33LIMA

They are not showing up yet in the downloads section, but I'm watching, and I'm waiting...good work Ojcar, can't wait to try these out!

Nice pics there, Bandy; the first one looks like it should have been the box-art on a Revel, Renwal or Aurora kit of the 1960s!

OFF has more planes out-of-the-box than FE/FE2 and a squadron-based campaign. Also a decent selection of AI and flyable 2-seaters whose observers' seat and gun you can man. And nice touches like something better resembling an actual pilot logbook, into which you can record claims for kills (which may or may not be confirmed, if you turn on that option). Lots and lots of plane skins to choose from (tho no preview). Lots of configurable options. Flying as wingman is limited I think by limited leader AI, as in many sims. Down-sides include particularly poor formation-keeping which hampers flight-leading, indifferent distant aircraft visibility with aids turned off, rather poor 2-seater AI (CFS3 bomber-based?), and AI which fly at empty weight (equivalent to extra HP; I did a mod for this). Great landscape but poor main roads, rivers and railways with very angular bends, a tendency for forced landings to end in a wreck rather often, and some odd CFS3-style effects like engines jumping out of damaged planes and pilots leaping out instantly a plane goes on fire (no chute, but is like an instantaneous reaction and the original pilot's still visible if you're close enough). In flight and planning maps are slightly improved from CFS3's truly awful ones but they are still poor and not good for visual orientation, bearing no serious resemblance to what you can see in the 3d world, apart from the Lines. To get padlock to work, you have to turn on the typical CFS 'radar' (tho you can turn it off again afterwards). In OFF currently, yes you can fly 1915-16 but it's rather limited by the planeset (earliest German 2-seater is the mid-late 1916 Roland CII and there's no early French 2-seaters - Phase 4 will solve this with the Aviatik CII and Morane parasol). 'Warp' doesn't work very well so missions can be long and sometimes without action or only after long flights - none of FE2's Alt+N to next combat. Wingman commands are a bit limited and don't work very well - eg if you are damaged and losing altitude, even hitting S(plit) often still seems to end with at least one 'loyal' wingman refusing to go away, followiing you right down, regardless of AA fire. Some of the allocated campaign mission types are a bit odd eg lots of 'railyard attacks' for RFC scouts (and even German ones) tho Bletchley's mods improve this. FEG/FE2 has a much better planeset IF you include the freeware add-on planes tho you have to d/l the add-on campaigns to fly them in campaign mode, while OFF's are all fully integrated. Some add-on planes are not as good as the stock planes and you may need Peter01's FM mod to get them all flying sensibly in 'Hard' mode. You can fly many of the add-on 2-seaters but not man the gunner position. I think FEG/FE2 is the best sim (compared to RoF and OFF) for Boelcke- or Mannock-style patrol-leading and for dogfighting; this is down to a combination of features like good plane visibility without visual aids, superior AI for both scouts and 2-seaters, decent formation-keeping (despite a lot of weaving!), good padlock system and adequate and effective wingman command set. Plane externals and internals are second only to RoF, to my eye, and I like the crew, engine and gun animations and the dynamic self-shadowing which help bring the planes to life. RoF single player is still limited by the beta career and that still-very-limited 2-seater planeset - non-existent for the 1915-16 period despite the N.11 and Eindekker. AI is not great. Easily the best sim for the experience of 'flying a WW1 plane', and a cinematic dogfighting experience on top of that, so I like it a lot. But for the experience of 'flying a plane in WW1, I'd pick FE2 (or FEG) or OFF, with the former ahead by a small margin. Each of the three sims has things it's best at; I like and fly them all, with the odd foray back into FS-WW1 or RB3d for a change.

