FastCargo

Mue, you are exactly right here...please don't attempt to create a LOD converter/reverse engineering program...like others have said, it can result in legal issues (for payware) and general discontent among 3d modders. 3d modders can (and have) released 3d models in MAX format for modification by others if they wanted to. I think a LOD exporter for something like Blender would be fantastic on the other hand. But I suspect that would be a soul crushing amount of work. If you are having problems finding a hosting site, consider something like Google Drive, which is free, has much, much higher uploading limits...and no attempts at malware or spam for downloaders. You can set the individual permissions for any files you upload (download only, public, private, etc). FC

Okay, I've tested out the new, attached file and it comes out clean using several AV programs. The viewer is an awesome first start. I've been wanting a light, fast viewer for texturing, because even 3D max is clunky with updating textures as you change them and of course booting into SF2 takes forever. Nice job mue. Texture gurus I think will find this program VERY useful. FC

I was thinking that as well, that site seems a little...tricky. We would be happy to host the file here at CA when we have a 'clean' copy of it. FC

Alrighty folks, several members (including myself) are saying that their anti-virus software reports this as malware. The download link has been removed until a 'clean' version can be evaluated as safe. Mue, we hope you can provide us with a better version for folks to use...or find an upload site that is less questionable. FC

Gentlemen, I'm getting at least two sources on my computer that says this is malware. Can any of our established members who aren't afraid of possible malware evaluate this thing? FC

It wouldn't be interesting really. The TW sims are not built for space or near space operations. The maps are too small, and the modeling of atmosphere effects are limited. It is fun to think about, but better simulators for such flying can be had...Orbiter, X-Plane 10, even FSX. FC

