Upgrade for ODS...calling modders new and old

[+daddyairplanes]

Hello folks. Its been 2 years since the ODS campaign mod has been updated, and 9 years since the original Gen1 version release. There are many things that can be fixed within those releases (some may have noticed a theme in my recent skin pack releases). 

the question is, who out there is interested in working on updating this campaign?  not looking for "thats a great idea", looking for folks that would like to improve on the mod as it currently stands and able to give some form of participation

i very much understand about real life commitments and other projects. if we can get some folks willing to work on this, i propose a release of 16 Jan 2019. yes that's next year, but allows plenty of  time to work on this and it seems an appropriate date for the theme

because of newer aircraft, we would need some support from the experienced campaign gurus. not necessarily active work, but advising if an up and coming campaign builder volunteers to work on this

finally most of the work anticipated is adding already complete objects to the campaign (and possibly removing some historically inaccurate items) and campaign edits to make it work. hopefully this will be an opportunity for some new talents in the community to work with the older heads.

but before we even get to the scope of the project, gotta ask: who's in?

[+Menrva]

9 hours ago, daddyairplanes said:

finally most of the work anticipated is adding already complete objects to the campaign (and possibly removing some historically inaccurate items) and campaign edits to make it work. hopefully this will be an opportunity for some new talents in the community to work with the older heads.

but before we even get to the scope of the project, gotta ask: who's in?

I already contributed, if I can say so, by providing a much better terrain, complete with ODS specific targets and correct locations for every airbase: https://combatace.com/files/file/16395-iraq-western-asia-1980-2003/

The campaign can be adapted to it. Since there are additional airbases and specific ODS Iraqi and Coalition strongpoints, OOBs are necessary in order to update the campaign correctly and provide a scenario as realistic as possible.

While I can provide help with the choice of terrain's targets for the campaign, someone else must take care of strategic nodes, I am not much expert with their editing.

So I am in, as long as this terrain is used in place of the old one, which was very very inaccurate. I also made a 2003+ version of the new terrain, should we ever want to update CombatACE's Operation Darius; just a thought.

In other news, does anybody have news of @eburger68? I really admire the work he has done on so many campaign packages. His help would be very important.

Edited February 2, 2018 by Menrva

[+daddyairplanes]

he's alive and talking, was the first one i talked to about this project in pm. he's given the blessing to workin on an update, but assistance will probably be limited to advice about the original. he has done A LOT with user made campaigns, but without  details (cuase they werent in the conversation) i think he's not looking to do the workload to update things once again (my conjecture, not his words)

and yes i was hoping we could use your terrain, although i personally dont know how much work we'll need to do to update the campaign itself to reflect the new reality on teh ground (pun intended). thank you for volunteering!

Edited February 2, 2018 by daddyairplanes

[+Menrva]

40 minutes ago, daddyairplanes said:

he's alive and talking, was the first one i talked to about this project in pm. he's given the blessing to workin on an update, but assistance will probably be limited to advice about the original. he has done A LOT with user made campaigns, but without  details (cuase they werent in the conversation) i think he's not looking to do the workload to update things once again (my conjecture, not his words)

and yes i was hoping we could use your terrain, although i personally dont know how much work we'll need to do to update the campaign itself to reflect the new reality on teh ground (pun intended). thank you for volunteering!

Thanks for the news about eburger68!

There is quite a lot to do in regards to updating the ground war. I added more cities and targets, so we can really improve it in terms of realism. If we could have OOBs for the Iraqi air forces, I can see about updating the campaigns' airbases for both the Coalition and Iraqi units.

[+angelp]

Well I can contribute with an UH-60 and maybe a Ch-47.... CH-46 could be made taking as base the Hkp.4  This model were originally for a campaign for the PAnama Terrain but I got stuck...

[+guuruu]

Also Tonkas should be ready soon.

British are almost ready, Saudi are not problem cause they are very close to british version.

Italian are next to do after british planes.

[+daddyairplanes]

@Menrva i cant see why they wouldnt be more readily available now that that is a part of Iraq's history rather than a state secret

@angelp if you could get those up, that would be awesome not just for ODS but overall. onlything missing from a MAW right iirc IS the Seaknight and UH-1N, and as a retired soldier i wouldn't have any problem seeing Blackhawk freely available in game. if the mapping is still fairly the same the Twin Huey i still have the 3 tone skin from a while back. only question with those H-60s shown is do you have an Army model (tail wheel near the very back) as well? Naval would be good too, but as i mentioned,  US Army (Ret)

@guuruu that would be great, though admittedly as a yank i had to think for a moment to realise a Tonka was a Tornado!

