alexis99

Oh gosh, didn't think I had whined. I felt that if we were going to have a thread talking about what aircraft would we like next, why wouldn't a thread about what cockpit would we like next be equally appreciated. Were the people proposing new aircraft whining? Some people need to get a sense of humour.

I'm just fine, Ully, thanks for asking. I didn't realise you hadn't been around because lots of your previous posts on interesting topics are still kicking around on the site. I hope you are well too. Yes I will post. Any minute now. (Big smile and nod) As regards reverse thrust, which I tend to think of as a braking effect, rather than a means of an aircraft backing up, we're talking about needing extra airbrakes. I assume the reverse buckets on the SF Tornado work the same way as a drogue parachute on other SF aircraft. Basically you put the correct code into the data file that describes a second airbrake of whatever strength you want, which only operates when your wheels are on the ground. You don't need to see a parachute graphic out the back of the aircraft, (which would be nice - I believe the F-117 has it), but you get the effect of a drogue chute in the form of a second airbrake. I confess to stealing that code and putting it into an aircraft that should have had a drogue chute, back in my SF1 days, and it worked a treat. It might also be worth looking into the datafile of the SF2 version of the Marina Militare AV-8B+ which is in the downloads section. It features the moveable thrusters which can be pointed down to 90 degrees for vertical lift, but also to 120 degrees forward to aid in braking.

It's a ground attack version by Guuru. The aircraft itself is called Tonka. I believe all Guuru's Tornados have reverse buckets. Try the newest GR1A

One of the Tornado aircraft has reverse buckets. Check the files. I steal all the stuff I need from other aircraft.

See! Aircraft carrier moving across Vietnam landscape. So landscape tiles don't stop the carriers moving. I couldn't snag the wire, though.

Okay, well the Razbam A-6E cockpit actually has moving shadows. A-6A, A-6C do not, but the A-6E does. It blew me away when I first saw it. As you turned, the cockpit frame cast a moving shadow over the panel. It's awesome. If you know how to dig into LODs and stuff, which I don't, you might find out how they did it. Did I mention that it's awesome?

I fly Navy a lot. I have never had that problem of a carrier just stopping. I once had a carrier plough into the Vietnam coast and keep travelling overland, along with the escort ships. The carrier's random placement just put it too near the coast and pointing West, for that one mission. I fly the Mediterranean (Libya), and there's enough water there to make sure a carrier never runs aground. I fly Desert 4 too, and the fleet is always well away from the coast and always moving. I used to zap to the final waypoint after a mission, and the darn carrier was always facing an awkward direction, and turning just to teach me a lesson for not flying waypoints. Once I understood the need for dumping excess fuel in order to make landings more realistic, I started flying waypoints properly and often reduced the fuel load to start with. So, if you have NA, and fly Vietnam, Libya, Desert 4, single mission, you should always get a moving carrier. I always have. If not, your install probably has a deeper problem.

Fabulous. I'm good to go.

I'm assuming it's a laser rangefinder for Paveways. In the loading screen Paveways are available, but if you use them you don't get an image in the cockpit. I fixed that by making a Pave-Spike copy and then fixing it just where the proboscis is, via the Data file. It works a treat so I'm going to be hugely embarassed if it isn't a laser rangefinder. Then look, the F-4N Phantom II has a proboscis as well. Same situation: loading screen has Paveways, but they don't work. Embed a pave-spike copy in the nose and it works. I got rid of the image file part, because it otherwise looks like a Narwhal.

It always makes me laugh when you create a mission and you have Enemy air activity at "Light". And when you get up there, you are bounced by 12 MiGs. I'd hate to have it set on "Heavy"

The message bar that appears at the bottom of your screen when you select flaps or gear or other such aircraft activity will tell you what weapon you have selected, what the ripple quantity is, and what the interval is. You don't see this information on screen all the time, but you do see it when you select the three parameters: weapon type, quantity and interval. In the A-7E, you can scroll down the cockpit and see the parameters registered on the weapon panel. But I have never felt the need to see them after selection. You know what your target is, you select 1000lb bombs, you select four, you set the interval to 100. Goodnight Vienna.

