Buddy1998

Thanks for the info. I managed to do a lot of reading and figured out how to install the mods. Is there a mod that will make the Trees more round (as a few of them seem to be flat and only in 2D)?

I really do appreciate this 33LIMA even if it doesn't work out. In case they agree, I'm ready to give you my personal email.

I already tried to email them and they wouldn't give me an account. I just thought that if someone could help me out I'd really appreciate it.

I read somewhere that the AI uses some kind of calculation based off of the MOI values (pitch??) in the cfg file. The AI will not perform a dive if it's MOI is too large for fear of crashing into the ground. My guess would be that the stalls are due to the plane's AI trying to climb and thus fight against its large MOI and weak engine power causing that prolonged stall in the air. However, I could be totally off.

File Name: Modified DM files from HPW and Fortiesboy File Submitter: Buddy1998 File Submitted: 27 March 2012 File Updated: 11 April 2012 File Category: Aircraft Models (revised 11/4/2012) IMHO This is the most balanced DM that I've played so far. So, now I have a harder time to take out enemies in multiplane dogfights. Mostly, I just hit and run to save my own craft from turning into swiss cheese. Dogfights are more satisfying and aces are a bit harder to destroy. Planes can still maneuver after taking just a few hits. I believe that the reason for this is that I adjusted the probability to hit parts of the plane according to the surface area. In the stock DM, most all probabilities were set at 100%. For example, now you'll have about a 10% chance to hit the aileron instead of 100% chance. So, it's not the first thing to get hit unless you aim for that part of the plane. Since I don't have a way to view the exact location or size of the damage boxes on each plane, I had to estimate where the damage boxes would be based on the name of the damage box in the xdp file. Other modifications are: -Inline engines have a 20% greater chance to get hit than rotaries -Lower the cable hit points on all aircraft to be more or less the same -Fuel leaks will start when the fuel tank reaches 20% of its hit points and explode when 45% or more of its hit points are gone. (vanilla is set to explode when all hit points are gone) -Oil leaks will start when 20% of its hit points are gone and loose all its oil when 45% of it is destroyed. (vanilla is set at 100% to destroy the oil reservoir) This will be my final version unless I get a bug report from someone. My contribution was only very minor, so all credits go to OBD software for their great sim, Installation is through Jonesoft's Generic Mod Enabler (JSGME). I still recommend to backup the aircraft folder locted at CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\aircraft just to be on the safe side. CREDITS - I appreciate the help from the following OFF members: Herr Prop-Wasche OlPaint01 Fortiesboy Bletchley Wels Bullethead Click here to download this file

Yes, they should work together fine as these mods alter different file types. HPW's mod will alter the cfg and air files and mine will alter the xdp files, so they will not be altering the same file. I'd like to know what you think of the modded damage model after you've played with the sim for a bit. It will help me learn and improve the mod. Buddy

Nice Work. I hope that you'll leave the files open to tweaking. Buddy

Thanks Herr Prop-Wasche. I've just uploaded my final version. When you get all settled with your new powerhouse computer, please see if you can give my mod a try and let me know what you think.

While going through the damage model file line by line, I noticed a few odd values which raised some questions in my mind. I'd like to cut the amount of time needed to research these questions by drawing on the experience of the people here in this forum. This would help me fine tune the DM and any help would be greatly appreciated. 1. Did all aircrafts more or less have the same type of cable material (a metal alloy)? 2. Generally speaking which engines were more likely to fail or catch fire due to bullet hits? 3. Which aircrafts had their pilots more exposed to bullet hits (including observer position)? Buddy

Thanks again for this great info. So, here's what I'm planning to do so far: -Lower all probabilities to hit each damage box to correspond with exposed surface area of aircraft. (Vanilla DM had most all probabilities at 100%). -Inline engines have a 20% greater chance to get hit than rotaries - Thanks to Bletchley, Wels and Bullethead for the info. -Lower the cable hit points on all aircraft to be more or less the same - Thanks to Bletchley for the info on cable diameters and load strength. -Fuel leaks will start when the fuel tank reaches 20% of its hit points and explode when 45% or more of its hit points are gone. (vanilla is set to explode when all hit points are gone) -Oil leaks will start when 20% of its hit points are gone and loose all its oil when 45% of it is destroyed. (vanilla is set at 100% to destroy the oil reservoir) Buddy

Thanks for the info Bletchley and please go ahead and PM the table to me. This will definately help me refine the DM. EDIT: Wels, thanks for that explanation. I also found similar descriptions on the aerodynamics of the wires.

