baffmeister

Tried removing Object01 and 09. They are the "clamps' that hold the bomb to the rack. Doesn't fix the problem though. Did see another possible cause when looking at the model with Mue's Lod viewer. The inner portion of the bounding boxes for both the left AND right wing BOTH terminate on the R/H side of the fuselage. Not sure why that would affect the weight distribution to such an extent for bombs but not drop tanks but it's another area to investigate. Edit: Taking a look at the actual numbers generated by Mue's lod viewer as opposed to using the pointer like I did the first time the left wing extends from 0.0 to -6.306 and the right wing from 0.03202 to 6.338. The fore/aft and up/down bounding boxes are the same for both wings.

Good news!

Probably not a false lead but I don't know much about model building either. I was thinking it might be a hierarchy issue but that's just a wild guess.

Thanks for the comments! I was trying to start with the Battle of Britain and then work chronologically through WW2 but that's out the window now. Present plan is just to do some mini campaigns and whatever FM's might be required. The Battle of the Bulge project is proving more work than expected but hope to finish it this winter. I did start a Dunkirk campaign using the BoB FM's but couldn't get it to work the way I wanted. I might try again with that one while finishing the Battle of the Bulge.

Attached is a beta test FM for Veltro 2K's Hawker Tempest V, available here: https://combatace.com/files/file/14831-tempest-mk-v/ I will be doing some FMs this winter for Battle of the Bulge use. This one was relatively simple as I could use my Sea Fury FM with a few edits and a new engine table. The min/max extents have been done and some basic collision points added. Still have to take a closer look at the AI behavior but will leave that until I get some more late WW2 planes installed. Some things to note about my WW2 fm's: I spend quite a bit of time working on the engine table and tuning the CD0 values to get realistic speeds. The max speed at sea level for this 100 octane Tempest is about 372mph, very close to the 374-378mph range from actual flight tests. The maximum speed occurs in the 18000 to 19000ft range and seems to be within the test data range of 432-436mph TAS. In the data.ini, for MaxSpeedSL=xxx, I use the maximum indicated airspeed the plane is permitted to fly at. This is quite an impressive number for the Tempest V, from the flight manual: 10000ft-540mph, 20000ft-450mph and 30000ft-370mph. At standard atmospheric temperatures and pressures, those speeds work out to be Mach 0.836! From some light historical research I get the impression the Tempest V's were used mainly for low/mid altitude fighter sweeps, V-1 intercepts, strike missions, and armed recon missions. For armed recon, they usually were guns only and a couple of streamlined 45 imp gal drop tanks. Veltros model comes with the larger 90 gal tank. Wikipedia says the Tempest V wasn't equipped with rocket rails until the post war period but I know for sure the Tempest was tested with rockets early in the development period so it may just be that the RAF brass thought the Tempest was better used in other roles while leaving the rocket work to the numerous Typhoons in service. Postwar, the Typhoons were quickly scrapped and the Tempest took over their role. The service end date for the Tempest appears to be 1948 but keep in mind the light research. With a decent roll rate, good visibility, great low to mid altitude speed and climb rate, and a turn rate probably somewhere between the Bf-109 and FW-190, the Tempest was an excellent dog fighter at low and mid altitudes. ISSUES: The propeller on the Tempest V rotated counter clockwise when viewed from the cockpit but the propeller on this model is angled for clockwise rotation. The biggest issue is with the weight distribution when carrying bombs. For some reason, when carrying bombs the plane flies with the right wing down. It's very noticeable and annoying. I spent two days trying to figure out what was going on but now have to assume it's a model issue. When carrying drop tanks there is no problem. When carrying rocket racks, there seems to be a small amount of left wing heaviness but I can live with it. The reason I think it's a model issue is because when I remove the bomb racks via ini edit, the problem disappears. Unfortunately, a quick check on Veltro's Typhoon shows the same problem. For now the racks are removed while I try and think of a work around. It might be possible to make some "special" bombs with no weight but all the explosive power of the regular bombs and use the SpecificStationCode=xxx. That's all I got at the moment, any other ideas? Here's the FM and a cockpit ini with just the viewing position adjusted. TempestFM0.95.zip

Sundowner's idea should be tried as well, if you haven't already. Start the mission in the air and see if the gear will cycle up and down.

There are some other items that can be checked in the lod viewer as well but the set up for the animation ID's looks unusual. Just noticed another issue. The nose gear doesn't have a MaxDeploySpeed entry. Try adding this, same as the main gears. MaxDeploySpeed=77.2

After a quick look I noticed each landing gear is using a different animation ID. Never saw that before. Best bet at this point is to check the Mentor animation ID's using Mue's Lod viewer.

Sounds like an issue with the nose gear data, maybe a typo or something. I could take a quick look if you want to post the data.ini here, as a zipped file or just copy/paste the entire data.ini in your reply.

