Grinseed

33LIMA, and anyone else who may be interested, in response to your comment on the rear gunner in Stehphen1918's N12, you probably already know this, but ... you should be able to fix that to some extent following petero1's instructions in his post in this thread: http://combatace.com...__1#entry382237 ...post number 10. And also the suggestions by Laton and Sinbad. I haven't done this myself with the D12 yet but it has worked on the DH4 and the RE8. Cheers Grinseed

A very nicely made addition to the aircraft for FE, Stephen. Thank you very much for all your hard work. I hadn't paid much attention to the N12 before. Must say I now have the utmost respect for the courageous crews who flew in it, given the load it carries and the limited horsepower. Your model was a sluggish on take off as I expected it should be. Another great crate. Enjoy your break. I sincerely hope you wont be gone too long. Cheers Grinseed

In FEG, flying my preferred SE5a in Single Missions (not the user created ones) always pits me against the Aviatik D1 (by Stephen1918). If I manage to win this considerable challenge I then get the chance to fight the various Albs, but curiously I only very rarely get to fight any Fokkers. I curently have all the Albs and Fokkers available loaded, all the marques. I usually fly in 1918. I dont want to remove the AviatikD1 from my aircraft folder, just to get a crack at the Albs or Fokkers, but I would like a bit more variation in dogfights. Is there something I have missed? Is there something I can adjust to increase the variation? I'd like a few more stoushes with the Fokkers in particular. Time restricts me to flying one or two campaign missions on weekends and any Single missions I can grab during the week. Everything else in this great series seems variable, right down to rudder movement rates, so I'm assuming the same holds true for my current problem. Cheers and TIA Grinseed

Good work quack, that was it. Aviatik is now only common rather than very common. Fokker Dr1 is now common instead of very rare. I tried four or five single missions in a row and only saw the Aviatik once, in support role. In one mission, for the first time as far as I can recall, I was pitted against Rolands as primary targets and Pfalzes in support. I was so delighted in seeing them I didn't bother much about fighting back, busy as I was just looking them over. All these crates and skins simply look superb in action. Still waiting on the Fokkers but I know now they will come. Thanks again quack. Cheers Grinseed

Gentlemen, I was actually going to thank you Stephen for the Albatros C3, but to answer your question, no, I have had no problems with the two taking off. I use FEGold. The Albatros is a joy (rear gunner needs some beefing up though) and probably your best yet imo. Many thanks for your great work Stephen. Quack, that is one awsome bit of Gotha footage! Cheers Grinseed A less than awesome still snap of a C3 bombing mission against an allied airfield.

Sincere apologies to Quack for hijacking this post but I too, just this once, would like to humbly request an aircraft of Stephen1918,(or any modder willing to take on the task) though I appreciate he is subject to pressures of time and real life in the face of so many other requests for aircraft. As a proud Aussie with American heritage, I would love to see the DH5 in First Eagles, mostly for the following reason. During the Battle of Cambrai, three Irish Battalions were involved in the battle for the township of Moevres. One of their companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, was pinned by machine gun fire from a strongpoint south west of Bourlon Wood. They watched a pilot in the odd back-staggered DH5 dive on the strong point and after repeated low level attacks on the machine gun post and exchanges of gunfire, the DH5 plunged into the ground, crashing. The pilot's actions had relieved the company from being pinned down. The courageous action of the pilot was not forgotten by the Irish, but in the rush of battle they were unable to identify the pilot. Two weeks later, the appreciative Irish paid for an announcement in The Times : "To an unknown airmen, shot down on November 23rd, 1917, whilst attacking a German strongpoint south west of Bourlon Wood, in an effort to help out a company of Royal Irish Fusiliers when other help had failed." The pilot was Alexander Griggs of 2 Squadron Australian Flying Corps, born in Meridian, Mississippi, U.S.A. One of the several Americans serving in the Australian Imperial Forces and Australian Flying Corps. Griggs had been on his second mission that day engaged in low level attacks on enemy trenches and strongposts in the area. From what I understand Griggs, an engineer, was living and working in Australia when the war broke out and volunteered to serve with the AFC. The DH5 is the only aircraft flown by the AFC in Europe not represented in FE. Cheers Grinseed (I am not related to the Griggs family.)

