-Hawkeye-

What reference are you using to judge speed in the game? The full real gauges, if they're like the ones in RoF, do not read true. To get a true relative comparison between aircraft, you have to use the selectable HUD gauges instead of the full-real gauges. In RoF the German anemometers usually read within a KPH or two of actual speed. The pitot type gauges on the other aircraft disagree with the actual in-game speed by quite large margins most of the time. Even altimeters often have significant disagreement. I've been wanting to spend the time to do just what you did, plus other parameters; just haven't gotten around to it yet. With regard to "a rotary" for Chili, that's a big generalization. 160 Gnome Camels seem very common, because those were/are most available, but don't necessarily reflect what the 130 Clerget did. Even if you duplicate the exact engine, you really can't duplicate the fuel that went into them. In any case, it would be something that could help interpolate performance. I hope he doesn't hurt himself, considering the reliability of those rotaries is not what he's used to. Thanks!

I agree with the damage assessment. I would also add that in my opinion, the gunnery is more realistic. It seems to more accurately simulate deflection requirements and bullet drop. The tracers are certainly more easily seen by me and there seems to be a lot of them, almost like every bullet fired is a tracer.... I'll let others decide whether that's realistic or not. Later, when single-gun scouts appear, it will be interesting to see if that aspect makes them more, or less effective than in RoF. Later in Hotlead's live stream, Peter Zvan had an interesting comment, which I think I agree with. He mentioned "toning down" the Camel. After having cleared all before me in one without taking any significant damage, it seemed pretty invincible, especially considering that it's faster than even the Pfalz, which basically means that there is nothing the poor Pfalz can do except shoot a Camel in the back when he's not looking (outnumber them and use team fighting tactics). I don't personally consider that wrong...TBH the Pfalz D.IIIa was not reputed to have very good performance in real life, and yet somehow in RoF it is still one of the top planes, even after it was "toned down" years ago. So in my opinion, the Pfalz D.IIIa in FC seems about as realistic and accurate as it should be, although I do think the nose does try to pull up too much on it's own. That's expected in the Camel and possibly the Dr.I to a lesser extent, but I don't see why the Pfalz is rendered as being tail heavy. In the end it's clear to me that the Camel in FC is the Camel of old that was once in RoF. Whether the Dr.I is any serious competition for it is something I personally haven't tried in PvP yet, but the Dr.I does seem to me to be definitely more unstable as a gun platform, and does seem to me to have more vicious stall characteristics than the Camel does, which seems kind of backwards to me. In the end, if everything just remains how it is, we will definitely have to change how we do things, from a Central point of view. Hopefully, we can look forward to significantly better performance from the standard Fokker D.VII when it arrives, and also hope for the "au" variant, in addition to the "f" (BMW) variant. I don't really think we have a right to expect any better performance from the Albs than we already have in RoF...they may even end up more Pfalz-like, but with weaker wings. My personal hope is that we someday get a little more variety on the Central side. Planes like the Roland D.VI and Seimens-Schuckert scouts wouldn't do much to change the balance of power, but it would make things more interesting for our side; and of course the 2-seater possibilities on both sides are not only practically limitless, but very important, and should not be neglected.

Whatever you do, it seems to me that the most important thing is that the consolidated downloads links remain most current Maybe divide them there if that helps you guys the most? ???

Gotta say that today's special event (Dec 23) on the JG1 FC server was spectacular! Super-duper thanks to Butzzell for having excellent mission maps ready to go, and all those who joined us for the fun! For those who couldn't make it, we missed you, but were probably too involved to remember that at the time Learned a LOT about the Entente planes, and flew them the entire time. At high altitudes, the SPAD is not as dominant over the Pfalz, as it is at low altitudes. I found the Camel flippin' awesome, we cleaned house with it, it turns like crazy and can catch anything on the Central side right now, so is really the most dangerous foe for us. Special THANKS to Larner for winging up in SPADs, what a great experience; even though he was severely hampered by excessively low frame rates. Also as usual excellent teamwork and leadership by Razwald, Loopy, Dudley, Hotlead, Pragr, Etzel, Butzzell, Lipfert, Snaggle, Kliegmann, and everybody else I had the extreme pleasure of flying with and against. There is something unusually memorable about flying in a completely new venue, and FC did not disappoint; and I have to rank today's event among my all-time favorites. S! All! and Merry Christmas!

