33LIMA

+101 to that! This is a biggie. I remember a debate on this in some CFS3 forum, where the explanation - I think it was from one of the 1% designers, or someone else who knew what he was talking about - was that the AI flew the planes at their unladen weights, mainly ignoring ammo and fuel loads. There is also a more recent ref to this here by poster Greycap: http://www.sim-outho...aircrafts-setup In CFS3 I found that an add-on player-flown Hurricane could not turn with an add-on AI Bf110 which was just ridiculous. I remember one response was 'I don't mind because I like my AI more challenging'. Well, my answer to that is, if you are happy with AI planes that can just inherently fly better than the real ones (or the players) you might as well just fly Crimson Skies or Wings of War and forget about serious sims. And a sim which works that way is really undermining its claim to be one, another nail in the CFS3 coffin, at least as a dog-fighting sim. And dog-fighting is much more important to OFF than to CFS3. Unless OFF has already done something about this, or it's an urban myth, then I think this seriously needs tackled. The obvious ways are either to 'reprogram' the AI to take account of loads (probably hard) or to provide AI-only planes with, say, at least half the fuel and ammo loads added into their unladen weight. I tried this with a CFS3 Bf110 and it worked a treat, from what I could tell. Of course the campaign files (technology trees) would also need to be edited to specify AI planes as default squadron kit - or whatever it is needs done to make them appear in campaigns as well as QC. I might have a go at a P3 mod myself, but my question for the OFF devs would be - has anything been done already in OFF to redress the reported ability of the AI to fly at unladen weights? I suspect not, as I have seen other such experiences reported - like (IIRC) Uncleal's statement about AI climbing without loss of speed. And my own experience suggests the AI can be a bit too handy at 'energy management' which suggests this factor may indeed be the culprit..

Tell that to the marines - the USMC to be specific. They have the right idea. Amongst other ill effects, the separate existence of the RAF means the UK defence budget tends to get split 3 ways regardless of actual need, made worse by it then being spent more to protect UK jobs than kit out the services with the best kit the money can buy. Even when they buy the best like Apaches, we somehow end up paying way more than everyone else. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. The French General in WW1 had the right idea, who, when faced with the setting up of an 'Independent [air] Force' to pursue so-called strategic ( mismomer usually, because it tends ot be independent of strategy rather than supporting it) bombing, said, "Independent of whom? Of God?' Airforces' insistence on independence has historically led to the less-than-optimal employment of both airpower and taxpayer's money. I can say that, and my dad was ex-RAF!

Just to illustrate the point, this is what I mean by reducing the spread of AA fire and improving the visibility of aircraft. In these pics from FE2, I have been able to spot the 2 enemy planes (visible as moving specks, even if the smoke trail had not been there) right in the middle of the cluster of AA bursts, and determine that they are on their own, at roughly my own height, and heading across my nose from right to left. The crucial thing is that the spread of the AA bursts and the rendering of the distant planes meant that I was able to do this without any targeting aids, and while I'm still just far enough away to quickly consider my options, make a plan, and start implementing it.

If it has to be a book title, you could always go one better than the competition, and call it 'Over Flanders Fields - Blue Max Edition'

Understood and appreciated; I just wanted to make sure some of the 'other stuff' besides the shop window items like planes and environments still got a bit of advocacy. I'm sure we can rely on the team to package as much as possible into P4 besides the show-stealers; to me, all the less visible stuff was as much or more important in putting P3 so far ahead of P2, than the extra planes & better scenery; well worth the effort in terms of the immersiveness of the final P3 product.

I think those are Sopwith Tabloids. The Baby was a floatplane, based on the Schneider, which in turn was a floatplane version of the Tabloid (source - 'Sopwith - the man and his aircraft', Harleyford, 1970, which was produced with the co-operation of T.O.M Sopwith and I'd assume is accurate; it has a 3-view scale drawing and some photos of all the Sopwiths including the Baby). See also here: http://www.ctie.mona...e/sopwith3.html PS the lower photo in the linked Aeroplane article is in the above book; it's captioned as being the prototype Tabloid 2-seater (side-by-side seating presumably) which Harry Hawker took to Australia in 1914.

