Tweaking the aircraft on each side question

Nevada theater

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toonces
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Tweaking the aircraft on each side question

Post by toonces » 2008-10-13 04:26:04

Hi all.

I realize this is a total n00b question. I've been going through the tutorials in the wiki, but I'm afraid I'm having trouble understanding how to do what I want to do here.

What I'd like to do is this: I want to go into the existing Nevada theater, blue on blue. Specifically, the first scenario within the blue on blue, with the red side outnumbered.

Then, I'd like to edit the red side so that they have completely different planes than the blue side; ie. change all the Hornets to -18A and -18D, all the F-16s to F-16A/N, etc, all Tomcats -A model, etc.

Then, I want to install aggressor skins for all of the red side planes.

The install, then, would have a true Red Flag feel, with the red side all flying aggressor planes and the blue side flying regular planes.

I don't want to change anything crazy, just adjust the squadron's planes for all of the red side squadrons.

I wouldn't normally just ask this, but I had to do a re-install last night because I tried to copy what Derstef did with his theater specific skin install, and I broke something very badly in my RV install. I'd really like to avoid doing that again!

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Toonces

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Post by ccc » 2008-10-13 04:48:04

Then, I'd like to edit the red side so that they have completely different planes than the blue side; ie. change all the Hornets to -18A and -18D, all the F-16s to F-16A/N, etc, all Tomcats -A model, etc.
if you mean to tweak PMC campaigns, you can use TacEdit tool. change existing ac type to other ac.

if you want to add new, also use TacEdit to do the job.

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Post by toonces » 2008-10-13 05:36:15

ccc, thanks. That should be enough to get me started. I'm...afraid...but all I have to lose is time I suppose.

Just to expand on my idea here...

I've been giving his theater alot of thought and I have some neat ideas. There's really alot you can do with this theater. At first I was thinking that the blue on blue with the red side as all aggressor planes would be really cool and do-able. But then I got to thinking a bit deeper.

Not only would it be cool to make a blue v. blue/aggessor theater with F-18, F-14 and F-16 aggressors- a sort of modern Red Flag/NSAWC scenario, but why not go back even further? We could throw the Vietnam-era database, or perhaps a bit later, say mid-70's, and create a mid-70's TOPGUN/Red Flag scenario. The blue forces would have F-4s and A-6s, and the red side could have F-5s, A-4s, and such in aggressor colors. Maybe throw a different model F-4 in there as an aggressor too.

There really is some neat directions to go with this theater. There's alot of info floating around about the syllabus at Red Flag/NSAWC- I have a few books on it that I just got from Amazon- that I think we could put an interesting campaign together. Make the victory conditions simple and attainable within, say, 3 days/10-12 missions, and BAM we have a working campaign with some cool planes to fly on both sides. Especially with RV5 coming out, the whole new Phantom, Tornado, A-6, etc, people are going to want to fly those planes somewhere. Why not do it in Nevada?

Anyway, I'm just thinking big thoughts out loud. It just seems like y'all have done 80% of the hard work, and it's just the last little bit of smoothing the edges to make this brilliant.

I'm not sure how I can help, but I'd like to.

Well, I'm off to Tacedit and I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for the help.
Toonces

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Post by Snake Man » 2008-10-13 06:50:19

I've been going through the tutorials in the wiki, but I'm afraid I'm having trouble understanding how to do what I want to do here.
Is the wiki difficult to understand, or lacking some information that you need?

Did the search come up with anything useful there, or did you just browse the Falcon 4 categories (namespaces)?
I'd like to edit the red side so that they have completely different planes than the blue side; ie. change all the Hornets to -18A and -18D, all the F-16s to F-16A/N, etc, all Tomcats -A model, etc.
That's easily done with TCL scripts I wrote for these campaigns.
I want to install aggressor skins for all of the red side planes.
Okay this is doable, if the particular aircraft is used ONLY in Red side. So lets say you have a F16CG in blue AND red side, you change the skin for it with the method you just learned from the other topic... then both BLUE and RED side has the new skin applied.

If you truly must make two separate skins for the same aircraft model, then ... well it can be done but we need to do "major" database editing for this, to create this new aircraft and apply skins for it. Also I'm not sure but I recall hearing that you cant do that anymore in RV, but this is absolutely unconfirmed information, most likely false. But I can guarantee you that if this is the scenario what you want to do, its going to be difficult.

If the aircraft is for Red side only; no problem, apply a skin and done.

If the aircraft is for both sides; big problem, I dont even want to go there...
We could throw the Vietnam-era database, or perhaps a bit later, say mid-70's, and create a mid-70's TOPGUN/Red Flag scenario.
Yep, copying Vietnam era database is no problem, just few lines to the install script. Same for the mid 70's database (if they cant be the same).
I have a few books on it that I just got from Amazon- that I think we could put an interesting campaign together.
I can give you the TCL scripts and teach you how to use them, then you could play around with ground unit placements, squadron locations and aircraft types. Its very cool and easy to do campaign with the scripts, not difficult at all.

