33LIMA

Not sure which mod you're referring to, carrick but yes they all involve over-writing some files of planes in the folder OBD Software/CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields/Aircraft. But use JSGME and install the mods files into the OBD Software/CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields/MOD/ folder rather than over-writing the originals, so you can back it out. I've done some more testing and there is a strange problem with the Halb DII. So far, other planes seem ok, But Flying a Halb camopaign with Jasta 1 out of Bertincourt which has a wood with slightly rising ground at the far end of the field, I'm seeing probs. My own flight is consistently taking off ok. But 'Flight 1''s lead plane is crashing into the trees and his wingmen are then crashing too - it's like they're blindly following him in, rather than suffering from the same problem. This has happened twise now. All the planes in my flight got airborne ok, whether I flew off first or let some of them go first. Both times, Flight 1 leader flew into the trees and all his wingies followed him. Need to repeat this a few more times to confirm it's definitely the pattern. Hard to be sure, but with the Halb, I don't think the extra weight is the issue, not mainly anyway. There's something else going on. From what I've seen, OFF planes can take a huge increase in weight before they can't take off; the Empty Weight Mod added over 1000 lbs to the stock AI RE8 and it still takes off and flies ok. Hard to say without a line-by-line comparison but the .cfg files for all the AI-flown Halberstadts look the same so it's a bit of a mystery. One clue is that when I'm flying the DII, it's EXTREMELY nose-heavy. Much more so than any other OFF plane I've flown. Seems strange, given the wings - and with that possibly the centre of lift - are so far forward - she looks like she should be tail-heavy if anything, tho that's just a wild guess. I can't find anything about the real plane's CoG or how the Vintage Aviator DIV replica flies. I've reduced the added weight by 97 lbs to correct the stock OFF figure but no difference. So - thus far the only clues I've got are (i) the 'other' flight, not the player's one, being affected and (ii) the Halb's extreme nose-heaviness. Will do a bit more experimenting, to see if this is affecting some other planes too. HPW - can you advise, what figures need tweaking, to push the Halb DII's CoG aft a bit, in the .cfg and .air files? I'd like to try that and see what difference it makes, if any.

I just flew some test 'flight takeoffs' in QC with Halb DII, Roland CII and Fokker EIII (the latter was the only early-war plane I tested originally) with Veteran and Rookie AI skill, 'Historical' FM. All all took off and formed up without incident. The airfield only had a few trees at the end of the field tho it did have slightly rising ground then a wood a little futher out. I've previoulsly flown some FE2b missions and I remember one wingman crashed into the sheds, which were well to one side of the runway as usual not at the end, so he had veered off course quite a bit, early in the takeoff run. This was the first & only time I've seen a takeoff crash with the mod. There is definitely not an issue affecting all 2-seaters. I've flown quite a few RE8 missions with the weight mod and haven't had any problems - and the RE8 got a pretty massive increase, as it's stock OFF weights were WAY too low - so the AI went from flying pre-mod (empty weight) at 1431 lbs, to post-mod at 2528 lbs (loaded weight minus 150 lbs allowance for fuel used) and they could still take off and fly! Of the ones I just tested, the Halbs seemed to need the longest take-off run and have the flattest climb out, and so liable to be most prone to takeoff crashes. It may be no co-incidence that stock OFF uses a rather high loaded weight for the Halb - 1793 lbs, compared to 1696 lbs (Gray & Thetford's 'German AC of WW1' & Munson's 'AC of WW1' both have the lower figure). I tended to correct only the more extreme errors in the stock OFF weights (out by over 100 lbs or so). Possibly the Halb DII should be corrected too; being a lower-powered plane, the nearly 100lbs extra weight may make more of a difference. It doesn't stop them climbing and dogfighting (any more than they can, stock; all AI-flown planes seem to suffer from a tendency to go for the deck early and then do rollercoasters, tailslides and wing-overs when they get there, with or without the weight mod) but it may tip the Halb's takeoff performance too far below par. I'll kick off some careers in various early war planes over the holidays to get a feel for the possible issues. It'd be quite easy to reduce the added weight, tho I was (and remain) reluctant to do this, as it seems to need quite a decent increase to have any visible effect on the AI's performance otherwise. Keep the feedback coming as it's only this way we'll be able to find out where the best point of balance is.

