FastCargo

View File Northrop T-38A Talon (ThunderBirds) for Gen 1 ThirdWire Sims Readme for the ThunderBird T-38A for Gen 1 ThirdWire Sims. ********************************* Version 1.0 Original Release ******************************** Version 1.0 Thanks to the following folks: TK - For the ThirdWire series of sims. PappyChkSix - For the original skins, which unfortunately were lost when the model was remapped. The Mirage Factory - For allowing me to use the cockpit, effects, damage textures and sounds from the F-5A. FM based off of Mirage Factory F-5A. 331KillerBee - For the skins and hanger/loadout/loading screens. And the tweaks to make the seperate ThunderBird version. Lexx_Luthor - For the Airshow Smoke effect for the Thunderbird T-38A (borrowed from his missile exhaust effects). USAFMTL - For beta testing and advice. To my fellow Combatace moderators - For helping me beta test and work out bugs. Any errors or mistakes are entirely mine. What you will need first: Strike Fighters Project 1/Strike Fighters Gold/Wings Over Vietnam/Europe/Israel. This is not for Generation 2 versions of ThirdWire sims. What is in this archive: 1. This readme (duh!) 2. Effects, Objects, Sounds folder. Instructions: 1. Read and understand this entire readme FIRST! 2. Copy the Effects, Objects and Sounds folders to your SFP1/SFG/WOx directory. Allow directory merging and overwrites (anything overwritten either belongs to me or is the exact same as the Mirage Factory F-5 effects and sounds). 3. That's it! You should see the aircraft in your selection screen. Aircraft Information: From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-38_Talon The Northrop T-38 Talon is an American supersonic jet trainer. It was the world's first supersonic trainer and to date, is also the most produced. It remains in service as of 2009 in air forces throughout the world including the United States Air Force (USAF), which remains its largest user. In the 1950s Northrop began studying lightweight and more affordable fighter designs. The company began with its single-engine N-102 "Fang" concept. The N-102 was facing weight and cost growth, so the project was canceled and the the company N-156 project was began. Although the United States Air Force had no need for a small fighter at the time, it became interested in the trainer (N-156T) as a replacement for the T-33 Shooting Star it was then using in this role. The first of three prototypes (designated YT-38) flew on 10 March 1959. The type was quickly adopted and the first production examples were delivered in 1961, officially entering service on 17 March that year, complementing the T-37 primary jet trainer. When production ended in 1972, 1,187 T-38s had been built. Since its introduction, it is estimated that some 50,000 military pilots have trained on this aircraft. The USAF remains one of the few armed flying forces using dedicated supersonic final trainers, as most, such as the US Navy, use high subsonic trainers. The T-38 is of conventional configuration, with a small, low, long-chord wing, a single vertical stabilizer, and tricycle undercarriage. The aircraft seats a student pilot and instructor in tandem, and has intakes for its two turbojet engines at the wing roots. Its nimble performance has earned it the nickname "White Rocket". In 1962, T-38s set four time to climb records. In addition to USAF pilots, T-38s are also used by NASA astronauts, the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School (other T-38s were previously used as USN aggressor aircraft), other NATO pilots under a joint training program, and some under civilian ownership. Notes and Limitations: External nozzles don't work...not sure why. Investigation continues. ThunderBird Version skins included...resized to 1024x1024 for faster multiplayer. Afterburner nodes and travel pod commented out in data.ini for ease of installation. This uses the 'Open Cockpit' method to place the cockpit model 'inside' the external model. This also allows the ability to add flight controls to the cockpit, which originally didn't have them modeled. Downsides are the that during inclement weather, it will appear 'foggy' inside the cockpit. Capable of being flown from either seat through editing of the T-38Atb.ini file. Simply uncomment the lines that have the seat you want to fly in, and comment out the lines with the seats you don't want to fly in. The default is the front seat. In the ThunderBird version, if you fly in the front seat, there will not be a rear seater (as in airshows, the aircraft was typically flown that way). The FM is reasonably 'close' to the real thing...but defaults to being 'fun' vs being 'perfect numbers'. As a pilot with 3000+ hours in the aircraft, it gives a reasonable impression on how the aircraft actually flies...but don't expect to hit all the 'numbers' perfectly. This is FREEWARE only, NO money is allowed to be made on the contents of these files, in whole or in part. Released IAW the freeware accords at CombatAce. Feel free to redistribute, as long as the original authors are given appropriate credit. Questions? Contact me at Combatace. FastCargo 2 Jul 09 Submitter FastCargo Submitted 07/03/2009 Category Trainers

