OlPaint01

Can anyone make a suggestion how to increase the side-by-side separation at the head of the field for a GothaGIV flight at takeoff? I have loaded A-Team's GothaGIV and added RavenClaw_007's Gotha cockpit file to make this A/C flyable. I am using HARD settings and start the flight from the runway. As I start my takeoff roll the bombers on both sides me clip off my wings almost to the wing roots. There appears to be no damage done to the AI bombers and they continue to liftoff normally. As a result I am left with a damaged plane with no wings and I must ESC out of the game. I can takeoff just fine as single aircraft. I have studied the Formation.INI in the Flight folder for a value to modify with no luck. My AIGIV bomber with RavenClaw_007's AIG cockpit takes off with a multi-bomber flight just fine. Any suggestions? OlPaint01

Hello Peter01 Of all your aircraft FMs I have tryed so far, the Nieuport 11 takes the most finess during the takeoff roll to get off the ground safely without crashing. I finally am getting good at it. I can see now why a young pilot, fresh out of flight school, might die a firey death in frequent runway accidents. I discovered I must get the tail off the ground as quickly as possible by adding a good deal of down elevator in addition to applying full left aileron. I have to play the left rudder to keep me heading straight down the runway. I also have to blip the engine if I feel my kite tipping to the right. Once the wheels are off the grass, I can stay airboure and accelerate to flight speed. Thanks for the advice. I have enrolled in flight school to learn to fly Fokker Eindeckers. Wish me luck! OlPaint01

Salute Tailspin Where is Terrain.CAT? I have searched high and low and can not locate it in any of my EP_Oct07 folders. OlPaint01

I just realized I typoed the AEG GIV bomber. Sorry. OlPaint01

Salute Peter01 I have been manually loading each A/C into my new EP_Oct07 install one at a time. Then I have tested each of your super FMs before proceding to the next A/C. After two days of exhaustive training, I have yet to get the Nieuport 11 off the runway without a CnB. The engine torque appears to be very high but power is not sufficient enough to get the 'Bebe' off the ground. As I start to pickup speed, the plane tips hard right. I attempt to compensate with a hard left aileron and hard left rudder but I cannot seem to get my tail off the turf before I do a bad ground-loop, ending in a resulting firey crash. The only way I can successfully lift off in formation with the squadron is to use AutoPilot until I am well off the ground and then build sufficient air speed to be manuvorable. Could you suggest what needs to be tweaked to get the A/C to be a little less tempormental? The N11 has always been one of my favorite early war years A/C to fly. Oh, BTW, I am using the HARD option. TK has suggested to drop down to NORMAL. I bet the Fokker DR1 is a pill to launch as well. What I have noticed in my testing...The later Nieuports are difficult but not impossible at take-off using you FMs. OlPaint01

I have successfully installed working LePrieur rockets on the Pup, Camel and N11 following P10ppy's excellent rockets mod instructions. I need a flyable SPAD VII 180 to add the rocket mod to it. My attempts to edit the cockpit.ini file using SPAD13 parts has failed dismally. Ravenclaw did the work to get the AEG G4 and Gotha GIV flyable. Has anyone got the SPAD 7 150 and 180 models flyable and is willing to share them? BTW, P10ppy's LePrieur rocket mod as designed fires a full salvo of all eight rockets at one munitions release. The rockets seem to spiral generally toward the designated target and can hit the ground hundreds of yards from the aim point. Is there a way to ripple fire the rockets in singles or pairs per trigger pull? And can the on-target accuracy be tightened up just for the fun of it? It is really frustrating to me to fly all the way to the target, shot the whole wad at one time, and not get a single rocket hit!! OlPaint

That was good advise for the work-around to make the Campaign Screen usable. Clicking the Text Box instead of the list down arrow did the trick for me. I see all the available options now. Thanks.

Salute Doc_uk I have been contributing to a discussion over on the ThirdWire Forum about WindLoop sound. As I said over there, I am interested in the sound that a rotary engine makes. The technique that you discover for WindLoop may allow us to hear the engine roar change to the Put-put-put of the cutout ignition when the rotary gets Blip'd. OlPaint01

The edits should be in the WEAPONDATA.INI file under the Le Preiur Rocket section. Make sure after you edit the file in notepad that you open it in WeaponsEditor and save it. That will build a new WEAPONDATA.DAT file that the game reads. Before I realized that WeaponsEditor had to be used I could not figure out why my edits did not change anything. I have successfully added rockets to several Neuports using P10ppy's instructions. Using the factory settings, you need to get really up close and personal before firing - the rockets cork screw so wildly toward the target. A quick pullup is neccessary to avoid the explosion burst. Setting FinStabilized to TRUE will require a very high aim. The target must be aligned almost with the top wing to guarentee a hit from several hundred yards out. I wish the burning balloon animation were more realistic - a burning mass falling to earth instead of a fire ball. How about the observer failing to earth under a parachute after he jumps for his life. But that may be a game limitation. BTW, does anyone have a list of aircraft that were fitted with Le Preiurs at one time or another? OlPaint

