Lexx_Luthor

littlesmoke, you seem to be getting working contrails. I've never gotten them to work with the default grafix Blendop mode, and had to change it. My contrails always cut off when seen from most viewing angles. Your multiple contrails in your pic show many viewing angles to the contrails.

Mirage IVA would be something new for The Sims, never seen before. However, we really need TK to support some new features, for example, like placeble and functional ground radar stations that can make intruding aircraft more detectable to defending AI interceptors -- say -- if a plane is within ground radar coverage, its "visibility distance" is increased by a factor determined by the ground radar's in-game performance data. Something very simplified like that.

jtin:: I'll probably poast a thread at ThirdWire Modder's Corner about what to do to chop the cockpits. Your poast here did remind me to backup my new findings about this. That was the one thing I have not done yet, and a "USAFMTL-esque" style hard drive crash (a crash with no backup) would have set me back to having nothing. Thanks for making me think. It took quite a bit of work with a hex editor to get the results I desired, and I wouldn't want to do it again.

Alright, enough! Time to find out something. I had "read" that the B-70 cruised at its design speed without afterburner. The afterburners were otherwise used for two (2) reasons... (1) The extra thrust was needed to punch through the *higher* drag at the *lower* speeds below the wave-riding Mach 3 speed, as the aerodynamics were optimized for that Mach 3 low drag wave riding cruise speed. (2) In case one or two engines failed, afterburning could be used to maintain the top cruise speed. If the bomber somehow got below the wave-riding optimized top speed, and with loss of some engines, then it could not achieve that Mach 3 speed again as it did not have the power to satisfy reason (1) poasted above. What makes me think this could be true is that the B-70 was supposed to directly replace the B-52 for long range SAC operations. That to me says non-afterburning Mach 3 cruise. All this was possible only because of the wave rider concept optimized for Mach 3 at high altitude, thus true supercruise long before the F-22 superHudMFDjetfighter of Teh Combat Flight Sims. It still sounds crazy but just crazy enough to be possibly true. Am I making this up? Yes? No?

Just a PluGG for getting Wings Over Vietnam. Example -- chopped A-7 cockpit used inside Pasko's and Team's stunningly 3D B-58 external model crew compartment... GET TEH WOV -- The ThirdWire NAVY cockpits may never again become available.

You can follow the discussion at the link below, where Dueces dragged me kicking and wailing through Terrain Editor when I was just starting out. It does work well once you get into it, and there's an updated version. There's alot of little bizzare tricks to get the TE to work, but works very well when you figure it out. If you pursue this, you can add to the TE Learning Thread if you wish, and bump it up a bit on the board. TE Learning Thread ~> http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=8781

A number of 3rd Party radars were porked in a recent patch early last year. What you do, is convert the radar tga file/files to bmp files. The Su-15 has only a blank tga file, so any black painted bmp file will do. Other aircraft radars have green grids and stuff on the tga files, so require conversion of tga to bmp. This was Tristan's idea, and it works. Other aircraft that I recall are F-111 series, some say MiG-21 series, etc... Page 3 of Boopidoo's Su-15 releace thread ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p...sc&start=16

Thanks csb. Get a limited "free" PhotoBucket account, I am amazed at how it Rules. They now auto generate the pic code for placing into forum poasts. If you must, start a thread here asking how to poast pics. The same way works for all webboards. ~> http://photobucket.com/

Try moving the default text file out of the folder. There's another default file, not a text file, and maybe the game reads that to generate another text file if the text file is not there. Dunno. Tip for the future -- make a New Folder in the Controls folder, re-name it Copy of Controls, and copy the default files into that extra folder. D:\SF\Controls\Copy of Controls ... that second folder will always have what you like backed up and the game won't touch it. That won't protect you from hard drive failure. To do that, you need all your SF stuff on another drive or CD/DVD....or floppies.

