p10ppy

Here's a little toy/tool I did up a little while ago when I got sick of big excel spreadsheets

 

 

 

 

Run it (from any where) and feed it FM data.ini's and it crunches them up into a simplified form for analysis (only, no editing, no saving, no pain)

Up to 5 AC at a time

 

I found it useful for comparing FM's and finding any big mistakes

 

Mostly it just works with the info in the ini, but you will need to provide a aircraft length and wing configuration (mono,bi etc) for some of the Loftin/moi calculations

 

It totals things like CD0 for the aircraft and gives an overall coefficient and supplies the equivalent Loftin based estimate. (Simplified to full power at sealevel,dry weight)

 

Moi estimates are based on a combination of existing 3^rd wire aircraft and the formulas from Charles's SF notes (thank you Charles and Abacus)

 

The Moi's get wildly wrong with the BIG aircraft, and all the existing stock FE craft are watercooled biplanes so it is really are only indicative ballpark stuff

 

In fact all the Loftin based estimates are very rough but good enough for government work imho

 

Note: I'm using Cdi (induced drag) from the Loftin calcs for CDL in the ini, and I don't know that they are really equivalent

It's the one major difference in value between the stock aircraft data and the derived Loftins

 

At the bottom there is some derived info on wing/power loading etc that might be useful for gauging performance

 

I'm not the greatest coder so it's a bit slow when it comes to the data crunch

And I have not done much error trapping so I'm sure its easy to break(wont hurt the ini files tho)

 

It will output to a default printer but only as a bitmap so its not real sharp

 

Hope someone finds some use in it

 

Suggestions are welcome

 

Get it from combatace once its been approved

 

 

 

For more info on how Loftin estimate's

 

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/...68/contents.htm

Appendix C

I agree that it is may be a wee bit flat (that could be the lighting render tho)

The D.III did have a flatish bottom (behind the wing root anyway)

 

3 view

 

discusion

looking great :)

 

 

in my net wanderings on MoS n info i found some nice stuff on the E. series over at the Aerodrome

 

You guys have probably all ready seen it and its a bit late for the III

but just in case

 

discussion on the evolution

 

Great drawings

 

Markings and finish article

 

ps you may have to sign up for the forums...not sure

Hi everybody sorry I haven't replied for awhile, RL a bit hectic at the moment

 

Thanks again for all the nice words

 

From my perspective I think TK's planes are amazing, very inspirational.

They are much lighter on polygons and textures than mine (it's a bit of a hog really, but Lods help) and look wonderful for their in game performance.

Anyway it's not a competition, the more mods the better imho

The game wouldn't be half as fun with out all the great work of Laton, Peter, v. Deutschmark, gambit, Bortdafarm, the A team and all the others I've forgotten to mention

A lot of this stuff wouldn't be possible with out all the work done by Charles and the SF/WOV/WOE modders….

 

@ Froggy, Yayyyy, thanks very much for that, I'd forgotten all about doing the internalclipdistance, I did it months ago when I was struggling to bury the outside fuselage with the cockpit (think I got the parameter from a WOV plane) doesn't seem to be needed now tho, and who would have thought it would affect the target arrows…

 

@ Firecage, are you getting a lot of spins? I actually tried to keep abit of a spin in the FM (its supposed to be a nasty handler and it really isn't with this FM) I find I've got to try pretty hard to spin it (much harder than the Spad 13, but that maybe just over familiarity) but I agree the 3rd wire engine seems to make it very hard to recover from spins (I have recovered in the morane, just not very often)

 

@Tailspin, I like that pilot position better too, thanks

 

@ Southside Bucky, Have you added the streamer.lod thingy to your weapons folder (its actually a dummy, the streamer is a weapon pylon, long story ) and either:

Used the weapons editor to update the WEAPONDATA.dat and modded the WEAPONDATA.ini,

Or used my Weaponsdata.dat / ini?

If you have, is anyone else having this problem? (I may have forgotten a step somewhere?)

