Flying High - REALLY HIGH

[TheStig 38]

How do you all of you take these screenshots looking like you are in the stratosphere? The highest I can get is 84,000 ft in a MIG-25P.

 

Am I missing some sort of coding in an INI to do this?

[MigBuster 2,861]

some have probably just given jets lots more thrust in the data ini.

 

To do it without that you need to zoom climb - fly straight as fast as you can go before climbing - you may need to do this several times - the need for a pressure suit is not programmed into the sim.

[Derk 265]

Take a Mach2+ fighter to 36000/40000ft with full external fuel, drop your tanks, accelerate to top speed, gently pull into a 45 deg. climb and see what happens.... (Lightning and F104 are good at it)

 

Good luck,

 

Derk

[Lt. James Cater 62]

I've made a series of posts some time ago concerning recce missions using a MIG-25 in the ODS MOD.

 

I can't remember the exact altitude, but it made me feel more like a NASA guy.

 

It's not a blast and zoom profile. It takes a number of plateus to get up to altitude while maintaining high enough speed to avoid enemy fighters. IIRC, the first step was done in a pitch up from full speed from 500 to 25,000ft. Then up in 10,000ft increments until 50,000ft. Past that was rather gradual if you wanted to maintain a speed high enough to be able to outrun any potential threat. The F-14/Phoenix combo is a very potent threat!

 

Guess i'll fire up the comp and just to experience it again.

[TheStig 38]

What about playing with the ceiling value in the Data INI? Does that change anything?

[Derk 265]

As far as I know you can also manipulate the AltitudeTableData in the data.ini where the decrease in engine thrust with increasing altitude is made up. Increasing the values later in the table should increase engine thrust and your (air-)speed at very high altitudes, giving you the possibility to sustain controlled flight. Of course wing loading and other wing characteristics also play a role. That's one of the reasons the Vulcan flies well at 60000+ ft and the same goes for the U2

 

Hou doe,

 

Derk

Edited June 8, 2010 by Derk

[TheStig 38]

How do I do that? I have never touched those tables

[Derk 265]

How do I do that? I have never touched those tables

 

Simple: the value at sea level is typically 1.000, decreasing to 0.000 in for instance 9 steps of 3048 meters as follows: 1.000, 0.802, 0.604, 0.496, 0.381, 0.288, 0.206, 0.147, 0.105, 0.000.

This means that at 27432m altitude the theoretical engine power is zero.

Increasing the values , for instance from 0.496 to 0.896 and 0.105 to 0.405 and the values in between in a sliding scale, you increase the engine power at higher altitudes, giving you extra speed in the thin air and thus extra altitude capability for sustained flight, depending on the characteristics of the wings of your aircraft.

And in a zoom climb the engine will keep going longer, giving you extra energy in the ballistic trajectory. You can also increase the number of steps, each step with a value increases the altitude where your engine is still delivering power. Don't forget to back up your original data.ini before you make the changes.

The example given is from a J35J Draken.

I did not try this out with the Draken, but I remember a flight model of an F104G with a typo in it, giving spectacular high altitude performance, as well as a case with the F5E where it was the other way round: it lost engine power about 10 meters from the ground...

 

Have fun,

 

Derk

 

PS: this is my opinion about the whole thing. To be really sure you should ask the

modding and FM gurus.............

Edited June 8, 2010 by Derk

[TheStig 38]

What about the Dry and Wet Mach tables? Do those have any correlation to altitude and its table?

[+comrpnt 16]

How do you all of you take these screenshots looking like you are in the stratosphere? The highest I can get is 84,000 ft in a MIG-25P.

 

Am I missing some sort of coding in an INI to do this?

Have a look here - at the docs I provided - they'll tell you everything you need to know (hopefully) about zoom climbing...

 

The Curious tale of the Lightning and the U2

High Alt research flight - NF-104

 

 

Regards, comrpnt.

[TheStig 38]

I did some fiddling with the altitude table data and succeeded! On the other hand, for the heck of it, I created a field on my MIG-25P using all 1's for stages and now have a MIG-25 that disappears completely after 105,000 feet. Oops. Of course a simple nose dive brings you back into the cockpit of the plane. I take it the gaming engine only allows you to fly up to 105,000 feet or something.

 

 

 

Also, some pictures I have seen up here using what looks like the Siberian Sky effects (I have) in fact look like the sky is darker and closer to a stratosphere look. No matter how high I get I still see blue, but some people have almost a solid black in their screenshots. It looks like they are literally in outer space. What Environment system file is that???

 

 

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Stig, I know if you run your MiG-25 to the "world boundary" which is defined, in kilometers, in Flightengine.ini, the plane stops there, and you fall out of cockpit. Its how far from the map edge you can fly. TK does not want you to see the map edge. How far did you travel in doing that zoom climb to 105k feet?

 

On the other hand, you may have stumbled on another similar cause. If 105,000 feet is the defined world ceiling (again, Flightengine.ini), than maybe that causes the same effect. I never could have noticed it since a few days after getting the first game in the series, I set that ceiling to 1000km since I wanted no artificial restrictions (this allows external camera into "space" to test view cirrus layers, the warm front mod, and persistent 300km chemcontrails. I never expected the out of cockpit experience to be caused by hitting the artificial altitude boundary, if that is the case here. Or you ran the MiG to the world boundary.

 

Siberian Sky effects

uh~oh ... that's it

 

Same blue sky at every altitude. That is before Patch 2008. TK offered darkening skies with altitude in Patch 2008. You need to use the SibSky enviro changes with new 2008 Enviro. Extract the default. Also, I recall Patch 2008 causing the SF sun, moon, and the related Siberian Sky sun glares to be half the apparent size. Double them all. Its alot of work but I made all these mods for the hardcore only, and to demonstrate what should be possible in air combat TheSims in the 21st century.

Edited June 12, 2010 by Lexx_Luthor

[TheStig 38]

Lexx I tried switching back to the 2008 ENVIRONMENTSYSTEM.ini with no success. What fields in the INI cause the disipation of blue sky as you get higher?

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

I still have SF Patch 2008 laying around. As for the variables, they were my last settings before retreating to SF 2006. Experiment to Taste.

 

 

[HighAlt]

HighAltColorStart=0

HighAltColorEnd=30E+3

HighAltSkyColor=0,0,0.0

HighAltHorizonColor=0.00,0.00,1.00

HighAltFogColor=0.4,0.5,0.6

SunLightModifiler=1

AmbientModifiler=1

SpecularModifiler=1

 

 

But, set the last three Modifilers to 1 if you don't want planes and terrain turning FLAT BLACK in the bright SF sun as you gain very high altitudes. Don't know why TK tossed these in, as things don't work like that up there.

 

Interval is 0 <= Modifiler <= 1

 

I think TK fixed the (Modifier) spelling. Not sure since I went back to SF 2006 and never saw what came out after initial Patch 2008.

Edited June 18, 2010 by Lexx_Luthor

[TheStig 38]

That whole section is missing from the ENVIRONMENTSYSTEM.INI

 

Do I just add it in there and see what happens?

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Yes

[TheStig 38]

Hey Lexx, I went ahead and added it. Looks fantastic! I also reinstalled my patch to make it work too. What a huge improvement to the atmosphere and a great experience. Unfortunetely I lost my SR-71 to a MIG-25P shortly after...