Sorry man, I never bothered to write down those numbers. Since I had developed a good landing technique, which is pretty close to what the Pilot's flight manual shows, I could trap anyway, so I never followed it up. I believe the guy who fixed it, posted it in the Banshee download section. I'll havea look.

Sometimes you get a third party aircraft where the nose moves up and down when you get in the cockpit. It sort of oscillates, and gradually settles. Then you power up and it noses down again. I couldn't find any information on how to fix this. My search terms above, gave me nothing of use. So I decided to investigate. I wondered if the front wheel was too low, so I increased the RollingRadius of the Nose Gear in the aircraft data.ini. This just visually raised the wheel a couple of feet off the tarmac, and still the aircraft seesawed. So then I remembered how we used to fix things in other Sims, and I sought out the Center of Gravity. CGPosition comes under Aircraft Data in the Data.ini. There are three numbers which relate to left/right, forward/backward, up/down. The centre number is the important one. Plus numbers push the CG forward, which is what I needed. Minus numbers push it backwards. I adjusted the number until I got a stable aircraft. Then I looked at the outside view, and the wheel was now buried in the tarmac. So I went back to the Rolling Radius, and increased that number until I got the wheel resting on the tarmac. Sorted. So is there a better way to do this, or is this the technique?

World center of model. Now we're talking. So the skin of the model is tied to the skeleton of the model by the World center? So if you move the CG, nothing changes. But since the cockpit is not tied to the World Center (Big mistake) but tied to the CG, it moves if the CG moves. Like I say, no biggie if you know it happens. Back in Microsoft's Pacific Fighter days we had to reverse Engineer the aircraft model entries to figure out what they did. One really curious one was a figure that behaved like CG. You moved it one way and the nose went up, you moved it the other and the nose went down. Trouble was it worked the wrong direction. Move it forward and the nose went down when it should have come up. We finally realised it was a bag of sand. Move it forward and the nose went down. I think they call it ballast. Fixed a lot of aircraft with that bag of sand. Anyway, as regards the RollingRadius: If I increase the RollingRadius, the visual model shows the nose wheel off the ground. Floating in the air, actually. If I decrease the rolling radius, the visual model shows the nose wheel buried in the tarmac. But if I adjust the rolling radius correctly, the wheel stands on the tarmac. But in each case, the size of the RollingRadius has no bearing on the visual size of the wheel, nor does it stop the gear stowing in the aircraft. So maybe that's what it's there for, to help get your wheels on the tarmac. In fact it reminds me a bit of Wrench's Banshee. He said he just couldn't get it to trap on a straight-deck1950s carrier. I used to trap by nosing up as I cut power and forcing the hook lower into the deck. Then someone came along and increased the length of the hook, by quite a distance, in the data.ini. It made no difference to what the hook looked like in the visual model, but it now dug deep enough in the deck to catch a wire.

Well that's fascinating. The CG is nominally the point in the aircraft where if you stuck it on a pin it would be balanced perfectly. In SF, it's a reference point to which the cockpit ties itself through the aforementioned Position entry, and also should be the point to which the visual exterior, the skin, ties itself. So what you are saying is that by moving the CG point, not only are you moving the aircraft into perfect balance on the pin, you are also moving the cockpit position. But shouldn't that also be moving the skin too, since that is also tied to the CG reference? If so, the view out of the cockpit would not change, because the skin would move too. But you have proved that to be untrue. The skin is not tied to the CG but must have another reference point. This is good news. Because if you do alter the CG to get the aircraft in balance, the only compensation you have to make is to shift the cockpit back to where it should be in relation to the skin, the visual exterior. And since we have both admitted that we adjust the cockpit position a lot to get what we think is a better fit, it's no biggie. Thanks for sticking with this. Much appreciated.

