CFS3...Another Try

Snurdley

Snurdley

Charter Member
Hi,
I bought CFS3 when it came out, but was so disappointed I sent it back to Microsoft. For whatever reason they sent me a check for $300. It helped finance a partial rig upgrade. True story. Anyway, I happened to be perusing this forum and saw the notice about Reg's Hangar and there I saw a beautiful Do217 night fighter. I thought 'How Cool is THAT!!'. So my question is are there any campaigns for German night fighters? Maybe in ETO? This may drag me back to CFS3. :running:

Cheers
 
Man, I guess I should buy up an extra copy and ship it off to microsoft.:mixedsmi:

Yes there are quite a few night fighters available, possibly more than in any other sim, and as Owen mentioned, a specialized expansion for night ops is currently in the works.
 
Thanks guys. The ETO expansion sounds very cool. In the meantime I'll attempt the ETO 1.40 install.

Cheers
 
Snurdley said:
Hi,
I bought CFS3 when it came out, but was so disappointed I sent it back to Microsoft. For whatever reason they sent me a check for $300.Cheers
Click to expand...

I realize this post is a year old but I stumbled across it and wanted to reply since I also recently pulled this game out of my closet and gave it another try. I had some fun with the ground attack missions when I bought it 11-12 years ago, but was very disappointed with the air combat since it would usually take 60 30mm hits to shoot down a twin-engine bomber, when I knew for a fact it historically took the Germans 5-10 hits (sometimes less) of that caliber to bring down a four-engine bomber. A fighter usually took as many 30mm hits as a Sherman in this game! So after a few weeks I put it away in my closet.

For some reason I thought of this game more recently, pulled it out, found this forum and saw that aircraft damage point capacity and the damage that weapons inflict were easy to modify by using a text editor to modify the XPDs. I ran a bunch of trials using the 30mm as the only weapon, adjusting damage boxes, shooting bombers a few times and waiting to see if they were damaged enough to crash with a few minutes, or just shooting them until they exploded. I found that reducing "major" items (engine, fuel, wing, fuselage, tail, stabilizers, etc.) of stock aircraft about 5-7 fold gave me a median of 4 30mm hits to kill a B-25/26, an average of about 4.5, and a range of 3-10. Then I adjusted 20mm and 50-cals to match, since not all were in proportion. I also reduced the flak blast damage by a factor of about seven. I set the oil reservoir of each aircraft to have as many damage points as the engine, since it was a ridiculous weak point for flak hits. The game is a lot of fun to play now.
 
Bear Flag said:
...saw that aircraft damage point capacity and the damage that weapons inflict were easy to modify by using a text editor to modify the XPDs.
Click to expand...

Just remember to delete the .BDP file for each aircraft you're modding. If you don't the changes don't take effect. CFS3 will generate a new .BDP file on startup.
 
hairyspin said:
Just remember to delete the .BDP file for each aircraft you're modding. If you don't the changes don't take effect. CFS3 will generate a new .BDP file on startup.
Click to expand...

I've been skipping that, as the game seems to know which XDPs I have changed, and automatically makes a new BDP.
 
Bear Flag,

Trust me. You DO need to delete the *.BDP file from the particular aircraft folder in which you changed the *.XDP file.

:D

The sim can't replace the *.BDP file unless the old one has been deleted.

AND what Daiwilletti just said, too.

:D
 
I haven't deleted any BDPs, but all my changes have taken effect, and I can tell by the file date-time that the sim is updating them by itself. Changing the ShortName as it displays in the game when I select a weapon removes any doubt. I always run the game as Administrator in Windows 7, would that make a difference?

The only change that doesn't appear to work are the Impact/Blast/FireDamageScale values. They don't make any difference (at least, at the aircraft/vehicle/ship level), unlike the Microsoft Aircraft Damage Profile.doc instructions state. Also, does it make any sense to anyone that FireDamage only affects vehicles, not aircraft, ships, or buildings?
 
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