Can you have Airliners on friendly and enemy airbases?

[+allenjb42]

If you include the Airliner nation as both FriendlyNationxxx and EnemyNationxxx in your terrain Nations.ini list will you get parked airliners showing at both friendly and enemy bases, or is there a NeutralNation that could get this result?

[+Gepard]

I would try to set

NationName=Generic

in the data ini of the airliner.

[Wilches]

The best way is to make the plane as a static object and place it inside the game´s terrain. Then, add it to the XXX_Types.ini. Go to the TargetAreaEditor and place it wherever you want. Sounds hard but it´s not.

[macelena]

I have C-47s appear regularly parked and flying about, i guess you could just give them a nation available in the map

[Wilches]

It can be generated by the program, but it's very random. The method I described is to place an especific plane on an especific site.

[Wrench]

No.

Unfortunately, the way daddyairplanes has set them up (because all the markings are level 2 decals), as a seperate "Airlines" nation that is friendly. The only why to do it is to assign each airline to it's nation of origin. Which means have individual skins, with correct reistration numbers. Then, Exported=TRUE and ExportedToEnemy=TRUE.

This is what I did in a revamp of TMFs B-707. (just to original 4 skins). I haven't released it, because it'll totally fuck up DA's work.

See below:

Quote

[TextureSet001]
Directory=BOAC
Name=BOAC (1960-86)
Nation=RAF
Specular=1.000000
Glossiness=0.500000
Reflection=1.000000
DecalNumberRandomize=TRUE
DecalNumberBlockSize=14
DecalNumberStart=0
DecalNumberEnd=13

[TextureSet002]
Directory=Elal
Name=El Al Airlines (1961-2018)
Nation=Israel
Specular=1.000000
Glossiness=0.500000
Reflection=1.000000
DecalNumberRandomize=TRUE
DecalNumberBlockSize=12
DecalNumberStart=0
DecalNumberEnd=11

[TextureSet003]
Directory=pa
Name=Pan Am Airlines (1958-99)
Nation=USAF
Specular=1.000000
Glossiness=0.500000
Reflection=1.000000
DecalNumberRandomize=TRUE
DecalNumberBlockSize=18
DecalNumberStart=0
DecalNumberEnd=17

[TextureSet004]
Directory=TMA
Name=TMA Air Cargo (1965-2004)
Nation=Lebanon
Specular=1.000000
Glossiness=0.500000
Reflection=1.000000
DecalNumberRandomize=TRUE
DecalNumberBlockSize=6
DecalNumberStart=0
DecalNumberEnd=5

with those is was easy, as the skins already existed requiring minimal repainting to remove any painted on bits.

To REALLY do it right, we'd need the templates, or someone has to build them, the user list (that part's REAL easy) and create the individual national airlines or other carriers, assigned to their nation's air force.

There are only 2 sides in all the 3W games -- Red and Blue. Even target areas marked as Neutral, are assigned Red coloration on the maps.

As to Mac's Skytrains, take a look at them in-game closely -- ID the national markings, then look at the data ini and userlist

[macelena]

8 minutes ago, Wrench said:

As to Mac's Skytrains, take a look at them in-game closely -- ID the national markings, then look at the data ini and userlist

They are the stock ones, misunderstood the question. Would it be easier to make a "clone" with the same skins, and everything set to the other side?

[+daddyairplanes]

believing myself to be the one to create an airliner nation (esp if the start date is 1921 in what youre looking at), i think yes and no.

mainly no, its set for friendly, and most of the airlines that have been done are western oriented airlines, or did business in western nations

i have given much thought to doing a RED_Airline, which would cover the WARPAC airlines (Aeroflot, InterFlug). if the skin for an airliner were set to RED, it would allow that airline to operate on the other side of the Iron Curtain. or for those of us that tga the skins, have Eastern and Western airlines on the same ramp. have not done it yet as i havent worked an airliner that was mostly non Western in origin (like an Ilyushin or Tupolev bird) but i would just set it up the same but with the different name for red side. this would be the yes part but require more work than most want to put in

Gepards response seems good on the surface. issue is that the airliner nation also sets up for a entry i put in the formation ini, that spaces any bigger formations out in a string. sets up for a stream of reinforcements coming in from CONUS, several thousand meters apart in a line.

Wrench, as long as none of them are set as the default skins, i dont see why they wouldnt fit in with mine. i set default start dates for each "era" skln so 60s skins didnt pop up in the 80s, etc. but i do my method to have multiple airlines on a ramp like RL. (if we ever get a good Tan Son Nhut International airfield, gotta do a Nam specific skin with a couple Pan Am and Braniff tgas as opposed to the current one each)

Edited March 21, 2021 by daddyairplanes

[Wrench]

well, Kev, I'll send you the 707, and you can see for yourself! I just didn't want to undo any of your hard work!!!

