Gunrunner

Well, it all depends whether you are fundamentally an individualist or a collectivist. For collectivists, society comes first, and individuals are there to serve it and make sure it stays safe, secure, prosperous, usually they have no trouble losing liberties or privacy for a little security, real or imagined. For individualists, individuals come first and society is only a by-product of interactions between individuals, loss of liberties, privacy or an over-abundance of rules, laws and unfounded and unneccessary authorities are suspicious, seen as a way for interest groups to manipulate society for their own interest at the expense of individuals. Which is right ? Probably not, the "right" view being somewhere between those extremes. You also have to take into account further distinctions in the ways of judging the virtues and values of things. Some people judge primarily on intent, in which case the moves toward more security and less privacy are "right" as the intention of the proponents of these actions are usually "pure". Others judge mostly on execution (the means if you will), meaning they don't care about intents, or results, but only how well the policies are implemented, with such a view, the situation in the US is a mixed bag, with some things done very well tainted by a host of exemple of things going FUBAR, abuse of power, bureaucratic nutiness etc... Most would judge on immediate results, the intent and the means are irrelevant to them, as long as the results are there, in that case, do US citizen feel safer ? Well, some do, others don't; More important, are they safer ? That's so far impossible to judge. And finally you have people judging on potentiality, they "know" the intent can be pure, the means "right" and the immediate results impressive, yet spell doom for society as we know it in the long run. Those who oppose the security society toward which we all are going belong mostly to that last group, some for irrationnal reasons, others for very rationnal one. For what is seen today as necessary and exceptionnal measures to deal with a dangerous world might become the norm in the spirit of our children, meaning that in a few years, even tighter rules can be enforced with little resistance, and so on until we end up with a real police state without even realising how we got there or anyone has anything against it. For most people potentiality is not a factor, as it is only of interest in the long term and might not even concern them, especially taking into account that a lot may happen to change policies radically before things go "too far" with the current ones. For others the long term and the effects on society is the only thing that counts. Once again, the right attitude is one sitting somewhere between, taking the potential into account without forgetting the present needs and results.

Well, the whole problem is that it is with flight sims like with every other games and entertainement we once knew and loved. At first passionate people gather to build something "cool", for other passionate people. Then success, or something close enough to it, comes, and they start churning out more of the same kind of thing, imitators arise. Soon enough they build real companies, start to earn real money and need to hire people to make things work at the scale things are now. Unfortunately, those people are not necessarily passionate, and they'd rather be paid than be part of the broke company that gave to the world the definitive Ford Fiesta parking simulation. Soon enough there is a need for people knowing how to run a real business, how to raise funds so that the company can go on with newer, bigger, better projects. And soon enough they realise that money and business come with strings attached, and passionate people who won't compromise their vision will leave, and slowly the spirit dies, and it all comes down to business and making profit, the projects are getting less and less ambitious in the passionate sense but more and more on a commercial level. And soon the company is either closed because it failed to cut down costs and increase revenues, failing to recognize that chasing the Grail will lead them to bankruptcy, or producing soul-less crap, like everyone else, because it's the only way it can now survive. That's the beauty of some of developpers nowadays, keeping the 80's garage dev spirit alive and producing games on a shoe-string budget without compromising their vision too much (either by taking their time, or expecting the community to pay for the development by releasing milestones as complete games (as ThirdWire does, in a way)).

Well, I don't know, I could live under the delusion that my neighbour is a terrorist, if by some coincidence it happens that he was one, that would just be coincidence, not a proof I'm not insane. Of course during the Cold War the Soviets would try to gather intelligence and influence opinions in the West, just as the West tried to do the same in the Soviet Union, noone ever doubted that, does that justify the often ridiculous witch-hunt of the McCarthy era ? The paranoid ambiance to the point of insanity ? I'd say I doesn't...

The trouble is not that TK followers are unsatisfied with the current state of things, but that to gain new followers, and increased revenues to continue working on new projects and continue supporting and expanding the game, TK needs to throw bones to those addicted to eye-candy and gameplay gimmicks that we don't require ourselves. Most of us will, at one point or another, for various reasons, stop playing, having the time to play, and as such, we will gradually stop buying new games and thus being a source of revenue, to survive and keep the games (and his company) alive, TK needs to appeal to new players/customers.

Something's fishy here... No one dumb enough to brag about such a move in advance is prudent/clever enough to leave no trace at all. So, either a) Photobucket is lying, b) their network guys are incompetent (as are the FBI/HLS ones, which wouldn't be such a surprise after all), c) the FBI/HLS are lying so your departement and police don't interfere with their own work or d) it's just a well prepared hoax.

"A people who would sacrifice a liberty for security deserved neither." Wasn't that Franklin ? On the subject of privacy and liberty, I highly recommand searching for a BBC documentary by Adam Curtis, "The Trap: WHat Happened to Our Dream of Freedom", or checking it out on Youtube (part , , , , , ). It's not bad, even though it offers no alternative except a blind idealistic humanism and fails to understand the real use and values of the theories it discusses and why they fail.

6) Weapons We'll also need some very specific weapons that we lack in both TMF WP and the Bunyap's WP. Forget about the RPK, just when I tested it I found one already done -_- What we'll also need, especially for our first squadron, is the AS-37 AR, an anti-radar missile, fortunately that one is easy too as we already have his evolution, the AS-37 ARMAT, using (almost) exactly the same airframe, so our job will only be to duplicate the ARMAT and change it into its predecessor. Of course, these new weapons, and those already existing would be nothing if we don't edit the Pylons and Loadouts of our Mirage 5F to take advantage of these weapons and ignore those she never used.

Take all the time you need, I'll go forward with my own parts too.

The plan is to release only parts and a how-to, so people can do it themselves, a little DIY project of sorts, so we don't have to redistribute anything but our own work.

Since with WoI we have a nearly perfect Mirage 5F airframe (and since I ported my WoE to WoI), I thought it would be nice to make a placeholder until the TMF releases his own version. What do we need ? 1) An airframe (a LOD) In this case, the Lybian Mirage 5D as it already has the right specular/gloss values all over (which isn't the case of the Nesher). 2) A cockpit In absence of something better and references on hand, the nesher cockpit is the best stand-in we have (the Mirage 5BA having substantially different equipment and avionics, and the Nesher and 5F being basically identically out of factory). 3) A flight model The Nesher will do nicely. 4) Avionics Same as above, the Nesher is as good as if TW made a 5F themselves. 5) Skins and decals We have a template, albeit of little help, and we can use some existing decals at first to speed up things as the TMF released aircrafts from the same units and time scale already. 6) Weapons By using the TMF weapons pack we inherit a lot of weapons used by the 5F, or the means to create them, we'll see that later. so, let's begin... 1) The airframe - Create a Objects/Aircraft/Mirage5F directory - Copy or extract from objectdata.cat the following files and directories : Nesher.ini Nesher_DATA.ini Nesher_LOADOUT.ini IDFCamo1/ and rename then by replacing Nesher by Mirage5F, except in the IDFCamo1 (which you can rename as ADACamoEC3-3 as we'll be working on this squadron first) directory where you must replace the Nesher_x.bmp names by Mirage5D_x.bmp (remember, we'll be using the Mirage 5D LOD and don't want to edit it). - Open Mirage5F.ini and replace the existing content by : [AircraftData] AircraftFullName=Mirage 5F AircraftShortName=Mirage 5F AircraftDataFile=Mirage5F_data.ini CockpitDataFile=Nesher_cockpit.ini HangarScreen=Nesher_hangar.bmp LoadingScreen=Nesher_Loading.bmp LoadoutImage=Nesher_loadout.bmp LoadoutFile=Mirage5F_Loadout.ini AvionicsDLL=Avionics60.dll AvionicsDataFilename=Nesher_avionics.ini [LOD001] Filename=Mirage5D.LOD Distance=100 [LOD002] Filename=Mirage5D_lod2.LOD Distance=250 [LOD003] Filename=Mirage5D_lod3.LOD Distance=500 [LOD004] Filename=Mirage5D_lod4.LOD Distance=1000 [LOD005] Filename=Mirage5D_lod5.LOD Distance=10000 [DamageTexture] DamagedPostFix=_holes.tga [Shadow] CastShadow=TRUE ShadowCastDist=10000 MaxVisibleDistance=800 [TextureSet001] Directory=ADACamoEC3-3 Name=ADA EC 3/3 Ardennes Nation=FRANCE Specular=0.400000 Glossiness=0.400000 Reflection=0.000000 Squadron=ADAEC3-3 Take note that we changed the LOD called by the file, as seen above. - Open the TextureSet.ini file within ADACamoEC3-3 and change its content by : [TextureSet] Name=ADA EC 3/3 Ardennes Nation=FRANCE Squadron=ADAEC3-3 Specular=0.400000 Glossiness=0.400000 Reflection=0.000000 - Open the Mirage5D_DATA.INI file and change the whole MissionData code block by the following values : [MissionData] NationName=FRANCE ServiceStartYear=1972 ServiceEndYear=1994 AircraftRole=FIGHTER AircraftCapability=DAY_ONLY Availability=RARE Exported=FALSE PrimaryRoles=STRIKE,CAS,SWEEP,ARMED_RECON,SEAD SecondaryRoles=ANTI_SHIP,RECON NormalMissionRadius=436 MaxMissionRadius=872 Ceiling=16093.4 MinBaseSize=MEDIUM There, you have a Mirage 5F ready to fly with the right dates, name and roles... Yet... we are still missing something for our airframe, Mirage 5F, once embargoed, were quickly introduced into French service but quickly added VOR navigation antennas on the vertical tail. 76.IAP-Blackbird is kind enough to be interested by this project, so I'll let him take care of the explanation ;). Now we skip all the parts we don't have to touch, and end up to skinning and decals... 5) Skins and decals Ideally we will end up making our own skin and decals, but as an interim solution, to quickly jump into the cockpit, we have another solution. In the end we strike to have 4 skins, covering all the units operating the Mirage 5F in Europe, namely : - EC 3/13 Auvergne Silver (From 1972 to 1973?) - EC 3/13 Auvergne Camo (From 1973? to 1994) - EC 3/3 Ardennes Camo (From 1972 to 1977) - EC 2/13 Alpes Camo (From 1977 to 1994) One of the units using the Mirage 5F was the EC 3/3 Ardennes, a unit specialised in SEAD, fortunately the TMF released the Mirage IIIE with skins and decals for the EC 3/3, so all you have to do to get placeholder decals is to get the excellent Mirage IIIE (here or here). So, until we get a template, what can we do ? We can recolor existing skins, here's a quick and dirty way : a) Open a BMP in Photoshop, let's say Mirage5F_1.bmp b) In the menu, search for Image > Adjustments > Replace Color... c) Select the color to replace, here we'll start with the sand color (click on any sand colored part that's not a rivet, panel line or dirt stain). d) Change the fuzziness to 100, as we want to change colors without changing too much of them and ending with strange colors in other places. e) Select a result color close to what you want it to be, here a grey/blue (my choice was 7a7c91). d) Click OK. Repeat, using the Green as a color to replace and 5C5E53 (a darker green) as a target, you'll notice that the earth color change too, and that is why this time, while repeating the process for the Earth color, you'll set Fuzziness to 50, so we don't end up modifying too many colors (the target is, to be quick, 5C5E53). You'll end up with something that could pass for a Mirage 5F camouflage for the time being, you then can add details, modify areas, such as the nose, to fit the real thing, but since it would take longer to explain the process than to do it, we'll see that later on and I'll let you play with Photoshop by yourself... In the meantime, you can download my interim skin... ADACamoEC3_3.zip

Only the tail ones are missing from the Nesher/Mirage 5D LOD I'm using as a basis.

Always used Hard, might explain it... Yep, you're right, it works in normal mode, almost too easy even...

I'd need a set of VOR antennas for my Mirage 5F placeholder (and I'm in the process of posting the step by step procedure needed for it, so anyone can benefit and the complete beginners can get a quick idea of the most basic operations). Here are a few pictures of the part while I'm searching for a drawing and better references for dimension : They are the small horizontal antennas on both sides of the vertical tail (way up), should be easy, but between writing the how to and placing rivets on a template (and knowing how clumsy I am when it comes to 3D modelling)... It's neither urgent nor important, I would understand if that doesn't interest you at all.

