Good evening,
In certain specific .dp files, how do I "dumb down" the AA accuracy so that they don't chew up aircraft formations with such regularity? What numbers am I looking for, and how do I adjust them?
Good evening,
In certain specific .dp files, how do I "dumb down" the AA accuracy so that they don't chew up aircraft formations with such regularity? What numbers am I looking for, and how do I adjust them?
"Rami"
"Me? I'm just a Sea of Tranquility in an Ocean of Storms, babe."
My campaign site: http://www.box.net/shared/0k1e1rz29h
My missions site: http://www.box.net/shared/ueh4kazk3v
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Rami,
This site should give a few useful pointers:
http://www.hans-egebo.dk/Tutorial/damtut.htm
Depending on what parameters you want to change you will get varying effectiveness from the AA. Reducing the damage dice in the gunstation will make the AA less effective. So will reducing the rounds per minute and the time alive. You could also limit the number of rounds in the guns entry.
Ravenna,
Thanks, this is specifically referring to .dp files for AA guns and one ship .dp file.
"Rami"
"Me? I'm just a Sea of Tranquility in an Ocean of Storms, babe."
My campaign site: http://www.box.net/shared/0k1e1rz29h
My missions site: http://www.box.net/shared/ueh4kazk3v
My scenery site: http://www.box.net/shared/knb1l0ztobhs2esb14rb
I remember something about change the gun to use "Cannon" in the Trigger and Spec boxes but this applied to bombers.
"Let Being Helpful Be More Important Than Being Right!" Some SOH Founder.
Yep, that was understood in my reply above. The gunstations section in the AA DP has various relevant parameters.
Here's an example from one of the WWI AA DPs:
[GUNSTATIONS]
gunstation.0=4,-1,1,10.00,1127.76,60,0.08,4000,0,100,1d1*50,0,0,0, 0,0,0,-180,180,80,-10,8
;range=4 Km (2.5 miles)
[guns.0]
gun.0=1800,0,2.4036,1.1808,0,0,1
[MISC_DATA]
unit_family=4
category=29
allegiance=1
Another parameter you could change is the angle or field of fire for the gun/s and limit the area covered by facing the AA gun in a direction which doesn't cover all of the oncoming "traffic".
Everything Ravenna said.
The sim treats everything as a machine gun bullet, & only tracks it for 2 seconds. So "real world" muzzle velocities won't give Heavy AA the reach it needs, but speeding up the bullet makes them super-accurate.
The only other thing I would add to Ravenna's comments would be to tweak the angle-off:
[guns.0]
gun.0=1800,0,2.4036,1.1808,0,0,1
change to:
[guns.0]
gun.0=1800,0,2.4036,1.1808,+0.5,-0.5,1 or similar
This means the initial rounds will be high(+) or low(-), or starboard (+) or port (-) of the target's real position. The AI will try to compensate, & as the range decreases & the angle off error distance reduces, eventually it will get onto target, but this buys you engagement time.
I use this quite often for bomber guns, my rule of thumb is adjust both for hand-held weapons, & one or the other for turretted weapons.
Also I would checks the time between rounds.
[GUNSTATIONS]
gunstation.0=4,-1,1,10.00,1127.76,60,0.08,4000,0,100,1d1*50,0,0,0, 0,0,0,-180,180,80,-10,8
as too often these are theoretical rates of fire, & flak guns in particular would not operate at these rates all the time (they wait for the first rounds to burst & correct the barrage).
Also don't forget many light weapons are clip fed, so sustained rates of fire are far short of the values often quoted. ie increased time between rounds. eg JAP 25mm auto actual engagement RoF was 225 - 250 rpm, far short of the guns capability, mainly because of the clip feed issue.
Great thread!
MR
"A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums.”
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Thanks guys,
I am slowly but surely working my way through some remaining hurdles before the packages are ready to release. When I get to this point, if I have any other questions, I will certainly ask.
I appreciate the feedback and instruction!
"Rami"
"Me? I'm just a Sea of Tranquility in an Ocean of Storms, babe."
My campaign site: http://www.box.net/shared/0k1e1rz29h
My missions site: http://www.box.net/shared/ueh4kazk3v
My scenery site: http://www.box.net/shared/knb1l0ztobhs2esb14rb
IIRC I've posted this before, these are my notes for adjusting (most) WW2 Flak gun values. Some may find it useful.
Great little resource. Thanks Uncle!
