Tailspin

Hello Peter. I don't really have enough HDD space to do another install...at least I'm short enough that I'd rather not if I don't have to. I'm pretty sure I can do a manual install of your stuff in the pre-patched version I already have, ie. fms, objectdata.ini, update gundata, sounds, flight files, etc. Anything you can think of that might be a problem? THX.

Hi Mike. If you are talking about control surfaces...not sure you can prevent that entirely. For other components you can either add the line StructuralFactor=X to each component in the aircraft data.ini you want to strengthen (a value of 2.0 doubles, 3.0 triples, etc., the "hit points" required to cause damage). Also I believe (never tried it myself) if you change the line in the data.ini where it says DetachWhenDestroyed=TRUE to FALSE that will prevent components from detaching altogether. A caveat...I don't know how changing DetachWhenDestroyed= , will affect overall gameplay. I have added StructuralFactor=2.0 to all the TopWing L & R sections for all my aircraft and it greatly reduces the incidences of the entire top wing coming off with just a few hits. Its been my experience with some of the WWII German bombers that have high StructuralFactors (5.0 or 6.0) that they can be rendered practically indestructible. Good thing about this sim is you can experiment with some things and its easy to undo.

I hear ya Cupcake. I'm a retired Correctional Officer and my last name is McQueen. I got to be good friends with one of the young ladies I worked with everyday and she started calling me "Queenie". Of course a nickname like that in that environment "stuck" like glue.

Let me guess...you're running Vista.

Yes Sir, I believe it was the late 90's. It is mind blowing. You think you know what you are looking at but the true scope of the vastness of space is really unimaginable. Science agrees all this came from a single super dense "object" or "source". OK, so where did that come from? Don't get me wrong. I don't think that Science and Religion are mutually exclusive.

To me this is one of the most awesome pictures. Its a Hubble shot of so-called "empty sky" void of "local" objects as I think they termed it. I see about 2 stars in the picture.

I've had a passing interest from time to time. I bought my youngest daughter a telescope when she was 14. A 4.5 in Celestron on a Dobsonian mount. I live in a small town so the "sky" isn't the greatest but you can still get good views of Jupiter and Saturn from the front porch. Now she's 22, married last year and she left the scope here. They just bought a house in the country though so I plan to give it back to her on the condition I can come out and use it when I want. Its a lot darker out there.

All I can say is thank you, Peter. I'm very happy that you are using your experience gained fine tuning 1 on 1 dogfights to improve other aspects of the air combat experience. As you know (we've discussed it more than once) I've been keen on the "leapfrogging" advancement of technology in aircraft development from side to side as the war progressed. Your take on this is VERY interesting to me as well as the other improvements in teamwork etc.

That great news! I hope you can come up with something for FE. The horizon situation is a major detraction IMHO. Pre-EP it was fine.

Be careful what you wish for.

I had considered No Mans Land before but its so topographically featureless its difficult to get anything to look right. If it were more "3 dimensional", if you know what I mean, adding objects would work a lot better.

AMEN! The most recent LA riots come to mind. Chaos in the streets. People rushing to gun shops to buy some protection and are AGHAST to find that they have to wait 5 DAYS to pick up their guns. Well DUH!!! Stupid idiots. Another ridiculous aspect of the waiting period law...I may already own 50 guns but if I want to buy another I have to wait 24 hr. or 3-5 days. The intent of the law being a "cooling off" period in case I want to buy a gun to shoot someone.

I do believe I read somewhere that one of the many "field mods" for some USAAF heavy bombers during WWII was rigging up a couple of forward firing pilot controlled 50 cals.

