33LIMA

Just made a campaign takeoff leading a flight of 4 other 46 Sqdn Pups and we all got off ok. Delayed starting my engine and observed the others. I could see no props either but this appeared to be because they were turning - I could hear their engines running and as usual if I waited long enough a couple took off. I then started up myself and took off, the others following me in the usual way. The only thing was that takeoff runs were on the long side and the climb-outs rather flat - they cleared a few trees at the boundary but not by much and had there been a hill as well as trees, they may not have made it. Since the Halberstadt problem came up the suspicion was that other very-low powered planes might have trouble and the Pup is light but very low-powered so it may well need a lower 'handicap', like the Halb. However they didn't fail to get underway. The only reason I can think of for any different results, is the different bases involved. Except... Were you flying as leader, and if you have HITR, have you chosen 'unique player skin' or the ability to choose your ammo & fuel load? I ask, because I think these things can dictate whether the AI planes in your own flight (as opposed to other AI planes) fly the same plane as the player (no extra weight) or other AI (extra weight applied). If that makes any sense! The AI weight mod should not stop planes at least starting their takeoff roll. I recall that during testing I had to increase weights to silly levels, to prevent planes from getting off the ground, but they never just sat there, they attempted a takeoff roll. When you say they were 'stationary on the ground' had they moved (much or at all) from their start positions, and then stopped, like, mid-way down the airfield? I have this vague recollection of once seeing some planes refusing even to budge, way before the AI weight mod, and never seeing them again on the mission, which at the time, I attributed, maybe quite wrongly, to maybe not having orbited the airfield before heading off.

Thanks for the feedback. No propellors - now that is interesting! I have a Pup pilot set up, 46 Sqdn I believe. I will activate that pilot and see what happens, and report back.

I always found that the surest way to crash while strafing a ground target was to do so at too shallow an angle, movie-style (eg like the P-15 attack in 'Empire of the Sun'). The closer I got to the target the more I would push the nose down to keep the sights lined up and being so low, it was easy to hit the ground. Better to dive (not full throttle) on your target from height, not fly at it, at or near ground level, pulling up in good time. No shallower an angle than 20-30 degrees. as seen here in this USAAF WW2 guncam footage: http://www.youtube.c...feature=related Not sure what you mean about the text as i generally fly with sim warnings etc turned off. The CFS3-style fonts are certainly 'blocky' at the best of times, AFAIK there's no easy way to change them.

Yes mileage does vary. I just had a patrol combat in SE5s against Albatros DIIs (56 Squadron against Jasta 22 IIRC) and the Albs nearly all kept their height (until we shot them down, that is). And that was with the AI flying with extra weight. Flying German, the SE5 seem to be one of the types that are more inclined to go to the deck early on; SPAD 7s are anothersuch type. However, in the same formation, I have seen single planes of these types keep their height or even spiral upwards, while most of the others are diving away. It's not just (or even mainly) combat drifting downwards, it's more an early tendency to lose virtually all their height; the contrast with nearly all the DIIs keeping their height was very striking. Not sure what characteristic or characteristics influence it - aircraft qualities, pilot skill, unit rating, or all of the above. Nor how the AI agressiveness setting affects it - strangely, the 'agressive' DIIs were on 'Less Agressive AI' setting but I've seen plenty of height-losers with the more balanced 'Historical' setting. Combat with 'height keepers' is much more satisfying experience and I'd prefer to use whatever settings maximised it.

Sounds very like the Hard Drive has died, heads crashed or some such, if so data won't be easily recoverable either, never mind the hardware going West. Do you hear a faint clicking from the area of the HDD, which would tend to indicate a head crash? If not maybe worth checking the power and data connections from/to the HDD are tight but that's a faint hope indeed.

The external plane textures in P3 already look rather beautiful, mostly, with really nice lighting effects. The new improved (and darker) P4 cockpits will transform the OFF in-cockpit experience and is a much needed step-change catch-up with RoF and FE2. The better external textures in P4 will be icing on the cake and will likewise keep P4 competitive (assuming we also get better distant LODs and other m3d improvements where needed eg the drooping Pfalz DIII tailskid, better crew poses/animations). It would be really good tho to get rid of the awful legacy CFS3 'fisheye lens' external view, which would make the plane external views look less distorted and more like they do in RoF and FE2.

