Modding Gau-8 gun in stock WOE A-10

[KingAlbert]

I was messing around with the extra view mod designed for the A-10 when it struck me: there was no effect when firing the GAU-8 30mm canon! Not even a tiny weenie flame or puff of smoke!

Mind you I do fly with the A-10 as it is deliverd with WOE! So I set out solve this HUGE problem

 

I discovered there are two solutions: an easy one and a hard one.

 

If you are a lazy lad, who wants to limit messing around in files to an absolute minimum, here is your easy and simple guide to upgrade your GAU-8: delete the damn thing. Yep you read it right trash the directory A-10A in the object\aircraft folder and replace it with this aircraft: A-10A Thunderbolt II by wpnssgt & Team (which can be found at www.column5.us. (it has the same foldername so it should make no difference for you WOE version)

 

But if, like me, you are bit sentimental about that old trusty WOE A-10A and don't mind getting your hands dirty, there is also a hard way:

First of all you gonna need to download the above mentionned aircraft. I don't mind trashing in ini's, but there is no sense in reinventing the wheel (aka creating tga's files from scratch). What we'll do is "borrow" the effects and ini mods from wpnssgt and paste them in the stock aircraft.

 

Step 1: prepare to copy the effect files

wpnssgt's version contains 3 files:

FIRE.tga

SMOKE2.tga

Gau8FireEffect.ini

Now you will have to check your effects-folder to see if there are not already TGA files with the name Fire and Smoke2. If that's the case rename wpnssgt files (like ie FIRE2 and SMOKE3) and edit Gau8FireEffect file to refer to the new names. (since you are willing to do the difficult solution, I assume you know such a function like CTRL+F in wordpad to find for specific words and replace them with another word)

 

Step 2: copy paste those 3 files to your effects folder

That was easy, now we have to make sure that if the A-10 fires his 30 mm cannon the right effects are played.

 

Step 3: editing the gundata.ini

Open the gundata.ini (which can be found in the object directory (if you don't see it use cat extraction software to retrieve it from the objectdata.cat)

Look for this line "TypeName=30MM_GAU8" (remember CTRL+F), somewhere below that line is line called "GunFireEffect= some lame effect name". Replace that entire line with this line "GunFireEffect=Gau8FireEffect"

 

And voila, not only does the GAU-8 packs a serious punch, it shows also a serious punch

BTW wpnssgt and his team also included a new engine effect, just drop that into your sound folder and edit in the A-10A_DATA file the engine sound with this text "EngineSoundName=A10Engine".

 

To conclude some mood shots

 

 

[Jimbib]

Brilliant work mate! This will come in very handy indeed