By Tim Stone on September 9th, 2007 at 8:01 pm.
If shooting albatrosses brings bad luck I’m in for a really lousy autumn.
This past week, in the gaps between work, blackberry picking, and bouncing about in the Rigs of Rods Tatra, I’ve been catching-up with a wonderful old friend – Red Baron 3D.
Thanks to Sierra’s German wing, this evergreen Great War dogfight sim, justly famed for its immersive dynamic campaign and marvellous MP, is now totally free. Well, strictly speaking it’s Red Baron II that’s free. You’ll need to apply the official superpatch to upgrade to RB3D. You’ll also want a Glide wrapper, a WinXP sound fix, and a tolerance of Deutsch (the patch doesn’t remove all traces of the Baron’s native tongue). It’s a bit of a dance, but follow the following step-by-step guide and you should be happily ambushing albatrosses inside half an hour.
RB3D GLEE IN THIRTY MINUTES
- 1. Download and install Red Baron II.
- 2. Grab the official superpatch (rb3d_spr.exe) and apply it.
- 3. Do the same with the MP patch (rb3d1078.exe).
- 4. There are various options when it comes to Glide wrappers, but I recommend using Gabi’s modified example (OpenGlide_008_Max256MB.zip). Just extract the contents of the zip into your RB3D folder.
- 5. Right, now you’re ready for a test flight. Fire-up the sim (The ‘no CD’ message can be exterminated by clicking the iron cross in the top-right corner of the message box half-a-dozen times), go into options (Einstellingen) and select Glide and 1024×768. Turn off sun glare. Click ‘Schnellflug’ (Fly Now).
- 6. If your joystick isn’t automatically detected you might need to quit the sim and check it’s selected as ‘controller to use with older products’.
- 7. The second time you run RB3D you’re probably going to encounter the ‘no sound’ bug. To get round this put the Full Canvas Jacket Control Panel utility in your RB3D folder, and, after ticking the “Activate Intro For USB Joystick Windows XP Sound Fix” box, use it to launch the game. (The FCJCP can also be used for pushing game res up to 1600×1200).
- 8. Lastly, you might to want to glance over the keycard and manual (documents section) and augment your new toy with a couple of choice mods. I recommend PL2PL.zip for terrain, and the Hell’s Angels Super Patch for everything else.
- 9. Chocks away!
09/09/2007 at 21:14 Bob Arctor says:
Wow. That is an excessive amount of effort.
Is it worth it?
How does it compare to IL2? Damage modelled well?
In fact does it compare to Red Baron 1? Sitting in hospital for most of the war with a changing BMP of your moustachioed self shedding bandages?
09/09/2007 at 22:48 Tim Stone says:
Is it worth it?
I’m not sure where you’d go to find a more involving campaign experience. In RB3D you’ve got that living battlespace feel you get from sims like Falcon 4.0 or Enemy Engaged 2, but there’s also a real sense of squadron. Getting back to the drome and realising that good old Flight Sergeant Burnet didn’t make it actually hurts.
Varied sortie types, ace encounters, opportunities to freelance, organise your own raids, paint your own plane, transfer to other squadrons… it’s never dull.
The way damage influences FMs and the way it’s represened visually is pretty crude in comparison to IL-2. No flapping canvas, splintered struts, or streaming fuel.
10/09/2007 at 09:28 Winterborn says:
Thanks. While this looks like a bit of bother I’ve had a hankering to play a modernized version of Red Baron, had no idea the mod community was that active.
10/09/2007 at 12:17 Bob Arctor says:
Ah go on then so!
Although Bioshock may take priority for a while.
10/09/2007 at 20:23 Svenska says:
playing RB II right now, seeing what it’s like without the patches and whatnot. I’m wondering though, how do you accelerate? I can kinda move around for about twenty seconds before I crash into the ground.
Any help?
10/09/2007 at 23:34 Tim Stone says:
TAB – engine on/off
1-0 – throttle
Ctrl-A – full autopilot
A – disengage autopilot…
There’s a keycard available in the docs section of http://www.wings-of-valor.net/
14/09/2007 at 01:44 Tiger says:
S! All,
There is a way to convert the German version of Red Baron II to a completely English version of Red Baron 3D. Once you have completed the steps outlined above you can download this .zip file;
http://www.virtualaces.net/downloads/RB23DMMP09.zip
Extract it to your C:\SIERRA folder using folder names and allow the existing files to be overwritten.
This patch corrects the discrepencies between the Red Baron II patched (to Red Baron 3D) version and the Red Baron 3D version of the game.
22/09/2007 at 00:14 Ben says:
I did everything that you said and all of my main menus are German. My German is a little rusty, hah, so can someone help with. Is there a patch available or something?
08/12/2008 at 08:32 espy says:
What a painfully wonderful headline :D Get thee to a punnery!
08/12/2008 at 15:05 D says:
Some updated links, since I got interested in this:
Red Baron 2 German (280mb) – ftp://ftp.sierra.com/pub/sierra/redbaron3d/other/rb2_DE.zip
German -> English (23mb) – http://redbaronplayers.net/files/mmp/RB23DMMP09.zip
Also, install order should be: rb2_DE rb3d_spr rb23dmmp09 then rb3d1078
Basically I copied the links I found from a forum post: http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/games-flight-sims/32343-good-news-you-can-legally-acquire-red-baron-3d-free-3.html#post349022
I might let you know how it went for me :) Ty Tim Stone
14/03/2009 at 01:55 the_wakeful says:
If its a modern version you’re looking for then check out http://www.riseofflight.com
Not finished yet, but suppose to be fairly soon (i.e. this year).