ODS v0.4 beta testing

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-11-10 20:20:00

The usual disclaimers apply here which I'm too lazy to type.

Operation Desert Storm v0.4 beta. old beta... its been sitting my drive for month(s). It has new textures for all those fancy terrain types, 1991 and present day campaigns (well not the upcoming war but anyway).

Other than that is more or less v0.3 + update combined.

I'd like few things: someone to test how lame this is. someone to help develop this theater like already posted in Terrain area; quality assurance tiling, tile making and some campaign objectives linking.

Well if you want to a) test, or b) help develop.
Then download the installer from (REMOVED) its 51mb of size.

Visit the ODS BETA page for last minute details and some instructions.

If we throw in some lying sponsorship, I'd say the v0.4 is pretty nice... at least what I remember flying it ages ago, lot of fighting to do on the present day campaigns (amraam loadouts etc) and nice terrain etc. But then again, I might mistaken this to something else cool.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Joe Zrodlowski · Post by **Joe Zrodlowski** » 2002-11-30 15:10:00

SnakeMan,

Thanks for allowing me to test ODS v.04.
Since I d/l'ed the theater, I've had CTD's every time I attempted to fly in the fictional theater. I've done a few dozen uninstall/reinstalls of the theater with the same results. I'll keep you posted if I can pinpoint the problem.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-11-30 16:04:00

quote:Originally posted by Headhunter:
CTD's every time I attempted to fly in the fictional theater.

Does the historical 1991 work?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Joe Zrodlowski · Post by **Joe Zrodlowski** » 2002-12-01 16:25:00

No dice with the historical either, sorry to say. As a matter of fact, I spent about 7.5 hours doing the Falcon reinstall mambo(yup, I had every patch and mod available loaded). F4Patch went FUBAR after the last reinstall of ODS v0.4. What the heck; it is a beta, right? I'll try it again to see what happens this time. I'll send a crashlog to you next time something occurs.

P.S.
CTD's occur after "Enter Campaign" button is clicked and the clock starts.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-12-11 03:18:00

Any bug reports so far?

Its been out a while now but besides Headhunters problem (which is not beta bug) there has been nothing reported.

We need those bug reports to fix the bugs.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Ender Wiggin · Post by **Ender Wiggin** » 2002-12-11 05:02:00

an airbases tiling, i cant remember which (sorry) was off.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-12-11 12:34:00

Ok this is getting old, seems like when I sent you guys emails they dont get through. At my end I receive you fine.

So what now... well who gives a rats behind anyway of some lame beta testing of even lamer theater, so here it is. the link. (REMOVED)

51mb download size. Do not post the link anywhere else. All help testing this piece of junk is appreciated.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

87th_striker · Post by **87th_striker** » 2002-12-11 15:10:00

Will download tonight, Snake Man.

johku · Post by **johku** » 2002-12-11 16:40:00

Snake Man, how long time are you going to host that 0.4 beta? I have a modem only, so it will take few days to download that beta to my computer.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-12-11 18:31:00

Don't worry it will be online until most of the bugs are fixed.

I'd really like to hear any (yes ANY) reports/comments from the theater. Nobody will look you guys weird, no mater what kind of feedback you post here.

Everybody note that I updated the ODS BETA page again.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Joe Zrodlowski · Post by **Joe Zrodlowski** » 2002-12-12 02:32:00

Snake Man,
As i reported in a previous post, I'm getting CTD's in the fictional campaign once the clock starts. Still no clue why this is happening.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-12-12 10:18:00

quote:Originally posted by Headhunter:
I'm getting CTD's in the fictional campaign once the clock starts.

Does instant action work?
How about tactical engagement?

Can you please send me a crashlog, email it to nospam

PMC TFW
Snake Man

87th_striker · Post by **87th_striker** » 2002-12-12 13:12:00

Fictional campaign works like a breeze here. The SA10 is a pest, wiping the sky. I like the SAM level. Real good, Snake Man ! No CTD's so far.

Butcher_ss · Post by **Butcher_ss** » 2002-12-12 14:55:00

quote:Originally posted by 87th_striker:
Fictional campaign works like a breeze here. The SA10 is a pest, wiping the sky. I like the SAM level. Real good, Snake Man ! No CTD's so far.

Have you had any problems with the Runway? The autopilot did not get the plane onto the runway in the beginning of the mission, and I had to take it manually. Also, when I landed (autopilot) the plane after landing, it did not move on the runway but parallel to it. Have you had any similar cases?? I must agree with you. There are "like pests". I haven't had any CTDs yet and the theater seems pretty stable so far

Butcher_ss.

87th_striker · Post by **87th_striker** » 2002-12-13 21:18:00

Haven't tested the autopilot so far.

