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Aircraft Management

G

Ghostrider

Charter Member 2012
What do you guys find to be the best way to manage your aircraft - i.e. not go over the limit?

I remember programs like ACMan, and some other "hangar" utilities from way back - I'm running 2 installs, (early and late Pacific War), and am running out of room in both, of course.

I know there's a patch to whack the error message, but can you still use MB in that case?

Thanks for your help, as always,

Ghostrider
 
One thing that helps is to delete all the stock aircraft you do not need. If you do be sure to delete everything including MDLnames and all references in the Info file.
 
Ghostrider said:
I know there's a patch to whack the error message, but can you still use MB in that case?
Click to expand...

Negative...Unlike FF and QC, MB won't give you a pass on that at all. It'll just keep kicking you back to desktop until you trim the aircraft folder down. ACMan is the best and easiest way until you get back into the groove of feeling comfy with the other methods mentioned above. In your case of early and late PTO installs, you won't need to use the aforementioned edits to the QC and mdlnames.txt files. All the stock aircraft were used in both, with the exception of the Corsair which became operational in the latter months of '43.

For what you're proposing, ACMan is best suited...just watch out for moving stock aircraft which are also sound or panel aliases for other installs, like the Corsair, Zero's. Lightning and Hellcat. You'll get some interesting error feedback if you do.
 
There is a backdoor way to get into the Mission Builder if you are over the 100 plane limit.

If you have Bill Potvin's CFO Weather installed it allows you to jump to the Mission Builder from within the game. So, you can start the game normally with any number of planes then use CFO Weather to go to MB. The problem is that you can't return to the game or fly a mission from within MB. Attempting to do so will cause a CTD. However, if you want to write missions without editing this will get you in. I never mentioned it in any of my tutorials as I think it has limited usage.

What has always intrigued about this is that you can actually get to the Mission Builder when you are over the 100 plane limit. That means whatever the edit is that dumps you out normally is bypassed when you access MB from inside the game. So that "edit", where ever it is, is not a part of the Mission Builder.

I always thought that there is a clue here and maybe someone with a lot more skill than I could figure out a fix. Food for thought anyway.
 
Ghostrider, while I have used ACMan and mk_cfs2_util to manage aircraft folders, I keep going back to the older simpler method. I just create a folder called hanger, then drag and drop any aircraft I don't use into it. Simple is good.
 
That's always the absolute best Erufle, especially given the fact that ACman never wants to play right and create custom named folders in Explorer to match its menu nomenclature; you create two new folders named 'PTO US Addons' and 'PTO Jap Addons' within the ACMan program itself, then you navigate to the hangar site in Explorer and find two folders named 'Hangar0' and 'Hangar1'. That always chaps me since i have 9 hangars in my PTO install alone. For easier reference i had to create a txt list within the main hangar folder of all the hangars matching their ACMan menu names with their Explorer names, i.e., Hangar0 = 'PTO US Addons'...
 
I'm with you, Erufle.

I have a 0HANGAR folder (the 0 for made it show just before the AIRCRAFT one) in all my installs. Then, in this hangar folder I have several subfolders named by country and manufacturer, so is beautifully easy to find the specific plane when needed.
 
I also use mk_cfs2_util to make sure I have right planes in the folder.
When I run over, I create another install of the entire program and then rearrange my campaigns and missions so I don't need so many planes in one install.

My issue right now is airbases and the airbase.dat in INFO folder.
I am attempting to make one for each install that is install specific.
 
Thanks again for all of the good info, everyone - pretty much what I remembered plus some new insights. I didn't know if there was some new and improved way of doing this.

Losing the MB functionality is a "deal breaker" for me. But to develop the question a little further, yes, I use CFO weather - as long as I'm willing to give up the ability to fly a mission from within MB, and accept having to start the sim itself to 'test fly' a mission, am I losing anything? What's the A/C limit at that point?

If I use the patch to get rid of the error message, always enter MB through CFO, and restart the sim to test fly missions, would that work? How many A/C are possible in that scenario? Would the GSL editor still work?

Seems that some testing is in order. I have just done a lot of work to get these installs just how I want them - saved aircraft and ships until the end, and don't want to screw anything up. The good news is that I have backed up both installs to DVD and external HD, so if the wheels fall completely off, I can start over fairly painlessly. :applause: No :bs:. (Sorry, I just wanted to use that smiley :d). There's always the idea that I coud make a third install - early, mid, and late war.

Thanks again for all of your help and advice - what a great sim and community - I've virtually 'known' some of you guys off and on for seven years now through our shared hobby/obsession! :ernae: I stand in awe of all of your work on CFS2.

BTW Jagdflieger, I still have the repainted decks with numbers on them for all of the wartime Essex class CVs that I did back in 2001, if they are needed here at SOH. I think Easykill still hosts them on his site. Let me know if you want them here. (The only thing I ever did that was worth a :bs: for CFS2). I'm sure these are old news, and there's better stuff out there by now, but has anyone else redone all of them?

Thanks everyone,


Ghostrider
 
Ghostrider said:
- as long as I'm willing to give up the ability to fly a mission from within MB, and accept having to start the sim itself to 'test fly' a mission, am I losing anything? What's the A/C limit at that point?[/quote]

I don't know what the limit is, if any. I've done it with hundreds of planes in the AIRCRAFT folder. I don't recommend it over the long haul though as I don't think closing the program via a CTD over and over is good for the file integrity. We've all seen irrational behavior out of CFS2 from time to time and I wouldn't be surprised if CTD's don't contribute to that.

I think your best bet is to manage the number of planes using one of the recommendations given in this post. And access Mission Builder the regular way.
Click to expand...
 
Roger that, CC. I'm thinking maybe one more install and use hangar folders.

Thanks to all for the input!

Ghostrider
 
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