Agree strongly on that. Engines flying off I'm fairly sure is legacy CFS3 behaviour, along with other silly-looking stuff like broken-off wings sailing up into the air, which I don't recall seeing in OFF. I remember seeing both happen with monotonous regularity in the host sim. I recall F4F Wildcat pilot Butch O'Hare being quoted as commenting on how the engines jumped out of G4M Bettys he shot down during his famous defence of USS Lexington under 50 cal strikes but there's a photo of one of his victims nosing down into the sea, taken from Lady Lex presumably, which seems to show both engines intact and I never heard or saw of it elsewhere, except a sequence of a B17 disintegrating where one or more torn-off engines sort of corkscrew away and down, quite unlike what happens in CFS3.

Tried the new FMs and DM but have reverted to stock (HitR) because: - several times - twice shooting at FE2s in the same mission, then in a different campaign with a Nieuport 24 - I saw crew jump out of a plane after I'd hit it at close range but with no flames and in one case no smoke (effects slider at 5); and - my Albatros DV's ability to continue climbing seemed to disappear at about 10,000 feet during a tail chase after some Strutters (flying with auto mixture as usual) - we had just come under AA fire so may have taken an unlucky hit but I wasn't aware of any damage. Haven't been flying P3 for that long so maybe I'm just seeing some stock behaviour but I had not noticed either of the above before. Anyone else noticed either?

94th Aero compilation: German (1930s-era?) compilation: Some of this you'll have seen before (including some clips used in OFF and probably Anthony Fokker's home movie footage of MvR, including the sequence after Lt Bird's shootdown) and some of it looks staged but there is enough of interest in each.

Nice bit of aerial detective work there Olham, I was gonna fire up Google Earth and work that out. I wonder if the DH2 attack on the 2-seater (DFW?) was real or staged. I know the German air service acquired several intact DH2s but it would be nice to think we were looking at some genuine WW1 A2A footage there, even of some of the other sequences, like the bomb burst edited in after the observer dropping one by hand, were not entirely genuine. Have not had a chance to watch the longer US footage yet, love those dainty N.28s.

That is an absolutely beautiful aircraft Stephen and just as important, it fills one of the remaining gaps in the First Eagles planeset, a mainstream 1916 C-type to supplement the Walfisch and fill in better between the Aviatik and the DFW. Likewise, your Nieuport 10 will do the same. For future projects, the last thing you probably need is more suggestions but FWIW, I think the most useful planes would be the elegant and very widely-used BE2e or 2f (the A Team do a range of BEs but they all share a basically BE2b fuselage and have an early appearance, modeled with the streamlined sump fairing under the nose removed) and it could also serve as a basis for a BE-12b fighter version with a bit of tweaking, two for a bit more than the price of one as it were: ...a representative later-war German C-type, like the Halberstadt CV or the LVG CVI, again the latter is one seen at airshows and sure to be popular, as well as a useful gap-filler for the time the DFW was past its best and becoming rarer on the Western Front:

For me anyway, I DO need to have the CFS3 CD (CD2 in fact) in the drive to play. The OFF interface ('OFF Manager') runs fine without the CD but when you try to enter a mission if won't, unless the CD is in the drive. You might also want to give FaceTrackNoir a go, no need for LEDs and I just used it with a cheapo Asda webcam; just got my first kills with it a few mins ago but at the moment it sort of wanders a bit, still need to adjust the settings somewhere.

