CFS2 Perma-stickied help / problem / tweaking thread

MDLC and the F switch

Bearcat sez 6.6.08
copy the text below into a blank Notepad screen:
cls
echo off
MDLC /f FS9.mdl
MDLC /t FS9.md8
MDLC /c FS9.mdt FS9.md2 F
rename fs9.md2 cfs2.mdl
pause

--------------------------------
Save the txt file as "MDLC F switch.bat", and not "MDLC F switch.bat.txt".
Put the bat file in your MDLC folder.
Put a copy of your fs9 aircraft mdl into the MDLC folder also and rename it "FS9.mdl".
Doubleclick the bat file and let it work...when it completes, press any key to disengage the bat file. It will automatically name the mdl as CFS2.mdl. All you have to do is name it back to "B-29.mdl" or whatever.
 
Screen Shots how to

Easiest way is to hit the Prt Scr key on your keyboard at the approproate moment. This then takes a snap of your screen and puts it on your clipboard. Open up your graphics package (Paint Shop Pro, Paint or whatever and hit Ctrl + V (paste). Your shot should then appear ready to be cropped etc and saved. The shot could equally be pasted into Word or any application that will carry a graphic.

OR...

1. set screen resolution to 1024x768x32, ...if you want to post.
2. open a M$ "PAINT" window.
3. Fly CFS2
4. When you want a shot, ...hit "P" to PAUSE.
5. Compose your shot, ...zoom, pan, internal, external, etc...
6. Hit the "Print Screen" key.
7. Hit the "M$ Windows" key (the one to the right of the right side "ALT" key) to diminish CFS2.
8. In PAINT, ...select "Edit/Paste".
9. Save pic as either .bmp (if ya want to work on it later) of .JPEG.
10. Select toolbar CFS2 icon to resume flying.
11. For another pic, ...in PAINT, "Select All/Edit/Paste" will allow you to re-use the same Paint window. Just leave it open.
 
Slewing

I wonder if that slight misplacement is the same as with the catapult launch misallignment we often see. If so, it's a CFS 2 thing and the best way to fix it is to have your "Slew" enabled as a cheat and then just slew over to the center of the runway at the start of the mission. Of course a little differential baking or rudder would work as well on the runway (but not on the catapult).
To enable "Slew" whenever you want, just put this at the bottom of your CFS 2.cfg file:
[CHEATS]
bomb_trainer=0
free_warp=0
ALLOW_SLEW=1
damagemsgs=0
show_damage_log=0
0 equals "off" and 1 equals "on."
//////////////////////////////////////////
You can also activate slew in missions by adding this paragraph to the bottom of your CFS 2.cfg file:
[CHEATS]
bomb_trainer=0
free_warp=0
ALLOW_SLEW=1
damagemsgs=0
show_damage_log=0
"1" will turn the option on 24/7 and 0 will turn it off. For mission building or inspecting scenery I often leave the slew option on all of the time. The bomb trainer is great for calibrating bomb sights for altitude and airspeed.
__________________
Keep your airspeed up,
Jagdflieger
 
Speed increase for aircraft

Open your a/c folder and open aircraft.cfg, change power_scalar from 1.0 to 1.2 and change thrust_scalar from 1.0 to 1.3. Try that and see if you get your speed. ckissling
Another way to speed up your plane - instead of increasing power - is to decrease the drag.
Open the Air file using using AirEd. Scroll down to section 1101 and open it. One of the sub-sections in of 1101 is -----Drag-----. Find the entry for Drag Coefficient - Zero Lift, and decrease value a bit. You should find that your speed goes up. Just keep tweaking that number until you find the top speed you want.
By the way, make sure you are displaying 'true airspeed' in your settings when you test for top speed. You'll wont get numbers like 470mph at high altitude as an an 33'indicated' airspeed.
 
