Lexx_Luthor

If any are interested, its possible to ease the workload of starting the game. The Menu system can be changed to allow ZERO mouse movement until you are in the cockpit, and rapid click-click-click (mouse stationary) by reducing to almost zero the molasses slow "image fade" that PC computer game developers seem to enjoy frustrating customers with. I can start SF and get into the cockpit without ever looking at the monitor. I set my most commonly used menu functions --- Single Mission/Accept/Fly -- at the center of the screen where the mouse position defaults at game startup. When I hear the grafix card reset the monitor, three extremely rapid clicks without moving the mouse and the mission starts loading. For exiting the game, all the Exit buttons are placed in the same spot on screen just below the above 3. Three rapid clicks and I'm out of there. Having to test a million things, I quickly got tired of the SF menu that made you move the mouse all the way across the screen and back again for every step, and the slow image fades were irritating to wait for.

WRENCH // Crew --------------------------- : : [RadarNose] SystemType=PILOT_COCKPIT SeatID=2 PilotModelName=17PF Position=0.0,3.90,-0.11 : : Works perfect. Just put the 17PF lod and 17PFU bmp in the Aircraft folder. No loadouts, no jammers, no editors. However, with this method, the 17PFU lod won't use the 17PFU skin. I just noticed, Macaddie's PF nose lod is about double the size of Pasko's original PFU nose lod. For some reason, the PFU lod just won't use the skin and goes naked. There is a workaround: Use the PFU but also a PF (which works with skin). Best to move the PFU nose back a tiny bit to minimized the shimmering. This is how I tried the -17PFU... [RadarNose] SystemType=PILOT_COCKPIT SeatID=2 PilotModelName=17PFU Position=0.0,3.88,-0.11 SeatModelName=17PF SeatPosition=0.0,3.90,-0.11 Just a little bit of shimmering between the two LOD's happens inside the intake. Not too bad.

Shucks, even I don't know what an "alpha channel" is. Shin -- Here at the CombatAce, download Cellinsky's Weather Mod, and use one of his/her totally *clear* replacement HORIZONCLOUD tga files and use it in place of the hazy "glass" or something tga file in the Cockpit folder (rename the Hcloud tga to whatever the Talon "glass" tga is called) -- keep the original tga in case you want it again. If there is no Talon "glass" tga file, the plane could be using the stock CANOPYGLASS tga file which the game reads from Object cat file (so its not needed in Cockpit folder). Put one of Cellinsky's clear tga's into the Cockpit file and rename it CANOPYGLASS. These cases take care of maybe 95% of the times this comes up. The other 5% may require more stuff, like chopping the canopy glass from the cockpit LOD file like we chop canopy frames. Sometimes (ArmourDave Su-17) eliminating the hazy "glass" eliminates some neat stuff too, in this case, the Su-17 electric canopy de-ice wiring. The trade is more than worth it.

Okay vulkan... Step By Step -- A-4B cockpit inside L-39. Two versions for student and instructor flying position. Bottom of page 2 at this thread ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p...asc&start=0 Front pilot, and rear pilot...

Hi vulkan... "chop" means cut off -- we cut the canopy frame, and use the external 3D model for canopy frame. I offered a ThudWire link above. I will be slowly developing this idea using some nice examples. Please go to the thread to ask questions. Thank You!!! *Warning* -- this type of thing requires a few deep changes in the sim to work -- you will see when you study the ThudWire thread in detail.

Howah, player control of ships. Sea battles. I never thought of that.

Okay fellas/fellattes. Some fun stuff. I chopped the A-4 pit, and moved it inside the L-39 model. Front pilot, with gunsight. I don't know how the pilot aims with the canopy frame in front of him/her, so I'm just playing with the idea to show what is possible. Front pilot, looking back. You can see the rear canopy frame, and just barely, the rear pilot. Flying as rear pilot, with front pilot visible. I didn't add a seat, and I didn't add a gunsight AND I left the gunsight pipper on the front pilot's head -- making sure the student flies properly. Rear pilot, looking back. The back cockpit wall here is the L-39 external model. It looks like the A-4 back wall. So, if you fly with full A-4 cockpit from the rear pilot seat, the back wall is realistic. I just started a thread at ThudWire about how to do all this ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=4410 .

