33LIMA

Now that's a good idea, the next best thing to being able to type it up in game, better in some respects. Not hard to lay out the pages in the proper style, one of the Airfields and Airmen has a pic of the pages in a German pilot's logbook (complete with pic of a downed Camel - you could paperclip some black and white screenies in there too!) and there's an RFC/RAF one here: http://reynardcollectables.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/wwi-rafrfcs-pilots-logbook-john-spencer-green-mc/

Nice clip there. It's very manoeuvrable on the ground, despite not having a tailwheel fitted, like some replicas. I wonder does it have a steerable tailskid, don't see any sign of that; if not, just a quick burst of power, and round she goes.

Putting more text in claims isn't really the answer I think; as you know the editor is a bit limited and I don't know about you, but I don't get claims on every flight! :) But OFF being what it is, I often do see something that would be worth a note in my logbook, beyond the bare details of the sortie already recorded. I think (so far!) that hand-editing after exit is ok; I had done this recently for a dossier that got corrupted somehow (showed entries for a different [retired?] pilot, maybe of the same name?) and the hand-edits showed up fine the next time I ran the sim. But it's frustrating that you can edit the ordinary logbook entries in-game, but they're not saved.

Just flew another RE8 mission with BlastRadius=5 and got away with a successful bombing raid on train sheds NW of Cambrai, tho one of the flight was last seen descending under control trailing smoke, believed damaged by the Archie while making his bomb run. Will stick with 5 and see how that goes. Still early days, and too soon to say what BlastRadius is 'best', so far, so good.

Thanks for the continued help with this! I just tried another RE8 mission with the reverse of that, increasing BlastRadius from 20 to 30 and seemed to survive longer! Long enough to attack an Alb DII that had just shot down a flight mate - shot down the Hun with my Vickers, and in an RE8 to boot! At that rate it would have taken me a lot more missions to work out what you've just told me so this is very helpful. I will fly for a while at '5' and see how that goes. BH, air-to-air pics of flak bursts I only recall seeing one of, can't find it now, strangely ground-to-air pics seem rare too. I suspect pilot's accounts are going to be the best source, tho it would obviously need a lot of reading to detect a pattern. Have just started reading Billy Bishop's 'Winged Warfare' having found a 1918 edition cheap locally, and co-incidentally, he mentions his own first experience of Archie as a scout pilot as follows: 'They always seem to aim at the leading machine, but to come closer to hitting the one at the end of the procession. [this might indicate that the MPI of a salvo (or successive & recent individual shots) tended to lag behind the 'mean centre' of a formation, or maybe it was just the impression given by the usual 'trail' of bursts]. The first shot I heard fired was a terrific 'bang' [bears out your opinion on sound effects, elsewhere] close to my ears. I felt the tail of my machine suddenly shoot up into the air, and I fell about 800 feet before I managed completely to recover control. That shot, strange to relate, was the closest I have ever had from anit-aircraft fire. [tends to support your suggestion of aiming low, albeit one event is not statistically significant]. The smoke enveloped me. But close as it was, only one small piece of the flying steel fragments hit my machine. Even that did no damage at all [tends to support my belief that I can realistically tone down further the lethality of OFF AAA on 'Hard']. IIRC I've seen WW1 pics of Germans using a stereoscopic rangefinder (free-standing, not mounted on the WW2-style predictors) but apart from that I don't know how they collected target data or transmitted it and/or fusing data to the guns. Might be worth a search on the Aerodrome.com.

I used to like doing that sort of thing in EAW, Ricketycrate and in OFF/FE/RoF I fly a lot of pre- and post-combat stuff in external/spot view for that same 'movie' feel. But my own aim is to use as little as I can a sim's visual aids (while recognising that some, like padlock, help compensate for the limitations inherent in viewing the virtual world via a monitor). In OFF I specifically avoid cycling thru views while padlocked, exactly because it can give me a detailed picture of my target before I could see it clearly from my own position. As for sound levels, Gaw, I think the general consensus is that only the very closest sounds should be audible to the player, like AA fire in the vicinity of the player's flight or MG fire very close by (and perhaps even then, only the supersonic 'crack' of rounds passing very close). Personally I just leave 'Engine' and 'Cockpit' levels(and 'Interface') turned right up in Workshop with the rest ('Effects' IIRC) at 75% at the moment. I may lower the latter, perhaps right down, eve if it reduces or removes the immersive 'movie' if not realistic effect. At the moment, I find the MG sound especially distracting, as it seems to make no distinction between a burst directed at you which demands immediate evasive action, and a distant one directed at somebody else. Personally I would like a setting where I can only hear MG rounds passing very close (or hitting!), which from what I've read is probably more realistic. Thanks fot the advice Bletchley, I'd not have found that in a month of Sundays! A lot of the CFS3 modding material I remember there used to be on the 'net seems to have gone and OFF has its own particular setup. 'Noise' = 'accuracy'; now there's a quirky piece of terminology! I'm happy with the flak accuracy on 'Hard' as the tighter grouping of bursts makes it easier to target enemies without aids, plus the effect on the receiving end is a lot more scary/impressive, whch I really like. It's the lethality rather than the accuracy I think needs a bit more tuning, to make playing on 'Hard' viable; I'll experiment a bit more with 'BlastRadius' reduced from '20' to '10' (assuming that lower=less - if it's like 'Noise', it's the other way around, and I should go for 30 or 40 not 10!) as I think the AA fire on Hard is still a bit too lethal for my personal tastes and my personal view of what's realistic, even with your modded weapons files toning it down a bit.

