I keep plenty of pillows handy.

Good points for sure. However as Catfish says there are workarounds or settings to cope with most of these points.

The campaign is a realistic campaign were possible, so yes surviving is tough, you will not "win the war" single handedly, that's the idea, BUT you can adjust your pilot chances of survival in the workshop settings. From dead is dead, to death on a die roll (more chance to survive) right up to pilot never dies. You also have the chance to escape if you quit over enemy lines, and if you turn on pilot never dies you will not be captured either and YOU then can decide when you would have died, for example crashing at 200mph into the ground and just go make a new pilot.

In the latest Superpatch V1.32 and subsequent minipatches we added many new options. Including Air Start so you can start right over the target for those with limited time, that don't want to take off and fly to target.

New Quick Scenarios so you can get right into the action.

New mode as Steve pointed out for QC and Quick Scenarios - "Pilot never dies" to save you losing your pilot and having to create a new one.

Exploding from hitting your wing on the ground has gone too very very very annoying bug we could not find for a long time but we squashed the little B in the end. Still each to his own, no sim is perfect, and no sim will please all people.

Good discussion though.

Some of the models in OFF where made quite a few years ago, and we learned as we went along.

New models are coming, and getting better. We have updated several along the way and new ones.

One of the new models Fokker E.V. pics..
http://www.overflandersfields.com/Preview%20Pics/index.html

I guess it's all what you want out of a sim. Yes knowing your pilot chances he won't make it 17hrs let alone survive the war is very small indeed playing on full realism settings. ODB has supplied the means to "color your world" just about anyway you like. Another game that comes to mind that was similar in the "tough road ahead in surviving department" is B-17II. 25 bombing missions starting out in 1943 on full realism isn't a walk in the park just like OFF3 BHaH isn't either, but it's adjustable also. You either play DiD and accept what happens or play with some of the "help" the devs have supplied, no foul either way IMHO, it's all about what you want to get from the gaming experiance.

On a personal note I think the hardest part for any sim pilot to accept is their virtural persona's death by means that seem somehow coded in the game. I myself (and others I'm sure) have had pilots that were doing very well, experianced (hours) and a good number of kills only to wind up dead because (insert your mission here). I seriously doubt there is a routine running in the game that spots a pilot that is close to breaking 17hrs or even surviving the war and makes sure that doesn't happen by hook or crook. That being said I sure there is a routine running that may apply a variable percentage to your pilot surviving x hours or x missions dependant on which side hold's the advantage in quality of pilots and equipment in the time period your flying in. But even in these events I'm sure there is a randomizer that even if your side holds all the cards your pilot can end up dead through no fault of your own. And just as in real life it's lady luck that decides on which end of that percentage your pilot wind up on.

IMHO based on my BOBII experience, most all players just do not really like to die in a sim. They may say it is OK but deep down they do not like it.

Well, the good thing about OFF is that it's very customizable. My only disagreement with previous posts is in regards to the comparison of IL2 and OFF aircraft. I think the terrain is pretty evenly matched at high resolutions and i don't even have phase3, but phase2 looks just as good to me as some of the highly detailed mod maps for IL2.

As for aircraft graphics however, i think IL2 takes the lead simply because of the higher detail in cases of damage to the airframe, even if those graphics are scripted to a large extent. RoF i didnt buy for various well known reasons to most people who didn't buy it, but after spending about 10 hours on the demo i can say it comes ahead of everything i've seen to date in regards to aircraft graphics and general detail (moving parts and aircraft sounds). I haven't seen Black Shark though, that could come pretty close i guess.

The damage graphics in RoF are very good but as is usually the case nothing is perfect. In the case of RoF, it's the exact opposite of OFF. In OFF your plane could explode in a slightly rough landing when all that should happen was perhaps a torn off wheel and a subsequent groundloop, the damage representation is too "explodey" sometimes for lack of a better word. In RoF it's the opposite, it's too soft sometimes. I mean, the rag-doll physics and watching wings and fuselages get bent in realistic ways and not outright explode is nice most of the times. However, if your wingless crate plummets vertically to the ground from an altitude of 3km at terminal velocity, explosion or not, the kinetic energy would be sufficient to reduce everything to a pile of fast flying shrapnel. What you get in RoF though is simply a fuselage that's broken and twisted in 4-5 points along its axis.

I will give OBD credit as they have toned down the exploding AC quite a bit in the latest patches, you still have them but much more smoking hulks too, it has improved and thats always a good thing. Now not trying to beat up on RoF (which I have also) the DM are definately a mixed bag of nuts. Definately first rate in combat,crumpling wings, parts flying off, low speed low altitude ground impacts. But like Blackdog_kt stated the DM is most unbelievable in a terminal speed death plunge from any height, almost cartoonish if I dare say, I almost expect to hear "Booooiiiiinnnngggg" when my aircraft hit's the ground in RoF

Blackdog_kt my friend stop torturing yourself, get OFF3 BHaH you will be so glad you did. When you have it up and running on a PC screen in front of you, screen shots and videos just don't do it justice.

O/T
Buddye1 my man, excellent work on BOB II WOV 2.10 patch w/Multiskin. I am really enjoying the hell out of it. Those guys waiting for the other BoB sim don't know what they are missing if they are not playing this sim now

A final thought, yesterday I read a post on the RoF subforum here and some said if RoF fails it would be the death knell for PC flight sims, WWI in peticular. Funny I honestly don't see it that way, if these guys would just take the blinders off, stop listening to the nay sayers concerning OFF using CFS3 game engine and realize it's perfectly all right to have OFF and RoF on the same HD it's not high treason you know. They would realize what some of us have known for sometime that there are not just one but two excellent first rate combat sim's out there right now. Both offer high levels of immersion, good GFX,FM,DM and excellent SP campaigns and excellent dev support and continued development. Of course I'm refering to OFF and BoB II WoV, I guess the old saying is true that "you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink". And it's such a shame that some people won't even reconize these two sim's like they don't even exist

Hi godzilla,

Thanks for the kind words and PR for our Time Machine (BOBII version 2.10).

It is sad but I have given up on ROF and I will focus on OFF3 for my WWI Flight Sim.

I have to say, however, that ROF has increased the interest in WWI Flight SIM's and I will just bet that the increased interest has improved OFF3 sales which is just super , if true.

Maybe we need to continue the OFF3 vs ROF PRO/CON comparisons.

If the developers could get OFF multiplayer onto hyperlobby it would kill RoF stone dead.

If not then just wait for neo[] to kill ROF off themselves. I don't see them managing to ignore the all-is-wonderful crowd (or themselves) long enough to actually undo some of the really terrible decisions they appear to have made.

In my case that's what happen, Buddye1.
I saw a review about ROF and became excited about it. I've always loved WWI ( I still cannot understand why I didn't play Red Baron). Registered in this forum because of ROF and read someone commenting about another WWI sim called Over Flanders Field. The poster commented about a real campaign in it. That was all I wanted to hear.
If it wasn't ROF I wouldn't know about OFF.