You also need to do this in the cockpitseat section... Instrument[029]=Move1

Sag22:: Man I wish I could tile. I have the sweetest map of SW Pacific centered on Celebes and a map centered on the Lake Baikal region, both maps 1500km size, and a huge wonderfully working Texture List for the Baikal map. The SW Pacific has brutal volcanic mountain terrain - and if there is one thing good about TK's AI programming, its how the AI can handle brutal terrain elevations at very low levels, unlike in other sims with AI crashing everywhere. But I can't tile.

For A-4B cockpit, add the following to the cockpit.ini file... At the bottom of the [CockpitSeat001] section... Instrument[029]=Move1 Instrument[030]=Move2 Instrument[031]=Move3 Instrument[032]=Move4 Instrument[033]=Move5 At the bottom of the cockpit.ini file, add... [Move1] Type=AIRSPEED_INDICATOR NodeName=sides MovementType=POSITION_Z Set[01].Position=-99 Set[01].Value=0.0 Set[02].Position=-99 Set[02].Value=1.0 This takes out much of the back area, but also some side grafix. continuing... [Move2] Type=AIRSPEED_INDICATOR NodeName=sight MovementType=POSITION_Z Set[01].Position=your choice Set[01].Value=0.0 Set[02].Position=your choice Set[02].Value=1.0 This allows you to raise or lower the sight. The Position units are in meters, I think. [Move3] [Move4] etc...whatever you wish to move or experiment with. To temporarily disable a Move, make it [xMove2] for example. The mis-spelling makes the game ignore the Move. Try this and see what happens. It may be possible to take out just the back area while the left/right cockpit sides stay. Or maybe not. The answer is found in the cockpit LOD file, but you need to download a hex editor and figure it out. Doing this gets pretty deep, but the results -- generic cockpits for just about any aircraft or helicoptor or even ground vehicle if desired is possible.

Thanks nele. PVO is going to need JATO in my SF mold because the airfields, especially forward airfields, will be under constant threat from SAC bombers and long range escorts / fighter bombers. Smaller airfields should be longer lived airfields -- hence the need for standard use of JATO. I'm exploring La-9 ramjets because they did work, and the tough penalties may be acceptable if it means La-9 can catch high altitude lightened B-29s or early B-50s until better things become available such as MiG-9. MiG-13, or I-250N, I was not planning to use. Yefim Gordon says the thing just didn't work out, and the Derwent and Nene were becoming available to designers. 50 were ordered but VVS and later NAVY cancelled. Apparently, VVS documents say MiG-13 was taken out of service, but Yefim sees these as the few (about 8?) aircraft made for Stalin's 1946 flypast (canclled by weather). Still, it seems possible the VRDK was simply never given high resources, so assuming throwing more resources could make it work, theoretically. The mixed prop/jet compressor concept worked for the Ryan Fireball, and it would be nice to see it used. Lots of neat stuff available to experiment with assuming the 1947-1967 PVO finds the same motivation as the western Luftwaffe did in 1943-1945.... Yak-19 (my favorite jet of this era, use Dassault Ouragon model, add afterburner and other huge data file changes) La-9 with ramjets. MiG I-224 ... this is a very interesting high altitude interceptor and might could be made in small numbers for 1947, or maybe just a later Yak-9PD type of variant. La-15 (model by Pasko, assume MiG-15 eats up all VK-1 production, or VK-1 factories destroyed, etc... I have much dynamic campaign programming to do later!!) Aleksyev I-211 ... lets assume Lyulka TR-1s have the same "reliability" as the Luftwaffes' BMW's and Jumo's which were used operationally during wartime. MiG-9 with afterburning ... I'm thinking that one campaign variable would be Britain selling Nenes. If not, what would happen? Another campaign variable could be the licensing issue over Merlin engines in F-82. okay.... MiG-13. A campaign variable may allow a rare appearance of a few examples of this bird. Use Polikarpov I-16 external model! Yak-15 etc... All the way to using a single R-15 in Ye-152M in about 1964 or so -- I added a big fat fuselage spine to Pasko's Su-11 by using large Tornado drop tanks. We saw the Luftwaffe was willing to use unreiliable engines also in desperation. The models I need most are... Yak-19 Tu-128 B-45 B-36 B-70 (wip) F-101 R-80 missile MiG I-224 etc...endless list. Alot of fun might be a fantasy IL-28I with data file changed for nose turret for interception. History and things like historical use of JATO can only be a guide here, as I am exploring the most Fantasy story of them all -- strategic nucular warfare which both US and Soviet air forces devoted most of their budgets preparing for during the early Cold War years (along with US Army's huge strategic SAM budget). And of course, the MiG-25P will play a starring role in the latter stages of a campaign. Thanks nele, your -25P FM is AwSim.