 

As for the FM Peter's PMed me about it (I haven't replied yet but will next)

I agree it is too easy to fly but we are back to that old conundrum of realistic vs relative / fun performance

 

---Long musings follow---

 

It was very fast for its day, and the speed at sea level is about right give or take a knot according to published data (probably with a hurricane up is bottom and a monkey for a pilot)

And bar the much superior armament of the E.III, was by all accounts a better performing aircraft than the E.III (the E.series fokkers were apparently related to the earlier G and H moranes, the N being a different beast)

It has lower wing and power loading then the E.III, and according to the Lofkin formulas lower total CD0 and a better lift/drag ratio

Given that it has a fixed vert stabilizer (I know its very tiny ) I guess it would have better directional stability too (pitch is another story)

I reversed engineered the Moi's off of TK's planes (any other formulas seemed to result in numbers miles out) and given the ridiculas empty weight, it gives a plane that quite snappy to manoeuvre, (I can post my moi formulas for discussion if anyone's interested)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being defensive, I know it's much too easy to fly

And probably too good against the early German Bi's

I guess I'm just waiting for something concrete from you guys, because I've flown it 1000s of times and can no longer tell

Anyway it is released under the creative commons licence, so all should feel free to release any mods of it they like

 

---Long musings stop---

 

What am I'm going to do next… not sure… probably not that again for a while

I'm half way through a Mod of the N to a I / V (a bit tricky the nose is quite different)

 

And I thought I might have ago of some AI only targets (I've always like the Taube)

 

And I started this a while ago to have a break from the morane (damned ugly tho, and there's still a lot to do on it)

 

Any suggestions? (Don't hold your breath tho I'm pretty slow )

 

Thanks

Thank you everybody

I'm glad you are enjoying it

 

Thanks Tailspin for the soundlist.ini stuff

(I knew I'd forget something, should have included my file)

 

The little targeting arrows has got me stumped (I fly mostly padlocked so I never missed them)

I've just been testing and I can't find anything in particular that's aircraft specific that should affect the arrows…. (But something clearly is)

 

Anyone else know?

 

 

@ gambit168

I really like yours and v. Deutschmark skins a lot

And I know what you mean about weathering, they really only lasted a few months

But its fun to do

And strangely enough almost every MoS-N profile depicts them as really battered probably something to-do with their landing characteristics

Or Morane had really bad Dope

 

What do people thing of the FM? Too easy?

 

 

Link to My soundlist.ini(copy it into your ThirdwireWWIFlight folder)

 

Finally its sorta kinda of finished

 

Thanks to all those who have helped with advice

And Thanks especially to TK for such a wonderful game and

open design

 

 

 

 

Caveats

 

Its a polygon / texture heavy model, my rather ancient PC

copes ok, but I'd suggest disabling the shadow (the shadow model screws up the

damage textures as well)

 

The Cockpit is especially over modelled but you learn from

your mistakes

 

There's a lot of outer skin colour used in the cockpit

(which does not swap with the skin, see the above about mistakes and learning)

I've included a black version of the cockpit as well, just copy over the

required files if you love flying the black aircraft and copy back the red when

you want to chance back (optional)

 

 

Cockpit is almost certainly over equipped with instruments

for the era (I was having fun)

 

The RFC Skin should go with an aircraft with a Lewis gun

rather than the Hotchkiss

 

(I'm slowly getting around to making the Lewis gun) so this

is just a stand-in

 

FM is not very accurate; I went down the whole Loftin / Eberhardt

route of estimating performance based on published figures, and

got a FM that probably was reasonably representational, However (big however)

That FM was slaughtered by existing FM’s and the AI really couldn't do much with it at

all. (All was not lost though; I did learn a whole lot about aerodynamics quickly)

With the current flight model the aircraft is much easier to

fly and the AI can "cope"with it (The AI still seems to hit less than other

with other aircraft)

In all probability I"ve made the FM to good trying to help

the AI

 

Note: I've only used the FM on hard flight settings

 

Constructive criticism appreciated

 

 

 

 

Morane-Saulnier N "Bullet"

 

Specifications

 

Prototype: June 1914

Service Start: April 1915

Service End: Late 1916

Numbers Built: ~49

Engine: Le Rhône 9C 80 HP Rotary

Length: 5.83m

Height: 2.5m

Wingspan: 8.242m

Wing area: 11m2

Empty Weight: 188 Kg

Loaded Weight: 444 Kg

Speed Sea-level: 144 to 152 Kph

Flight Endurance: 1h 30min

Ceiling: 4000m

Armament: 1 x 8mm Hotchkiss Mle 1909 144 rounds total

 

Cockpit Instruments

RPM Gauge

Pressure Altimetre

Gimballed Magnetic Compass

Waypoint needle

Pulsometre

Fuel Glass

Clock

 

 

 

 

Loadouts

Flight leader streamers

 

 

Units

Escadrille 159

 

 

 

Escadrille 390

 

 

 

Escadrille 394

 

 

 

60 Squadron RFC

 

 

 

 

 

