Lexx_Luthor

Woe, nice!!!!

If you don't see pylons from the cockpit, forget them. Just add the missiles yourself. I like to think F-5A would have become a prime USAF fighter in an extended WoE-esque scenario, and later -- if NATO was winning -- a prime fighter bomber, perhaps even in US Army skins (sorry USAFMTL ). I suggest adding flyable F-5A to WoE campaigns. Arm to Taste. There are related things like 3rd Party dark stained or hazy canopy "glass" (even on some stock ThudWire aircraft) that can't be turned OFF with the sim's Cockpit Reflection grafix option, although there are always workarounds to this, it can be deep. Another is Pasko's F-106 which assumes the "historic" peacetime mission procedure of bringing home the drop tanks. The F-106 360gal drop tanks are coded into the model and cannot be dropped if they are chosen. You can fix this by specifying FuelTankName=Tank370_F4 in the DATA file and loading 370 F-4 tanks in the loadout file instead of the normal F-106 tanks. It's close, it works. So if you want minimum drag for top speed/range chasing one-way refueled Soviet or Canadian ( ) Tu-22s when defending the South Dakota Skies, you can now drop your tanks. The tanks are expensive, and a terrible thing to waste, but so are Ussian city tiles. One of the bizzare computer gamer clinical behavioral events was observed during early pre-releace screenshots of Pacific Fighters showing Japanese carrier aircraft operating from Ussian aircraft carriers, and teh UBI.com dogfight gamers cried foul. However, nothing in the laws of aerodynamics or physics prevents such an event (I checked), and preventing such political or social absurdities is up to the mission or campaign designer, not the flight sim's core game engine.

Yes, the Viking has a dense fog that can be changed. For the Su-17 cockppit file...add the following line to the bottom of the [CockpitSeat001] section (list of Instruments)... Instrument[068]=Move1 At the very bottom of the cockpit file, add... [Move1] Type=AIRSPEED_INDICATOR NodeName=canopy_glass MovementType=POSITION_Y Set[01].Position=-100 Set[01].Value=0.0 Set[02].Position=-99 Set[02].Value=1.0 This moves the glass 100 meters below the cockpit, well out of sight. Or I think that's how it works. ------------------------- For Viking its a bit tricky...the hazy tga file is called Glass. You can modify the "transparency" of the tga file in a PhotoPaint program, but I don't know how to do that, or my PhotoPaint program won't do it. So this is what I do... There is no cockpit lod OUT file to locate the filename as with the Su-17 cockpit above so we can't move the glass out of sight, and renaming the Glass file won't work, so you have to replace the hazy Glass file with a clear tga file (unless you know how to change tga transparency). You can download such a file ready-to-use here... Cellinsky's Weather Mod (found in Maps\Terrain - Enviro mods section) ~> http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autom...p;showfile=2723 Cellinsky's Weather Mod replaces the ThirdWire static wallpaper horizon cloud images with small clear tga files. Take any one of these horizon clouds, rename it 0clear or something and keep it handy in the basic SF folder or Objects folder (or somehwhere). Take this clear tga file and move it to the S-3B Cabina folder and rename it Glass. Save the old Glass file -- rename it zzzGlass -- in case you wish to keep it handy. You should now be able to fly night missions with S-3B in total 100% clarity, daytime too. Its probably best to try to ask and find out how to change the "transparency" of tga files. Much more simple!!

You can paint over the second engine's guages, but moving the 2nd engine's guage needles out of sight is a bit more involved. I'm using Boopidoo's [su-15] cockpit for Su-9, Su-11, and Yak-25 and Yak-28. For experiment on 25 and 28, I chopped some of the rear sliding canopy framing as the Yak's wings should be easily visible from the (real) extended Yak cockpits, but parts of the thick sliding canopy base framing gets in the way. To clear up the dense Su-17 foggy canopy haze, delete or rename the hazy "glass" tga file zzzCockpit_canopy so the game does not recognize it, then you can fly night missions without 50% loss of external environment light (real glass does not behave like this), but this simple fix also takes out the canopy de-icing wires and hud reflection which are pretty cool and immersive. So I'll look at the OUT file to see if the hazy glass is specifically removable.

In this one (v1.1), I keep getting file corruption message in dezipping. Downloaded it twice. Might check downloading it and unzipping it.

That's a new one. Su-27 Flaker F-16 Flacon ...bring home the flacon

I'd look at reducing drag first. Unless the engine thrusts are too low to begin with, you might get uber climbrates and high fuel consumption. Over a year ago, I found that MontyCZ's Yak-28P would not go supersonic in level flight, perhaps after on of TK's Patches. I looked at the FM and never having messed with FMs before, saw a pot of spaghetti. But, I had stayed at the Holiday Inn the night before and read Yefim Gordon's Yak-25/28 book. I learned that in 1964 the faster Su-15 was giving Yak diaper rash, and in a panic, Yak directly copied Sukhoi's rectangular inlets to make a new Yak-28-64 with fuselage engines. It went slower than the original -28 so Yak left fighter design forever, leaving it to the Pros. Personally inspired by this desperate move, I copied Boopidoo's Su-15 fuselage data into, and replacing, MontyCZ's -28 fuselage data. I had better luck than Yak, and it "fixed" my immediate -28P sonic problem, at least for now, unitl I begin to learn FM someday. PS: Please don't tell Fubar I did this.

icetea:: Done!

Jedi:: ewh thanks! Are they as common as at lower "cfs" altitudes? I googled U-2, mirror, and contrail, and it looks like I've got things to learn.

Very nice cockipt. Thanks for sharing. FastCargo:: I'm planning to use A-5 model with some FM and avionics changes for F~108 escort fighter to take out from long range interceptors that might come high up to harm NGHENGO's upcoming B-70 model (why would somebody want to do that?). NO GUNS. Here I hung 3 missiles, AGM-78 3D models but they *look* like a decent long range pre~Phoenix Ussian air-air missile. Using TK's F-105 cockpit -- its pretty dense -- with a kinda neat change, I cut and pasted the tape numbers, shifting to readings from 1.4 to 3.4 (it hardly turns at Mach3, excellent!!). 69,000 feet above Lake Baikal, a place where you dont' want to slow down in the weeds at 30,000 feet to play gun fight. Also made these changes to F-105 cockpit file [AMI_Mach] Type=MACH_NUMBER_INDICATOR NodeName=AMI_Mach MovementType=TEXTURE_V Set[01].Position=0.157 Set[01].Value=1.4 Set[02].Position=0.937 Set[02].Value=3.4 Another view, from 60km ... game paused while taking several camera positions...you see why I'm not too worried about having the right model. Nobody actually would see a F-108. The ultimate visual stealth is speed and altitude, Unfortunately, TK allows defining of altitude where contrails start, but not end, and there generally should be no contrails up at 70k feet. So to take out contrails for high aircraft, you have to take them out for all aircraft. It took about a year or two before the PVO brass accepted the pilot reports of U-2s -- about 1956 one MiG-19 pilot was punished for insisting on seeing an unreachable aircraft high above his own max altitude -- so I assume no contrails are generally found at very high altitudes. Otherwise many people on the ground would have seen the U-2s, while Gary Powers and other U-2 pilots spoke of looking through the belly periscope to see dozens of interceptor contrails far below. So I'd love for TK to allow setting both min and max heights for contrails.

Jedi:: Mothra ball. grumps, I suggest ramping up the LOD visible distance to 20km, and in the data file too. The ball is large enough to be seen, in 90 degree FOV, to almost 20km, at 1280x1024 screen resolution, before the LOD drops to "less than" one pixel in size. Many players use even higher res. This is so pretty under the right sunset/sunrise illumination. Put it next to a SAM site, missile very close to the dome, and at night watch the missile exhaust climb up from the bottom...here, I made som pics. I decided to do a screenshot essay on the Mothra ball. I plopped the ball onto the airfield which I've been using to experiment with a new type of SAM site. Sunset, nice shading on ball, bad SF moon rising on the left. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first screenshot below is a view from above the Ball, with two sources of illumination. One is the missile flame on the right, the other, dimmer and more white reflection at another angle, is from the full SF moon... The second screenshot below is from ground level, on the dark side of the ball. The missile flame is on the right, the bad SF moon is rising on the left. The edge of both moonshine and missileshine can just be seen from behind the dome here. The two screenshots below have been increased in brightness and contrast for use on blinding white combat flight sim webboards. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Missile take off, showing the illumination from the rocket exhaust. Nice. The SF moon is the other bright thing seen beyond the dome. I like. Ramp up the vis distance. Under the right Enviro grafix settings and game time (sunset/sunrise) the side of the Ball facing the SF sun brilliantly shines in the distance against the terrain.