Now THAT'S a great attitude! One I also subscribe to Looking forward to having you with us, sir. S!

Sweet!

Lotta commendations there! Good to see.... all well deserved. S! Gentlemen!

He he, this guy has my level of patience

The link in the O.P. above (now edited) is just books you could get through "Goodreads" linked from their site. There is an historian associated with their organization, who is now deceased, named Ambassador Len Shurtleff. You'll see references to him prominently on their site, and here's a link to his WWI introductory favorites: Shurtleff's Favorites

Haha so funny! You go, man!

I wasn't able to see it during the first showing, as I had wanted to. It's only because of the second showing that I let it go. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it on Dec 27th.

I just became a member of the World War One Historical Association. What I didn't expect was their book section, which is filled with titles and subjects that are new to me. I don't think you have to be a member to purchase any of these. All I know is that many of the titles look extremely interesting and I will definitely be ordering some. EDIT: Apparently you don't purchase them directly on their site, but there is a "Goodreads" link for each one, which leads to another site where you can get them by PDF download, or links to Amazon, etc. Right now I just chose to be a member level that sends you a printed copy for USA members. In the future, I might might consider going to the "Donor" level, mainly to support an organization who's interests are so in line with my own. In any case, I hope you find something here that you're interested in, and haven't found before: WW1 Books

LOL I knew I'd be in for it if I let slip that beauty.... I expect it's open season, now

Look! They've numbered their wings, with their I.Q.'s !! You see, 21 is the flight leader !

Left a like and comment. Very well done! Hope it leads to big things for you guys!

Yes it is very true that this gentleman is a class act. Whenever I've heard the commentary become heated, he's never joined in or disrespected an opponent. Personally I'm as guilty of sounding obnoxious on comms as anybody out there, when things get dicey; or even acting in a way strangers would see as offensive (kill monger). But Sir Baer's attitude is what I would aspire to, in my fondest wishes. S! to as honorable a foe as there is out there!

Excellent! Thanks!! Since our Consolidated Download Links section of our forum has a section for "Other Squadron Skins", perhaps our wonderful web managers would add your link there. S!

Let us not decry the deficiencies of the SPAD here, nor the miraculous performance of the Alb D.Va, friend ! Such complaints are likely to fall on deaf ears I'm pretty sure most here would gladly trade places; and although the obvious proficiency of the 103rd would be almost impossible to duplicate in a short time, I think you'd see at least a reversal of fortunes quite soon. How revealing is it, to see that the most effective way for an Alb to down a SPAD is to have it's disintegrated wing parts fly off and hit you If what we've been told about FC turns out to be accurate, such idiosyncrasies of damage should become a thing of the past; looking forward to that. Still, pretty amazed at how wonderful RoF is, faults and all. S!

The only thing that got "broke" was myself on that stupid Metz map, and I didn't get to "be on" anybody important BTW, that cloud layer was 500 meters thick....I know, I climbed through them, so I could come down near the unsuspecting 103 which did not work out too well for me. Maybe next time. S!

Wow, very well done guys! Thanks to you, we did do rather well. S!

Oh, I will be there, and this time, the friends from out-of-town will have to reschedule! To the those 103rd, I only have two things to say: 1: 2:

Geez, at some point a long time ago, I had the same issue, after some update (game or driver, I can't remember which). SOMEBODY (seems like either Butzzell, Snaggle or Vonrd) gave me the solution, and it was something pretty simple, changing one setting, then suddenly full-screen mode worked fine again. Couldn't be as simple as running as administrator? Man, it seemed so logical at the time, and I can't even remember it now. EDIT: I think maybe, run in compatibility mode for: Win 7 (?) Properties > Compatibility > Compatibility Mode Win 7 works for me since then.