John:: Check for spelling errors in your weapondata file. That hits alot of folks, especially in computer programming, and Finance/Banking too. One spelling error or dropped zero and its blown. If that's not it, you mangled something else. What files? What changes? csb:: csb, just to make sure, you do not have to Delete any lensflares in your Enviro file, just convert the [027] "lensflare-which-is-not-a-lensflare" as you noted and follow the other Install file's New Sun instructions, provided I crafted those instructions correctly. Camera lensflares and the [027] "lensflare-which-is-not-a-lensflare" effect are independent -- Only the camera lensflares respond to the Lensflare ON/OFF option, [027] does not (the proof its not really a lensflare). I'd love to see others' screenshots of New Sun to make sure its working for others, or if I porked the instructions. Camera lensflares, and new SF sun, working together....I normally don't use lensflares either, but I turned them on for this display.

hehe thanks. Got screenshots? 30,000 feet? pffft 30Mt cloud tops out at maybe 150,000 feet, and lasts for a few hours game time. I'm slightly increasing the effects here, for an update. You can make the small yield effects far more detailed for tactical ops, but I assume dozens and dozens of these large cloud formations be visible across the map under a strategic warfare environment, so I try to economize on the number of "emitter particles" and stuff. Tip:: Something I naturally "forgot" to include in the install advice ... you can ramp up the game's external Free Camera altitude limit of 100,000 feet (if I recall that). Its in the FlightEngine.ini file. I set mine to... [WorldSettings] SectorWidth=20 SectorHeight=20 SectorMaxObject=256 Border=20100 MinHeight=0.5 MaxHeight=1E+6 Thats in meters, thus, for me, 1000km. And to make use of this extra distance, scale up the camera translation speed/acceleration. Advice for that are in the Add To FlightEngine install advice. At least I remembered to include that. I also "forgot" to put in the ThirdWire webboard link...had the "~>" dropped into the file, but I didn't include the link. I'll do it here... Linky ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=3970 ... I could use some critiques and advice. More info I "forgot" to offer -- In all the nuke effects files, ALL lenght values (all distances, Emission Volume, etc...) are in meters, often with "calculator style" scientific notation of E+3 to readily allow mental conversion of the base to kilometers. Times are in seconds, Table-Time values are decimal fractions of particle lifetime. Emission Rates are not rates but their multiplicative inverses (time periods), in seconds, between particle emissions. I'm not sure what units the Emission Velocity uses, but I played with values until it seemed to work for me. For those thinking of using the nucks in WoE campaign, if it can handle them, think of adding MontyCZ's Yak-28 bomber. Its at colum5's pure Cold War downloads, on page 3 ~> http://www.column5.us/aircraft.shtml Somebody was working a TSR.3 (or was it .2?), you know the cancelled British supersonic bomber. F-111 may also be useful in WoE. F-111 series by the Vark Team is available at CombatAce. Amazing F-111 cockpit by Mike Werner here ~> http://www.schmidtwerner.de/products/f-111_pit.html I always thought F-5A and F-5E would be interesting additions to WoE, its also at C5's pure Cold War downloads, and with a very immersive pure daylight fighter F-5 cockpit.

Wow, I didn't know this thread was here. Must be auto generated. Hazen:: With my Enviro file, or your Enviro file? You may be missing a tga file, or a badly spelled file name in some ini file. Vikingo:: I don't have WoE, but bigal and Veltro have, and they got the nukes working in WoE. That was a big relief to me. Be sure to know how to work the Weapon Editor, and how to access the MissileObject.ini file hidden in the ObjectData cat file. Pay attention to the artificial fuzing distance instructions -- hopefully we can use a more natural method. Also, the nuke warhead types are not fully functional in the SF series weapons, so use High Explosive but with very large explosive mass, say 1E+10 or 1E+11 and work up or down from there as you desire, depending on weapon yield.