87th_striker · Post by **87th_striker** » 2002-12-13 21:26:00

The upper right UI window, where the action happening is shown, has some coordinate problem. It shows the action far too much north east, for some reason.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-12-14 16:18:00

Airbase background tiles (general note) wrong and Campaign/TE intel window coordinates wrong bugs added into ODS BETA page.

Thanks for the reports, keep them coming!

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Taufiq · Post by **Taufiq** » 2002-12-16 02:46:00

Ok i just dl it.Remove the previous version of ODS and install this beta version.Tries the ODS campaign(not the friction one) flew one mission with F-16.So far no problems.Only the atc the the default korean airbase names if im not wrong.Try the dogfight(furball)change other location on the map, and it still works.Will flew more mission, anyway nice job that is, loved the mission schedule map with the grids.

Butcher_ss · Post by **Butcher_ss** » 2002-12-17 18:27:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
Airbase background tiles (general note) wrong and Campaign/TE intel window coordinates wrong bugs added into ODS BETA page.

Thanks for the reports, keep them coming!

PMC TFW
Snake Man

I noticed a strange problem with AIM-9M. This has happened twice so far so I guess that it must be some sort of a problem. I had 4 missiles. I fired the first missile without any problem and the next missile was selected. However after some time the missile warhead went from cool to warm and when I pushed the button to change it to cool it would change and then immediately change to warm. I couldn't do anything about it. It was a problem for me because I am not really sure on how to fire the missile in that mode. I am not sure whether I have pressed any buttons accidentally for this to occur. Not really sure that this is a problem that other of you have faced but I just thought of reporting it

Butcher_ss.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-12-17 20:07:00

quote:Originally posted by Butcher_ss:
I noticed a strange problem with AIM-9M.

That does not sound like a theater problem to me as that is more of EXE/database/user problem. But who knows what the new ODS database edits are effecting... real difficult to say as I dont even know how to operate the various missiles etc fancy systems on eFalcon/SP versions.

Btw can you clean up your quote's, please dont use the default what the reply with quote offers as there is too much unrelated text. Just quote the specific stuff you are replying, like I'm doing here. Thanks.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

diomedea · Post by **diomedea** » 2002-12-18 07:11:00

quote:Originally posted by Butcher_ss:

I noticed a strange problem with AIM-9M.

Could it be a feature? This was discussed time ago somewhere. The head of the real AIM-9M is cooled by the expansion of same gas, of which exist a limited supply in the missile. Cooling time provided by that amount was debated, probably about one hour since the pilot commands the cooling. After that time, missile will eventually turn warm again, without any chance to be cooled again until it is serviced at a base. I have not experienced that in Falcon myself (I cool missiles just before an engagement and spend all of them within 1 hour) and neither I knew that this behaviour was modeled in Falcon. That's really "cool".

Diomedea out.

Butcher_ss · Post by **Butcher_ss** » 2002-12-18 16:43:00

quote:Originally posted by diomedea:
Cooling time provided by that amount was debated, probably about one hour since the pilot commands the cooling. After that time, missile will eventually turn warm again, without any chance to be cooled again until it is serviced at a base.
Diomedea out.

You could be right. There is a possibility that that is the case since if I remember correctly I cooled the missiles just some time after take off, and it took me some time until to use them. If that is the case then that is just great because it shows that the game has good realism level.

Butcher_ss

Butcher_ss · Post by **Butcher_ss** » 2002-12-18 16:45:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:

Btw can you clean up your quote's, please dont use the default what the reply with quote offers as there is too much unrelated text. Just quote the specific stuff you are replying, like I'm doing here. Thanks.

I will try to remember next time. Oh yes I have done so

Butcher_ss.

87th_striker · Post by **87th_striker** » 2002-12-26 21:04:00

I think the road-tiles shopuld be fixed. I'm reffering to the straight roads... They are zig-zagging to much for a desert road, I think.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-12-26 22:45:00

quote:Originally posted by 87th_striker:
road-tiles shopuld be fixed.

You mean the tiles itself (two tiles make that "jink" on the tile edges) or tiling which comes from the real life DCW data?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

87th_striker · Post by **87th_striker** » 2002-12-27 12:21:00

Sorry for being unclear, Snake Man. I meen the tile itself.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-12-27 16:41:00

The ODS BETA page have been updated with the tiles not fitting report.

Thanks.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

87th_striker · Post by **87th_striker** » 2002-12-27 22:37:00

Check mailbox, Snake Man. Screenshots of some things needing fixing.

FAngs32 · Post by **FAngs32** » 2002-12-27 23:06:00

SM,

If you guys want to further that ODS guinea pig experience... ;-/

I can make available that beta ODS campaign that Ive been working on the side on <g>

Its ~4mb zipped and installs on-top of a clean ODSv0.4.

