So, now that Rise of Flight is on Steam...

[Nefaro]

ROF has a "beta career" that is a little bit of fun, but will not sustain you long term.  It's a random mission generator, but because of performance issues the generator is very skimpy on the number of planes it will generate; you might get 4v4 dogfights or something like that.  Also, it's not like OFF in that the enemy planes are spawned when you get close to the mission area.  They aren't doing their own missions all along like Falcon 4 or OFF. 

There is an add-on called Patrick Wilson's Campaign Generator that is better than the included career mode, but I had trouble getting it to work and I haven't tried it in several months.

Over Flanders Fields is a much stronger single player experience. 

Crap. 

I've debated checking out OFF before, but people often mention it may not be worth it to everyone these days since CFS3 is so damn old (can you even purchase a digital download of it these days??) so it's looking pretty aged.

Has anyone tried the WWI flight sim from Third Wire?  I know those have dynamic campaigns like the other Third Wire stuff.  I just wonder how well the flight mechanics are working.  Some big pluses are NO DRM, a simple single installer download without a bunch of extra DLC crap to juggle, and being very mod-friendly even to the point where people have created completely new models of aircraft you can download.  What say you?

I warned you that the RoF single player wasn't a good reason to buy RoF unless it was on a heavy sale, didn't I?   ::)

I picked it up before seeing that.   :-[  While I wouldn't mind doing some multiplayer, I still play more singleplayer than anything.  If I want some team-based MP, I'll just go fly War Thunder for a bit because it's easy to get into constant action there.

[Toonces]

Well, what I recommend is this:  normally I wouldn't refer a Groghead to another website, but in this case SimHQ is your friend.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3686260/Best_Current_WWI_Sim#Post3686260

These guys hash out the current crop of WW1 sims pretty well, and then around page 20 or 25 this dude puts up fantastic AARs that compare and contrast the various WW1 sims.

RoF probably has the weakest single player component, but the feeling of flying a WW1 biplane is unsurpassed, and the SP is kind of fun for a while.  I prefer OFF for campaign flying.  I haven't tried Thirdwire's but it sounds pretty fun as well.  I don't know if OFF is worth investing in with its next iteration due out sometime in the (hopefully) near future.

Since you already bought RoF, you might as well try it for a while.  You might like it better than I do.   ;)

[jomni]

Third wire First Eagles has good campaign. Semi dynamic. Missions are genersted based on the current status of the campaign. But plane selection is minimal.  Though ithe is very easy to put in some 3rd part planes.

[Nefaro]

Third wire First Eagles has good campaign. Semi dynamic. Missions are genersted based on the current status of the campaign. But plane selection is minimal.  Though ithe is very easy to put in some 3rd part planes.

Thanks.  That's exactly what I would expect from the Third Wire title.  Perhaps I'll look into that soon, especially since I have no qualms about throwing money at TK's outfit.  Been having fun with some of the SF2 titles and it having absolutely no DRM is tops.  The price of entry isn't too bad either, IIRC.

I'll have to browse the mod site and see what extra planes have been created.  I recall seeing a few having been done, the last time I was browsing the hordes of new SF2 plane mods, but not near as many as that other series.  If I can have around six different ones, then I should be good to go.

RoF probably has the weakest single player component, but the feeling of flying a WW1 biplane is unsurpassed, and the SP is kind of fun for a while.  I prefer OFF for campaign flying.  I haven't tried Thirdwire's but it sounds pretty fun as well.  I don't know if OFF is worth investing in with its next iteration due out sometime in the (hopefully) near future.

Since you already bought RoF, you might as well try it for a while.  You might like it better than I do.   ;)

I didn't realize there was a new OFF coming out sometime in the future.  That would be something to look forward to.

I'll probably tinker with ROF, since I bought it, but I was really itching for a somewhat dynamic campaign most of all.  So I'll save it for when I get a multiplayer itch.

[jomni]

RoF still wins for best graphics and flight experience.

[Nefaro]

RoF still wins for best graphics and flight experience.

I gotta admit, what little I played of it before was beautiful.  I don't really care about having to jockey the fuel mixture, or other such engine management crap while in-flight however.  I think you also gotta manually jockey the radiator too don't you?  Meh.. minutae which I don't really care to bother with if I don't have to.

My only concern is whether the flight models feel okay.  ROF seemed okay, although I recall being all over the place with the joystick even in level flight.  Sure, it's not fly-by-wire but I have some vague memory of fighting the thing like crazy the whole time I was flying, like it was constantly trying to roll over & go into a complete nose dive.  Don't recall I was flying (IIRC it was just default for the training mission) but it was a pain in the ass.

I'm also still tempted to get First Eagles 2 just because it's so easy to set up and play compared to most flight sims these days.  Sure, it's older and the ground textures look like ass but it's about as hassle-free as it gets, and has a dynamic campaign to boot.  So if my ROF experience doesn't pan out, I may jump ship rather quickly.  :D

[MengJiao]

How is CLOD these days? I avoided it because of all the horror stories but I'm starting to hear more positive things.

It is working very well.  See SimHQ for details.

[jomni]

WOFF is in Beta status already.