The new Menu screens are beautiful. I have copied all the your Hanger Screens into my stock version of EP1 with April 2008. I am having problems with the Campaign Screen. The dropdown arrows do not display all the avalible choices that I see in the stock version. As I said before, I do have the April 2008 patch applied. OlPaint01

Thanks v. Deutschmark I know you are busy with Blue Max Project. I can hardly wait for its release. The screenies that you are posting are really special. You may finally convince me to fly "On Line" with you folks in Europe. I hope you will find time to get back to FE. Your skins are absolutely beautiful. OlPaint01

Salute v. Deutschmark I have been flying with your Flyby mod for several months. It sure eliminates the annoying view snap-back that the un-modded game has in the panning views. I have mapped the pan views to my Joystick Hat. I have mapped the F4 PadLock toggle to Button2 and the F5 Shoulder View to Button4 on my Saitek Cyborg USB. It sure gives me great "situation awareness". I could not make Shift-F5 give me a "Check-Six" in EP1. I just recently installed April 2008 hotfix. I soon discovered that I do not infact have the "Check-Six" available (shift-F5) as an key stroke option at all. I have been scratching my head wondering why I am missing it. Then I recalled your ListView mod. I deleted it from the Flight Folder and lo-and-behold "Check-Six" is restored. Have you given any thought to looking at ListView code again and adding "Check-Six" option to the marvalous and appreciated functions you improved in the Flyby Mod? OlPaint01

Gr.Viper Now we are talking... The Gotha bombsight shown in the your attached photos helped the bombardier triangulate the drop point. Excellent find. I recall taping a graduated strip of paper in the middle of my monitor when flying bomber missions in RB3D - an Armstrong CCIP, so to speak - to help me score direct hits with my iron bombs. The tick marks on the paper strip were altitude indexes calibrated by experience. If my flight path aligned with the paper strip and if I had Wing Level autopilot set, I could put the "egg in the pickle barrel" every time. BTW, have you noticed that after installing April 2008 hot-fix that the bombardier in the crew fails to drop ordnance automatically in AutoPilot. I can still direct the other bombers in the Wing to "Bombs Away" on target using Tab-2 key combination but I must to remember to toggle out of AutoPilot to manually release my bombs. OlPaint01

Salute Gr.Viper I have been playing "Fighter Squadron:Screaming Demons over Europe" with a WWI mod released by OpenPlaneSim for several weeks when I am not immersed in First Eagles. The Gotha Bomber in that sim has a KeyBoard Hot Key combination that brings up a bombardier's station with an optical scope showing a moving terrain through the eye piece. I would assume that this graphical representation in that sim mod has some basis in Historical Fact. I have not had a chance to play any other ThirdWire Flight Sims other that First Eagles, but I would assume that the Fighter/Bombers in the other TK sims have an aiming method for iron bombs as the fighter/bomber pilot has in real life. The fighter pilot has a gunsight. I just thought it would be neat to have an aiming device for the bombing missions. OlPaint01

P10ppy Thank you for you expertise. I will tackle the SPAD7_180 movable gunsight following your excellent instructions. O/T: I gather from my reading that the early scouts and two-seaters carried handgrenades and even metal darts to attack ground personel in the early days of the war. I have seen pictures of primative ordnance that were nothing more than artillery shells with fins fitted for dropping over the side of the cockpit by the observer or even the pilot. I gather that most strategic bombing from Gothas and HP-400s was from very high, straight and level, but did the smaller strike aircraft delivered bombs as dive-bombers. The big bombers must have had a bombsight, I would imagine. Did the stratigic bombers in fact use a simple optical sight that later developed into the Norden BS of WWII? Did the scout pilots or the two-seater crews use the pilot's gunsight to pickle the bombs as the Stuka did in WWII? I have been playing around with the strike missions of First Eagles trying to take out the ground targets. I have not solved the physics of gravity drops yet. I wish I had a bombsight to direct my aim. I know I can toggle off the F4 view to see just a cross-hair to dive bomb with. Has TK given us a bomb sight function that I have not yet discovered? OlPaint01

I cannot find GunSight.bmp or GunSight01.LOD in the "ObjectData.CAT" or "ObjectData01.CAT" files. Where might they be? OlPaint01