First Eagles campaigns are much like the other SF campaigns. In FE/FE2, they are based around battles first, units/plane types second. The stock campaigns are the battles of Cambrai Nov 1917, Operation Michael (German Spring offensive) March 1918, and Meuse-Argonne later in 1918. In each campaign, you have a choice of several squadrons in each of the air forces engaged, German, British, French and/or US, depending on who was participating. The squadrons you can choose from are historic ones, flying from the aerodromes they used at the time, and with thei plane they flew at the time. For example, if you start a Cambrai campaign and 'go German', and you choose Jasta 5, you will find yourself flying an Albatros DV from Boistrancourt, just ESE of Cambrai. The missions you get are selected from a set, not randomly but according to set parameters according to plane type and nationality, and are generally a decent historical balance. The planes in your selected squadron carry individual markings and unit markings eg Jasta 5 has red-edged green tails. The unit markings are historical (for at least one part of the unit's history). The individual plane emblems are 'representative' eg RFC aircraft use different letters, Germans have symbols chosen by the sim from a pool of real-life ones which you may recognise from pictures (tho not necessarily carried on a plane from your chosen unit in real life - tho in FE2 i have seen Jasta 5 squadron-mates with some of the famous pilot markings from that unit eg Flashar's dragon). You act as flight leader but are a sort of squadron commander and can choose who flies and who doesn't, and vary waypoints - much as in other SF sims. Squadron rosters IIRC may have some real-life aces. Add-on campaigns from what I have seen work in a similar way. The Bloody April campaign, combined with the extra Flanders terrain and some download aicraft, enables you to fly earlier in 1917 through the Battle of Arras. You cannot fly a conventional 'squadron career'. You could choose to fly with (eg) Jasta 5 in Bloody April, Cambrai and Op Michael (doubt they were at Meuse Argonne). It would probably be possible to build such a career as a mod, as a succession of mini-careers, moving from battle to battle, airfield to airfield, plane to plane. FE/FE2 has some limitations eg balloons don't get winched down when attacked, but I don't think they do in OFF or RoF either. Damage modelling is well below RoF standards but adequate and it has nice touches like frequent engine kills resulting in a prop stopping and the pilot gliding down to force land (if you let him). Personally I think the level of historical content in FE/FE2 is very good even un-modded. Its AI I find to be better than either OFF or RoF and it also excels at reproducing the experience of patrol-leading and dogfighting, which are possibly the most important elements for a WW1 single-seater sim to excell at. It will benefit from a bit of tinkering with settings but unlike either RoF or OFF it's not just possible to fly with every visual flight and targeting aid turned off, it's actually more immersive and less frustrating. My own experiences of flying FE/FE2 are here. I also have OFF and RoF and I like all three for what they're best at but think FE/FE2 is overall, at least as good as either of the others.

I think Fokker filmed most of this clip, it's the one from which some stills are often published, showing MvR, Fokker and others with Lt Bird after MvR shot him down in the F1 triplane, in which sequnce fokker appears, too I believe:

Please don't judge the TW sims on account of the probs you're having - the key assignments not staying set is really unusual and probably not the sim's fault. The only time I have ever lost key assignments is after installing a patch, which seems to reset them to defaults. I presume you patched FE to the Oct 2008 standard, btw? http://www.thirdwire.com/downloads.htm Patched, FE1 will run on Vista and probably Windows 7 as well, plus it'ssomewhat better than the original retail version in nearly every respect. Modding your install is where it can get tricky but it's easier with the SF2 series (including First Eagles 2), no weapon editor stuff I think. Anyway you can have a lot of fun with the stock planes; and for every mod that I give up trying to get to work right in series 1 or series 2, there's another dozen that work just fine with no hassle. Take Stephen's recent excellent range of 2-seaters, for example. For FE1 (which will work fine on your new PC I believe) I would strongly recommend the new campaign files that Ojcar attached here. Or get the Flanders terrain here, the Bloody April campaign here, and grab as many as you can of the extra planes for the latter campaign (listed in its Readme) from here and here (registration by email needed for the A Team before you can access the downloads); that will take you an hour or so but will about triple your possibilities at a stroke; fly Albatros DIIIs with Jasta 11 and many others during Bloody April; meet DH2s, FE2s, BE2s, Nieuports, Pups, Brisfits, Triplanes and others, over a completely new terrain. Or fly for the RFC in any of those types, with one of the squadrons which flew them. The effort to get the Bloody April Campaign up and running is very well worth it. It's like getting a second sim free. I expect Ojcar's campaigns will be the same again; i'm just getting started with these (no new terrain needed I think, just some more planes - and they include Stephen's recent work, which wasn't around when the Bloody April campaign was released). And there are other campaigns available too. I also have most of the other TW sims for the very reason you've been contemplating SF2; those early jets. I started with SF2 Europe and have a fair number of add-on planes working well, including the Jaguar and RAF and RN Phantoms. If I feel like warmer weather I can go to SE Asia with Wings over Vietnam or to the Middle East with Wings over Israel. No need to spend weeks learning radar modes, what all the cockpit switches do and take-off drills. Just kick the tires, light the fires and off you go. My favourite jet sims, and i've played a good many. One day I will try the SF2 version of the Nato Fighters mod, but for now am happy with WW1. The basic TW sims are all well worth it; the mods are icing on the cake, and the SF2 series run better on more modern PCs that the originals.