[Father Ted]

My only concern is whether the flight models feel okay.  ROF seemed okay, although I recall being all over the place with the joystick even in level flight.  Sure, it's not fly-by-wire but I have some vague memory of fighting the thing like crazy the whole time I was flying, like it was constantly trying to roll over & go into a complete nose dive.  Don't recall I was flying (IIRC it was just default for the training mission) but it was a pain in the ass.

The difficulty here is - are you saying that the FM is "wrong" or that it is  "too difficult"?  I would suggest that the RoF FMs are broadly correct (forums are as full of debate on this as any flight sim) so your struggles are realistic.  If you can be bothered, try altering the response curves in RoF.  This will make the planes more amenable and yet less individual.

[Nefaro]

My only concern is whether the flight models feel okay.  ROF seemed okay, although I recall being all over the place with the joystick even in level flight.  Sure, it's not fly-by-wire but I have some vague memory of fighting the thing like crazy the whole time I was flying, like it was constantly trying to roll over & go into a complete nose dive.  Don't recall I was flying (IIRC it was just default for the training mission) but it was a pain in the ass.

The difficulty here is - are you saying that the FM is "wrong" or that it is  "too difficult"?  I would suggest that the RoF FMs are broadly correct (forums are as full of debate on this as any flight sim) so your struggles are realistic.  If you can be bothered, try altering the response curves in RoF.  This will make the planes more amenable and yet less individual.

No.. it's more like the joystick sensitivity is too high.  I switched the pitch axis to an S-curve and it helped some, but it can still be troublesome due to the nature of having an S-curve instead of a straight one. 

This is one type of customization tweaking, in many modern flight sims, that takes up so much time.  I feel as if I'm screwing with the settings more than playing, and with some titles I can never get it just right.  >:(

[Tuna]

I think one thing that can help is if you are not flying at full throttle..

[Father Ted]

This is one type of customization tweaking, in many modern flight sims, that takes up so much time.  I feel as if I'm screwing with the settings more than playing, and with some titles I can never get it just right.  >:(

I appreciate that, but RoF is just so great IMO that I'll offer one final bit of advice...

As well as using S curves, try moving the centre of the pitch curve down.  You can do this in flight via options and the idea is to move the curve until your chosen plane is flying level when the stick is centred at say 80% throttle.  For me this made a huge difference to the usability of most of the planes when it comes to fighting.

Purists will say that you're diluting the experience of flying things like the Camel and Dr1 by doing this, but I think that really you're compensating for not having a FFB stick.

[Nefaro]

This is one type of customization tweaking, in many modern flight sims, that takes up so much time.  I feel as if I'm screwing with the settings more than playing, and with some titles I can never get it just right.  >:(

I appreciate that, but RoF is just so great IMO that I'll offer one final bit of advice...

As well as using S curves, try moving the centre of the pitch curve down.  You can do this in flight via options and the idea is to move the curve until your chosen plane is flying level when the stick is centred at say 80% throttle.  For me this made a huge difference to the usability of most of the planes when it comes to fighting.

Purists will say that you're diluting the experience of flying things like the Camel and Dr1 by doing this, but I think that really you're compensating for not having a FFB stick.

That's a good tip.  I may give that a shot sometime.  Having carpal tunnel, it can get painful babysitting it, after awhile.  However, it's not so much keeping pitch in check as it is compensating for roll.  Although my HOTAS has a big rocker switch that can be used as a rudder control, it's usually pretty hamfisted so I generally use the joy twist and that can be murderous for ye olde nerve pain.  Looks like tweaking the rocker will be added to the list.

I still have yet to do more tweaking to all the joystick settings.  The S-curve definitely helped on the pitch sensitivity but I'll probably have to tweak even more before it's in a comfortable spot.  I've not even touched the other axes.

[Slick Wilhelm]

However, it's not so much keeping pitch in check as it is compensating for roll.  Although my HOTAS has a big rocker switch that can be used as a rudder control, it's usually pretty hamfisted so I generally use the joy twist and that can be murderous for ye olde nerve pain.  Looks like tweaking the rocker will be added to the list.

I still have yet to do more tweaking to all the joystick settings.  The S-curve definitely helped on the pitch sensitivity but I'll probably have to tweak even more before it's in a comfortable spot.  I've not even touched the other axes.

Are you sure that you didn't mean compensating for yaw, not roll? Your joystick twist is for rudder(yaw) control, not roll. Your joystick X axis is used to control roll. You should be using rudder pedals anyway, as that will alleviate some of the pain from using the joystick.

Also, are you calibrating your joystick within Windows before you start flying for the first time? Allegedly, you're not supposed to have to calibrate anymore, but I've found sometimes that if you don't, your controls may off a bit.

As to manually controlling the radiator and fuel mixture, that is optional. I believe they are disabled by default, and you have to actually go into the game settings to enable them. There are also other settings to help out if you're not comfy with the full realism thang.

As to their DRM, it's not been a pain in my experience. I don't know why toonces has such a problem with it. You only have to log in "online" to get updates or new planes. Any other time you start the game, you can log in "offline", which just launches you right into the game without connecting to the server.

[Toonces]

In order to fly the career beta offline, you have to log on online.  So in order to enjoy portions of the single player game, like the campaign, which is about all I play in RoF, you have to be connected to their server.

And remain connected.

So it is a big deal.

And you HAVE to update when you launch the game.  I hate that.  Especially to play offline. 

I think that is obnoxious.