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Hello everyone! Sorry for short posts, busy day lately. I have extra time to explains about this project in details: Last week and this week have been steer learning curves for me when it comes to learning how the classes / functions are set in both Avioincs and Aircraft Object DLL files. Both have different ways of how classes are set and what they do with SF2 engine. At the same time, I realized how AI works to the core and how I can use AI the right way. Previously, when using AI, i was still learning how to use it. What I realized: AI is not AGI yet, therefore does not think like we do. Rather, AI follows the patterns of human interactions and is the group of programs that is on the rail of pre-defined instruction. It does not yet teach itself, nor dynamically expand itself into critical thinking or creatively seeking solutions upon the requests. So it means, if you only give simple instruction that is vague, AI will 'guess' itself what to do to find the answer for you. it guess itself based on the scope of the request. So therefore, the more you engineer the prompt with rules, the scope of the tasks, and input the details for instruction, the more likely AI will yield the result that is relevant to what you seek for. Fortunate for me, Ai is 'smart' enough to be able to help me with prompt engineering while assisting me with analyzing how the Avionics and Aircraft Object DLL are set. How I managed to extract the information and learn in this steps with AI effectively and efficiently: 1) Lead up the dump file 2) Upload the dump file to AI and have AI 3) go through the dump, studying how classes are set, and have AI explaining the big picture of the dump situation 4) Develop the prompt with AI to perform the tasks based on what I need 5) while getting result from AI, with the given source where they get it from, I check it with AI, to verify it. However, there are challenge: Besides engineering the prompt, there is also limitation to AI's memories (token). Various AI have their own token limitation. At once when AI exceed the token limitation, the memories run out of space. When that happen, AI forgets the prompt instruction, pushes out the oldest conversation, to make room for newest one, causing AI to give me incorrect information. That means, when I verify with AI, and realize AI start to make mistakes more often, that is when I start new chat, to have a fresh start, then use prompt and re-teach AI to do the task exactly what I need. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Next thing i want to talk about is how did I manage to extract the sections / sub sections / keys / associated key for each ini files from Avionics and Aircraft Object dll files? As noted, Avionics and Aircraft Object works so different ways. Let's picture the tree, there are Root / Trunk, main branches, and many branches / leaves that branches from the main branches. Three parts: Root, main branches, interconnected branches In Avionics Dll file, there are one main root class, then branches of the classes (radar related, HUD related, etc...). And for each classes (roots), there are branches (associated functions), and interconnected functions (many branches) that is connected to the associated functions as well. So I had AI analyzing Avionics by going through one class a time with me, parsing / tracing from root (class a time), going through each associated and interconnected branches for data for ini modding information. ON the other hand, with Aircraft Object dll, oh boy, it is steer chaos, there isn't one root classes, rather many roots classes, connecting everywhere. It's like working with thousands of wires and you try to locate the 'root' wire forking into various wires that also forks even more wires for the right group of wires, from 'root' wire. This DLL handles many files, from cockpit ini, to aircraft data ini to other type of files. there are massive lists of strings used for ini files. Often I see the same strings but different function for different files. so I try to find out which type of ini files they are for. So therefore, I developed new methods of how to find specific root function and associated / interconnected functions in relative to the typie of ini files. I call it "Fishing method" For example: in SF2 modding, you would have aircraft.ini, and in that file, there are CockpitDataFile=", so I looked up for the function that handle "CockpitDataFile", and that function is root function. Then I have pre-made cockpit.ini, example: F-4B_COCKPIT.INI, and that is my 'bait" to catch bigger fish. How this work? NOTE: Each cockpit.ini for each aircraft does not use full list of keys for each sections, rather they use specific keys that is relevant to each aircraft, yet I want to find the full list of keys for each sections right? So to catch the whole list, I use already known working key as bait. Example: [CockpitData] Directory=cockpit HUDMode=CAGED,AA,AG RippleQuantity=1,2,18 RippleInterval=60,100,140 I hunted the functions that handles the string of CockpitData and HUDMode, which gave me functions that do handle them. This gives me full list of the available key! HOWEVER, there is another challenge: Sometime there are multi-function that shares the same strings, but again with the root function, and with AI codes analyzer assistant, we are able to parse between the root function and the 'branch' function to see if they are actually connected to root function. Any functions that is not connected to it, trim it off and only keeping one that is connected to root function. And from there, Ai can also parse between root and branch, as well toward other interconnected functions. And next, it get even more complicated! Sometime the key could not be found in the string, for example: Cm0MachTableNumData This such string does not example in Aircraft Objects dll. BUT if you divide them into this: Cm0 MachTable NumData, which gives us: Cm0 MachTable NumData These three strings does exist in dump though! Turns out there are also cases when some keys in ini is from combined of the strings. And there is another thing I found out: "%sThrottle", %s means any strings attached to "Throttle" So if you look for IdleThrottle, you wont' find it, But you will find %sThrottle. It tells you that SF2 uses %s for various other string for ini files. The cockpit ini modding information is completed. The Aircraft data ini is work in progress which is taking times, due to the nature of the complexity of the dll file. And as stated, how i use AI to work with em as team, and with the specific designed prompt, I am able to extract the information, while verifying it with AI, to ensure the accurate information. This is not 100 percent fool proof that gives us 100 percent accurate information, but it does save us tons of time. If there were no AI, it would have taken us years upon years to go through the decompiled codes. With AI, it reduced my time from years to days. And with the help of the community, we can find out what works and does not work. By the way, please throw out the old files I shared, they are outdated. here is the latest files with more accurate data. Please check them out! SF2 DLL - INI INFO.zip Cheers!

