Sales, sales sales!
 

777 Studios have one of their Rise of Flight aircraft sales on until the 18th - all aircraft half price. That's less than two quid (three bucks,) for one of their scouts or about £3.50 for one of the two seaters. Pre orders are also being taken for the Harry Tate at a reasonable $8.99. If the RE8 is as beautiful as the Bristol it'll be well worth the cash.

Over at Good Old Games (http://www.gog.com/) the famous B-17: The Mighty 8th is also on sale at $2.99. It's been tweaked with slightly updated graphics and will should run on all modern operating systems without problems, even the 64 bit versions. I'm downloading it now. I'll see how she runs.

B-17 runs pretty much perfectly. It's been so long since I last played it that I'm going to have to start again I think.

Tell you what - the sound is amazing. It's so immersive.

If B-17 II makes something well, it's indeed the sounds. From the .50 cal MG's
to the flak rounds exploding and the rattling of a close hit. Superb. :yep:

I have to admit that as much as I love jets and WW2 aircraft, I have a thing about the crates from the Great War and I'm slowly building up my collection for RoF. I bought The Eindekker, the SPAD VII, the Noop 17, the DH2 and the DWF - not bad for under 12 notes.

I'm looking forward for the Re8 coming out and hoping they do some decent early war aircraft in the future. Having recently watched Wings from start to finish again I'd love to get a Be2c into the game. I believe the release after the Re8 will be the Snipe. Whilst that will be a fun scout to have, I'd rather they focused on the, how do I put it, slightly crappier end of WW1 aircraft.

Kites? :O:

:D

People keep hinting that we might get pistols and rifles in RoF at some point. That be ace and, as far as I know, a first for any flight sim. Personally I'd love one of those training aircraft the RFC used early on that look like a plywood frame with an engine and a seat. Can't remember the name just now.

There's also hints that we might get a new, expanded map with the channel on it. Zeppelins in the future, perhaps? :hmmm:

By the way, there used to be quite a few good mods for B-17 II around that improved on some of the game's initial flaws, but I can't find these anymore. Does anybody know if they still exist out there?

Lol, I just did a google search and the first thread it threw up was actually from this board!

Here you go bud, haven't had a look see but there seems to be a lot.

http://www.bombs-away.net/forums/vie...8b57ffb518aae9

According to Sauron over at SimHQ the OMF tool should still work for skins even with W764 but I don't know about anything else.

Little side-track, but how are the addon aircraft? I felt fairly at home with the 2 available in the demo, and consequently bought the ICE package, but I have to admit that I have yet to find something that's really pleasant to fly.

Could be the fact I clocked much more time in those 2 free aircraft though, but still. :hmmm:

I've only flown the Pup, and...she's harder than I'd imagine her to be. She has a nasty snap stall which is hard to get out of when at low altitude...although given that my only other experience of the Pup was in OFF phase 2 which is based on the CFS3 engine (which as we know is not the most accurate 'sim' in existence) so that's not exactly a benchmark...

A lot of the German scouts are nice to fly; not too hard, not too many unpleasant surprises. Well, the Dr1 is a killer - I find it almost unflyable but there is no doubt than in skilled hands it's a killer of a very different sort. Same goes for the Camel on the Allied side.

My favourites are probably the Alb DVa on the Central side and the Pup and Se5 for the allies. The Tripe is a fun ride too as is the Pfalz DIII. Two seaters, the Biff, hands down.

While there are aircraft that are more forgiving than others, and most are easy to fly, none of them are easy to master. The level of fidelity when it comes to the flight models seems to be of a very high caliber. I still have a real soft spot for OFF, and I still think the immersion of their campaign is second to none, but their flight models aren't anywhere close to what you get in RoF. I know I had to do a major rethink when I started playing it because they felt so different. To be honest, I think this is almost veering on study sim territory with regards to having to learn the nuances of each aircraft to get the best out of them.

I kinda feel like Oberon... there's just a very stark contrast between the demo aircraft and the other ones. I kinda feel they dumbed down those 2 (a little) to lure people in. For example, the Albatros D.Va seems to outperform the Fokker D.VII in dogfights by a fair margin, though historically the latter replaced the former in service entirely. In fact, as far as I can tell real pilots were never too fond of the Albatros, considering it nothing more than something that they had to make due with. :hmmm:

But yeah, there's no comparison really. Basically, RoF is the benchmark, making it rather hard to figure out if they got it right or not.

Don't get me wrong; love flying those crates in RoF. But I'm a little apprehensive of the company behind it. (buy an aircraft > not quite what you wanted > buy another)

Well, I know they have started reworking the FM on certain aircraft. The Se5 was overhauled fairly comprehensively in the last patch, for instance, and the general consensus seems to be that they nailed it. I expect other aircraft will benefit from this approach in the long run.

The D.Va is, I think, considered to be a bit over modeled. The DVII is thought of in much the same way. Likewise, a lot of people consider the Pup to be over the top as well but like Oberon I haven't actually found it that easy to fly in every situation.

I think the thing to remember about the various Albies, which ties in with what I know about them, is that they fly very well but are likely to get eaten alive by the later Allied aircraft that can push the envelope. They seem to be regarded as noob planes by a lot of people, which is probably a bit unfair. In general, the best aircraft in RoF are the ones like the DrI and the Camel which are incredibly unforgiving at first, but once mastered are very, very capable.

I have a similar view to you about 777's approach but I don't really mind paying the few bucks for a new aircraft now and again. Even without sales there are usually good discouts for buying mroe than one at a time and it certainly seems to be the standard model now in many other areas of flight simming. I draw the line at paying for the 'field mod' packs, though. I think they're way overpriced for what you get.

Have to agree that the demo planes are kinda arcadish. Especially the Albatross
seems to be able to do pretty much anything you try with it. :hmmm:

I've spent much of the day with the Se5. It's the first time I've really played it since the last patch. It's nice, dives like a bird and climbs very nicely. The horrible 'glass engine' seems to be gone but it's going to be hard learning to fight in it all over again; I've never been much of a boom n zoom pilot and thats what the Se5 seems to excel at now.

Also been messing about with the EMB graphics patch that came out a few weeks ago. Looks like it might be quite interesting but I've only run it with it's default settings so far. Lot of tweaking to get it where I want it. Initial testing bodes well, though. :up: