Herr Prop-Wasche

I wasn't sure whether to place this in the general forum or the help forum, but since this is a problem with an FM mod I am trying to develop, I thought the question most likely belongs here. If anyone or a OBD developer can help me, I would be most apprecciative. You may PM me instead of replying publicly if you wish. Basically, I have been working on a mod to improve certain aspects of the FM. While I have not made too many major changes to how individual aircraft fly (with the possible exception of the Nieuport 28 and several versions of the Albatros), I have been able to make several improvements to the FM "environment" that effect the general performance of the aircraft in OFF. The most significant changes I have been able to make, I guess, is to reduce the dive speed of several aircraft to more reasonable levels, correcting the cruising speed of several aircraft like the Camel and Sopwith Tripe, changing the "g's" so that Albatros' do not break up in a turn so easily, fiddling with the climb and turning radius of most aircraft, etc. My problem is this: although I can get my changes to work in QC, when I try to apply them to my campaign, I get an "unavailable craft" message. The extremely weird part of this is that when I sent my FM campaign changes to a couple of people to test out my mod, they said they were able to get the full campaign version to work! Although I haven't ruled out they may have made a mistake in installing the mod, they say they think they have noticed a difference in the FM! When I try to apply the same campaign version of my mod to my machine, I still get the error! I would like to release the FM mod for others to use if they like, but I don't want to do this until I am sure I have solved the mystery. I'm guessing the problem is most likely in the .air file. I have tried a direct copy of an altered QC .air file and .cfg file (with appropriate file name changes, of course), but I still get the mismatch error. Do I need to do a direct hex copy of the contents of the .air file instead of the whole file, or what? Thanks in advance for any help.

vonOben: PM sent. Dej: That's a possibility, Dej, but so far the only computer that the FM mod will not work in the campaign is mine! Of course, only two other people have tested it, but it seems to have worked on their machines. I'll keep plugging away, but right now I am deep working on my damage model mod. If you are curious, I am still on XP with full administrative rights and full file sharing. Come to think of it, I will have to check the file sharing thing again. Maybe there is something I have missed...

Hellshade. Here is a list of major changes to the DM: 1) The revised DM represents a complete overhaul of the damage model, using information about airplane dimensions and specifications to develop baselines in order to establish appropriate hit points for each major component of every aircraft currently available in the HITR expansion to OFF. The correlation between the historical size and dimensions of each aircraft component and the number of hit points assigned to that component in the game has been adjusted so that this correlation in now postive, instead of negative, as it is in many cases in OFF currently. 2) Each class of aircraft in the game now has a unique number of hit points assigned to each major component currently modeled in the game. For example, in the standard HITR installation, each airplane with the exception of four, has 48 hit points assigned to the rudder. In the revised DM, hit points for the rudder of each aircraft range from 42 for the Albatros DII to 54 for the DFW CV, corresponding to the size, in square feet, of the rudder for each aircraft. 3) Engine hit points have been adjusted so that the average aircraft engine has approximately 5% more hit points and correlates roughly with engine size or displacement. In addition, engine hit points now do not necessarily directly correspond with the chances of an engine catching fire. In the standard HITR installation, most aircraft are "set" to catch fire when 75% of their engine hit points have been used up. This percentage has been adjusted in most aircraft so that some will now catch fire when a smaller percentage of hit points have been used up, while others will only catch fire after a higher percentage of hit points have been expended. The overall result should be somewhat more durable engines and longer and more dangerous dogfights. Fewer aircraft (including your own) should suffer from an immediate loss in engine performance after only a very short, early burst of fire into the front of the plane. 4) Overall changes include stronger wing roots with somewhat weaker wing tips, resulting in fewer catastophic wing failures but aircraft with substantial control difficulties, i.e. you may be able to still fly, but landing becomes a bigger challenge; slightly decreased chance of crippling aileron control cable hits; slightly reduced hit points, on average, for ailerons, rudders, and elevators; and increased hit points, on average, for horizontal and vertical stabilizers. 5) Numerous other tweaks to take into account time period of service, overall aircraft reputation for durability or weakness, notable structural problems in various aircraft (weaker lower wings in Albs, for example), as well as overall game balance. 6) Fully compatible with JoneSoft's Generic Mods Enabler (JSGME), an easy to use mods management program that installs into your main CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields game folder. JSGME ensures that any mod, including this one, will not make any permanent or unreversable changes to your standard game installation.

Creaghorn, Question. Are the tracer .dds files supposed to be used along with all three versions of the effects mods or not? I tried to use the effectstrailersmoke with the tracer.dds files and did not see any tracer smoke--just the yellow tracers. Am I doing something wrong?

BTW, the mod I just posted is specifically designed to be used with JSGME installed first. You can probably use it without JSGME, but you will first have to back up or copy ALL of your .xdp files in each aircraft QC folder first.

Here is a beta version of the DM for use in QC, Hellshade. Others are welcome to try it, too. As I said, the mod is about 98% complete. I'm not sure how suitable it will be for a video demonstration, however, as you won't see any dramatic differences between it and the standard DM. Most of the changes are relatively minor adjustments for each plane that have the overall effect of rebalancing the um, balance, of the various aircraft in OFF. In fact, I don't expect the revised DM to appeal much to casual gamers, as there is less "whiz-bang" with the mod in the form of fewer wings getting blown off and it taking longer to cripple and shoot down most enemy planes--unless you are really lucky! It will take me awhile to put together a complete list of all of the changes I have made with this mod since there are so many, mostly small ones; but I will see what I can do.