I hope you have a decent supply of sale-able relatives, because a pair of rudder pedals is also highly recommended. I can manage without TrackIR by having the padlock and straight ahead keys mapped to my joystick (until I make the effort to get used to FacetrackNoir) but OFF is the only sim I've ever played (including Flying Corps Gold which was supposed to be the previous 'gold standard' for modelling adverse yaw and similar inconveniences) where I'm not sure my wrist will take much more of flying and aiming with a twisty joystick for rudder control. The CFS3/OFF padlock feature isn't great, works ok but you have to turn on the little 'radar' (aka TAC) to be able to start padlocking and to cycle targets. If like me you prefer not to see the 'radar' to stick as far as possible to the Mk1 eyeball (which ain't easy in OFF as the planes are hard to see at above about a mile - closer if against the ground - without either labels or the 'radar', even if you know from the Archie bursts that they are there) then turning the TAC on and off is a bit of a chore. CFS3/OFF supports snap views or panning (with numpad keys or coolie hat, scroll lock toggling between them), there's a file somewhere you can edit to change the panning speed which I find a bit slow. You can also zoom your view in or out in steps, from the cockpit view, bit like European Air War. The good thing about OFF's version of CFS3's padlock is that it doesn't display the yellow brackets around your target (harder to see but more immersive). Gauges I never use, with planes whose stalling and top speeds are about 60MPH apart they're of limited benefit, and as in real life some planes don't have much but a rev counter, a clock and a fuel gauge, not so much as a basic T eg Albatros scouts. I use the Z key to display speed, height or heading if I have to, not realistic but once you get the lie of the land around your airfield you can usually get by without much assistance besides what you can see, which seems to be how they did it for real mostly. You have your own area of operations and you get used to the landmarks, and the orientation of the Lines, rivers, main towns etc in your sector. Fuel is rarely an issue especially with the Hat in the Ring expansion where you have to choose between having a skin just for your plane or the former (BH&H) ability to choose your fuel load. At the briefing screen you can change your mission objective, usually you get distant ones but to reduce or eliminate the need for 'warp' and to make things more realistic I usually choose a mission to the front directly oposite my aerodrome, and invariably I run out of ammo, targets or luck long before I get close to running out of juice. This 'optional flight' facility also enables you to influence mission time, and in my case keep it short enough to fly in real time (especially flying German side; OFF/HiTR still gives the German scouts too many missions on the enemy side of the Lines as opposed to patrols or intercepts on their own side; but when I draw one of those I generally ignore it and just go hunting; sometimes it takes a while but just watch out for the black bursts of 'Archie' and you'll get some trade sooner or later). I installed OFF using an existing CFS3 CD install not DVD and it worked just fine, just has to be patched to 3.1a. IIRC the advantage of the DVD version is that you don't need the disc in the drive to play (No-CD CFS3 .exe's can reportedly cause probs for OFF).

I'd have thought a faulty network card would not have stopped a clean Windows install; stopped the network connection working afterwards yes but not the install. The suggestion that it's something to do with the proprietary nature of the PC seems a likely one. Are you trying to do a clean install, onto a formatted HDD? That oughta work on anything that doesn't have a serious H/W prob like faulty HDD or RAM, unless the BIOS is locked into the maker. If you're trying to install on top of anything left that's proprietary, as in a repair, that could be the prob. IIRC one of the XP install options wipes the HDD first. If you have it/them, and if you haven't formatted the HDD and wiped the hidden partition I believe is usually used to do a factory reset, I'd agree using the PB restore CD. Another issue is whether your XP CD is an OEM version that might be for a different make of PC and is 'objecting' to a different brand. You might try eBay for a suitable Packard B Windows XP O/S CD (possibly not factory restore CD, if you've wiped the HDD and lost the ghost partition) they can be got cheaply IIRC. I remember once having a similar prob with a hanging XP install after a mobo upgrade, hung at 19 or was it 21% repeatedly, darned if I can recall exactly how I got past the 'kill zone', it may just have been a matter of trying repeatedly and tediously, but it did work in the end so it can be done.

Didn't do anything for me either, FPS worse under certain circumstances but was fiddling with over-rides too, I just can't leave well enough, alone...will back it out before flying again. Always worth trying these things.

