blood everywhere" and that he just couldn't do it. To address some of JFM's points I saw an interview with Bob Doe DSO, DFC (14 kills) recounting how he allowed Rolf Pingel of 1/JG26 109 to escape him in a similar way during the Battle of Britain. Wish I had the Youtube link handy because it's a great interview, anyway... Doe had shot up Pingel's 109 and it was clear the latter was going down in the Channel. So Doe pulled alongside, watched Pingel fighting for control of his plane and let him go. He said, "I just couldn't do it. Turns out I should have because he came back and shot more of our chaps down but it just wasn't in me." epower

HPW, If the CFS3 game engine doesn't allow you to trigger a catastrophic failure from a fuel tank fire, then I'd say the small fire is preferable, especially if alternative is the return of the "flying Burner." I think what threw me initially was the large fire which then went out. Perhaps an even smaller fire is the way to go? As you say, 50% of the time the pilot is overcome and dies with the plane usually losing control. If the plane glides in a slow descent for the other 50% of these situations, I can certainly live with that. In either case, the enemy craft is out of the fight. Creaghorn mentioned bullet spread earlier and this may have much to do with results I've been seeing of late. I did re-enable HPW Front Guns Mod, with AI Gun Range set to Normal and my Main Guns set to less accurate... it's now much more difficult to set these planes alight. Being an old Luftwaffle from my WB days I always get in close (old habits die hard) but with these gun settings, shooting from inside 80 yards seems mandatory. In QC with the twin gun aircraft and even with the Pup, I'm seeing more wings shot off now. I can't comment about the frequency of fuel leaks since I've been flying the Sopwith Pup exclusively in my recent campaign but I'd hesitate to ask for a complete revision of 477 aircraft models just yet. I may give the auto-pilot Alb/ DIII vs 3 Sop/Cam scenario a go and see what comes up with different gun settings.

Barkeep! A round of beers for one and all.

Longtime Lurker, first-time poster, at least on this second incarnation of the forum... First off, a big salute and thank you to a remarkable community, and to all those who've spent countless hours producing mods and otherwise improving the OFF experience. Been flying British lately and I've noticed a related but different phenomenon with regard to Alb DII, DIII and the Halb DII which I had not understood until DukeIronHand posted his fuel tank observations. Concentrated hits to the cockpit and engine produce a fire which burns for some seconds then goes out. I'm assuming this is the fuel tank contents burning off. I've noticed this both in QC and campaign. It seems to me that once a fire of that magnitude gets started on a canvas and dope covered craft that the conflagration would be unstoppable, as it is with the stock damage model. Interestingly, I've noticed in HPW Ultimate DM 1.1 that while the fire always goes out (damn those boche onboard fire-contol systems) sometimes the pilot continues flying, sometimes the pilot dies shortly thereafter, as evidenced by the black aircraft icon on the TAC. I wonder if the pilot is too fire and bullet resistant in HPW DM 1.1. If I understand things correctly, fuel tanks are usually located between the pilot and the engine. It is possible that deflection shooting from behind could hit the engine and gas tanks but not fall far enough aft to strike the pilot. Not sure how the visible effects relate to damage but I would think that a fuel tank fire should spread and consume the aircraft and hapless pilot. I'm very happy to do additional testing. Current set up: (Installed via JGSME) HPW Ultimate DM 1.1 HPW_GermanFM_Pack_1.0 HPW_AlliedFMPack_1.0 (Installed directly) Elephants tracers Creaghorns tracer effects (no damage debris) Creaghorns Soundtweak II + Patch <S> epower