Gr.Viper

Well, the FE engine is very flexible and open for editing.. why not take advantage of it? 'I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.' Albert Einstein So, imagine World War V (yep, I'm a pessimist). General technology level is about the same as during The Great War, though some technical advances from later periods are occasionally available as artifacts - mainly separate components, mostly broken down. The suggested goal of the mod is to create several terrains, new guns, and planes of different classes for both warring parties. Ground units also enter into it.. steam-powered land-train with derelict radar - maybe. Setting.. adjust dates to 2500ish(rather optimistic).. loading screens with brief plane info.. can be done later. Terrains... well, I don't know yet. But maybe more variety should be added to a single map - some high mountains on the edge, dense woods in other parts... barren waste with an airfield on the edge of a crater... a waterfall? Low priority yet. Guns - mainly different calibers, manufacturers... just a decoration, really. Stock ones will do for a start. Planes... that's the main part of the show. Think about Crimson Skies(but add creaking wood and fabric) and early aircraft engineering experiments. Think wild and crazy... Asymmetric, fragile.. I doesn't matter that a plane is too heavy or imbalanced. If it looks right(that is 'old and odd') it can be FM-ed to feel right. The AI must be able to fly it too. I suggest live combat testing with stock planes... Extra features that might be needed but are not critical: -Rocket boosters. Have no idea how to make them... burn in seconds, boost speed, use separate fuel source.. -Turning engine. For the extra heavy bombers this thing will be a nice replacement of a rudder. I saw some engine mod for Harrier jet - it might be a thing worth checking. -Mirror bomb sight. I would be great if there was a possibility to, say, place the pilot/bombardier to the side of bomb bay and let the player see the area where the bombs might fall on a small screen in cockpit, as if it through sophisticated mirror system. Here are some of my lame basic concepts. I CAN do better - want to redesign each of them already. I can even draw proper schemes and plans. Bring more planes if you have some pictures(drawings or photos). Or describe them But we'll badly need someone to do 3D modeling. At least one plane for a start. Just a fighter. Notice double prop. Proportions will be changed - it's just a general concept of an airframe. Short range interceptor. Armed with side cannon, supplied with easy to reload cartridges - 2 shells in each. Look at the bomber below and you'll see why the cannon is needed. Another fighter. Should use high-power engine from the look of it. And it's obviously prone to dive - maybe making the prop face a bit up will create an appearance of the problem fixed(FM can be fixed with CG shift to the back and some lift on the stabs). A heavy bomber the way I see them in WWV. Big. Heavy. Armed. Lethal. Ugly. Bloated. And not at all maneuverable. At the moment I suggest some aircraft design brainstorming, then making a trial model(wish, I could do it)... tuning it... combat testing... painting it.. Hope it will interest someone else apart from moderators(It is FE mod - not some off-topic!!! )

Maybe not the weight but the space taken by it was the reason. MGs have to be fed with ammo and having an ammo cache right trough the fuel tank would be asking for trouble Anyway is it possible to, well... model tank placement? For shooting purposes Recently I became rather interested with blowing SPADs to pieces with one burst at the wing tank

Well, fine... I can do without the gunsight It'll take some time to get used to guns position, though. By the way, why did they use such placement?

The model looks nice, didn't give any CTD or lag yet... But couple of things could use some fixing 1. Pilot is placed too low. 2. No prop Will there be some gunsight thingie? It was a bit difficult to down a Fokker... For the first time I've flown a concrete plane... Nice work, keep it up

Nope, I've got Simulation settings still there with full range of options.

Charles, that FM stalls in a very peculiar way. I fly on Hard. Actually, it stalls the exactly the same way as Gotha - just takes a sudden nose dive for several hundred meters. By the way, the v2 model(the 3D model) looks even better. The only issue is that prop stops at low throttle and you can see than it's fixed a a bit wrong on the axis. I do hope bortdafarm will fix this.

Huh... there might be a way to calculate the gross weight roughly... According to edit notes the maximum fuel amount is in kg. Add it. Then open Gundata.ini file. Find the weapon you have on your plane. Look at ammo weight(I suppose) and multiply it by the number of rounds you've set up.. don't know if it is in grams or kg there...

Ok, TK might want to look into this These AI guys were following a SPAD, and firing at it. They weren't stuck in this position - were flying wing to wing for some time or one's landing gear right above the other's stab - but they performed nearly identically for at least a minute until I came and blew the SPADs engine. The blue couple closed in on it and then finally split both sides. None of the planes were harmed. I didn't disable any collisions and FM is set to hard. I even remember crashing into other planes. Do AI have some privileges or is it a bug? That sync flying was really creepy too...

