OFFbase customization ?

[rjw 47]

Lothar;

 

I have posted this question on SimHQ as well for those who might be interested in your reply.

 

Can we customize the pilots photos so we can choose which one we would like to use, or even add our own photos?

 

Best Regards;

[+Lothar of the Hill People 6]

Good question, Robert. You can easily choose which photo you want to use whenever you upgrade your pilot with another trait, just click the "Change Photo" button to cycle to another picture.

 

The cool thing is OFFbase knows a little about the stock OFF photos, for example which ones have cigarettes and medals. Non-player characters use their AI to choose a photo they "like"--which is the same algorithm the "Change Photo" button uses to recommend your player pic. Chain Smokers are more likely to be seen with a cig, while Aces are more likely to be shown with a bunch of medals, etc. It's time-consuming to characterize the photos with metadata by hand (really need to set up a better system) so this is fairly limited at this point--German AIs know a little bit more about the photos than other nations just because that's what I've spent the most time with.

 

As for adding photos there are issues to consider. Both CFS3 and OFFbase support an unlimited number of pilots, but OFF itself only supports 100. If you add additional bitmaps to a nation's PilotPhotos\ folder (eg Pilot101.bmp), OFFbase will use them automatically for NPC pilots and even let you choose them for your player pilot. But while OFFbase is be able to select these expanded pilots and launch their campaigns, OFF Manager itself can sometimes lose their dossiers and mess up the UnlimitedPilots.xml file when adding/deleting other pilots. Started working on an expanded photos mod with elephant way back, but the effort died due to this issue.

 

Another option is replacing the stock photos with your own bitmap images. Keep in mind OFFbase's personality system, and put your new photo over an old photo of a similar kind of character.

 

Here's a cool trick if you want to add your own customized AI pilots to your squad:

1. Create a new pilot with the name you'd like in your squadron before your current pilot's date
    
   
2. Join the new pilot into OFFbase, choosing their Background and other traits by rank
    
   
3. Change Pilot back to your primary character
    
   
4. Delete the new (still living) pilot's Dossier in OFF next time you Fly Mission with your primary
    
   
5. Viola!
   

The AI give to the new character will take over his virtual career with the name, rank, picture, and personality you chose, and you can interact with him in OFFbase and fly with him in the air. The OFFbase Adjutant may not assign you to the same flights right away, but it's cool as OFF will still simulate missions for the second flight and after some additional turnover flight assignments get shaken up. All part of the drama.

 

So bring in your pilot's long-lost brother, flight school nemesis, or any other character you wish into your OFFbase campaign and build your careers side-by-side to help tell the story you want to live. Of course, they won't remember an preexisting relationships, but these things develop fairly quickly.