Toko-Ri facility? [Archive]

Squiffy

March 9th, 2009, 09:01

Hi gang,

Nonato and I have been working on a Toki-Ri mission. We have the Saratoga installed in the gsl, good wind for takeoff and landing and the target area in some workign shape. I wanted to have some land graphics so I modified the large shipyard which is not used in DPC. Does anyone know how to build a new facility that will include ground paint? The smbridge2 buildings worked well for now. I found a good valley in the area north of Hungnam where they were in real life. No river in DOC so I added it to the ground tile. It's ok but could be better. I may change the shape of it. It's been fun complete with MiGs. I'll post some shots later.

Nonato

March 9th, 2009, 12:01

Will it be a new Squiffy-Ri mission?:jump::amen::wave:

gianlucabagatti

March 9th, 2009, 15:38

happy to sse some news on korea. I recently read some books about air war over there and they were really untreseting with this mix of jets and propellers, B29 and Mig 15's, night low evel and dog fight... hope you can go further with some other missions squiffy!

Squiffy

March 9th, 2009, 16:10

Squiffy-Ri! He-he, that's a good one. Or maybe Kim Jong ill Ri? No missle shots or international incidents. I may just let it go as a facility only since there is no river up there in the mesh. Anyhow, it's been fun playing. Here's a carrier shot and then I need to work the target some more.

Squiffy

March 9th, 2009, 19:42

OK here are some more pics. I kind of like the last one best. The stock radar sites are cool and a welcome addition. Sure my gray tile border was the typical PITA, but I dont really like the hokey tile in the middle of nowhere look either. At least the radar has a reason for being carved out of the woods. Without the real river valley and geography, I think it looks better just overtop of the mesh. I need to add tracked aa for more rapid fire. The big guns were just too slow.

And there's this spot;

http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/korea,_north/map/m289098/toko-ri.html

Or this one which sounds right following the real story by Capt. Paul Gray

http://www.uss-bennington.org/non-benn-bridges_at_toko_ri.html
40.396568, 127.369008
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=hungnam%20korea&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
At the thre rivers valley between the two lakes. That's about 50 miles north of Hungnam as the Capt. said. Canyons and all.

gosd

March 9th, 2009, 20:47

Cant wait for this one!!!:woot:

Squiffy

March 11th, 2009, 16:41

OK update, new target area and buildings. I repainted L'Arc de Triumph and used it as a building block. Nice chunky bridge now. I could borrow the Aqueduct but this was on hand. better than Blackfriars and the other stock buildings.

I did some more reading on the target area and realized our sim map is not to scale. The town that shows up on MapQuest may just be the right distance from Hungnam and Wonsan. There's a line in the film when a pilot says, "Wonsan is just over that ridge." That's the last ridge before the hilss drop down the river valley to the sea. Wonsan is over the ridge AND across the bay but who's counting? It works pretty well, not as steep as further north. We don't have much room on our map anyway.

Pat Pattle

March 11th, 2009, 23:36

Nice work Squiffy! Must install korean Skies again.

What did the original bridges look like btw?

Nonato

March 12th, 2009, 03:37

Squiffy

This is more Squiffy-Ri than ever!!!!! It's looking really good!
:bump::jump::applause::karate::wave::hand:

Did you manage to take off from the Carrier too? Are you going to put a William Holden figure on the cockpit :)? (with your skills I think it will be possible!)

Squiffy

March 12th, 2009, 09:56

Thanks Non and Pat,

I have a headache to proove it right now. :taekwondo: :karate:

Yes the takeoffs are fine. I reduced the wind to 15kts. With full throttle, brakes on, max rpm, 2 notches of flaps, brakes off...lifts off the end of the carrier with rockets and bombs. Now your flightmates will roll along the sea and take off when they're good and ready since they don't know how to do that stated above. I may be able to help that by shortening the runway object. I need to extend the landing end more so they don't blow up when they touch down.

Squiffy

March 12th, 2009, 14:40

Pat,

There are clips of the film on youtube. Check it out. THe auquaduct is close but maybe too narrow and short? It looks like the two bridges in the film are angled towards seach other. We coudl do that too. The funny thign is the mission was actually flown by Skyraiders. If you want we can use those instead! Decisions decision... I'll work on the landings a little bit. Spawns too. For some reason my wingmen keep blowing up when they reach the coast on the way home. Then the spawns for migs are actually spawning friendlies. Too may variables, not enough Advil.

Ow! :karate:

Squiffy

March 14th, 2009, 18:41

SLIP STREAM

March 14th, 2009, 23:40

say hello to my "nasty" little 57mm friend! :wave:

Nonato

March 15th, 2009, 11:18

Clive gave the go ahead to use the Antheor viaduct so we're fine there. No more fussing with bridges in a bridge mission! So I went ahead and tweaked the shipyard facility into a river tile for use in mission building. A little more work on the mask and here you go. You can turn them and drop them wherever you want. Pretty cool.
:wiggle:

Squiffy

Are we going to Toko-ri in a Skyraider, anyway? I know that's what happened in real life... but I was so glad we would make a panther take off from a carrier...:help:

Nonato

March 15th, 2009, 11:33

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF-SC-9b7tc

Squiffy

March 15th, 2009, 21:20

Oh yeah, we're still flying panthers. That was just a low and slow observer ship to practice placing tiles. Here's some new shots including a new rescue mission. Remind me how you had the goals set up would you please? Nice little package coming together now...

