Com-Central.net

JG300-Stoopy · Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 4:48 pm Post subject: Re: Military Flights

Uhu_Fledermaus wrote:

p.s. I still have a exploding bombs effect stashed if you fella's wanna use it

Fled....gosh, how can any self-respecting Wild Sau say no to an offer like that, really?

Feel free to send away!...

In honesty I don't know if it would be useful for this particular mission however. We need to be careful and limit what's going on or I'm afraid folks would run into frame rate hits or problems, since this will be taking place in multiplayer with different aircraft and helo's flying around. Gotta be careful.

I was thinking of using the smoke canister I'd whipped up (looks better than the example above now) for some of the smaller LZ's that the helos will be heading into, with or without air cover, and making a white smoke "Willy Pete" effect for up around Khe Sanh for the Sandy's to make a run on. Primarily, "markers" like as these are needed so that the new locations, which have now been added as airport data and show up on the map and GPS, will also easily visible from outside the cockpit...since there is no actual "scenery" added for Khe Sanh and others, and they are otherwise indestiguishable from surrounding terrain. So that's now taken care of as well.

But if we can use it, we will, I bet ya... We'll see what our subject matter expert says when he gets back in town and looks over what we have so far! Wink

Shadow_Bshwackr · Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:17 pm Post subject: Re: Military Flights

Uhu_Fledermaus · Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 4:59 am Post subject: Re: Military Flights

Wonderfull stuff fella's !

Sorry that I haven't been around to much lately.

Hopefully as from next week I'll be fully available again.

fled

p.s. I still have a exploding bombs effect stashed if you fella's wanna use it

JG300-Stoopy · Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:41 am Post subject: Re: Military Flights

Okay well I hope it was time well spent....spent a couple hours with the Effects SDK today, it comes with a nice sample forest fire, and then I worked up something that hopefully looks like a pink smoke grenade being popped in an LZ. Purple Haze? Laughing

Don't want to go too nutso with this stuff but Kafco made a good point about having maybe a few effects somewhere in there, and it makes sense to have a little bit at some of the harder to identify places.

I'll add them to the NAV points in the other BGL to make it easier for Ascout to see where I've put his other camps, and we'll go from there.

Also recorded the A1-D flight so I can play it back as AI as I start experimenting with the Helo flight, to comfirm the timing...if it works out right I should see my AI-D fly over as AI at specific times.

Gettin' close gents.....I think.....Fr8ycat, Yep I'll defininitely be standkng by and ready to wrap a new installer around your great updated Loach!!

JG300-Stoopy · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 8:59 pm Post subject: Re: Military Flights

Ehh......yep!!!!!

I need to change the color and also modify the door window becuase it's bigger....I know it's late......(cringe).....:time to get it out the door I know...

I have the Apolocalypse Now and Redux effects and they aren't that great, although the idea is neat. It puts fires and explosiions and some firework-looking things all over the place wherever you go taht are also KILLERS on frame rates. I'd propose skipping 'em for this....but it is a good suggestion on the surface!

Based on the quick success getting what was needed out of the MS Scenery SDK I also got a few others, like the Effects SDK and it may be easy to put up some other effects at key points. Not too much to blow the realism though. The Apocolypse Now effects were pretty extreme - like all of Vietnam was in a huge world-ending firefight and artillery strike.

JG300-fr8ycat · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:53 pm Post subject: Re: Military Flights

BTW Stoopy, a little off topic but while I have your attention, remember this beaut............ Wink

JG300-fr8ycat · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:48 pm Post subject: Re: Military Flights

Kafco wrote:

I have no idea if this is usable but I found at Simviation > FS2004 > Scenery > p.65 ; "Apocalypse Now" and "Apocalypse Now '04 Redux" and thought of this thread. Useable ? ?

Since I am a vet of the Korean War, I have CFS2 Korea, CFS3 Korea and Fighter Pilot modded for Korea sims so I understand your interest.

Regards,
Ken

I seem to remember these coming up in the past but don't recall exactly what they offered. Might be worth checking out.

The updated Army OH6 is just about done. Will include a minigun vers. (D-Troop 3/5) and one without (C-Troop 2/17). Once I get the readme file done I'll get together with Stoopy for a proper packaging.

