Hey guys, I've been messing around with my install for a few days and being a bit obsessed with efficiency I managed to pull out some pretty interesting stuff.
Did you notice that paint schemes for some planes are pretty generic, for example F-16 with the gunship gray/light gray, many navy planes, but even some planes with repeating camo schemes like Jaguar basically have the same skin repeating over and over again with differences being either made with decals or only exist on one map?
It can take a wagonload of space, especially if you don't use jpg or dds, but there is a kinda cool solution to that.
a) If differences between skins are made by decals ONLY
Now this is a really simple thing, just move the entire skin into the root folder of the aircraft mod, the only files that should be left in individual skin folders are:
decals.ini
numbers.lst
Patch.bmp(optional)
textureset.ini
And that's it, the game will read the generic skin from the root folder and apply decals to various skins as you select them in game accordingly.
Perfect example for this(as I tested this on it) is the excellent F-15J skinpack as it uses the same skin for every unit the only difference being in decals, so instead of 8 repeating skins I only have one in the root folder and it works!
b) If differences are painted on some maps but not all of them (I actually prefer this as decals can be huge)
Best example for this are the new F-16's, especially blk25/30
Those skins are mostly repeating over and over again BUT map "F16-004.xxx" contains a difference because it has unit letters and colors applied to the tail.(note: sometimes differences can be find on other maps so check it out first before deleting!!!)
The solution here is also very simple, move one of the skins entirely into the root folder like in the first example and you can also delete the skins in each individual skin folder but leave each unique "F16-004.xxx" in it's folder.
The game will only use the parts of the skin in the root folder when it does not find files in the individual folder that's the point of all this.
So if you have say 8 generic repeating skins but also say a desert camo or some anniversary cammo you just move the generic one into the root and delete the other generic one but leave the different ones entirely.
I repeat this is only usefull for planes that use repeating skins, if each skin is unique then you will have no use of all this.
Also the crucial thing in this principle is that the game will use only skins of the format that are written in the LOD file so if you find that your planes are black you will have to hack into the lod to change the file format(jpg,bmp.dds) to what you use for the skin files.
So that's it hope it wasn't too long and that I didn't over-complicate it as it's really simple.