@eagletheory, if after applying Jaman's good advice you still find your stick has indeed lost its twist rudder function, as mine did, you might consider my solution. I note you have no such problems in other flight sims, so what Jaman has suggested about the gyroscopic affect in prop crates might well be the answer. In any case I share the following. My Extreme 3D Pro Joystick recently lost its x axis function. The rudder would sometimes be jammed permantly left or right or just flop about. Calibrating with the Logitech program and then with the Windows function only provided a temporary fix to a continuing degradation of performance. A few weeks ago the twist rudder died completely. I had no control over the rudder at all, and it took on a demented life of its own. This was happening unlike your experience in all my flight sims. It proved to be a good thing. Like you, I have no plan to upgrade my joystick, so in my TW control menu I transferred the left and right rudder yaw keyboard functions to two buttons on the joystick (buttons 10 and 9.... I also had to transfer the x rotation to the right mouse button, which I never seem to use). I now work the two rudder buttons with two fingers much like you'd use your feet with real rudder pedals. I have had to adjust and learn how to fly again but this time round I think I'm probably having a 'more realistic' experience. Working two buttons for rudder control is harder than using a twist handle, a habit I have yet to completely eradicate after 10 years use (different sticks of course). The upshot is I am enjoying the challenge of this new input requirement and I dont think I will returning to the twist rudder anytime soon. Hope that helps someone. Cheers Grinseed

33Lima, I have been following your quest with interest. Hope I havent spoiled your fun, but one way to remove the text from the middle of the screen, ie the message texts, is to edit the MESSAGESYSTEM.ini in the Flight folder. MESSAGESYSTEM.INI [MessageWindow] ;BackgroundImage=TextBackground.tga <--- edit with ; ;TopLeftPosition=0.22,0.8 <--- ;BottomRightPosition=0.78,0.985 <--- ;VerticalBorder=0.0015 <--- ;HorizontalBorder=0.008 <--- No text at all on screen in game and only the edited map to go by. It makes for interesting sport. I hope this works for you. Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm, I might not otherwise have bothered looking. Cheers Grinseed

The attached RotaryEngine wave file needs to go in your Sound folder for the Snipe (if I'm right). I am assuming you mean the Pfalz DXII ? If you got this from Skunkworks there should be a Pilot folder in the PfalzDXII folder with three items: WW1GERPILOT.bmp, WW1GERPILOT.INI and WW1GERPILOT.LOD,all of which should be copied to the Aircraft folder (and not in the Pfalz DXII folder). I havent had experience with the drop to desktop after a flight, but possibly someone here can advise you. Good luck with all this. Let us know how you get on. My experience is that nearly all TW problems are easily fixed. Cheers Grinseed (flying FE1 on XP)

This was just recently discussed in the thread 'Possible map improvements' in this forum. Check post number 6 where 33Lima describes just how to do what you have asked....in fact you might find a lot of interesting things in that thread. Or try Alt + D in the game. In FEG this cycles the flight info boxes for your crate and the targeted enemy and fps etc, but doesnt remove the centre field describing what you've targeted. Cheers Grinseed

Yes please Heck! I have always considered flight path lines in WW1 flight sims as a real problem for immersion. The best way to explain this is Mannock's decision to join the RFC so as to escape the questionable authority of his fellow infantry officers, for the freedom of the sky and the freedom to fight the war as best he could without limitations. "Attack everything" can be tacitly undermined by those insistent long thing lines. Cheers Grinseed ...sometime later after enlarging that map image....oops, the lines are still there, my bad...didnt see them in the smaller image, ...never the less Heck I would still like your 'pencilled in map'.

Devere, I'm not sure if you have this option in FE1, as I fly FEG which provides wingman commands with the TAB key, which allows you to choose one of four options: Engage Air, Engage Land, Regroup, Return to Base. As enemy fighters approach I use Regroup until my flight gets some sort of alt advantage whenever possible. HTH Not at all sure about your last quick question, the answer to which I would like to know myself. Cheers, Grinseed

