These kind of details add greatly to immersion and suspension of disbelief and I look forward to experiencing them.

However, for on-line play, I wonder how you feel about such potential immersion killers as the use of Teamspeak (not a WWI technology) which many will use, and the inevitable inappropriate behaviour of some players.

I agree immersion is the goal. It probably means very different things to different people, though.

Teamspeak is a option some players like, and others don't.

Personally, TS with WW1 planes is not for me. Absolutely crushes stalking tactics; I feel it's akin to onboard radar or Red Crown for a WW2 sim. Still, I don't eschew the option for others who feel differently and expect there will be a variety of servers that will accomodate everyone.

I know that I would probably have not bothered to stay in online flying (even flying IL-2 at all after the first couple months), in a "squad" or have built all the friendships that I have if I never got to speak to anyone. What can I say, it's also a social thing for many of us.

I would love to have missions, and online wars where voice coms are not used, and clearly that is fundamentally how it should be, despite the fact that in the real world visual communication via hand and head signals is a little easier in the sim at this point. I have yet to figure out how to marry the rather difficult to merge goals of historical and combat fidelity with the simple reality that I'm playing a video game in the modern era with some modern (well, a few of them) online friends.

Another issue in the same vein (that people usually don't mention) is the fact that so much knowledge has been accrued with respect to aerodynamics, ACM/BFM, and tactics that the simple fact that I'm a modern pilot, trained in modern tactics and aerobatics, who then spent quite a few years flying a virtual WWII and modern combat sims means I'll never be a historical opponent to anyone - unless I try to be. In all of these sims I've observed the errors in thinking that real world period tactics employed, and when writing our training materials we almost always end up with novel tactics, novel formations, and fundamentally new lines of thought that simply work better etc (the simple example is the finger 4 formations vs a combat spread).

Thinking about all of this as it pertains to historical matchups quickly brings any rational lines of thought to the same place - we either fly according to a script of historically correct maneuvers, tactics, and as much as possible the same basic thought process about battle and really are playing the part of historical reenactors where the outcome is known before the battle starts. . .if I use tactics that were not employed or understood in WWI no matter the specifics, then we are aren't being historical right? Clearly most of you are not interested in an *online* system like that right? For me that’s what single player campaigns are for, not the social experience of online flying.

So where do we draw the line? I think that will be a rather challenging thing to determine for the "full switch" crowd unless we just agree to some sort of compromise on a case by case basis.

The group I fly with tends towards the full switch experience in most every case, but I’m certain that we’ll have no guilt as a consequence of the fact that sometimes we’ll have scrims and wars using no TS, and in other cases it will be the 60 player IL-2 style online war, online dogfight, or 1v1, 2v2 etc using voice coms. . .why? Because this is a friggin video game that we are playing with our friends and we’re here to have fun in the many forms we can have it with a great flight sim, and we recognize that for the more historical battles with need a specific ethos, and are probably better off reserved for single player stuff for those that really want full control over the environment.

Thanks for the list of issues guys (probably best to post at our forum) but we are looking into them as we speak

BTW FlyX Lewis gun already noted to be fixed for P4.

3200 researched aircraft textures, can produce the odd error, but we'll look at fixing those for sure.

We are adding to list of errors or shortcomings and will address as many as we can in P4.

We all know there's a MASSIVE amount of work involved to reproduce WW1 in a simulator fully for anyone to get 100% right!

I see no need to draw a line re: TS; room for what everyone wants! My experience with TS while flying has been listening to guys talking about work, their bad marriages, TV shows, etc. I didn't like that with WW2 sims, let alone WW1 where there were no radios at all. But my bad experience is mine; you obviously had great fun with TS, TX-ECO. We'll all seek like-minded guys and fly with our preferences.

Oh trust me, I've had plenty of those sorts of experiences with TS too. . .I fly on coms with a select number of people at this point. I also know how much more personally effective I am in combat without the coms of a public server to influence my flying. . .with our closer group we aim for discipline in coms use, and that does work. My point was more about not over regulating people by casting too many value judgements on the way in which people enjoy their flight sims. I'm not implying that you were doing that, but I've seen many discussions by people who get a bit carried away in their judgments of coms users and doom and gloom about the consequences of coms use.

Pol,

**Admin Edit - not confrontational, but it would be best to not address other forums issues in here**

I know you check posts there as well.

I do think comparisons and contrasts between OFF and ROF are valid and should be discussed here because their strengths and weaknesses are entirely opposite and both still are "under construction."

As I have before, I congratulate you guys on producing an excellent product and encourage everyone who flies ROF to fly OFF as well.

Aloha,

ttt

Another thing (already) sorely missed is the squadron "score" chalkboard...

**Admin Edit - not confrontational, but it would be best to not address other forums issues in here**