File Name: Siberian Sun File Submitter: Lexx_Luthor File Submitted: 04 April 2007 File Category: Environmental Mods By introducing additional camera lensflares, I created a very hard and brilliant tiny sun surrounded by a large glare. In optimizing the brightness of the sun and glare, I was pushed to deeply modify much of the Enviro file more than I thought was needed. One result has been the development of a different philosphy on aircraft lighting and its relation to terrain, sky, and cirrus clouds, appropriate to early Cold War strategic operations at high altitude. Another result has been a focus on improving terrain shading at low sun elevation angles. Included are a number of Enviro files with varying levels of changes, two grafix tga files, and instructions to get started. This is an experimental mod and will be continually developed for my own use, but with some work can be adapted to any taste for any use by anyone. I don't know where to start here, as this goes far beyond just the sun effect. I've started a thread at the ThirdWire webboard with screenshots and will try to describe what I'm doing. If any are interested, it would be helpful if you poast your changes to your Enviro system and screenshots in the ThirdWire thread. ThirdWire Siberian Sun thread ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=25572#25572 Several topics will be covered as listed below; all of them related to each other which requires a tricky balance among them to optimize the overall environmental effect. Sky colours. Intense sun and large sun glare. Terrain shadowing at low sun elevation angles. Sun glare effect on cirrus clouds and new contrails. Ambient lighting, and direct sun lighting and sun reflections on aircraft. Appearance of aircraft, objects, and exhaust/weapon effects against the terrain and blue sky. Moonlight effects on all the above. * INSTRUCTIONS * The project assumes the latest SF1 version (currently, v.08.30.06) and the WoV/WoE equivalents. Extract into a seperate folder for downloads. Then copy the 3 Enviro files and the two tga files into the sim Flight folder. To select an Enviro file to test with, rename it Environmentsystem. In the game grafix options menu, Camera Lens Flares must be turned ON for the Siberian sun to work, although in each Enviro file listed below at the location of the lensflare data, there are instructions on how to turn OFF the normal camera lensflares if desired while still using the new sun effect. The included Enviro files are... Environmentsystem-0 --- Fully modded Siberian Sun Enviro file as developed currently, with full functionality of the stock Enviro file except the old sun. Environmentsystem-1 --- the stock ThirdWire Enviro file with only the Siberian sun added, and the ThirdWire sun taken out. The hard intensity of the Siberian sun effect is rather washed out by the bright sky colours of the stock Enviro file, so... Environmentsystem-2 --- the above Enviro-1 file with my current changes to the sunheight environment colour blocks (...[Day], [Day1], [Twighlight2], etc...). This offers darker sky colours so allows a relatively more intense sun effect. In the fully changed Enviro-0, I use a new star tga file (ss-Star), and added changes to the stock [stars] data block. One may easily return to the stock Star tga file or the stock star Enviro data if desired. If you are now running a modded Enviro file, re-name it Environmentsystem-sav or otherwise BACK IT UP so you still have it. Click here to download this file

Yeaps, and C5's Cold War downloads [ http://www.column5.us/aircraft.shtml ] are in 7z format. best ... its GNU and BSD liscense which is way too cool.

7z mix of GNU and BSD, my bad!! I don't know where to get the -28 bomber version. I forgot. If I get the WoE, I'd add it to the game (F-5A too, assuming emergency mass production in that scenario, should be Awsim fun).

-28P at Major Lee's place here ~> http://www.majorleesaerodrome.net/ under the SF stuff, aircraft, etc... I'd back up all aircraft onto CD, then make more backups. They should fit if you zip them up. I use 7zip. Here, its GNU liscense which is pretty cool ~> http://www.7-zip.org/ column5 uses it for his/her Cold War downloads, its smaller than zip and rar, and its GNU.

