WhiteBoySamurai

I just want to confirm-- does ground radar range actually have any effect on being able to select a target? I was under the impression that it solely depended on the ground object's MaxVisibleDistance. If we could visual-target among blobs showing up on ground radar display, at least that would be something. In the mean time, I use the mash-F7 trick a lot, but it feels kind of dirty. The other thing that works well is hitting R when another flight (often the EW birds) call out "sam launch," since that allows you to select whatever's shooting at them, usually a member of the enemy battle group, even if they're extremely far away.

From what I've seen of TK's and third-party deck LODs, they should be extremely simplified (basically just one object, a flat untextured surface). You don't want to just copy the main LOD for it if at all avoidable, because even if it works, the game engine has to calculate all those polygons and stuff all over again. FYI, the Ulyanovsk actually has a custom flight deck LOD, which is only 167 polygons compared to about 70000 for the model itself. On the subject of carriers, how does the stock Nimitz have lights at night? I know how to do self-illuminated objects, but this seems like something different, and I can't find any references to lights in the data.ini.

As far as I know, you need both a separate "flight deck" LOD and some careful .ini editing to make a ship capable of supporting aircraft. My major ships (Tico, Burke, LCS, Kongo, Kirov, etc.) can land a helo if you have the latest versions. I tried to do the same with other third-party models, but it's been hit-and-miss. You should be able to land on the Iowa, but the Slava and Udaloy are buggy, and I don't think I can get them working perfectly without the original max files. (The collision deck LOD can be built separately, but it has to line up with the model just right.) If someone has more info on making collision decks, though, I'd love to hear it. The JGSDF pack is taking a bit longer, as I'm adding a few more vehicles, making some last-minute fixes, and so on. I'll probably be concentrating on the Sovremenny after that.

I made excellent use of Brain's trick when I uploaded the F-15JKai skins. Without it, the skin folders alone would total more than 800MB! By the way, you can still have other skins even when using this method. And you can also put textures that are common to all variants (i.e. turbine blades, canopy glass, etc) in the main folder. Anything in individual skin folders will override the base texture in the main aircraft folder when chosen, so you can mix it up freely. Obviously the same thing works for Ground Objects too,

Okay, this looks totally awesome and is obviously an homage to Japan's kaiju (giant monster) movies. Del Toro never disappoints as director, so I'm sure it'll be worth the admission price. But! Could someone tell me why so many Hollywood movies lately have a hate-on for 5th generation fighters? The F-22 and F-35 keep getting smashed to pieces in absurdly low-altitude close-range clusterf**ks and it's getting on my nerves. Hulk (the Ang Lee one): An F-22 flies low enough for the big green guy to jump on top of it. Die Hard 4: F-35B flies under a bridge (which collapses and FODs the engine, naturally). Iron Man: F-22s engage an unidentified superweapon from point blank, and one drops from a resulting mid-air collision. Transformers 1: "F-22 pilots would never fly that low!" Yet moments later they're zooming between buildings and get stomped on by a shapeshifting robot ape. Transformers 2: F-22s are flying so low, in the desert, for no reason, and get taken out by levitated rocks. ROCKS. And then in this trailer they're shooting a 300 foot tall monster point-blank with their 20mm? Come on. It doesn't necessarily ruin the movie, but I just wish directors would do even a tiny bit of research before they include modern military hardware.

Taking off from Komaki Air Base.