Rear gunner accuracy

Evil rear gunners
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi All,
As most of us CFS2er’s know the AI gunners have better aim than today’s smart bombs.
I mean come on, I was 2000ft above a Val and I made a high speed pass and got hit four times.
Dead center hits too. Two hits on the engine and two on the fuselage.
The most common fix for this is to reduce the range at witch the gunners open fire.
The other thing is to reduce the rate of fire.
These fixes work OK, but introduce unrealistic behavior.
I mean if I were rear gunner, I would give an attacking aircraft a burst, even if I new he was out of range, just to let him know I got my eye on him.
Well to make a long story short, last night I got one of my ideas. “What if I introduce an error factor on the bullets?” So I gave it a try. First, to make sure it would give the effect I was after, I offset the angle by 10deg., and those gunners could not hit the broad side of a barn as they say. Lot of tracers flying by, but no hits. This is good. I now have it set at 1deg. and so far I like it.
I think it is more realistic because the closer you get the less the error becomes and the chances of getting hit increase. Also, when you do get hit, it is no longer dead center.
If you would like to try it, use DPED to open the Aircraft’s DP file and change the L/R angle of the rear gunners bullets form 0 to 1. If you think you are not getting hit enough change it to 0.5 or 0.75.
Overwrite and del the CDP file and let me know what you think.
B24Guy

Hi All,
This is the fix I use.
Set the box marked "Trigger" to "0 Guns" and the box marked "Spec" to "2 Cannon"
I think that prehaps the box labled "Trigger" in DPED is really the "Spec" and vice-a-versa. Because the box marked "Spec" controls the player's trigger button.
Try it. You will be glad you did.
Regards,
B24Guy
 
Converted fs9 aircraft transparency

FS9 conversion A/C appear transparent.
Open texture files with "Dxtbmp" and save them as "extended bitmap 16bit 565 ".
Thanks for help.
It works fine, except for prop, that turns to a grey circle, but I replaced it by a neat one.
Regards
F. de Bressy
 
Ok....

Thats it for me, if anyone has more feel free to add on..:ernae:


I'll start condensing them into an adobe document in the coming days.


Cheers

gedm
 
Excellent post!!:ernae:

I've learned several new things that will be very helpful to improving my game. Thanks for posting and thanks to the whole helpful CFS2 community.

PF
 
These are a few tips I copied to a txt file just right before the forum crash. They are about eliminating the original PTO planes and bases to create other Theater of Operations:

JAGDFLIEGER said:
I often just open up the stock plane's folder and place an "X" in front of the Panel folder (Ie. "XPanel"). This will remove the plane from the FF and MB menu, and I think from your plane limit, but allow them to stay in place to support planes that alias their sound folders as well as preclude the "Error" messages. I think that the MS planes with actual sound files in their sound foldes are the A6M2 Zero, N1K2J George, F4F4 Wildcat, F6F2 Hellcat and the P-38 Lightning. The A6M5 Zero, G4M Betty, Ki43 Oscar, B-24, B-25, C47 Dakota, Devestator, Dauntless and Avenger all alias to the previous list so their deletion does not jeopardize any add on planes.

With my ETO and MTO specific installations, I often just remove the stock MS planes except the A6M2_Zero as for some reason, 90 percent of the add on planes alias to its sound folder. After removing the planes; I, as others above have noted, modify the QC file and the Mdnames file and delete any mention of the stock planes. After that, I usually delete all of the stock (PTO) missions too.

If you want to get really fancy, you can also go to the "Info" folder and open up the "descrip" file and remove them from there too as well as delete all of the JPEG images of the stock planes. I've never bothered with this step as the info folder and files do not seem to impact anything but the info window when using the Mission Builder. With several installations though, I guess you could save a little bit of hard drive space by doing it.
Click to expand...

GARY20 said:
You can delete the stock planes Nearmiss

You need to edit the MDLNames.txt file in the main folder and remove the aircraft entry from there as well as edit the descript.dat file in the Info folder and remove references from the aircraft also.