Many of the old models have landing gear issues. I saw those problems a lot in the past and could usually address them my adjusting the rolling radius on one of the main wheels. The trick is to see which way the plane flips when it appears on the runway. If it flips to the left, try increasing the rolling radius on the L/H main wheel OR decrease the Rolling radius on the R/H main wheel. If it flips to the right, do the opposite. The aircraft models seem to be very sensitive to any errors in the landing gear geometry so you will want to use very small increments when adjusting the rolling radius.

View File SF2-WW2 Battle of the Bulge Terrain The terrain is set up to use the GermanyCE.Cat file but there are not that many ThirdWire objects in use and no ThirdWire tiles so it may work OK with other Terrain.cat files but hasn't been tested. This is a very narrow focused terrain with the emphasis on fighter bomber operations in the Ardennes region in late 1944 and early 1945. The main intent of this project was to make a semi-historical Battle of the Bulge campaign but as usual with the SF series, things are taking much longer than expected so I'm going to release this unfinished beta 0.9 version for testing and hopefully get the final version with a campaign released in about 6 months. The towns along the front line are in place but I still have quite a few to add further behind both the US and German lines. Most targets are of the tactical variety such as supply dumps, fuel caches, storage barns, command/communication trucks, fuel trucks, high value tanks and local command buildings. Most target areas are focused on the Ardennes region with the exception of airfields and hangars. The area to the east of the Rhine river is considered off limits to allied fighter bombers so the five German airfields located there have zero points for runways and hangars. There are two German airfields on the west side of the Rhine that can be assigned as strike targets during single missions. The seven Allied airfields and their hangars can be targets during Luftwaffe strike missions. NOTES: The terrain has some artillery positions and the plan is to use the artillery as a force multiplier during the campaign. The artillery is very one sided in areas that saw quick German break outs but the northern and southern shoulders of the battle area saw very little movement so those areas have artillery positions for both sides. The terrain is meant for fighter bomber operations only so all airfields are classed as SMALL to try and minimize the number of large aircraft that might show up in single missions. There are three types of runways in use, two use a version of my quicker take off mod and one uses the FE style sequential take off. All the add-on tanks, vehicles, guns, etc. have had adjustments made to things like hit boxes, engine power, on and off road speed, armor protection, gun range, rate of fire, visual range, etc. They aren't perfect but I thought it best to take a consistent approach. Although they weren't always widely available, all the tank guns use AP rounds with no explosive in the warhead. All the guns and ground objects included have a suffix for "Bulge" or "Baffmeister', take your pick. There is an optional folder that contains some AAA pieces. If you are happy with your present WW2 AAA set up it can be ignored but my WW2 install was a real mess regarding the AAA so I took the opportunity to improve things. For now, the German 88mm, US 90mm and British 3.7inch time fused flak use the same gun and cover the entire WW2 date range. This is a gross simplification but I'm still experimenting with overly large explosive rounds for the time fused flak so it remains as is. ISSUES: The seven allied airfield positions are relatively accurate although I had to move them a bit to fit within the GermanyCE terrain tods. The Luftwaffe airfields are just using some of the stock ThirdWire locations. Two of the Luftwaffe airfields have a second airfield/runway attached to give two airfields at one location. None of the airfields are a good representation of the actual WW2 airfields. Also, I haven't had a chance yet to sort through some new objects so they are very plain looking. I tried to organize the ground objects a bit so they all have Green, Tan and for this terrain White texture folders. Some of the objects had some dedicated winter textures I could use but others I had to make myself by just messing with colors, brightness and saturation. Lots of room for improvement! The same holds true for winter roof textures I did for some building objects. Geezer's objects all have good textures! While scouting out town locations I found a great spot on the GermanyCE terrain for Elsenborn Ridge and guesstimated the other town locations off that point. The result is inaccurate town locations too far south. It doesn't really affect game play unless you try and fly with a real map but it's a done deal at this point. The ThirdWire GermanyCE terrain doesn't really do the Ardennes region justice. None off the rivers that were a big part of the Battle of the Bulge are modeled and neither are most of the roads but trying to do a dedicated terrain would have added years to the project. I tried using a very tight date range for this terrain but it seems to default to 1944 or 1945. For single missions you will want to choose 1944 because, at certain target areas, some US objects get removed from the terrain starting 17th December, 1944. TERRAIN CREDITS ThirdWire: GermanyCE terrain and city TODs. Stary: GermanyCE Hard Winter tiles and countryside TODs and TOD textures. Some TOD textures taken from Rends GermanyCE terrain. STATIC BUILDING AND EQUIPMENT OBJECTS CREDITS Geezer: Too many objects to name individually! They are being run from individual folders within the terrain folder. The credits are included within the object folders. Objects include urban blocks, farm houses, town houses, churches, barns, light industrial buildings, warehouses, static vehicles, soldiers, horse drawn carts,tents and a supply dump. Some hangars included as well. Thank you Sir! Polak and Wrench: Some objects from Object Library 1. Gepard: Burg_Colditz, Pfalzgrafenstein, airfield ramps, taxiways and a runway with modified textures. WingWiner: Many town buildings and destroyed models, most with modified textures. Stary: str_han1, 4, and 8 with modified textures. Also, some Stary textures being used on a couple of ThirdWire hangars. Sundowner: Road grader. Closterman: Tactical Control Centre. Monty CZ: Static version of his Opel_Blitz_Com vehicle and a landing strip model with modified textures. Mitch: halle3_close Stephen1918: SmallChurch. Unknown: FH-Trees, Tree3A, Tree3B and Tree3C. Unknown: Fort Gatehouse, Fort HQ Building, Fort Turret, Fort Wall and Fort Wall Destroyed, all with modified textures. GROUND OBJECT CREDITS Geezer: 105mm German and US artillery, M5 anti tank gun, PanzerWerfer-42, motorized versions of his M3 half track, GMC canvas truck, Dodge WC51 light truck, and a PanzerIVh model that is still a work in progress. Geo: M3 half track, M36 tank destroyer, Panther tank, Sdkfz251 half track, Sdkfz251 flak, TigerII tank, Sherman M4A3 and E8 tanks, M16 Quad AAA, and Opel Blitz Canvas/Open trucks. Raven: TigerI tank and the SturmTiger rocket launcher. Monty CZ: 88Flak36Emplaced, 88mm Flak36Towed[used as AT gun], and I think, the 20mm FlakVierling [quad]. Nicholas Bell: Bofors L60 ThirdWire: US 90mm AAA. [uses KS-19 Lod.] Unknown: British 3.7inchAAA. SPECIAL THANKS TO MUE! Without his Target Area Editor I would not have even attempted this project! INSTALLATION: Instructions included in the package. WAIVERS: Geezer's PanzerIV-h model is still a work in progress and may not be re-distributed in any way. It's included mainly for testing and as a favor to me. It includes some copy/paste textures from RussoUK's PanzerIV-j but that's just a temporary test for now. Geezer's other building/vehicle/troop etc. objects can be used, with appropriate credits, for freeware projects only, no commercial use permitted. The new objects are contained in individual folders within the BotB Terrain folder and can be easily viewed with Mues lod viewer. You can then do a search through the BotB_Types.ini to see the way I've set them up, which might not be the best way. Keep in mind, this isn't a formal object pack upload and not all summer textures are included. The terrain is still WIP and may not be re-distributed or modified, except for personal use. To the best of my knowledge, other objects included in this package are subject to the CombatAce fair use agreement. Submitter baffmeister Submitted 09/18/2017 Category Full Terrains