Sure, I'll take a look. FC

Normally, no. Most flight surfaces can only perform one function in the ThirdWire series. Exceptions are the elevators which can have a roll entry added in the data.ini. However, if the modeler has inserted invisible 'links', then you can have multiple functions...but the LOD must have those links already available. FC

Hey, I just noticed the Dog Sabres are using a 'fake' missile bay (ie using a gun with 24 shots...etc). The AI will engage air targets with rockets now...anyone modified the Dog Sabres yet? If not, I just need the coordinates of the missile tubes... FC

Yep, doing that already to make sure the right weapons are available...make sure you give credit to KB if you're using the weapons from the SF2 Weapons Pack! FC

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It's well known how the AI cheats in IL2 physics-wise. Therefore, sure it's easy to make the physics realistic...if you only apply it to the player's aircraft. Additional comment...the physics modeling issue is a legitimate concern...don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Multi million dollar simulators that focus on one aircraft always feel different than actually flying the aircraft. Haven't seen one yet that convinced me I was flying the real thing...no matter what PR hacks will tell you. FC

First, check for asymmetry in the loadouts. Second, check the data.ini like everyone says, including things like mass fraction in components, internal fuel tanks, and specifically the Ymac values, I've caught that a few times. Third, do this check: If in normal mode, the aircraft flies fine, but in hard mode, the aircraft banks, even trying to bank on the ground like it has a heavy wing, there is something wrong with the model. Also, check to see if it does it with weapons loaded or not (I don't mean weapons which are then jettisioned, I'm specifically talking about weapon pylons). If it only shows up in hard mode, the problem is that one or more of meshes, the pivot point is different that it's cooresponding mesh on the opposite side. In hard mode, the program takes the location of the pivot into account when applying mass to work out moments. In the F-107, I had forgotten that all the pivot points of the pylons were concentrated in the left outboard pylon location...so everytime anything was loaded, even after it was jettisoned, it took the weight of the pylons and applied them at the left outboard. It didn't do this in normal mode. The only way to fix it was to fix the model. FC

For the nose wheel, check the shock stroke length number. That might be the issue there. Check the EngineID number in the RA-5C data.ini. Each engine must have a unique number, and make sure the number matches what's in the cockpit.ini file. FC

Before it gets too late...Happy Canada Day to my friends up in the GWN! We celebrated (10th Annual Canada Day party) with salmon and hot dogs and a few of our Canadian friends. I'm reminded of the Hockey Song by Jughead: FC

Goodbye General Bradley (the role I remember him in the most). RIP. FC

I would hope folks don't think it's an 'us vs them' mentality. I still have Gen 1 installs on my machine (in fact, the Children's SF install will remain Gen 1 because SFP1 is so cheap). Mainly, like USAFMTL said, there just isn't time to make 2 seperate versions for 'clean sheet' models. Some stuff that was made for Gen 1 can be updated for Gen 2 pretty quickly. That being said, for those who want multiplayer, I would recommend getting to know how to make parts 'disappear' through the data.ini, because that will be the big model change...everything else just needs .ini tweaks and directory moving. FC

Ready for the show... FC

Speaking of which...anyone get that damn annoying FPS counter in the corner to not show up? The command line switch doesn't appear to work... FC

Well, the startup messages do say it's for higher end video cards, that may be why you're not getting any improvement. FC

Hahahaha...that sure is one expensive virtual aircraft! FC

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=43234 For future reference. FC

