33LIMA

Glad you got it working, the stock FE RE8 is such a nicely-modelled plane it's shame it's not flyable out-of-the-box. With care I can get airborne in FE1, managed it with a couple of 112lb bombs but it's as you say, and if you throttle up slowly to reduce the torque, you need an even longer take-off run. There's a bomber airfield mod available I think, which might suit the RE8 (and other flyable 2-seaters) better. She was on the verge of stalling as I climbed out too, gaining height really slowly and at under 60mph. Will try the Hard FM Ojcar mentioned. What I would like to do is make an RE8 campaign mod which adds a flyable Harry Tate to the Bloody April campaign and also the stock Cambrai and Op Michael campaigns. From what I can see, the First Eagles campaign mission types which you can assign to each plane, enable you to limit 2-seaters to recce and bombing missions and to cut out balloon-busting and other fighter missions. With Stephen's new planes, there are now quite a few 2-seaters that are not in any of the stock or add-on campaigns, that could now be added to them as both AI and flyable planes. So there seem to be opportunities to expand FE into more 2-seater work, as is already available in OFF and RoF. I wonder if anyone else is working on this. PS added some screenies of my first mission to the Gallery:

I don't recall such an account, but accidents do happen...in 'Army Aviation in Ulster' by Warner & Boyd, there's an account of an Army Gazelle chopper which had just taken off from Palace Barracks near-vertically to clear nearby buildings and masts. After a few seconds, the pilot got a message 'I think you should RTB, you have scored a bullseye'. On landing, they discovered the pilot's HK33 carbine with its muzzle embedded several inches in the tarmac, right in the middle of the painted 'H'. Before takeoff he had hung the weapon from one of the Gazelle's skids and then forgotten about it. It stayed put till about 80 feet up, and the rest is history.

I will certainly give that a try. At the monent I'm exploring campaign and terrain files to determine how to add a new plane to an existing campaign, will also check out the other TW forums where this this probably already covered somewhere.

Playing FEG or FE2 at 1600x900, 4xAA, 4xAF, the planes & their textures look very sharp but at shallow angles (eg looking along the top surface of an upper wing), the decals for national and unit/personal markings show 'jaggies'. As nothing else does, I'm thinking this may be because they are comparatively low-resolution images, somehow not affected as much by running with 4xAA. The FE decals look a lot better than their IL2 equivalents but this effect can be a bit distracting. Short of running with user-made skins with pre-applied markings, is there any way of improving this - eg by using higher-res decals? Or tweaking some in-game setting? Have searched but not gound an answer to this. TIA!

Cheers - that SPAD looks good!

That's good to know, Ojcar, thanks for the tip. The fact that Peter's mod includes cockpits to make make AI planes flyable is buried in the download's readme, which si unfortunate. I think I will apply Peter's FMs to all the older add-on planes as they nearly all seem to have Normal-only FMs which fly badly in Hard mode.

The updated mod will show up in the same section, under FE add-on planes, just as the original did, but as 'Version 1.1' and with a new changelog section under the 'description'. I can see it now, but it's sort of 'greyed out' (in pink!), I think others won't be able to see it at all till the new upload is approved by the mods. The strange thing is that while in FE2 the sim locks up if I click 'Loadout' before a flight, the loadout screen in FE1 seems to work ok, letting me choose either 25lb or 112lb bombs (tho the plane can barely take off with these and is a sluggish climber even without them)'. Edit - this is a bug in my FE2 install, loadouts aren't working at the moment for anything! I find that many add-on planes seem to fly very sluggishly in 'Hard' FM - which I use - but fly just fine in 'Normal', with their documentation describing them as 'optimised' for the Normal FM. The latter is I think the default FM for AI so it may be that any AI plane made flyable like the RE8 is best flown with the 'Normal' FM, unless its FM is modded to enable the 'Hard' to work, too. If that turns out to be the case, I will have to see about an FM mod for the RE8 as I really prefer the Hard FM. In the meantime, the RE may need to be flown in Normal FM. I'm working on a mod to add the RE8 to the Bloody April add-on campaign, flying with 59 Squadron out of St Omer, possibly with a skin in squadron markings, so i will definitely want to have a Hard FM working for that.

Response posted in the other thread - please try the extra RE8-ini now included with the updated mod, in the downloads section, available as soon as the mods clear it.

I've been able to reproduce the problem. Not sure what is causing it but there is an issue with the RE8.ini file. I have produced a new version of this which seems to work in FE1 and added this to the mod. I tried to upload just the replacement .ini file to this post but it won't let me upload that type of file. So I'm just gonna upload a compete update to the mod over in the downloads section, with an extra RE8.ini file for FE1 users for whom the plane doesn't show up, along with some extra instructions in the readme. Basically, the extra file is FE1-RE8.ini; you delete the file Objects/Aircraft/RE8/RE8.ini, replace it with FE1-RE8.ini, then rename the latter to RE8.ini. Strange that it worked for me originally and for Stephen. What I saw in re-testing was that the original file looked ok in Wordpad but after running in FE1 and the RE8 not showing up, looking at it in Wordpad again the file had been corrupted; it was like FE was corrupting it when it tried to read it. Making it read-only stopped the corruption but still the RE8 did not show. Hence this new file version. I would upload separate versions for FE1 and FE2 but it seems some FE1 users don't have the problem - weird. Sorry about the problem - I would be most grateful if you could let me know if the new update works, so I know if it's ok. It might take a while before the updated mod is cleared by the forum moderators, thanks for your patience.

Sorry to hear you are having diffs. I'm getting called to dinner, will come back to you later this evening!