The time between rounds you highlighted is a very useful operator. I've been increasing it gradually in Robert John's Maxim Flak14 Cannon ( soon to be released in the Flanders Pack) and leaving the tweaked angle off as a constant. Flying the same mission, with height heading and no evasive flying I end up being bracketed with 37mm rounds but each increase in the time between rounds buys me more time before being hit. Because this weapon is belt fed the increase in time between rounds is limited. The Maxim's rof was 300 rpm or 5 seconds between rounds, so even allowing for change of belt/drum the rate would be sustained when there is whole battery of guns.
Decreasing the rof to 7 seconds between rounds and increasing the angle off to +0.7, -0.7 bought me an extra 30 seconds. As I was the only target I assume that a large formation would have an increased chance of survival.
Just to add one more log to the wood pile...Pen did some rather extensive work on the *.dp files for land based AA fire. He literally spent hours in the sim pulling information as to what is actually going on in CFS2. The revised files are included in the AF_AA_Pak2.zip. Spend a little time going through the readme. It's pretty informative.
There's another *.zip with his ship *.dp files. (forget the name ATM) The parameters in these (IMHO), are a great improvement compared to the stock iterations.
Good evening,
Dumb airfile question....if you are flying an aircraft that in real life does not have a retractable landing gear but does in the sim, how do you correct this?
"Rami"
"Me? I'm just a Sea of Tranquility in an Ocean of Storms, babe."
My campaign site: http://www.box.net/shared/0k1e1rz29h
My missions site: http://www.box.net/shared/ueh4kazk3v
My scenery site: http://www.box.net/shared/knb1l0ztobhs2esb14rb
Rami, what aircraft/ model is this?
Michael,
Jim Jacobson's Westland Lysander Tropical. I use it in BoF for a nine-mission campaign, as well as in a few other missions.
https://simviation.com/1/download-fi...p&fileId=32685
Note: This version in BoF has been substantially modified by UncleTgt and Baldy to get rid of the underbelly tank, as well as to add the wheel spar fairings for bomb racks..
"Rami"
"Me? I'm just a Sea of Tranquility in an Ocean of Storms, babe."
My campaign site: http://www.box.net/shared/0k1e1rz29h
My missions site: http://www.box.net/shared/ueh4kazk3v
My scenery site: http://www.box.net/shared/knb1l0ztobhs2esb14rb
The air file should have these entries
Section 1004 Landing Gear
*type of gear =0
cycle time left main= 0.0
cycle time right main= 0.0
cycle time nose/tail= 0.0
Cheers,
Captain Kurt
------------------------------------------------------
"Fly, you fools!" Gandalf the Gray
Andrew, I just flew the plane and checked the air file. It needs to have the cycle times fixed, but I think you are referring to the gear up and down sounds heard in the cockpit. That is an error in the Gladiator sound file which the Lysander uses. (Should be fixed for the Glad too). The sound cfg calls for a gear up and a gear down sound and the sound folder has a wav sound file for each. The cfg file should have the gear entries deleted and the wav sounds removed from the sound folder.
Oooookay, further update. I've made the changes above and the plane still has gear up and gear down sounds. Theoretically that should not be possible as there are no gear sounds in the aircraft sound files, but it seems there is a default sound somewhere for a retractable gear. Still changing the gear type to =0, i.e. fixed, should have fixed that.
So now I'm stumped. Anyone else know what's going on here?
Last edited by Captain Kurt; November 10th, 2019 at 18:11.
Cheers,
Captain Kurt
------------------------------------------------------
"Fly, you fools!" Gandalf the Gray
Okay figured it out.
Not only does the air file have to have the entries described above, but the aircraft.cfg file contact points for the gears have to have the retract and extend times set to 0.0 and the sound set to 0.
These are the last three values in each gear contact point values line.
Cheers,
Captain Kurt
------------------------------------------------------
"Fly, you fools!" Gandalf the Gray
Brilliant detective work CK!
Even with gear fixed I think the game will tell you to raise the gear?
"Let Being Helpful Be More Important Than Being Right!" Some SOH Founder.
Kurt,
Thanks for all of the detective work. The only thing I can't figure out is which of the contact points in the aircraft.cfg file references the landing gear.
But since I went through at your recommendation and modified the sound.cfg in the Mercury sound pack since the single-engined .cfg file is only used by the Lysander and two Gladiators, I guess it's kind of moot at this point?
"Rami"
"Me? I'm just a Sea of Tranquility in an Ocean of Storms, babe."