AFAIK, add-on planes don't work for the current release of OFF, being designed for earlier versions (phases 1 and 2) which used a CFS3-style convention for aircraft use and naming. Since Phase 3, planes are named according to a certain convention - I believe this is [planename]QC1 = used in quick combat, AC1-5 = used for aces, SQ1-5 used for non-aces, Sqd used for the player's plane. You MAY be able to get earlier planes to be picked up in Quick Combat by giving them (and their .xdp and bdp files etc, files, inside the plane's folder) a QC1 suffix, but more work would be needed for them to show in a campaign and this may not even be possible without access to the inner workings of the OFF campaign manager and/or a working knowledge of CFS3 and OFF game files.

Hi Hurricane I take it that you're referring to the file Default.ini in the folder First Eagles/Controls? I have Vista 64, and if I go to File/properties, then that file is shown as 'Read only'. BUT that has not stopped if from holding my customised joystick assigmnents, which I set using the in-game options sub-menu. All my settings are definitely in that Default.ini file, despite the 'read only' property. To set your options I would just use the in-game options menu, they are saved when you click 'Accept' IIRC. I never went anywhere near the Default .ini file. I'm sure you could hand-edit the Default.ini file in Windows Explorer, and then save it (provided Read only is UNchecked, Vista can be fussy about letting you do things to files in the Program Files folder). But I can see no need to do that, when you can save the options in-game. OFF is different, IIRC joystick settings can only be changed by editing the settings file but FE in-game settings work. I have an old but loved Saitek Cyborg 3d whose own drivers don't work in Vista i think, but you can probably also assign joystick buttons using your stick's driver/configuration utility unless like me yours doesn't work in your version of Windows. I don't have pedals so have no experience of setting up those. Like Grinseed I'm not sure about the Weapon Editor. But looking at the Readme file for Monty CZ's Nieuport 11, which includes le Prieur rockets, it says: Instalation: 1) Extract file to temporary folder 2) there is folder named "Aircraft", which contains "Nieuport11" and folder "Weapons" which contains LePrieur rockets for this plane. 3) Copy Nieuport11 to your game Aircraft directory 4) Copy content of weapons folder to your game Weapons directory 5) Start WeaponEditor.exe, open your WEAPONDATA.INI and Import/Merge content of So I'd suggest you re-install the Nieu. 11 and folow the above instructions, especially 4 and 5. If that doesn't work, I'm lost.