I tried LOD 200 and it had no effect. The article here, excerpt below, gives some good info on the LODs and their function, more is probably available in the MS CFS3 constructor's SDK: http://www.simviatio.../gMax_03.htm#3b <b>First, each model is actually made up of several aircraft, each corresponding to a different LOD (Level Of Detail). This is a pretty common concept in computer games. The basic premise is that the "up close and visible" aircraft that fills your screen has all the details. However, when that aircraft is so far away from you that it's just a "dot" on the horizon, then you don't need much computer power to display it, and it can be represented by only a few polygons. The stock P-47 uses six LOD aircraft, with each LOD grouped together under a Dummy objects which is designated with a suffix _LOD_##. From the SDK Readme: "The number in the LOD name denotes the distance at which it switches. 100 is closest to the camera, and 0 if farthest away. The number does not reflect the distance in meters because it varies based on the size of the whole aircraft (or vehicle or building) on the screen..." The lowest version--"P-47_25D_LOD_10"--only uses 134 faces, while on the other end "P-47_25D_LOD_100" uses 9332 faces! For more information about this, read the info in the SDK. </b> I would really like all the planes in OFF to just that bit be more visible from somewhat further away in external view without having to resort to the 'radar'; I also play First Eagles/FE2 and I find consistently that the better aircraft visibility makes a significant difference to my ability to lead patrols effectively and make better tactical decisions, based just on what I can see unaided; a big immersion factor for me. I know you can zoom in and out while in the cockpit but am clear that it would just be better if planes were more visible, period; and secondly, I fly external, precombat, I like being in my own movie, I prefer looking at the exteriors when I can, and it's a good situational awareness compensation for flying with a monitor, the equivalent of having a box over your hear with a rectangle cut in front (whether you have TIR or not, and I don't). Changing Field of View in Workshop made little or maybe no difference and I don't think there's a setting in the UIsel file that helps either. Like a lot of people from what I see, I heartily dislike the trademark CFS3 fisheye lens effect, and zooming in, zooms the plane not the backgound unless you're in the cockpit. Would also like to stop the Albatros undercart disappearing until it's really close (ie make the LOD 100 appear further away (probably by making the LOD 90 or whatever is next, cut in further away) but I think I'd need to edit the plane's (M3D?) files, presumably in GMax. Besides which if I did, I might find that my problem is instead the CFS3 engine dialling back LODs to suit my low-end system, as others don't seem to see this. There is an .xml file in CFS3/OFF which has some influence over LODs and other things, according to where you have set your plane detail slider in Cfs3config but that doesn't seem to be the main factor, in my case anyway, changing it does not help.

The tip above I think originally came from here, it's still online, was looking at it the other day: http://www.com-central.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=118 One thing I noticed is that it has different recommendations for some of the Over-rides and a few of the Texture Info settings, compared to Olham's own guide, which latter is the set I'm gratefully using at the moment. Will try the stutter eliminator, too, tho what I REALLY need is a Camel and SE5 Eliminator..oh sorry I already have one of those, it's called an Albatros DV.

You've seen it before doubtless but just LOOK at that rate of roll, and those half-loops...who's afraid of the Big Mad Screaming Lanoe Hawker??? My own Red Baron DVD - I couldn't resist the lovely Albs, even tho they messed up most everything else in the MvR storyline - had those combat scenes split, either the poster spliced them or there's a version of the movie where they did a better job on the air fights. The air battle with the O/400s that foolishly came out before dark - not that coming out AFTER dark does them much good, later on in the movie, is also worth watching, especially the clip where Wolf shoots the wing of a Camel and it goes whooshing over his head, also the VFX reel on Youtube, which has some flying sequences not in my DVD, too:

Maybe this one will get made, see below. This Aerodrome thread wanders off a bit but at the end OFF is suggested as a possible source of footage, which is far from impossible, remember the UK's Channel 4 used the CFS2 Dambusters addon (with some FS200X scenery?) to enable a modern RAF crew to 'fly the mission': http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/movies-television/51769-new-mvr-movie.html I'm with Olham on this. Red Baron was a poor movie for all kinds of reasons but I just love watching those CGI planes, especially the Albatrosses, to the extent I can kind of just wince briefly at the Raptor moves, the silly mass formations and that night battle; glass half full and all that. The sequence in the clip above where the flight emerges from the clouds, then is seen in line abreast, then the view from the Hawker non-lookalike's SE as MvR's DIII swerves away, beautiful stuff...in the 0/400 daylight battlle, Wolf's rounds tearing a wing off a Camel and the 'woosh!' as it flips past over his head...great little snippets, oases in a desert, all the more delectable for that perhaps. The aerodrome views are also very evocative and well done. I'd love to import the MG firing sound into OFF. Probably one day I'll buy and watch Flyboys for the same reason, tho to me it really looks an order of magnitude worse than Red Baron, a few nice sequences but a much higher dose of Hollywood BS to swallow, in between.