My campaign site: http://www.box.net/shared/0k1e1rz29h
My missions site: http://www.box.net/shared/ueh4kazk3v
My scenery site: http://www.box.net/shared/knb1l0ztobhs2esb14rb
Hi Andrew
The landing gears are normally the first 3 lines of [contact_point] values. The first value in each line defines what the line is addressing. A value of 1= a landing gear; a value of 2= a scrape point, etc.
The first line of values (point.0) is usually the tail / nose gear and the second (point.1) and third (point.2) being the left and right gears.
For those who may be interested, I dug this out of my notes archives. The order of the values in each [contact_point] line is this:
0 = type of contact point (1 is a landing gear, 2 is a scrape point, 3 is a skid point, 4 is a float point)
1 = fore / aft position (in feet relative to the CoD [center of datum or center of the model] positive number is forward, negative number is aft)
2 = lateral position (in feet relative to CoD positive number is right,negative number is left)
3 = vertical position (in feet relative to CoD, positive number moves the aircraft up, negative number moves down)
4 = impact damage threshold (feet per minute the speed at which an impact with earth will cause damage)
5 = brakes (0= none, 1= left wheel, 2= right wheel)
6= wheel radius (in feet)
7= steering angle (in +/- degrees the angle which a wheel can pivot, normally only nose/tail wheel)
8= static compression (in feet the distance a landing gear is compressed while at rest on the ground)
9= maximum compression to static compression (a ratio defining gear compression on landing)
10= damping ratio (value 0.0 to 1.0 defining oscillation [bumping] over the ground. Usually seen between 0.55 to 0.95)
11= gear extension time (in seconds, 0 indicates fixed gear)
12= gear retraction time (in seconds, 0 indicates fixed gear)
13= sound type
( 0=center gear or no sound for fixed gear)
( 1=auxiliary gear)
( 2=left gear)
( 3=right gear)
( 4=fuselage scrape)
( 5=left wing scrape)
( 6=right wing scrape)
( 7=auxiliary 1 scrape)
( 8=auxiliary 1 scrape)
( 9=tail scrape)
14= airspeed limit (in knots speed which gear can no longer be extended. Discovered this value is not included in the line of values for fixed gear aircraft)
15= airspeed damage threshold (in knots the airspeed above which landing gear gets damaged. Discovered this value is not included in the line of values for fixed gear aircraft)
Cheers,
Captain Kurt
------------------------------------------------------
"Fly, you fools!" Gandalf the Gray
Kurt,
Thanks for finding out the answer to these questions, I appreciate it.
"Rami"
"Me? I'm just a Sea of Tranquility in an Ocean of Storms, babe."
My campaign site: http://www.box.net/shared/0k1e1rz29h
My missions site: http://www.box.net/shared/ueh4kazk3v
My scenery site: http://www.box.net/shared/knb1l0ztobhs2esb14rb
Good morning,
The FDG P-36 ex-donationware model "uses the Force" when on the ground, and the main wheels rest well above the runway surface. I find it quite annoying, actually.
While I am doing tweaks and testing for the BoF release, how do I correct this?
"Rami"
"Me? I'm just a Sea of Tranquility in an Ocean of Storms, babe."
My campaign site: http://www.box.net/shared/0k1e1rz29h
My missions site: http://www.box.net/shared/ueh4kazk3v
My scenery site: http://www.box.net/shared/knb1l0ztobhs2esb14rb
Hi Rami,
Go to ac.cfg, and the Contact points section.
The first three entries ie 0, 1, 2 are the tail wheel and then the two main gear info entries. Each section within those entries are separated by commas.
At begining of each entry you will see an = sign, after this count the sections along to the fourth entry, this is the vertical contact point info for this contact point.
As the contact points are measured from the ac central datum point, the contact points are always a - minus figure. To raise the ac/ contact point away from the surface you increase the - minus figure, and to lower the ac/contact point towards the ground you have to reduce the - minus figure.
To help take a look at the M$ FS ac.cfg page, about 1/4 way down is the section Contact points...https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/pre...ectedfrom=MSDN
If the sit of the ac is good then AOK, if not you can tweak the static_pitch angle, which is with the Contact points section.
Cheers
Shessi
Hi Rami
Download this handy contact points primer by -E and keep it in your files for ongoing reference. Despite misspelling the word complete, he knows his stuff. It explains contact points and how to adjust them succinctly.
Attachment 72821
Cheers,
Captain Kurt
------------------------------------------------------
"Fly, you fools!" Gandalf the Gray
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