Bunch of questions

[Dornil]

I've got some questions accumulated over the years, so I will just bundle them together, hoping that someone might answer those:

 

1) Skins. Say, I have MiG-15 and a lot of skins for it. Some are assigned to Soviet, some to NKorea, some to China in TEXTURESET.INI. When I start a single mission with Soviet air force, sometimes the game assigns Chinese or NK skins to Soviet nation by default. How can I make the game to use Soviet skins only for soviets, Chinese for China, etc.?

2) About this MiG-17K by Cocas: it refuses to drop tanks. I.e. it seems to drop them actually, but visually they stay under the wings. Which parameters in which file are usually responsible for that action?

BTW, did anyone ever make some more skins for this model?

3) Damage model: where does it live in game files? E.g. the bullet holes layer - where how is it mapped to the aircraft model?

4) Which application can be used to 3D-edit the .LOD files?

5) How do I teach AI to hit targets with their guns? On some airfcraft their aim is OK, but in the others it's all over the place.

6) What can be done to prevent tanks and other ground targets from being easily destroyed by a single 20mm hit?

7) On every map there is typical set of aircraft, which are spawned in single missions. Which file is responsible for that?

8) Can there be more than one mercenary unit in the campaign? Can they be on the opposite sides?

9) Which Soviet unguided rockets cam be used in the first half of 50's?

10) Dhimar and Parani are nowhere to be found, neither in a sinle mission list, nor in NATIONS.INI. Where are they hiding?

11) I saw a Ta-183 in someone's screenshots once. Where can I get that?

 

That's all I could remember now:) Would reallu appreciate any help!

Edited October 25, 2018 by Dornil

[+daddyairplanes]

2) cant say about the skin but iirc the Mig-17K was a what if aircraft for use on a (nonexistant in real life) Soviet aircraft carrier and as such would not have many skins.

3)iirc bullets holes are put on like decals, for minor hits. more major hits bring up the damage model, where pieces go missing and you see the spars and such sticking out. the bullet holes are usually tgas withing the aircraft or aircraft skin

4) 3DS Max 2009 creates LOD, but you have to edit the original max file to do most edits. if you mean removing parts of the aircraft say so and will point out the how later

5) AI skill level depends on the training level set for that nation within the nationlist ini. however even the highest levels of training still lead to "off" AI behavior in game. see my constant references to the Dos Gringos song "The Wingmen"

10) edit the nations list ini to add them in. see any of my airliners if you just want to plug a ready made ini into the flight folder, or add the entries  at the end of your own if you wish (again see my airliners, most have a ready made and a plug in version, the plug in you add the numbers to fit it in at the end of your NATIONLIST.ini)

9) if you want historical accuracy, Google and Wikipedia are your friends..... if you want whatever you want, edit the start date to what you want. with ini editing you can have  the Nimitz CVBG operating off the coast of Hawaii on 6 Dec 1941

 

sorry thats all i got  on a lunch break away from my computer

[yakarov79]

ad.3 you need in main aircraft folder tga files with damage overlay named same as skin files (one tga for every skin set - example: fuselage, wing etc...plus in main ini file entry :

[DamageTexture]
DamagedPostFix=_holes.tga  which means-  you need tga files named example - fuselage_holes.tga, wings_holes.tga etc. Its mapped same way as aircraft parts - in a graphic editor you can put aircraft's uvmapping layout as a layer and then create a layer with damage in desired areas...then export only layer with damage as tga named as  noted before.

ad.4 none

ad.6 edit specific gun ini files. 

ad.7 it is default by game - the game will place only aircraft for nations available on specific terrain - terrain_nations.ini. - the game will place it randomly - its coded somewhere coded in game engine. I think we cant access this.

ad.8 Could be done with editing nations.ini and campaign files itself.

 

[Wrench]

3) damage modeling is not only controlled by the _holes.tga (or _holes.dds if used), but as yakarov started to say, by the model itself. Very few 3rd party models incorporate "damaged" parts (stock aircraft do). Many of the data inis are also lacking "detatch nodes" for the bits that fall off when hit. The internal model (built is as damage meshes for the main LOD) take up extra polys and can increase "heaviness" of the model. This is why you'll see wings and tail planes shot/broken off, and can look INSIDE the main model. 