Vanishing Point. 1970 Dodge Challenger. Barry Newman was the actor. FC

1. What is different about the Pilots folder in the Gen1 series vs the Gen2 series? Simple...there is no Pilots folder in the Gen1 series. Any pilots from an SF2 download must be placed directly into the Objects/Aircraft directory. 2. What is different about the Weapons folder in the Gen1 series vs the Gen2 series? Ah...now we start getting into the nitty gritty. Though the Weapons folders look the same (Gen 1 patched to Oct 08 and SF2), how they work is significantly different. If you'll notice, in an SF2-specific weapon folder there are now TWO ini files...a basic ini, and a data.ini file. The basic .ini file looks about the same, and usually tells what LOD to use, visibility distance, and shadow data. However, the meat of the weapon is located in the data.ini file. Note that the entry looks very similiar to the original weapondata.ini entries in Gen 1 sims. So you can guess what you need to do. Yep, copy the entry from the data.ini file to the weapondata.ini file, run the weapons editor as per normal. There are several caveats though. One, the ModelName parameter, the basic .ini file name, and the weapon's directory name must ALL match...otherwise, you may not see a weapon model at all (ie the directory name must be AGM114, the basic .ini must be AGM114.ini, and ModelName=AGM114 in the weapondata entry. Also, the [WeaponData] entry (including the ObjectFullName and ObjectDataFile parameters) are not needed in the basic .ini file...if you notice, all that info is located in the data.ini entry...so delete those lines in the basic ini. In addition, weapon visual effects can be specified with the data.ini itself. So you'll need to see if such an entry already exists within your Effects folder in your Gen 1 install. Otherwise, you'll get damage effects, but no visual boom. Finally, if the weapon is part of the aircraft model (ie drop tanks), you're sort of screwed. You can either make the tanks non-jettisonable (within the aircraft data.ini), create or adapt another model to use for that aircraft (keeping the original tank 'hidden' as per above), or accept not carrying any drop tanks at all. 3. What is different about the Guns folder in the Gen1 series vs the Gen2 series? Simple, there isn't a Guns folder within the Gen1 series! All guns are handled through the Gundata.ini/gundata.dat files and the gun editor. Basically, you handle the guns the same as you would handle converting a Weapon from Gen2 to Gen1, except there are no LODs, folders, to handle. Simply take the information from the specific's gun data.ini file, and paste it into the gundata.ini (you may need to extract it if you haven't already) and run the gun editor in a very similar fashion as the weapons editor. One advantage is that once you do that, you can delete the specific gun directory since Gen1 sims don't use them....all the data they need is in the gundata.ini/gundata.dat files. 4. What is different about the Decal folder in the Gen1 series vs the Gen2 series? In the Gen2 series, ALL aircraft decals are now consolidated in the Decals directory. So the path specified in the Decals.ini file located in an aircraft's skin directory always starts from the Objects/Decals directory...verses the Gen1 series where all paths are assumed to start from the Objects/Aircraft directory. So you can see how to fix this already...simply create a directory inside the particular skin directory you have the decals for, move the decals over, then adjust the paths in the Decals.ini to reflect the new location. Personally, I'm going to recommend to modders to keep the directory structure for decals in Gen2 exactly how it is in Gen1 sims...that way all end users have to do is move the directory, without messing with the Decals.ini file. FC

Cockpit open mesh. Not much that can be done I'm afraid. FC

Stock or 3rd party A/C? FC

Hmmmm....just did a test on SF2V on the rig I just mentioned, same exact single mission (no randomness at all). 1. Stock - approx 15~18 FPS. 2. Enbseries old (DX9) - ~30 FPS. 3. Enbseries newest (DX10)(same settings as DX9 version) - ~34 FPS. Never noticed that the old series gave me a speed boost...and the newer one is even better and yet for you old users of it, you can make it look exactly the same but with the mild speed increase... FC

I can verify it doubled my frame rates on Vista 32, Core Duo 2.4Ghz, NVidia 8600GT, SF2 series. Same exact single mission...literally all I did was place the .dll file in the directory to test. I had been using the enbseries for a while now too...enhanced some older games and I liked the mild bloom effect (tweaked it) that did a nice job simulating a hazy day flying (like Texas in the summer). But this is MONEY! Better looking AND faster... FC