Hate to be a sourpuss

[leitmotiv]

I have finally been able to take my sim computer out of its storage box, and long after all the old hares I am airborne with "Dover".

I went from initial delight to total disgust. The problem is almost everything.

My faithful Microsoft force feedback stick, which has performed sterling work in every flight sim since "Il-2", goes limp in "Dover" like a broken arm. Every now and then it kicks into life, but most of the time it is AWOL.

I use CH pedals and a CH throttle. Both work fine with the sim after they gave me a bit of logging grief. When I tried to use my CH throttle quadrant---total failure. I was able to get it recognized by the game, and I was able to check the features to see that they worked on the D performance displays---everything looked A-OK. When I tried to use them, only some of the engine controls moved a bit in the cockpits. My aircraft stalled and crashed. To have a great throttle quadrant, and not be able to use it with all the twins is a major bummer.

The Blenheim IV, one of my favorites, cannot be made to bomb ships---even bona fide Axis ships! I built a "Channel Stop" (the infamous Blenheim massacre of 1941-42 when they were used to try to interdict Axis shipping in the Channel) mission with Axis tankers with quad 20s, armed fishing boats, and fruitlessly tried to get the German minesweeper to be an escort---my computer crashed each time I selected it! I used the pseudo corvette of the mods. With such an array of Axis shipping one would think the Blenny would be raring to go. No dice. It bombed the hell out of empty Calais (where is the shipping?!), or any land target, but when I hit release at point-blank range from a fat tanker, nothing happened! The blasted thing dropped tools on me, and refused to play the game. I tried and tried (most of the time I was blown out of the sky, as was fitting, because Channel Stop was a massacre), but I was never able to get a piece of a tanker. My wing .303 refused to spit AP, DeWilde, and red tracer---I could only get it to shoot the default ammunition. I was able to fit up a Ju 88 with the bombs of my choice. I could not modify the fuel tankage of any aircraft or the fuze settings of any bomb. Now, to add more insult to injury, the Blenheim won't even drop bombs on land.

This has driven me around the bend, and I have belabored my friends who use D for information until they probably hate me.

At first, I suspected the Team Fusion mods so I purged 'em and reinstalled D, to no avail. I have done at least half a dozen reinstalls, and have hunted for every D file, and purged them to try to get the cleanest install.

My suspicion is that this is a classic case of something in the innards of my computer sending D into a tizzy. This once happened with "Il-2" a couple years ago. I upgraded my computer, and "Il-2" quit working until a patch was released which cured everything.

Here are the specs of my computer:

GPU: GeForce GTX 660 Ti
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
RAM: 11.99 GB
Windows 7

Contrary to the disaster D has been, ROF plays flawlessly and beautifully. Were this not the case, I'd suspect that it was critical failure in my computer.