New parameters for the game.xml file

[Daiwilletti]

For those of you who like to experiment, or push the boundaries a little, here is another gem. I seem to be in a giving mood today, this is my third new thread

I've just been delving into a crash dump report, the details of which are: Users/David/AppData/Local/Temp file name 1F629DB1.dmp 3/08/17. You may have some similar files in a similar location. Anyway, I've determined a section with a whole lot of parameters for the game.xml file. About half or maybe more are already used by the stock game.xml.

AVIRenderOptionsQuery@@ DefaultGSL DefaultTheatre LightVertAngle LightHorizAngle LightAmbient LightColor ShadowRenderDist GoalSpawnRetryInterval GoalSpawnInterval SpawnRetryInterval SpawnInterval SpawnPositionRetryCount RoadSpawnVacantRadius RailSpawnVacantRadius OceanSpawnVacantRadius GroundSpawnVacantRadius QuickCombatFriendlyRadius GroundGoalSpawnRadius NearFacilityRadius DistantFacilityRadius MaxSpawnedStatic MaxSpawnedShips MaxSpawnedVehicles MaxSpawnedAircraft MaxBullets SingleMissionCampaign CanExpandFacilities CanSpawnFormations PlayerInAIMode LightTerrainObjects ShowObjectShadows ShowTerrainShadows ShowStars ShowUIWorld VolFogTop VolFogBottom VolFogMap fogmap.tga EnvMap CubeEnvMap default_env.tga ShowResLoad

The first one which leaps out at me is QuickCombatFriendlyRadius. Wow, maybe it is possible to adjust this! Sometimes I find all those pesky red triangles when I fly QC to be a pain, all that flak!

Another one is ShadowRenderDist. This could be really handy if something similar is not already rendered by Ankors shaders. It would relieve some CPU burden if shadows were only rendered out for a few kms.

Another is GoalSpawnRetryInterval. I often have problems in a campaign mission when a goal spawn does not immediately appear (usually on an anti_ship mission). So setting a short retry interval might help.

What about MaxSpawnedShips, or MaxSpawnedAircraft? Some may have noticed that if you set up a ship formation with more than 7 ships, they start to double up on each other. So this parameter might make things more interesting.

If I ever get around to testing any of this I will let you know.

If it turns out any of this actually works, it should be added to the knowledgebase sticky. But maybe not yet!

 

[Mixxer]

hmm interesting stuff mate

 

[Daiwilletti]

QuickCombatFriendlyRadius

It works!!!! I tried QuickCombatFriendlyRadius="5000", and flew out of West Prawle before and after the adjustment. In standard QC mode, a nearby invasion defence was enemy, but after adding this tweak to the game.xml, the facility went blue (friendly).

Can't help but feel excited, this is the first significant change to the QC environment since I don't know when. It suggests some of the other stuff will work, too.

My preference is to go larger, I suspect the units in the game.xml are feet. I would like to experiment with a far larger friendly zone, and the possibility of landing at several airfields without getting shot at. Sure you can do that in Free Flight mode, but having spawns is part of the fun. My testbed has some coastal shipping spawns enabled in QC, which gives a bit more activity when flying from a coastal airbase. The ground.spawns work in QC mode, but other stock default spawn sets like frontline.spawns and air.spawns don't, so it is possible with an expanded friendly zone to include air spawns into facility files, hopefully, and get a completely different QC environment....

 

[hunter]

Good to know , Daiwilletti

 

[mongoose]

When you've finished the exploration, maybe a pdf or something to the project knowledge thread?

 

[Daiwilletti]

OK, QuickCombatFriendlyRadius=15000 works. However am noticing that enemy vehicle ground spawns pop up within that radius which is a bit odd. It may be worth trying to define the enemy ground spawns a bit more clearly, using Flags="enemy" in the spawn file, as well as Groundtype="ground,enemy".

Will keep experimenting! Anyone else trying the new parameters?

 

[mongoose]

Not that I use QC except for testing but might try QuickCombatFriendlyRadius

As for the others, If I make a mission I tend to do my own in mission spawns, Boring I know!

However note my game/xml has none of these features! And as for crashdump I don't see how you even open them.

<Game>
<General MaxBullets="120" PlayerInAIMode="false" CanExpandFacilities="true" CanSpawnFormations="true" DefaultMission="" EnvMap="panoramic_cubic_test.dds" CubeEnvMap="panoramic_cubic_test.dds" VolFogMap="fogmap.tga" Skybox="clouds" LightColor_R="255" LightColor_G="255" LightColor_B="255" LightAmbient_R="64" LightAmbient_G="64" LightAmbient_B="64" LightHorizAngle="-45.0" LightVertAngle="45.0" FogColor_R="200" FogColor_G="200" FogColor_B="200" DetailObjTex="detail.tga" VolFogBottom="0.0f" VolFogTop="50.0f" ShowResLoad="1" DefaultTheatre="CFS3Europe" DefaultGSL="CFS3Europe1943" SingleMissionCampaign="nek_ETO.xml" ShowUIWorld="true"/>
</Game>

 

[Daiwilletti]

New Parameters

As for the others, If I make a mission I tend to do my own in mission spawns, Boring I know!

