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Some newbie questions

V

vonOben

Charter Member
Hi

I've installed latest ETO version and have a few questions since I'm new to CFS3, but I've flown a bit in OFF.
　
1. There's a purple arrow on the TAC that shows where the enemies are. Is it possible to turn that off? I haven't seen it in OFF...

2. I've started a Phoney War campaign flying for Germany. Is there only one squadron to enlist for?

3. When I look back in the 109E cockpit on the ground I get a misplaced blue color on the ground. Is there anything to do about that?

View attachment 31625

4. Is there any replacement terrain tiles for the cities? The white color is not very realistic IMHO.

5. The terrain gets a white color in the distance. Is that possible to fix?

View attachment 31626

Thanks for any help!
:ernae:

Cheers

vonOben
 
Hi

no. 1 is quier easy: shift-T switches "radar" on and off

for no. 3 and 5: try playing with the graphic settings...

cheers
 
Led Zeppelin said:
5: you can't do anything for this, it as a CFS3 issue when you fly at high altitude during winter.
Click to expand...

Basically, you have two types of ground tiles - the ones for close-in which you're familiar with, and the long distance ones. Nobody has ever got around to replacing the long-distance ones because to be frank, it's a lot of work for very little gain. That's what you can see here.
 
Hi von Oben, in OFF a number of "hard coded" things have been tweaked. Other addons to CFS3 have not gone quite so far (yet). Certainly ETO, PTO and MAW are head and shoulders above the original.

Your questions:
1. The purple colour can be changed in the viewui.xml under your Application data pathway. It may also be possible to turn off target indicators using the config settings, running config.exe, in the first page. Cartainly a lot of the advisory stuff can be switched off.
2. I thing the stock campaign engine randomly assigns the squadron? Or actually, isn't it simply called "My Squadron" in the campaign Mission file and the campaign stats file? OFF has heavily tweaked this stuff.
3. Odd bits of blue, especially geometric shapes in the terrain, often need tweaking of the config settings to match scenery detail to vid card capabilities - but it also could be an artefact of the view from the particular cockpit - a modeller would know the answer?
4. there are all sorts of replacement terrain tiles. Most people like the ones in ETO. You could take the city tiles from Pat Pattle's BoB addon and replace the ETO ones (saving the ETO ones in case you don't like the BoB ones). Pat has obtained some great stuff.
5. CFS3 has an automatic "snow line" across Europe where snow is depicted North of the line over winter. It must be possible to replace winter tiles with renamed autumn tiles if you want to get rid of the white stuff? You need to delve into the .dds textures under your Assets folder. and use a dds viewer to see which tiles you like. There is also almost certainly and xml file detailing which texture tiles appear in which season, and you could tweak that file instead.

Usually there is great flexibility to find a work around to suit everyone in CFS3! Trouble is for online flying you still need a standardised platform too.

Good luck with your tweaking!

D
 
Hi guys

Thanks for your kind help. :)

1. I've checked in CFS3config but I couldn't find anything there. I don't want to hide the TAC completely only removing the little arrow pointing to the enemies. I've done some color changes in viewui.xml for OFF in the past, and if the little arrow has a separate color that could be completely transparent and invisible. I'll check viewui.xml but what should I look for?

2. I'm flying for 8./JG 2 so I changed the text "My squadron" to JG 2 and our airbase is Wangerooge at the Northsea coast. Is it possible to change to another airfield when you start a new campaign or can it be done also when you've started?

3. I haven't noticed the odd blue color in other planes only the 109E, so I guess it's something wrong with that particular cockpit. But since it only happens when I'm on the ground it's no big deal.

4/5. I've seen screenshots from Pat's BoB tiles and they do look very nice. I've already checked some of the files in the Assets folder using a dds viewer, but I couldn't find any city tiles. Are all terrain tiles in the Assets folder, also the long distance tiles? If they are I'll keep looking through every file in there.
Is there any info regarding how terrain tiles are used in CFS3? File names and which folder they are in and similar information that could be of use?