I had a few hours this afternoon to experiment with some cloud patches and turned up this neat tweak. If you have had trouble with fps flying in Overcast or Inclement weather scenarios, like I have, you might like to try the following: Go to the Flight folder and open the EnvrimentSystem Configuration Settings Scroll down to the section that has [CloudsBroken] [CloudsOvercast] [CloudsInclement] Edit out the data for Overcast and Inclement with // (just the usual precaution) and replace the data with that from Broken, as shown: [CloudsBroken] MaxClouds=56 MaxCloudParticles=110 3DCloudMaterial=Cloud3Material 3DCloudHorizontalSize=2000.0 3DCloudVerticalSize=1900.0 3DCloudSizeDeviation=0.6 3DCloudParticleDensity=3.2 ParticleSize=640.0 ParticleSizeDeviation=0.3 MinBaseAltitude=1000.0 MaxBaseAltitude=2400.0 UseBottomRow=TRUE [CloudsOvercast] MaxClouds=56 MaxCloudParticles=110 3DCloudMaterial=Cloud3Material 3DCloudHorizontalSize=2000.0 3DCloudVerticalSize=1900.0 3DCloudSizeDeviation=0.6 3DCloudParticleDensity=3.2 ParticleSize=640.0 ParticleSizeDeviation=0.3 MinBaseAltitude=1000.0 MaxBaseAltitude=2400.0 UseBottomRow=TRUE //MaxClouds=88 //MaxCloudParticles=92 //3DCloudMaterial=Cloud4Material //3DCloudHorizontalSize=3800.0 //3DCloudVerticalSize=400.0 //3DCloudSizeDeviation=0.4 //3DCloudParticleDensity=1.2 //ParticleSize=600.0 //ParticleSizeDeviation=0.4 //MinBaseAltitude=1200.0 //MaxBaseAltitude=1600.0 //UseBottomRow=TRUE [CloudsInclement] MaxClouds=56 MaxCloudParticles=110 3DCloudMaterial=Cloud3Material 3DCloudHorizontalSize=2000.0 3DCloudVerticalSize=1900.0 3DCloudSizeDeviation=0.6 3DCloudParticleDensity=3.2 ParticleSize=640.0 ParticleSizeDeviation=0.3 MinBaseAltitude=1000.0 MaxBaseAltitude=2400.0 UseBottomRow=TRUE //MaxClouds=120 //MaxCloudParticles=100 //3DCloudMaterial=Cloud5Material //3DCloudHorizontalSize=10800.0 //3DCloudVerticalSize=2500.0 //3DCloudSizeDeviation=0.6 //3DCloudParticleDensity=1.5 //ParticleSize=600.0 //ParticleSizeDeviation=0.4 ////MinBaseAltitude=800.0 //MaxBaseAltitude=1600.0 //UseBottomRow=TRUE This should allow you to fly Campaign Missions in Overcast and Inclement conditions, which up to now I have had to pass up due to unplayable fps. I only came across this an hour ago and haven't had any time to do any serious tweaking but I'm sure fiddling with the relevant numbers might produce differences to distinguish Overcast and Inclement from Broken. Hope this works for you too. Cheers Grinseed ps it just occured to me I might be reinventing the wheel, apologies if this has already been reported elsewhere.

I've loaded Wrench's WW1 Palestine terrain and because I am running FEG I have begun editing the Palestine.ini. So far all has gone well graphically, 'though there's still a bit of tweaking needed. Knock on wood. However there is one big problem which I don't believe has anything to do with the Palestine.ini file. When I start a mission all the aircraft in my flight occupy the same spot. To avoid dying in a group fireball before the game gets underway, I am forced to use the 'Easy' option for Collisions in the game play setup. I enjoy the thrill of possible collisions in a dogfight, so.... Can someone point me in the right direction to fix this? I'm assuming it will have something to do with the Flight folder but I'm at a loss just what. Cheers and TIA, Grinseed

Thank you Wrench, I am much heartened by your encouragement. I'll give ini sections a run asap. (tomorrow is Australia Day, a national holiday with early breakfast barbecues, anthem singing and general revelry late into the night all across the country) And I will post relevant pics too. I've read so many amusing and tragic stories from flight sim enthusiasts about family connections to war. Some have told stories of their own service. These sims are a very effective way of getting closer to those experiences. TW just makes that experience more accessible. My wife's uncle serviced RAAF aircraft in Port Moresby during war. I see him often, but of course he says very little of his time there. He has much else of great interest to talk about. I haven't mentioned I fly the WW2 terrains in TW. After the SE5a, the Bristol Beauforts are my favourites. Thanks again Wrench, you are a true gent. Take care. Grinseed

