Do335

Video for today... infantry combat

hmmm.. You guys probably have long dealings and frustrations with TK but I'm not that sure, because there're plethora of game devs who don't care much about customer input. They have a point since the customers don't always know what they want. I think the thing with SF is the concept of "Lite" doesn't really register. You have games and you have sims but what exactly is sim-Lite. The planes needs cockpits (sim) but no HUD culling (game). There're plenty of AG munition types (sim) but little avionics support (game). AA missiles need switchology and launch parameters (sim) but there're no DLZ launch cues (game). You can run out of fuel (sim) but there's no air refueling (game). There's this awesome dynamic campaign engine (sim) but it's mostly hidden in the background (game). The FMs are mostly solid (sim) but you lack trimming support and realistic sounds to present an immersive in-flight feel (game). etc etc. Dedicated players have long been wanting sim features apparently. TK however seems just intent on sort of the in-between position. Maybe he has a vision and insisted on sticking with it ever since but then SF could be flawed from the start. For myself it's taken me this long to realize what's great about SF and take hold of it but I'm not even your typical western middle-class gamer who's already flooded to other supported games long before. Perhaps TK has finally thought it out and going for the "game" route with the mobile games which is good (for his business). woh I thought it's lost for sure. The infos are back!!!

Yeah me 3. Mostly for the S-99/Bf-109, can't believe I missed it.

And.. still $27 after all these years. Diverted to AI plane pack instead and gonna save up a bit!

Speaking of... should I grab First Eagles while it's still available in light of future WW2 builds? hmmm...

OK thanks KJakker, it's good that it still moves and shoots, usable for some Brit carrier's AA guns that lack a separate pitch node (and hey infantry squads).

What happens if one assigns the yaw and pitch node to the same one?.....

Baffmeister yea it could be a lotta work, but definitely sign me up if you get around to it as I know it'll be fun fly with good FMs. Did a brief stint with A-Team's euro pack but its data is so simplified and amount of ac huge that it becomes an insurmountable task to update it.

oh man, a BoB build is really tempting....

Ah, TK finally realized what era the engine he built is really good at depicting. Tho it doesn't help that his epiphany is a few years late.

Happy birthday Wrench!

Aaarrrgggh! It's finally here! Thank you Wrench, Baffmeister, SkippyBing-wherever you're and Co.!

Spent a day calculating NormalMissionRadius and MaxMissionRadius. Now squadron airbase relocations are more frequent. Before: After:

Sigh. Next up, DCS: Toothless, utilizing the latest DragonTM aerodynamics modeling. And the dragon's nest is still... Sochi.

and hey they're awesome! For a flight junkie FMs are important and huge thanks to you and baffmeister for making them

OK the DATA inis are done for the moment, sans the Sea Fury. Many fixes are applied. Landing speed of some ac further tuned. The corsairs can finally properly land after bumping the flaps CLiftDC and cmdc. Cruise speed is 65% (props) / 70% (jets) of MaxspeedSL. So they retain energy entering dogfights. Climb speed is 110% of corner speed, unless predefined. This prevents some ac corkscrewing upon entering mission. Components: Most are separated into [nose], [fuselage], [tail] sections, so they get reasonable vulnerability to gunfire. The F9F-2/5P/F2H-2/F-84 have wingtip tanks as components. All hitboxes fine tuned. ModelNodeName callouts fixed. ParentComponentName callouts fixed. Damageratings mostly are set as [nose] disabled, [fuselage] destroyed, [tail] destroyed, [wing] destroyed, [outerwing] destroyed, [verttail] disabled, [stab] disabled. Structuralfactor mostly set as [nose]/[fuselage]/[tail]/[vertail]/[stab] 2.5, [wing] 2, [outerwing] 1.5. Armor values. Jets, dedicated ground attack, bombers have [nose]/[fuselage]/[tail]/[vertail]/[stab] 12mm of aluminum armor, [wing]/[outerwing] 10mm. Prop fighters have 10 and 8 respectively. Systems: Component ownership of systems sorted. All hitboxes refined. Pilots are 0.5m in width, 1m in length, 1.2m in height, as per TW default value. Fuel tanks hitbox position determined by flight manuals if they're found on the net. Tanks' hitbox size determined by fuel volume, using prop gas 0.72kg/L and jet gas 0.78kg/L Structuralfactors for pilots are 5. For fuel tanks are 2 for jets, 1 for props. For engines, jets and radial prop 2, inline prop 1. All fuel tanks set as selfhealing. Inline prop fighters have no fire suppression for tanks and engines. Ground attack props and jets do. This is to simulate vulnerability of avgas and inline piston engine to gunfire. All pilots have some armor protection. All wing tanks have min 6mm of steel armor. Fuselage tank usually have 9mm of steel. Bombers and dedicated ground attack ac varies between 9-12mm. IL-10 has 16mm. Inline piston and jet engines are unprotected except F-84. Radial prop engines and Firefly have 4mm steel armor. Dedicated ground attack have 12mm. IL-10 has 24mm. Wing mounted guns are converged at 1200ft. This is for ground strafing use. PropRotationDirection set as appropriate per 3D model. Animations. Engine cowling/radiator flap animations added/fixed. Some missing CanopyAnimationID for [pilot] added. Ownership also sorted. Landing gears. InsideNodeName, HideGearNode=True, ShockAnimationID, ReverseShockOrientation=TRUE, ShockStroke, ReverseModelOrientation=TRUE measured or set as appropriate. Added DetachNode[00X]= for damage effect. Misc other fixes. It appears I'm unable to UL to combatace so here's a mediafire link. One can pop them into a KAW install with minimum fussing I suppose. Ofc they'll all be in the Wing over Korea pack update. http://www.mediafire.com/download/v66665gyhbh66o3/KAW_Data_INIs.rar Huge thanks goes to mue and the LODviewer!