However note my game/xml has none of these features! And as for crashdump I don't see how you even open them.

Hi Mongoose, the thing about the ground.spawns is that they are used by QC to generate vehicles etc. That is how I get ships to appear in QC mode, by adding ship spawn files to ground.spawns, and I find shooting at them more enjoyable than some tiny little kubelwagon.

And the whole point of this thread is that I have discovered new parameters, so your game.xml will not have them! That is why I am so excited

Did you find a dump file? I think I just set it to open with Notepad. You can get just about anything to open in Notepad - understanding the hieroglyphics is another question....

 

[Pat Pattle]

Nice find David. Interesting that there are 2 .tga files referenced in the game.xml which don't exist, even as .dds, in cfs3.

My dmp files have entries for afterburners and all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff.

 

[mongoose]

OK I have no dmp files in C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\Temp
In C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Local i have a lot! So some have cfs3 in their title and in cfs3.exe.8280.dmp I found stuff like this

Welcome to CFS3 build %s at %s
ÿÿÿÿ €?Xä{ .?AVIRenderOptionsQuery@@ DefaultGSL DefaultTheatre LightVertAngle LightHorizAngle LightAmbient LightColor ShadowRenderDist GoalSpawnRetryInterval GoalSpawnInterval SpawnRetryInterval SpawnInterval SpawnPositionRetryCount RoadSpawnVacantRadius RailSpawnVacantRadius OceanSpawnVacantRadius GroundSpawnVacantRadius QuickCombatFriendlyRadius GroundGoalSpawnRadius NearFacilityRadius DistantFacilityRadius MaxSpawnedStatic MaxSpawnedShips MaxSpawnedVehicles MaxSpawnedAircraft MaxBullets SingleMissionCampaign CanExpandFacilities CanSpawnFormations PlayerInAIMode LightTerrainObjects ShowObjectShadows ShowTerrainShadows ShowStars ShowUIWorld VolFogTop VolFogBottom VolFogMap fogmap.tga EnvMap CubeEnvMap default_env.tga ShowResLoad Xä{ .?AVGameOptions@@
ðe„ äe„ Øe„ Ðe„ Score HighScore HighScores highscores.xml Type_%d
%f %f %f
ÿÿÿÿ
ÿÿÿÿ €?Xä{ .?AVISceneTextureQuery@@ Xä{ .?AVScene@@ Xä{ .?AVMissionState@@ separator.tga
ÿÿÿÿXä{ .?AVMissBriefData@@
´h„ ¬h„ œh„ h„ „h„ |h„ th„ lh„ d ‚ `h„ Th„ Hh„ <h„ 0h„ (h„ h„ h„ h„ ðg„ äg„ Øg„ Ìg„ ¼g„ °g„ ¤g„ ˜g„ g„ èÁ ÿÿÿÿSuccess Prestige Experience ShipKills BuildingKills GroundKills AirKills Bomb**** BombsDropped Rocket**** RocketsFired Round**** Event PlayerID Antagonist Protagonist FatalDamage Timeline Player Stats Events EndMessage IsSuccess EndCondition Outcome Debriefing


So having found that I am not sure what to do with it in relation to game.xml?

 

[Daiwilletti]

Hi Mongoose, you found the dump file I was talking about. All I have done is separate out, in my first post, those parameters which I think belong to the game.xml. As I said, only about half of the parameters are actually used in the stock game.xml. So what do you do with it? You are only limited by your imagination. I was interested in the Quick Combat friendly radius parameter, so I added it to my game.xml file, as I described above. I found that the new parameter works. You can see there are a whole set of parameters about spawning radius and retry intervals, none of these are in stock, but if you can see a use for any of them, you could try them.

As I said above, values of 5000 or 15000 work for the QC friendly radius parameter, but I don't know the units, but suspect the unit is feet.


@ Clive, I have sorted out an entire dmp file by the subject of all the stuff found in it. I have Waypoint directives, Mission types, Weapon types, Gun types etc etc. As I've said in previous threads, some of the stuff relates to guided weapons, and there are also waypoint directives like "kamikaze". But I have not tested extensively, I simply assumed none of the stuff was operationalised.

But now I've found some new stuff that actually works (in the game.xml), I am interested in going back to the new Waypoint Directives and testing some more.

I don't think the directives will be recognised in the Mission Builder. However things can be put directly into a mission.xml file. For example, I can put in Groundskill entries, but as soon as I open the mission in the Mission Builder, the Groundskill entries get changed to just "Skill". So some things are best left out of the Mission Builder!