No probs Creaghorn; yes I've seen the vid. From that and from the dev's posts, the points in green below seem to be already covered in P4, but the ones in red have not, from what I've seen or read. Anyway my points are just suggestions, based on the OP's original (and I think very useful and illuminating) concept of benchmarking P4 against RoF. My central point is that I think the main 'learning point' for P4, based on doing that P4-RoF (and P4-FE2) benchmark, is the need to make a step change in the flight-leading and air-to-air combat elements of P4. From what's been announced or seen so far, some more work here seems likely to be desirable (to the extent practicable). The stuff announced so far does show that the devs are working on the right lines here, and I wanted to re-inforce that. In particular, worry less about streamers and Colt .45s or even more planes (which can come as expansion packs) and more about FMs, DMs and AI. 'So, and acknowledging that some of these things are known to be on the P4 cards already, my list now would be: - aircraft graphics - cockpits with higher resolution textures and that don't look they have cockpit lights on permanently; higher-res external graphics, with self-shading if possible; better plane LODs, especially more distant ones; more crew animation (even if it's only better-posed observers and pilots who look more into the direction of bank (a few do now but it's barely noticeable); - better plane damage efffects eg no more CFS3-style engines jumping out of airframes, no wings falling off or crew jumping out but being there again next second, better/more varied plane wreck effects/graphics; - better damage models eg no more flying flamers, glass engines, or planes destroyed after minor forced landings; - better FMs eg no AI takeoff probs, no strange stalls or spins, better warning of stall onset eg visible and/or audible buffet, no more AI flying 'light'; - better AI flying and fighting eg better 2-seater under attack routines, minimise/eliminate going for the deck and then doing endless rollorcoasters/wingovers (either to escape or in trying to hit you if you're low), better leader-following/formation-keeping, split if ordered, not follow damaged leader to deck, go home on 'washout' command.'

I don't think you're doing anything wrong. The AI has a tendency to hit the deck fairly early or readily in combat and then do rollercoasters and/or wingovers. They also seem to be able to climb back up easily enough, if/when they want to, which may be a symptom of them flying at unladen weight. They certainly seem to be able to bleed and regain energy very well, for such low-powered planes, considering the player can't (so easily, or at all) match that ability. You may want to try changing the AI difficulty setting if you have Hat in the Ring, to a different setting, eg 'Less Aggressive', and see what difference that makes. Also in the QC setup screen itself, try setting your enemy skill level to 'Rookie' instead of the default 'Veteran' and see if that makes any difference, maybe even 'Ace' if that doesn't work. My AI Empty Weight Mod was designed to tame some of the weight-related AI behaviour but they still do the 'go low and rollercoaster' stuff a lot and anyway, I'm fairly sure the mod doesn't do anything for QC, because I think the AI in QC uses the same FM as the player's plane and I can't add weight to the AI without doing it to the player, too. It only makes a difference in campaign, and even then the AI still does some strange stuff, and the best you can do is be aware of it and adapt your tactics accordingly. For example I know I tend to get sucked into trying to stay with them when I get on their tails, which can be hard enough when you're above them and they're doing their thing down on the deck, turning in under you, not apparently because they see you coming but just like they're stuck in a 'bad guys about but terrain avoidance' loop. Frustrating tho it is, I've found it's often better to break away, extend and gain a bit of height, then gain come back in for another shot, especially if I'm flying a heavier German scout against a more manouevrable RFC or French plane.