Cheers

vonOben
 
Hi VonOben,

Welcome aboard! Always nice to see a new face who's prepared to roll up there sleeves and get their hands dirty. :)

The ETO city textures are stock, they're compiled in the .mos files in the lcmosaic zip folder in Terrains. They are named: 031summer1,2 & 3, 034summer1 & 2 and 047summer1.mos

They're not easy to mod as each file is made up of many layers. I junked the lot and just had one layer with the city image (stolen from East London in Google earth) in it.

If you want to try the BoB ones all you need to do is place the complete 'cities' folder from BoB assets and place it in the ETO assets folder. f you don't like them simply remove them again.
Btw in the BoB install there are no modded winter textures (yet).

Cheers,

Pat
 
Hi Pat

Thanks! I’ve got my hands really dirty modding EAW for10 years with FAW as my pet project.
http://vonoben.free.fr/

But in CFS3 I’m totally lost. :isadizzy:

I’ll test your BoB city tiles!
What are mos files and how do I open them if I want to check them out.
Do you know where to find the long distance tiles?

Cheers
vonOben
 
Hi Von Oben, when you refer to an arrow, do you mean the target cone? You can uncheck the box allowing the cone in cfsconfig. If you mean the little yellow brackets which show a target when you select it, I suspect the best thing is as you say, to make the colour transparent in the viewui.xml. I'm not on my gaming computer unfortunately so cannot be more specific. One thing is I'm pretty sure that Microsoft has a document explaining how to edit the viewui, called "understanding the viewui". Its on the official cfs3 website.

I just read the document, and the yellow brackets are mentioned right at the bottom of the guide. They are called brackets.dds. Another way to render them invisible would be to find the texture file and remove it and save it outside the CFS3 root folder? Just something to try.

-changing to another airfield in a campaign - YES! You can either select another HQ to jump to (which will cost 2000 prestige points) or the campaign.xml itself will move you after a period defined in the xml file. You can edit the "roundstomovesquadrons" entry in the campaign.xml to control or stop the moving of your squadron. There are usually 60 rounds per day so a figure of 300 means the squadron moves every 5 days in the standard campaign. That way, you can control when your squadron moves. If you want to change how much it costs you to select another airfield to move to, you can do that too - in one of the xml files in the root folder of CFS3. The pilotconstants.xml, look at the bottom for "relocationbasecost"

- As for the distant white tiles, I recall an old thread where someone found the easiest thing is to edit the ring diameters so that the most distant viewing ring is pushed out a long way - blowed if I can remember the name of the file - is it scenerybudgets.xml? In which case there's likely such a file in ETO under the Assets folder? Actually its compositescenerybudgets.xml. I haven't fiddled with it myself so can't guide you further, I just know it can be done.

If you have a hunt around in the Terrains folders under the CFS3 root folder, there are lots of zip folders to hunt through. There are probably other options to the problem of distant white tiles. For example you could probably find a file where you can eliminate the winter season altogether or specify the use of autumn tiles. Hopefully a scenery guru will read this thread and contribute - it will save you a bit of time!!

For example, the "terrdata.zip" file under the Terrains folder contains a landclasses.xml file, which controls the tiles called for in different seasons. That would be a good place to start.

Let us know how you get on! Its always good to hear about what the solution to various issues is.

HTH,
D
 
What are mos files and how do I open them if I want to check them out.
Click to expand...

A mos file is a holder for the .dds terrain images. It controls quality and visibility. The stock ones are usually made up of many layers which include a basic ground texture then layers of shrub and grass textures etc. on top of that. It's been found through work by Johhno UK who made the ETO textures that the multi layer approach is an overkill and that only one layer is usually needed.

To view and edit the SDK is required. It can be a little tricky to set up with extra M$ files needed.
Let us know if you run into problems.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs3/

Thanks! I’ve got my hands really dirty modding EAW for10 years with FAW as my pet project.
http://vonoben.free.fr/

But in CFS3 I’m totally lost.
Click to expand...

