Shiloh

Those are fantastic. It's too bad when someone spends countless hours building a model then they photograph them on their picnic table. We can start an OFF convention once a year, pack our rigs up and play OFF for a week straight. The first convention will be in my town in Massachusetts and it starts tomorrow.

I just picked up They Fought For the Sky by Quentin Reynolds from the local library. It seems like a decent enough book and easy reading so I should bang through it in the next few weeks. I figured I needed to learn a few things about WWI flying as my knowledge is lacking in comparison to other wars in history. Here's a link to it on Amazon.

I finally got my rig back today with new CPU, fired up my TrackIR for the first time and did my first flight in over a week and all I can say is wow! That was an absolutely exhilarating experience. My neck hurts as my TrackIR wasn't calibrated just right and I had to compensate (although I had it pretty close) and I'm slightly dizzy but other than that it was a fantastic first flight. Had a quick combat 4 on 4 and more than a few times I got the enemy in my sites. It was really difficult to stay on their tails too long as I found it hard to coordinate my right hand controlling the joystick and my head movement with the TrackIR but soon enough I'll get them in sync. I was determined to stay in cockpit view as I believe that's how I'll achieve the most immersive experience, and a few times I went into spins because I'm not used to that view and lost the horizon but all-in-all I think it was a good first flight. I was flying the Sopwith Pup and we ran into some Albatross and they were able to take out my wingmates pretty quickly. Then it was me against 3 and I held my own for about 10 minutes until one of their shots killed my pilot and the rest was history. I know you guys have all experienced what I'm feeling right now so I won't ramble on any longer but this one flight has me hooked. I've experienced what makes OFF special and to celebrate let me buy everybody a round.

I'll have to check that out. Duly noted. This has me curious.

When I was having flying issues with the Sopwith Pup last week it was raining and there were low-lying heavy clouds. I wonder whether I was facing some real heavy turbulence? Probably so as I flew her last night and she was highly-responsive.

That's good news Olham! I know what it's like to have a downed rig so welcome back to the skies. I'm going to attempt to OC my CPU as well but first I may have to upgrade the heatsink as the stock one that came with my CPU is kinda' weak. It seems like a really easy system you have there for OCing...must be nice. Good luck with your new rig and enjoy.

That's another good point tranquillo...hadn't really though about the turbulence. I guess I've watched too many movies where they use the clouds to hide a maneuver then come in behind their enemy. I really need to read some books...maybe Lou can loan me some of his 1st editions. You would have thought they might have had some kind of basic liquid leveling device that could alert them when they were dipping their wings too much. Hellshade makes it look so easy but it's really not. I think I have a few hundred hours of flight-time ahead of me before I'm flying at that level. As you know there are so many things to learn but I want to have patience and never forget the progression will take some time.

Good to know Olham. It's very disorienting and with lack of gauges, it's twice as bad. This is what I look like when I come out of a cloud and realize I'm heading straight into the ground.

Do you ever wonder how something so significant and important to enjoyable gameplay can slip through the cracks and get released that way? It's mind boggling.

I can't wait to fly again. I work from home so I have to try and be disciplined but its really tempting to put stuff aside and just fly around and take in the scenery. I'll just have to make it my nighttime reward for a hard days work.

Sitting in the cockpit makes all the difference as I felt disconnected when doing the 3rd person view. I tried peering over the side a few times and generally had a difficult time locating the enemy but the TrackIR was a bit disorienting to start. I did feel good about keeping her pretty level overall despite losing the horizon. How you guys navigate through a lot of clouds without finding the horizon I don't know but I suppose you just get a feel for it after a while. It's probably like driving on the ice - don't turn the wheel unless you have to and keep her steady. Good flying and be safe up there.

Viewing them now nbryant...thank you.

Good to know...thanks Olham. I've seen some great custom skins made by OFF fliers. Are these currently available in the game or would I need to upload (provided it was OK with the original artists off course).

Is there going to be a way to preview skins in P4?

Wow...that's some collection Lou...and some 1st editions too. Your interest seems real focused on WWI. I have a good amount of history books but they're all over the place as far as time periods/wars, etc. You could probably sell your books and put a down payment on a plane.

Fantastic work Sandbagger...keep it up!

I only watched 5 minutes but so far, so good. The production quality looks good and I'll have to give it a watch later tonight...thanks for this Lewie.

I'm very new to this sim so I can't really compare with what has been done but these images look absolutely amazing! The look of the new buildings are fantastic and the details in the cockpit make me want to jump right in. I thank you for your commitment and look forward to going back in time to when flight and fight were new and the men who fought were fearless beyond my comprehension. Keep up the good work.

Sure thing TaillyHo. I would definitely use the fast-forward feature when leaving your base and when trying to get into enemy waters. You can imagine how long it takes a sub to go a long-distance in real-time. Happy hunting.

I have a version of Silent Hunter 3 on my rig which I've played a few missions with. There is an excellent mod for this game at www.thegreywolves.com but I think they disbanded before they completed the mod for SH4. This sim was overwhelming when I first played but once you start cruising the world's oceans you start to pick up on things. I wish I could help more but I started playing right before I sold my house, then was uprooted for a while then never got back into it. It can be really hard and when the enemy locates you, it can lead to some heart-pounding minutes as they pass right over you in sometimes only 20 feet of water and miss your sub by inches - it's a true cat and mouse game.

Just found this...fantastic Homeboy.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and say how excited I am to enter the flight sims genre. I researched sims carefully and loved the look, feel and time-period of OFF. I watched a bunch of great YouTube videos (Hellshade) and was instantly sold. I read some posts and it seems like a really great community and I look forward to being part of it. I have never flown a sim but know I'll love it as I'm a student of military history (Civil War/WWI/WW2) and love learning more about a particular time period and I definitely can use some brushing up on WWI dogfight tactics. Yesterday I ordered the game, a joystick, and hopefully I'm up flying with you guys by the end of the week. I'm looking forward to it! ~ Shiloh

Ahhh...good ole WWI...wind socks and chimney smoke to determine wind direction. I'm pretty sure I was facing some rough wind as I can't think of anything else that would have made that Pup jump around like that.

That's good to know but I would rather keep it real which leads to my next question. How do I tell the wind speed/direction, etc? Also my TrackIR arrived today but my rig is still in the shop. :mega_shok: They were supposed to do my BIOS update yesterday but the business next door was using an air compressor and it was making the lights flicker and they didn't want to risk it.