As stated earlier the qc_plane.qcb file in the Quickcom folder also has to be edited to remove all references to the aircraft - remembering to make sure the remaining all stay in numerical sequence.

I've removed all default Aircraft for my ETO install and it's quite happy and error free if you do the above.
Of course as earlier mentioned, removing default aircraft means the default missions and campaigns wont work so you can remove those if you dont plan on flying them.
Click to expand...


CODY COYOTE said:
You can easily remove the stock PTO airfields from your other installs. Simply remove these files:

allrunways.bgl and runways.bgl found in SCENEDB\runways\scenery and the file cfs2afd.bgl found in SCENEDB\adffiles\scenery.

With these files removed the stock PTO runways will no longer show up on the Free Flight and Quick Combat lists nor will they physically be there if you fly over that spot on the map. The infrastructure (tents, palm trees, etc.) will still be there as that is part of the GSL. But you can remove that too if it is an issue.

To remove them from the Mission Builder list you need to remove their entries in the airbases.dat file found in the INFO folder.

By the way, removing the allrunways and runways files does not impact the Mission Builder and you can still add and use the infrastructure runways if you need to.
Click to expand...

Thank you guys, they helped me a lot to get my modded CFS2 installations up and running :applause::applause::applause::applause:.
 
I love this! Do you think you could give a set of instructions on how to post screen shots? I still don't have a handle on that.:isadizzy:
 
Sreenies

Bill, thats covered on post #22 above.
Excuse me, that is for taking screen shots not posting.
But posting is easy, it's just a matter of making sure they (the screen shots) arent to big (pixel wise) and then following the instruction at the bottom of the page before you make a text post.

Cheers
 
I need a little break from my GSL work, planting trees is making my head spin so...

1. Regroup AI Attack/Fighter Bombers (Cat. 1,3,4,10) when they're assigned to attack a Current Point with Bombs or Rockets. Usually they scatter never to regroup.
a. After the Attack WP leave 2 WP's off 20 or so miles distant. Direction doesn't matter.
b. Create an Alternate WP route to take them back to their CV or Airfield.
c. Create a trigger set to when the Bomber Formation = 0 Bombs.
d. Create an Event based on that trigger that has an Action Delay of about 120-180 Seconds and then the Alternate Route Action.

Now the Bombers will attack targets of the AI's selection and once all of them have attacked they will regroup on the leader out away from the target area and then proceed home.

2. Targets you don't want the AI's to target. Many time when building Missions you instruct and AI formation to attack a Current Point. In this case we'll use and Airfield that's on the water, lots of those in the PTO.
The AI's always look for the closest targets first. If they're approching from the waterfront they usually will pick up the piers and warfs fist. In many cases these peirs have multiple sections. Each one ends up drawing an AI's attention. So if you have 4 or 5 sections to a pier you have 4 or five non-player AI's attack it instead of the really important targets you intended. How to fix it?

a. Open up your OBJECTS_DP folder and locate the offending objects.
b. Find the Misc Data section.
c. Change the category from 31 to 33.
d. Save and close the DP.
e. Delete the CDP file for that object.

Now the NP-AI's will leave them alone. The oject can still be destroyed but they will not be targetable in the Tactical Display. The same can be done with objects like Wolfi's wrecked ships if you choose.

I had another one when I started typing this but I've gone off the tracks... More later, if I remember...:isadizzy:
 
Forgive me for overseeing this! :redf: What a wonderful resource. Great work, Gedm and others! :ernae:
 
Here's another couple items about AI AA fire.

1. Ground Objects, Ships or Ground Mounted AA Guns have two very distinctive methods of engaging targets.

Weapons that are rapid fire, non-airburst (No Flak Explosion at end of Round Life, Type 0 and 1) will look at an Opposing Aircraft, Fire, Stop Firing, Try to T&E (traverse/elevate) to reacquire the target, Fire Again, Stop and continue with this cycle until the target is out of range. These weapons will not traverse/elevate and fire at the same time. Not very realistic.

