I seem to remember hearing once, that the long term plans for OFF were to create an all-new WW1 sim - not based on the CFS3 engine.

Does anybody know if this is still part of the OFF team's mission...?

Hello,
as far as i know they said they will still use the CFS3 engine, for phase 4 - which is what they currently work at. Maybe there is more that can be fleshed out of the CFS3 engine, but whatever it will look like, it will be compared to RoF. When they say they can counter this -

I would love to see the OFF team use RoF's "digital nature" engine or what's it called, but to buy an engine and be able to resell code based on it, is expensive.

Greetings,
Catfish

Phase 4 for 2010 ?

No, not anytime soon. Maybe 2012 ? I really don't know.
Greetings,
Catfish

As much as I love OFF, the limitations of the CFS3 engine are making me look at ROF more favorably. I don't think they will be able to squeeze any groundbreaking stuff out of CFS3 anymore: the AI, view system and general "feeling of flight" are what I regard as OFF's weaker spots, and these things can't be fixed within the CFS3 engine.

Another way to get around it could be some kind of agreement between OFF/ROF where the OFF team creates addons or DLC for ROF. Not sure if that's likely to happen...

"Another way to get around it could be some kind of agreement between OFF/ROF where the OFF team creates addons or DLC for ROF. Not sure if that's likely to happen..."

Or, perhaps, if the RoF people were to lease/sell the engine to the OFF dev team. Now that would be a splendid scenario!

I actually prefer the Wings of Prey engine myself, at least in terms of rendering and flight model. Yes, I know it's WWII. I have all three games and WoP is definately the most beautiful. The scenery, clouds and planes are all rendered beautifully. RoF has the best damage model and OFF has the best campaign experience. All personal opinion, of course.

The challenge with both WoP and RoF though is that both of them have you flying in a very pretty fishbowl. It is all amazing to look at, but it's a very confined area. In OFF, you can fly in any direction and see all of France. I'm not sure either of the other two are capable of rendering all of France and there lay the rub. OFF is designed with real squadrons flying real missions against real targets. So if you want to go off mission and see the war on your own, it's actually being fought in all areas. Not just where the mission directs you. For that reason alone, I don't think it will ever be able to be ported to some other engine. Each sim has it's strengths and depending on what you value most in a sim will decide which is bested suited for your tastes.

For me, the perfect combo would be WoP rendering and Flight Model, RoF damage models & multiplayer and OFF variety of aircraft & skins + the dynamic Campaign.

Hellshade

The new Career mode that is coming for ROF looks like it could rival OFF. Apparently it will let you do things that are not possible in OFF: squadron management (where what happens to your AI squadmates is actually reflected in campaign), setting your own waypoints... These are things I really miss in OFF.

But OFF is still way ahead in the planeset it offers. And I don't even mean the sheer number of flyable aircraft. The skies in OFF are populated with much more diverse AI aircraft types, covering a longer period of the war. Hopefully Phase 4 will include (even if just as AI aircraft) more 2-seaters and medium bombers, and a few early war types.

I own them all. I hope all of them keep improving and making their competitors think harder about how to add more value to their flight sim. The players always win that way.

Hellshade

As to OFF future, AI we believe is already one of the strong points in Phase 3 / Between Heaven and Hell. We worked very hard on it after Phase 2 and is definitely now up there with some of the top sims. AI is one of the hardest things to program effectively to cover all aspects and situations and still give them some human nature.

However, for Phase 4 as we have already said, we are working hard on AI to make it better.

BTW few people mention scenery, but for us that is one of the most important too. Great immersion killer if its not good. Winding Man's scenery for OFF is one of the best, and has been improved all along.

Other things, you'll have to wait and see. Many things are possible, just takes time