OFF already has the best campaign system and the widest scope (out of the box especially, as the wider First Eagles mod planeset needs a lot of d'l ing and/or fiddling to integrate with campaigns). This is likley to continue, perhaps indefinitely. So, to stay competitive, P4 doesn't need to concentrate on these areas. Smarter mission selection for plane role/period (eg area/target type) and a few campaign tweaks would be good. Plus a few more planes, especially to fill the main gaps eg early-war 2-seaters for all sides, DH4 or DH9 for day bomber ops, later French 2-seater. The main areas P4 needs to hit are the things RoF (and FE!) are better at already, and catch them up or better still, pass them. These are mainly the things that (IMHO) make both RoF and FE (for all their limitations in other areas) significantly better at actual air-to-air combat than OFF, at present. As dogfighting and patrol-leading are key parts of WW1 aircombat, these have to be 'critical success factors' for any WW1 sim, especially for OFF due to its superiority in other areas, which is unlikely to be reached by other sims, and very unlikely indeed to be surpassed. So, and acknowledging that some of these things are known to be on the P4 cards already, my list now would be: - aircraft graphics - cockpits with higher resolution textures and that don't look they have cockpit lights on permanently; higher-res external graphics, with self-shading if possible; better plane LODs, especially more distant ones; more crew animation (even if it's only better-posed observers and pilots who look more into the direction of bank (a few do now but it's barely noticeable); - better plane damage efffects eg no more CFS3-style engines jumping out of airframes, no wings falling off or crew jumping out but being there again next second, better/more varied plane wreck effects/graphics; - better damage models eg no more flying flamers, glass engines, or planes destroyed after minor forced landings; - better FMs eg no AI takeoff probs, no strange stalls or spins, better warning of stall onset eg visible and/or audible buffet, no more AI flying 'light'; - better AI flying and fighting eg better 2-seater under attack routines, minimise/eliminate going for the deck and then doing endless rollorcoasters/wingovers (either to escape or in trying to hit you if you're low), better leader-following/formation-keeping, split if ordered, not follow damaged leader to deck, go home on 'washout' command. By all means, build on the strengths; but improving the weaker areas - and let's face it, there are some - has to be the priority.

Don't know; but looks very possible provided you accurately replace the text string squadron title in campaigns/CampaignData/Pilots/PilotdossierX.txt with a valid alternative unit ('valid' presumably = exists, same side unless you're feeling treasonous, same period unless you want to see if you can warp back or forward in time, maybe not same squadron role).

And for our Antipodean friends, let's not forget The Odd Angry Shot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBrGoSkp9ro

Hi BB. The only AI plane I know SO FAR to crash on takeoff due to the Empty Weight Mod is the Halberstadt DII and then it's not the planes in the flight YOU lead which crash, but other AI-flown planes (usually, the ones led by an AI flight leader). HPW has released a mod for the Halb specifically, to fix this takeoff crash problem- get it here. This mod reduces the AI Halb's extra weight quite a bit. Even with this concession, they only just clear any trees at the end of the field, so there seems to be an underlying issue which inhibits AI takeoff, so they can't takeoff cleanly past obstacles, with the same weight as your plane. A similar mod can be made for any other AI-led planes which also crash on takeoff; so far no others have been reported, tho if it happens, the lower-powered planes would be the main suspects, like the Eindekker, Pup and yes, the FE2b that's been giving you all the trouble. Isn't it weird, how the AI can still do aircombat quite well with the extra weight, but takoff is more heavily affected for some planes. The 1917-era planes I mostly fly don't seem to have serious any takeoff problems, at least none they didn't have before. If you see any other types of planes (apart from the Halbs) doing the 'Lemming Conga-line Crash', let us know, and we can cut back on their weight for better takeoffs, tho that will unfortunately restore some of their 'unfair advantage'. Re AI 2-seaters firing thu parts of their own structure, yes this happens. I think this is because in CFS3, the bomber turrets didn't simulate any of the cut-off mechanisms designed to stop gunners chewing off bits of their own aircraft; instead, I THINK CFS3 (and with that, OFF) gets over this by having a 'minimum range', below which distance bullets are 'ghosts' and can pass through nearby bits of the gunner's plane. Stock, from what I can see, OFF tried to limit this by quite severely limiting the gunner's arc of fire for each plane, so as to keep most (but not all) of the plane's structure out of the gunner's line of fire. This means that wide arcs in other directions that gunners SHOULD be able to fire into, they can't, which isn't realistic either and is especially tough, if you like flying 2-seaters, as it somewhat cripples your gunner. I made an 'ArcMod' for this to restore wider fields of fire, which makes the original 'ghost round' problem worse of course but I think this is the lesser of two evils and even when flying scouts, it means I can still get into a blind spot - I just have to be even more careful, especially if attacking two or more 2-seaters in formation who know I'm there, which is on my 'not recommended' list, even McCudden had big probs with that. I suggest you set rear gun accuracy to the lowest setting in OFF Workshop, even if already using HPW's rear gun mod as well, which offers a reduced set of settings for rear gun accuracy. Re the other issues, I feel your pain. AI wingies can be more trouble than they're worth; I don't think one has shot me yet but at best they seem very slow to follow attack orders especially, at worst they hare off into the proverbial Wide Blue Yonder, sometimes never seen again on that mission. Not to mention if I'm going down with a dud engine they refuse to 'Split'. As for their formation-keeping, well the less said, the better; the Red Arrows, they ain't. It's not unusual for me to get no claim form offered for a plane I'm SURE I was the one to bring down and am quite often told my plane is destroyed after making a perfectly good forced landing (I think the Jasta's supply officer prefers to indent for new planes than put the ground crew to patching up old ones). Re gun accuracy, if you have already used OFF Workshop AND HPW's front & rear gun mods (remembering the latter need a separate JSGME install, in a different folder, as per their readme) the other thing to do is increase your OWN gun effectiveness in OFF Workshop to 'Strong' or even 'Strongest'. Yes reducing global accuracy will reduce your AI wingmen's accuracy too but hey, who do you care about most? Arguably, making your OWN guns stronger just restores some of the balance, compared to AI who often seem to find it hard to hit anything except the you player, whom they seem to hit with uncanny accuracy from the most fleeting opportunity. Oh yes and HPW's Ultimate DM should help your plane take more punishment before you give up the ghost (tho it also does this for the AI, another reason to set your own guns to a stronger setting, pay no attention to anyone who claims it's cheating or 'too easy' ). I feel free to ignore the 'game-y' mission goals and patrol as I see fit (or chase Archie puffs as I see fit). This seems to me reasonably realistic. It may or may not harm my promotion prospects (I like to start with at least one pip anyway so don't care if it does) and it certainly doesn't affect my getting medals or anything else that matters much. So I pretty much ignore any of that 'mission failed' stuff, exactly as I do in First Eagles campaigns, where no less than the game developer TK himself has confirmed that's the best thing to do.