Kafco · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Mar 27, 2005 Posts: 125

I have no idea if this is usable but I found at Simviation > FS2004 > Scenery > p.65 ; "Apocalypse Now" and "Apocalypse Now '04 Redux" and thought of this thread. Useable ? ?

Since I am a vet of the Korean War, I have CFS2 Korea, CFS3 Korea and Fighter Pilot modded for Korea sims so I understand your interest.

Regards,
Ken

Hangman · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Nov 19, 2004 Posts: 449

I think if we stay around the 2hr range like the Sunday flight we should be fine..

JG300-Stoopy · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 10:42 am Post subject: Re: Military Flights

OMG!!!! Wonderful, the lowskid OH-6 with your latest flight model!!!

All the bases/location points are in except for a spot in A Shau Valley. Mebbe when Ascout gets home he can get me some coordinates and double-check the BGL file I'll send him. Right now it's stand-alone, but I think it can drop right into the SEA mesh scenery and he'll have his bases show up on the GPS.

Didn't know about the 2MB limit, thanks Bushy, and yep I'll contact ya when it's reddy. This will take a while still but the most major hurdles are covered!

Pretty cool to see "Camp Eagle" and "FSB Birmingham" even show up on the GPS menu now.....just finished flying a quickie protoype flight plan from DaNang to Ruong Ruong Valley to Khe Sanh then back to FSB Birmingham to Phu Bai then back to DaNang, all on GPS Autopilot in the A1-D.

All in all it was about 80 minutes of flying time.....what's a good target duration for this flight??? Too long? Too short?

Shadow_Bshwackr · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 10:25 am Post subject: Re: Military Flights

Anyone can upload a file to the download section with a limitation of 2mb. The setting isn't my doing, it's a preset in the ISP settings and more specifically the php.ini file. But, if the file is bigger than that, send it to me or give me a link to download it and I'll get it posted up for you... Wink

Great job everyone, it's good to see this build momentum!!

JG300-fr8ycat · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 4:09 am Post subject: Re: Military Flights

what I've done is convert the civy lowskids to an Army Vers.

All the parts are interchangeable with the original Army vers. so all I have to do is add the minigun, gunner and Army textures to the civy model and we have an updated "Cayuse" that I think handles better and has a couple of extras over the original Army vers.

Should be ready for upload in a couple of days.

JG300-fr8ycat · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:54 am Post subject: Re: Military Flights

If Bushy allows it I could upload the Army "Cayuse" here.

Looks cool Stoopy! I'm in.

JG300-Stoopy · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:43 am Post subject: Re: Military Flights

Heh! Tell you what, MS puts together a pretty good SDK!!

Khe Sanh added as an actual hard, navigable point now in the FS9 NAV database:

Next to come -
Camp Eagle (E16:24:30 , N107:37:30),
FSB Birmingham (E16:21:45 , N107:32:30),
Ruong Ruong valley (N16:08:00, E107:38:30)

...and the A Shau Valley LZ if Ascout can get me coordinates......we goin' to make this happen!

(This was cool to figure out how to do...now I can use Google Earth to find my house, put the coordinates in an XML file, and use the SDK to make a scenery BGL file so I can have a heliport in my backyard!!

JG300-Stoopy · Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 12:16 am Post subject: Re: Military Flights

Ahhh, well, no awards needed, I'm just a conduit here, Ascout's scenery, maps, and idears are the real goodies....I'm just taking care of the low-hanging fruit!

EZ-Install and upload will be no problemo either.

The only thing I AM having an issue with is the actual success with the flight plan file. I know how to edit flight plans both manually, and with FS9's editor. The Route Editor 2 utility, that looked like it would allow insertion of ANY waypoint by just giving the Lat/Long coordinates, isn't working as advertised though. To be more correct, it's working OK by itself, byt FS9 doesn't like the results and if it loads the plan, it throws away the waypoints that were added.

This is important becuase Khe Sanh, Camp Eagle, FSB Birmingham and A Shau Valley are of course not "locations" that FS9 knows about and it looked like this tool had a trick up it's sleeve, but it doesn't.

Seems from what I can tell, I'll need to add these to a BGL file that would need to be another part of the scenery download...well, at least there's a way to do it methinks, it's time to do a little readin'!

Com-Central.net

DedicatedNow