Ah-haaa, someone else who appreciates the virtues of all THREE of the current crop of WW1 airwar sims! Good to see.

This is what you need, von bauer: http://www.users.on....ucts-jsgme.html It's a mod enabler; best install it INTO OBD Software/CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields (or wherever you've installed the main OFF folder). You can install JSGME either into a single, central location or have a copy inside each sim you use it for (recommended - I have a second game-specific install of JSGME for IL2-46 set up for UP3+DBW). You then simply install (=unzip, preserving the folder structure, which will be the mod name followed by the subfolder structure where the mod goes into your game) each individual mod into a folder called 'MOD'. JSGME will create this MOD folder when you install it, INSIDE inside the OFF game folder. You then run JSGME; opens with two columns, available (installed but not enabled) mods on the left, and enabled mods on the right, with 'arrow' buttons in between to enable and disable mods - as seen on the link above. Like the mod enabler for Panzer Elite. At the moment, my list of enabled mods, as it appears when I open JSGME (from top - first enabled, to bottom - last enabled) is: Flakmod [produces tighter bursts of AA fire, for better target location, while reducing lethality to compensate] - http://combatace.com...fields-phase-3/ HPW Ultimate Damage Model 1.25 [does what it says on the tin] - http://combatace.com...hpw-ultimatedm/ ArcMod for HPW DM 1.25 [increases the very restricted stock OFF 2-seater arcs of fire; I had forgotten when I typed my reply to Panama that there is this merged version of arcmod and DM , which would otherwise partly conflict] - http://combatace.com...damage-mod-125/ AI Empty Weight mod - http://combatace.com...fields-phase-3/ HPW Main FM AI Weight Mod - http://combatace.com...-ai-weight-mod/ ArcMod for FE2b (HPW DM version) - [DM-compatible add-on to ArcMod, to cover the FE2b which was left out of the earlier version of ArcMod] http://combatace.com...fields-phase-3/

Great stuff HPW. Off to try it out now! Panama, no it doesn't contain the Arc mod. The two mods work with different files (.cfg files for the empty weight/FM mod and .bdp and .xdp files for the arc mod) so they can safely be combined. ArcMod does use the same files as HPW's Ultimate DM but I combined the two by enabling ArcMod AFTER the DM. This means I over-wrote and lost the DM changes for the 2-seaters only, but kept it for all the other planes. Incidentally, just to emphasise HPW's explanation, the reason you hve to enable the empty weight mod BEFORE enabling this new combined mod, is because the FM mod includes the AI weight mod ONLY for those planes for which it provides revised FMs - which is a lot of them, but not quite all. So to get the AI weight mod for the planes that aren't in the FM mod, you have to enable it first. The combined mod then over-writes this, with a new FM+ AI empty weight .cfg file for its large sub-set of planes.

It's the Skunk works 'A Team' version for First Eagles, which is based on the Silver Wish Games model from Wings of War (arcade but fun, with some excellent planes and battlegrounds). Below are First Eagles 2 screenies of the cockpit, which I think is fairly accurate, barring the odd internal strut and some other details. Here are two reasonable photos showing front left and front right of the SSW DIII cockpit in Profile Publications #86, available here, see page 7.

It's one of these...how did that old RAF ditty go? Something like 'It's not the Pfalz or the Fokker Scout/It's the Siemens-Schuckert we worry about/They do fly high, with the beaucoup speed/We can thank our lucky stars it's the pilots they need!'

PS in finding the above settings let me avoid arbitrary mission endings, it may make a difference that I play DID - 'Dead ISN'T Dead', aka 'Pilot never dies'. I think it's much better. Each to their own, but I for one don't buy the macho stuff about dead is dead being for real simmers, or more realistic, or making you more circumspect. It didn't make me fly any more carefully - maybe if my seat had a trapdoor under that plunged me 2000 feet or so to my demise if I got shot down, but short of that...no difference. Die roll on death I didn't like - nice idea and good to give players the extra choice, but to my taste, results are WAY too arbitrary, making 'fatal' crashes routinely survivable and minor prangs too often fatal. With 'Pilot never dies' OFF works quite cleverly - it puts you in hospital, or as a POW, so you get a time penalty as it were. It's not like other sims, where if you don't feel like letting it end just then, you can just re-fly the mission, which is a lot less realistic. I can choose to accept the penalty and fly on, which I usually do, or decide to call it a day. That's how I like it. 'Pilot never dies' is NOT the same as invincibility, far from it.

