Lexx_Luthor

Original extractor: For unpacking lots of files, copy the CAT file into a new folder and extract what you need there. No mess. The only thing there is what you extracted. I was thinking of extracting different types of CAT data into different folders for storage -- decals go here, aircraft stuff go there -- for easy access without later using the extractor. Just never got round to it.

Nice pic nice plane thanks for sharing that. Man that is awsim. Maybe someday some The Sim developer will get some weird ideas in his/her head about that plane.

21R seems fine here....except... What's wrong? **If** its a model grafic problem, this bird came with the new "open cockpit" thing and one may try setting FALSE in cockpit.ini (the new near clip distance can be experimented with also). You can lose alot of the cockpit OR lose external model. This open pit does not seem like what I hoped it would be.

Yikes 71.4 71.4 POLYS 53024 43.5 43.5 POLYS 90428 frames-1/frames-2 = 1.71 polys-2/polys-1 = 1.64 That might be cpu, not grafix card. Is this Correct Thinking?

What's wrong with it?

I figure all addon aircraft need a review. Anybody still getting yellow/red sunset sky glow under CLEAR weather? You know, the half of the sky toward the setting sun turns yellowish or orange. Mine is GONE. This is what I get now. I'm trying to figure what happened. Lots of sunset sky colours in SF and original WoV. No more.

I did that. Move Desert.cat and have your old SF terrains point to that. It seems to work at first look, but be careful here. There's probably a MUCH better way to do that. I lost the sunset/sunrise sky brightening toward the sun. In all SF, this was only seen under Clear weather settings, now its gone from that too. ie...as the sun gets lower in the west, you expect the western sky to turn brighter, yellowish, but it does not anymore.I'm still looking for something I missed. AI IS VERY NICE lesse... extend extend/unload missile evasion RQ RHM attacke (rear quarter, this is new info) etc... Noticed an AI MiG-19 "extending" away from a fight, in full afterburner, kept going like Duracell bunny, even after running out of fuel. Only saw that once so far though.

Switching over to WoV now, all I ever used is SF. Never used WoV except for mining it for goodies. Trying to wake up sleepy WoV is a nightmare. Dumped my SF terrains into WoV+, including Desert.cat. Seems to work.

Wow, later. And just in time to miss the PATCH too.

mmm, one of the points Tom Cooper notes is that the MiG-17s could not manuever well at high altitude -- well nobody can really...although its said the B-36 could out manuever F-86, but I might assume that was early F-86s. As far as radar guided AAMs like Matra, they may also have better guidance performance at high altitudes with less environmental deception I am guessing, although IR heads would also benefit from consistent always clear dry air. I wish TK could have some altitude variable for missiles. For my campaign, I will have to configure all missiles for high altitude. I'm thinking a high altitude campaign in the late 1950s would be heavily missile oriented so I think, and so favour high speed slash and run attacks in general.

Later versions were totally worthless at that time.

Don't use afterburner unless you really need it. The old crapp jets eating fuel in afterburner offer you a new gaming challenge in combat flight sims never seen before. Learn it. When I got the Strikefighters, for my first real "dogfight" gaming test I, always a contrarian, setup Su-7 as flyable, against AI B-57. I was that much a noob. I wanted a blasting afterburner like in the All In Wonder digital superHUDjetsims. I nearly ran out of fuel within a few minutes. I had always known about Su-7 having maybe 5 minutes endurance on afterburner at low level, but I never expected to SEE IT IN THE SIMS. So this totally surprised me.

AIM-9B in combat worked perfectly, reliable, and was a war winner as far back as the 1950s. The pop myth of poor performing AIM-9B in combat may be the largest Pink Elephant on The Sims forums, being as they all focus on the "popular" (lacking a better word) Vietnam War.

Right. A-Team has a fairly recent F-84 setup: a Kesselbrut dedicated F-84G instrument panel inside RussoUK's F-84G external model. This may be the FIRST lab experiment at doing this among the *real* SF modders.......my amatuer hacks are all based on the work the real 3D artists here. Now, the original Russo F-84G model detail is NOT specifically optimized for this, although it has enough crew compartment 3D detail so it is GOOD for this. I figure in the future, external models can be higly optimized for this method, making "cockpits" more widely available. Basically, it blurs the distinction between the traditional industry standard "cockpit" and "aircraft model" dichotomy found in The Sims. In real aircraft, cockpits are not "seperate" things from the aircraft, they are part of the aircraft. Since doing my stargetic hacks, I've found that if I fly "normal cockpit" like I'm supposed to, I have a detached feeling from the aircraft, not part of the aircraft, not inside the aircraft. Inside the cockpit yes -- inside the aircraft NO! But with the stargetic or "open cockpit" method, I "feel" inside the aircraft. I NEVER REALIZED THIS until I started flying inside external models. I can't go back now. As Darth Vader might say...its too late for me now.

Right. Is the open cockpit method being used by FE modders as a standard now? Do they insert instrument panels inside the external model? Is that how TK did it in stock FE? If so, there's hope that this can be applied to a future generation of jet and WW2 prop mods in TK's sim, over the long term. I figure basic instrument panels can be made for aircraft that have extra 3D detail in the pilot compartment. This would ease the pain of cockpit makers...although some of that pain would be transferred to external aircraft modellers.

The Luftwaffe would have wanted something like R530 in 1944.

Does the WW1 sim out-of-box, and the FE modders, use the new open cockpit method as a standard now?

Yea, no SAMs.

THANKS FC The WoI "open cockpit" method: is that a standard in FE, and do the WW1 modders use it? My guess is they have to, or they have to re-model almost the entire WW1 aircraft for cockpit use. For WW1 planes, most of the airplane was visible from the cockpit. F4U Corsair had in-cockpit "wings" made to replace the external model's wings to get around the impossibility of correct player positioning in TK's original method while preserving prop disc out front. I think its no coincidence that TK's original method of cockpit/player positioning corresponded to the era in military aviation -- roundabout 1960 -- when the least amount of airplane was visible from the cockpit, and where incorrect player cockpit positioning would not be easily noticed.

MiG-21F orbit re-entry. I used KMD to setup flyable Out-Of-Box Mirage Factory MiG-21F at about 200km altitude, 500knots "speed" to start (I assume ground speed). Airspeed indicator said zero. Auto-canopy opened -- canopy opening seems to depend on airspeed and there is none up there. I slowly started spinning round multiple axis, faster and faster, while losing altitude, airspeed going positive and negative, canopy opening and closing, red out black out red out, tumbling every way... Finally, descent began to slow, and about 2km altitude, I pulled out. TK has all the atmospheric physics there, but not the airframe stress. At the start, you have to close throttle since the engine data given this aircraft makes it burn up if there is no air and you explode. In the FlightEngine file, MaxHeight (in meters) must be set above the stock 35000 meter game height boundary.

SidDogg:: Don't see many Skywarriors. I got this to work...

mmm, that is weird. Poast your weapon station DATA.ini stuff. "edited several lines" sounds innocent enough, but who knows? They all say that. I don't have the WoI so maybe its a weird thing I've never come across.

Since TK went all HUD on us, I've been afraid he was going to drop the ball. But it looks like he's still bouncing it.

Nope. The Sims already have that all sewn up.