I have a TrackIr 3 with v5 software for WOFF and am happy with it.

Hello All,

Thank you for all the continued welcomes and advice.

@Hauksbee - you are too kind Sir. that is a very generous offer; however assuming that you are indeed in Wisconsin and I am in the UK I imagine the postage will be very high! I have opted to buy a cheap/mid range stick here in the UK - which also means I get it tomorrow

I also took the plunge and ordered the Trackir5... cost me a whopping £149.95 from Flight Store (http://www.flightstore.co.uk/aviation-gi...rack-ir-5-p2503) in the UK (this was only place I could find) with next day delivery. I did look around for version 3 or 4, but there seem to be precious little about. it was all over seas stuff. I found one Trackir5 on ebay with 4days left to run, but it was already at £90.00

I opted for the Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X Stick after reading this review: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/periphe...-flight-hotas/1

It seems to offer more than the Logitech 3D one as it has the throttle + a tilt switch on the back of the throttle that can be configged to do the rudder... as I really can't afford the pedals right now. I managed to pick it up for £38.98 with next day delivery.

In short I should have both tomorrow in time for the weekend

That was not the whole saga though... I really tried to buy one of the better Saitek ones from PC World, using the Love2Shop card I have £500 credit on. Idiocy of it is, they don't take it online so I could not order it that way, so I tried to do the 'click and collect' but no store within 50 miles had one in stock; and in order for them to send it to a local store I have pay up front... online... after asking very nicely for them to just send it anyway and them refusing I gave up. I had the same issue with Argos and the Thrustmaster Stick - they would not send it to a local store at all though. It was either drive miles to get it in store or nothing.

Customer service is a dying art. I'm glad you got the gear though! Enjoy!

DanDare, I use the Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X stick and I love it. I love the separate throttle and the rocker switch for the rudder works really well. I think you will like your purchases.

DanDare, welcome aboard! <takes a Guinness from the lineup> Thanks mate! Cheers!

You won't regret the TrackIR - If you like to "fly" you'll quickly find it's the best money you ever spent on gaming gadget... though I adamantly insist WOFF is not a game. It's a world class simulator and work of "historic reverence", a tribute to the pilots, and a true work of art.

anyway as to the TrackIR, I just spend a half hour at A.C.E.S Flight Simulation in the Mall of America and having to use a hat switch really was a pain - and got me blasted out of the sky more than once. Full story in another thread when I get a minute, but I wanted to add to the chorus of welcomes!

A throttle and stick combo for 40 is a good deal.
Those wobble sticks for rudder do work decent enough. I disable my twisty stick rudder axis and use the wobble gizmo on my CH Pro Throttle when flying Fokker E series.

TracKIr 5 will blow your mind.

Considering the $ they charge for a flight I can't believe they don't have any head tracking.

Welcome Dan to arguably THE best forum on the net.A wealth of knowledge and excellent advice is what you,ll find here,wait until you get Trackir up and running pal (make sure you try a couple of Trackir profiles) to get it right.Enjoy WOFF im sure you will..i use a thrustmaster x stick aswell... superb mate

Hey DAN

Did your new toys turn up

Let us know how you get on

Hi Max, literally just logged on to say that they did

Josystick is just that, was a literal plug and play. Only minor changes to mapping needed, which went smoothly.

Trackir... I can see why everyone likes it so much. The point when I realized I could actually hunch and lean forward to look through the gunsight was pretty awesome.

Only done a lap of the airbase so far. Some serious flying will come tomorrow I hope.

Still undecided on what to do for a first proper career. I have my early 1915 guy, but the Morane Parasol is not great... thinking of starting at some point in 1916 instead. To me it feels like 'cheating' to pick a plane or squadron manually, but at least if i start a bit later there would be the chance to transfer to a squadron with some better planes after a shorter time.

And of course, thanks to all those who helped lighten my wallet.. I mean make the right choice in gear...

Now thinking of spending the cash on that gift card on a bigger monitor...

Good stuff

TrackIR is midnblowing isn't it?

Only had it a week or two myself but I remember the same feeling - OMG - I can lean forward into the gunsight? How frikkin cool is that?