The Boss said "test out things, post pictures and words". So, here's a picture

The more you guys use the place and click around it helps me spot code problems and bottlenecks in apache, php, and mysql. So post some photos, give some replies. Let me know if the snappy goes away and we'll make some changes. The real test will be when files comes back online, that'll be a fun day.

This is clean! I like it!

I miss everyone this time, its hard to have a nice site with nice people and wait the upgrade

Great job !!! Looking forward to when everything is working, I admit to being a bit lost when it was offline, but now its back I feel safe in my comfort zone again hehehehhehehehehehe

Who knew being a bus driver would be this much fun?

Some things didn't move over very well like images in signatures, some moved because they were put in as attachments and other's were links and the links are now broken. So feel free to update your signatures. I have a newbie tag so don't feel bad. Yeah I need to sort that out but it's a low item on the totem pole at the moment. Remember back to the days when shit didn't hurt, doctors were the furthest thing from your mind, girls actually wanted to hang out with you, and be happy.

Good to see the site back.

These past days I felt lost without the site. It felt like I have been waiting forever to login.

Thanks a bunch, Erik! You did great! I dig the new look. 👍

Fantastic update! Thank you so much for working on it, @Erik. I noticed that some details about accounts seem to have been reset. Badges are something new, but it feels off to see myself and other long-time members with the Newbie badge alone. I guess we can feel young again 🤣

Excellent!! I can't send enough thanks to The Boss for all his hard work!!!

Great, very good job!!!

Good job Erik, that was pretty quick! Thx. VonBeerhofen

Cam Thuy Airfield renamed in Tho Xuan Airfield and completly reworked:

early F-4F Phantom cockpit , final version

At the top of the editor there's a link that says "Categories" Click that and it will open a panel that allows you choose the set. I can play around with the order later but that's the quick way you don't have to scroll through all the emojis. Filed for stuff to do later. Thanks.

nah not prescription. just attention. seems i gotta scroll down further now to get the old school emojis(emoticons)

a new prescription is in your future

and looking sharp so far. Thank you for the update work Eric 😁(immediatly misses old emojis with raised glasses) how'd the rest of you all do after near a week without CA? me, i actually got some other side work done for a change 😆

Congratulations!! She;s super fast now .. and the facelift looks Great!! 👌 Well done Erik and to all involved!

From Pol over on SimHq: Hi all, we are pleased to announce that WOFF 'THE LAST HURRAH' EXPANSION 2 IS NOW AVAILABLE Please see the WOFF website for details, and to purchase! Please note this requires BOTH WOFF BH&H II, and OTT Expansion.

Lol well.. I guess the feeling would be mutual. Seriously like the new look though, makes it more modernized than the old format.