I does add stuff up. SPAD 12 felt much heavier when I was testing it with about 50 cannon shells on board.

AlbatrosDI? The one by bortdafarm? It was made prior to the patch and is based on old Albatros .ini.

The AI seem to have gained limited range. I mean, before the patch they would follow you anywhere across the map, walk you home(even two-seaters) - now they don't go far from their airfield into enemy territory. That's actually very nice 'cause it gives a chance to escape. Yesterday I had both ailerons and elevators blown off, SE5a and SPAD on my tail and was ready to be finished off when they suddenly turned around and left(headed back according to the map)... I managed to land at friendly territory using only rudder and throttle. Mission was failed but survival is a bit higher priority in the campaign In other mission I noticed AI shoot at me after I landed... The patch is great The issue with bombs and frequent AI stalling seems to be PC-dependent, because I never had any problems with bombs and AI flies just fine(i.e. like me) Just before they turned away.

Yep. And Readme for patch mentions which ini files will be deleted and suggests doing a backup.

Get this http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autom...mp;showfile=343 Use it to extract Fokkers' _DATA.ini from ObjectData.CAT in game's Objects folder After tweaking place the modified ini file into corresponding(there are two types of Fokker in game) folder in Objects/Aircraft folder

MJ, grab editing notes from the bottom of this page http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/CharlesEAW/sfpage.html Maybe we should double all lift values for a start? bortdafarm, if anyone had any crashes, FPS drops or other things like that, I think we'd tell you, huh? The model works fine and people already want to adjust its stats closer to real figures. I the meantime you can draw some nice damage..

Just a guess - did you give a proper OnGroundPitchAngle in aircraft data?

And don't forget about the Gotha, plz. Though AI flies them still quite well... It barely glides on hard and gunners could use some tune down, I guess

Heh... started a new campaign flying Fokker during St. Mihiel Operation. We ran into swarm of SPADs and SE5a. There were lots of turns, dives and climbs - the AI no longer wants to die. Somehow I managed to kill engines on a couple of planes(random hit - no more sniping) then killed another pilot and managed to set 2 SPADs ablaze(upper wing fuel tank seems to be the weak spot). It was real fun to be aiming at one plane and hear bullets hit wings just near your head... The battle ended after a mid-air collision with the last SPAD. 2 out of 7 AI pilots of my squadron were shot down. Not bad Dagger, how about adding FABRIC armor type which would randomize greatly the amount of damage dealt to structure, thus simulating 'hit through fabric'/'hit structure' type of damage? This way several bullet hits can go either unnoticed or rip the wing off. Giving this armor cover an StructureDensity parameter would also allow to change the amount of structure elements under the fabric for various plane components, this way imitating different placement of stuff, e.g. high Density for fuselage to mark engine, and fuel placement and a low one for wings and wingtips in particular. This way we will have relatively low chances of destroying a wing with non-explosive projectile hit and have an incentive to shoot at the engine or pilot. And we'll see even more realistic kills

It's easy to find these figures - figuring out what, for example, 'Lift due to control surface deflection' should be is much more difficult.

Updated, based new DATA on SPAD after the patch. http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autom...p;showfile=3777

No problems yet. All my graphic/sim settings were reset but it's no problem... Just tried Instant Action - Hard AI really started to bite... Fokkers turn faster than ever ;) Nice exhaust smoke effect added to all planes... :clapping: And we got the rear view! And flight orders menu got redesigned... Oh... I shouldn't get so excited at 5:30 in the morning before going to sleep... but the patch definitely brought more drive to air combat... Bloody two-seaters now fly in tight formations and DO drop bombs, turning airfield into smoke and ashes... And with these machine gun animations planes look much more alive...

http://www.thirdwire.com/downloads_fe.htm

Try setting year to 1916, enemy activity to heavy, mission type to intercept and make sure you don't have any of my early SPADs installed. Or even adjust availability dates so that Dh2 and E.III greater chance to meet each other :)

Nieuport 11? http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bb...;f=165;t=000288

Hm... Is it possible to make the whole wing just a large aileron and give it bending animation? Tried playing with muzzle position, looked at other settings... no luck... The gun shoots from the upper wire joint. Is there something in the LOD at that spot?

I'm flying on hard and torque isn't that bad - let go of the handle and you'll see that plane just rolls about 30 degrees to the left and rolling stops. 'Watch your six' SPADs are XII... luckily they never use that cannon.. but I've taken plenty of hits(I removed steel armor from the pilot) and ended up gaining yet another Wound Badge.