Bullethead

For us dinosaurs with PSP7, however, they don't work. Nothing for it but the tedious translation back and forth with DTXBmp.

I've just taken the "new" Pfalz up for a few freeflight QC hops (more than 1 because I kept crashing) and 1 campaign hop that involved no fighting but I did RTB safely. It's definitely much easier to fly now, but still has quite a few quirks that IMHO make it something you have to specialize in over many painful, short careers. My $0.02..... In level flgiht, the Pfalz has neutral stability about both the pitch and roll axes. By that I mean that it has exactly zero tendency to return to straight-and-level flying once given either input, but OTOH also has exactly zero tendency to do more than you told it. It will happily fly along with a 45^ yaw angle, at least at about 70 knots or less, without further input from you. But OTGH, it has the same tendency as the Fee to conserve roll and yaw momentum to a huge degree, meaning that once you start it rotating, it's hard to stop it. Thus, getting the thing on course and wings level requires many opposite control inputs long after you think you've got it stopped where you want it. About the pitch axis, however, the Pfalz is stable, meaning that it will tend to revert to where it's trimmed for after you let go of the stick. All this, however, is pretty much the same as it was before 1.32g. Turning is where the changes are most noticeable. Prior to 1.32g, the Pfalz had a VERY slow roll rate but once set in a steep bank, had one of the fastest turn rates and tightest turn radii in the game. It was like a 2-seater only faster. Problem was, you had to be very careful getting into such a turn because any movement of both aileron and elevator at the same time while banking put you into a very nasty, nose-high spin that was next to impossible to get out of prior to meeting the ground. Also, with any bank at all, the Pfalz lost all lift and fell out of the sky sideways like a brick. In 1.32g, things are very different. Roll rate is now on a par with most other fighters and the nasty accelerated stalls and spins are gone. However, the Pfalz no longer turns anywhere near as well as it used to, and is in fact quite difficult to turn at all. And it still falls sideways out of the sky, but now this only happens in banks over 45^. As Olham said, you have to be very careful with the controls when turning. I STRONGLY recommend never banking more than 30^, to give yourself a margin of error. When banked this much, don't touch the elevator but turn with the rudder. If you use elevator, you just do an oblique loop instead of a turn. In shallow-banked rudder turns like this, the Pfalz can maintain altitude and even climb, and turns with a respectable rate and radius. But once banked over 45^, you immediately being a steep sideways plunge toward the ground. This is even at high speed and with the nose well above the horizon. Nothing you do can prevent this massive altitude loss, and despite dive speeds of like 4000fpm, you gain zero airspeed from the fall and in fact slow down. When banked this steeply, elevators are what you turn with--rudder has no appreciable effect either way. In addition, due to the conservation of roll momentum, you can't just bank this far, stop, and pull. The plane will keep rolling slowly into the turn and will soon go inverted, especially in turns to the left. It's thus necessary to hold a little opposite aileron while pulling back, to maintain the desired bank angle. To top it off, such steeply banked turns don't seem to get you around the circle any faster than the shallow-banked rudder turns. Thus, due to the very significant altitude loss, such steep turns IMHO are only useful for spiralling down quickly to land when enemies are near your airbase. They're certainly no good for ACM. Except at very high speed, it's rather hard to do a pretty loop on the Pfalz. When it slows down at the top, it has a very strong tendency to roll one way or the other, but mostly to the left. However, it will go over the top from level flight at a starting speed of about 70 knots, which ain't bad. The 1.32g Pfalz will still spin, but it's MUCH harder now to get into one, they're not violent, and recovery is very easy. The main problem is that due to the neutral yaw stability, it's quite possible to come out of a spin with very significant yaw on the plane and not realize it until you see the trees going by sideways. The Pfalz climbs at about 1000fpm up to about 6000', then it falls off to about 500fpm at 10000'. At that point, ROC really tapers off. Getting to 15-16000' isn't that hard or time-consuming, but the Pfalz really doesn't want to go any higher, and I don't recommend doing so because of the tendency to roll left starting about 50 knots. In a dive, the Pfalz is quite stable, without the tendency many planes have of going nose-up at high speeds. You can apply gentle forward stick to steepen your dive without losing engine power. However, full power, vertical dives from 15000' will only result in about 210 knots. The good thing, though, is that the diving Pfalz accelerates very quickly. Landing is a bit tricky but not that difficult. The main worries are that the Pfalz wants to roll left at about 50 knots or slower, and will bounce high and generally fatally (due to the left roll) if the sink rate at contact is more than about 200fpm. It therefore needs to be landed somewhat fast and flat, although not excessively so. I like to come in in about a 30^ dive at about 100 knots until just above the threshhold, then chop power and gradually pull out so that I meet the ground in a 2-pointed doing about 55-60 knots with negligible sink rate. You'll touch down about 1/3 of the way down the runway. The thing slows down quickly once you start to level out, so don't worry about the approach speed, and once on the ground also slows down very quickly, so don't worry about using a lot of runway before touching. At least until I get the hang of it, I'm going to impose on myself a hard combat deck of 5000'. That's if things are even or I'm at a disadvantage. Once I reach this point, it's time to leave. If I have the advantage, or if my target is already maimed, I'll still break off the chase at 2500'. Due to the Pfalz's ability to fall sideways with any real degree of bank, engaging in ACM any lower than that is a good way to become a Christmas tree ornament. The Pfalz is definitely not a plane for the beginner. While possessed of good overall performance, its lack of positive stability and strange turning properties take a lot of getting used to, and habits acquired in more conventional planes are a positive hinderance. So IMHO, if you want to master the Pfalz, you have to fly it exclusively for a long time.