Great work - bravissimo!!!

Wow! Great job - FE always had superior dogfighting and the biggest planset, now it's campaign base is getting bigger, to keep it ahead - great stuff!!!

Try these settings in OFF Workshop: Auto Exit CFS3 - ON Auto Exit Mission - OFF There are still times when OFF 'auto-ends' a mission but with these settings it usually waits till you are on the ground, dead or alive. (not sure if these are Hat in the Ring additions to the Workshop, tho IIRC they were introduced earlier, with one of the patches to BH&H, so you shoud have them even without HitR)

No it's the same, I got FE2 as a download, too. It's well worth getting the hang of installing mods in FE2 (including those made for 'FE1') as they add soooo much to the sim, not least a plane set a good deal bigger than OFF and probably bigger than god old Red Baron 3d, too. In a few cases it can be complicated (eg I had to do a bit of fiddling to get the markings to show up for the FE8 and some other planes) but mostly once you've done it once, it's second nature. Just looked it up - for XP, your mods folder is: \Documents and Settings\[user name]\My Documents\ThirdWire\FirstEagles2\ Don't forget to visit the SkunkWorks WW1 download page, where you can get many of the extra planes available for First Eagles (you need to request access and get a password by by email, first, and abide by the rules on downloads, VERY well worth it for the great planes available only there, like the BE2c and Pfalz D3, D3a and D12): http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/ Other downloads (mostly designed for FE1 but all work with FE2, provided you install them to your 'mods' folder) I'd recommend are: Flanders Terrain: http://combatace.com...anders-terrain/ Peter01's flight model for the realistic 'Hard' setting: http://combatace.com...nov-2008-patch/ (if you fly on 'Hard', this mod is vital as the FMs of many of the user-made planes don't function properly on 'Hard'; also this mod tones down the effectiveness of rear gunners, which otherwise are very dangerous to the player and much more lethal to computer-flown pilots) Bloody April campaign, provides a campaign which uses the Flanders tarrain and many of the earlier planes available incl the Nieuport 17, DH2, FE2, Roland CII etc: http://combatace.com...ody-april-1917/ Cambrai campaign; same battle as the stock one but using the Flanders terrain and more varietuy in planes: http://combatace.com...8-cambrai-1917/ ...plus your choice of 'effects' and terrain mods and all the planes you can get hold of (user-made campaigns invariably require you to download and install at least some extra planes)!

That's essentially what HPW is doing now (as well as further refining his FM mods) - creating a merged version of the empty weight and FM mods. I don't believe that bringing the AI planes' weight up to near their loaded weight should cause any probs with the FM mod, the AI seem to cope just fine.

Wow! Nice models - and they fly, too? Lovely collection! As for installing skins in FE2, there are two things to note I think. 1. In FE2, all mods, including skins, are installed to your so-called 'Mods' folder, which is not where you installed the sim itself (usually in Program Files), it's in C:[your user name]/Saved games/ThirdWire/FirstEagles2/, followed by the folder(s) appropriate for the particular mod.* In general, the files for a skin go into C:/[your user name]/Saved games/ThirdWire/FirstEagles2/Objects/Decals/D and maybe C:/[your user name]/Saved games/ThirdWire/FirstEagles2/Objects/Aircraft, depending on what comes with the skin. * this is for Vista; for your O/S, Win XP, the path to your 'mods' folder may be somewhat different 2. This is different from how it worked with the original First Eagles (where everything went instead in tosubfolders within the main sim install folder) SO the install instructions that come with a skin may well be for FE(1) and will therefore need to be adapted, to use the FE2 'mods' folder instead. Same with installing planes that are not designed for FE2; they egnerally work fine but it can take a bit of fiddling about the get the skins working, even tho the plane itself may be fine. This skin has separate installs for FE and FE2, complete with folder paths, so if you have a look at the FE2 one, you will see what files go where, for a fairly typical FE2 skin install: http://combatace.com...viatik-d1-skin/

AFAIK the only significant change in the graphics dept from about May is that ground objects fade in and out rather than just popping in at a given distance; this was a bit controversial IIRC, with some feeling the fade should happen at a greater distance. If your planes or anything else looks less sharp, I would try resetting object detail and texture detail to High or Unlimited in options/Graphics, as it's likely the patch has over-written your previous settings, IIRC it certainly does this for your keyboard settings.