You don't need to have JSGME running - just enable the mods, and close JSGME when done. Enabling the mods just means JSGME copies across the mods files from its folder in the JSGME-created MOD folder to the equivalent folder in the main game, having taken a backup which is re-applied if you disable the mod. The only thing that could make a mod not work (except a clash with another mod, trying to change the same files), is if it's not installed right into JSGME in the first place - when you install the mod into JSGME, all will be well provided you use the correct folder structure, which should be a mirror-image of the game folder structure eg if the mod is applying a modified version of the plane's Aircraft.cfg file, that files goes into OBD software/CFSWW1 OFF/Aircraft; so the mod goes into OBD software/CFSWW1/MODS/[the mod's name]/Aircraft. The above install orderlooks fine do me - none of the mods clash anyway so I don't think the order you enable them matters. HPW's earlier FLIGHT MODEL mods (not damage models) clash with the empty weight mod (because both modify flight settings). HPW's latest FM mod is compatible with the AI Empty Weight Mod BUT you have to enable the latter before the FM mod.

+1 on that. Not quite war films in the classic sence but also liked: - Dog Soldiers, for its peerless portrayal of classic squaddie humour and armed forces cameraderie, even when up against...well, you have to see it, to belive it : - Outpost, for the jaded mercenaries up against...again, you really need to see it to believe it: - Wild Geese, quite good for its era - Contact, an unusally excellent BBCshort film broadly based on AFN Clarke's book on his tours with the Paras in NI, far and away the best film made of 'the Troubles'.