There was a clock code of a sort in WW1 RFC/RAF use but it was for planes directing artillery fire. I've never heard of its use for targeting planes - when you think of it, they had no radio, no intercom (apart from some crude speaking tubes) and sat next to each other in many cases. Interestingly, in the Army, the clock code of a sort is used for (ground) target indication by infantry, in Fire Control Orders; since at least WW2 it's been called 'the Clock-ray method'. But in that, you are not at the centre of the clock, your reference point is (from which you give the direction of the target). You use the 'Axis of arc' (as in your axis of advance, usually) method to give target direction eg 'Gun Group - two hundred - half left - bushy-topped tree - right, three o'clock, 5 metres - enemy in trench - rapid fire!' You do not give direction from yourself with the clock code, it's half right/quarter left etc. Or 'Watch my tracer!' Or just point! But I digress. The sequence at about 3.40 in this clip is how I'd imagine it was done in WW1 planes, mostly:

Re hatswitch panning, yes it can be done. All the Strike Fighters games are set so you can use your mouse to pan around in external or cockpit views, and the hat switch does snap views. Like you I prefer panning so with all the Strike Fighers sims I have to go through this little routibe to get them set up as I like. Go into Options then Controls and then select the 'Customise' option at bottom right. When the list of comamnds appears, scroll down till you come to the View Commands. Near the bottom of these wou will find Camera Pitch Up/Down Camera Yaw Left/Right. Click on them and assign them to your up/down/left/right hatswitch buttons instead of what's there now (keyboard arrow keys IIRC). There may be a better way of doing this but this works for me. I also assign other joystick buttons to toggle padlock, snap back to front cockpit view, target nearest air and ground, that sort of thing, while I'm at it. I also set most of the game options to 'Hard' and in game hit 'Alt+D often enough so all the on-screen data and targeting boxes are not visible, they are ok in a jetsim but not needed and look on in a WW1 sim IMHO. Re formation-keeping, FE is better than most. In OFF even a slight turn has your flight-mates skidding hundreds of meters to the outside and struggling to catch up. from what I've seen leading flights in RoF via PW's campaign generator, RoF is not great at formation-keeping when I'm leading. In FE your flight-mates weave about a lot once they get into formation, but they do keep up reasonably well. This makes FE better than OFF for playing flight leader as you can lead your boys into your chosen position to pounce on the enemy significantly more easily. One of the FE patched applied a setting that reduced the weaving a bit but if you are patched to date then you will have this already. While your comrades can take time to get into formation after takeoff, they seem to mamage it ok, especially in the game's stock planes, I don't bother circling just whiz off on the assigned course to the next 'waypoint' and before long they're at my shoulder, admittedly weaving a lot, sometimes settling into a nice tight echelon after a while. If I 'alt+N' to the objective they are in perfect formation when I come out of 'warp'. I dunno about getting the rockets back but if you re-download the plane they came with (The Nieuport 11) and then re-install that, you might be ok. Dunno much about that Weapons Editor either. A lot of the stuff and settings the aircraft use, cockpit files and markings and so on, are actually in the ObjectData.cat files in the Objects folder, not in the aircraft folder at all. FE is more than a match for RoF in every respect except graphics. RoF is best at multiplayer and for the experience of flying a WW1 plane, but for flying a plane in WW1, OFF and FE are both better. Personaly I still find FE the best of them all, even without the mods, tho all three have things they are best at. If you fancy a change you could also try FS-WW1, it's free - see install Option 2 here: http://www.fsww1.com/

The DH9 and DH9A both had 2-blade props - do you mean the DH4? A-Team has one, it must be fairly high-polygon as it is hard on the FPS: TBH i thnk a BE2e would be more useful in the FE skies, but a DH9 would be good too.

Aussie customs & immigration officer to tourist: 'Do you have any criminal convictions, sir?' Tourist: 'No, I didn't know you still needed them.'

PS the 3 November update did no more than correct a typo in the displayed title of the mod; you do not need to d/l it again. Feedback welcome, in case it would benefit from a REAL update.

Yes all three use edited versions of the planes' .cfg files so cannot co-exist, which is unfortunate, as people have to make a choice. It would not be difficult to add the empty weight edits I made to HPW's FM files and upload a merged mod this may happen.

