FastCargo

Drag chutes can be added externally. Basically, you build a bomb bay in the ini file, and the chute is a 'bomb' that only appears when you open the bombbay. You can even drop the chute and you can build a 'collapsed' model that sits like a crater. BUT, dropping the chute on the ground will only work in Gen 1 sims. We so far have not been able to find a way to make it work in Gen 2 sims. FC

I was thinking the same thing. FC

If the pylons are in the weapons folder...did you check that they are actually loaded? FC

I've been running a tri-boot for a while...Win7 64, Vista 32, XP MCE 2005. Slowly migrating my programs from Vista to Win7. XP is for legacy programs. FC

If you have a ton of files outside of their weapon folders, you installed the wrong weapons pack for the specific patch level. For instance, Bunyap's weapons pack is VERY old, and is not meant for Generation 1 sims at the Oct 08 patch or ANY of the SF2 series. You may have also screwed up several other things if you did this. FC

Sons of Anarchy. TV show on FX network about a fictional motorcycle gang. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Anarchy FC

The DX10 effects were implemented for all sims with the Dec 09 patch. It now does not matter which sim you run, if you patch any one of SF2 series with the Dec 09 patch, you are running the latest engine. SF2/V/E/I are now all eqvialent with the Dec 09 patch. Which means the enbseries mod is redundant and non-functional. FC

Thog10, Congrats! Wonderful thing being an parent! I have to admit, didn't think about the fact that the bar keeps getting raised. As computers have gotten stronger, and TK has added more functionality in his sims, it's made making a quality mod that takes advantage of this all the more difficult. There are more things to check, more things to add, more things to program and troubleshoot. It can get to the point where you wonder if you are rivaling time and effort spent making payware. In some ways, it's the double edged sword. Something so easy to mod means there are always mods coming out for it. Something much more difficult or closed keeps the mods to a minimum because of the difficulty involved. FC

This is fairly old news...this accident happened on November 15, 2007. There was no 'news blackout'. Here's the full report (in French): http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2007/f-cj071115/pdf/f-cj071115.pdf And here, translated into English: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/300539-brand-new-etihad-a340-600-damaged-toulouse-several-wounded-26.html#post4705627 In particular: There were 9 personnel on board, 5 were injured, none with life threatening injuries. Of the 3 in the cockpit seats, 2 of them (F/O and Observer seats) were employees of Airbus, not of the MX company. FC

Super Dave has nailed it right on the head. 1) Right now it's the wrong time of year...real life intrudes during this time, with schools going on break or semesters ending, Christmas, New Years, etc. there is just too much going on with events, friends and family to spend a whole lot of brain bytes concentrating on a mod. 2) Furious rates of releases and patches. TK has been working hard to get these new releases and patches that add functionality and beauty to the sim (DX10 effects), but because some of the releases fundementally change how the sim works, it tends to 'break' a lot of things...things which take time to mod older stuff to work with properly. If you think about it, within the space of one year, TK has released 4 sims, with an engine update in each sim, and not one, but 2 seperate patches and now a combo pack! For projects that can take a year or more, it gets frustrating...just as you think you've finished and/or you've got your sim running the way you want, another patch comes out and borks up the whole thing. 3) Burn out. This one is simple. It's real easy to lose interest on something if you spend too much time on it. Occasionally it's nice to take a break. And believe me, most people don't care that you want a progress report on a particular mod...in fact, I'll be happy to tell you to pound sand if you get annoying about it. Same goes with nitpicking. Most times, modders will typically want to hear about stuff that causes a crash, or is blatantly messed up (gear doesn't move correctly, etc) right after a new release. However, things like having the proper glareshield cover...yea, save that until later, once the mod has been out a while. "Do not meddle in the affairs of modders, for they are subtle and quick to anger." But there are things you can do to help. 1) First, read the damn readme, 90% percent of the time, the readme will have a date the mod has been released. If there have been patches since that time, there is a good chance the mod is no longer completely compatible with that patch level. As part of this also, use the search function...90% of the time, the question you want to ask has probably already been answered somewhere. And look at the knowledge base...learn how the sim works. 2) Use that knowledge...learn how to fix things yourself first. Don't be afraid to try things out yourself. Just keep your modding predictable, and reversible. 3) Finally, if you improve enough in your own abilities, start taking it upon yourself to mod. If you can improve old things to work in the newer levels, do so! If you can upload a QUALITY product, with the proper credits, completions and permissions, it will make life easier for everyone. KillerBee's weapons pack is a prime example. This will make life easier for everyone. Though TK has done a great job of updating stuff...I hope he takes it easy for a while...I'd like to catch up at some point. FC

Hahahaha! FC

That's actually pretty cheap! Of course, the MX cost and insurance would be another thing entirely... Ain't that sweet...Su-27s owned by private civilians! FC

Well, the MF F-16s were done before WOE came out with the additional coding for modern HUDs. There may be a mod somewhere around here to take advantage of that coding. FC

Mono27, If there are updates, they will be posted. Don't spam the message board with the eqivalent of "Are we there yet?". You won't die if you don't get an update. There are other things you can do. FC

All the article says is that Win 7 warnings are more subdued, it doesn't say anything it actually being less secure. How about fully reading and comprehending the article before going all 'tinfoil hat'. In fact, the XP mode emulation that Win 7 Professional and Ultimate can do is considered more secure than Vista because it can run a 'virtually' isolated machine (as said by the same author...there is some disagreement). FC