I feel like there's not enough solid info about how ground objects are used by the game engine. For the benefit of modders who make things other than airplanes, it would be useful to summarize everything currently known. Also, I'd like to get some questions answered about certain rarely used/unused types of vehicles, if possible. GroundObjectRole= Tank: Appears on friendly and enemy sides during CAS missions. Transport: Appears in enemy convoys during Armed Recon missions. APC: ??? I was previously under the impression that these also appeared in Armed Recon missions, but after testing it out recently, they never show. So what are APCs for exactly? Recon: ??? A few stock vehicles like the BRDM have this classification, but I'm not sure when and where they're supposed to show up. I could have sworn that I've seen a few spawn in/near bases before. Artillery: ??? I've never seen them show up in game (aside from deliberately placing them with the editor, of course). Can these be assigned by type in terrain's target list like SAMs are? EW_Radar, SAM_Radar, SAM_Launcher, Fixed_AAA, Mobile_AAA: Appear as dictated by terrain target list. Is Mobile_SAM a valid/working entry? Naval units are a subset of ground objects and consist of the following types. Cargoship: Appears as a target during anti-shipping missions. Patrolboat: I've seen them appear a few times in random missions, but I have no idea what triggers their appearance. Warship: Friendly warships will appear in single missions only if you are flying as a faction that has enough ships to form a task force. Hostile warships will appear if the terrain's primary enemy faction (Enemy01 in the _nations.ini list) has enough ships to form a task force. WarshipClass= Carrier: Can lead a task force. In random single missions, only one carrier per side (Blue/Red) will spawn on a map. Battleship: Can appear as escorts for carriers OR leading their own task force. Transport: Can lead a task force (separate from CV and BB groups). Cruiser: Can lead a task force (if no CV/BB/LS available) OR act as escorts for carriers and battleships. Destroyer: Appears as escort. Frigate: Appears as escort. Submarine: This type apparently exists somewhere in the game code, but currently unused?? The bare minimum for a randomly generated task force is one "capital ship" (carrier, battleship, transport, or cruiser) and one or two types of escorts. Any capital ship leading a task force can be designated as a target for a randomly generated strike mission. However, if an aircraft carrier is able to appear on a map, it will get top priority as a strike mission target, taking precedence over all other ships or land targets. That's all I've got at the moment. More data would be greatly appreciated.

File Name: F-15J Kai skin pack File Submitter: WhiteBoySamurai File Submitted: 03 December 2012 File Category: F-15 This is a package of high-resolution (4096x4096) textures for the F-15J Kai in its current JASDF livery. Authentic squadron markings and serial decals for each of the 153 currently operational F-15J aircraft are included. As the texture is designed exclusively for the F-15J_97 from the F-15 Super Pack, you need to download and install that pack first if you haven't already. IMPORTANT NOTE: In order to save CombatAce's bandwidth and your hard drive space, the main texture files have been placed in the aircraft folder instead of each skin folder, since every squadron has identical skins aside from decals and markings. This will not overwrite or override any existing skins. Any textures placed in individual skin folders will take precedence over what's in the main folder, so other texture sets should still work fine. Credits: Textures, decals, and hangar/loading screens by Nengajyou Aki Original skins and templates by the F-15 Super Pack team (please see the download page for full credits of all involved) Special thanks to EricJ for uploading the templates Click here to download this file

Uploaded and awaiting approval.

I already made the missiles for my PLAN frigates, so the HQ-61 and HQ-7 are logical choices for new ground objects. I plan to do some slightly more modern air defense systems like the Type 88 (mobile version of the twin 37mm) and the PGZ-95 (25mm guns plus short-range IRMs), so they'll be plenty of things to shoot at you in SE Asia.

Yeah, Canada's ADATS comes to mind. Not sure how effective a laser-guided missile with a heavy anti-tank warhead would really be against fast movers, but I wouldn't want to risk it in an attack helicopter. I agree with WhiteKnight in that we really need an option for making mixed formations. Given how fleets are set up, it shouldn't be very hard for Thirdwire to do. The more realistic and dynamic the ground war is, the more immersive the campaign.

Sadly, I wasn't able to get it to work the way I wanted. I'll either have to leave the machine guns as-is, or move them to just above the turret's pivot point (hoping no one notices) and attach them to the hull in max hierarchy. I'd like to see what you're working on, in any case! For the 37mm, do you mean the Type 65? I should be able to make that, maybe reusing the barrels from my PLAN frigates. Glad you like them. When I read your idea, i couldn't resist trying it for myself: "MLRS used Steel Rain. It's super effective. Type 053H1S fainted."

