Julhelm

Hope WPNSSGT finds use for that EB-52 I sent him.

I know SFP1 used to have the occasional transport aircraft appear during certain missions. That's something I like but I want more. Basically what I want to do is add a 'neutral' or 'friendly' side that operates various civilian aircraft (707's and the such) in addition to having much more of the military transports since I only play as mercenary and thus likes the ability to hunt down juicy targets for more cash. How would I go about doing this? Suggestions?

I get a single aircraft appearing in the sky now. So does the sim only handle one transport mission/nation at one time? Also I have DC-8's that are supposed to operate as recon flights from the neutral airbases, but these don't seem to show up at all. Maybe each airline needs to be it's own country?

I'd recommend you guys visit www.cgtextures.com to ease the workload a bit.

Are you going to do any of the stuff I posted, too? :D

So what's the reason for the insane polycount?

I've a hard time seeing how that can be over 40.000 triangles as it doesn't look that highly detailed. Can you post wires please?

This and the Cougar lock up my system whenever the external model is viewed ingame. I'm running the hdr mod if that's of any help.

If Diego volunteers the use of his characters, I could do something else since those are already really good.

Must be a Super Fury

What are the polycounts on those? If they're anything about 2000 they won't be of any use, so might as well just build new models on top.

Unfortunately the prices are hardcoded and cannot be changed.

If you open up the campaign data file, you'll see the merc squadron something like this: [AirUnit007] AircraftType=A-4B UnitName=1st Special Operations Wing ForceID=1 Nation=MERC MercenaryUnit=TRUE PlayerOnly=True StartingFunds=10000 DefaultTexture=USNGrey1 BaseArea=Delta Station CarrierBased=TRUE CarrierNumber=41 RandomChance=100 MissionRate=5.0 MaxAircraft=16 StartAircraft=8 MaxPilots=16 StartPilots=8 Experience=100 Morale=100 Supply=50 MissionChance[sWEEP]=10 MissionChance[CAP]=10 MissionChance[iNTERCEPT]=10 MissionChance[ESCORT]=10 MissionChance=90 MissionChance[CAS]=90 MissionChance[sEAD]=90 MissionChance[ARMED_RECON]=90 MissionChance[ANTI_SHIP]=90 MissionChance[RECON]=90 UpgradeType=ANY So what you'd want to change for added difficulty is StartingFunds= to perhaps something like $1000 or something and also the amount of planes/pilots you start off with. I find the default 16 to be way too high. Basically, the less aircraft you start off with, the more you are likely to replace them (which costs money). Also starting off with something a little harder to employ air to air than the F-100 is also a good way to increase difficulty.

I'm gonna build characters to populate a tanker of mine, so I could whip up some for you Pureblue.

Yep, turns out the carrier needs to be merc for the game to recognize it. So I just made a copy of the SCB-125 that I renamed MercCV where in the data the nation is 'merc' instead of 'usn' and now it works.

That's what I did, but it still does the same thing: Here are the relevant .ini entries: [TargetArea074] Name=Delta Station Position=700000,700000 Radius=5657 ActiveYear=0 Location=3 Alignment=FRIENDLY CarrierStation=TRUE [TargetArea075] Name=Echo Station Position=870000,700000 Radius=5657 ActiveYear=0 Location=3 Alignment=FRIENDLY CarrierStation=TRUE -------- [TargetType072] Name=SCB-125 FullName=SCB-125 Essex Class CV ModelName=SCB-125.lod TargetType=WARSHIP ActiveYear=1950 DamagePoint=10000 ArmorValue=0 ArmorType=0 TargetValue=2500 UseGroundObject=TRUE GroundObjectType=SCB-125 RepairRate=0.150 StartDetectChance=50 StartIdentifiedChance=0 IncreaseDetectChanceKey=0 MaxVisibleDist=15000.0 DamagedModel= DestroyedEffect=ShipDestroyedEffect DestroyedModel= SecondaryEffect=LargeOilFire SecondaryChance=100 [TargetType073] Name=CVA-63 FullName=Kitty Hawk Class CVA ModelName=CV-63.lod TargetType=WARSHIP ActiveYear=1961 DamagePoint=10000 ArmorValue=0 ArmorType=0 TargetValue=3000 UseGroundObject=TRUE GroundObjectType=CVA-63 RepairRate=0.150 StartDetectChance=50 StartIdentifiedChance=0 IncreaseDetectChanceKey=0 MaxVisibleDist=15000.0 DamagedModel= DestroyedEffect=ShipDestroyedEffect DestroyedModel= SecondaryEffect=LargeOilFire SecondaryChance=100 -------------- And the merc unit is set up as a carrier unit with the merc attributes.

Everyone should donate something annually to cancer research, period. It doesn't matter how big because every contribution counts. My $.02

I'm a swede, and I did my service back in 2001 when they had yet to reorganize the whole benefits scheme for a post-manufacturing economy. The guys who were discharged a week after me got $5000 because new rules started to apply then. We basically have a semi-volunteer scheme now in that you still get drafted as per Cold War-era conscription, but as only the best 10% actually get to serve, they've finally started to offer more in the ways of careers even at the non-officer level, which simply wasn't the case when I was in.

Your nation would be better served with having a decent school system which doesn't require one to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition just to get a decent education, than any kind of mandatory service. Now, the only way I could personally accept some kind of mandatory scheme is if it entitles you to free healthcare, free education and a practical set of skills. Any mandatory scheme which requires you serve but doesn't give anything back is a waste of time. I spent my stint in the service, and when I got discharged I was basically sent to the gutter with a $1000 check as civilian life doesn't care about serving you country - only your degree counts.

Mandatory service is bulls**t because we all know there are certain elements of society who never have to put their asses on the line because they have the money to throw around.

Mandatory service is just a waste of money as you have to train people from nothing, and then by the time they're actually somewhat proficient, then their stint is up and they go back to being civilians and thus are completely out of the ever-progressing tech loop and become useless by the time you have to reactivate them. Conscription is fine for when you only need lots of cannon fodder who don't need to be taught much more than how to handle a rifle and march in formation, but today's military is far too technologically advanced for that approach to be viable. Hence why most nations who used to have conscription are moving more and more towards some kind of professional 'lifer' force.

Also it greatly helps performance if you can use as few maps as possible. It's easier for the engine to load just one 2048^2048 than four 1024^1024 bitmaps, and the more texture space you can reuse (why map two similar struts separately if they can use the same piece of texture and look convincing?) the better.

My condolences to his family.

20k is high for a plane. 40k would be nuts. I'd say the optimum is somewhere around 10k. The most important thing is to have an even level of detail all around, and to optimise this for how it's mostly seen ingame. It serves no real purpose other than self-fellating to model stuff like individual bolts and nuts on the undercarriage when you have to literally zoom in max to notice them. If you can fake geometric detail with texture work, do it.

I concentrate on optimizing the model, uvs and textures.