Wrench, I'm sorry to have annoyed you so much with my post and my tinkering. I did not intend any criticism of your work, indeed I have great respect for all your TW achievements and have greatly appreciated your helpful advice to this TW newbie. I personally know what it is to spend up to a year of precious free time working on a major terrain upgrade for a flight sim, only to have it publically criticised because someone didn't bother to read the instructions. I would never intentionally vist that on anyone. Your sig says it all. Yes, I read your ww1_palestine_terrain_readme. Many times. I can almost recite it from memory. Yes, I knew it was made for FE2, but I've made no secret that I don't have the computer to run FE2 efficiently. But, I have stubbornly tried to make your Palestine run with FEG. Why? Maybe because my grandfather served with the Australian Light Horse in Palestine. He was a good bloke and I'm a life long WW1 history enthusiast. Yes, I did read the 2nd paragraph and loaded the Desert.ini as described. It does work in FEG, but I was mindful that the graphics would probably cause problems. I read end of the 1st paragraph too: 'Those VERY familiar with terrain ini editing are welcomed to try; you can, however, expect NO support from me. You're on your own...' True, I am not VERY familiar with any TW ini editing, but all through my life I have learned many processes and acheived many things people told me I could not possibly do. I'm a stubborn sod like that. I recently had a great success with another terrain patch, making some significant alterations to make it to run in FEG with much improved fps. So, full of enthusiasm, I started tinkering with the Palestine.ini. A slow process of trial and elimination, but I wasnt looking for any help there. I was willing to learn as I went along. However I could not ignore nor understand why the planes were blowing up at takeoff. As often happens a solution came to me after I posted my opening query above. I'm certain I would not have ever figured out the unicode/ansi matter. I thank you for revealing that. Again, sorry to get you so worked up. There was never any laziness nor criticism intended, just some stubborn tinkering. I'll get out of your way now, Grinseed

I solved it and I'm soaring!! Replaced the WW1 Airfield.ini in Wrench's Palestine with one from ww1Cambrai. Had nothing to do with the Flight folder afterall. You just have to love this TW series. So damn intuitively modifiable (...well almost ). I've had such a good time trying to solve this, I lost track of time and will be late for work. The boss will love my excuse: 'I was trying to fix a WW1 airfield in Palestine.' He's used to those sorts of explanations. :) Cheers, one very self satisfied Grinseed.

.....on my rig at least. I'm using an ATI card. The blue dust only shows when I use gumpy's IL2 clouds patch. There's some sort of colour conflict there somewhere but it's not hurting anything else. Wrench's fix in the previous thread on this topic will eliminate the blue. Took me a while to work out because I have been experimenting with cloud patch cocktails. In the end having to sort out all the cloud patches into individual Flight folders has left me with a nice little collection to use as I please. Has anyone else had the same problem with graphics cards? Cheers, Grinseed.

Next Gens are going to have to wait for my next and better rig :sigh: In the meantime what I have now still keeps me excited. I've found that the cloud patch cocktails aren't at all that buggy really. The blue dust is the only thing I've really noticed. A tiny bit of cloud shimmer with Wide Sky and IL2 Clouds, but not much else. (on my rig of course) For those who are interested, my current favourite mix is one part Thicker Clouds and then one part Realistic Skies, in that order, in a stock Flight folder, shake well and serve in a biplane of your choice. Love those early morning sunrises. And a word of thanks to you Wrench, for your assistance to this noob, very much appreciated. Cheers Grinseed

I've added Geo's WWI Ground Objects to FEG and the wagons' dust is blue. Makes it easy to target, but.... Any suggestions on how I might fix this? Cheers Grinseed

Thanks Wrench, no more dust. It occurs to me now that the wagon and the driver seem to lack some colour. Might look into that later. Your little joke prompts me to relate my favourite story which passed around during the War. The story goes that very early in the war, when the British Army had just arrived in France, the infantry commanders followed tradition by riding on their personal chargers ahead of the column of their marching men. One such commander, a general, was leading his men along a road across the French country side, when his horse dropped a massive and distinctly loud fart, which carried by a soft breeze directly through the rank and file behind. The commander was greatly embarrassed. He turned his saddle and called a sincere "Sorry, about that!" The column continued marching until someone called back, 'Very decent of you to apologise sir. We rather thought it was the horse.' Cheers Grinseed

Salute all. When flying the F2B with the F1 cockpit view, what passes for the Aldis sight is too low to sight through. You can only see over the top of it. Panning in the F2 mode brings the sight up to the very top of the screen, making it hard to use in dogfights. I am assuming there is a tweak for lowering the POV , lowering the seat or removing a few pillows? Thanks in advance for any help. Cheers Grinseed.