As part of the 'simming on the go' series of reviews, CombatAce looks at Laminar Research's X-Plane for Android. Normally, we would not review X-Plane because it is a civilian flight simulation...and after all, we are CombatAce. However, X-Plane for Android has some limited air combat options. In addition, it is a well regarded flight simulator, using 'blade theory' for flight dynamics and even includes multiplayer. So we decided it was worth a look. How does it fly? Let's jump in... As you can see at the top, this is the screen that greets you when you start X-Plane. Nice reference to the full PC version right there in the screen...more or less free advertising! And speaking of which, normally X-Plane on ALL platforms is a payware program, but due to some sort of patent issue, the Android version is free! Looking at the Google Play store screen for X-Plane, you would think it has a remarkably small footprint. What isn't specified is that after you install and start it, it has to download more content before it would run. This only has to occur once, but makes it unclear how much space the program actually takes up. The current version requires at least Android version 2.2 to run. Included in the basic free level are several aircraft and terrains. Terrains are a decent variety, ranging from southern California to Austria to Hawaii, etc. Aircraft are mostly light general aviation, business jet...and a JA37 Viggen hidden in the back! Additional aircraft and/or terrains are available for $0.99 each. The terrains are more famous areas, but additional aircraft are a really wide variety from the A380, F-22, Huey Cobras, to more exotic types like the XB-70 and X-15. Unfortunately, the first obstacle to getting some air combat goodness rears its head. Only certain aircraft have air combat capability...namely, fighter types like the Mig-21, F-14 etc. No bombers or helos have combat ability in this program. In addition, none of the air combat capable aircraft are free...the Viggen isn't armed. Since I wanted to shoot stuff, I ended up purchasing teh sexplane (F-14) and the B-1B to see if we could drop bombs (nope). Settings X-Plane, being based off the PC version, means you have the power to tweak just about everything in the flight scenario, as is typical for this kind of program. The following thumbnails show all the different option screens , click on the appropriate link for a more detailed view. Location Flight Conditions Weather Conditions Time Of Day Weight and Balance Failures Aircraft Calibration Most screens are pretty self explanatory, there is even an accelerometer calibration screen, to get detailed readings on what the phone/tablet is sensing. Basic Flight The flight typically starts with a HUD view: Basic pitch and roll controls are through the accelerometer. The secondary controls are on screen, including things like sweep and flaps. Note that except for the rudder, the other secondary controls have a 'lag' associated with them...ie you use the control to 'set' the flaps, then a dimmer marker which actually shows the position of the flight control moves to match what you set. Nice touch of realism to those controls. To bring up additional views or the options, merely touch anywhere on the screen not associated with a control. Several transparent tiles will pop up temporarily, and disappear after about 5 seconds. Touch any of them while they are visible to change or activate the desired option (see the flight dynamics screenshot for more detail on what this looks like). Included views (besides the default HUD view): Cockpit view. Cockpit views tend to vary from aircraft to aircraft, but they are all similar in that there is no view outside, betraying X-Plane's civilian based roots. A better description would be Instrument View. Flyby, fixed location, and external views all look roughly similar, just different in how they interact with the camera. One glaring omission is lack of any flight data in these views. X-Plane also has a replay function, where you can look back and replay the action from different viewpoints. You cannot alter the outcome, and there are some glitches, usually related to visual damage still showing even if you rewind before the point where the damage occurred. Flight Dynamics The way aircraft feel in X-Plane are the highlight of this program. Aircraft are affected by weight, speed, Gs, etc. in a very believable fashion. This is not surprising, based on Laminar Research stating that 85 percent of the flight dynamics code in the PC version is incorporated into the Android version. The aircraft just seem to feel right compared to most other flight programs on Android. There are some exceptions...the F-14 for instance seems to gain speed far too quickly when the wings are swept back. X-Plane has a nice option to actually 'see' what it is calculating in real time on the flying surfaces. You can see the vectors for lift, drag, and thrust all change as you fly the aircraft around. Quite fascinating from an air enthusiast point of view. Minor nit...the B-1B does not appear to be calculating lift from the body...whereas the real thing generates over half its lift from the fuselage when the wings are back. Flight controls appear to move correctly...makes sense based on how X-Plane works. Weather, turbulence, wind are all modeled. Aircraft and terrain collision are also modeled. Overstress, surprisingly, does not seem to be modeled. The terrains 'wrap'....you simply appear at the far side of the map when you hit the edge. Lights are on all the time and no atmospheric effects (vortex, Mach 'cones', etc) are modeled. Damage effects are limited to big flames when destroyed. No airframe destruction is modeled...when hitting the ground, you simply bounce along until running out of momentum (while flaming of course). Carrier Operations Depending on the aircraft and terrain, you can launch and recover on aircraft carriers. The launch feels a bit simplistic, but the recovery makes up for it. The combination of the flight dynamics, sense of speed and grading system urges you to try to nail it down, giving you a challenge you'll keep coming back to. How we lookin? Part of the enjoyment of flight simulation is viewing the aircraft we enjoy flying. Sadly, X-Plane models are uneven in quality. The civilian models aren't bad...planes like the Avanti are quite nice. But the same can't be said for at least the military models I played with. Some screenshots: The last screenshot is my B-1B model that I created in 1995 for Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.1. It is kind of sad to see a model created almost 15 years later that actually looks worse than mine. Stretched and mirrored textures, inaccurate or excessively blocky contours characterize the 3 military models I played with. I'm not looking for the PC version in visual fidelity...but something at least to the quality of the ThirdWire Android offering would be nice. It mainly just adds to the feeling that the air combat was just 'tacked on' in X-Plane. Lets shoot some stuff down! If you're looking for variety in your air combat, you won't find it here. You and your opponent's armament consists of guns and Sidewinder missiles. That's it. For single player, there is no choice of opponent or armament. You can choose where to duel though. As mentioned before, only certain aircraft are even armed and only certain terrains allow for air combat. Based on the screenshots, you would think there are things missing. And you would be right. Other than the 'box' around your opponent, there are no visual or auditory cues to let you know you have a lock. No gun reticle, funnel or line. There is a cue at the edge of the screen to show the direction of your opponent when he is off screen. No ECM or expendables are available. You do get an audio warning tone if your opponent has a missile in the air. Basically, most of the time, your shooting consists of either launching a missile and praying, or filling the windscreen with the target before gunning him. Missiles themselves seem to be all aspect (having been face shot a few times to verify this). Based on what I could tell, any modern western fighter you buy will have the MiG-21 as its opponent...mainly because that seems to be the only eastern block aircraft available for X-Plane. The AI opponent is a little uneven. I did notice that he would sometimes use a vertical loop verses a horizontal turn to maneuver. But there never seemed to be much blending of the two to turn at an oblique angle. It doesn't help that the AI cheats...I found him on the ground sometimes, fully intact but making like a tank...which makes trying to get 'in plane' difficult. But I can verify that a strafing kill works... Multiplayer There is possibly a redeeming characteristic of air combat in X-Plane we haven't talked about yet...multiplayer. X-Plane supports multiplayer over wifi. Within multiplayer, collision and air combat effects are modeled (with sometimes hilarious results). Both devices have to be on the same wifi network. Connecting to each other is pretty easy...just wait until you see each other on the Multiplayer screen and then select. Minor issues include each player can have totally different simulation situations (ie different locations, weather, time of day, etc). Which means if you pick different terrains, you won't ever see each other. Or the playing field itself could be very uneven. The largest issue with multiplayer is because it is wifi only, you have to be in the same local wifi network. Which means you're hanging out together already. In which case, why not play something more optimized for multiplayer (like a console). In addition, both of you must have purchased aircraft that are air combat capable. PCs and consoles do multiplayer much better in that you can game over the internet...something you can't do here. Conclusion X-Plane is a good mobile flight simulator...but it isn't so good at air combat. Highs include fairly realistic flight model handling, especially for the civilian aircraft, and a wide range of adjustments available for the simulation 'world'. Lows include very uneven external model appearances, and sometimes dodgy combat AI. Multiplayer can be fun in specific circumstances. I would recommend trying X-Plane for Android for basic flight simulation, but have a hard time justifying spending money for the available air combat. Reviewed on a HP Touchpad running Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

