CAT archives utility

[UllyB]

Does exist an utility to make CAT archives ? I would need one to make sure that no other planes from default CAT mixes with my single player missions.

[Blade]

This might help:

https://combatace.com/files/file/10458-catpack-archiving-utility

[Wrench]

Defeats the purpose....all things in cats are referenced from the main game install.

what you seem to be trying to do, is  create a "theater specific install"

While written with WW2 in mind the basic instructions are pretty much the same

might want to consider giving this a read through...

Short version:

remove any and everything from the Aircraft or GroundObjects folders that do NOT the area/region or time frame. A simple rename of their main folders (ie: xA-4B or XSA-2) will suffice

[Czech6]

What I did on my theater/era specific installs for Korea and Vietnam was to create a subfolder called "Unused Aircraft" in the Objects/Aircraft folder.  I just drag and drop the aircraft folders that I think are unnecessary into that folder, and if I find I made a mistake and need one of those later it's easy to cut and paste it back in the main Aircraft folder.

[UllyB]

" remove any and everything from the Aircraft or GroundObjects folders ..." I thought of that but I thought also that the game itself, meaning the CAT which holds aircraft, if NOTHING  (which it packed already inside its archive) is there, then it will override bringing in the game whatever plane it has in the archive and I have deleted them from the folder. Are you sure that CAT won't get out of its sleeve this trick ?

 

 

PS - Does that CAT archive utility work for SF1 series files too ? or is it made for both ?

Edited September 18, 2017 by UllyB

[Wrench]

if you leave one each  "modern" aircraft from player and non-player usable, the Game Engine (tm) will not repopulate the others. Been that way in my WW2 installs since 2005

So, just dump all the others. 

[UllyB]

ok then, it sounds so easy, I even now can't believe how simple it was. Thanks for confirmation.

[+swambast]

Wow, I usually don't tread into the Gen1 Forums these days so not sure exactly how I arrived here...but anyway relevant to this post.  This totally reminds me of an old program I had developed for some of the CombatAce Leaders to solve the exact same issue  back in the day.  Think it basically did exactly what you were looking for at least regarding the Aircraft.  Here was an old screenshot.  Program was super simple, checkbox which aircraft you want out of your build and it gets automatically moved out.  Then one press of a button to swap paths and restore the aircraft.  The nice thing is once you set it up, you could set "defaults" that remembered your selections so you didn't have to re-select anything.  Here was an old screenshot, not even sure if the thing works anymore these days or if I still have the source code around...

 

[UllyB]

Wow, interesting, I didn't know such a tool existed. Do you still have it ? I would love to give it a try.