If you want to try this, you get the fully working scripts from me to create the existing Nevada campaigns, then you can start to change which squadrons are placed on which airbases or move ground units around or remove them etc. Its all very easy in text format, only few lines (parts of lines) to change which are easy to understand (after I walk you through it).
It just seems like y'all have done 80% of the hard work, and it's just the last little bit of smoothing the edges to make this brilliant.
Thats precisely the point 99% of the falcon scene seems to fail to understand. We here make the theaters but so much small things could be helped by other people, but no... everybody just sits on their hands doing nothing except waiting for next release.

It would be great if you would tweak the campaigns to give them more balance and interesting aircraft selections etc.
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Post by toonces » 2008-10-14 00:43:32

Ok, I'll post more in a bit. Here's a few quick test screenies:

Image

Image

Image

Image

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Post by ccc » 2008-10-14 01:14:19

nice screenshots - now it looks like aggressor base!

next time you take screenies, please place more aggressor ac! 8-)

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Post by Fafa » 2008-10-15 18:25:30

you have to reskin my Sand Iranian F14 LOL, of course you can ... :wink:

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Post by toonces » 2008-10-15 19:58:21

LOL! I hope you recognize those skins fafa- I got most of them from your website! (awesome collection you have btw).

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Post by Fafa » 2008-10-15 20:37:13

Thanks for your job and best wishes :wink:

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Post by toonces » 2008-10-16 17:28:16

Ok, I'm back. I had a 'house guest' the last few days which totally interrupted my modding!

@Snakeman,
The wiki is quite nice. But, I was going through the ultimate campaign tutorial, which takes you from the very beginning. All I wanted to do is figure out how to tweak the planes, and I didn't see a reference to TacEdit in there...I'm not saying it's not there, just I didn't see it. It seems obvious now, but for the total n00b modder like me...LOL.

I figured out how to tweak the aircraft using TacEdit, and I also have figured out how to make skins and get them into RV. So, right now, my biggest hurdle on that front is finding the .dds files for the various planes I want to re-skin. The LOD editor program doesn't work with RV, so I can't use it to find the LOD's and/or .dds I need.

Tonight I'm going to sit down and try to put together an OOB with blue and aggressor forces on each side. I'm not going to worry too much about re-skinning all the planes right now; I'll focus on just getting a working, interesting OOB. If it works, and is fun, and is interesting, then maybe ccc or whomever can help me with the .dds numbers for the relevant planes.

With respect to the aggressor planes, the way to go is this: I'm going to use completely different planes on both sides so I can de-conflict the skins. Right now I have the following aggressor skins, either ones I made or ones from fafa's excellent website:

Aggressors:
F-14A (blue and Iranian skins)
A-4E (brown skin)
A-4H IAF (blue skin)
F-18A (blue skin)
F-18C (blue and brown skins)

What I need is an F-5A and F-5E, and other model A-4s (A-4F, A-4M).
I'd like to change the F-18C to F-18D so that the C models are flyable on the blue side, but that might mean some serious re-skinning. I'm going to press with the current configuration for now; RV doesn't know the difference between the C and D model Hornets as far as I can tell.

I'll start up an AAR once I get the OOB sorted (hopefully tonight), if that's cool with you guys.

Question: has the ground war been tested at all in this campaign? Are there attainable victory conditions? If not, (or if so), what do I need to be looking for?

See ya,
Toonces

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Post by Snake Man » 2008-10-16 18:48:02

toonces wrote:All I wanted to do is figure out how to tweak the planes, and I didn't see a reference to TacEdit in there...
Well the ultimate theater tutorial really just shows you how to make theater from scratch, it doesn't specify some certain area like changing existing aircraft's (you create the theater for the first time, you don't have existing aircraft's).
I'll start up an AAR once I get the OOB sorted (hopefully tonight), if that's cool with you guys.
Absolutely, please do so, I love reading your AAR's and those are always welcome to our forum.
has the ground war been tested at all in this campaign?
Not by me, it takes way too long time to start testing something so complicated as F4 dynamic campaign.
Are there attainable victory conditions? If not, (or if so), what do I need to be looking for?
Go to the campaign directory, there should be few sub dirs where the actual campaign files are located. Look for the save0.tri, save1.tri and save2.tri files, these are the trigger files which control the campaign objectives, events and victory conditions.

In my latest campaigns, I have always used // comment lines to write at least some descriptions of the objectives, if there is none... then there is no victory conditions. I cant be sure, I can't remember in what time line Nevada came out, but the latest releases from PMC has victory conditions in all their campaigns (don't matter what the trolls say on other forums).

You are now wandering into the wonderful world of Falcon 4 editing, don't be afraid, guys at PMC will back you up :)
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Post by toonces » 2008-10-16 18:51:56

Ok, copy all. I read the wiki on 'triggers' a few times. I'll take a look at Nevada when I get home and see what I have to work with.

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Post by toonces » 2008-10-19 03:51:03

Hey guys,
Ok, I've been working on two different paths here. I have a pretty good working 1977-style TopGun/Red Flag scenario going. The red side is all F-4s, A-4s, and F-5s. The blue side is all F-4s and A-6s, with E-2s as AWACS.