I've completed testing my new modifications for the DM and IMHO it's at just the right level of difficulty. I only worked on the probabilities to hit each structure based on the surface area exposed. So, cables and similar strutures have a very low chance to hit while the body has a higher chance. For example, when shooting from a distance without getting up close, you're more likely to hit the larger exposed parts of the plane. You need to get up close to the engine or pilot to hit them, otherwise you're most likely to have random hits depending on the probability. The hit points remained the same and were not adjusted. Now I can see the visual damage including smoke from engine hits, oil/fuel leaks. Also, the wings don't easily snap off. I've noticed that with my below average flying ability, I either can't bring down any planes or not more than 1 plane per engagement. Most of the time in several plane dogfights I can either severly cripple a planes or force it to land, then I have to get out to save my own life. This DM is totally different from the previous one and is more challenging. I'll take a few days in between my busy work life to complete all of the planes, so stay tuned.

Ok, so I hope that I'm not getting in way over my head with adjusting the aircraft.cfg file, but I think that I made a slight improvement (well a big improvement IMHO). I noticed that the AI controlled Pfalz DIIIa in the sim was very sluggish when turning or performing evasive manouvers. So, I spent a few days trying to figure out how to improve the planes performance. Here's what I did: I adusted 2 vaues in the aircraft.cfg file empty_weight_pitch_MOI = 2585 empty_weight_roll_MOI = 606 Then I saved the changes and tried a dogfight with a veteran AI Pfalz vs my PUP. There seems to be a noticable difference in the planes performance. I'd like a bit of help to test out my experiment, since I may be bias. Installation would be to back up your cfg files and then replace them with the files in the archive inside both the Sqd and QC1 folders (:\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\aircraft\Pfalz_DIIIa_Sqd and :\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\aircraft\Pfalz_DIIIa_QC1). Then try a quick combat with an AI controlled Pfalz and see if you notice a difference. To uninstall, just delete the files and replace with your backed up copy. If you're interested to try it, I'd greatly appreciate your feedback in this thread. aircraft - Copy for QC1 Folder.7z aircraft - Copy for Sqd Folder.7z

Well, I think that I found out the air files take over when there's a conflict between it and the cfg which will give an error and that's why the planes won't load for the player. Since I don't have AirWrench, I can't do anything to the cfg file for the player. I'll just stick to educating myself a bit more on the cfg file whenever I get a chance. Sorry, I just assumed that the formula was well known since it's on the msdn website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526949.aspx#mozTocId243173 After a few more attempts to use the formula, I noticed that it messed up a few of the allied aircraft's diving abilities. When I looked further into this - specifically CFS3 aircraft files - I didn't recognise a pattern used when calculating the MOI values. Sometimes the roll or pitch MOI values would be larger than the "empty weight" value which of course didn't match with the formula. I still need to understand why these values would increase above the empty weight. So, I'm hoping that I can get an answer. In the meantime, I'd like to work on some issues with the DM in my xdp files

@ 33LIMA If you don't mind me asking, what mods are you using with the "Armchair Aces" either required or extra?

Hi Herr Prop, I've been so immersed in trying to figure out the mechanics of the cfg file that I forgot that you are having computer problems. Unfortunately, I don't have enough experience with diagnosing hardware issues, so I'm of no help in that area. I sincerely hope that you get your computer up and running so that you can have piece of mind and we can all benefit once agian from your knowledge and experiences in modding OFF. After reading several articles about simulating the aerodynamics of a plane, I found that you need the input of someone who is familiar with the plane for advise and not just iput a bunch of numbers and equations. So, most of the planes will behave realistically even if some of the weights, measurements and ratios are altered a bit from real life. Except for maybe a few professional development companies who specialize in flight simulators for training actual pilots, OFF is initially a game trying to simulate WW1 Aircrafts - which it does IMHO exceptionally well. Having said all of this, my aim in modifying the cfg files is to make the AI more challenging and at the same time trying to keep the AI planes behavior as historically accurate as possible. Since I don't know how to adjust the AI reactions in this game, I decided to try and modify some values in the cfg file instead. I started with a dogfight between a Pfalz DIIIa and a PUP because the Pfalz is a very formidable enemy and a very maneuverable plane. I choose the PUP because of its FOV. At the stock Pfalz FM, the planes does very shallow turns and slow dives making it kind of a sitting duck. After reading about adjusting the cfg parameters, I found that only certain values can be adjusted and others should not be touched. From these, the MOI values were the ones that had the most impact on the AI planes flight mechanics. So, I used a common formula to estimate the MOI value and then started adjusting from that point. I used MOI = EmptyWeight * (D^2 / K) for Pitch D = Length (feet) K = 810 for Roll D = Wingspan (feet) K = 1870 for Yaw D = 0.5* (Length+Wingspan) K = 770 Although this is a rough method, it gave me a nice ballpark. I'm still in the process of fine tuning my results, but with just small adjustments in the MOI values, the AI Pfalz was maneuvering quite well. I understand that there is an inherent limitation of the CFS3 engine and the AI will never have human like reactions, but at least it's now more challenging with more than one AI Pfalz attacking you. I cannot determine if adjusting the MOI values made any difference in the player's craft. The plane does not load for me if I make any adjustments to my own plane. Unless I can find a way to keep my ajustments for the plane that I fly, for now I will only focus on the AI craft. I hope to see you flying again soon.

Yes, that's a good idea. I don't use JSGME, but let me take a look and I can upload it with this format.

@Stary My modified files are from HiTR patched to version 1.47.

Not a hint, but need your assistance. See, this DM still needs some more tweaking to get it closer to my liking, but I'm not sure how I can accomplish it. 1. I kept the threshold of most of the planes external structures at "60" or below as I was thinking that it would become nonfunctional if at least 60% damage is done. The exceptions were pilots, guns, and body of the plane. The problem this causes is that one of the wings seem a bit to easy to snap off when taking a few concentrated hits. Could the external stress of the structure - say if the plane was making a turn - cause the weakened wing to eventually snap or do I need to adjust something? 2. One thing that I did different from the DMs was that I kept most of the probabilities at "100" to take into account bullet spread can hit anything unless aiming for a specific structure. Having said this, I lowered the threshold of the "oil_reservoir" and "fuel tank" to take into account that a few direct hits would be enough to cause the contents to spill out or the fuel to explode. However, For a lack of knowledge of where the "oil_reservoir" was on these planes, it seems that damage to the "oil_reservoir" doesn't do anything I can see or notice. Are the numbers wrong in the file? 3. I noticed that the hit points used by Fortiesboy's DM were the same ones used when it was just BHaH, which I assumed was a better representation of the fragility of the craft at that time. So, most of the hit points don't go above "200". I guess if I knew how many hit points damage each bullet can do, maybe this can be adjusted further. 4. A lot of other structures I kept at the default values in HiTR because I don't know where on the plane they are being represented like "canopy", "damagebox_fuselage_aft" and ""Damagebox_r_horizontal" So, what I would like to see is: 1. The wings don't snap off so easily 2. An oil leak does something that I can see or feel besides smoke. Also, I'd like to refine the probabilities to hit the structures within a range between 30 to 100, but I'm not sure which ones to adjust. Oh! and thanks for making a great FM and DM mod which helped me to customize my own.

Thanks for the endorsement Hellshade. I enjoyed tweaking the files and testing them. I also encourage others to try it out and let me know if there are any problems.

File Name: Modified OFF Missions from Bletchley's Files File Submitter: Buddy1998 File Submitted: 24 March 2012 File Updated: 31 March 2012 File Category: Maps, Missions, and Campaigns (revised 31/3/2012) All of these files come from the original "Bletchley's mission mods". I only adjusted the mission files. So, this basically is a rearrangement of missions from the original HiTR to not only match "Bletchley's mission mods", but also to avoid the scattering of waypoints when a mission is started. Now you can complete a mission using the waypoints on the map and it will be recorded as a sucessful mission. All missions will have wingmen, so no lone wolf mission types. Installation: Use JSGME to install these files - thanks to OlPaint01. Click here to download this file

I forgot to give credits. That's what happens when your fingers are faster than your brain... Thanks to Bletchley for his mission files and OBD Software for their great WW1 sim. I'm almost done working on modifying Herr Prop-Wasche's DM files. I've made a mix of the original xdp, HPW and Fortiesboy. The result seems to be working to make the game fun/challenging. Planes no longer get crippled after just a few bursts and continue to fight as well as no flying tanks. May sound similar to HPW's DM, but it feels different enough. I've reduced each plane's hit points from HPW considerably and increased other hit points after comapring the three Damage Models from HPW, Original and Fortiesboy.

Sorry, to deviate a bit from this thread, but couldn't resist commenting since I believe this is in line with what is being discussed about DiD. So, while waiting for OFF2, I've been trying to modify the "xdp" files which contain the hit points and probabilities for each plane to make it more "real". The motivation for this came from reading various threads on how planes would just make one pass and up close to take out the enemy (I believe it was mentioned that it was either all or nothing most of the time during dogfights). Also, there was mention of how a shot to the fuel line with the engine running would be lethal. I only worked on the Pup and Alb II files. I tried to make the PUP fragile and the Alb more likely to catch fire with a fuel leak (I apologize if this is not historical). What I saw was either coincidence or amazing... my wingman in a PUP shot the Alb in its engine which caught fire then... exploded! All of this in one pass. Then an Alb made one pass at me and I was disabled and forced to land. In a different flight, I tried an experiment and did a straight dive from 10,000 ft? when my lower wings just snapped off my plane. Sounds stupid, but I couldn't get this to happen with the current DM no matter how much I abused the PUP. I'm going to experiment a bit more, but so far I am enjoying the vulnerability of my plane.