I flew my third campaign mission last night - this is starting to get good...I learned a couple things.

The BRACKETS button is important because that's the easiest way to tell which of the TAC screen blips you selected (the yellow one) is which contact in the air. In other words, as you change the yellow from blip to blip on the TAC screen, the brackets jump from aircraft to aircraft in the sky.

You move from friendly blip to friendly blip (the blue ones) with the Next Friend command and from enemy to enemy (red blips) with Next Target (I think it is).

Both the brackets and where the padlock is pointed will jump to the aircraft indicated by the yellow blip.

Eindeckers are sitting ducks for the Strutter. I'm surprised I even ran into them - I expected Halberstadts in June 1916 Flanders (flying with RNAS "C" squad). Things should get tougher in October when Boelke's boys begin to appear in their new Alb DIIs

You must end the game with the END GAME command if you want to claim kills. The quit selection on the CFS3 pink drop down dumps you directly to the main screen. I had no claims on my first two kills because of bypassing the end sequence screens. No matter, I was credited 2 I didn't realize I got the very next mission. All I did was give 'em a burst or two and roll so my gunner could take a crack at them as I zoomed or overshot them. I bet it'll be a gas doing that in a Biff later in the war.

#8) PS: I'm not using my 1,0 BLIP command as the motor sputters impressively as one throttles it down. Landings are a dream if you come in low and slow and stall her as she touches down, then chop the power if not bouncing out of control.

Months ago I asked the question:

>>Has anyone written a primer on how to use the commands in OFF (or CFS3, I suppose)? I haven't figured out how to find wingmen the way <tab> finds bogies and I don't want to use invisible cockpit. Formation flying is a real challenge without some way to keep them in view. I can deal with sight obstruction caused by my own plane - in fact it helps me stay oriented some. The problem is the lack of a way to readily find what I'm looking for and (again) padlock it if needed. Snap view is fine for routine flying and landing, but scroll view is awkward without TrackIR.>>

Months later I have played around with the game to the point where I think I can address the above issue myself. I am posting this in the hopes it may help another newbie catch on with less effort. Feel free to add or correct anything I write. I'm still learning:

Use of the TAC screen to select contacts (instead of "N", "E" & "F" in Red Baron 3d):

Instead of using an "N", "F" or "E" key as one does in RB3d, in OFF, you move from friendly blip to friendly blip (the blue ones) with the "Next Friend" command and from enemy to enemy (the red blips) with "Next Target". There are also white blips when the contact is farther away and the contact is unknown, kind of like the Red Baron "N" key working when "F" and "E" won't yet pick up the contact.

Toggling "Brackets" on is an easy way to quickly tell which yellow TAC screen blip is which contact in the air. Tabbing to the next TAC screen blip and following the brackets to indicate which aircraft is the yellow blip, allows you to situationally aware. As you move the yellow from blip to blip on the TAC screen, the brackets jump from aircraft to aircraft in the sky. Both the brackets (and where the padlock is pointed if engaged) jump to the contact indicated by the yellow blip. That makes it much easier to tell if that blip moving behind you (for example) has a altitude advantage or not - a critical thing to know.

Sometimes the padlock view will jump, but you won't see the brackets (especially common when the contact is behind you somewhere). I'm not sure, but I think this happens when the view of the contact is obscured by your own aircraft. At any rate, you can find find them by toggling the "invisible cockpit". I don't leave it on because I need to see where my own aircraft is as a reference point, but quick peeks are helpful. It also seems one has a slightly better span of vision with the invisible cockpit (ie: can twist the head a little further to see the contact).

Use of views to see the contact (like "F8" in Red Baron):


Target ID is greatly simplified if you use the "Player/Target" toggle to see the contact in the foreground. The label at the top of the screen will changes for each view. Hit "Next View" until you get to "Player/Target View". Then hit "player/target view" toggle and you will to see the other aircraft. You should only have to do that once -after that just hit "Next View" until that view comes up.

Once in "Target View", you can use "Next Target" to cycle through the view of each target aircraft, as you cycle through the blips on the TAC.. This is an easy way to see how many of each type there are, similar to repeatedly hitting "N" in Red Baron when in F8 target view.

You may find it necessary to pause the game when doing this because it's hard to fly when you're not in the cockpit.


Making it more realistic (and Harder)

It occurs to me that one could tailor the amount of help the game provides in identifying contacts. On the one extreme you could use all the above, plus enable labels that tell you what it is you are seeing. Steps along the path to reducing the help include 1) reducing dependancy on the TAC screen by dragging it nearly off screen, then using the brackets and padlock view just to watch the sky while tabbing from contact to contact; 2) losing the brackets and just trust that you are looking in the direction of a contact, and 3) you could even rely solely on visual ID. I suppose with TrackIR, you could 4) go entirely "au naturel" and constantly scan for pixels to turn into aircraft. It is a lot harder to have to pick out a tiny dot that is a contact rather than using the brackets which track the contact like police helicopter FLIR locks onto a pursued vehicle, and even harder to visually ID it as friend or foe. You might need a different type of help, if that's you idea of fun, such as a silk scarf to reduce friction and Ben Gay liniment for neck muscle aches. 8^)

Thanks for posting that Le Heureux. Just for reference there is a key chart linked from the main FAQ page now too, plus many hints and tips over at combat ace forum that cover targetting etc (links on our website).

Can't recommend TrackIR enough for OFF (or any sim) by the way for anyone without, makes viewing and tracking completely natural.

I might have overlooked it, but is this game running on Vista 64 without anyproblems?

S! vH

Hello Mr. P, Uther or whomever,

I noted on CombatAce some aircraft, missions and campaigns additions for OFF. The site does not qualify if the creations are for versions 2 or 3, though some of the available maps are from Rabu, which gives the material credibility.

But before my next computer FFU, my mind inquires if they are safe to import.

Yes it runs on XP, Vista 32, 64, Win7 too.

5555 I think you asked already. You need to check with the 3rd party authors that made the missions. However old missions made BEFORE P3 came out will likely NOT work properly without some editing.