CFS3 is probably no harder to mod than EAW or any of them come to that...once you get your head around how its done - there's plenty of folk around here that will be glad to help, they're a great bunch.

I liked EAW too, and some very nice work still being performed on it. I like your website, what format are the models created in?

There are some Finnish war mods for cfs3 too btw.

Pat

ps. The targeting brackets are in the 'fxtextures' folder within the 'effects' main folder.
the file you need is brackets.dds.
 
Hi guys

Thanks for trying to help!
Much appreciated! :)

Daiwilletti:
No I don't mean the target cone and I don't mean the yellow brackets either, I know how to turn those off.
What I mean is the purple arrow in ETO (default being yellow) on the TAC that pops up when there are enemies nearby and showing the direction to them. I'll post a screenshot later on if needed.

I've read the help about campaign play and how to change to another HQ. The problem is that I can't find any other German HQ in the Phony War campaign... The campaign started in September 20 1939 and my latest mission was in December 12, there is long time between the missions in this campaign and we haven't moved to another airfield yet.

Increasing the ring diameter seems as a good idea, but wouldn't that lower your frame rate?

Pat:
Thanks for the info about mos files!
I don't fully understand how it works though, but if I check the files maybe I understand better. :confused:

Regarding modding, the problem is to get information how things work and to understand the information. Are there no CFS3 modding guides available?

In EAW the 3D models are in 3dz, a 3D data format developed by MicroProse and used in several of their games.
Since we got the source code much has been improved and several new exe versions has been produced, the latest one being 1.28e.

Cheers
vonOben
 
vonOben said:
Hi guys

Thanks for trying to help!
Much appreciated! :)

Daiwilletti:
No I don't mean the target cone and I don't mean the yellow brackets either, I know how to turn those off.
What I mean is the purple arrow in ETO (default being yellow) on the TAC that pops up when there are enemies nearby and showing the direction to them. I'll post a screenshot later on if needed.
Click to expand...

Sorry can't help you on the little purple direction indicator thingy. Most of my missions recently have been BoB era, and the way I see it RAF command directed the squadrons pretty well toward incoming enemy aircraft, so I don't find it too much of an immersion-killer.

For the campaign you could always tweak the rounds to jump to fly more frequently, and add a few more squadrons or reduce the number of squadrons per HQ, so as to get more HQs and therefore be able to select more airfields to move to.
 
Daiwilletti said:
For the campaign you could always tweak the rounds to jump to fly more frequently, and add a few more squadrons or reduce the number of squadrons per HQ, so as to get more HQs and therefore be able to select more airfields to move to.
Click to expand...

OK, but how do I do that? :confused:

Cheers

vonOben
 
Hi Pat

I've already checked the knowledgebase before posting, a lot of good information there! :)

Is there a campaign sdk, someone mentioned it here at the forum but it's not at the Microsoft page. :confused:

Thanks for the link, I'll check there. :)

Cheers

vonOben
 
Campaign SDK

vonOben said:
OK, but how do I do that? :confused:

Cheers

vonOben
Click to expand...
Hi vonO, here is an extract for the Campaign SDK. By the way I've had a quick look around. I thought I'd arranged for an upload of the SDK but cannot find it. Anyway, this bit should help:

NB Average Squadron Count and Max HQ capacity are useful under the Campaign Parameters section, but also the sheer number of squadrons, which is defined earlier in the campaign.xml file, under the Phase section under Squadron data.

For example if the number of fighter squadrons for the Phase February-April 1940 is 5, you could double it to 10. Then going down to Campaign Parameters, change HQMaxCapacity to 2. Thus in that phase of the campaign, you will have a minimum of 5 HQs created (10 squadrons after all), so you have a bit of a choice as to airfield to shift to (at a cost of 2000 points to move HQs). As far as the ETO campaigns go, I notice they create very few squadrons, because they rely on good spawn files for the action during campaign missions. This is a very good approach, the only limiting factor is the one you have encountered - there is little choice of airbase to fly from.