Let me make it a little clearer for you. Lets look at a typical WeaponStation: Don't worry about getting too specific here...this is just a generic station. Note the 2 areas in bold, the StationID and StationGroupID. The StationGroupID represents the group number that station belongs to. As an example, the outer wingtips on an F-16 would be stationGroupID=1, the outer pylons would be 2, mid pylons 3, etc. You can have a total of 6 selectable StationGroupIDs...another way to put it is that each StationGroupID represents a loadout 'line' on the Loadout screen. Now, the StationID represents the individual stations, of which you can have a total of 32 (with a bombbay like above considered one StationID). Again, in our example of the F-16, the left wingtip would be Station ID=1, the right wingtip would be StationID=2, the left outer pylon is StationID=3, the right one StationID=4, and so on. So, what does this mean. First, if you are using the Loadout screen, you can only load ONE type of weapon per StationGroupID. In other words, if you wanted an AIM-9P on the left wingtip, and an AIM-9M on the right wingtip, if they are both part of the same StationGroupID, you CANNOT do this through the loadout screen manually (there is a way to step around this using the LOADOUT.INI file, we will talk about that later). Secondly, you can have different weapon stations (different StationIDs) occupy the same point in space. An example is if you have a weapon station able to carry a 2000 pound BOMB (length, weight, diameter parameters all met), it means it can also carry a large missile (a AGM-88 for example) because the missile meets those dimensional parameters and you have BOMB, ARM as your AllowedWeaponClass. The problem is, in real life, that aircraft can't carry large ARM missile there due to whatever, but can carry a small ARM. So how to allow both types of weapons? Simply duplicate the weapon station with a new StationID number. Keep the BOMB station with the 2000 lb limits, but shrink down the ARM weapon station limits to what you want if needed. The idea is in the loadout screen, it will only let you select one or the other, both with the proper dimensional limits. Now, with the LOADOUT.INI file, it will override the limits I stated above (ie you can load different weapons, or load 2 weapons in the same space) IF you do not fiddle with the loadout screen (ie accept the default weapons as listed in the LOADOUT.INI. So, for your case, you will need at least 3 seperate StationIDs (or in the Lancaster's case, up to 5). However, depending on your preference and the amount of StationGroupIDs available, you can make each StationID a seperate StationGroupID. Voila, you now can mix and match weapons in the same bomb bay. You will of course have to work out the individual AttachmentPosition coordinates. A couple of things though. 1) The sim does NOT work out visual deconfliction issues on individual weapons, between weapon stations, etc. In other words, if all your bombbay stations CAN carry 2000 bombs, but in real life, you couldn't cram all those weapons into a bay...the sim won't care. It will do it anyway if you tell it to in either the LOADOUT.INI or the loadout screen, and visually, it'll look like crap because the weapons will be all overlapped and running into each other (bad clipping issues). The way to combat this are to either limit which stations can carry what type of weapons (length, diameter, weight limits and/or SpecificStationCode parameter), or force the proper weapons into the proper bays using the LOADOUT.INI (which will be disregarded if you go into the loadout screen). 2) The sim has a bug where you will get the proper bombbay animation (under AI control) for multiple weapon stations ONLY if every station has it's own animation. In other words, if you are dropping bombs, the animations will always look right, even if you have the same animations for several weapon stations. However, your AI aircraft, if multiple weapon stations are sharing the same animation, only ONE of the weapon stations will get the proper animation. The other weapon stations will be dropping bombs/firing missiles through the weapon door...again, an immersion killer... There may be no way to step around this if you don't have access to the MAX file to fix it. Personally, I use dimensional limits to the max extent where possible, and a good readme with a great LOADOUT.INI where not. FC

Military aircraft programs are getting ridiculous in terms of time from initial concept to operational status. Fighter type aircraft are bad enough (yes, I'm looking at you F-22)...but even straight forward concepts like a transport are taking way too long. With the A400M, you could have literally have seen the concept designs, then started a 20 year career, retired, and STILL not seen the first flight... This is not a criticism of the aircraft, just of the process. FC

Start here: http://forum.combatace.com/forum/99-thirdwire-woewoiwovsf-12-knowledge-base/ FC

Quite frankly, the USG can't write a contract to save their lives. Having had to deal with the results of such contracts...and finding out that we haven't figured out anything in 20+ years... FC

There aren't plans to make an F-15FX because the parameters of it's performance have not been specified in unclassified literature...yet. If you want to make one yourself, take a F-15E and add Japanese equipment and markings. That will get you close. Here is what is in the queue for release: http://forum.combatace.com/topic/45664-eagles-gone-wild/page__view__findpost__p__332465 FC

If it's from the old Bunyap pack...I don't think there is one. FC

Rugg, I hear ya buddy...I'd have gone ape if that had happened to my old muscle car... FC

Well, first, unless the USAF made some purchases of Block 60 F-16s, there are no F-16Es in the USAF inventory...especially not back in 1995 Mainly though, notice anything unusual in the UnitID number of the entry you are having problems with compared to all the other entries? FC

USAFBLT, Thanks brotha...I knew only a few units used them but wasn't sure which ones. Iceland were the only guys I knew for sure had them. I've hardly ever seen them on C/D models...pictures are fairly rare. FC