kananesgi

I just got my copy of OFF last night and been having a blast with it all day, but I've had a few problems. Mostly I just need to learn how to fly these darn planes. However, I keep having a very annoying technical problem that is driving me crazy. I just finished an hour and a half long dog fight, got myself three kills that should have been confirmed (my first 3 confirmed kills, got one unconfirmed claim already), and then crashed into a tree while trying to get the fourth. Was having an incredible flight, as I haven't done that nearly that good before, especially against 6 enemy planes. Well, after the crash, which should have been completely survivable as it was a slow speed crash that took a wing off and the fuse rather gently settled to the ground below. Well, after the crash, the simulator exited to the desktop. It's done this several times, but this was the most aggrivating. It acts like a CTD, but the game hasn't actually crashed, just it's interface or something has crashed. OFFManager is still running in the background according to Task Manager, but I cannot access it. All I can do is tell it to end the process and loose the mission results. Anyone have any ideas what could be causing this? I'm running Windows 7, which I don't think OFF officially supports, so that may be part (or all) of the problem. Are there any patches available to upgrade the DVD version of OFF? Sorry if these questions have been asked and answered before. I did a search but didn't turn up anything. Then again, I'm not finding anything with the search, so I don't think it's working right anyway. The sim looks incredible, but it's going to be more aggrivating than enjoyable if I cannot get the CTD problem fixed.

I have found that since setting both programs to run in WinXP compat. mode, I have not had a single problem with this. CFS3 has crashed a couple times, but when it does, the manager has always come back up in the background. Even if I switch tasks, the manager remains visible in the background. Before setting compatibility mode, the manager would dissappear if I switched tasks and I could not get it to come back. Even if I opened other programs, the manager would not return. Maybe something to do with Win7 or maybe something in the crapware Toshiba installed on this laptop is conflicting with the manager. Like I said, XP compatibility seems to be working, though.

Try riding a motorcycle at highway speed in the rain with a shorty helmet. Now that's not fun, but it makes me appreciate a bit more some of the adverse conditions these guys had to deal with. All I had to protect my face was a pair of aviator style goggles and a bandana, no face mask or full face helmet, and no windshield. I would have to agree that this would be a very nice addition. Basically get the weather report when you go to the briefing room just like when flights are cancelled rather than after you accept the mission. Something else I would like to see is some way to force the planes to always take off into the wind. I've had two pilots now die, and my brother lost a third, because the planes were lined up with thunderstorm crosswinds that flipped the bird over during takeoff. In reality, the planes would typically line up into the wind for takeoff. That's one reason the aerodromes didn't have much of a defined runway and more just an open field for takeoff and landing. This allowed the planes to almost always be able to takeoff and land into the wind, no matter what direction it was comming from. Would also be nice to have a wind direction indicator on the "z" dialog, since a couple of the aerodromes I've flown from didn't have a windsock that I could find. Thankfully, one of them had a crashed burning aircraft very nearby and I was able to use the smoke plume to identify the wind direction.

Hmm, small world. I just bought a pickup truck from a dealer in Davie, FL, hehe. @ peterjh: Yeah, a CTD is basically any crash where the program exits out to the desktop with no warnings or error messages.

You want an inglorious death, my first Franco-American (Lafayette Escadrille) pilot just died a little bit ago. I took him out on a free-flight mission to test a graphics change I had made. Since I was just going to go out and fly around the field for a minute or two, I foolishly didn't tick the "Pilot Never Dies" option. Everything was going great till landing. I lined up and brought the Neuport 11 in for a smooth, almost perfect landing. However, a few moments after touchdown the plane suddenly wheeled to the right and flipped over on it's left wing. It then cartwheeled over the nose and the screen went red. Debrief informed me my pilot had died of his injuries. No idea what happened to cause the crash. Might have been a program error, or it might have been a previously damaged wheel that hadn't been repaired and finally gave way. Either way, it makes the sim a bit more interesting and emersive.

Okay, I don't think my problem was actually a CTD issue. Rather, it appears that OFFManager does not like task switching very much. If I Alt-Tab to another program, I cannot get back to the manager again. It's still running as a process, but there is no taskbar window to get back to it. This is exactly the same thing that was happening when it would crash (which it hasn't done since I set the programs to run in WinXP compatibility mode). I think what was happening was the computer was, for some unknown reason, not switching back to the manager after the simulator engine exited, and since there is no way to manually switch to the editor, I was screwed. All I can do is kill the process and start over. This might could be solved if OFFManager was running in windowed mode, but I'm not finding an option for that. Is that possible? Also, OT @BirdDogICT: Are your a Wichitan?