How do you take objects from 1 Gmax file and put them into a different Gmax file? For example, suppose I have a file with nothing in it but a Vickers gun, which I made with the idea of being able to use it in many different airplane models. How do I get it from its own file into an airplane file? I can neither make this work nor find any docs on how to do it. Thanks.

Oh joy, oh heaven, oh exquisite bliss! Thanks muchos! This works like a charm. Though I live for 1000 years, may you attend my funeral.

If you're ever condemned to spend any time in my part of Lousy Anna, I'll serve you some real beer (home-made) if you drop by. The vast bulk of my simming has been in WW2 MMO things like Aces High, which seems fairly close to IL2. Most of the rest has been in RB2/3D and OFF, although I did have EF2K back in the day. All my real flying has been in rather light things, however, with performance about like WW1 planes. The Piper "Traumahawk" in which I took my lessons comes to mind as an example of a fragile, low-powered thing with some evil spin characteristics, which would be right at home in 1916. If you've done a lot of WW2 sims, the WW1 planes are all more anemic than Zekes or even the old Polikarpovs of IL2. Even "fast" planes like SPADs and SE5s are slow compared to anything even a decade later. Essentially, every WW1 plane is a turnfighter, but this is divided up into planes that don't turn very well but lack the power to think about the vertical, planes that turn great, and planes that turn OK but have the macho to do most of their turning in the vertical (although without being able to do real E-fighter moves except at their extreme top speeds and with the enemy rather slower). That's one of the better-behaved planes. It's only real handicap is that you can break the wings off if you go too fast, and it begins to show its age beyond its 1917 heyday. If you want something evil fly, try a DH2 or Fokker E.III. Camels and Dr.Is have some bad habits but are more truly said to be "tricky" rather than "evil". The Pfalz D.III used to be evil (besides having about the worst performance of its day), but the latest patch has tweaked it and I haven't flown it yet, so don't know what it's like now. Early reports by others indicate it's no longer evil, but I'm sure it's still totally outclassed by the opposition in most aerodynamic respects.

Sorry for the wall-o-text there. But let this serve as a lesson. In general, do NOT edit your posts here, or they can get hosed up as you see above. So in case you missed it trying to read the bastardized HTML and normal formatting, welcome aboard and new guy buys the drinks

