Shotgun 27

Hello! Renewed my sub yesterday, just notifying since it's been 24 hours since it went in for approval.

Thank you!

Some photos from Thunder Over Michigan (click for big):



The Mustangs were out in force. This is a P-51B with a pretty distinctive Spitfire-style canopy.



The -D model with bubble canopy.



Probably my favorite nose art of all time. B-25 Mitchell.



And right next to Briefing Time was this B-25, Georgie's Gal.



There were also 6 Skyraiders there, but I'm bad with my Skyraider variants so I couldn't tell you which variant this one was.



An F-100F Super Sabre was also there; I hadn't seen one before, so that was pretty cool.

EDIT: A Skyhawk was there, as well. I got a decent video of a low pass.

Gonna re-up my sub right now. I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of CA, so it's the least I can do to give back.

Interesting! It's good to know the source of the issue - thanks for the input, everyone!

Oh, absolutely. I love the Vipers, no doubt. I was just curious as to whether there was a fix or not; since it seems to be an issue with the internal workings of the game itself, I'll just live with it!

Haha, I wish I could say that it was an accurate representation of the FBW system, but unfortunately it isn't. I have this issue with nearly all of the C-model Vipers - I took a short video to show what's happening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvVjSENopjE

I know I've seen references to this problem before and it's driving me crazy that none of my search terms are working. In any case, I am using a Full 5 Merged with Expansion Pack 1&2 install on the July 2012 patch level. When using the IAF Vipers (A & C, have not tested with the I), the AI planes have a control surface "flutter" during sub-sonic flight (typically between 400kts - 0.99 mach) - this is occurring on the normal flight model.

To be specific, the flaperons and elevators rapidly "flutter" up and down during flight on the AI planes - my plane does not do this. Does anyone have a hint as to what needs to be modified to fix this?

TK confirmed the behavior was as designed, pointing out that using the easy flight model, the aircraft goes where you point the nose instead of using any sort of angle of attack. Makes sense then and I'm kind of annoyed I overlooked the flight modeling difference and automatically assumed it was a bug. Silly me.

Well, the AI flies at Normal flight model.

 

You're flying at Easy flight model.

 

Try flying at Normal flight model and see if there is a difference.

 

FC

Setting the flight model to Normal resolves the issue, so I guess it's simply a matter of being messed up with the Easy flight model. Oh well! I can deal with it, not a huge issue.

I posted this over at the TW forums as well, but I thought I'd post it here to see if anyone had seen the same thing.

Since the release of SF2:NA, it seems the player aircraft and the AI aircraft fly at a different angle of attack. I'm using a merged install of all SF2 titles and expansion packs patched to May 2012. This occurs with all aircraft, both stock ThirdWire birds and third-party aircraft. I have the difficulty settings at "customized", with everything but the flight model set on Normal. The flight modelling is set to "Easy". I've attached an example of the issue, using the stock F-100D.

As you can see from the above images, the angle of attack on my wingman's plane is clearly higher than mine. This is with the wing leveler engaged and holding a steady altitude, so it isn't mistaken for climbing or anything like that. This is reproducible very easily for me (pick a plane and fly). I was curious as to whether this was a known issue or had been reported?

I'm assuming this has something to do with the AoA of the taildragger planes, too - a possible side effect from the fixes to those?

I guess the Celtics losing affected him more than he thought!

That's a great link, thanks. I was a little disappointed when the early pages were full of bandwidth overruns, but the thread gets good real quick.

I don't know enough about campaign editing yet to determine whether there's anything wrong with yours, haha. I was surprised enough that I got the carriers to work in mine! My ultimate goal is to make a late 80s campaign using the Desert terrain; USAF, USN, USMC with their respective aircraft and such. The only problem is that the Desert campaign files are constructed differently from the other campaigns - instead of listing each air unit directly, because there are so many air units, each faction uses a base aircraft and then lets the game determine which squadron you fly for. It's a lot of text editing!

No that's not the problem. The campaign was freezing even when I tried to start flying for the USAF, which has no naval mission type prompts in the campaign_data.ini. Even before I added the prompts to the USN squadrons it was freezing.

Checking out your INIs now. Actually I just had an idea to try them out in my SF2 install. At least if they work for me then I'll know it'll probably be my campaign files.

You might want to use my watermap too.

desert_Water.zip

Here's my own if anyone wants to check them out as well:

CAMPAIGN3.rar

Mind you, I'm using my Desert3 terrain and I've added RAF squadrons. It may be a post-release "bug" that could be sorted with the next patch, but in any case if I have missed something, there's the files.

Is it possible your campaign is crashing because some of the units have NAVALATTACK specified when you don't have an enemy CVBG specified? If the game has nothing for them to attack, would they not spawn, or try to spawn, attack something that isn't there, and crash?

EDIT: I added my campaign files to my previous post if you want to look at them.

I'm currently trying to revamp my modded Operation QuickSand campaign to March 2012 standard with mixed results. I updated the CAMPAIGN.INI and CAMPAIGN_DATA.INI files by closely comparing them with the SF2NA campaign files. Starting the campaign flying RAF or Mercenary is no problem - if I try to fly for the USN,USMC or USAF the game freezes as soon as I click on the "Accept" tab, meaning I have to shut the game down via the Task Manager.

Single missions from the carrier in the Desert - sorted. Created an updated DESERT_WATER.BMP file and all. It's just the campaigns have got me scratching my skull right now

I was able to mod the stock 1975 campaign to allow the USN units to launch off a carrier with no issue. I didn't go beyond that (adding AEW or anything) because I wanted to see if it could be done, and it's pretty straightforward. When I get home from work I can attach my modified inis so you can compare against them. There's literally no changes beyond adding a carrier group - no additional planes or anything, aside from a few squadron changes for the F-14s.

I'm tempted to wait until a patch to see if it fixes the issues with carriers being populated. I've narrowed down a couple issues with the carriers that I'm seeing:

1. No decks are populated in campaigns, whether stock or modified. This is using both stock and modified aircraft (with the appropriate ini edits). I get appropriately populated decks in Single Player missions.

2. The jet blast deflectors on the CVA-63 and SCB-125 carriers work with no issues. The JBD on the stock CVN-68 does not raise.

EDIT: Attached campaign files.

CAMPAIGN5.zip

Reapers on patrol (with Swordsman's lo-viz skins - amazing!)

Yes, there is a required method

 

Check under the [Deck] entries in the carrier's DATA.INI...

 

The stock layouts are pretty much self-explanatory.

Thanks, I did check that. I'm using all stock objects (CVA-63 and F-14A). Planes show up on deck in single player missions, but not during the campaign. Weird. Not a huge deal.

Is there a trick to getting the decks of carriers populated? I have the task force working properly, but no planes occupying the decks.

I love flying CAP in this game.

standard 80000 by default Dave, haven't pushed them back myself yet

Ha, I was wondering when my avatar and Dave's would get confused. I'm referencing some earlier posts in the thread, actually - I've pushed the boundaries back from 80000 to 35000 and 10000, but I'm still getting the planes flying backwards and sideways. Guess I'll really wait until the patch to figure it out, there are just too many other things to worry about. It's just an annoyance, mostly.

Do we have any idea how big the borders on the Iceland map are? I've tried pushing the boundary back from 80000 to 35000 and even 10000 and I still get the backwards flying planes - could it be that the AI is trying to do a CAP over an off-map base, therefore smacking into the borders?

Changing the subject just a tad, has anyone figured out what's causing AI flights to spawn flying backwards / sideways? I've had it happen on multiple terrains, not just IcelandNA.

Cant imagine the Iranians ever had many AIM-54's their arsenal so I dont really see the TW F-14 .dll avionics being of any significance. Oh well each to his own.

IIRC the only actual combat Phoenix kill was by an IRIAF Kitty, so there you have it.

I fine it amazing that I can seem to use both models just fine. I have them broke down covering 1972 to 1974, 74 to 77, 77 to 82 and so on. TK did a great job on the sim but TMF F-14 is the standard. If he wants consistency then maybe he should use TMF models since there is a Iranian one in there. What it sounds like to me is that he thinks the 3rd wire one is better and doesn't want to admit it in public. Which is fine but just say it and quit implying it. Not sure why it's bothering me but it is. Maybe because Oli made it and it sets the standard and he is no longer with us.

I've done the same thing - the TW Tomcat is fine, but the TMF F-14 is probably the pinnacle of user-made content for any flight sim. It's amazing, and with the new capabilities the NA engine brings and the hard work of you and Caesar and the others, integrating the Phoenix capability will perfect it.

Now it shows up like the Hawkeye and give you a full 360 view. Now if I could get some voices to match.

It would be awesome to get some Darkstar or Cylon voices.

On the topic of CVBGs on stock terrains, here's some testing I've been doing, specifically with the stock Desert terrain:

1. I marked the terrain as NavalMap=TRUE in the ini.

2. I modified the Desert_Watermap.bmp with the green and yellow fleet area designations.

3. Testing with a stock carrier based plane (the F-4B_67) and single, random generated missions using multiple mission roles (SWEEP, CAP, CAS, STRIKE) without the mission editor, I got random placement of the USN CVBG (including off the shore of Paran) and random land-based targeting. All random fleet placements were outside of the boundaries set by the green box.

4. I repeated the test, but without a modified Desert_Watermap.bmp, and got the exact same behavior.

5. Marking the Desert.ini as NavalMap=FALSE, all aircraft went back to being based on land.

As an addendum, I ran a series of 5-7 missions with the Persian Gulf terrain and the watermap posted in the KB thread. The CVBG was placed in the fleet boundaries and spawned at nearly the same place every time, regardless of aircraft or time frame.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, since PureBlue's terrain watermaps are working fine (IsraelME, VietnamSEA, Persischer Golf).