You can also move the "glass" out of the way, far below to never be seen. In the A6A cockpit.ini file, add the following to the bottom of the [CockpitSeat001] section... Instrument[045]=Move1 At the bottom of the file, add this... [Move1] Type=AIRSPEED_INDICATOR NodeName=canopy_glass_front MovementType=POSITION_Y Set[01].Position=-100 Set[01].Value=0.0 Set[02].Position=-100 Set[02].Value=1.0 This moves the "glass" 100 meters below the cockpit position. As I eliminated the problem another way, I am assuming this will work. Try it and if more needs to be moved -- say if there is a canopy_glass_left or something, we can find it and drop it.

Marc, make sure the crew section has double sided canopy struts -- the more 3D the better like B-58 or Tu-16. This allows chopped cockpits to be placed inside the external model. Also, make sure the dark or hazy canopy "glass" is a seperate tga file (thus delete-able), or that the grimy "glass" is not visible from inside the external model. The static dirty/hazy canopy "glass" method of "glass reflection" darkens the external environment light and kills low light level operations such as the Northrop B-2 was especially made for. One sided canopy struts and fixed unremovable "glass" grime/haze are the only two things preventing some really interesting models from having cockpits placed inside their crew areas. (1) The interesting Zeppelin model made for WW1 Sim has nice crew gondola, but a cockpit cannot be placed inside as the gondola windows are fogged over inside and out and this can't be removed without 3DMax. (2) The developing V-bomber series (MiG-25 also) all have one-sided canopy struts for the crew compartments. Move a chopped cockpit inside and the canopy framework vanishes. This is high tragedy. It would be so neat to move, say, a chopped upcoming Buccaneer cockpit into an upcoming Vulcan external model. (3) ThudWire's Tu-22 model has a strange behavior -- nice clear canopy seen from the inside, but vanishes when looking in the forward 30 degree cone. Tu-16 has this, but the vanishing happens looking aft but we all look forward, so Tu-16, with its intense 3D crew compartment, makes for an especially fun bird to fly with a chopped cockpit placed inside. If you have not, use external free camera to explore the inside of the ThudWire An-12 model. Its made to fly almost as-is.

Forgot one -- La-9 with ramjets. I figure no thrust until some solid Mach number and then the thrust builds up in the same style as R-15B here, but remains subsonic. These ramjets could boost speed maybe 100km/hr, but did they offer a useful altitude boost? It would be interesting if we could vary thrust with angle of attack.

Thanks nele. You made me think -- a bonus engine would be best for JATO. Some mods (B-29B, B-35) use engine pods carrying engines (this also causes doubling the contrails but can be fixed). Perhaps, engine pods could have the equivalent of landing gear "max deploy speed" and fall off after takeoff, thus allowing for JATO grafix; something like that. Another fun application would be zero length rocket blastoff from the ZELL (MiG-19, F-100), although giving standard modded aircraft a high nose attitude before launch might not be so fun. nele:: I've read that was the normal peacetime procedure, but they could do the full blast off if needed, particularly from rough wartime airfields.

I haven't tried it yet, but Mirage III cockpit may be the best for J-35.

You can set gravity to negative values also. That is fun, and rather disturbing to see what you have to do to stay near the Earth, and watching the poor AI get caught in the updraft to infinity -- I have modded contrails and FlightEngine file that allow watching such things from hundreds of km distance. You can set the gravity vector so it pulls horizontally in any direction, or combine a small horizontal component with the normal vertical pull, and have a bit of "wind". Not sure it works too well, only tried it once. I guess cos its an acceleration and not a constant speed like a wind, but you had to correct for this gravity "wind." Setting normal down gravity to small values is fun, taking off at 20km/hr, too much lift, takes some time to land.

