Pilot selection?

[Jasta15 0]

Hi

 

Does anyone know how you can change out the sims fictional pilots names in the single mission/campaigns and substitute with your own pilot listings? This would enable you to formulate a squadron with 'actual' pilots matched with their skins. Is this possible and how can it be done?

 

Jasta 15

[Bullshot 0]

I've had a poke around, but couldn't find any easy way of doing this. I couldn't find an ini file anywhere with pilots names in. It'd be brilliant if you could change the names of your squadron's pilots. Can anyone out there help? ( And apologies for my first ever post on this forum being of no use at all! I'll try and make up for it! )

[Southernap 1]

If you use the Strike Fighters Extractor located in the downloads section here and then in the extract from the missiondata.cat the following files that are named the following "namedX.lst" there X is should be something like US, British, French etc. Then using a simple text editor you should be able to open them up and add whatever last names and then whatever first names you want. Just remember that the program will draw from this list randomly to create your pilots roster in the game. So if you want a specific first name to always appear then you will need to reduce the options to only that first name.

[Bullshot 0]

I've just done a bit more poking around, downloaded the SFP1E utilty and found a file called NAMESBRITISH.LST in the MissionData.cat file. There's a long list of surnames and a long list of first names. I haven't edited any of them ( I'm not brave enough to do it then try and add it back into the .cat file!!!) . It looks to me as if random names are generated from the two parts of the list.eg, in one campaign you might get George matched up with Rodgers, but in another he might end up being Fred Rodgers. But I don't know....as I said, I'm too chicken to try altering anything!

 

Edit* I posted this just as Southernap was posting.

Edited January 24, 2007 by Bullshot

[dhasdell 0]

I've just done a bit more poking around, downloaded the SFP1E utilty and found a file called NAMESBRITISH.LST in the MissionData.cat file. There's a long list of surnames and a long list of first names. I haven't edited any of them ( I'm not brave enough to do it then try and add it back into the .cat file.

 

Presumably this would work in the same way as other "extractions", eg the aircraft data.ini files, in which case the game will read the edited version in preference to the original cat and there's no need to try to get the new version into the cat. The old version is still in the cat and not overwritten, and if things go wrong, simply deleting your new version will cause the game to revert to the original.

[+TexMurphy 0]

Ive been thinkin about this as well... what if the first names list was left blank and the full names where in the surnames list....

[Bullshot 0]

Presumably this would work in the same way as other "extractions", eg the aircraft data.ini files, in which case the game will read the edited version in preference to the original cat and there's no need to try to get the new version into the cat. The old version is still in the cat and not overwritten, and if things go wrong, simply deleting your new version will cause the game to revert to the original.

But won't the game look for NAMEBRITISH.LST in the Missiondata.cat file? Surely if it's somewhere else it won't find it? Am I being dim? ( highly likely)..but how do you add files back into MissionData.cat?

[+TexMurphy 0]

Entire point of Thirdwires games is that you can extract each and every file from the cat file and mod it... it looks first in the directory and then in the cat file...

 

Tex

[Bullshot 0]

Oh wow! I didn't know that! Thankyou! ( Sorry...newbie here! The last flight sim I was any good at was Microprose's Knights of the Sky :) )

[+TexMurphy 0]

yepp thats the best part about this game you can mod more or less everything execpt the code it self..

[Bullshot 0]

So...I extracted NAMESBRITISH.LST from the Missiondata.cat file and put 20 full names ( first name and surname together) as a list under the Lastnames heading. I don't know if I really needed to do this but I added a corresponding list of 20 .'s as the maleFirstnames list. I don't know anything about programming at all ( I'm an artist) but I had a sneaky feeling that if a programme goes looking for something and it's not there then it'll get all uppity about it and not work....hence the corresponding 20 dots. I then saved the NAMESBRITISH.LST into the Flight folder ( where it was extracted to) As it happens, the dots don't show up in my post-mission squadron list/debrief thing. I can now add all of my friends to the list without their first and last names getting randonly mixed up.

[dhasdell 0]

So...I extracted NAMESBRITISH.LST from the Missiondata.cat file and put 20 full names ( first name and surname together) as a list under the Lastnames heading. I don't know if I really needed to do this but I added a corresponding list of 20 .'s as the maleFirstnames list. I don't know anything about programming at all ( I'm an artist) but I had a sneaky feeling that if a programme goes looking for something and it's not there then it'll get all uppity about it and not work....hence the corresponding 20 dots. I then saved the NAMESBRITISH.LST into the Flight folder ( where it was extracted to) As it happens, the dots don't show up in my post-mission squadron list/debrief thing. I can now add all of my friends to the list without their first and last names getting randonly mixed up.

 

Good idea - I'd toyed with the idea of using a space for the same reason.

[dhasdell 0]

Well, I edited the NAMESBRITISH file, and now all of the pilots are people I've worked with. It hasn't done anything for my wingmen's skills, and I just hope they were better at their real life jobs than they are in First Eagles. So far, only one has ever shot down an enemy aircraft, and he was a PE teacher!