Don't think of picking a particular year or a particular aircraft as cheating

Honestly - just getting through 3 months of combat flying day after day is difficult enough

The most I have managed is 12 flight hours - and that feels like achievement enough

Pick whatever you want - do not feel like you HAVE to start at the beginning of the war
Unless you are in the mood for flying two seaters for about a year

(By the way - there is a bunch of people here who are committed enough to fly WW1 day by day - see the DID centenary challenge
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4123731/DiD_Centenary_Challenge#Post4123731)

Pick an aircraft you like, start with it, and stick with it

As you get used to it you will just get better and better

Have fun Dan

And Good Hunting

Allright, mate, looks like you're kitted out and ready for some serious work. Give Harry Hun six of the best, trousers down. Unless you are one of the Hun, then it's "Gott strafe Engoland"!

While on the topic of TrackIR does anyone know where the "mouse look for WOFF" files were uploaded to? I just checked the mods section and could not see them there.

For anyone who cannot afford TrackIR mouse look is worth trying. I get some motion sickness using TrackIR sometimes so I like using the mouse look utility.

Regards MarkL

I had that over a long time in the beginning.
I continued using TrackIR, until the motion sickness got less and less.
Finally it disappeared.

It can help if you slow down the speed of the Motion Control.

I have the SPEED set even BELOW 1.0 - see here.
For WW1 air combat that is enough, and doesn't make me air-sick.

Thanks for the speed tips, I will give those settings a go next weekend, it will be a very busy week.

What do you use for the reflector? I have the 3 cornered hat bracket, never tried the pro clip as there seem to be reports of it breaking easily. Just wondering if one is better than the other. I am using the version 4 of the hardware.

Regards MarkL

I use the ProClip and it works GREAT - far better then the hat clip in all cases - with ambient light and in-game - much more precise.
The breakage people refer to is the clamp system for attaching it to your headphones.
I can see it happening (they could use a better system) but I just have a zip tie keeping it shut bypassing the clip lock all together.

Oh dear... well it turns out I am epicly crap at this sim!

The good news is that trackir is frickin awesome, and I don't get any motion sickness at all. Bad news is I don't deserve it!

After getting bored with the 1915 pilot after 4 hours of flying back and forth over the lines, and never seeing an enemy plane, just dropping bombs (despite being a fighter squadron...) from high altitude (and missing) I decided to do some quick combats to see what it was like.

Jumped straight into a Sopwith Snipe as the was selected by default, and selected turky shoot. So my 'opponent'was a Aviak, unarmed seemingly. After firing over 300 rounds I gave up in a huff because I could not even get the guns on target let alone hit it... felt pretty lame as the guy was flying straight and level and very slowly!

Fast forward 2 hours and I had got my accuracy up to 8-14% and can consistently down him, all be it that he usually glides to his death rather serenely (before splatting on the landing) as I have yet been able to kill the pilot.

I tried the Snipe, the Camel, the Se5 and Se5a and have to say I prefer the Se5's

So... I decided it was time to try a dogfight... bad idea. againts a DrIII(?) I lasted about 30 seconds as he somehow pulled some crazy ass maneuver got behind me and killed me in two bursts.

The I tried against a Fokker Dr1, twice and both times I simply cannot control the aircraft in combat... If I try to pull anything close to the manuevers he was, I stall or go over G and stall. In both cases I was insulted that my opponent did not even bother to fight me, after a couple of bursts he simply 'headed for home' as I had floundered and lost altitude.

So fantastic game and realism aside... how exactly does one dogfight... anytime I tried resulted in a stall, and the AI maneuvered so quick I could not even see him most of the him, until he was behind me.

Feeling quite deflated with it right now, but will persevere. At least I am not a real pilot, who would have been dead dead dead.

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Dan, don't get discouraged. If you are like most folks who are fairly fresh to WWI aeroplanes you are likely being far too aggressive with the controls. It takes surprisingly little input to get things to happen. Too much rudder, elevator, and/or ailerons is very counterproductive and gets you wallowing and/or stalling in a big hurry. Be gentle and smooth with the controls and ease into them, even when going to the stops.

It takes practice and a fair amount of it so don't give up.

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