 

[+angelp]

Yes both available, the army and navy version,  but i think the army version is the uh-60L The UH-1N i think is the same I have to check  and the ch-46 only need minor work to use it as a USMC helo. The only thing that we will need is reference for the units of these choppers for this mod but they are here waiting

 

Edited February 2, 2018 by angelp

[+dtmdragon]

Updated A-4KU

 

F-4E updated to ravenclaw_007 and co's F-4E Phantom II - ARN (86) plus modifications to allow the unique inner left wing pylon arrangement the 3rd TFW F-4E's used to allow the carriage of Sidewinders and  laser guided bombs. (In ODS they only used CBU-87 as thier Pave Track pods were late arriving in theater). The last screen shot is a LGB/ AIM-9 loadout from Exercise Gunsmoke 1989. ShowAnyWeapon=TRUE Avionics mod to allow A/G CCIP gun piper for bombs and retain all other normal F-4E Avionics60.dll functions.

 

F/A-18D Hornet 'Fast FAC' using latest LOD and textures at combatace

 

F-16A Blk 10 Fighting Falcon avionics, FM, cockpit and textures updated to the latest Team Viper standards. Loadout includes the use the GPU-5A 30mm gunpod for the first few days of ODS.

 

CF-18 Updated to latest LOD and textures etc plus new pilot.

Edited February 2, 2018 by dtmdragon

[+yakarov79]

+1

you know what I have or what am cooking...seaknights,vstol,some other stuff.

and you know my opinion about  new ODS. 

[Nyghtfall]

I also have an updated A-4KU/TA-4KU in the works. Although probably mostly optical updated.

[+guuruu]

Sugestions...

1) More F-111F missions, they did many (some said almost 80 percent) successful strkes

2) Divide Tonkas missions for 1st strike (jp233 / ALARM) and later LGB (SCUD-s)

3) Make  F-16 the most important plane in ground support missions. (Yes, Thunderbolts were the best in strikiing tanks and armoured vehicles, but F-16 dropped the cheapest and still good free fall bombs.

[+Stratos]

1 hour ago, guuruu said:

3) Make  F-16 the most important plane in ground support missions. (Yes, Thunderbolts were the best in strikiing tanks and armoured vehicles, but F-16 dropped the cheapest and still good free fall bombs.

AFAIK, the Vipers did a lot of DEAD missions using free fall bombs, and mostly iron bombs.

[+Soulfreak]

If you guys update, then please work on the fps. F.e. the ground objects. Making them in jpg format would save a lot of space and of course it makes the sim faster...

[+Stratos]

I would love to see a better Su-25, the coalition shoot down some of them, and our current model is pretty outdated.

[+yakarov79]

yes...but.

I would focus on

- what we have...

- what we can have in near future...(before deadline - if there will be deadline) so any new model - sure....but  who / when / if ever / ?

- improvment of what we have - cleaning folders  - outdated/ not used/new models./ etc. + (bmp to jpg) 

 

[+ludo.m54]

The Mirage F-1 Team works on several  Mirage F-1 useful for ODS :

- Mirage F-1EQ (different versions)

- Mirage F-1CR

- Mirage F1-CK and CK-2

- Mirage F-1EDA (if Qatar is included)

All the projects are in a good way (only some weapons are missing).

[+Menrva]

2 hours ago, Soulfreak said:

If you guys update, then please work on the fps. F.e. the ground objects. Making them in jpg format would save a lot of space and of course it makes the sim faster...

My Iraq terrain has been cleaned up of unnecessary files, all textures converted to .jpg (only a few .bmp textures remain because they are retextures of stock objects); the updated terrain package will be released later this month.

In terms of space conservation, indeed we should remove all unnecessary files and convert all possible textures to .jpg format. I have not seen FPS improvements in using .jpg textures instead of .bmps. But at least the mod will be lighter.

I can try to update the campaign to work with my terrain, but I will wait until all planes and additional objects are complete.