Yeah it's a pity that m3d files can't easily be edited (found a gmax plug-in that was supposed to enable them to be imported but never got it to work). I for one would like to see the Albatros LOD's changed so that the more detailed 3-d models are used further out, especially to reduce the irritating 'undercarriage pop-out' effect, which is quite visible if like me you fly pre- and post-combat in external view (in cockpit view, the higher-poly 3-d Albatros models are used to a greater distance). Many other planes are visibly better. Think it is also something to do with the horrible CFS3 'wide angle lens' external view, which is something I'd REALLY like to see changed, but it's in no CFS3 setting I or anyone else seems to have found. But I digress...looking forward to the new mod, even if I may have to leap from my burning plane occasionally...but i do think you have a point, I think I am very rarely shot down in flames in an Albatros, a type I fly, and have been shot down in, more than any other, or seen many (if any) wingmen flamers, either.

Pics of observers with the later ring mount show them crouching right down in the fuselage with just their head above the ring, to get max elevation; with the Aviatik's inferior rails the field of fire was probably more limited. The OFF devs have had to put an MG on each side, while the real one would probably have carried only one MG switched between mounts á la BE2c. Will be interesting to see how the OFF gunner animation works!

Yes it will; I have FE1+Expansion Pack as well as FE2 and the RE8 flies in both. I just used the term 'FE Gold' as I believe this is the same as FE1+Exp Pack. I should say that my FE1+Exp Pack is patched to the latest version, and that's what I tested in. I've no reason to suppose the mod will have any problems with other versions/patches, though. I fly on 'Hard' FM in both 'FEG' and FE2 and I have the impression the RE may be just a little more sluggish in FEG than in FE2 but I may be imagining that. It certainly files, and strangely, in 'FEG', the RE8 loadout screen doesn't cause the lockup I get there in FE2,

Thanks for the advice. It's not really a problem just a minor visual issue, just noticeable in some situations, which I would do something about if there was an easy way to improve it, which it seems there isn't. Maybe higher AA or AF would help if my 8800GT could handle it, but it's not worth dropping FPS just for that. Cheers, guys!

File Name: Flyable RE8 for First Eagles Gold & First Eagles 2 File Submitter: 33LIMA File Submitted: 03 November 2011 File Category: Other Entente Aircraft Stock AI RE8 made player-flyable, for FEG & FE2. See readme for installation etc. Loadout screen locks up in FE2; will upload fix if/when found. OFF has a Harry Tate already, RoF is about to get one. Couldn't find an RE8 for FE so made this myself. Click here to download this file

OFF already has one, and RoF is about to get one; but I could not find a flyable Harry Tate for FE. So I made this for FE2: http://combatace.com/files/file/12403-flyable-re8-for-first-eagles-gold-first-eagles-2/ She seems to work in FEG as well. For some reason in FE2 only, the sim locks up when I click the 'loadout' option, which I've found with a few add-on planes too. If I can find out how to fix this I'll upload an update. Player can't man the observer's gun but the AI one seems to do a reasonable job! Uses the SE5 cockpit interior for want of a better alternative; doesn't look too bad IMHO. She's a straight drop-in-and-over-write replacement for the stock machine so you may want to back that up, before taking her for a spin.

Sounds good, looking forward to that. I like the idea of planes being less vulnerable to those 'silver bullets' that seem magically to hit a vital part of your plane more often than not. Like Olham I've a sneaking suspicion that the Albatrosses in particular have something of a 'glass engine', just a bit too readily damaged, so will not complain if there've been any adjustments there, too.

See here. Haven't tried it yet myself and don't know if CFS3/OFF could benefit, but might be worth a try, if you have a 64-bit O/S.

Methinks those black fittings look like smaller versions of the small, pedestal-mounted rotating sights you see being used on the bridges of WW2 RN warships, to take a bearing and maybe a range on a surface target. There are probably some clips on youtube from 'In Which We Serve', Hunt the Bismarck', 'Battle of the River Plate' and 'The Cruel Sea' which show these in use.

Never had that one. Before I uninstall anything I would go into Workshop and use the options, first to (IIRC) 'reset CFS3 files' and if that doesn't work, then the more drastic one to (IIRC) 'reset/reinstall OFF. If that doesn't work then i doubt there is any problem a full uninstall (includes deleting the files installed in [=Vista, or equivalent if on XP] username/Appdata/Roaming/Microsoft/CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields/) followed by a re-install won't solve. Ah, for the Second Amendment and the wholesome outdoor pursuits you ex-Colonial types can consequently pursue! Here in the UK, the only thing most of us can lawfully shoot is each other, and until the politicos decide to ban that too, that's only with airsoft guns (tho the quarry can at least shoot back )

Right, I've just uploaded Version 1 of the 'AI Empty Weight Mod' at CombatAce. The concept worked just fine in Quick Combat with Nieuport 11s vs- modded Eindekkers, SE5s against modded Pfalz DIII's, and Albatros DIIIs against modified Nieuport 17s; the enemies are a bit less agile but still fly much as before, otherwise. All was well provided I didn't try to fly the modified planes myself - it looks like QC planes need a modified .air file not just my modified .cfg file, to be flown by the player. Have been testing the 'production' version, for Campaign not QC use, in several campaigns last night and today but it is much slower going, by the very nature of campaign missions. So I decided rather than wait while I got more experience of flying the mod in campaigns, to go for broke and upload it; should be approved soon I hope. I'll be playing it myself from here on and will report any issues. Would appreciate any feedback if you get a chance to try it for yourself. And thanks for the advice and support, HPW!