baffmeister

Good point. I will try adjusting the control mach table for the ailerons to [at least] reduce their effectiveness around mach 0.80. It would be nice to be able to introduce some cockpit buffet/vibration at certain speeds but not even sure if that is possible. The TW transonic buffet effect seems to be hard coded. [ still haven't given up on generating some stall buffet for the high mach vs. "g" issue but it may require some very odd CL0 and CLa tables.]

F-80C beta 0.91 FM attached. Thanks to Fubar I got a T-33 and P-80A flight manual PDF to look at so have made some changes. Also found a bit more online info so have bumped up the lift quite a bit. The T-33 / F-80C could pull quite a bit of "G" even with an unpowered elevator but it did have a problem with heavy buffet when pulling G at higher mach numbers. The heavy buffet zone is considered a "No Go" area due to structural limitations and is a bit of a handicap. Not so bad at low levels but much worse at high altitudes. Here are some numbers based on the T-33 flight strengths chart: Max G at 0.80 Mach limit: 5000ft = 5.9G 10000ft=5.0G 20000ft=3.1G 30000ft=2.2G 40000ft=1.4G At lower speeds the structural G limit is 7.33. I can't replicate the heavy buffet problem in the FM so have just limited the max G available at higher Mach numbers. If you get involved with any MiG-15s at high altitude and find the plane not turning very well all you can do is slow down to about 0.70 mach. Other changes: Fuel tanks adjusted and range reduced. [i like to keep the range numbers conservative] Realistic engine spool-up time. [around 13 seconds from idle to max thrust] Dive bomb and rocket AI adjusted. [Dive bomb AI tested with the An-64 500lb bomb. Results will probably be quite different if using TW stock bombs.] The pilot AI has been adjusted using Fubars F-86 FMs as a guide. The damage modeling has been adjusted using Fubars F-86 FMs as a guide. [ I plan on doing this for any other KAW FM's I do to keep things consistent.] Will leave the F-80C alone for awhile and take a look at the Panther next. F-80C_FM0.91.zip

I was getting over 6G's in high speed turns but will look into it.

Thanks for the pin-up! I will probably be doing a few more KAW fm's in the future so will just post them here. The F-84 and Panther fm's seem good to me and I certainly won't be messing with the Sabres and Mig-15 but some of the prop jobs may get a look.

Drop in FM for the Veltro2K/Wrench Defiant package available here: http://combatace.com/files/file/13938-sf2-ww2-eto-boulton-paul-defiant-remod-pak/ Notes: The Defiant saw its first action in early May 1940 and was withdrawn from daylight ops in late August 1940. They were never based in France but did operate over France and the low countries from bases in England during the Battle of France. Only 2 Squadrons saw any action during daytime ops. After some heavy loses the plane was used for night intercepts and was quite successful in that role. Some later versions received pilot operated radar equipment in the fall of 1941. This data ini covers the daylight phase only from May, 1940, to August, 1940. To get the gunner to engage targets the plane is classed as ATTACK and the pilot is equipped with a fake gun included in the package. Put the fake gun in the Guns folder and put the Data ini in the Defiant aircraft folder after backing up the original. Issues: This plane uses some work arounds to get it to work and is mainly intended to make it's appearance during the Battle of Britain and then go away. The AI do get some kills and if player flown you can try leading your entire formation underneath the bomber formations to see how they do. If you get involved with any Luftwaffe fighters good luck to you! The gunner turret firing angles are quite realistic and can shoot 20deg left or right of forward, max depression 0deg, max elevation 72deg. The actual elevation possible was iirc around 80deg but there was a gun sight limitation. The real turret could rotate 360deg and fire straight ahead over the top of the prop but this one is yaw limited to 20deg left and right of forward. I couldn't find a lot of aerodynamic information for this airplane but it seems to have had a reasonably good roll rate for the period. One interesting characteristic was the difficulty holding the aircraft in a dive at speeds over 350mph. This characteristic probably wasn't confined just to the Defiant and is something I will be looking at in the future. I have tried to model that behavior but it's not very accurate at present. Also, I have been having problems getting the plane to belly land so still some work required there. The Defiant got the 100 octane updates the same as the Hurricane and Spitfire but to keep things simple I am only making the "late" version of the Defiant. Package here: DefiantPack0.90.zip Thanks to Heck for doing some beta testing on the beta tester! This is the last BoB FM I plan on making. Eventually they will get put in one big package for upload but that may take some time. Next project will be some Battle of France FM's and probably a few post BoB FM's so Britain can go on the offensive.