Oh thank you Wrench and Carlo. High poly model check. Low level LODs check. Nice skins check. Good FM check. :) I think it'll be of the better ones among the kaw planes. But yea fixing the hitbox etc. can be brain dizzy so no hurries.

Been quiet here for a few days. Just to say I'm still working, fixing data inis for all planes with LODviewer. (While it's a great tool it also means workload has ironically risen. But yea it's a good thing.) It's almost done atm and after I've got a solid database gonna start separating the campaigns into phases.

I know Russia offers fulcrum rides for cash. Haven't heard about USAF and likes except the connected chaps?...

Hi mue, the game is not, as the missing hitbox I've had are all from Thirdwire default datas.

Thank you baffmeister... mystery solved.

Geezer I've never seen a radiator systemtype. But one can set it up as a component and set Damagerating=DISABLED to simulate a crippled engine. Apparently TK never went to such trouble for the SF stock planes, it'd be interesting if he did something extra for FE tho.

I wonder if they could just pop the canopy and climb back in?... (Is it SOP to eject?)

ShrikeHawk sorry for the text wall eheh. Just happened to spend a lotta time on this stuff..

My ingame findings + what I remember TK has said in the TW foras: First you have the size of the hitbox. The larger the hitbox the tougher the airframe is. It's further multiplied by structuralfactor. Since the destruction of one component generally means a disabled/destroyed aircraft, the component with the smallest hitbox becomes the weakpoint, such as a [tail]. Whereas a single [fuselage] without [nose] or [tail] along the entire airframe becomes very hard to destroy since the hitbox is so huge. Secondly you have the damagerating. Some data ins like to set DamageRating=HEAVY instead of DISABLED or DESTROYED, like those usually from A-Team. Add that to a simplied FM you can have some aircraft losing a wing and still flying for an eternity. Thirdly you have armor. What I find is that armor is very effective against kinetic energy, but it does not fend off chemical energy of the cannon shell warheads. For example an aluminum armor of 24 (mm) basically nullifies the 50cal shots (there're still random pens happening, per TK), while even 40mm of the same does little to stop 20mm cannon shells. Steel armor has more than twice the effectiveness of aluminum armor. Fourth there're the (sub) systems, engines, fuel tanks, pilots. With their own hitbox and armor, they generally act like components, but with differences. Engines and fuel tanks catch fire. Pure kinetic bullets like machinegun shots have a much less chance of setting fire compared to HE bullets. These datas are defined in [ObjectFire] section in AIRCRAFTOBJECT.INI. Engines and fuel tanks have a FireSuppression=TRUE setting, which improves chance of putting out the fire over time. Fuel tanks also have a SelfHealing=TRUE setting, which stops fuel leak over time. Pilot kill results in an immediate aircraft kill and triggers canopy eject anim. There's another factor which is gun convergence. As said wing mounted guns are very ineffective without setting a convergence. It becomes more complicated when factoring in the AI. While aiming, the AI does not take the position of guns mounted on the airframe into account. It will always assume the guns are at position 0,0,0, only modified by "gunboresightangle" (for example Phantoms with gunpods pointed 1 deg downwards). It doesn't account for guns with different ballistics either, but only uses the ballistics of the first entry in the internal guns section. These make gun convergence settings very tricky for some WW2 planes like say the Bf-109E. In execution there's also something weird with the damage engine. Tail aspect shots are generally much less effective compared to flanking shots. Possible explanation being usually a kill is by destroying systems like fuel tanks and engine since those have much smaller hitboxes, and the damage of rear shots are mostly soaked by bigger components like the tail and fuselage. What it ends up encouraging though is energy fighting and deflection shooting, which I think is good. So what can be improved? Firstly the hitbox, as many aircraft have them pretty off, or over simplied. Secondly damagerating. Destruction of a component should result in DESTROYED, except left/right Stabs which should be set as DISABLED, this is especially true for 3rd party aircrafts of which might have generic FMs. Thirdly armor settings, see if it can be tuned to more reasonable values. Fourthly gun convergence is a must. Fifth, aircraft machineguns rarely use ball ammo, many have a small warhead containing incendiaries or even explosives. Giving the MG warhead a little weight, with the in-game effect of setting fire easier, can't hurt. And of course while shooting, ensure the target is struck by a steady continuous burst, as machineguns are more like a drill then a hammer. And use deflection shots for even better effects. My uhmm.. 20 cents