That said, it may be possible to find a 3D object of roughly the right size to add to the belly as pylons. Make them zero-strength jammers in the weapon data file, so you won't select them while selecting other weapons.

Forget the pylons. You never see them during gameplay at these combat speeds. I wipped up a MiG Ye-152M using THE PASKO Su-11 model with some Tornado drop tank "weapons" making the fat fuselage spine. The MiG had a centerline drop tank, the Su had twin under belly tanks on either side of centerline. So I got two pylons on either side of where there should be one pylon. I didn't bat one eyelash over it (don't have R-80 missiles either). Just hang the rockets on the belly at the correct position.

This is interesting. B-58 low level testing undetectable by Air Defense Command caught the attention of the Soviets. BabelFish translatation from ~ http://pvo.guns.ru/s125/index.htm ZENITH ROCKET SYSTEM S-125 (Sa-3 GOA) : : By this time appeared communications about the event, which was being taken place very far from the Astrakhan steppes. In THE USA was carry out the experiment, in course of which during October 1959 bomber B-58 "Hustler" with the full bomb load started in the region of the fort Of uerton and flew over through entire North America from the east to the West to the base Edwards. With this B-58 passed about 2300km at the height of 100-150 m with an average speed of 1100km/h and produced "successful bombing". Aircraft flew without the identification marks, the identification system of "friend-foe" was opened, but on entire route B-58 not it was discovered by the well equipped radar air defense posts of North American continent. This flight again demonstrated, to what extent the need for the low-altitude complex PVO - AIR DEFENSE was great. Therefore even with the presence it is as before insufficient reliable fuse and the nonfulfillment of requirements on the minimum height of the beaten purposes, complex S-125 with the rocket V-600P was adopted to the armament on 21 June, 1961, by the resolution by the CC CPSU and the Council of Ministers OF USSR №561-233. : :

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autom...ode=sst&id=3977 File Name: **UPDATE 1.3** 300t -- 30Mt Nuclear Weapon Effects File Submitter: Lexx_Luthor File Submitted: 29 Jan 2007 File Updated: 18 Sep 2007 File Category: Weapons Mods/Skins Update 1.3 fixes a sloppy and titanic blunder in 300kt late cloud effects -- the flat clouds spread across the map at weapon detonation, which is badly wrong. More in the update details section below. The B-47 screenshot shows 300kt late cloud effect as it should be. Updates 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 are listed at the bottom of this page. Included are nuclear weapon grafix effects from the initial double peak pulse to simplified late cloud development, and most major things in between, spanning a time of about 1/20 second to several hours, depending on yield. No weapons are included, but only visual grafix to be set up for use by your weapons. Surface targeted warhead effects (for bombs, ASMs) are modelled for 3kt, 30kt, 300kt, 3Mt, and 30Mt. Low airburst only -- see the weapondata "Add To" file. AAM and SAM airburst effects are modelled for 300t, 3kt, 30kt, 300kt, and 3Mt. ** The latest Bunyap Weapons Pack is required for the use of two grafix files contained in that pack -- the SMOKE3 and SMOKE4 tga files . This pack is found here at the CombatAce. PROJECT USE PRE-REQUISITES: (1) Know how to work the sim's conventional weapons and the Weapon Editor. This editor and some basic tutorials are found here at the CombatAce. (2) Know how to work the Cat Extractor to extract several encrypted text files for editing. This extractor is found here at the CombatAce. This project is designed and optimized for gameplay of hypothetical early Cold War era strategic strike and air defence operations on a massive scale, and will require a few simple, but very profound, adjustments to the sim to work well. One example why: Visible ranges to grafix effects can approach 1000 kilometers, and in one effect, far beyond. This project works with the stock original game fully patched. However, this project was designed with the author's personal Environmentsystem file and a CRT monitor. I have no clue what this project's effects look like on LCD monitors during day or night missions. Possible future tweaks, possible bugg fixxes, discussion of modeling methods, answers to questions, improving the effects and their ease of use for others, and discussion of what is being modelled can be found at the ThirdWire webboard at the link below. ThirdWire thread ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=3970 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *UPDATE 1.1 CONTENTS* Fixed some faults in the KT/MT FireBall to HighCloud-1 transitions, especially for KT030. All Pulse and SkyGlow emitters are set to 50% larger in the effects text files (no changes were made to any tga grafix files). Tweaked some Visibility Distances. Tweaked some later HighClouds for KT/MT effects. Made FireBall particles turn a more deep red near the end of their lifetime. Too red? Tell at the ThirdWire thread. Set the FlightEngine.ini's FarClipDistance to 5000000.0. This fixes bad flickering of large yield SkyGlows seen from very long distances. Doubled the rate of GroundCloud emission. And, a few other minor tweaks I don't recall right now. Additional modding tips in the Install text file. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **UPDATE 1.2 CONTENTS** Removed all files for my personal Enviro mods, as the New Sun effect did not seem to work properly when I recently patched up to the latest Patch (new sun caused black hole in the sky for example). Enviro mod and *new* new sun and star effects will have to be offered seperately for better download support. This has taught me a lesson to be fully Patched with everybody else before releacing any mods. I seemed to have found that the sim's custom Effects Details grafix option must be set to MEDIUM or HIGH. At the LOW setting, some important nucular effects will not show. Fixed a minor but potentially confusing Flight Engine file instruction regarding FarClip distances. ------------------------------------------------------- **UPDATE 1.3 CONTENTS** Fixed a devastating error in the KT300 flat clouds that I failed to catch. I had it working fine, but used the KT300 flatclouds to "experiment" with the flat layers as general weather clouds spread wide across the map, and becoming visible just after weapon detonation. I "forgot" to change it back to normal before uploading at CombatAce. This was sloppy. It works correctly now...I think. Click here to download this file

