Swordsman422

The decals are specific to the skins, as without serious modification of the squadrons.ini the squadron markings cannot be differentiated.

For whichever skin is in question, go look at the decals.ini. The component you are looking at will give you the decal format name. Look in the squadron.ini to find the number of the squadron on the list and that will give you the specific decal you are looking for.

VF-142 used the scheme with the Ghostrider imposed over the tail code AE for their final deployment on USS America. Next cruise they were with CVW-7 and on the Eisenhower.

Best bet if you've messed up a mod, redownload it and reinstall.

I think if I were to put an upper limit on stock aircraft, it would end at 1989. Just enough to excuse AG radar and give the AI better smart bomb delivery. Plus that's still Cold War.

But that will never happen unless TK releases the source code or gets interested in PC again.

The ability to blast over West Germany in 1959 in an F-100 gunning down MiG-17s, then walk the line in the Taiwan Strait, ready to smack down a half-dozen Q-5s with my F-14's quiver of Phoenix missiles. I can do anything in any aircraft from the beginning of the jet age to beyond tomorrow. And while the controls might be fairly generic, the flight dynamics and at least the avionics limitations are realistic enough to satisfy 80% of my flight sim needs.

That and that the community keeps giving this thing a heartbeat. I think I'll stop playing it when the last computer I have with a compatible OS dies.

No problem. You can learn more by looking in the decals.ini within the folder for these skins. If you want to make some of your own, these skins would be adequate templates for decal experimentation. Any of my skins for the TMF F-14s can be used to make new stuff just by modifying the decals. Most VF and VFA squadrons used a common 2- or 3-tone TPS paint scheme as a base with squadron specific markings applied over. I have Adobe Photoshop, but I think any program that can edit .tga and allow for transparency would work to edit or create new decals.

Good luck.

Not an entire skin, no. But it can be done with a set of decals. There are quite a few skinners, including EricJ and I, who had created some very complex skins for aircraft that replace any markings, even safety stencils and national insignia, with respect to aircraft modex number.

What you are seeing is not a new skinset, but that a certain set of decals is being applied or omitted based on the aircraft number. I am currently working on a project to make a skin-as-decal system where the aircraft textures are actually all decals. This is doable, but it's very complicated and figuring it out is taking me a lot of time. I have to have the component names, figure out the orientation and scaling, etc. I've had some luck but nothing publishable just yet.

Um... That's an F-14A, not a D. I Don't think there ever was a D-model painted in splinter camo.

Dang! I remember Crossroads being one of my absolute least favorite missions. That and Hell's Highway or whatever it was called from one other campaign. 

Your screenshots really capture the frantic pace some of the battles can take. Though much more limited in terms of unlocks, EE has one thing that ALB and RD lack, and that is that the campaigns have something more of a soul instead of a chess match. In EE you start to care about the units you have available to you. That platoon of Leo 1s you've had since the beginning, the squads of fusiliers that joined you midway through, that old reliable scout that's been your eyes and ears and seems to survive everything. That's what ALB and RD are missing. That said, I still prefer the other two in almost every measurable way.

I am looking forward to your continued reports.

I had also picked up Red Dragon on flash sale for $10, and every mod I make to ALB, I am making to RD. RD allows you to in solo skirmish mode, play against a deck you have created. So if you want to do something so tiny as a single tank company with an HQ train against, say, company-sized combined-arms unit with two mechanized infantry platoons and two tank platoons, you can.

The brake is also really nice, in that you can pause, issue orders, and then got back to play speed allowing your units to carry out orders simultaneously.

33Lima, thanks to you I am now modding Wargame again. My current project is intended to remove card count restrictions, and to have each card represent a company of tanks, IFVs, or logistical trucks (12), platoons of support vehicles (4), flights of helicopters (4), or elements of aircraft (2). Ammunition counts for the main guns will be accurate, i.e. 42 rounds for the M1A1 instead of 25, 36 rounds for the T-80BV instead of 20, etc, so that they are slightly less dependent on logistical support. I'll also decrease some unit costs.