Was thinking exactly the same thing about thoese flakwagen that go 'Boom!' at the sight of your Vickers/Spandaus. Hope you manage to crack it, a mod would be very welcome. Personally, I don't so much mind that hitting the guns with a burst of MG fire can put the gun out of action eg by causing crew casualties/supression and component damage, more the effect that accompanies it. Crashing planes seem to be the same (altho it's good they force-land ok sometimes too) - major fireball or forced landing, nothing in between - so maybe the same factor is at work in both cases, and what solves one, may solve the other eg transition to 'wreck' graphic without the fireball effect and no (or minor) explosion or a quieter sound. In the original FE, planes you shot down seemed often to explode like they'd been hit by a Strike Fighters Sidewinder and something was done somewhere, which toned that down, too. Maybe a post on the TW forums could ellicit an indication from tK as to what might be done.

+1 to all the above. IMHO FEG/FE2 is on balance the best of the three current WW1 flightsims for a variety of reasons, principally mod-ability and a combination of other features (AI, FMs, plane visibility, wingman commands) which make it the best at dogfighting and patrol-leading, key elements for a WW1 sim. Another theatre or two would be excellent.

First time up, was in one of these, circa 1977: Last time at the controls, was in this actual plane, 2 July 2006: First rotary-engined flight was in one like this, c.1976: Last rotary-winged flight was in this actual bird, c.1981:

I've recently started flying Camels after a long time on Albatrosses and Pfalz DIIIs, around July 1917, and - so far, early days yet - most missions are a wash out, altho the ground war seems active enough and I have Bletchley's busy sector mod enabled. Once, I happened to look down and chanced to see a DFW slipping by a few hundred feet below. Had I not looked in the right direction at just the right time, i'd never have realised he was there (and he wasn't alone). Otherwise the campaign has been very quiet so far. I don't use zoom, have my TAC set at 1 mile range and only turn it on to padlock AFTER spotting an enemy, likewise I never use labels to help spot or even ID a plane. When flying German, nearly always I spotted enemies through archie bursts. Flying RFC, the latter is rarely seen (except when they're shooting at ME!). So if you play with minimal reliance on visual aids, then I think when flying for the Entente, it seems very possible to miss enemies who are there, but just not close enough or obvious enough, in the direction you're looking. Two factors I think increase this, in OFF (P3 anyway, I hope P4 - sorry, OFF2 - will improve the second, if not the first): 1. your wingmen - flightmates, mustn't use modernisms! - don't seem to play any role in scanning the skies around your flight, which they would in real life 2. aircraft LOD models (settings in the plane's unfortunately non-mod-able .m3d file control at what distance these pop into view) are often such that planes become invisible at around 2 miles and even closer, are arguably harder to see than they propbably should be, eg when viewed against the ground. OFF 2 will I hope improve this, as current LOD settings also often cause some rather brutal transitions, when a plane switches from a lower to a higher-polygon model, at relatively close range. In these circumstances, it may be appropriate to keep the 'TAC/radar' turned on with the range set to no more than, say, 2-3 miles, to compensate for factors 1 amd 2 above. When flying German, Archie enables you to fly without doing so. When flying Entente, less so; I've seen other posts from experienced OFF'ers also commenting on how much harder it is for Entente scout flyers, with no Archie target indications, especially it you don't use the in-game visual aids.

Thanks for the feedback! I took the easy way out and binned the 70 Sqdn career, as a bit of desultory poking about in the sim files failed to reveal whatever file it is lists which units do which role and when. So I'm flying Camels with 45 Squadron instead, as for some strange reason 266 Squadron isn't in the RFC Orbat

Yes, thanks for posting, Wayfarer. some of the most dramatic pics I've seen in a long while!

Yeah, good work there, a must-have for any Brisfit fan!

This is the horizon sky mod I used; it's responsible for the nice dramatic sky in the screenie: http://combatace.com/files/file/9664-realistic-sky-mod-first-eagles/ My current environmentsystem.ini is attached below, had to change the extension as you can't upload .ini files. the cloud1.tga is too big to upload so I'll email that; not sure where it's from, I've tried so many!

Many happy returns - assuming you survived the homebrew!