1 hour ago, Stratos said:

I would love to see a better Su-25, the coalition shoot down some of them, and our current model is pretty outdated.

The one in ODS uses wrong, low-res textures. Paulopanz made hires textures for the Su-25 (one specific skin for Iraq too, IIRC). So we can update ODS with this one at least.

Edited February 5, 2018 by Menrva

[+daddyairplanes]

4 hours ago, yakarov79 said:

yes...but.

I would focus on

- what we have...

- what we can have in near future...(before deadline - if there will be deadline) so any new model - sure....but  who / when / if ever / ?

- improvment of what we have - cleaning folders  - outdated/ not used/new models./ etc. + (bmp to jpg) 

 

that is exactly my intent, the only from scratch thing being the campaign inis to incorporate all of the new stuff and Menvra's terrain 

thank you for the initial show of support for this everyone. for GP info, am wrapping up something for RL this week, plus my 19th anniversary tomorrow. once the RL project is done on Wednesday, will be going thru ODS, the download sections and the WIP threads. the intent is to see what we have, what we need, whats available in house, and what needs to be done. keep the ideas coming and WIP suggestions coming, i just might not get to them til the weekend.

[+guuruu]

I wonder if it's good idea to divide campaign for countries or better forces.

Like US Navy, USAF, RAF, AMI etc.

Edited February 5, 2018 by guuruu

[+Menrva]

13 hours ago, guuruu said:

I wonder if it's good idea to divide campaign for countries or better forces.

Like US Navy, USAF, RAF, AMI etc.

The only major change would be the campaign name in the dropdown menu list, since other countries had their own name for the American Op. Desert Storm. There is no point in dividing, AFAIK. However, when I'll work on the campaign .inis, I'll make sure to rework mission types probabilities as realistically as possible; in the original ODS mod, depending on the squadron selected, I even got CAP missions against many Iraqi planes well inside Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain. Much unrealistic. So it's on the “to fix” list.

[+daddyairplanes]

going thru the mod itself, equipment lists on wiki, and the download section. about everything in the mod could use at least some small improvement (smallest thought of being the F-16As and A-10s with some nosearts and historical serial numbs attached). some items could use a complete replacement (Hercs, use dels new ones) and some need some overhauling (Ravens, Stratotankers, RF-4C, B-52G). A good chunk could also be pulled out as unnecessary (looking up Marine tanker Hercs, only think one version was involved as example. ALL the weapons and skins and decals from post 92 as another). so far i'm still on aircraft, getting to ships and ground vehicles this week. theres alot on our in house shelves already. the big trick would be incorporating it into the campaigns, not so much creating the aircraft or ground objects

that said, there is quite a bit of gold in the download section that can save some time. Im working on going thru units and equipment and matching to whats stock(not much), whats in mod already(alot but not all that could be) and whats available on site vs known WIP or not available at all.

thank you menvra for volunteering on the campaign inis. something to look up might be viper63s update pack, which has some of edits already. i dont know if it could help or not, but its there

although i would want the US Army to become a seperate nation and campaign in this. dunno why...

final note, will get a pm going in around another week for everyone that's expressed interest in working on this. got a few other useful files to share that may help in getting some closer historical accuracy going.

[+Menrva]

22 minutes ago, daddyairplanes said:

thank you menvra for volunteering on the campaign inis. something to look up might be viper63s update pack, which has some of edits already. i dont know if it could help or not, but its there

although i would want the US Army to become a seperate nation and campaign in this. dunno why...

I was aware about viper63a's aircraft upgrades. They are a must, although the Hercules use the old 3d model, not the latest we have. So, it could be useful for the package you are preparing, but in regards to the campaign .ini files, I'll have to remake them almost from scratch.

About the US Army, I have the US Army Aviation as a separate nation, in my custom mod folder spanning from 1948 to 2018. I can add it for our standalone ODS mod. At least the Apaches will fly for the Army, not USAF.

Edited February 11, 2018 by Menrva

[+yakarov79]

French Army Aviation and Royal Army Aviaion ..... gazelles...pumas...other stuff...

 

edit:

daddy... ..will pm u later...regarding aircraft list....

Edited February 11, 2018 by yakarov79

[+daddyairplanes]

i knew about the Gazelles. dont tease me about the Pumas like the FB page did....