For deep space operations and very long range combat, far beyond BVR, so far away from the terrain map that it won't be seen, 3D objects could be created for planetary bodies that would have bright and dark sides regarding their position to the SF sun (these could also be added as a backdrop very high in the sky above the terrain in the surface support mod described above). Perhaps the 3D planet objects could be made as a form of combat unit, "armed' with the equivalent of gunner stations, as a way to simulate planetary defenses against approaching spaceships. etc... If done with some originality, either the deep space or surface support mod, or both, could be the most realistic space combat sim ever made. It would be, after all... Space Fighters Project One

With no DEM files for lunar style landscapes, editing a bmp file could create real 3D shadowed craters for a moonlike planetary terain. Harrier~esque thrust vectoring might could be used to offer a way to simulate low altitude thrusting craft supporting combating surface forces. TK already has the stars spot on, except for Orion's belt -- the one star error, and its a whopper. The Enviro file can be made to give SF Sun in a black starry sky. From some old Xen poem... At midnight, the bright sun. etc...

Doc this is really neat. Very interesting indeed. I have the -25 manual in PDF, but I don't read Russian. I recently did experiments with JATO. I used the Mach table to greatly increase thrust below Mach 0.2, and it works to get off the runway in less than a jiffy, and the thrust returns to "normal" as Mach 0.2 is approached. The only problem this may offer far too much thrust when you get into trouble at very low airspeeds, potentially allowing too easy escape from dearly departed flight. But, I like operational abilities from shorter airfields, so I'll be using this. I haven't thought how to do JATO grafix limited by speed though...eww...maybe the vortex grafix methods can offer a clue. -- Doc...you disabled the exhaust of the 2 "bonus" engines, but you forgot the the extra 2 contrails -- (( edit...I think the ExhaustPosition defaults to 0,0,0 if its disabled )).. Four (4) contrails are generated now. and they can all combine to form overly dense trails, and this can effect framerates under some conditions. To make sure these are eliminated, move the bonus engines' exhaust position... ExhaustPosition=1E+9 , 0 , 0 ExhaustPosition=-1E+9 , 0 , 0 This puts the contrails and any other exhaust grafix 1 million kilometers distant, astronomically far beyond grafix rendering distance. This is really neat stuff. What sim offers the ability to explore this, and the upcoming B-70 by NGHENGO with streakeagle on the FM. I hope the Mach 3 modders club grows without limit.

Zip it up, and back it up to CD every few days....two CDs, just to be safe.

Try the 3 values in bold below, it came from the "hardcore" flight model, I think. I'll try to find it here at the CombatAce. Its kinda fun to fly. Look at DampingFactor, set it high like 1.5 or something. I think this makes the bounce stop. ShockStroke=0.15 SpringFactor=2.5 DampingFactor=1.8

mmm.... I don't know, I never had that in my PF .... ...I use the stock ThirdWire MiG-17F, but add the PF and PFU noses, add some avionics -- for now, F-94 avionics and radar for PF, and Pasko's PFU avionics for PFU. I now use streakeagle's or Fubar's "hardcore" -17F data file flight model (forgot who did that).

Okay, my nucs don't change anything in the Enviro file, and in the latest updated nucs, I have taken out the optional Enviro changes as they caused confusion -- they were simply not required and I shouldn't have put them in. That's when I started doing the seperate Siberian Sun mod, which is an Enviro meatgrinder. If I recall, the nucs require only one FlightEngine variable change -- FarClipDistance -- and it does not have to be nearly as large as I make it (see above).

here... Element[02].ElementType=HOLD_EMITTER Element[02].ElementName=SkyGlow-KT030 Element[02].StartTime=10.0 Element[02].StartTimeDeviation=0.0 Element[02].EjectTime=0.1 Element[02].EjectTimeDeviation=0.0 Also, disabling this should let you decrease the radical FarClipDistance=5000000.0 to something more traditional.