I'll take a look at those ATI settings tomorrow. Forgot that this laptop had a lousey ATI card installed. It's possible that setting the two exe files to run in WinXP compatibility mode might have helped. I managed to fly four missions in a row without it crashing. Not much of a test, but it's better than I had the rest of today. Before I was unable to get two flights without a CTD. Here's a real stupid question for ya, lol. Where do I find these "sliders" I keep seeing in graphics discussions? I looked in the workshops area and there are no sliders. I haven't yet figured out how to adjust things like scenery complexity or levels of detail, short of the aircraft texture resolution button in the workshop. I guess I'll try a few missions as flight leader. I don't particularly like having to command everyone, but if that's what's needed to make it work better, I guess I'll do it.

Didn't help afterall. My very first mission after setting the files to run as admin and the game crashed again. I crashed my plane, almost certainly killed my pilot. As soon as the sim exited (to go to the debrief screen), it sent me back to the desktop. Ctrl-Alt-Del finds that the OFFManager is still running as a process, but I can't do anything with it. I disabled User Account Control on this computer as soon as I got it, so I wasn't expecting this to actually do anything. I believe all "Run as Admin" does is tell Windows to bypass those annoying "do you want this program to access these files" dialogs that crash a lot of programs. Disabling UAC accomplishes the same thing as a blanket over the entire computer rather than on a program by program basis. I'm gonna try setting those files to run in WinXP compatability mode to see if that seems to help. [EDIT] Sorry about having 3 posts in a row here. I know some forums don't like that. I couldn't edit the old posts, so I had to make new ones.

Okay, I found a rather lengthy discussion about the kill claims, so ignore that part of the question. However, I've found nothing about my lack of AI support. Any ideas what's going on here?

Thanks Von Paulus, that looks like it'll help for me. I'm downloading the patches now. I do have a couple other questions while I'm here. I might be able to find the info elsewhere and I'll go looking in a moment. Just curious though. First, how do I actually get a kill credit? I've now managed to shoot down multiple enemy aircraft and register each claim, but I never get credited with any kills. I'm thinking part of the problem is the lack of witnesses, which leads to my next question. Do I have to set myself as the wing leader in order to actually have any support in the air? Every single mission I have tried to follow my other pilots and they just seem to fly around blindly and not follow the mission plan. If I use the warp function, then the flight comes with me, but if we encounter enemy planes, my other pilots simply ignore them and keep on flying. It's like there is no friendly AI. In one mission, I had some support from other friendlies, but not my own squadron. It was actually a dogfight that was already going on that I joined in as my squadron was flying over. We were even on a patrol mission and it was in the area that we were supposed to be patrolling but I was the only one to attack. My squadron (wingman included) don't seem to do anything at all. And, as I said, if I don't use the warp, my squadron seems to just fly blindly around the airbase. As a result of this lack of any friendly support, all of my kills have been solo with no one but ground forces to witness. Even if I do have any friendly support, how am I supposed to know what their names and ranks are for the claim form?

I'm just curious whether OFF has zeppelins (dirigibles) in it? They may have been a fairly small part of WWI to most people, but they were the first long range bombers and they hold a special place in my heart, as they do many others. Also, how hard is it to create new missions for OFF? I'm thinking about buying it since Rise of Flight has the lousy licensing bull. I want a good WWI flight sim, and these really seem to be about the only options. I really wish there was a way to try OFF out before I buy it. RoF was quite nice during the lousy 72 hour trial period, but I could definately see some problems with it.

Thanks for the info, guys. I suppose I shouldn't have referred to it as a "game," lol. I hate when people refer to a real good simulator as a game, since they are usually so much more than a simple game. Also, I really like a steep learning curve in a sim. Makes the enjoyment last that much longer. Thanks for the tips, too.

One thing I do want to get clear first. This sounds like a dumb question since one of the major improvments is in the game's AI, but in this age, it's a valid question. OFF is a single player game, correct? I'm not interested in it if it's a multiplayer only type game. I live in a motorhome traveling around the country, and internet connectivity is somewhat spotty, so multiplayer or internet games are a no-go for me. This was my biggest issue with Rise of Flight. I have no interest in a program that has to confirm that I still own it every single time I run it.

Doesn't CFS3 use the same basic engine as FS9? If so, wouldn't it be relatively easy to take an FS9 model and put it into this? I say this because there is a very nice looking model of L63 by Alexander Belov available for FS9. I'm sure you folks already know of it, but if the flight model could indeed be input into CFS as is, then all that would be needed are things like weapons and damage maps. Of course, I've never developed anything for CFS, so maybe there is more than this. I have done some models for FS9, and I know that is where most of the hours are at for civilian models. Oh well, I guess I'll have to make do with what's already available. I don't have the game yet, and at this time, I don't even have CFS3 or FS9. I got FSX, but the dogs ate my copies of FS9 some time back and I haven't managed to replace them yet. Never did have a copy of CFS3, but I'm looking for it now and hopefully I'll be able to order OFF within the next couple weeks or so.