Hi all, I hope this doesn't seem too stupid....some things I learned recently just because I had to take a closer look at things when remapping controls for new game controller hardware. However, I've played RoF since the very beginning, and never truly understood exactly what the view save function was doing, until now. The following are misconceptions I had, and what I learned. Maybe you already know this stuff, or found it obvious; I certainly didn't. First misconception: You can only save views to Numpad keys. Revelation: You're not actually saving views to the Numpad keys in and of themselves; you're saving them to "Pilot Head" functions in the Controls map. Background: By default, there are 12 "Pilot Head" views, which have some default keys and joystick buttons assigned to them. These include Numpad keys, and also the 8 POV hat positions. Now, I'm not sure if you can get rid of the Numpad keys in the controls map; you can certainly delete them....what effect that would have, I'm not sure. What I do know is that you can get rid of the POV button assignments, and assign any other game controller buttons that you wish. This all began to become a question when Hotlead told me that he mapped some or all of his views to controller buttons (his POV hat, I believe). Well, I tried this, but all that it did was replace other saved views that I had already made, using the Numpad keys. At that point I realized that the Numpad keys and the POV hat views were bound together in some way, and resigned myself that there were not more than the 10 views that I had already saved, to be had. It was not until recently that I began to look more closely at the controls map, since I got a new set of controllers; and the problem that arose was that in the past, if I wanted to use a game controller to actuate a saved view, I assigned that game controller button, in it's software, to emulate that Numpad key. However, I can't now do that, since the software that I have now does not yet have that capability. In any case, in making a new controls map, I had to delete all references to my previous controllers, in places that weren't the same. In my case, my new joystick does not have an 8-way POV hat (it has a 4-way POV hat). Therefore, I thought it best to delete all references to the 8 POV direction assignments (0, 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270, 315) and decide how best to assign from there. When doing that, it became obvious to me that all that was left assigned to those views, were Numpad keys. Light bulb !! Could I now just replace those with regular game controller buttons, without having to emulate Numpad keys? So yeah, it works. Now I'm wondering if I could get rid of the Numpad assignments altogether; but there is no real reason to do that....they make a good reference, and a good way to create a saved view....so I left those as-is and added the joystick button assignments that I wanted. Second misconception: There can only be 10 saved views, Numpad 0 through Numpad 9. Revelation: There are at least 12 "Pilot Head" view functions that can be altered. Background: Since it's actually "Head: snap...." functions that you're altering when you save any view, there are at least 12....also included are the ones assigned to the Numpad Enter key, and also the Numpad Decimal key. It's entirely possible the the Numpad + and Numpad - could be used....but because those two are assigned to pilot head zoom by default, I won't mess with them. Anyway, I've always had saved views for every airplane in RoF that serve the same function. Up until now, that has been so I can look closely at hard-to-see instruments. However, I am now able to add a couple more to each and every airplane, so that I can do what Hotlead does....have some quick views that look out and around your nose to see contacts that are difficult to see within the cockpit. All that can be confusing to keep track of. Obviously, once you've gone to all of the trouble to make the saved views in each plane, it's very advantageous to make a backup of that Luascripts file. But even so, if you need to alter anything, it's good to know exactly how things are set up now. To that end, I made the following document that reminds me of how I have things set up, so I don't have to re-save any views. The first column is all of the views that the game has which can be altered (saved). The second column is (I believe) the default Numpad keys that are assigned (I don't think I've changed any of those, but I could be wrong). The third column is what I altered that view to do....what it does now in each plane. The fourth column is what additional game controller button I use to actually call up that view (these are all hat switches on either my joystick, or throttle. I have plenty!) Since these are standard things to look at, I'll probably apply the same logic to saved views in BoX, assuming that they work the same way....I'll have to see! In essence, if you use TIR, the standard views are totally unnecessary, so you can reassign them to things that are harder to see easily using your normal head movements. S!

Great work, great streaks! S!

Back on topic....here is what I finalized to after some initial changes, for RoF button mapping. The index finger 2-way hat in the right side of the grip did not work as well as I would have hoped for FOV zooming (it's just not as natural as using your thumb, IMHO), so I moved that function to the thumb 4-way hat. I also settled on the position of the engine on/off switch (actually 2 choices), and the engine blip switch. I was disappointed to learn on the Virpil Controls Hanger forum that you CAN'T emulate keyboard buttons on the controllers using the VPC Configurator software ("yet", they say, implying that it is coming in the future). So with regard to specific saved views, I'm stuck with the keyboard right now. Actually, I think in the game those saved views are bound to the 8-way POV hat function, so I might be able to juggle something using the many free 4-way hats that I have available. But for now: