Stephen1918

Thanks for the engine sound, Nix. I was going to ask when I got closer to finishing the plane.

Sorry about that I'm going to have to slow down soon and get caught up on my real life too.

I have the Albatros C.III built and rigged. I worked out how the random decal thing works, so each plane will have its own serial numbers and fuselage marking. I'm also using the national insignia that come with the game, so you will be able to change nationality. I also included an internal bomb rack with the bombs mounted vertically between the pilot and gunner, like in the real plane. I'm still working on the skins and starting on the cockpit. I'm having trouble finding photos of the cockpit. (The cockpit of the D series was very different from the C series.) I found a drawing of a Rumpler C.I, which was built about the same time, and a photo of the cockpit in a plastic model of the Albatros C.III. If anyone has photos to share of the cockpit of the Albatros C.III, please let me know, otherwise I'm going to fake it. Thanks, Stephen1918

Quack74 is working on some custom skins for the Phoenix. These are some work-in-progress posts. As Whiteknight said, he hasn't uploaded them yet.

Quack74, I cannot reproduce the problem you're having. I've tried up to 6 Lloyd's in "Easy" "Normal" and in "Hard" modes and they all take off OK. I'm Using FE Gold with no patches. I don't know if there is a difference in FE2 or if you may have some patches that affect the flight. I went through Peter01's sticky posting, FE AI 101. He says that the PitchForAltitude setting in the DataAI controls how the plane climbs and takes off. He uses a value of .00027. I see that Ojcar used .00007 in the Lloyd. You might try increasing the number and see if that helps. Is anyone else having this problem? Stephen

I believe Ojcar is on holiday until later in July. I don't know enough about FMs. You might try looking at the AIData of a plane that works and compare to the AIData of the Lloyd? I'll see what I can puzzle out and post if I find anything. (By the way, I'm so new to this that I still do all my flying in "Easy" mode, so I don't see the problems you more experienced flyers may encounter.) Stephen

Sorry about the mistake. I have have updated the instructions in the downloads section.

For the Phoenix, you don't need the Texture1 folder. Like this Decals/PhoenixD2/D It all depends on how the decals.ini is written. In my planes the decals.ini is always in the Texture folders with the skins. The decals themselves may be in the textures folder or in the airplane folder depending on how much they're the same for the different skins. The Sikorsky also won't need the Texture1, so - Decals/SikorskyS16/D

The main difference is where the decals are located. Everything in the uploads is the same - in FE2 you have to make a folder in the Decals folder and move the decals into it. This was discussed by quack74 in another topic. See "The Phönix D.II is here" conversation for instructions.

I uploaded the Lloyd C.II today. Ojcar wrote the FM and added some features - A Schwarzlose machine gun and a heavy bomb load. My thanks to him for the improvements. This is going to be a challenging plane to fight with, there is no forward gun and the gunner had limited motion (this plane didn't use the scarff ring mounting) so you need to move the plane somewhat to help bring enemy aircraft into range. I have included installation instructions for both FE1 and FE2. Thanks again to Ojcar for helping me with this. Any mistakes are mine alone. Your comments and criticisms are welcome.

View File Lloyd C.II This is a complete revision of the Lloyd C.II with all new LODs, new skins, and improved decals. Ojcar has also improved the FM for this plane. Any skins that were made for the original version will not work with this version. The Lloyd C.II was based on a pre-war Austro-Hungarian airplane but with a slightly shorter wingspan and the addition of a machine gun on a circular mount for the observer. The C.II featured a plywood body and swept-back, tapered wings and was used for reconnaissance and light bombing throughout the war. The gun ring had limited movement, especially in the vertical direction, which I have tried to reproduce in my model. This will be a challenging plane to fly because you need to move the plane to bring enemy planes into range of the gunner. There is no gun for the pilot. There are also two bomb loading options for light and heavy bombing runs. (We don't know if the Lloyd ever carried 50kg bombs, but we included the option anyway.) I have included three skinning options, one with standard Austro-Hungarian markings from early in the war, and two from later in the war. I have included my skinning templates for those who want make their own skins. I have included a set of serial numbers which will be randomly assigned to each plane. The numbers are fictitious, but in the correct range for the Lloyd C.II. Ojcar made a new data.ini for this plane. He added the heavy bomb option to the loadout. The 6.5 Schwarzlose gun he created for the original plane is included, along with his instructions for loading the gun data ("DataReadMe.txt") Credits: Great thanks to Ojcar, who made the excellent FM and who added some nice features to this plane. Installation instructions: This is a complete revision of the original Lloyd C.II. If you have the plane already, begin by deleting the Lloyd C.II from the Aircraft Folder, and (if you run FE2) from the Decals folder. Then install the new plane. For FE1: Unzip the file and move the folder named "LloydC2" into the FirstEagles/Objects/Aircraft folder. For FE2: Unzip the file and move the folder named "LloydC2" into the FirstEagles/Objects/Aircraft folder. Then in the FirstEagles/Objects/Decals folder, create new folder named "LloydC2". Move the folder named "D" from the Aircraft/LloydC2 folder into the Decals/LloydC2 folder you just made. To install the gun: This is the same gun that was included with the original Lloyd C.II. If you had the original plane, you don't need to install the gun. If this is your first install, follow the instructions below. For FE1: Follow the instructions in Ojcar's DataReadMe.txt file. You'll have to make changes to the LloydC2_data.ini file. For FE2: Follow the instructions in Ojcar's DataReadMe.txt file. Submitter Stephen1918 Submitted 06/27/2011 Category Other Central Powers Aircraft

The Lloyd C.II is getting closer. It will be flying over the Italian front soon. Making the gunner move correctly took more time than I thought it would, but I got it worked out. I also made a skin with early Polish markings (couldn't resist!) Each of the partitions declared their independence separately and used different markings until reunification. These are called the "Cracow" markings and were used in the southwest district of Poland 1918-1919. Are there any historians out there who can tell me what the "Z" stood for?

Nice! I like the tail markings.

Here's the beginning of the Lloyd. (I have also started the Albatros C.III, but I'm not very far along on that one.) The gunner is taking a lot of time to figure out. He also takes a lot of data so I've had to lower the detail a bit. The ripples on the wings had to be sacrificed to bring the file size down. There was no forward gun on the Lloyd, so I put a load of bombs to give the pilot something to do. The Lloyd could carry up to 200kg of bombs, I put six 12.5kg bombs in a rack under the fuselage. I haven't started the cockpit yet, and I still need to do skins. These are just the flat colors applied in 3DS.

whiteknight, can you describe the kind of starnge visual defects you're talking about? I am building my planes in FE1 and I want to make sure they run in both versions.

There's nothing I can do with the 3D part once it's in the game. The game uses .LOD format. I can convert from 3D Studio into LOD, but I can't go backwards. All I can do is make a whole new cockpit from scratch, sorry.

That might be something that can be fixed by changing the ini's for the data and the cockpit (?)

I don't actually mind being asked to do things, if I can do something that benefits all of us, then why not? That's why I ask for your opinions, and why I post work-in-progress reports. It is a lot of work and there are particular things I want to learn, so don't be too disappointed if I say "no". However, feel free to ask.

These, and the gun fire effect are really sweet. They add a new level of realism to the game.

I'll have to look into it. The hardest part of making the cockpit is matching the edges to the fuselage. In my planes, I can make them at the same time, then separate them. If I can't see the mesh of the plane, it will be a lot of trial and error. That, and finding resources for how the cockpits looked. It would be an interesting problem, but I don't know if I want to go there yet.

I'm looking for a way to have the same download work for both versions. I'm using FE1(Gold) to make the planes. I had no idea that FE2 handled the decals differently until dsawan mentioned it. If I put the decal (D) folder inside the skin folder and link to it in the decals.ini, then it will work for both versions - is this correct?

Thank you. So in future I should put the decal folder inside the skin folder?

I don't know what the problem could be. Has anyone else had problems with the decals in any of my planes? (I am making my own and not using the national markings that come with First Eagles, so they should always show the same markings no matter what nation you choose.)

Thank you all for your comments. I really enjoy doing this. We also have to thank everyone who has been helping me make these planes - ojcar, quack74, and nix - as well as everyone who has commented and helped with the details of the planes. As for the mistakes, if I make them, I need to fix them, that's what people do.