Formation.ini Question

[Mike Dora]

Hi All,

 

Having recently got myself a new PC, I've been entertaining myself re-setting up some old favourites. It's far too hot to venture outside these days anyway (we're having a bit of a heatwave in the NY region).

 

So now I'm tinkering with formation sizes in FE2, playing with the Formation.ini settings. This has led me to a question that has puzzled me since FE1 days - and also with the SFP1/2 series.

 

What is the function of the "BaseLevel=" parameter, what is its effect, can anyone advise please? I note that it is conventionally set as "2". Is this a parameter that controls the randomness of the formation size, and if so, how?

 

Thanks

 

Mike

[Czech6]

It's been a while since I messed with formations.  Here's an old response from TK from back in my haydays:

 

TK
Ace

 

Joined: 02 Feb 2003
Posts: 2823
Location: Austin, Texas
 Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 8:20 am    Post subject:   

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Hi Charles,

Unfortunately, its not easy to change that, you can probably control it somewhat by editing the Formation.ini, try chaning the BaseLevel= number. I think this sets the default "grouping" size. I think the default is 2 (Flight level, 4-ship), try 1 (Squadron, 16-ship) and see if that makes any difference... Its possible that campaign engine has other constraints, so it might not have any direct effect, tho...

We'll try to make the basic flight size more customizable in the future, just not sure where it would go... in Nations.ini, in AircraftData.ini, or in CampaignData.ini.... (do we want it nation specific, aircraft specific, or campaign specific?  )

I think MissionSummary.ini controls the text you see on hangar screen. There are 2 variations of the same text for some mission types.

TK

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I interpret this to mean BaseLevel means which level of formation is the "default", i.e. 1 is Squardron, 2 is Flight, 3 is Element.  That being said, my "default" formation in my FE2 and merged SF2 is 2, and I use the same default formation.ini for all of these.  The results: I sometimes get 2 aircraft, sometimes 4, and sometimes 8.  This is in Single Mission testing, so maybe this is for Campaigns only.  TK's answer wasn't definitive and I haven't seen anything new on this, so maybe it never was resolved as to what it does.  Czech6