Ewwww! And Dillion, welcome to the community. We do look forward to your contributions. The fact that you were in Hornets at one time does help. As a first step, I'd recommend hitting up our Knowledge Base. It will give you a LOT of information on how the sim works...there are a lot of changes you can make with simple text editing. Most modders tended to get their start in doing that before moving on to other things. FC

Its real simple. The SH was done that way because that's the way it was done. The amount of effort was dictated by my ability, interest, and time available. Personal motivations as to why someone approached a project in that way are really not your concern. You asked your question - Why do you get a performance hit? You got your answer - Lots of reasons. You asked a question - What can you do? You got your answer - Have the sim switch over to the less detailed models at a closer distance. Why people like nice, detailed, poly heavy external models and criticizing them for doing so is not relevant to the discussion. Fellow modders are excepted from this suggestion because they've shown they are willing to put in the skull sweat and time to make their mark on the sim and contributing to the community. And some are good enough to share their techniques and/or projects with others so that we all get better. Understand yet? I am not critiquing your question about why you are getting a performance hit and how you can fix it on your end. I am critiquing your judgment on other people motivations on what they like, why they do it that way and how they like it. That somehow your considerations are superior to theirs, even though you have contributed very little to no content to the community. That you haven't even bothered to learn how the sim basically works...that half your answers to your 'issues' could be solved by just reading the inis, most of which are in plain English. In other words, most of your posts have come off as 'It's all about me'. I'm sure that's not the intent...but it comes off that way. Finally, understand this. This sim has been around for more than a decade. It has gone through 2 generations, 3 engine upgrades, several releases, expansion packs, and shitloads of patches. The modding community has been around almost as long, modders moving in, moving out, moving on, dying (literally), having major real life crisis, contributing tons of their own content, time and money to offer a spectrum of stuff from simple text edits to full blown packages that can damn near rival any payware addon. Modders taking it personally? You fucking betcha. FC

This is NOT asking a performance question. FC

I've already had a replacement HOTAS for a while...been wondering if I should sell my old stuff... FC