Sorry the file extract above was from the stock OFF Germanflak_round.xdp, Bletchey's has 500 and 1000 for those values not 650 and 4500. Anyway, dropping the blastradius from 20 to 10, my RE8 still got clobbered, first some engine damage which didn't stop me bombing an alternate target but on the way back another round changed my plane's handling from aerodynamic to ballistic so I will want to do some more toning down before I'm happy with 'Hard' Archie, from the target's perspective. Will post results for anyone who's interested. Strange, that halving the blastradius is still not enough. I do like the visual and psychological effect tighter flak burst grouping from the target's perspective tho, Archie is now definitely rather scary. Just need to make him a bit less dangerous, without diluting that effect.

I remember seeing one of those science programmes a few years back which explored the theory we (mankind) were descended from Chimps, which can be particularly brutal, so that far from human nature being predominantly benign by nature, it contains a strong strain of nastiness or brutality, which has perhaps been an important evolutionary advantage in our becoming the dominant species, which we arguably didn't do by being preponderantly nice and/or clever, but involved a good deal of nastiness. That's not to say we can't aspire to 'better' things -according to whoever's programming us to believe what's 'better', since that's arguably value-system dependent, tho social engineering can't easily deprogramme millions of years of evolution (or experience, if you don't believe in the former). I remember that was also theme expounded by the late Gene Roddenbury - you may remember the episide in Star Trek (famous for tackling serious themes beneath the sci-fi) where Cap'n Kirk became 'separated' into 'good Kirk' and 'bad Kirk' and while the latter was indeed pretty bad, 'good Kirk' was ineffective without his alter ego. Same idea as Jeykyll and Hyde probably. Yes I think you're quite right WM, there is a certain tendency to violence and brutality beneath the veneer of civilisation and legality. But that's just how we're wired, and tho it's all very macho, sweaty and distasteful to Guardian readers, sometimes the lawyers, bless their cotton socks, can't sort it out and we still need some of those rough men who stand ready to do violence on our behalf, so we can sleep safely a-bed, as Kipling put it.

Thanks for the feedback, Gaw. Are you finding the Archie is now just a bit too lethal? I think this works fine from the standpoint of producing tighter bursts to ID targets but I think maybe on the 'receiving' end, Archie may be a bit too dangerous at 'Hard', so am gonna experiment along the lines of Bletchley's suggestion (reduced blast radius).

OK I flew another RE8 mission, this time with a long leg under Archie fire and while I really liked the near-Flyboys intensity of the Archie bursts on the 'Hard' setting, despite a fair bir of weaving I still got my engine clobbered after about 5 minutes (tho losing none of my 3 flight mates). So I'm going to try reducing the blast radius in the lines below (copied from your files, extract below, with the higher values for ImpactOffset and BlasstOffset) from 20 (metres???) to 10; if that's totally ineffective, I'll try 15. I edited the .xdp file and deleted the .bdp file which I understand is regenerated. Can I ask, how do I adjust the 'noise' setting? [Extract from Bletchley's modified German flak .xdp file] ImpactOffset="650" BlastDice="1" BlastDieSize="1" BlastOffset="4500" BlastRadius="20" FireDice="1" FireDieSize="1" FireOffset="85"

...and while I'm in a Kipling-esque mood, this is worth repeating, as meaningful today as it was a hundred years ago:

This the one I had in mind, sorry but I thought you had in mind a dashing Indian Army officer (or something of that ilk, whoever Mrs Hauksbee's husband was, has been a good few years since I read it): http://en.wikipedia....cue_of_Pluffles He's not very 'PC' of course and I'm no 'culture vulture' but I've always been a fan of Kipling, 'The Man Who Would Be King', 'If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you...' and all that. Plus wasn't it Kipling who wrote the immortal lines, relevant to OFF, 'They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old...in the morning and at the setting if the sun, we will remember them.'