<BR><BR>Besides the realistic flight model, you also have to enable spins, stalls, structural failure, etc.<BR><BR>But assuming you've done that, there's this....<BR><BR>WW1 airplanes were very simple by even WW2 standards. A great many of them had very benign flight characteristics intentionally, or as a result of having too low a wingloading and/or too high a powerloading to get into any real trouble. Some planes from that era were notoriously TOO stable and others are still rated as some of the easiest airplanes to fly ever made. OTOH, other WW1 planes were extremely bad fliers and notorious killers of pilots without the enemy lifting a finger. <BR><BR>Bear in mind that each plane has its own individual flight model. Thus, your experience of the flight model depends a lot on which particular airplane you fly. If you fly a Pup, then everything is easy although you MIGHT break it under certain extreme conditions. If you fly a DH2, things seem easy right up to the unheralded, unrecoverable spin that seems to happen in the middle of what you think is the good part of its envelope. Most planes are somewhere in between these extremes, though. Some are angels, some are sows in heat, but most are generally OK although with a few bad habits that you have to learn to work around, and with further practice can perhaps even exploit. But remember, you have to filter all this through your accumlated lifetime of simming and/or real flying. For instance, some folks find the OFF Camel beyond them but others find it easy. Same thing in real life--it killed a lot of pilots in accidents, but others swore by it.<BR><BR>In general, as time progresses, the flying qualities of planes improve. Those of 1915-16 vintage are more prone to have nasty surprises in store (tempered by their overall lack of general performance), those of 1918 vintage are usually forgiving (although powerful enough to get into serious trouble) but perhaps touchy in 1 or more areas, and those of 1917 range the gamut. This meshes neatly with the overall danger presented by the enemy. The overall threat level remains more or less constant, but as time goes by, it shifts from being largely the fault of your own ride to being largely the fault of the enemy.<BR><BR>At the bottom line, remember that in WW1, a landing speed above 40-45 knots was long considered too "hot" for most pilots. Therefore, if your plane is built to land at such a low speed, it's going to stall at an even slower speed in level flight. It will stall at a somewhat higher speed in a tight turn, but if it can't do much more than 100 knots (or often less) at its best altitude, it can be hard for it to turn hard enough even to see an accelerated stall. As mentioned above, pathetic performance (by later standards) can keep you out of trouble.<BR><BR>Performance-wise, WW1 planes were somewhere between modern ultralights and Cessena 152s. If you've flown either in real life, or have spent any significant time simming.... seriously, how much trouble can you get into, apart from breaking the plane or falling victim to some poor general design "feature"? <BR><BR>EDIT: I forgot to say, "Welcome Aboard!"<BR><BR>New guy buys the drinks <IMG class=bbc_emoticon alt= src="http://forum.combatace.com/public/style_emoticons/default/drinks.gif">

Yup, that's the plan.... However, I can't figure out how to make it work. Gmax can't import .gmax files and can't export into any of the formats it can import. Plus, Gmax can only have 1 file open at a time. So what's the procedure for making this happen? Please spell it out step by step.

I can only suggest that you download the thing (it's free) and a number of tutorials, and give it a shot. I started on this myself a couple weeks ago and (with some help from Stumpy and others), have gotten to where I can stumble along. I've got a pretty good start on a Bristol M.1C now. The tutorials can teach you a couple of techniques and get you familiar with the basic workings of Gmax, but practice is what you need because there's a lot of skill involved. It's not just learning the Gmax commands, it's knowing how to use them in such a way that you get what you want with the least amount of polies and effort, and doing things in such an order that you don't paint yourself into a corner along the way. Getting this down is where the real time comes in, at least IMHO On top of this, making the model is bewilderingly complex when you 1st see what you have to do. It's not just making the shape of the plane, it's breaking this up into all the various pieces, the damage boxes and stubs of shot-off wings, and all the levels of detail needed for viewing it at different distances, plus the smoke emitters, the virtual cockpit, etc. And all of this has to be hooked together in the right way. Fortunately, tutorials and the CFS3 SDK explain a lot of this. But it's still a lot of work. Making the 3D model is just the beginning, however. You also have to make a flight model for it so it flies realistically (the .air file), and takes damage like you want (the .xdp file). As I understand things, it takes vast amount of flighttesting to get these down, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it--I'm just getting started on the model itself. Seems like you have to buy the program Air Wrench ($20) to make the .air file. Then, of course, you have to make a skin for it. From scratch, without a stock skin to use as a starting point. But that seems the least daunting of it all, given that I've made dozens of skins already. So, all I can say is, get the stuff and give it a try. You'll soon find out if it's something you want to do. Get the CFS3 SDKs from Microsoft and use the version of Gmax that comes with it. This is vital, because otherwise you can't export models in M3D format, which is what CFS3/OFF uses. Over in the Skins and 3D Modeling Help forum here, Stumpy's recommended a good tutorial to get you started, which itself recommends a couple of others. And when all else fails, ask one of the experienced modelers here for help .

As always, outstanding product support by OBD.

Modified per Lou's suggestions, the Night Fee is now available for download.