I was under the same impression. At least, I'm not seeing them show up randomly unless I change them to Mobile_AAA. It looks like the SA-8 is the only stock Mobile_SAM object. It also, for some reason has a maximum speed of 64mps (200+ kilometers per hour!)... which is probably irrelevant, since I've never seen them move on their own, either. I've got a similar setup on my end (and having trucks that shoot back makes armed recon much more interesting!), but so far I've left the third party red vehicles like BMPs with the APC/RECON tags they came with. I'd still like to know what the game is supposed to do with APC and recon objects. Has anyone seen either type appear in a CAS mission before, for example?

Recently I've taken a break from shipbuilding to make some ground objects. I've been playing around on the new Korea terrain, and decided that since half of Japan is on the map, they need some proper representation. As soon as testing is finished, I'll be releasing a package of at least 15 different vehicles for the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force. I took this opportunity to try out a lot of different things in terms of modelling and texturing to make things as graphically efficient as possible. These won't be artistic masterpieces by any account, rather my goal is to make them as functional and authentic as possible. Here are preview pics of some of them. In addition to the above indigenously-designed units, I made an all new M270, which is license-built in Japan. US Army skins will be included as a bonus (pictured below). The M26 rockets are also new, and faithfully replicate the "steel rain" effect. If these ground objects are well received, I'll eventually make additional packs of vehicles for South Korea, China, and maybe North Korea if I find enough reference material.

Really looking forward to that Raptor. I'm still enjoying the original though. Coming soon:

First the F-2, and now the F-22 -- my two favorite aircraft -- are now getting an overhaul? Seriously?? Looks incredible. At 0:22 in the video, I thought for a moment that you cheated and used some real-life footage.

I'm going to be making a whole line of ground objects for the Asian theaters, especially Korea, but I've run into a sticking point with tanks. I want to make a working .50 cal in addition to the main gun. I'm also trying to get things working on existing tanks where possible. But it seems like having a gunner on top of a node which is also a gunner messes things up. Everything works fine when either the main gun is at its neutral position (yaw 0). But when the turret turns, the machine gun's muzzle position also rotates. Since that probably makes no sense, I'm attaching some pics of the M1, T-80, and finally my own model: It doesn't seem to matter which component I put the machine gun under in the data.ini. The only workaround I've found is to link the machine gun to the chassis instead of the turret in the model hierarchy, but that's no good unless the machine gun is positioned right above the turret's pivot point (otherwise the gun will float around the turret when it rotates). Any ideas?