Thanks P10ppy and Tailspin The ReleaseDelay=1.00000 and the FinStabilized=TRUE did the trick for me. I now have single fire rockets that are fairly accurate. How to I become a member of the INI EDIT Preasthood? I marvel at the nuggets of knowledge that you folks have been able to dig out of the mystical INI files to adjust things. Is there an instructional manual available hiding out there somewhere for download? FLASH OF INSIGHT - One important truth that just was revealed to me - any changes made to the Weapondata.ini file must be saved by opening the file in WeaponsEditor.exe. A new copy of Weapondata.dat has to be saved or the edited changes will never be recognized in the game. I have never read this in any postings on the ThirdWire, Capun or CombatAce Forums. Like I said - how to I join the preasthood? LOL OlPaint01

I finally got the Le Prieur rockets setup and working in the Camel, Pup, Neuport11 and SPAD 7 following P10ppy's great series of posts. Thank, Tailspin for your help to understand the instructions. I have a fairly fast Intel DuoCore CPU running WinXP Pro SP2 with a Saitek EVO USB joystick. I have mapped firing the rockets onto button 3 to release the ordinance. I have no problems dropping bombs one at a time by pressing the mapped 3 button. A normal speed pressing/release tap of the button and one bomb falls away as expected. But what is erratating is that when I load rockets for the mission, my normal speed Press/Release action launches a complete salvo of all eight Le Prieurs off the tubes. I have discovered that I must do a series of very short and rapid taps of the joystick button to get only two or three rockets to fire at a time for a ripple effect. As Tailspin has explained, the Le Prieur is nothing more than large "Bottle Rocket" - a not very accurate point and shot munition at that. How do I set up the Munitions Release action to shoot a controlled one or two rockets at a time? How do I adjust the accuracy of rockets so they do not wabble and gyrate so much in flight to get a higher success hitting the target that I aim at? Which variables in the Weaponsdata.ini file control those aspects? OlPaint

Salute Tailspin Thanks quick responce for the instructions. I now have two more flyable a/c in the inventory. Could you give me some advise how to zero in the iron gunsight. The F4 view shows the tracer stream outside the center ring. It is actually centered in the upper right quadrant of the gunsight. I have played around with several of the variables in the Cockpit.ini but all I can accomplish is to move the gun flash animation away from the gun muzzle. I cannot find the variable the moves the tracer stream and the aim point of the machinegun. OlPaint

Salute Ravenclaw I got your PM. The Gotha cockpit file you sent is glorious. It works as advertised. Thanks for the quick responce. Will you be publishing any more custom cockpits? I believe you have the technique down pat. OlPaint

Ravenclaw Your Gotha screen shot looks absolutely great. I am still confused as to what I need to do to get my front gunner back in the F4 cockpit view. I wish I could figure out how to grab a screen shot from my game to show you. I will try to discribe what I see - I see both metal ammo feed chambers with the belt sticking out of both feed chamber throats but I am missing the front gunner crew member, the swivel machine gun and mount that he mans, and the front gunner tub in which he stands and the forward fusalage. The objects should appear to be forward of the cockpit RPM gauge if every thing was arranged correctly. I am seeing the full Fokker D7 cockpit with all the gauges and controls. I guess I am missing something from your instructions.

Salute Ravenclaw I have installed your AEG G4 cockpit mod already and it looks great. Your Gotha GIV Cockpit screeny is exactly what I am looking for. The A-Team Gotha GIV I downloaded from Capun's site got broken when I upgraded to First Eagles EP1 and the April2008 update. Are you running the same version of First Eagles as I am? I have no experience editing the Gothagiv_data.ini or the Gothagiv_cockpit.ini files to make the F4 view look like your screen shot. Could you post your Gotha cockpit mod as you did for th AEG cockpit on the Combat Ace download site for us all to use? I really appreciate your great work. OlPaint

Salute Capun The Gotha was one of the first Skunkworks Aircraft mods I downloaded after discovering TK's First Eagles game. I really like flying the heavy bomber in formation with a fight of seven other machines fighting off a swarm of Camels on the way to plaster an RAF airdrome. I recently upgraded to First Eagles EP1 and then installed the April2008 patch. Much to my surprise I just discovered that the cockpit F4 view no longer shows the forward gunner or the forward machine gun. All I see is the pair of huge ammo belt feed chambers without a single Spandau machine gun in sight. The external view is fine. All three crew members are visible and active. I figured out from looking at the GothaGIV_Cockpit.ini file that the Gotha cockpit uses the FokkerF7_cpit.LOD to make the a/c flyable and to show a generic Fokker F7 Pit. I surely would like to get my front gunner back. Any suggestions? OlPaint