This is a great little Christmas surprise! Merci beaucoup, Christian. Makes me wonder if someone else out there hasn't got an SE5 graphics file laying around somewhere. Good man, Duke, for asking the right question. I was just thinking about the lack of an SE5 last night and pow! your query has delivered the goods, plus two extra versions of the a. Further proof that the only stupid question is the one not asked. Cheers and Merry Christmas all, Grinseed.

Thank you gentlemen. Steve, you went to a bit of trouble there and I appreciate it. Its been more than once I've been fooled by the BE, FE8, RE, B2F, BE2F etc etc. Bloody poms. Ojcar you hit the nail right on the head. For those interested the original setting for the third number in the Position line was 0.7641. I have selected 0.7230 which brings the viewpoint down to the gun sight. It might need a bit more tweaking to make it exactly accurate but it will be fine enough for a dog fight. If nothing else I have learned how adaptable this engine is and how precise. Hats off to TK! Cheers Grinseed

I've downloaded the AviatikC2 from Skunkworks. The four bombs for it did not show in the game. I read the threads on adding 3rd party aircraft, how to edit the aircraft data and weapon data according to the game data. But after ensuring the info in the WeaponData, AviatikC2_data and AViatikC2 loadout for the Bomb11kg all match,still no bombs appear in the game. The three files are these: 1.AviatikC2_Data // Weapon Stations ----------------------- [bombRack] SystemType=WEAPON_STATION StationID=1 StationGroupID=1 StationType=INTERNAL AttachmentPosition=0.0,0.0,0.0 AttachmentAngles=0.0,-90.0,0.0 LoadLimit=50 AllowedWeaponClass=BOMB AttachmentType=WP NumWeapons=4 AttachmentPosition001= 0.13,-1.25,-0.07 AttachmentPosition002=-0.13,-1.25,-0.07 AttachmentPosition003= 0.07,-1.25,-0.07 AttachmentPosition004=-0.07,-1.25,-0.07 DiameterLimit=0.13 LengthLimit=1.00 AutomaticDoors=TRUE BombBayAnimationID=-1 MinExtentPosition=-0.25,-1.0,0.3 MaxExtentPosition= 0.25,-1.4,0.5 2. AviatikC2_Loadout [bombs] DefaultFor=STRIKE,CAS,ARMED_RECON Loadout[01].WeaponType=Bomb11kg Loadout[01].Quantity=4 3. WEAPONDATA [WeaponData002] TypeName=Bomb11kg FullName=11-kg Bomb ModelName=Bomb25 Mass=11.340000 Diameter=0.127000 Length=0.660400 SubsonicDragCoeff=0.200000 SupersonicDragCoeff=0.770000 AttachmentType=WP SpecificStationCode= NationName=GERMANY StartYear=0 EndYear=0 Availability=3 BaseQuantity=12 Exported=TRUE ExportStartYear=0 ExportEndYear=0 ExportAvailability=3 WeaponDataType=0 RailLaunched=FALSE Retarded=FALSE FinStabilized=TRUE SpinStabilized=FALSE EffectClassName=SmallBombEffects DragAreaMultiplier=1.000000 WarheadType=0 Explosives=2.500000 FusingDistance=0.000000 ClusterBomblets=0 ClusterDispersion=0.000000 GuidanceType=0 Accuracy=0 MaxTurnRate=0.000000 MaxLaunchG=0.000000 LockonChance=0 LaunchReliability=0 ArmingTime=0.000000 SeekerFOV=0.000000 SeekerGimbleLimit=0.000000 SeekerTrackRate=0.000000 SeekerRange=0.000000 ReleaseAnimationID=-1 EODisplayFlags=0 CEP=20.000000 I've noted the differences between the SE5a (whose bombs do show in the game) and Aviatik loadout files. Is the Aviatik file an older, unworkable, format? Help would be appreciated. Bombers without bombs are no fun. Cheers Grinseed