Bear in mind that whilst an awful lot of the RAF airfields have received wonderful specific airbases, the German airfields lag behind and you are mainly just flying from generic airbases. Hence the immersion factor, and the fun of switching airbases, is not so great.
<CampaignParams> section

Here we get into the inner workings of how the players actions will effect the the campaign and specifically the frontline. Most of the parameters names are self explanitory. “Init” can mean to initiate or initial.
Parameter
Example (from campaign.xml)
Description
MaxTimeAcceleration
[FONT=&quot]MaxTimeAcceleration[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="6"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
ServerAutoSaveFrequency
[FONT=&quot]ServerAutoSaveFrequency[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="1"[/FONT]
?
RoundLength
[FONT=&quot]RoundLength[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="60"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Value is in seconds. Used while the user is in the UI. When flying campaign missions a round is 24 minutes (as calculated based on [FONT=&quot]RoundsPerDay[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="60"[/FONT])
RoundsPerDay
[FONT=&quot]RoundsPerDay[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="60"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

RoundsToJump
[FONT=&quot]RoundsToJump[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="300"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Number of Rounds jumped after mission ends.
SRMultiplier
[FONT=&quot]SRMultiplier[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="1"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
RoundsToApplySItoTI
[FONT=&quot]RoundsToApplySItoTI[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="420"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Value is in Rounds. How frequently we recalculated the TI values of all the sectors along the frontline.
RoundsToMoveSquadrons
[FONT=&quot]RoundsToMoveSquadrons[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="360"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
RoundsToBurnDownSI
[FONT=&quot]RoundsToBurnDownSI[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="80"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
RoundsToInitOffensive
[FONT=&quot]RoundsToInitOffensive[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="0"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
RoundsToHideOffensive
[FONT=&quot]RoundsToHideOffensive[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="30"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
RoundsToCheckAIOffensive
[FONT=&quot]RoundsToCheckAIOffensive[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="600"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
RoundsToAutoSave
[FONT=&quot]RoundsToAutoSave[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="20"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Round frequency to auto save campaign status. Use 0 to disable the autosaving feature
OffensiveRadius
[FONT=&quot]OffensiveRadius[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="3"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Radius in number of sectors to identify which frontline sectors would be upgraded to “Offensive” status. This would happen when an offensive is initiated or when an invasion sector is taken.
SupplyBurnDownRate
[FONT=&quot]SupplyBurnDownRate[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="1"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
ReserveBurnDownRate
[FONT=&quot]ReserveBurnDownRate[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="1"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Not used
AIsquadronHealthLoss
[FONT=&quot]AIsquadronHealthLoss[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="2"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Percent health an AI squdron would loose if a die roll determined that it should loose health.
PlayerSquadronHealthLoss
[FONT=&quot]PlayerSquadronHealthLoss[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="2"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
PCHealthLoss
[FONT=&quot]PCHealthLoss[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="2"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
FighterSquadronsFlownPercentage
[FONT=&quot]FighterSquadronsFlownPercentage[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="20"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Percentage of AI squadrons that will be marked as flown.
SelectOffensiveSectorPercentage
[FONT=&quot]SelectOffensiveSectorPercentage[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="40"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Percentage chance that the frontline sector chosen by an AI squadron for a mission is an Offensive Sector.
SIMaxThreshold
[FONT=&quot]SIMaxThreshold[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="85"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Value at which SR will get incremented by 1.
TIMaxThreshold
[FONT=&quot]TIMaxThreshold[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="85"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
When the average of the MSP values in a frontline sector reach this value then the frontline will move toward the alliance with the lower MSP values.
SIbaseValue
[FONT=&quot]SIbaseValue[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="50"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Not Used
TIbaseValue
[FONT=&quot]TIbaseValue[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="50"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