If the Object in question does have a Type 4 Gunstation in its DP this all changes. It affects the way Type 0 & 1 weapons engage targets. They will now Fire and T&E at the same time without the pause between the two actions of Tracking and Firing.

Now, if the Object is a Single Ground Mount Weapon with just one Gunstation or a ship like a PT Boat that only has MG's and Cannons you may think you're stuck. You're not. You just have to add a Type 4 Gunstations to the Object. But, you don't want this Weapon to actually fire on anything. You can't have PT Boats running around with a 5" AA Gun or a .50Cal/20mm/25mm/40mm Ground Mount spouting out Airburst shells, like MS did with the Stockers. So here's what you do.

a. Open up the DP.
b. Create a new Gunstation that is a Type 4, like this:

[GUNSTATIONS]
; Existing Gunstation
gunstation.0=0,-2,1,0.5,881,7,0.01,5000,6,40,1d1*80,0.1,4,3.4,0,0,315,-180,180,90,-15,31.36
; Added Type 4 Gunstation
gunstation.1=4,-99,1,60,1,1,0.01,1,0,0,1d1*1,0,0,0,-85,0,0,0,0,0,0,0

This new Gunstation.1 is pointed 85* down, No T&E, has a range of 1 meter, 1 hit point and the round flies at 60FPS. It can't hit squat even if you do get close enough to trip the trigger.

c. Add a Guns Entry for the Gunstation. Like This:

[guns.1]
gun.0=10000,0,0,0,0,0,0,10000

d. Save and Close the DP, delete the CDP.

You now have a Ship/Ground Mount AA Platform that can Fire and T&E at the same time. This is why you see extra Gunstations in many of my ship and AA Gun DP's.

There is one other reason I have Extra Gunstations in several of my ship and Heavy Ground Mount AA Guns, Muzzle Flash/Smoke. I use a little trick on Type 4 Gunstations on Weapons like the IJA 75mm, M2 90mm, IJN Twin 127mm and the IJN Main Guns on BB's and CA's. On Objects that have just one Gunstation I add one but on the ships I just change one item, The Round Life Time. Change it to 0.01.

gunstation.0=4,-22,1,4.28,870,0.01,0.1,9400,7,0,1d1*1,0,9.4,76,0,0,0,-150,150,43,-5,2

The gun, added or existing will now act as before but you'll just see a Muzzle Flash and a small cloud of smoke when it fires.
 
conversion props

I have discoverd that when converting an ac and you get a solid prop disc, go into the texture folder, find prop spin or prop disc. etc and delete it and the prop stays and you have a transparent disc when turning.
RM
 
Roy, its usually a problem with the alpha-channel in the original FS9 prop bmp conflicting with the loss of alpha in the newly converted model. All you need is a new prop bmp from another CFS2-friendly plane. I routinely use the props from Krzysztof Malinowski's P-47's (4 blades) and P-40's (3 blades) and also Kelticheart's props to replace any FS9 prop bmps that don't work.
 
In the past we had a most dreadful rear gunner in the default Betty, and just recently Rami presented a series of .dp files by Captain Kurt that also cured the rear gunners of a series of Axis bombers.

But with Rami's new Battle of France (RAF) I see the same from the TRbf110_C. Whenever I get within 1000 meters I get shot up from this super-expert gunner, using at least a 20 mm weapon, crippling my poor Hurricane. In contrast those pesty 110's almost never use their nose weapons, which in the real world was the primary armament, while the rear gunner's twin MG 181 in caliber 7.92 mm was only meant as a last ditch self defense weapon.

Does anyone have a solution on how to make these airplanes behave more realistically - or at least to tame that damned rear flak battery?

Finn
icon8.png
 
Reply...

Finn,

This is a good post, I'm glad you commented on it. I'm sure we'll get a solution here.
 
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