Both Olham and Hasse Wind are using a program called "JoneSoft Generic Mods Enabler" (JSGME) to load and unload mods to their OFF installations. JSGME is a very handy and easy to install and use program that will automatically back up your standard installation and then load any mod you choose to run with just the click of a button. It's ideal for anyone who wants to fly heavily modded single-player, but who also enjoys flying either modded or unmodded multiplayer. You can even use several mods together, as long as they don't use the same exact files. You can get JSGME here: http://www.users.on....ucts-jsgme.html

I still haven't figured out why the mod seems to work for others in campaign but will not work on my very own machine. I'll be happy enough if it works for others, as I'll eventually get the mystery solved. Good question about the AI. I don't think that will be a problem, though. First, the AI seems to inherently know the limitations of their aircraft and manages to avoid doing the same foolish things us 'real' sim pilots sometimes do. Secondly, while improved, you REALLY have to dive a long time and maintain a good speed to get your wings to fall off. I probably could make the wings come off earlier, but then even level flight at higher than normal cruising speed might cause wing damage. I'll take a look at it, though, after I finish the DM, to see what I can do more with the FM.

Two weeks.

No, too easy! What WM needs is a challenge! http://www.youtube.c...h?v=tyRvGKEiY-o

Thanks for your kind offer, H***shade! The DM is 98% finished, I think. For the most part, all that is left is testing and tweaking to make sure everything works as designed. I can send you a beta DM that works in QC for use in a demonstration video right away. A campaign version is still a few days away as I have to make sure there are no major errors in the QC version first because the campaign version is made up of multiple copies (eleven for all 47 planes in HITR) of the QC model. That takes a while to do, unfortunately.

Thanks, Olham. Yes, roll rate is one of the things I improved a bit on the Albatros--but just a bit! I also aimed to reduce the chances of a wing coming off in a tight turn. One way to test for sure if the revised flight model is working in campaign is to make an "emergency" dive of your plane from higher than 10,000 feet to near the ground to see if you get any lower wing damage. You should with the revised FM. Most of my FM changes are similar. I didn't radically change any of the flight characteristics of most of the airplanes. Instead, most changes correct slight inaccuracies or inconsistencies in the performance of various planes, such as cruising speed or wings coming off of an Albatros or Nieuport in a tight turn instead of a dive. The most noticeable differences in most planes' FM is probably in dive speed (reduced in most), and cruising speed. My overall goal was to make a few changes while adhering as closely as possible to historical performance (of course, often a matter of serious debate), while maintaining overall game balance. For the most part, I think I have done that, although I will have to leave it to others to be the final judges of my overall success.

Yeah, my spreadsheet is getting larger and larger! Everyday I add a couple of new columns with more information! I'm getting excited about the new DM! In testing, I think I am noticing more difference in outcome in 4 on 4 battles depending on the skill of the enemy. I have also noticed a couple of aircraft with torn wingtips actually trying to retreat from battle! Currently, I'm working on decoupling engine hit points from the liklihood of catching fire. I think I'm having some success with some engines with higher hit points being less likely to catch on fire, with other aircraft with the same number of hit points being more likely to catch on fire. Currently, the more fragile engines tend to catch fire more quickly than the larger and sturdier engines--which is not necessarily accurate.

To anyone interested in helping out: please send me a PM if you are interested in a modified campaign FM for testing purposes. I can't absolutely guarantee that the FM will work on your machine, but it has worked on 2/2 of my other testers. I need others to confirm whether the problem is on my end or somewhere else. Plus, you get to try a different FM--one that I hope is more realistic and a little tougher than the old FM. Thanks.

Thanks, Pol. I'll give that a try to see if it works. I'm still getting feedback from my testers that the campaign changes seems to work on their machines. Weird.

Hi, Pol. Thanks for the quick response. I agree that it doesn't make much sense, but it seems to be the case! The two testers are both very reliable and knowledgable members of the forum and I am fairly sure they are installing the mod correctly. Perhaps only the .cfg file or the .air file, but not both are working for them? Please let me know by PM or on this thread your wishes about duffers like me playing around with the FM. I can certainly understand if you don't want people to fool around with it. I will be glad, however, to share with you anything I have found about changing the FM. In particular, I am concerned about the dive speeds and cruising speed of some of the aircraft, and feel I may have figured out how to correct these for some aircraft, if I can only get the change to apply in the campaign!

Umm, I hate to follow Robert Frost, as my words no doubt pale in comparison. Nevertheless, those are a couple of wonderful and touching stories, especially Widowmaker's. I wish I had something like it to share with everyone, but alas, no. Unless you want to hear about the time I fell off a jet plane and lived to tell about it! Of course, the jet was in a park playground and was cemented into the ground, but it was a (retired) korean war era jet fighter!

I have a couple surnames for you, Olham. On my mother's side, we have the name Keefer. Not really sure if this is German. Might be more English. On my father's side, my last name Staub. This is definitely German and either stands for dust or dirt, I believe. Hopefully, my ancestors were millers or breadmakers and not "dirty" peasants or dirt farmers, or something similar. There is a Staubach falls in southern Germany, I believe, which I guess means "misty falls," so perhaps we aren't involved in dirt, afterall!

Thanks for all the hard work, Erik. We appreciate your efforts--and your obsessive nature!

Hellshade, the triple threat! The scream from that pilot early in the video made the hair on the back of my neck stand up! Good shooting!

Looks extremely interesting, Lou. Can't wait to hear more battle reports.

Bird 1, RC aircraft 0.

Yowsa! Thanks, Olham!

Open the file with any text editor, such as Notepad or Wordpad, by right-clicking the file and choosing "Open with." Then search for the entry you want to change. Good luck.

Be glad that your are not a Blues hockey fan! The Blues are the Chicago Cubs of hockey--probably worse.