Heck, I've got a FLCS/TQS/RCS that has been sitting for years... FC

Where do I even begin... Dillon, First, the Super Hornet model that you see in game was purchased by EricJ for the purpose of bringing it into the SF engine back in late 2008. He asked me as a favor to bring it into game. The model as originally built if I remember correctly was darn near 100k polygons. You cannot simply run it through a poly reducer algorithm in the 3d modeling program...odd things happen that can change the shape, or cause odd deformations. This goes double if nothing has been done to bring it into the game engine yet. Pieces have to be 'cut' and shaped or animated, then texture mapped. This mostly has to be done by hand, sometimes vertex by vertex. It is also personal choice as to how many polygons a modeler wants on his model. If he's got a decent rig, he may accept more detail for less performance. Or, he can make multiple models of varying resolutions so that the farther away the aircraft is, the lower amount of polys it shows. In addition, the Super Hornet was an experiment to try various new modeling features that had not been tried before in SF...and so things were added that aren't on other models, such as the ALE-50, and the 'buddy' A/R pod. And lets not forget the Growler with all it's pods that needed to be modeled. Secondly, most of the other programs you mentioned were so old that performance isn't an issue, or the models themselves aren't that detailed. Some of them use pay addons, where there is financial motivation to reduce polys to have playability to the widest amount of machines out there. And SF2:NA uses a different terrain engine that has significant frame rate hit compared to other terrains because of certain ways it handles land, ocean effects, etc. All of these contribute to frame rate drag. Third, the SH package in all its forms was done for a cost to you of zero. People put a lot of time, effort, and even some money to get this out there for others to enjoy. Understand that to an extent, these projects are not made for you. They are given to you to share and enjoy, but they are not perfect, nor will they necessarily ever be so. Sometimes, they are done to the extent of the modeler's ability, interest, and time. And sometimes, that is all you will get. If you want to improve upon what is available, why not get your hands dirty and start figuring out how the sim works. A lot of those ini edits you can make yourself with nothing but Notepad. Considering you were a backseater in Hornets at one point, this should not be below your abilities to figure out. FC

This is why I told you to compare the files, not do a wholesale copy and paste. Restore your F/A-18B data.ini and do what Romflyer says...that will at least completely remove the ability of the rudders to toe at all. FC

Look for any other differences in their respective data.ini files. I use a program called WinMerge which automates this function. Also, make sure their respective .OUT files are the same in case the part names were different. OUT files are text files, so WinMerge or any other text program will read them just fine. FC

Right on! FC

Simple...copy the appropriate sections dealing with the rudder from the A model data.ini to the B model data.ini. Hopefully that will fix the issue. FC

Exactly what I was thinking Wrench...with this, our F-51 and RF-51, folks shouldn't need SF2I:Exp 1 at all. In fact, Do335, is there a way you can break down what from which version of SF2 is needed? Or have you specified this in the readme already? FC

I've sent a PM to Russ and Kulbit to see what the status is on these and how much work it would be to get them to release status. I can do decals if we need them. FC

I have this Meteor (me) and cockpit (Dels) that is (as far as I know) completely unreleased. It was awaiting skins from Kulbit80 and they were beautiful... Also, Russ was working on updating his F-84E and G models, and retrofitting those changes to the B/C/D models that I had built from his original MAX files... I don't want to delay a comprehensive pack...but these models have been sitting...just waiting for a release... FC

Most assumptions are clean unless the aircraft has flaps/slats for the specific purpose of maneuvering (most modern fighters). The reason was given in the link provided by manukar...but basically, flaps provide extra lift but at the expense of a lot of increased drag. It may work for a emergency 'snap' maneuver, but you will kill a lot of energy doing it. It is not something you would plan a sustained turn on, again, unless the flaps/slats were designed to be used in this way. FC

Tac Pack won't impress me until there is something other than drone AI...I'm under the impression that there still isn't any combat AI for Tac Pack. FC

Interesting article: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/196152-who-really-hacked-sony-pictures-it-probably-wasnt-north-korea FC

Come on down to Texas...we don't have 'The Interview', but we will be showing the next best thing... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/17/alamo-drafthouse-team-america_n_6345156.html FC

On C-SPAN, two brothers who are on opposite sides of the political spectrum (Brad and Dallas Woodhouse) are in a debate, and a special caller decides to weigh in: Yeah, that would be their mom, basically telling them to get it out of their systems before they come visit for Christmas! I'm still laughing at this...no matter what side you fall on, your mom laying the smackdown on you on national television is funny. FC