BTW, we do have some Red Airliners, thanks to Veltro, in the D/L section. I revamped them a few years back

[Stratos]

Airliners are regular airplanes placed by the engine by itself right? Is not possible to have a 737_Blue that will be placed in Blue airbases and a 737_Red for Red airbases, two folders of the same plane with same skins, but different Nations...

 

Running for cover... 

[+allenjb42]

13 hours ago, Wilches said:

The best way is to make the plane as a static object and place it inside the game´s terrain. Then, add it to the XXX_Types.ini. Go to the TargetAreaEditor and place it wherever you want. Sounds hard but it´s not.

Thanks. I know the static object method, which is great, but I also prefer the randomness of the the game's ParkedAircraft method, especially combined with DA's mix of airliner skins.

Rather than a Cold War scenario where you would very rarely see western airliners in E Europe and vice-versa, or WW3 with no airliners except for the air bridge to Europe, I'm thinking of more modern low intensity-type scenarios where both countries would still be open for business to the outside world - say Greece/Turkey, Ethiopia/Eritrea or a South American conflict as examples.

 Stratos's idea of copying the aircraft for Red and Blue sides seems a bit clunky and unnecessarily bloating the Aircraft folder..

But building on this and on DA's RED_Airliner nation idea, how about just copying the skin within the aircraft and declaring the nation as RED_Airliner?

Obviously you would need to set up the Userlist.ini to include Airliner and RED_Airliner and include those nations in the terrain's Nations.ini

Would that then generate the parked airliners with a mix of DA's .tga skins on both red and blue airbases?     

[Stratos]

I'm clunky myself.

[bazillius]

this way airlainers will be generated not only at parking but in the air as targets

[EricJ]

Yeah I can see that, Intercept Aeroflot Tu-154s (If my mind serves me right that's the Russian DC-9 or so, could be wrong) and so "Die commie bastards!"

[macelena]

33 minutes ago, EricJ said:

Yeah I can see that, Intercept Aeroflot Tu-154s (If my mind serves me right that's the Russian DC-9 or so, could be wrong) and so "Die commie bastards!"

I have to admit, over Germany, if there is any An-12 flying around, mission can wait, that big boy is going down. Not sure it would be the same with airliners though. 

[EricJ]

2 minutes ago, macelena said:

I have to admit, over Germany, if there is any An-12 flying around, mission can wait, that big boy is going down. Not sure it would be the same with airliners though. 

True, but given SF2 you may get airliners, but you never know too. You can always imagine that it's a Red Dawn scenario, filled with troops instead of civilians. Not that I advocate shooting down airliners, but it might cycle them if you're not too careful.

Edited March 21, 2021 by EricJ

[+daddyairplanes]

7 hours ago, allenjb42 said:

But building on this and on DA's RED_Airliner nation idea, how about just copying the skin within the aircraft and declaring the nation as RED_Airliner?

Obviously you would need to set up the Userlist.ini to include Airliner and RED_Airliner and include those nations in the terrain's Nations.ini

Would that then generate the parked airliners with a mix of DA's .tga skins on both red and blue airbases?     

it should work how you mentioned.

the alibi fire on that is that the RED side i would have more of the other side airlines within the skin, and fewer in the regular Airliner nation one. but thats how i would do it

kind of like the TSF skins i did on a few airliners for JonathanRL when he was still active in SF2. mostly European airlines or at least ones that would be seen in Sweden (there were a few American companies for the DC-10). but every third one was SAS, as you would expect to see more of them in Stockholm. nothing too hard, was just a matter of copy paste and rename once the originals were done.

other Kev (), they look good and you should release them just for Pan Am with serials an Clipper names! there is nations entry in the skins and data ini, so i wonder if you could have the data nation as airliner, export as true, and individual nation in the textureset ini. if so, no conflict with mine with just a couple minor changes in the data ini

 

oh and for all the Aeroflot comments above, in a SF2E wartime scenario the airliners are flying for the Soviet military not the airline. game on

Edited March 21, 2021 by daddyairplanes

[+Gepard]

5 hours ago, EricJ said:

Yeah I can see that, Intercept Aeroflot Tu-154s (If my mind serves me right that's the Russian DC-9 or so, could be wrong)

Not DC-9, more Boeing 727 style, but bigger and more capable. Was a really good plane. Faster than the other airliners and not as loud for the passengers.

[Wrench]

Quote

 if you could have the data nation as airliner, export as true, and individual nation in the textureset ini.

that just might work...

leaving "ExportedToEnemy=TRUE" (in the case of Lebanon, fer instance)

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, Gepard said:

Not DC-9, more Boeing 727 style, but bigger and more capable. Was a really good plane. Faster than the other airliners and not as loud for the passengers.

Ahh I see now.