Includes Tweaked 2d fuel-burns (128x128 flameout issue), gameplay enhanced weapon stores to all F16c squadrons (AIM7 - unrealistic yep, dont load'em if you don't want'em)

and a pretty huge ground-war template (30000+ vehicles)

FAngs32

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-12-28 00:45:00

quote:Originally posted by FAngs-444th:
I can make available that beta ODS campaign that Ive been working on the side on <g>

I took a look at it and was blown away, it took only hours for the Coalition ground forces to run over Kuwait City! Whoa!

Did some looking around on the save0.cam and found out you added bunch of junctions, have you done what kind of testing that these amount of junctions are necessary for ground units to move?

I'm very interested (as of Tobias from Balkans campaign can be also) of any findings of the ground unit movement.

Codec has assured me that the ground units dont even need a ROADS to move. I highly doubt it, but its usually not a good idea to anger the Falcon 4 GODS...

My experience is that to ground units move, you need a road, a link between the objectives which must locate on road/next to it. The link does not need to be 1:1 identical along the roads path but the closer the better.

Please fill me in on any findings you have so far.
btw you can contact me real time for faster discussions from IRC at irc.newnet.net at #falcon4theaters channel, but this forum chatter is good too, at least there is always a reference for later dates.

quote:Includes Tweaked 2d fuel-burns

Actually I didn't use your database files yet because I've done some tweaking since ODS v0.4b - was wondering though of what you did there. Anything else than fuel and AIM7 edits?

quote:and a pretty huge ground-war template (30000+ vehicles)

Yeah I noticed the new ground buggers. Did you place them manually or with the TCL scripts?

Speaking of which, I can send you the ODS campaign TCL scripts even though they look like bunch of puke even for me

It would be great for you to do the work (again, sorry hehe) into the TCL scripts so that way its always "saved" for future campaign creations. Once you place ground units manually to the campaign, they are there and if the campaign file is modified/destroyed/deleted, so long ground unit work... So I highly recommend the TCL, also the same ground unit positions can then be used in different campaign, for example the Iraq vs Iran and fictionals etc.

Now lets get those ground units to knock on Saddam's door! (Iraq 2003 upcoming campaign)

PMC TFW
Snake Man

FAngs32 · Post by **FAngs32** » 2002-12-29 17:38:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
Yeah I noticed the new ground buggers. Did you place them manually or with the TCL scripts?

Nope all work done by hand... way too much polishing needed for scripts still

quote:Speaking of which, I can send you the ODS campaign TCL scripts even though they look like bunch of puke even for me

Sure go ahead an email them to me lol
Will save me a bundle of time for the next update ;-/

quote:Now lets get those ground units to knock on Saddam's door! (Iraq 2003 upcoming campaign)

Yep its on the 'to-do' list :-0

Gonna work on a future DS type scenario on the side, as well as the Kashmir stuff.

FAngs_444th
ICQ UIN 68687736
FAngs32@hotmail.com

johku · Post by **johku** » 2002-12-31 16:45:00

quote:Originally posted by 87th_striker:
The upper right UI window, where the action happening is shown, has some coordinate problem. It shows the action far too much north east, for some reason.

I think that the "happenings" aren't showing too far in NE. I'm almost sure about this, because the map is too big (see attached pic). The UI of F4 shows the happenings in the wrong places, because it's optimized for resolution of 800x600, not for 1024x768.
[img]C:\SAVE\cmpg_screen.jpg[/img]

Snake Man, would it be possible to use the same event map in campaign as in Tactical Engagement? It has, however, one problem: its size is correct, but it doesn't show any happening points (those red and blue points).

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2003-01-04 05:43:00

Johku: I know the intel map is weird, not sure if there is anything we can do about it (except remove it completely again). This was also noted on the beta page.

Okay some intel update for Beta testers. Today I fixed the few airbases as they did have wrong background tiles. These following bases are now fixed:
prince sultan - 34_16, 498, rough grazing 766
al ahsa - 34_16 2, 498, irrigated farming 782
tallil - 34_16 2, 498, irrigated farming 782

Also I added bunch of ground units to the historic campaign but they are not very historically placed with unit numbers however. It was just done to get some activity near Kuwaiti border and I would like to hear comments about the ground unit types and numbers. Had to draw lot of paths and change terrain types in the texture.bin also, the desstorm.THR file was re-created with the updated bin info.

Now the ODS BETA page has been updated with the latest developments.

Please send us some bug reports, any and all reports are very welcome!

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Ami · Post by **Ami** » 2003-01-10 19:17:00

Hey Snakeman,
I´ll start testing on Saturday I.A.W. the e-mail I recieved concerning exactly what you would like to have tested. I´ll send you an e-mail and explain.