Attached is an F-80C beta test FM that I have been messing with for quite some time. It is the usual combination of some new stuff [CDL table] some of the original FM, some ThirdWire tables and a whole bunch of tinkering. I recommend backing up the original FM then just drop this new one into the F-80C folder. Cheers.

I have to say that tods always look best when placed for the specific tile. This can be an issue when placing buildings at an angle on a tile but for trees it's not such a big deal although still somewhat time consuming. I think the terrain deserves specific placement for the trees.

No luck addressing the floating tree issue. Sometimes, with old terrains, updating the terrain data file will fix the floating tree problem but the Desert data included in your upload looks up to date.

It works OK for me. I think the tile with the green dots [last screen] could use some trees on the transitions. I am also getting a floating tree problem but not sure what causes that. Will try some tod files I have with the stock TW tree and see if they float as well.

The copy/paste for the transparency was from the TW Sea2City25 tile[iirc], the one I used to build the harbour from. To capture the shore line transparancy texturing I extended the copy quite far into the black non transparent section of the tile. It involved a bit of 1 pixel micro surgery to get it to work. Your way would work fine I think but I had some problems at the shoreline interface when using a somewhat similar approach. I like the look of those Calcutta tiles. Like TW Desert city tiles but a bit different? Here's your direct replacement CityPort1 tile added in. Only 4 more to go! And, thanks to Gerwins terrain tool, a map for the new terrain:

At last! Started working on this port tile a long time ago but could never get the TGA thing figured out. Finally had some success with Gimp and got this one finished. The main problem was trying to match the reflective properties of the new tile to the stock TW water tiles. Took awhile but managed to dismantle a TW tile in Gimp then copy and paste the grey [textured] "reflecto" layer into my new port tile. Voila:

Would make for a great visual update! I have some tod files using TW's stock tree TGA that would probably work well with the tiles in the last picture. Quite a few trees placed but still sparse enough to fit a semi-arid area. Let me know if your interested.

Frogfooting around the patch.

YES! I would like to use those harbours but will use my own building tods. I will send a PM shortly. Regarding the stock desert tiles, I have never been very happy with them but used them to minimize the amount of copy and pasting required to make new transitions. I don't really like the farm tiles either but wanted to keep the ThirdWire city tiles because they have a good Thirdworld look. As the terrain gets developed some things will probably get changed but thats down the road.

I have spent quite a bit of time looking at your harbours. Even tried to build a practice one using Baltikas guide but had some issues getting the water to match the TW sea reflective properties. [ something to do with a grey background color in the TGA?] All I have installed at the moment are two of the stock harbours but hope to get some new ones built in the future. I have started some targeting on this terrain with stock objects and might even be able to release the basic version in a couple of months. Basic meaning an expanded tileset and better tods than Thirdwires stock desert terrain but no roads, small towns, dried up rivers etc. that are planned for the future. At the present production rate, the future may be a long way away!

For some reason ThirdWire made some river tiles for the stock Desert terrain but never made use of them. The number of river tiles is quite limited and the terrain I am building is too mountainous to place any long rivers so have installed a couple of short "tidal inlets". The downside, more tods to place. [sigh]

When it comes to terrains, I do everything the wrong way at least two or three times. [ explaining why my own terrain project is only 50% done after three years. Never again!] Edit: In retrospect, now that I know a bit about the terrain editor, my time probably would have been better spent trying to put some roads, rivers and additional city transition tiles on the TW desert terrain. An additional tile type in the highland areas would be nice as well. Maybe some grassland tiles with sparse trees for some areas. Too late for me to change horses but with the nice tileset and targeting work done by Piecemeal it would make for an interesting update for someone to do.

NP guys. I expect to be running strike missions on this terrain for a long time. Here is a target area fix as well. When departing from RAF Canopic I noticed part of the runway was underground. That area had been leveled but it is near the coastline so the leveling process doesn't work all that well. By moving the airfield east and south a bit I was able to get it to fit in the flattened area but it's a tight fit. Here is a revised target ini. Just drop into the Desert4 terrain and allow the overwrite. DESERT4_TARGETSfix1.zip