Nice ^^ mmmm Blackbird, when you have a few minutes to spare, may I interest you in something even simpler than those pylons ?

The stock flight model doesn't allow it, a few 3rd party aircraft do it, but they are very optimised to obtain vertical take-off/landing (the MV-22 and Yak-141 for instance) and require some practice and finesse to obtain that. The stock Harrier doesn't even have enough thrust to do it unloaded IIRC.

Do you know the model of your card ? The quickest (if not entirely reliable) way would be to right click on your desktop, chose Properties, then parameters and read what you have in the pull down menu, it should tell you the name of your card (even though it won't tell you the amount of memory and frequencies, it gives a useful baseline, since I can't navigate you through menus, I only know the french names and shortcuts -_-).

Quite frankly, it's a small leap, the GT would be a better choice (even though it's more noisy), for usually around $3 or 5 more (maybe more, I tend to think in euros). If you can spend more, are really concerned about performances but don't want to change everything, ATI/AMD has the HD 3850 in AGP for around $140. On quality, it depends on your visual criteria, your display, settings and drivers, also it varies from generation to generation, nVidia having the advantage of offering less lemon (nVidia's failings are usually cards that are too noisy, too hot or too power hungry, while ATI's cards are often too underperforming for their segment or way too unstable) than ATI (nVidia lemons being mostly their very high end, while ATI can be over the whole range) and somewhat more convinving drivers (even though ATI's performances in the domain have definitely improved and nVidia's not what it once was).

Exactly what I was searching for to change that in the Nesher model (well, I still have to figure out which entry is the nose, and which value is used on the rest of the plane, but that should be easy now that I know what I'm looking for) and make it a placeholder Mirage 5F (until the release of the TMF one), now if only I knew how to delete the belly pylons (without crashing the game or making a nice rendition of Wonder Woman's jet). OR... I can stop being a dimwit and use the Mirage5D LOD instead as it already has a nose with the same specular/gloss all over...

We are witnessing people reinventing the wheel because they didn't spend time to 1) read the manual 2) read TW's forum, 3) read Ca's forums and KB and 4) gather documentation and knowledge prior to tinkering. So there is a great deal of excitation, experimentation, "new" knowledge being found, but to those with a some more hours in the series, it sounds outlandish... In their defense, the search functions around here and TW are quite ineffective and a great deal of things I remember being in the KB still seems to be missing.

You missed nothing, the pylons and the canards are one piece, if you delete the entry for the canards, the canards won't show up, but the pylons won't too, even though there will be "phantom" pylons as they are still present in the INI file.

No, FC has pylons, and yes, I forgot he bundled both pylons and canards into the same LOD, which is inelegant even thouh more efficient, and means you are right.

The pylon is already there... always was, all you have to make sure is that you follow FC's instruction and copy and rename one of the wings' BMP to Su27Pylons.bmp and copy it at the root of the Aircraft folder.

It's a very simple INI edition, nothing magical or requiring FC's intervention... Just correct me if I'm wrong, what you want is a Su-27S with the [side]InnerStation2 of the Su-33 to simulate a Su-27SM ? If you really have no clue how to do it, I'll post what you have to do, if someone else doesn't before I get the time to.

Basher, that's normal... it is the procedure, unless they have guardian angels, strike aircrafts jumped by bandits will jettison loads and flee, or fight if they have no other choice, it is easier and less costly to launch another strike than replace a plane and pilot, and with full load, the strike aircraft would stand no chance (the weapons not only add drag, but also weight, inertia, also most of these weapons and attachments have G limits, meaning that the plane can not maneuver as necessary in case an attachement breaks or the ordnance "breaks", meaning that even if he survives the engagement, there would be a chance that his missile wouldn't fire (electronics too shaken up, data link disconnected), would be a dud, or simply won't leave its rail (a part deformed due to the stress of the hanging weight at high G), also there would be the risk of weapons detaching under high G, and hitting parts of the plane, which is dangerous). Once again, it's not a problem, but a more proper simulation of procedures than what you envision.

Nah, the terrain's too repetitive and a little unrealistic...