Modern era - Full Metal Jacket - the 'Paris Island' first half is excellent thanks to R Lee Ermey's classic boot camp NCO, and the in-theatre second half is equally good. Dr Strangelove is also a classic, and the combat sequence at the airbase is suprisingly realistic. World War 2 - Cross of Iron and The Bridge at Remagen (SPR had great production values but too much B movie sentiment, never mind the P51s with laser-guided bombs and Tiger tanks instead of captured French stuff. Don't rate Battle of the Bulge, plays too footloose with history and tactics. Longest Day was good as was a Bridge Too Far but as has been said it was too imbued with cheap anti-Monty sentiment) Air war - - the Battle of Britain and the Blue Max

As for flying straight and level, with most WW1 air war sims, you have to maintain off-centre joystick pressure to counteract the planes' tendencies to drift eg many WW1 planes were reportedly tail-heavy. I tend to use elevator trim only in OFF, to simulate the plane being rigged to stay level at a given airspeed but even then ofteh need to use a little aileron to keep the wings level. Re navigating, the easiest way is to hit the M key and bring up the in-flight map. I'ts a pretty poor map as maps go but it does show your flightpath, your waypoints (including the one that's your mission target) and a little aircraft icon to mark where your own plane is and the direction it's heading. The front lines and friendly and enemy airfields are also clearly marked (unfortunately other features like towms, roads, rivers etc bear little resemblance to what you can see from the cockpit but the rest is more than enough to find your way around). Like real pilots did, once you've been flying from the same airfield for a while you will get to recognise landmarks which you can use to find your way about; try especially to memorise the area around your airfield and any reference points which will help you find it. If you have ticked the option in the OFF Manager to 'always lead' - which I would recommend - there's nothing to stop you ignoring your mission objective and just flying around looking for trouble. That's close enough to the way scouts (fighters) operated in WW1 anyway, with each side mostly flying patrols, the British and French generally offensive ones on the enemy side of the lines, the Germans defensive ones on their own side.

Many thanks for thoughtfully making the 'beta' available to everyone before you 'go dark'!

Welcome, sparrowhawkms! Think of that circle - the TAC or 'tactical display' - as a sort of mini radar display, combined with a simple flight-path display, with your plane at the centre of the clock-face. You can: 1. move it around the screen by dragging & dropping with the mouse, to put it where you want; 2. display or hide it, using Shift+T 3. change the RANGE it covers, with Ctrl+Shift+T, from 8 miles out, down to 1 mile out, in increments of 1 mile 4. change the TYPE of target objects it displays, from 'all' thru aircraft, vehicles, buildings etc, using T (the targets are red blobs for enemy, blue blobs for friendly, white blobs if too far away to establish friend from foe) 5. lock your pilot's vision onto a specific target (using the 'padlock' function) - IIRC hit # to toggle padlock mode on, then hit Tab to cycle thru the targets displayed on the TAC - the one selected will change colour to yellow 6. direct your flight-mates (aka wingmen) to attack a specific target - make sure the TAC is displaying the type of target you want to indicate eg aircraft, then hit Tab till the target you want them to attack is selected (blob turns from red to yellow) then hit A (=Attack command). 7. using the light coloured line you mentioned, display the relative direction to your mission's next planned 'waypoint', as marked on the in-game map (Shift+W changes the line to point to the next waypoint, Ctrl+W changes it to point to the previous one, IIRC) 8. make it smaller, using Olham's TAC mod here at CombatAce - http://combatace.com...rs-smaller-tac/ The TAC is esssential for 5 and 6 - you can't designate targets or padlock targets without using it. It is also arguably good compensation for the 'situational awareness' you lose, from 'flying' in front of a monitor with no peripheral vision, little depth perception and the montor's resolution limits. Until you work out what suits you best, before every takeoff, I would suggest you: - turn the TAC on (Shift+T); - change the target type from 'All' to 'Aircraft' (T) and - for realism's sake, reduce its range from the upper limit of 8 miles down to something like 2 miles (Ctrl+Shift+T), increasing it only if you find it too hard to locate enemies during missions (which can be hard. as planes are often invisible until within about a couple of miles or less). Incidentally, most of the OFF (CFS3) keyboard commands can be found on this chart, which I think has some not in the in-game manual: http://snomhf.exofir...mdkeysNoCFS.png Good hunting!

Happy to help Ojcar altho you would probably spend more time describing to me what to do or how to do it, than you would save by my help! Excellent that Stephen can help - FE could use better models of some of the early-war planes that played a big role in the Middle East, like the Halberstadt DII and maybe the elegant Martinsyde Elephant and/or BE2c.

Ahaa! Had been thinking it would be good to adapt the SF desert terrain for a campaign in Mesopotamia!

Good news Grinseed, looking forward to what will be another real step forward for FE! ..and good luck with the move!