I had a bit of trouble getting my F-5s to sortie in fighter mode, but I set their specialty to air-to-air and that seems to have solved that problem for now.

So, I started with my F-5E aggressor skin "Work in Progress"...

Image

I got into a nice scrap with some Phantoms and caught may well be my last photo of this skin.

Image

I was about to open photoshop and start working on this skin some more when I decided to browse fafa's site one last time. And sure enough, I found this awesome skin. So, I suppose my skinning is done for now.

Image

Now, just in case you're thinking that F-5s are no match for F-4s, let me show you some pics from my last couple of fights.

In this one, I had to dodge about 4 AIM-7s enroute to the Phantoms, but as they came down to engage, I started pwn'ing them. Here's an AIM-9P kill on one Phantom:

Image

I took a shot at this guy, but missed and then had to egress.

Image

I put some 'friendly' F-4s on the red side, one squadron I think, just to keep the blue side from totally dominating BVR.

Image

Next sortie I clipped one Phantom with an AIM-9P and finished him with guns. (that little dot is a Phantom)...

Image

Image

So far, I'm enjoying this campaign. My goal was to create some good WVR fun and that seems to be working so far. The F-4s like to shoot alot of sparrows which means that you have to stay low and jam around alot in burner, but the distances are really short in this theater so you can afford to keep the burner in quite a bit.

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Post by toonces » 2008-10-19 03:59:08

The second campaign I'm working on is a circa 1988 era Topgun/Red Flag scenario. The Blue side is (currently) a mix of blue fighters- F-14B/D, F-15C, F-18E, A-10. The Red side is blue planes in aggressor skins- F-14A, F-18A/C, F-16Agr, Kfir C7 (Marines flew this for a few years).

The Kfir in particular is the plane I really want to fly. Unfortunately, I don't have the .dds for the Kfir and, besides, Aragorn and crew is probably going to change the .dds numbers for this plane with their upcoming ITO2 campaign in RV5. At any rate, I took it up for a few flights.

Image

This campaign isn't working as well. I'm having trouble with squadrons failing to show in the campaign screen, and some of the Russian squadrons are still showing up in the campaign screen (but not in the actual game once commited). Also, I want to try to keep the fighting with nothing more BVR than the Sparrow (no AMRAAM or AIM-54) but I don't know how to edit those weapons out. So, for now, I'm keeping this one on the backburner.

Image

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Post by toonces » 2008-10-19 04:13:19

I want to set up 1977 campaign up like this: I want to move most of the ground troops to the area between China Lake and Barstow Daggett; Nellis and Desert Rock. Only one side should have the majority of ground troops- I'm thinking blue side. The scenario would be a 'graduation exercise' that would be a 3-day wargame. The blue side would be tasked with capturing China Lake. The victory conditions would be: IF China Lake is captured, immediate BLUE VICTORY. IF China Lake is not captured by start of Day 4, THEN RED VICTORY.

I'd like to eliminate most of the ground forces opposing the blue forces to the extent that the victory conditions are attainable in the allotted 3 days.

I've been looking at the wiki and looking through the objectives in TacEdit, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to set it up so the ground forces work towards the Nellis or China Lake objectives. I set the PAK on the Red side (within the game) to max for Las Vegas, but my ground forces are all on 'Reserve China Lake Bridge'. Manually moving them doesn't seem to do anything.

So, that's where I am guys...

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Post by Snake Man » 2008-10-19 06:19:31

To have squadrons show up in game after you have added/deleted them, you need to use TacEdit to run Units -> Rebuild squadrons.

As for removing weapons, you need to use F4Browse and go to the left side view Vehicles -> Aircraft and from there choose your aircraft, then from Hardpoints/Weapons you double click the hardpoint, then weapon and finally use Delete button to remove this weapon.

Always remember to take backup from your database before editing :)
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Post by toonces » 2008-10-19 16:38:15

With almost 6,000 posts, I'm sure you've covered this somewhere....

How do I get the ground vehicles to move towards an objective? I don't want them to sit in reserve; I want them to move towards the fighting.

Also, you mentioned using TCL scripts earlier. I suppose it might be a good idea to get some of those from you before I invest too much more work editing this campaign. I shoot you a PM with my email address.

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Post by toonces » 2008-10-19 16:42:51

oh yeah, and speaking of backing up, I porked my campaign file and had to re-build it right after I took those screenshots. But, I had a backup, so life was good!

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Post by Snake Man » 2008-10-19 17:24:58

toonces wrote:How do I get the ground vehicles to move towards an objective?
I'm not sure, I believe its partly just the objective priority. All objectives that are 81 or above priority will become a PAK cities, then ground units will try to capture them.

That's the rough estimate of the ground unit movement. But its really a guess, I have no hard facts.
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Post by toonces » 2008-10-19 22:34:45

Ok, I have a working campaign that, so far, ends on Day 1 at about 1937. I want to run it a few more times and see what happens, if the campaign can be won on the blue side. I'll keep you posted...

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