I don't care one whit about what other people think about gun laws and "reasonable" restrictions until their ideas start to infringe on MY RIGHT to defend myself, my family, and my property. I'm not about to stand by and let some marauding gang of thugs, rioters, looters, or whatever take those things from me. If you think that can't or won't happen then you haven't been paying much attention to the real world around you. It already has...more than once. All it takes is a natural or man made disaster and all bets are off. Under staffed and under gunned law enforcement agencies are quickly overwhelmed due to the sheer logistics of the situation and you are literally left on your own. When confronted by a number of criminals Grandpa's double barreled shotgun just isn't going to get it. There is a very real need for more firepower. Nut jobs and criminals will continue to disobey the law...its what they do. I can't help that and I have no intention of relinquishing my Rights to appease a bunch of "feel good", head in the clouds, Politicians who don't have the guts to address the problem at its source...which BTW isn't guns of any type.

Good one. This is one aspect of the campaign engine that doesn't get enough credit. People who say First Eagles just isn't "immersive" enough aren't spending much time with it, IMHO.

Ahhh...the old hex editor. Thanks P10ppy.

Hi stephen. You didn't go into much detail about your problems with pilot skins so if you've already figured this out...well nevermind. Anyway, I decided I'd experiment with it. Looks to me like although you can alter the 4 stock pilot.bmp's you cannot copy and rename them to make "new" pilots. I tried it every way I could think of and no go. The game simply reverts back to the basic 4. However you can add 3rd party pilots such as the WWIGERPILOT (Sorry, I don't recall who did this one....somebody help me out here. ) with no apparent limit. Here's somes screenies of "Manfred" and "Lothar" with a couple of squadmates. Manfred is the WWIGERPILOT model and Lothar is actually a British pilot model WWIPILOT from another addon...just to illustrate the different models you can use. Hope this helps you in your work. TS

I set a flight up with First Eagles using a copy of a DR 1 set up to be MVRs plane and added a custom pilot from an earlier mod and it works. So if you wanted to I think you could set up a flight of pilots and planes with unique helmet colors that correspond to aircraft numbers. Yeah, its a workaround with the anomalies I noted but....

I wouldn't want AI that perform TOO far outside a reasonable flight envelope anyway.

Well one way you could do it, as I alluded to, is make several copies of each aircraft, rename them to say F-86E-15 Seville etc, make the appropriate skin the default for each plane, then point each aircraft to its specific custom pilot skin in the Data.ini. Then in the loadout screen in the game you can replace each plane in your squadron with the individual planes with the custom pilots. I have done this sort of thing, not with custom pilots but with different plane types, in First Eagles for "captured" planes so there can be a captured Camel with iron crosses in a flight of Fokkers or you can mix plane types in the same flight. This only works for the "friendly" side but it does work. I don't know why it wouldn't for the same plane type with custom pilot skins. Of course I haven't tested this specific scenario...just an idea that may work. edit...of course there will be some drawbacks with the randomly generated flights. You could have another supporting flight show up in game where all the pilots are Seville or something like that. Setting the availability to RARE should help reduce such occurrences. When I don't want to fly with the captured plane I just rename it (put an X in the filename) and the game won't recognize it.

Hey Kevin. Nice job. The question came up on the FE forum about matching pilot skins (faces) to specific aircraft, ie. MVR in his red DR 1. Is that what you are doing or does the face appear in all F-86s in game? edit...in other words do you have to make a copy of each plane to get the skins to match or is there another way to do it?

Me too.

THANKS MK2!!!! This is a great site and a fine community. Wouldn't be possible without your support.

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=29675 Well friends, the financial realities of operating a site like this have caught up with us. Please consider joining in and helping out.

....how does it affect the AI? Well thats part of the point of trying to get some sort of consensus on where the threshold should be set. My main purpose is trying to prevent the ability to just yank the stick around at any speed or attitude with impunity. Trying to get a starting point, then see if it affects the AI. Higher settings for MaxG don't affect anything except at the highest speeds...only attainable in a long, steep, power on dive. Lower settings are different. One of my favorite maneuvers for shaking off a determined AI pilot or getting a better advantage is to dive and pull an Immelman (or something like one ). With lower settings I have to watch my airspeed in the dive and gauge my pull up accordingly. As the AI supposedly uses a different, more simplified, FM than the player I'm not sure what effect this will have...if any. I haven't seen any ripping their wings off yet.