Given that the England strip already contains the Umbro company's parallelogram logo, there are evidently exceptions allowed to the supposed rule against 'political, religous or COMMERCIAL' stuff being displayed. Money speaks louder than blood, with these people. In the UK we (most of us anyway) take very seriously the debt we owe to those who have served in the Armed Forces, and in particular to those who've lost their lives, and wear our poppies with pride, in the words of The Royal British Legion's motto. Witness the spontaneous displays of respect at (now Royal) Wooton Bassett. Most countries have comparable traditions and they should be respected not disrespected. The message at the end of the OFF intro video is a poignant reminder of the origins of the poppy tradition, taken as it is from the first line of the poem by Lt Col John McCrae after burying a friend in WW1: In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. http://www.greatwar....ders-fields.htm

The most dangerous species on the planet is Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Ban the lot of 'em, I say.

Probably this could be solved, by simply depositing a load of cash in the appropriate FIFA official's back pocket. Or better still, putting him up against the nearest wall.

That's fantastic - saving the campaign files as ascii worked a treat in FEG. I had no idea FE1/G was sensitive to the file format in that way! Have just had a quick try-out in the RE in the Flanders21 campaign - there aare still a couple of RFC squadrons with no planes, maybe ones I haven't got installed, will check that out. Will also have to see about getting them all working in FE2; nt sure if I have a problem there, or not. This is brilliant - FE campaigns updated with new planes and AI flyables! You should definitely upload them! Many thanks for sharing these!

Help please! In FEG, after loading the 4 modded campaigns and the flanders one, none show up in the campain list on the 'Create a Campaign' screen. The only one that does show up is the add-on Bloody April campaign, which I had installed previously - it's still there. The modded campaign and flanders campaign files and folders are all there, present and correct, in Windows Explorer. But none show up in game. When I restore the stock campaignss, all is well again. The only thing I can think of, is that the Bloody April campaign came with a special squadronlist.ini file, said to have all all the stock squadrons/planes plus those needed for the Bloody April campaign. For your campaigns, do I need to delete the Bloody April squadronlist.ini (and allow the stock one in the .cat file to be used again)? Or do I need a special squadronlist.ini, for your modded campaigns? In FE2 (where I also have the Bloody April Campaign installed) the problem is a bit different. flanders22 shows up in the campaign list and works (apart from those missing planes) but while the stock campaigns DO display, there is something strange, they seem not stock but don't have all the planes in your modded campaigns. Again, I winder if the squadronlist.ini file from the Bloody April campaign might be the source of that problem, too. I'll try deleting the Bloody April squadronlist.ini to see if that works - maybe you can confirm if your campaigns need a special squadronlist.ini? EDIT - tried deleting the Bloody April squadronlist.ini (so that the game would default back to the ones in the Missiondata.cat files) but the problem is the same; so i think perhaps your campaigns may need a special squadronlist.ini? Or I have done something strange!

Cheers Grinseed, will give that a go!

Wow! Muchas gracias Ojcar! I am off to try out these files now!!!

Now that sounds very interesting. It would be the First Eagles Ultimate Edition! This would be too good to be just for one person! I wonder if it would be possible to upload it, by a combination of getting the permission of the original authors to incorporate or modify their work, and where not available, telling people what other things they also need to download. I don't have much experience of this sort of thing but if I can help in any way, let me know....many hands make light work! In the meantime, I would be very grateful if can you tell me: 1. where are the _ DATA.INI files, and the .TXT files, for the stock campaigns? I can find only the basic [campaign].ini for Cambrai, Op Michael etc.. The user-made Bloody April campaign has what seems to be a full set of files and there, I can see the two main files, [campaign].ini and [campaign]_data.ini plus all the various squadron and start/end .txt files, and see how they are used. But I can't find the _DATA file or these text files for the STOCK campaigns; there does not seem to be a .cat file for campaigns to hold this sort of thing. Where can they be? 2. Where do I find a list of available airfields, to which I can assign squadrons in the [campaign]_data.ini file? I think all the available airfields must be listed somewhere in the terrain file - it looks like it is the [terrain]_targets.ini file - is that right? TIA!