 

[Daiwilletti]

Nice find David. Interesting that there are 2 .tga files referenced in the game.xml which don't exist, even as .dds, in cfs3.

My dmp files have entries for afterburners and all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff.

As for the .tga files, I have searched high and low for the names, even .dds equivalent and as you found, I had no luck either. NB: those texture entries are in the stock game.xml.

 

[mongoose]

Thanks David. I am wondering how much such exploring as you are doing now helped WOFF and WOTR makes their improvements.

 

[ndicki]

Not a single cfs3 dump file to be found... Am I paying the price for a series of installs which actually work?

 

[ndicki]

I've just added QuickCombatFriendlyRadius="15000" - don't forget the inverted commas - to game.xml directly after DefaultMission="" - and it works! Brilliant find - thank you!

 

[Daiwilletti]

I've just added QuickCombatFriendlyRadius="15000" - don't forget the inverted commas - to game.xml directly after DefaultMission="" - and it works! Brilliant find - thank you!

Thanks, Nigel. Now all I have to do is find a solution to the enemy vehicles spawning within the friendly radius! And test all the new Waypoint Directives....

Oh, in terms of the .dmp file, Mongoose reports a slightly different path to the file - it will differ according to Windows version, I suppose?

 

[mongoose]

I have quite a few .dmp files but interesting that my search doesn't always pick them out unless I get with 1 or 2 steps from the folder they're in. cfs3.exe.8280.dmp is the one concerned here but all the other cfs3xxx.dmps are very large . Most 'readable' bits seem to be in the 2nd half or last third of the file(s).

 

[Daiwilletti]

Ground Spawns inside the QC Friendly Radius

In my Modified Stock Upgrade, the ground.spawns files have been edited. So I find that when I increase the QuickCombatFriendlyRadius, I still get enemy truck and troop columns, etc, within the friendly radius. Enemy facilities respect the radius.

As I suspected, it is possible to edit the enemy ground .spawns xml files so the ground spawns do not appear next to your friendly airbase in QC mode when the friendly radius is several kilometres away!

In your spawns folder, the enemy ground spawns start (oddly enough) with the term enemy. So you have a file named enemy_armored_column.xml, and similarly for truck column, train and troop column. The four xml files are responsible for all vehicular activity outside airbases and facilities like factories, when in QC mode.

The fix for these four spawn files is to add Flags="enemy" within the first waypoint entry. With that flag in place, you can delete the word "enemy" from that first waypoint position entry.

What I have seen so far, is that with a nice large QC friendly radius and those flags in place, the enemy vehicles do not spawn within the friendly radius.

Has anybody else seen those pesky enemy vehicles? It may only be a problem within my modified stock install - I must upload an update.

 

[Bravo/4]

I get flak almost as soon as I take off, can that be stopped in QC?

Also it might be better showing an example of your enemy spawn edits, some of us need to see how it's actually written?

 

[Daiwilletti]

I get flak almost as soon as I take off, can that be stopped in QC?

Also it might be better showing an example of your enemy spawn edits, some of us need to see how it's actually written?

yessiree John, adding QuickCombatFriendlyRadius="10000" to your game.xml file in the root of your install, will drastically reduce the red triangles on your TAC indicator, and also flak! It makes taking off in QC mode a bit more relaxing, and adds nearby airbases and other facilities to the Blue Team rather than the Red Team.

here is a worked example from a common ground spawn seen in QC mode, enemy_truck_column.xml:

Stock routes section - <Route>
<Waypoint Type="turn" PositionType="ground" Position="road,enemy"></Waypoint>
<Waypoint Type="turn" PositionType="ground" Position="road,distant,enemy"></Waypoint>
</Route>

Modified entry to stop pesky enemy vehicles from shooting at you from within the QuickCombatFriendlyRadius:

<Route>
<Waypoint Type="turn" PositionType="ground" Position="road,[STRIKE]enemy[/STRIKE]" Flags="enemy"></Waypoint>
<Waypoint Type="turn" PositionType="ground" Position="road,distant,enemy"></Waypoint>
</Route>

So my edits are to remove "enemy" from the Position parameter (as shown using strikethrough), and to ADD an enemy flag to the same waypoint.

Somehow this changes the spawning behaviour and excludes enemy ground.spawns from within the FriendlyRadius specified in the game.xml.

Once you have done it for the enemy truck column, do it for the enemy_armored_coloumn and the enemy_troop_column and the enemy_train.xml, these are all triggered by the ground.spawns spawn table file, which is operative in QC mode (unlike the air.spawns spawn table file).

In terms of pesky flak in QC mode, the addition of the QuickCombatFriendlyRadius will make the biggest reduction, but getting rid of the enemy ground formations will help with some light flak too.

HTH,