When a sector is converted to a frontline sector the MSP values need to be initialized. Those values are this base value plus or minus a die roll
TIbaseOffensiveValue
[FONT=&quot]TIbaseOffensiveValue[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="78"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Same as the TibaseValus except that the moving sector is an offensive sector.
HQInitDistance
[FONT=&quot]HQInitDistance[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="2"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Value is in sectors. Distance to front line.
HQMinDistance
[FONT=&quot]HQMinDistance[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="1"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Value is in sectors. Distance to front line.
HQMaxDistance
[FONT=&quot]HQMaxDistance[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="3"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Value is in sectors. Distance to front line.
HQAverageSquadrounCount
[FONT=&quot]HQAverageSquadrounCount[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="4"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Average sqaudron count in an HQ. Used when HQ’s and Squadrons allocation are being set up or moved or more squadrons show up.
HQMaxRecommendedCapacity
[FONT=&quot]HQMaxRecommendedCapacity[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="10"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Max squadron count in an HQ, but not an absolute. Used when HQ’s and Squadrons allocation are being set up or moved or more squadrons show up.
HQMaxCapacity
[FONT=&quot]HQMaxCapacity[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="99"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Absolute Max squadron count in an HQ. Used when HQ’s and Squadrons allocation are being set up or moved or more squadrons show up.
UseFogOfWar
[FONT=&quot]UseFogOfWar[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="y"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
If “y” then the displayed values for enemy SI and TI indices are erroneous.
TIPenaltyBase
[FONT=&quot]TIPenaltyBase[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="5"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Max value to be subtracted from each TI index in a sector if the occupant fails to move because of adjacent No-Go sectors.
TIbaseBoostValue
[FONT=&quot]TIbaseBoostValue[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="83"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
When a sector is converted to an offensive sector by Invasion or designation then all the MSP values are recalculated with this value plus of minus a die roll.
SquadronHealthResupplyThreshold
[FONT=&quot]SquadronHealthResupplyThreshold[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="90"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
AIMaxRoundsToFlyPerDay
[FONT=&quot]AIMaxRoundsToFlyPerDay[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="3"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
Maximum number of “missions” an AI squdron will fly in a day.
AIMinHealthToFlyMission
[FONT=&quot]AIMinHealthToFlyMission[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="20"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
If squadron health is less than this value then it will not be available for missions.
C_TI_MORALE
[FONT=&quot]C_TI_MORALE[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="5"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
C_TI_POWER
[FONT=&quot]C_TI_POWER[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="2"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
C_WINGMAN_REPLACE
[FONT=&quot]C_WINGMAN_REPLACE[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="5"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
C_SQ_RESUPPLY
[FONT=&quot]C_SQ_RESUPPLY[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="0.5"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
C_STRUCT_REPAIR
[FONT=&quot]C_STRUCT_REPAIR[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="5"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
C_AIRCRAFT_UPGRADE
[FONT=&quot]C_AIRCRAFT_UPGRADE[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="2.5"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
C_TAC
[FONT=&quot]C_TAC[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="5"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
SuccessBonus
[FONT=&quot]SuccessBonus[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="20"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
SuccessBonusDecayRate
[FONT=&quot]SuccessBonusDecayRate[/FONT][FONT=&quot]="0.0667"[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
?
 
Hi Daiwilletti

Thanks a lot for the info!

Now I have a lot to go through and I'm sure new questions will arise.

Any chanse you could post the Campaign sdk or e-mail it to me?
You can find my e-mail on the main page on my site:
http://vonoben.free.fr/

Thanks!

:ernae:

Cheers

vonOben
 
Done!

SDK has gone.

It occurs to me these should be uploaded at Sim-Outhouse but I don't know if permissions are needed. I threw in the viewui explanation, the mission/spawn file sdk, an overview of SDKs for CFS3 by Matt Johnson that is very useful, and an overview of the SDKs from the Scenery Halls of Fame website.

Should keep you busy :icon_lol:
 
It occurs to me these should be uploaded at Sim-Outhouse but I don't know if permissions are needed.
Click to expand...
If it's M$ stuff such as the SDK then I would have thought no permission would be needed, especially after this length of time. Would be nice to have this 'out there'. :)
 
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