We, the undersigned/under-posted, urgently but respectfully request and beseech the OFF P4 Development Team to include the Airco DH4 in OFF Phase 4. Our grounds for the same are:[ - the DH4's relatively long active service life, from Bloody April to Armistice (never quite replaced by the awful DH9 or the respectable DH9A); - the wide extent of its service, with c.11 different RFC/RNAS squadrons, and later, with a Liberty engine, with the US Army air service (and Naval Northern Bombing Group) in the last few months of the war; - the wide range of duties undertaken, especially with the RNAS; - its outstanding performance; - the desirability of having a later-war Allied day bomber in the OFF planeset, including one which took part in the Independent Force's 'strategic' bombing campaign (much more useful than an HP 0/400); - the many opportunities for interesting missions for daylight bombing raids, both Mosquito-style lower-level operations and B17-type, longer-penetration, larger formation attacks; - it's a jolly good-looking kite!

Well, I was on the fence over getting HitR; liked the idea of an N28 (which I'd admired since building the excellent little Revel 1/72 kit back in the late 1960s) and the ability to rein in the AI a bit more. But I had a mind to put the cash instead towards a new graphics card; also figured I had managed to get a decent performance from BHaH on my marginal system and didn't want to break the proverbial Camel's Back. But I took the plunge this evening and boy, was it worthwhile! Performance seems the same or better; but as for the rest, if BHaH brought World War 1 in the Air to life before your very eyes - and it does! - then HiTR takes it to the next level. Whether it's the improved terrain textures, trees, woods/copses and towns, the better-than-ever plane textures with convincing linen textures , the fact the Allied Archie now bursts visibly white, or the Nieuport 28 itself which beautifully captures the elegant lines and distinctive camouflage and personal markings of the US Air Service pilots who flew it, I dunno. But I have to tell you, that anyone out there who has BHaH but hasn't yet invested in HitR, well the latter's SimHQ review was right on the nail. HitR IS an essential add-on for any OFF player. A 'must have'. You're missing out on your OFF experience, good tho it is, if you don't grab HitR too. Sure the wingmen are still slow to follow your turns and the rivers and railways still have dog-legs, but that's small beer beside the rest of the package. Never mind waiting for P4, or because you think you don't need more Nieuports or a DH5; don't deny yourself the richer experience that HitR adds to OFF, now.

From the clips I've seen, I doubt ANYTHING could be worse than Flyboys, another potentially fine story is mangled beyond recognition by the same fine tradition of movie-making that brought us U-571 - pass the sick bag, somebody...reminds me of that quote in Macbeth, how does it go...'A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. Thanks to Flyboys, a generation will now grow up, thinking you could shoot down Fokker triplanes with a few rounds of trusy ol' .45 ACP - it's a good round and a nice pistol, but it ain't THAT good.

Yup, me too...would be nice if the devs kept in some lower-detail options, whereby we could run it at P3 quality and FPS, while getting the benefit of the new planes and as much else as we can, without finding we need an upgrade we can't readily manage for a while. Hopefully the required specs, if not the Full Monty, will be out before Xmas, so I can see what kit I'll need and get the letter to Santa written in good time, and/or start planning the bank robbery

As you'll know, we DO already have an Aviation Militaire 2-seater in OFF, one that was widely used in 1916-18, namely, the Sop. 1A2, 1B2, and 1B1 - the One-and-a-half Strutter. Not French-designed of course but French-built in large numbers; the AM used more of them than the RFC/RNAS I believe, and had them operational on the Western Front for longer too, from September 1916 to about April 1918, according to my sources. Belgian air force used them too. So it was a rather good choice for the OFF planeset - three-plus birds with one stone, or flies with one swipe as I believe they say in Germany. Anyway I'd certainly sign a petition for a Voisin or a Breguet 14. or Lewie's promising Caudron for that matter. The Voisin 8 would probably be the best choice, n'est-ce pas, because of her long service life? Certainement, that would be a better gap-filler than more RFC or German types (tho I, for one, would not want for a moment to deter the OFF team from simply filling the Flanders skies with Martinsyde Elephants, Big Acks, Fokker 1916 D-types, Pfalz DXIIs, LVG CVIs, Siemens-Schukerts or Gothas It's not a case of favourite planes, it's a case of representative ones. There are already only a few significant gaps in the OFF planeset and many of these gaps are set to shrink appreciably with P4. But I like cake - and where's the harm in asking for more icing? Besides which, think of the exciting mission types the DH4 opens up. It was the Mosquito of its day. Plus it participated in large-scale daylight raids. Think of 633 Squadron AND Memphis Belle, flown as attacker or defender - that's what a DH4 would bring to OFF, not just 'another 2-seater'.