In coming!.........................soon.

I can confirm your sign fix works fine with only a couple of small dashes visible at the top. As you probably expect now, the bus still shows with just the alpha channel edit.

Wrenchs' idea of a roadside gas station/garage/hot dog stand/whatever seems to work quite well. The bus shows up on at least two tiles, maybe more. I think I will just go with this for the beta terrain and leave the tiles alone.

Switching to plan B for Bus. Will try changing the bus into a building and then figure out which terrain tiles the bus is on then texture the tiles a bit so the building/bus isn't sitting in the middle of a road. Should be relatively simple copy/paste stuff I can do myself.

I may be seeing the light. It might depend on the type of Tod used in the original texture list, MapClass=0 for building Tods and MapClass=1 for tree tods. If the sign was made as a MapClass=1, like a tree, it allows transparency. If the bus was made as a MapClass=0, like a building Tod, it doesn't allow transparency and will default to the black box. I have seen black box buildings before due to missing BMP's.

Here is a JPEG image of the TGA that has the bus. Shouldn't it be possible to remove the bus image from that area then make the area transparent?

Wrench, I think because these particular Tods were made with TGA's it should be possible to make the "offending" part of the TGA transparent. It did work for the sign OK. I can't really think of a reason why it shouldn't work for the bus as well. [?]

Heck, whatever you did with the Zentrum sign TGA worked almost perfectly. Just one thin vertical line and a couple of small horizontal dashes at the top still visible. I can live with it, the lines aren't very noticeable. The bus is a black box however, and I think you worked on an area that can be left alone because I also have a tall thin building tod that is now half black. Crusader, are you sure you zipped the correct files, they appear to be unchanged from the originals and the bus and sign are still visible.

I'm looking for someone that can edit a couple of TGA's prior to releasing a beta version of the "Bulge" terrain. I would like to remove the Greyhound bus and the big blue Zentrum sign from the terrain. These Tod's were done with TGA's so I assume they could be removed by making that part of the TGA transparent. Here are screens of those objects and the TGA's are attached as well if someone wants to give it a try. TodFixPlease.zip

What Menrva said is a possibility but I think the main issue is probably due to TW setting up the large parking positions in the stock airfield inis to handle just the stock TW C-130 which has a relatively large wingspan but a "shortish" fuselage. The ultimate solution would be to adjust all the large aircraft parking positions as well as the maximum wingspan permitted to allow no conflicts parking for some of the larger aircraft such as C-5's and B-52's.