My main goal will be for players to create decks that would reflect real world unit orders of battle. Typically you don't see an armored btn. composed of several different types of tanks, or a recon unit with different classes of vehicles.

Having always been a fan of late Cold War conflict potential, I am loving these reports and have started playing ALB again!

A warning about this campaign... Try to save as many units as you can. The very last mission is a real teeth-grinder without having everything you can possibly throw.

Also, just as urban areas are terrible to push through, if they are unoccupied, it can really shock you how well a few well-hidden squads of infantrymen can hold off an armored column. If you can make use of the towns, do so. Just keep your tanks well out of them.

When I finally got to the Able Archer campaign, I went a little crazy and saved any time I did anything, so that should I lose even a single unit, I can go back and retry that last few seconds. Almost all the campaigns have downer endings. Bruder Gegen Bruder was probably the only one that didn't.

Just a suggestion for EE, artillery is nice, but heavy on the supply lines and not terribly accurate at ranges you might consider useful. Mortar vehicles are a lot more flexible, and while range is limited, accuracy is an improvement. No civilians, BTW, so be fully prepared to level or steer clear of any village you come across.

I look forward to your next report.

You could probably use the extractor to find the sound file again. A lot of them are rolled up into the sounddata library (I think. I am at work right now), so you should be able to find originals there.

I have both EE and ALB. I prefer ALB for the tactical utility afforded by aircraft. However, one of my main sticking points has been the unit system. Sure, I get cards limiting the type and number of units available, but I always found it unrealistic that the player could not always put together a realistic grouping of units, especially late period types. Why are their only two cards of M1A1s available when building a deck? And yet I am able to field dozens of mechanized infantry vehicles? I just never understood limiting the number of cards available to the player. As long as I have deck points available, I should be able to draw as many cards of any type as I can afford, even if it is wasteful.

I once went in and modded ALB to allow the player to draw up to six of every type of card, with all of the cards representing no less than 4 of that type. Then a patch happened and all that work went poof. The realization of that was not one of my shining examples of maturity.

Egads, what a loaded question! Cruise configuration is normally different for every aircraft type and also depends on altitude, air density, and even desired rate of consumption. To throw in the mix that with props you aren't just talking about throttle, but mixture rates as well. Just as an example, in a Cessna 172P for a typical cruise flight at 4500 ASL, I'd pull mixture and throttle out to aim for max conserve at 1800 RPM, but in a Diamond DA20, at the same altitude for cruise I'd be setting for 2000 RPM.

Best way to get a good answer is to find a checklist for the aircraft you are interested in knowing about and checking the cruise section. This will give you your target configuration info.

MigBuster, you are making me sweat in lust. Those renders look sick! I've been waiting to get DCS until I can have a Tomcat to use in it. I'm sold already.

As a side note, the HGU-33 flight helmet had almost been phased out by 1988, replaced with the HGU-55 and later -68 (which cannot be easily distinguished with common modifications in the paraloft). Keep it though. It's a popular model.

During my days at what is now University of North Georgia, my friends and I would soak tennis balls or tampons overnight in kerosene and sneaking them into the cannon used for Retreat.

FSX Gold Edition with the California Classics 1960's scenery and traffic, because I mainly fly the Captain Sim Boeing 707-300. And I am a sucker for golden-age Pan American.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion with the Armada 3 MOD

IL2 1946 with TFM

The first makes up around 70% of my gaming time.

I've been attending flight school at an FAR 141 FBO on nights and weekends for the better part of six months. I don't post about it very much because it isn't particularly exciting for anyone but me. But yesterday was definitely a break from the usual.

I was having a bad day flying. I'm usually on the ball and pretty good. But yesterday I was behind the plane and just couldn't catch a break. Windy, bumpy weather, and there was a terrible eddy coming off the trees on approach that would cause me to balloon, then dump at the threshold. Not a very good day for a beginner and certainly did nothing for my confidence.