Unfortunately, not all 3rd party model makers include them. Some do, some don't, some refer to 'stock 3w' units. That may not always match the mapping of the aircraft

the damage (holes) is "somewhat" applied like a decal, as it does just simply overlay the sections of the aircraft, as Yakarov & daddyairplanes said. The more skin maps each model has, the more _holes.tga/dds are needed. Best way to see this, is extract them take a look. They can be found in various ObjectData cat, see the example below. In SF2, all stock damage textures are dds

[Dornil]

Thank you for the answers, everyone! 

So, to make the aircraft use holes.tga, I must first map it to the LOD via 3DS max 2009, correct?

About Dhimar and Paran - they were in the game from the very start by default, right? Where are they, if not in the cat-extracted nations.ini?

 

[yakarov79]

6 hours ago, Dornil said:

So, to make the aircraft use holes.tga, I must first map it to the LOD via 3DS max 2009, correct?

Way Wrench described is more complex ..and can be done only at the stage of making model. Anyway..simple damaged skin overlay is easy. 

In case if ou want to use common damaged / holes  tga.  You need only to create tgas that will overlay skins in case of damage. 

example on  latest Meteor T.7 

skin name Meteor_T7_1

skin with nodes layout (this you ca n see in lodviewer)

skin with damaged texture via tga

exported  TGA should be like this (this is jpg to show the way - in tga bckground should be transparent) and exported as - Meteor_T7_1_holes - as described in main aircraft ini file:

[AircraftData]
AircraftFullName=' Meteor T.7
AircraftShortName=Meteor T.7
AircraftDataFile=MeteorT7_data.ini
LoadoutFile=MeteorT7_loadout.ini
UserList=MeteorT7_userlist.ini
CockpitDataFile=MeteorT7_Cockpit.ini
LoadoutImage=MeteorT7_loadout.tga
HangarScreen=MeteorT7_hangar.JPG
LoadingScreen=MeteorT7_Loading.JPG
AvionicsDLL=
AvionicsDataFilename=

[LOD001]
Filename=Meteor_T7.lod
Distance=500

[LOD002]
Filename=Meteor_T7-001.lod
Distance=1000

[LOD003]
Filename=Meteor_T7-002.lod
Distance=1800

[DamageTexture]
DamagedPostFix=_holes.tga
 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2018 by yakarov79

[+baffmeister]

On 10/25/2018 at 3:52 AM, Dornil said:

10) Dhimar and Parani are nowhere to be found, neither in a sinle mission list, nor in NATIONS.INI. Where are they hiding?

Dornil, here's an old link that may be of use regarding Dhimar and Paran. At one point I used this edit to make Dhimar and Paran flyable in campaigns but now I just use 4 new fictional countries two of which use the Dhimar and Paran insignia. https://combatace.com/forums/topic/52761-desert-campaign-no-foreign-powers/?tab=comments#comment-387822

[Wrench]

You don't even need to actually "create" new holes tga/dds. The way I've been doing it for the last several years, is simply find one of the stock ones that's "close enough", via comparing it to the skin maps. Then, it's a simple copy and rename to match the X-aircraft's skins. Saves a fuckload of time, and works just as well

 

(yea, I'm a cheater. After 15 years with this game, I'm allowed!!  )

 

[+daddyairplanes]

4 hours ago, baffmeister said:

Dornil, here's an old link that may be of use regarding Dhimar and Paran. At one point I used this edit to make Dhimar and Paran flyable in campaigns but now I just use 4 new fictional countries two of which use the Dhimar and Paran insignia. https://combatace.com/forums/topic/52761-desert-campaign-no-foreign-powers/?tab=comments#comment-387822

so thats where mine came from!!!!

[+allenjb42]

Here's a Nations.ini file that includes Dhimar and Paran.

NATIONS.INI

[Dornil]

Thank you very much, everyone!