Yes, I admit that I almost always change the cockpit position for the reason you state. Then I fix Offset and View angle to get the flight path marker showing in the HUD when I come in to land. And I re-arrange and upgrade the HUD discretes to my liking, and tune-up the Radar, RWR and EO displays. I love the fact you can have them at 512 size. There's the confession: I love a new aircraft so I can tinker with it. There is a position reference for the cockpit in the model and it's exactly that set of three numbers in the Cockpit.ini under [CockpitSeat001] called Position, sandwiched between Offset and ViewAngles: Offset=-0.003,-0.2,0.08 Position=-0.35,2.55,0.74 ViewAngles=0.0,-5.0,0.0 I claim that it has no bearing on CG, just on where you sit in the aircraft.

Yes, that's what worried me, I thought that moving the CG would be bound to affect the flight performance a little. It actually hasn't in any noticeable way. Presumably it all depends on what scale the numbers refer to. In my case I changed it by 1.5 somethings forward. I looked in a few other aircraft to see what their CGs were, and 1.5 was a normal figure. There's no mention of CG in the A-6 cockpit.ini. I did a spot check, so will have to go through other planes to see if they have an entry. But I don't see why changing the CG would alter the cockpit position. All you are doing is moving the balance point of the aircraft. As we know from the knowledge base you can use any cockpit you like and whack it into another aircraft by replacing the cockpit folder, the cockpit.ini and the avionics.ini. Changing the CG has never been mentioned. They say don't change the cockpit position, but you often have to if you're now using the Phantom cockpit in the B-57, for instance. So I cannot see the connection betweeen CG and cockpit position. I have considered ShockStroke= SpringFactor= DampingFactor= But the ones on the aircraft I am having problems with don't seem widely different to most other aircraft. The parameters are not that wide. Thanks everyone for your input. This gives me ideas for further tinkering,

What I didn't know is that you are limited to 6 entries in the loadout menu. Thanks, that's brilliant

Just one teensy point. The loadout screen does not allow you to attach weapons to the two wingtip rails. But with certain loadouts two AA missiles are automatically attached, and with other loadouts, they remain empty. Can we not have access to what goes on these rails? You know IR or EM?

The Damocles targeting pod is supplied in the weapons list, but it never shows up when you go to the loadout page. Are there any plans to alter the weapons section of the data file to make it useable? As a temporary measure I duplicated the central Fuel Tank weapon station entry, called it the next number along, inserted "LP" and removed the dedicated station entries "RAF1" from both the station and the Damocles. So now it works, even though that's not the correct position for it. It would be nice to know if its going to be properly fixed at some time. Love the aircraft though.

I don't use anti-radiation missiles because they are a bit flaky. Although my wingman has occasionally come up trumps with the standard arm in Vietnam. I prefer to use the Maverick or Brimstone. They do not miss.

Ravenclaw, thank you so much. I couldn't find it anywhere. Don't worry, I do know how to use the weapon editor. I could give the Kormoran a TV feed if I wasn't so particular about realism. Gepard: Thank you, I eventually worked that out. Doh! I tend to ignore the Ground radar in SF2 because it's almost completely useless. So I then forget that in real-life the Ground radar can be used for targeting. Whereas in SF2, the target-cycle button stands in for a properly functioning Ground radar. Thank you all

Are anti-ship missiles supposed to have a TV view, or do you just fire within parameters and let them find the target? Reason I ask, is that I loaded the EF2000 with Kormorants, had the Lightening III targeting pod attached, and didn't get a TV picture. And I'm pretty sure I'd seen anti-ship missiles getting a TV picture some time in the past. Then, quite by chance, I loaded a couple of Paveways, in case the Kormorants missed. Surprise, surprise, now the Kormorants have a TV picture by osmosis.