File Name: FE.2b Night Bomber by Bullethead File Submitter: Bullethead File Submitted: 30 Sep 2009 File Updated: 23 Oct 2009 File Category: Aircraft Skins An all "Lamp Black" Fee with Type B roundels and some minor, hand-sketched, low-viz nose art. Now includes text file credit for OBD. Click here to download this file

Here's my $0.02 on the subject..... I haven't yet tried divebombing, although there are probably a few planes that can do it. Most of them tend to go nose-up too strongly to make it effective, however, or are too flimsey. Glidebombing as described by Check Six is my main attack profile. I vary it somewhat in that I come down steeper from closer to the target. I want to be in about 35-40^ dive. I usually hose the target down with MG fire as I do so. When I'm about 200 feet up, though, I pull up slightly to like a 20^ dive and drop the bombs just as the target disappears under my nose. This works for relatively large targets like hangars and other buildings, but if you're trying to hit troops, parked planes, etc., you need to get lower and drop just as you're pulling up to avoid crashing. Just be careful of getting caught in your own bomb blast. For level bombing, the DFW has a built-in bombsight that actually works. Unfortunately, it doesn't have crosshairs, but it does seem to put bombs in the center regardless of your speed, altitude, angle of attack, and whatnot. I think it's got some computational holdovers from WW2 in it. Access it with F7, then get back to the pilot with F6. While in the bombsight, correct for line with the rudders, which behave differently than normal--they don't bank you so much. None of the other 2-seaters have working bombsights, so if you want to do high level bombing with them, you need to use Lou's method described in that thread he linked above. FWIW, in WW1 I don't think any of the bombsights that made it to service compensated for the wind drift. Thus, the bombers spent some time en route to the target trying to figure out the effect of the wind so they could make their bomb run directly downwind. The flak gunners knew this so already had their guns pointed upwind as the bombers approached. And when bombing through a hole in an undercast, the bombers often had to make 2 passes over the target: 1 to judge the wind and the 2nd to drop. This gave the flak a mulligan to get their altitude right...

Welcome aboard! New guy buys the drinks . As Uncle Al says, just select "Lead by rank" in workshop and enlist your guy as anything from the 3rd highest rank and below. HOWEVER, I do not recommend doing this. You have zero control over your wingmen unless you're the leader, and unles you can control them, they'll do things you usually won't like. Also, you're not going to live long enough to get promoted anyway, so forget started at the bottom and working your way up. So, in worshops, I recommend "player always leads" and, to make this believable, always start your pilots at the 2nd highest rank. Justify this by assuming you've had prior service in a quiet sector, which also accounts for your previous flightsim experience.

The problem I have with this is that Gmax is like MS Paint--it can only have 1 file open at a time. So, I open my MG file and no matter what I do to it, it's gone when I open my airplane file. How do you get around that?

In my experience, wingmen only tend to collide with you or shoot you if 1) you're the flight leader and you go for the same target you told them to attack, and 2) you're not the flight leader so you have no clue what they're doing. You should ALWAYS be the flight leader, so you can tell your wingmen either to go away or stay behind you. Forget starting at the lowest rank and moving up--you won't live that long. Start all you pilots with the 2nd-highest available rank and pretend you had prior service in a quiet sector beforehand. Second, regard all your wingmen as expendable. That's what cannonfodder troops are for, after all. Now, from an RPG/immersion POV, I try hard not to lose any wingmen and when I do, it keeps me awake at night in real life. I made it through a real (but short) war without getting any of my troops killed so it really bothers me when a virtual troop buys it. But, at the bottom line, your goal is for your pilot to survive, and if that means sacrificing wingmen, then so be it. So, always be the leader and if you use TAC, keep the highlight on the wingmen's target so you know which enemy to avoid. The only alternative is to give your wingmen the H or R command, but this makes your flight less effective because only 1 of you (yourself) is attacking anybody.

Audentes Fortuna iuvat!

Bloody Hell! I'd like to see more stuff like this. Do you have an online gallery?

