Wow ! CJ, Rickety and Puts .... superb work. I do believe you're getting the hang of it

Not a campain to report just an outing I call "Along for the ride". While taking the position of observer for this flight the A/I pilot follows the way points. It is possible to warp from the observer seat to speed things along. I also use a gamepad when oberving to control the machine gun. The gamepad seems more appropriate as a controller for the machine gun and IMO gives better control of aiming. We were not attacked by enemy scouts on this trip but we did encounter a nearby furball between Nupes and Albs. I was able to zoom in on the action from a safe distance and watch and take some pictures. The furball had nothing to do with my flight directly but it does show the dynamic activity portrayed in OFF as a theatre of war. It was supposed to be a bombing run on a railyard. We acheived the target and on the first pass I dropped one 50 pounder. As I was preparing to cicle back the engine died. It must have taken some lead from the groundfire. I landed safely, was taken prisoner and later escaped (because I had chosen"pilot never dies"). This was Campaign mode but as I had selected "pilot never dies" I do not consider it to be a true campaign. Hey, my game, my rules.

Actually (as a side note and a bit OT, sorry) you can be taken prisioner and later escape in OFF even if you don't choose the "pilot never dies" option! Of course it's a roll dice and there's always a higher chance to be a prisioner for the rest of the war than from escaping capture. But from my experiences I learned that you have a much higher probability of escaping (in case you're taken prisioner) if you land (behind enemy lines) without crashing your aircraft and therefore being uninjured than if you crash land your aircraft (behind enemy lines) and therefore being injured in the process. In the later case I found that it's almost impossible to escape - you'll spend the rest of the war as prisioner almost for sure.

I hope this helps many of you to survive this "nasty war"...


BTW, awesome screenshots RickityCrate! Thanks for sharing them

Hey guys, new campaign roleplay going on at the main OFF forum. Besides a growing group of online multi-players a new OFF-line DiD or "Dead is Dead" campaign has begun with a German and a British Squad in action. We fly on the current date such as (today) 1/11/1916 as our schedules allow and report our pilots status to the Killboard Keeper and mastermind of this wonderful idea, Siggi. We start out as newbs assigned to a 2 seater unit. Currently the Germans are flying the DFW C.V. and the Brits will be onboard the 1 1/2 Strutter. Our overall aim is to keep our individual pilots/alter egos alive for 17 hours or to attain 5 confirmed kills in order to be promoted to a specific scout/fighter unit. For us Germans it will be Jasta 6. Once in a fighter unit again the goal is to stay alive to fight another day and add to your kill total. Once you die in any unit you are to start over in the the 2 seater unit as before but flying on the current RL calendar date. Then to work your way back to the fighter unit. We are currently in 1916 and we hope to see this campaign las for the duration of the war. This way we will see much of the war and have the opportunity to fly various airplanes in a historical context. The rules of DiD is to use very few if any computer aids or things not used by the pilots of the time. No radar,targeting cones, external views-unless paused and taking screenies or such. Oh, and no Warp. Yes you fly in realtime only. Playing this way you get very invested in your pilot and you want to keep him alive. One of the things some of us have done is to rename the pilots in the OFF campaign generator to the names of our fellow forumites. These are guys we feel we have come to know and care about. It is of course just their names attached to the A/I pilots but it does make a difference for immersion.

The rules and Killboards are here http://www.hetzer.talktalk.net/ we have just gotten started so there is not a lot of data yet and we are still looking for new members.

Here are some pics from my 2 sorties from today and then my pilots log.

This Nupe17 became my first claim.

This is my Observer Dieter. A very nice guy. Shares his flask with me.

Taking a look at a friendly sausage.

Seems the weather is never good in this area.

Made it home. Safe and sound just before sunset.

And the pilot log

Very atmospheric pics Rickity. They really are very good. Keep 'em coming please

The new campaign roleplay sounds interesting. But I'm not as dedicated as I once was and would undoubtably bring shame upon the WW1 community, if not outright guffawing and perhaps a little sniggering ! Besides every time I fire up in campaign mode these days I'm always on the lookout for a nice video opportunity even if it means certain death .... or worse .... so I'm not always focused on survival or doing the right thing by my wingies or the war effort in general. I suspect you may feel the same with your pics ! You know getting yourself into a bit of a tangle for cinematic/photographic glory and all that.

Having said that, never say never. But at the moment no can do I'm afraid.

Spoken like a man with experience Catch. Two mistresses are hard to please. I very nearly lost my pilot on the last sortie while trying to setup a photo while flying low. That was intense and put the fear into me. Even if I pause to grab a screenie the flow is upset and it can be tricky to unpause and make the right adjustments. But I am not going to give up my photographic hobby. I just need to be smarter and much more cautious.

Hi guys. I'm onto my third German DiD Campaign pilot. My first 2 pilots are in prison for the duration. This time of year the weather has been very overcast and raining. Yesterday 9/11/16 was a gem of a day. After 2 weeks of heavy clods I could hardly believe the change. The alarm sounded for a scramble and we took to the air asap. I led the flight in a circlin ascending pattern over our field searching the sky for the enemy. To the north at about 8,000 feet I saw our flak trying to cause harm to an unknown enemy flight. They did not swoop down on us as usual and seemed to have no interest in engaging. Aha, perhaps this will be my first encounter with enemy 2-seaters? Eventually I led my flight in a position of advantage behind the e/a, indeed they were BE2C's. Struggling to bring my gun to bear I put a few rounds into one of the lumbering Brit crates. Another one came more clearly into my view so I let him have it.

The engine caught fire but they bravely flew on toward their lines.

I positioned our DFW so that Eric the observer could have a clear shot.

Eric knows how to work the gun of his.

During our return to the aerodrome it seemed Eric was pleased with himself.

As for myself I was pleased to bring us back safely to fly and fight another day.

Those poor young brave RFC lads .... THEY WERE JUST TRYING TO TAKE SOME HARMLESS SNAPS RICKITY !

Hmmmmm .... 2 seaters, observers .... Aussie Biffs ! Now there's an idea for this new moving picture craze. If Chaplin can do it .....

Thanks Rickity

Oh my, sounds like another popcorn muncher might be coming our way. If I had the pc savvy I could string Catch's movies together and burn them to dvd and have a proper film to curl up on the couch with the wife popcorn and a brewski.