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Posted by Sturm on 30/6/2009, 13:11:53
So .. first impressions. I've gone into rather a lot of detail - this is in the hope that anyone else installing will anticipate the pitfalls.
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Stick in the disk and start installing while looking at the little keyboard foldout that shows the various key assignments. As soon as it's installed, I decide to eliminate potential problems at first base and set up a rudimentary X45 joystick profile.
Then I load up the settings.exe and attempt to assign some keys a little differently ( X45 profile s/w doesn't seem to recognise Right-Ctrl as independant entity, so couple of keys have to change off the bat ). Waste about 10 minutes before I figure out that controls that have an "Increase" and "Decrease" element eg. Mixture control Lean or Rich, wait for BOTH sets of keypresses to register. Ok, done that, remember that the guys on the forums said to create your own settings file ( original input.map can't be altered - useful really - always a default ). So Save-As Sturm_input.map.
Delete a whole bunch of alternate assignments to avoid any conflict, leaving just the k/b commands which the X45 profile will recognise. Ok, rocking and rolling now.
Set and activate Pitch, Yaw and Roll joystick axes.
Ok, that seems to be enough mucking about, let's checkout the meat ! 
Start game, have already been onto the RoF forum and entered my keycode so it recognises me right off the bat. Cool.
Ok, hanger menu - what have we got here - ah, various options - Single mission, training mission, career, multiplayer.
Screw the training, wanna fly - single mission 1v1. Let's take the Fokker, Spad can come later. Various difficulty settings are presented, turn most everything off - may as well learn everything from scratch. Ok, leave icons on, may need them. 
Loooooooong load time, aha starts paused in the air. unpause and Oh Shit, something's not right. Plane goes up and down all right, but rudder feels really odd and banking, oh hell, goes all to pot. Nose pointing down, can't seem to correct ... lawn dart. Ooh nice pic of plane going in and cracking up. 
Ok, try again. Must remember to be veeeeery light on controls. Ok, we seem to be flying ... scheisse, forgot to switch on TrackIR oh well. Ok, seem to be level, give a bit of throttle... hmmm, throttle not working ? No, it's working but only in the middle it seems... Uh oh, what's that red thing - oh it's the icon of an enemy... try to dodge, eeek, take fire, engine dies, try to glide down, he's not letting me off that easy, aaaahhhh trees ... 
Ok, perhaps that was a little extreme, lets try something easier, there's a Takeoff mission. Aha, starting on the ground, that should help.
Load up, try out some of the views, thank god those are familiar from IL2 - F2 external view - let's waggle the controls in a walkaround. Holy $%^$^& ! The rudder is working the ailerons and the roll control is doing the rudder. And they're reversed. that explains a lot.
Exit game, go back into settings ( yes, there's been a lot of pissing and moaning about this on the forums ). Aha, mis-identified the rudder controls and gave stick input. Set rudder too.
Launch game, try same again - all assigned correctly, but rudder and throttle still reversed. Exit game, open Sturm_input.map in notepad and reverse those ( also mouse view control ) - easier than trying to remember which way I pushed the controls initially 
3rd time lucky, get started, short takeoff roll, wild swinging, suddenly in the air, sweet ! Bumble about for a bit, check out the scenery, shoot guns at water and ground, awesome - ricochets FTW ! 
Oh hell, seem to be lost, where the heck is the base ? Open map, erk, heard some complaints about this on the forums too, game seems to pause momentarily, not good, hope they fix that soon. Also obscures most of screen, not like IL2's top right hand corner jobbie. Finally ID base and self on map, head home.
Strewth ! What's that - smoke coming from engine... oh crap, it's steam fumble with controls to open radiator, phew seems to have done the trick. Line up (more or less) with field throttle well back drop down, touchdown, no throttle, wow, made it, christ trees approaching hard rudder, swing round. Safe ! Oh dear, external view shows I "leant" into the corner with that last rudder move and .. bent lower right wing. Still, first successful landing ( walked away ! )
Full of myself now, I try the 1v1 mission a couple of times. First two I get shot down ignominiously - 2nd time he set my engine on fire ( great fire rendering ) and I die screaming ! 
Third time I sort of have gotten the hang of this manoeuvering lark and get on his tail. £$%^ me, plane bouncing all over the place with hard manoeuvering, turbulence, wind, propwash... can't hit a barn door ! Hell, the MG's cycle slower with the interruptor gear, very much your daka daka daka, not the Brrrrt one would hope for. so even when he crosses in front of me, chances are he flies through the bullet stream ... not really a stream even.
Aha, he's close, now I've got him, crap out of ammo...
Ah well, moral victory.
So .. first impressions (you just knew there had to be a post like this).
Stick in the disk and start installing while looking at the little keyboard foldout that shows the various key assignments. As soon as it's installed, I decide to eliminate potential problems at first base and set up a rudimentary X45 joystick profile.
Then I load up the settings exe and attempt to assign some keys a little differently ( X45 profile s/w doesn't seem to recognise Right-Ctrl as independant entity, so couple of keys have to change off the bat ). Waste about 10 minutes before I figure out that controls that have an "Increase" and "Decrease" element eg. Mixture control Lean or Rich wait for BOTH sets of keypresses to register. Ok, done that, remember that the guys on the forums said to create your own settings file ( original input.map can't be altered - useful really - always a default ). So Save-As Sturm_input.map.
Delete a whole bunch of alternate assignments to avoid any conflict, leaving just the k/b commands which the X45 profile will recognise. Ok, rocking and rolling now.
Set and activate Pitch, Yaw and Roll joystick axes.
Ok, that seems to be enough mucking about, let's checkout the meat !
Start game, have already been onto the RoF forum and entered my keycode so it recognises me right off the bat. Cool.
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