Saw a link to this in a post on the 777 RoF forum (the RE8 being the next aircraft being added to that sim). Very interesting reading; if anything, it tends to suggest that it's best to be careful about 'accepted wisdoms' about this or that plane being useless, inferior, dangerous etc: http://www.ww1aero.o...RE8Cont2001.pdf I think I'll start an OFF RE8 campaign and give the old girl a try for myself! 'Dear Capt Johns Having now put in a good many hours on the RE8 in OFF, I feel I really must add a letter of my own to your file of correspondence on the performance of this particular aeroplane....'

Thanks for the reminder Bletchley (and sorry I got your forum name wrong!) I just survived being Archied with the above settings in an RE8 mission, but had to glide for my lines when a pair of Halberstatds attacked me from behind and killed my engine while I wan't paying attention and my flight was catching up after a turn. I think the flak crew will dispute the Halberstadter's claim tho, worth a try. So far, your mod's reduced lethality seems to go well with the 'Hard' setting.

nice one Hauksbee, love some of those imaginary(?) planes on the covers. Makes me want to re-install Crimson Skies! (PS from your sig, are you a fan of 'Plain Tales from the Hills', too?)

That was an excellent piece of advice you typed up on forced (or non-forced) landings back there, BH. Even if only bits of it come back to me the next time I'm desperately trying to avoid screwing up yet another forced landing, I'm sure it'll help.

What this proves to me is that if P4 ever gives the Germans parachutes, there should be a 'Steal' hotkey on pressing which your otherwise-doomed British pilot leaps across, knocks the hastily-drawn Luger from the Hun pilot's hand and grabs his Heinecke (as opposed to his Heinneken)! Used to buy these (mostly the 'Commando' range) but don't remember Dogfight Dixon; I have re-acquired most of my childhood Biggles books tho, including the WW1 titles. Anyway now we know where they got the inspiration for the finale of Flyboys.

1. Laurel and Hardy 2. The Marx Brothers 3. Blackadder 4. Month Python's Flying Circus 5. Father Ted

It's worth mentioning that so far (early days yet) AAA is NOT ineffective at 'Hard' setting with Benchley's flak mod files. Last night I saw it bring down a German plane whose Archie 'cloud' my RNAS Stutters were chasing at long range, before we could get close enough to see what it was (made up for it later by massacring a flight of Fokkers, tho I nearly did a 'controlled flight into terrain' as I was not used to the much more hilly operational area around Luxeiul-les-bains - some of OFF's finest terrain, I have to say, really top-class even by OFF's high standards). Later, flying a Jasta 5 late 1917 mission just across the Lines, perhaps because I decided to ignore the AA and took no evasive action, it damaged my DV's engine just as we were turing in to engage a flight of SPADs. Boy, was I miffed, it looked like a great old scrap developing behind me as I dived towards friendly territory, and I'd missed it! Maybe the flak could be toned down even more, or maybe as Ohlam's many hours logged on the type suggests, our Albatroses have something of a 'glass engine'. Anyway if anyone else has a go, maybe post your impressions to see if this is worth sticking with and/or needs a bit more fine tuning. I'm still scared to go near ground MGs before I absolutely must!

I thought most use OFF'ers might use the 'normal' setting, which is why I fancied this might be worth posting, I didn't test extensively but on an escort mission both my flight and the escorted Rolands (lower, no evasive action) suffered casualties to the AAA during quite a short penetration, so even toned-down by P3, Archie is still dangerous, if set at 'Hard' (to be expected I suppose). So I'm inclined to think Benchley's mod is good for the 'Hard' setting IF like me you want to use it in effect as the 'normal' setting and not for the extra 'challenge'/casualties. IMHO this produces the best results in terms of pointing up targets AND giving Archie a real 'bark worse than its bite' quality. What the 'Hard' setting does to the effectiveness of ground MGs, I think I will try to avoid ever finding out :)

Hi Ojcar is there a possibility of BE2c and BE2d models being revised to have the streamlined 'sump cowling' added under the engine? From what I can see, by 1916 it was rare to see a BE2 without this fitted. This would make both aircraft much more suitable for 1916-17. I have very little experience with 3d modelling programs but would be willing to try this myself, if possible, and release if given permission.

Are you going to give us the little 'window' under the nacelle ahead of the rudder bar? Might be quite useful for aiming those bombs! I think you've picked the right approach to the gunner, that seems to be how it was mostly done in real life. Another option might be also to give the pilot an additional 'invisible machine gun', with no muzzle flash, which the player could fire straight ahead, as an optional loadout item, that could be selected for balloon attack or ground attack missions. Not a great idea, bit of a kludge and would be a bit strange if the real observer decided to open up at the same time. Never heard of le Prieur rockets on a Voisin, tried them for the first time on a Nieu 17 last night and was duly amazed by the way they just snaked wildly all over the place like a firework display gone wrong! Can anyone recommend a good downloadable campaign for 1915-16 planes, into which the N 10, N12 and now the Voisin could be hand-edited? With the Voisin's arrival, we will have a better-than-ever selection of planes to provide a really good Fokker Scourge (onset and ending of) campaign experience, Eagle of Lille, and that sort of thing.

On 'Hard' setting, IMHO there is little to be complained of re the First Eagles flight models in the sim's recent iterations, regardless of whatever state they may have been in when FE was first released. I certainly don't find the First Eagles 'Hard' FMs any less realistic than OFF's, altho my only real stick time is a few hours in Cessnas so like most here I'm not really in a position to offer anything other than my own opinion. One of FE's many neat touches is a visual and audible buffet as you approach the stall (and you get both stalls and spins, on Hard setting). I find the FE campaign is actually quite good if you take the time to get into it; ok it doesn't have EAW-style audio briefings and a between-missions pilot hut with creaking bed springs and coughing fellow aviators etc but it does have a realistic mix of missions, fairly respectable inflight and planning maps, realistic squadron colours and individual plane markings which are better done than IL2. Plus there are other friendly and enemy flights going about their business which you can bump into or be caught out by (and the ability to jump to the action, if you don't have time or the inclination to fly in real time). The AI is quite good, and the view system options are also quite good, as is the distant aircraft visibility; you can turn off all the visual and targeting aids and leave them off, just relying on what you can see. Tho you are cast as a flight leader in FE you have the ability to select any squadron pilots for your missions and except in escort flights, can change most of the mission waypoints. It's enough that you begin to know and care about your squadron mates and it means you exercise what can be quite agonising Dawn Patrol-style decisions about who gets to live and who's likely to die, as the casualties mount up, the replacements are slow to arrive, and HQ keeps the missions coming relentlessly. In my experience, FEG/FE2 is up there with the best of them, including both OFF and RoF, both of which I also fly regularly. In particular, FE excells at the experience of patrol-leading and dogfighting, probably two of the most important things a WW1 sim needs to be good at. As for the video clip mistake, it's ironic and possibly no co-incidence that the sim footage was from Arma2, as the real footage they were probably looking for was taken in south Armagh (pronounced 'arma') - haven't seen it in a long while but as a matter of interest, it was real PIRA footage showing pine branches being pulled of a DSHK (12.7mm MG) on a tripod out in a clearing which then opens up (along with a guy with an RPG and another with a rifle) on a Lynx and a Wessex which could be seen flying nap of the earth some way off, IIRC hitting the Lynx which from what I recall at the time, had to make a heavy forced landing. Anyway, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that the Lybian revolution will end up with something fairly and appropriately unpleasant happening to the self-appointed Col G :)

It's First Eagles, the Vosgen terrain add-on, with I think stock FE landscape tiles. For comparison, the shot below is using Jan Tuma's excellent tiles (possibly on the Flanders add-on terrain which covers the northern front from the coast down to about St Quentin) which tiles I think can also be applied to the above Vosgen terrain:

Disagree strongly that padlock systems are bad per se. I use them all the time and am generally happy with them, in combination with panning usually. The prob with the CFS3/OFF padlock system it that it's too closely tied into the TAC 'radar', which you need to turn on (and set to the target type) before you can even start padlocking. In First Eagles for example (and I think IL2 is similar) there are seaprate keystrokes to padlock next, closest and previous air and ground targets. Having to turn on and use the 'radar' to padlock is the thing I don't like about CFS3's system. Otherwise the CFS3/OFF view system works quite well using a combination of padlock, snapviews and panning. No need for head tracking. As for whether it's superior if not essential, I think not; I've tried FaceTracknoir and while it worked, I find ''looking' by turning your head while leeping your 'eyes front' is unrealistic, counter-intuitive and irritating. I for one am quite happy to stick with padlock and panning. I play SP so I'm not remotely interested whether or not TrackIR-ers (may be claimed to) rule the MP skies, just what works for me. It may help compensate for deficiencies in the particular padlock system used by CFS3 but that should not of itself rule out possible improvements to the stock padlock. Maybe a modder could come up with something better, if not the devs. If you want an example of a rather awkward view system, look (sic) no further than RB3d, and it was (is) still a classic sim. FE and RoF both have a view system which doesn't make the cockpit, especially when looking in the forward arc, look at times like it's a fixed, 2d bitmap superimposed on your field of view, which I find enhances the immersion somewhat.