The sun was setting on my last circuit through the pattern, and I was hitting all of my altitude cues and actually doing pretty well for a change in the day. I was cleared number one ahead of a medevac Learjet, callsign 6CJ and asked to perform a truncated approach. I was at this point just at the 45 on the downwind and about to make base turn so I gave serious consideration to asking if I could give way to the much faster Learjet. Instead, I just decided to comply with instructions and answered "Short final and cleared for landing runway 7, Skyhawk 507." I curved in the final, quickly ran my GUMPS check, and was a little fast on the approach. Lost my depth perception in the twilight at the threshold and bounced the landing pretty roughly. I rolled out and was given instructions to clear the runway as soon as I could, because 6CJ was right behind me.

About fifty yards away from my turn-off there were three deer standing on the runway about midfield. Given that I had not received a wildlife alert, I suspected that the tower was not aware of them, so I immediately told them about it as I taxied clear. My suspicions were confirmed, because the next thing I hear is "6CJ, go around NOW!" And over the puttering of my propeller I hear the Learjet's engines spool to full TOGA as it screams down the runway not fifty feet overhead. They had been just seconds from touching down, and their rollout would have been a good deal longer than mine. Moments later I received some calls of gratitude from the tower and the crew of the Learjet.

I dunno if any of you have ever seen a car hit a deer, but an airplane hitting a deer is exponentially more catastrophic. I may not have been able to fly worth a damn yesterday but at least I was in the right place at the right time.

Spectre, the more the merrier. Just give credit where warranted.

Dave, yeah, I'm pretty rare everywhere nowadays. 40 hours work week and flight school every weekend when the weather is good. Spare time is something I am sorely lacking. The company that manufactures minutes needs to get the factory in high gear!

A, B, and D use the same skin. Only difference is #5. You can edit one and apply it to all. Also (shameless plug) you can pick up one of my skins with the decal map and edit it to your desire.

First lesson went well. Except for a 360 turn for sequencing, I had the aircraft from start-up to shut down. I did have a little assistance on the landing, as it was crosswind. My instructor talked me through the flight instead of showing, which is how I learn best. He even got me to work the radio a couple of times.

I did get a little motion sick. You can feel everything in a C172, and it was a hot day so there were lots of thermals. And I may have been concentrating too hard on keeping the vertical speed indicator at zero. Any of you pilots have an idea of how long it takes to get over the movement?

But man, you can't beat the view.

I have just turned 34 in may. The school I am going to requires that anyone passing their professional pilot program work for them as a CFI for a period of 18 months after achieving certification. The reasoning is two fold. They want to get back out of you what they put in, and they want you to be able to build your hours towards working for charter, freight, or passenger service. In exchange for this, they cost about 1/3 less than most professional programs.

It might be a bit of a struggle for a couple of years, but the end result will be a lot better than what I am doing now.

So, gents, I've decided to stop looking longingly at the sky and start actually getting up there. A former coworker of mine from my days at the hobby shop is now an FO for Fed Ex. He and I both had a passion for aviation, and he decided a few years ago (when he was the age I am now) to get started from zero time and training and work his way up. A few weeks ago he got in touch with me and pointed me in the direction of the flight school he went to, which is an FAA part 141 FBO. I plan on following in his footsteps. Maybe if I am very lucky I can eventually work for the same airline that my father-in-law runs the sheet metal shop for.

I start on Saturday.

Reading the geographical area affected by the NOTAM that was rejected by Ukraine that closed off anything at or below 29k feet, that geographical area was pretty wide, going all the way east to the Crimea. Diverting south and west around it would have burned quite a bit of fuel. It's all one. The Ukrainian authorities rejected the 29k NOTAM and continued to provide ARTCC service for the control zone only with the warning that airliners may be under the simultaneous control of Russian ARTCC. So the company made the decision to keep flying the route as published. Foolish, but they weren't the only ones who continued to use it. Aeroflot, Turkish Air, and Lufthansa were among flights within that route segment that have now been ordered to divert. UKCC probably has their hands full right now.

You are quite right, Erik. Money should not have been an issue with regards to the safety of its passengers. US airlines were ordered not to use that route at all and as far as I am aware have complied.