Installation

Unrar the MOS-N.rar to a temp folder

 

Copy the moraneN folder and its contents to your ThirdwireWWIObjectsAircraft (your path may differ)

 

Copy all the files under the Sounds folder to the ThirdwireWWISounds folder

 

Open your SOUNDLIST.INI (ThirdwireWWIFlight folder) in a text editor and add at the bottom

 

[hotchkiss]

Priority=NORMAL

Looped=TRUE

NumBuffers=4

3DSound=TRUE

DopplerEffect=FALSE

MaxDist=1000.000000

MinDist=50.000000

InsideConeAngle=360

OutsideConeAngle=360

ConeOutsideVolume=0

 

 

[lerhone]

Priority=LOW

3DSound=TRUE

DopplerEffect=TRUE

Looped=TRUE

NumBuffers=4

FrequencyControl=TRUE

MaxDist=1500.000000

MinDist=100.000000

InsideConeAngle=360

OutsideConeAngle=360

ConeOutsideVolume=0

 

Copy all files under the Weapons folder to the ThirdwireWWIObjectsWeapons

folder.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE, I've included my weapondata.ini and my

weapondata.dat for ease, It should contain all the available munitions to date

+ the streamer for the Morane, If you

have added your own things to your weapons folder do not copy my weapondata files to your weapons folder,

rather add the streamer_red.LOD info to your files in the established way.

 

Thanks for your patience

 

PS get it here (CombatAce

Sorry B Bandy RFC missed your post,

 

I've been struggling with RL

That and the fact that aircraft modeling takes forever (don't know how the others do it)

 

But I think I'm finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel

 

 

The LODs are pretty done

Cockpit is done (there's a colour issue but you learn from these things)

The textures I'm going to stop playing with (you could spend a lifetime)

Animations are working "ok"

Damage modeling is done (I think, it still seems a little weird to me)

FM has all the right collisions points and Min-max/Positions, hierarchy etc

Sounds are done (but I'm not sure that they are good sounds)

Loadouts are done

Hanger/load screens just finished

 

 

That just leaves the little thingy of the actual FM

 

It flies, has the right engine / weight yadda yadda

But I haven't touched any of the actual drag/lift thingies since I copied them in there from someone else's FM (sorry someone, so long ago I cant remember whose)

 

Anyway I was thinking about packaging it up in the next few days and emailing it to a few expert volunteers to test it as is …?

 

Or maybe I should just stick it up on combatAce and worry about the FM later?

(Aways seems messy to me though, separate patches and stuff)

 

Thanks for your patience

Try adding or altering this line in the *data.ini file (you will need to play unless you have the MAX files)

 

 

---Snip------

 

 

[AircraftData]

EmptyMass=288.6

EmptyInertia=569.11,672.07,1144.94

ReferenceArea=15.55

ReferenceSpan=9.20

ReferenceChord=1.68

CGPosition=0.00,0.0,0.00

OnGroundPitchAngle=10.4 <--------------------------this line

UseMetricUnit=TRUE

DefaultArmorType=WOOD

DefaultArmorThickness=25

Component[001]=fuselage

Component[002]=TopWingLeft

Component[003]=TopWingRight

Component[004]=TopWingMidLeft

Component[005]=TopWingMidRight

Component[006]=TopWingTipLeft

Component[007]=TopWingTipRight

Component[008]=tail

Component[009]=Nose

Component[010]=Verttail

Component[011]=RightStab

Component[012]=LeftStab

 

---Snip------

 

It sets the initial pitch angle on the ground between the gear contact points

Fixes on runway "falling" in first eagles so it should work in WOV

yeah sounds like a good idea

i always wondered why it hadn't been already done with so few differing guns etc

 

maybe start a list to see whats around and how much interest (type, polycount, texture/maping)?

great looking skin

 

Miller is very inspirational

 

 

If this is of any use, feel free

 

 

thanks for the pics the cockpit ones are really useful!

i dont know about the wing warping i presume that FE engine only allows the animating of full meshs, not a row of vertexs

i read somewhere that the wings only deformed a 100mm or so at the tips away

 

anyways more wips (slowly progressing)

 

 

 

Hello, first post but a fair while lurking

hope this is the right place?

 

I've been struggling through putting together a plane (long learning process)

thought i should post incase someone else is/has done one already

WIP

 

 

I will probably need some help finishing it (FM etc)

 

Also I wonder if anyone has any details (photos) on the cockpit for this kite?

 

oops nearly forgot its surposed to be a MORANE-SAULNIER N

 

:D