The 'Userlist.ini"

[+Wrench]

A lot of the 1stGen to SF2 conversions are forgetting this supremely ciritical file. When one has an aircrft that is tagged

 

Exported=TRUE

 

it is vitally important that a userlist is either created new or adated from a pre-existing one (a good example would be my JASDF F-86 skin pak, those that downloaded it might have noticed that it came with a new userlist, while not fully complete, at least there was SOMETHING for the game engine to use).

 

This goes for GroundObjects as well. Now, it's not just a matter of "is it Western/NATO, or Soviet/Warsaw Pact user" -- you HAVE to list the nations that use/used the thing! (that, or create non-exported, nationalized clones of said objects). You can have all sorts of oddities (like I recently encountered); for example, TF-104Gs parked on the ramp with Iranian markings!!

 

Simply put, even terrains that have an active LimitedNations=TRUE statement, and an accurate terrain nations ini well still have the odd-ducks popping up all over the place.

 

What is the Userlist.ini, you may ask. It's a file designed to absolutely limit which nation gets how many of what airplane (or groundobject) for how many years. They can be found scattered through all the various ObjectData***.cats, located in the main core game install. For editing, you'll need to extract them, using Gerwins Cat Extrator tool.

Here's what a standard entry looks like, this from the F-4E_72 Phantom:

 

[uSAF]

ServiceStartYear=1972

ServiceEndYear=1977

Availability=VERY_COMMON

 

[Egypt]

ServiceStartYear=1980

ServiceEndYear=2020

Availability=VERY_RARE

 

 

You can see it only has 2 nations listed, and the Availability is based on how many that air force operated.

A rule of thumb that I've found (actually someone else did, and it was in HIS users ini for something I downloaded), for trying to figure out which of the availability tags to use is:

 

RARE: Less than 100

COMMON: 100 - 500

VERY_COMMON: Greater than 500

 

One might conclude that "VERY_RARE" is something substantially less than 50, or even less than 18 (a normal US squadron strenght).

 

The first questions one asks in "How do I find out what countries used this aircraft, over how many years, and how many did they operate?"

Well, that's where the skull sweat comes into play ... you have to get out the books, hunt across the Internet and roll up your sleeves and get down to it. Personally I've found that, even with all it's errors, Wikipedia gives a fairly accurate listing of "who got what" and pretty close to "when" ... obviously some educated guesswork is involved, but in the end it worth it make the mod right.

 

Read the full article, and with a little bit of cleaverness and the skill to 'read between the lines', one can make a accurate guesstimate as to operational years. Countries are already listed in said articles.

 

Is it time consuming, and frustrating? Sure it is ... especially when trying to hunt down some obscure country that used the aircraft for only a few years, and in very small numbers. But, in the long run, it's better for the End User ™, than seeing complaint posts about "I was bounced by Soviet Vampires flying on the Wagstaffistan map. Can anyone fix this, or tell me what's wrong?"

 

So, yeah, spend the time; try to get it a close to Real Life ™ as possible. You won't get it perfect ... shoot, even the stock aircraft occasionally appear with wrong markings (example: Chinese Meteors that bounced me in a F9F Panther while flying in 1951 Korea!!!) In short .... make the effort. In the long run, it create better mods, and more fun for all involved.

 

Questions? Comments? Clairifications? Post them on the regular Forums, either in General Discussion or Mods & Skinning

 

Happy Researching!

Wrench

kevin stein