Slowly getting there. Finding new methods.

A close analysis of a recently obtained photograph indicate the Ussians are producing a new strategic bomber with potentially very high speed capability. You have deceived our country and our PVO. Our PVO needs MiG-25s as much as it does bread and water. We need MiGs, not Ilyushins. This is your last warning! Angry telegram sent by Khrushchev, modded from ~ http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/mig3/kuybyshev.html Thanks for the sneak pic NGHENGO!

Getting there...this is more what I wanted. I am using strictly lensflare methods, taking over lensflares to make sun. Problem: Below is the same exact sun method, but with the stock Environment file. Not good, so I will have to offer a more stock-Enviro adapted sun, brighten it up perhaps, or offer a radical Enviro file with for use with the new sun. To work properly, this new sun is heavily dependent on (for StrikeFighters) traditionally non-sun related Enviro colour and brightness variables. The stock Enviro file models the very low altitude hazy summer sky. My enviro file models either (1) low altitude clear blue winter sky, or (2) very high altitude sky -- summer or winter -- no matter the conditions season or visibility near the surface as the high altitude sky is always clear and blue. Unfortunately, SF offers no way to mod environment appearance dependent with altitude, although there may be a way, it would be very messy. So I choose something that works year round.

This is what I've got so far, the pic below (may be deleted soon as I want to clean out my photobucket). The sun effect looked a bit better a few days ago, a tad more yellow in the glare core, but I've been playing around with it, making some compromises. It should be an ongoing update thing, as there is a huge number of things to experiment with here, and I'm nowhere near fully exporing the possibilities of this. That alone should indicate I'm using a very unusual method. Prepare to offer lots of feedback to help get this working decently for others. I just plugged in a spare monitor I have, and everything looks totally different -- my eye is tuned to this now, perhaps I'm worrying too much, but I have made mistakes before. I see I've been optimizing my stuff for my monitor and its settings. I wonder what it looks like for others? Sunrise. Terrain is a pinch too dark, but that's another issue.

A -17 cockpit would be useful for Migs 15 and 19 as well, and others (Pasko's and C5's La-15). An additional cockpit version with a radar scope added would be useful for the radar equipped MiG17s and MiG-19s. It wouldn't be totally realistic -- these had wider cockpits for the large radar boot -- but I've been using one of the early MiG-21 pits with radar disabled and the scope painted over for the 15/17/19 day fighters, but the radar is available for when flying the night fighter versions. A 17 pit version with radar would be even better. But, to be honest, that extra effort for a radar version would really be best if TK could support classical strategic ops in the future, so I'm more than Happy with the MiG-21 pit!!