Ami 16th ACCW

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2003-01-11 12:40:00

Here is the list for current MISSING terrain types of the middle east (ODS).

# irrigated farming

# rough grazing/nomadic herding

# pastures/scattered farming (sheep and goats)

# woodland/forest

# arable land (wheat, barley and horticulture)
# description: Land worked regularly, generally under a system
# of crop rotation, which includes fallow land.

# permanent crops
# description: crops that are maintained constantly

#
# - - - - NOTE PERMANENT CROPS USE ARABLE LAND FOR NOW!!! - - - -

That info is taken from the CATE conf files directly. Now we should start to create these terrain types with just making the one (1) generic tile.

I have some utils we can use to manipulate them (I'll explain later).

Anyone want to start digging reference images for those terrain types?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

kinggeorge · Post by **kinggeorge** » 2003-01-11 13:12:00

Here is an extract of selected and scaled images i got so far:

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2003-01-11 13:31:00

WOW, those SAT pics look great!
that SAM battery tile is amazing!!

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2003-01-14 02:23:00

Update on the fixed airbase background tiles from today... sorry about the messy text but this is direct paste from my CATE airbase conf file, yeah in these circumstances I work on daily

#done bases:
#mosul - 34_16, arable land 974
#taif - 505, rough grazing 766
#prince sultan - 34_16, 498, rough grazing 766
#al ahsa - 34_16 2, 498, irrigated farming 782
#tallil - 34_16 2, 498, irrigated farming 782
#- Yenbo is off one coord relative to the tiles and may be misaligned??
# 11_29, irrigated. (1616-1621)
#- Wejg seems to be in the water - no coast tiles
# 34_16, grazing. moved to land.
#- Tabuk - no problem there as we need to redo the ab tiles
# 23_05 2, irrigated. 1632-1638
#SAFWAN - 32_14, 484, hdsrt 192
#h3 - 11_29, rough grazing 766
#doha intl - 36_18, hdsrt 192 (tiles done 1680-1685 ?)
#INCIRLIK - 23_05, arable land 974 (tiles done 1712-1718)
#batman - 02_20, irrigated farming 782 (tiles done 1696-1701 hbase46*)
#AL TAQADDUM - 12_30, irrigated farming 782)

#fixed - CHECK!
#- Guriat is offset with the tiles
# 11_29, desert. SHOULD BE FIXED! CHECK!

#todo bases:
#kkmc - 30_12, rough grazing 766
#h2 - sunan, rough grazing 766
#kirkuk - kimpo, arable land 974

Hopefully track down more broken airbase background and fix them. If you know some base which is not on this list and its broken, let me know.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2003-01-16 15:38:00

quote:Originally posted by Ami:
I´ll send you an e-mail and explain.

Excellent beta report, here is some answers to the information you sended.

quote:Grid visible in briefing screen, see screens 1 and 3.

The grid you see in kneemap and in TE/Campaign map is made by Red Dog, its not any bug. Its there intentionally.

Don't you like the "killbox" grid idea?

Actually Red Dog could jump in, but I believe that grid is the historical killbox they used in 1991 Gulf War.

quote:Only 1 version of the f-16 carried AIM-7´s.

True thats error in the database edits, my fault. Will be fixed in the next release.

quote:Some buildings and units were in water.

From the screenshots I see that its somewhere around the Tallil area, but there is on reference on your text or in the screenshot of the location. In TE/Camp you cannot get coordinates in the window, but you could get some name or map view of the place.

Cockpit coordinates comes up on CTRL-Z L

quote:Textures really need more work, see screen#7. Too many right angles to the graphics instead of smooth overlapping of textures.

Indeed. There is lot of placeholder tiles and we are missing some three way transition tiles.

That screenshot 7 you sent actually has been fixed almost completely, the tigris is now tiled correctly, however I dont think there is "city irrigated farmland coast" tiles yet.

quote:Taceditor: How would I be able to use this since only the korea.BMP and Korean.wch are available ?

You have desstorm.idx/.wch in the campaign\desstorm directory. Bitmap you are indeed missing, if you want I can arrange one for you or hmm maybe you can save the ODS map jpg from the theaters page, it should be 1024x1024 res I think which you must resize to 2048x2048 and save to bmp.

Btw what kind of tacedit editing are you planning on?

Good report, I wish all the 104 other downloaders of ODS v0.4b would have done similiar reports (or reports at all).

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Taufiq · Post by **Taufiq** » 2003-01-16 16:05:00

"Actually Red Dog could jump in, but I believe that grid is the historical killbox they used in 1991 Gulf War." Yup, they do have 'killboxes" assigned to them to search for enemy ground troops, described in a video cd about F-16 which i have it