Great work HPW - this sort of thing could be the approach needed for any other planes that have trouble coping with the extra weight. With the CoG moved back to minus 1 and the empty weigth set to ramp minus 80, I'd found the same behaviour with the AI-led Halbs at Bertincourt - brushing the treetops and only just getting off. Even at ramp weight they still crashed, altho they got off the ground before flopping back down. I'm shocked the AI fly at less than full power - talk about asking for trouble! I recall reading about an incident towards the end of WW2 when a bunch of senior officers were killed because their RAF pilot had this habit of deliberately taking off at less than full power and didn't get away with it that day because of some icing.

OK I've had a look at the weight values reported by AirWrench and it looks like the thing to do is go with HPW's original suggestion to bring the AI weight up to 'ramp weight minus some fuel', not as I've done 'loaded [max] weight minus some fuel'. This is because (i) Pol has confirmed FMs were designed to be right for the PLAYER'S plane (and then tested to check AI could cope) and (ii) confusingly but significantly, the weights for the loads carried by the player's plane, from the .air files as reported by AirWrench, are consistently LOWER than the correct figures. It doesn't matter whether these too-low figures are by deliberate design or not; the point is, right or wrong in themselves, they're the ones for which the FM is designed to be right, when added onto the 'empty' weight. At least, that's the current hypothesis! To give an example, the stock OFF .cfg file for the Nieuport 17 has near-enough correct figures for empty and loaded ('max') weights, 825 lbs and 1280 lbs. The real plane's loads were 143 lbs for fuel & oil and 264 lbs for pilot & military load. But the .air file gives 114 lbs for fuel and 180 lbs for other loads. Added to the empty weight, this gives what it calls a 'ramp weight' of 1019 lbs. I suspect it's this 'ramp weight', and not the 'max' weight, that the FM is designed around - a weight that's about 260 lbs lighter than an N17 with pilot, and a full load of fuel, oil and ammo! And about 180 lbs lighter than the AI Empty Weight mod uses, now. From what I've seen, the difference this makes will vary from plane to plane; for the Halb DII, it looks like taking off c.300 lbs, partly because the Halb starts from a very low empty weight of 1144 lbs (c.100 lbs to low, per my references) and only adds 93.5 lbs for fuel and 190 for other load. It's pointless speculating why (if the above hypothesis is correct) the FM was designed to be correct with weights so far below the normal loaded weights, tho I wonder if it was this factor which enabled the AI to take off successfully in P3, whereas in P2 they more often crashed and burned, like the AI-led Halbs are doing now with the empty weight mod. To test this I'm going to re-work the Halb DII's AI empty weight mod to use the 'ramp weight' figure instead of the loaded ('max') one. Will report back.