Tip...to see the neatest thing, let AI drop a bomb about 10km away from you -- depending on yield -- the larger the yield, the further away for best visual effect. And change mission time to night. The early fiery effects work best in darkness.

Hey Veltro, you got into the nucular club. Thanks for the screenshot --- I need more groundcloud puffs. I need to decrease the EmissionRate for the groundcloud. The variable is mis-named, as its not a rate which would be emissions per second, but time period between emissions. To increase the number of groundcloud puffs, you decrease the EmissionRate number.

Interesting stuff. Test ~~> look head on, with smoke trail, engage afterburners. The smoke turns off when afterburners are running. See if framerate goes up and down with the afterburner on and off. BE SURE to allow time for the smoke trail to dissipate and regenerate. It lasts some time. Particle density. Head on they all overlap, that is interesting. I *may* have noticed the same thing in making stem clouds. Looking from the side, okay. Taking external camera to the top and looking down the stem interior, lower framerate. I didn't conduct any experiments with this, just hazy kinda memory about this. What happens when you look tail on, from behind the smoke trail? One thing you might could do is reduce the EmissionRate of the particles.

Hi Veltro. Did you find MissileObject file? That's possibly what you are missing. You have to extract it from the ObjectData cat file found in Object folder. CombatAce has the extractor tool. If that's not the problem, we keep going until you are up and Nuking. Hang in there!

What changes?

mmm, if its there, check in the ObjectData cat file and extract it. You made some mistakes... (1) KT300Effects ... not KT300Effect (2) As far as we know, the Fission (or Fusion) warhead types don't entirely work. Use High Explosive, and use, say, 1E+11 explosive mass and work up or down from there to your desire. See the thread below, by Showtime. We finally traced a problem to the HE mass... Weapon Editor, by Showtime ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=3961 Eventually I'll be doing some experiments and figure out what high explosive masses are needed for the various warhead yields. I suggest 200m fuzing distance. All the KT/MT grafix are designed for 200m.

Man that's cool. kout if possible make sure the model has a working interior canopy framework, as this would be excellent to slip a cockpit inside the 3D model. The Valiant/Victor series and MiG-25, for examples that I recall now, seem to have some kind of one-sided canopy framework that vanishes from the inside. Check out the inside of the stock An-12 crew compartment. That's the most interesting of all, along with the amazing 3D canopy framework on the B-58 model's crew compartment.

Hi Vel. Tell us what you did. Like, what weapon are you using, as just one example of relevant information. I only have the SF and WoV. I hope this thing works in the WoE.

grrh can't find it now, but there is a Bomb Sights mod by dfang here that you want. It works. It involves briefly turning off the cockpit view which leaves a large bombing sight low down, normally obscured by the cockpit.

I've always enjoyed the space stragery or space empire games, although there are none out now I would recommend. Zip. You can take a look at an upcoming small team production here, seems interesting from a "realism" viewpoint -- Horizon ~> http://www.l3o.com/

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

The current -25 is very nice. The recon version had a drop tank, and just in case it could have worked, and PVO needed the extra range in a shooting war, I use the B-58 bomb pod for drop tank (about 5000 liters), assuming this would even work for the interceptor version. Its actually looks fairly close to the real thing used by the recon version. I use Mago's blue/green cockpit, the one without gun camera. There is an issue with the skin on the inboard external intake walls, that looks bad from the cockpit, but this is fixed by painting dark a tiny spot on the skin (looks good now, see below), its a bear to find that spot though, and I don't remember where it is now.

That's good news, as I've been wondering if the ThudWire NAVY cockpits would vanish forever with the end of WoV. TK should sell these aircraft+cockpits seperately -- both online sales and old fashioned mail order that successful businesses have used for a hundred years -- as these cockpits are very nice. For example of what can be done, below I am using a hex editor to chop the canopy frame of the A-7 cockpit for use inside the incredibly detailed B-58 external model's crew compartment... ~ http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p...asc&start=8