It's not just the charred inside but also what was aged in the barrel beforehand. Almost all whiskeys and whiskies are aged in 2nd-hand barrels that have previously been used to age wine. Different distillers use different types of wine barrels, some red and some white, some sweet and some dry, which is one reason why different makes of whisk(e)y come out with different colors and flavors despite being made from the same stuff and aged for the same duration in oak barrels. And tequilas are usually aged (when they're aged at all) in 3rd-hand used whiskey barrels. I guess after that the barrels are so saturated with booze that they're ground up and compressed into easy-light charcoal briquettes . But the important thing is, the alcohol industry has been recycling since before that was cool . Now, that's how the big boys do it. The small-time moonshiner usually ages his stuff (if he ages it at all) in semi-rusty 55-gallon drums that might originally have contained fuel for his tractor or weedkiller for his crops. Depending on how well he cleans it first and how rusty it is inside, this can provide some color and flavor, too. However, this is considered undesirable by most self-respecting moonshiners because most folks don't like those flavors. Most moonshiners rely on paying off the local law with a cut of the product, and this doesn't work if they make nasty stuff. Thus, they take pains to acquire clean, stainless steel drums. Then they do in fact sometimes toss in a few pieces of charred wood, picking the type based on what they like in the finished product. Sometimes instead they toss in a few apples, which results in something that looks, smells, and tastes like tequila. The only good thing about the scientifically, economically, and environmentally unsound craze for ethanol is that you can now legally buy and operate a still. For vehicular consumption, of course. Nudge nudge, wink wink . Around here, we call it "Confederate Popskull" and "Old Panther Sweat".

Oh, it does. I well remember being cold, wet, hungry, and miserable, standing guard with the enemy just over there and it so utterly black and rainy that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, let alone my sights (no night vision for the troopies then). It was at such times that the ghosts of my ancestors liked to visit, several at a time and all from different wars going back to Tudor days (I suppose only those who could speak passable Middle-Modern English bothered to attend). They'd sit on the edge of my foxhole, berate me for being a wuss, and say how much harder it had been in their day. But pretty soon, they'd start arguing amongst each other about who'd had it the worst. While I thus got to hear some pretty good war stories, I'd have to tell them to STFU so as not to draw fire. I admit to being pretty crazy in those days . Looking back at it now, however, I regard it as just initiation hazing, and look forward to similarly taunting my descendants in future wars. What always got me about that movie wasn't the over-the-top air combat but the fact that after they landed, they all lit up smokes in the shadow of their plane. Which happened to be gushing gasoline out of innumerable flak holes. If I'd been directing the film, it would have had a Das Boot ending, with everybody being incinerated at their moment of triumph .

Don't call me "Sir"; I was just a humble Sergeant of Marines . But I'm with you on the time necessary to to master a given bird. Using the traditional 4-color belt system, I rate myself a black belt in Pups and Fees, brown in Camels and D.VIIs, green in SPADs, and white in everything else. The outline of the flight envelope of each different ride is limned with the blood of many short-lived pilots, and unless you stick wtih a given crate through a dozen or so pilots in a row, you won't retain the lessons learned by so much sacrifice.

Let me play the Devil's Advocate here...... Assume for the sake of argument that the N.17 AI knows exactly where its plane will break and flies just an RCH below that point. IOW, if the AI pulls just 0.0001g more, it will break, but it can hold just below that point due to being accurate to lots of decimal places. Now, you're chasing him in this turn. To line up for a shot, you have to use lead pursuit. This means you have to turn tighter than the target, inside his turn, to get your nose in front of his. This forces you to pull more Gs than the target. Thus, if the N17 and Albatros wings fail under the same load, or even if the Albatros wings are a little stronger, you will enter the breakage zone. Hence, your wings break and his don't. This is just a theory, but it's plausible, it matches observations, and it's been used in other games by both AIs and very good MP players.

ARRGGGHHH!!!!!! My connection burped when I was posting my last so all I ended up was a total quote, which I was unable to edit. So, here's what I meant to say. I find the S.VII to be more of a turnfighter than an E-fighter. It's just different in that it has to do most of its turning in the vertical. I say this because I find the S.VII to lack the macho to do the true E-fighter moves that rely on gaining substantial separation between passes. Thus, it has to stay pretty close to the enemy all the time, like a turnfighter. I have my best success with the S.VII by flying back and forth along the diameter of the enemy's circle, doing vertical reversals at each end. I do this because I'm trying for 90^, short-range deflection shots into his top view. What I try to do is roll out at the top to get the enemy visible between my wings and off to the side about in line with front outer strut. As I approach him, I wiggle the controls to make him slide inwards just below the upper wing's leading edge. Then I open fire when he's between my cabane struts (hopefully into his top view at short range now). I only fire like 1 second, then pull and over to meet him again on the opposite side of the circle. Keep doing this until you either nail the pilot or so lame his motor than it's just mopping up afterwards. It's important not to overshoot outside the enemy's circle. If you stay inside his circle, he'll keep circling because he wants to turn into you. If you overshoot, however, he'll reverse his turn and you have to start over.