Thanks for the tip Pol; I was inclined to distrust the reported Airwrench figures as they might explain the AI problems but don't seem to apply to the player-flown plane (and perhaps its flightmates) as well. HPW, I had come to the same 'who flies what' conclusion altho had come to doubt that your flight-mates flew the same, lighter plane as the player, since (with the AI empty weight mod enabled) my flightmates seem to take a lot longer to catch me up after settling on course post takeoff and (ii) at least one player flying with an AI flight leader reported being able to catch up and keep up better. anyway, I think that some difference does exist between the AI-led flight and the player-led AI, and that understanding this factor is what I should concentrate on first, before concluding that adjusting relative weight is the solution. Two other pieces of evidence from yesterday, partly contradictory: (i) flew a campaign mission with Pups - another very low-powered plane - and saw a similar differential behaviour - the AI-led flight just about made it over the trees at the airfields end, my flight's AI had no probs; and (ii) then i remembered some time back, flying a Strutter 3 Naval Wing mission in OFF's spectacular hilly terrain - this was long BEFORE the AI empty weight mod - we came across Fokkers just above which proved hard to catch. However, at one point, their leader flew into a hill - he may or may not have been damaged, can't recall - but his wingmen then flew into the same hill, seemingly quite gradually and deliberately, crashing one after the other. They had plenty of time to pul up, but 'follow your leader' seemed to take priority, at least until it was too late. Putting all this together, I think an underlying 'Lemming factor' of some sort is at least part of the problem here - the AI-led flight mates are crashing, or staying low, because that's what their leader does too. Next line of investigation is this 'engine boost' thing - which planes or plane models have it, which don't, and what difference that makes. I recall an OFF post or FAQ mentioning this was not the same as WEP but was parcelled out selectively to simulate engine variations etc. The OFF Halb's all already seem to have 'turbocharged=1' and 'emergency_boost_type=0'; from a quick look, at the .cfg files only, the pattern seems to be all planes have the latter setting but some have turbocharged at 0 (Camel, Bristol Scout), others at 1 (Pup, Halb). I want to check if it's applied selectively within a different aircraft (so far i think it isn't) and whether or not the planes with the same setting are the same ones with problems (unlikely but need to check). Also want to check it there is any difference that applies to Ace-flown planes - on the hypothesis that it's these planes that are having some kind of FM or weight-related terrain-avoidance problem and are leading their wingies to their doom. In combat, I'm finding that the AI are still quite sprightly and able to climb and/or maintain altitude, so I think reducing their extra weight would be a last resort, only if we found there was no other way to solve this differential. Update: (i) changing 'empty_weight_CG_position= 0.000, 0.000, 0.000' to 'empty_weight_CG_position= -1.00, 0.000, 0.000' in the aircraft.cfg file has 'cured' the Halb's great nose-heaviness - it's now in neutral trim (for pitch) at about 80% throttle, slightly tail-heavy at full throttle, which I will stick with, as I think this not only makes flying easier wihtout resort to trim (simulating the plane being rigged to fly level) but could be more realistic (slight tail-heaviness compared to great nose-heaviness). (ii) the player flies the QC1 plane in quick combat but definitely flies the .sqd plane in campaigns, not QC1 - making the above edit in the QC1 file had no effect in campaign, till I made it to the .sqd file as well. (iii) applying the centre of gravity change to all planes did not stop the AI-led flight hitting the trees on the slope at the end of Bertincourt aerodrome. (iv) the player's flight's AI planes, which avoid the trees, may well do so because it uses the same .sqd plane files as the player (and hence ignore the AI empty weight mod's extra weight). But if (as seems likely) that is indeed so, it's all the more extraordinary that the player-led AI flight still adopts a very long takeoff run with a very shallow climb out, which means they they only just clear the trees, by a very small margin. Watching them after takeoff, they seem well able to climb quite strongly, when they 'choose' to do so. (v) 'engine boost' - all the Halb's already have 'turbocharged=1' so the lack of this setting can't be what's causing the problem. My preferred solution would therefore be to change any or all of AI behaviour on takeoff, leader-following or terrain avoidance, or to find some kludge (eg takeoff speed boost) which would compensate, but the chances of that seem small, so there may be no alternative to reducing the extra weight, for those planes whose AI cannot cope with it. What I'd like to try is reducing rolling resistance (ie on the ground) so planes can build up speed quickly when taking off. Camera angles and the rate at which film is shot can be deceptive, and there's always the effect of the speed of the wind into which they're taking off, but I've always noticed how quickly WW1 planes (originals and replicas) seem able to get their tails up and leave the ground, and how steeply they can climb away. If I could get all OFF planes to unstick more quickly by reducing rolling resistance, I'd be quite happy; reducing takeoff crashes due to the AI having to fly at realistic weights would almost be a bonus. In First Eagles there are co-efficients associated with the landing gear which can be edited to this end, not sure about OFF but will do some digging and report back. Still think the best solution is to try to isolate and tackle any underlying issues and cut back on weight only as a last resort.

Very interesting! Do these Airwrench figures also apply to the player-flown Halberstadt DII, too - if so, I wonder why it doesn't appear to suffer like the AI, given the player's plane does fly with all the same extra weight. Every Halb DII campaign mission flown so far, my own flight's AI planes take off and climb sluggishly but ok and clear trees etc with no probs, but the AI-led flight goes into the same trees like lemmings. I thought perhaps I'd find my flight uses the SQ planes while the AI-led flight (the one with the aces) would use the AC planes but if there is a difference in their respective flight models, I don't see it in the .cfg files. Some more testing needed. The extremely nose-heavy Halb DII I'd like to try to correct.