By separate node, do you mean one of the central components like this? [GroundObjectData] //blah blah Component[001]=Hull Component[002]=Turret Component[003]=Machinegun I tried that, but it still has the same muzzle position glitch. (And this also causes the tank to be destroyed easily as soon as the tiny unarmored machine gun component is hit.) The Abrams model's MG cupola is indeed fully animated (YawModelNodeName=MGTurret, PitchModelNodeName=MG). You can sort of see it in the screenshots above. According to the .OUT file it's linked to the turret in the hierarchy. Same with the T-80's machine gun, and my Type 90. The thing about the stock tanks is that their machine guns are just static parts, and only the main gun is operational. So either TK didn't think MGs were needed (even though it would make it more exciting if those ground objects could take shots at low-flyers on CAS missions), or maybe even HE can't get it to work right. >_> Russo, could you tell us how the model hierarchy is set up for that tank model? Specifically, what are GunPitch and MG01 connected to? And can you confirm that the machine guns aren't having the same sort of problem I described? Here's the relevant data from my tank at present: [GroundObjectData] DamagedModel= DestroyedModel=Tank_Destroyed.LOD DestroyedEffect=VehicleFireEffect EmptyMass=50200.00 Component[001]=Hull Component[002]=Turret ... ... [WeaponSystem] TargetType=GROUND GunRange=3200.0 PitchAngleRate=16 MaxPitch=15.0 MinPitch=-12.0 DefaultPitchAngle=0 YawLimited=FALSE YawAngleRate=24 DefaultYawAngle=0 ReloadGunAtAngle=FALSE GunRecoil=100 GunStabilization=TRUE GunRadarTracking=FALSE RangeFinder=8 BallisticComputer=6 YawModelNodeName=turret PitchModelNodeName=maingun ... [Hull] ModelNodeName=hull ... SystemName[001]=Engine [Turret] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=turret DetachWhenDestroyed=TRUE ... SystemName[001]=MainGun SystemName[002]=Gunner2 SystemName[003]=HMG DetachNode[001]=HMGmount ... [MainGun] SystemType=GUN GunTypeName=120MM_L44J MuzzlePosition=0.00,5.53,1.714 MaxAmmo=35 EjectShells=FALSE [Gunner2] SystemType=GUNNER GunnerID=2 TargetType=AIR_AND_GROUND GunRange=1200 PitchAngleRate=15 MaxPitch=70.0 MinPitch=-5.0 DefaultPitchAngle=0 YawLimited=FALSE YawAngleRate=30 MinYaw= MaxYaw= DefaultYawAngle=0 GunMinAltitude=0.0 GunMaxAltitude=1200.0 YawModelNodeName=HMGmount PitchModelNodeName=HMG VisualSearchTime=8.0 ViewportPosition=-0.08,0.375,2.62 IndependentSearchChance=100 LookAroundChance=100 GunnerFireChance=100 GunnerFireTime=0.5 ParentComponentName=turret DetachWhenDestroyed=TRUE [HMG] GunnerID=2 SystemType=GUN GunTypeName=50CAL_M2 MuzzlePosition=-0.075,1.45,2.62 MaxAmmo=1500 TracerLoading=2 BurstAmount=6 EjectShells=TRUE There's another stange thing about tanks I noticed. All else being equal, main guns are very accurate if set as the WeaponSystem, but tend to wildly overshoot or undershoot if set as an individual Gunner. (From my experience with ships, this could potentially be corrected with adjustments to pivot points, viewpoints, etc. etc.) Also, ground vehicles tend to stop and shoot rather than fire on the move if using a WeaponSystem.

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I don't have the DLC, but i do have all the squadrons from them (plus everything else included in the squadronlist that daddyairplanes mentioned), and they're showing up correctly on all my JASDF jets, even including custom decal sets for your old F-2. Texture set for that one looks like this in my case: [TextureSet] Name=8SQ Nation=JAPAN Squadron=8JASDF Specular=0.300000 Glossiness=0.750000 Reflection=0.000000 DecalNumberRandomize=TRUE It could be something really simple but easy to overlook, like the nation name or squadron name not matching up exactly to the entries in the nations.ini or squadronlist.ini. (Remember that the stock files use "JAPAN" as the nation name and not, say, "JASDF" for example.) Little things like that cause problems for me all the time.

Wow, I can't wait! All the animations are a really nice touch, just like on your Sea King model. My new favorite thing to fly recently:

New version has been uploaded with the correct position for the RBS15II missile launchers (they shoot from hatches on either side of the ship). Textures and data have been improved, and I've included a new data set so you can assign the ship as a frigate in task forces. (...Not that there are a lot of other Swedish ships yet, but consider it planning for the future.)

I won't give away any more right now, but let's just say that it'll be a nice treat for anyone playing in the near future (2015) time frame. Kongo update is going up tonight. I finally managed to find some pics of the Visby test-firing its anti-ship missiles, and apparently they launch from hatches in the sides, so I'll take a bit of time to change the model accordingly. After that I'm going to be focusing on the Sovremenny, a few Japan-specific items, the Essex, and maybe something flyable.