theultimat

Up until now, I have been flying OFF as I would any other serious flight sim, but had yet to witness the absolute "immersion" that I hear you guys talking about. I didn't think it was possible for a sim, but I have been proven wrong. It all started when my flight of D.Vas was tasked with strafing the front lines, so I took off with five wingmen and headed for the target area. I arrived at the lines without issue, and that was when I saw a flight of six Nieuport 24 scouts flying at our height. I signaled my wingmen to attack, but forgot to tell them what to attack, so as it was a ground attack missoin they all dived towards the trenches, leaving me alone up high. Four of the Nieups followed them, leaving me with two - which turned out to be Del Antonie Gaston Vial and Charles Boishardy (spelling?) of Esc. 315. They had also dived, but not followed my wingmen, so I circled above them, unsure what to do. Then, for some reason I can't explain, I just threw my kite into a dive and shot into the middle of them, guns blazing. I zoomed passed them, and we were soon in a crazy tail-chasing circle. I managed to out turn Vial, and fired a few shots into his engine, but then one of their wingmen came back, so I was forced to break of the attack. I instead shot up the newcomer, who fell in flames shortly afterwards. Then I resumed my position in the circle, and proceeded to damage Vial enough to make him climb out of the fight, that was now at treetop level. That left me with even odds, I thought, so you can imagine my surprise when I turned around and found Boishardy on my tail, along with four wingmen. Needless to say, I fled, zigzagging my way back to the lines and safety. I got a fair way over, so three of the Nieups left me, and because of this I thought I may as well try my luck against the two remaining Nieups. We were chasing each other again in a circle, and I got onto Boishardy's tail, firing a long burst into his engine, which sparked a few times. I was forced to break off the attack, as his wingman was pumping lead through my wings and fuselage. I tried to evade his fire, and succeeded in doing so, but too late - my Albatros was as maneuverable as an R.E.8 with a full load of bombs. I was forced to flee, and this was when I got truly immersed in the game. This one Nieuport chased me for 20 miles all the way back to my aerodrome, during which I had to stunt as much as my damaged Albatros would allow. I eventually got back to the aerodrome, and made a safe landing, missing a wingtip and with wings and fuselage riddled with bullets. When my kite ran to a stop, I realized I was actually sweating, and breathing heavily. This probably doesn't sound as amazing as it felt to fly it, but hey, I'm not great at describing stuff that I've done in the past. So, sorry if I had doubted OFF's immersion - now I'm a full believer. I'll put a report up in the "Reports from the Front" topic in a while - I need to recover first.

Yup - I can now see how immersive OFF really is. I tried flying without any of the aids earlier today and that even better. I think I'll fly like that in the future, and just turn on labels to check if any aces are about, as apparently they don't show up when using HPW's Ultimate DM. I'll see to posting that report in the other topic right now.

I recon I still qualify as a kid, and I can tell you from talking to the people that go to my school, that many people around my age do, for some reason unknown to me, think war is great fun. The worrying part of it is, a lot of them said this after watching the beach assault scenes at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan in a history lesson a few years back. It really does make you wonder, but I think some people just say it to try and seem like they "have no fear", so to speak, and wouldn't actually join the army if given the choice. I think the main problem is, they see real life war as just another video game, but, as I'm sure all here are well aware of, it most definitely isn't.

Great video Hellshade. Also, thank you elephant and jayo! And Olham - I noticed you said it ended with a forced landing - just wondering, but does that give you a claims form? Below are two photos from two campaign reports that never happened - both because I died in the mission. The first is from my Bristol campaign (which started in the Reports from the Front topic), but the other is from a Camel campaign which never made it to the thread.

That must be a terrible loss for you, RAF_Louvert. Nearly got to a whopping 200 flying hours! Sir, I raise my glass to you and Major Alberts.

Lovely picture TaillyHo. The Albatros really does stand out, as everything else appears to be almost in greyscale. I felt like doing some editing to pass the time today, so I fired up OFF and decided to shoot up an Albatros D.III, then had some fun with the picture I took. I think it turned out ok, but it wasn't a great picture to start with. Actually, looking at it now, I think I put in too much motion blur, but nevermind...