Cheers! :friday:

p.s. Thanks for the help with the S-51 guys. Chime in here to help me remember who!

Nonato

March 16th, 2009, 02:37

Squiffy

Again, it's marvellous!
I tried to order the DvD but it seems to have run out in every store I searched. Unfortunately I cannot by from Amazon or suchlike because the DvD zones are different from ours. I guess I'll have to be contented with youtube for now...:bump:

I set up the objective of the rescue mission as "reccon" and tried to make some explosions around to spice things a bit, do you remember?

popsaka

March 16th, 2009, 08:50

Hey Sqiff, your perseverance is always pushin' the cfs3 envelope and much appreciated!!!:ernae:
Don'tcha think our carriers should or could be a bit longer/larger? ...also, whutz the good word on
that cool ska-ska-skakorsky? ...ALSO, haz anybody had success wit that "make water" biznez or
the like? Not I sayeth the blind man... -cheers

popsaka

March 16th, 2009, 08:55

amidst the dust 'n dirt, and that is where I REMAINED!
Oh well...:p:

Squiffy

March 16th, 2009, 10:55

Ah nuts! Sorry Pops, maybe try wheels down next time? Guess how many times I tried setting the Dragonfly down after crashing the first time before I realized I have to put my "gear down" even on land?

:caked:

Squiffy

March 16th, 2009, 10:57

Oh wait! I placed a destroyer and MTB off of Hungnam and they cruised along fine with wake! What gives?

FOO FIGHTER

March 18th, 2009, 14:40

Can't wait to see this. Looks to be a alot of fun!

If you can give me another week or so Squiffy, I could have Brubaker's Panther for you.

Idea - Would it be possible to convert one of the LST's into a carrier facility and make it into a helicopter scow seen at the end of the movie?

Nonato

March 18th, 2009, 16:35

FOO

I just checked the film and it seems to me that the blue Panther Brubaker

piloted had the "209" in it just like the one in DPC, so we're not so far away

from the movie. But if you could put William Holden's face in the pit...:bump:

I like your idea about the LST...

N.

Squiffy

March 19th, 2009, 08:36

Foo, add an alpha mask to that speedbrake and you can open the holes. Looking good. Non, yes the Panther is close already, There is some kind of bird logo on the nose, not a swoosh stripe. I pinstriped mine for eye candy but we can lean it down for the film look. Yes we can put holden's face on a pilot. I'll look into that but I prefer adding one's own. Yes, I was thinking about the helo scow. Maybe even making Wake island into a large carrier. You should be able to get two panthers side by side for catapult launches. Essex class. maybe I can splice a carrier together with the island and mask out the deck so a bigger deck on the island shows through? or just layer it. That would be a kneeling, expanding carrier. Weird.

Squiffy

March 19th, 2009, 08:58

OK great. We are short handed at work, I am cooking another headache and 5 of my colleagues are getting laid off. You guys are lucky I have seniority. This island/carrier thing has really intrigued me. I'd like to make it work. Do you guys think it's worth it? It would be another week of development. I like the FM on my Panther and Dragonfly right now. The Dragonfly uses the italian small twin as a base. It has retracts and flaps but also the 2 engines we needed for the rotors. If I work with a larger space, I may be able to help the ai avoid collisions with the tower.

FOO FIGHTER

March 19th, 2009, 14:53

Thanks.

Would an alpha mask open the holes on the .M3D? Never tried that before.

VA-192 was/is 'Golden Dragons' = dragon logo on the nose.

Heck yeah, the carrier conversion is worth it!!! That would be a blast.

Good luck with work.

Squiffy

March 19th, 2009, 15:04

Foo that rocks! Nice link. Right, the goldern dragons. OK I'm on it tonight, working Friday and Saturday then a day off on Monday. I'll see what I can get ready by then. There will be a bit to pack up but I'll keep you posted along the way.

Squiffy

March 19th, 2009, 17:52

"Woah-oh here she comes..."

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h97000/h97270.jpg

:applause:

Frosty

March 20th, 2009, 00:06

...Would an alpha mask open the holes on the .M3D? Never tried that before...

No, not on the .M3D but on the texture sheet. If you paint the holes on the alpha sheet that you combine with the main texture .bmp to make one .dds, the holes are simply see-through. The .M3D isn't really affected and the holes are not real (= modelled). But it looks good!!

Squiffy

March 20th, 2009, 08:47

Yup, just transparency. I tested the Wake island idea until about 3 this morning. Way too complicated. Scale is all wrong. Now since we are dealing with dirt/water in DPC, maybe another facility will work? That's proably better so it doesn't conflict with the models. Otherwise, if someone could boost the scale of the carrier itself we would be golden. It needs to be between 5 and 20 percent bigger. Rectangular deck would be great. I'll try to fake one but it's not far off from what we've got. Will the textures stretch with the model?

Squiffy

March 20th, 2009, 17:57

Check it out ... BOOYAH! Now to fine tune the model and airbase tile.

Nonato

March 21st, 2009, 03:21

Looking gooood Squiffy!!!!:wiggle:

Squiffy

March 21st, 2009, 09:50

Thanks Non,

I think I discovered what was causing trouble way back with the river too. YOU need to have both summer AND winter mosaics for it to display in game. This mission is in winter and I didnt' have a mosaic ready until now. This means the large Sea Port should be available again once I build the files for the "river" facility. The ports could make for some fun missions though maybe not historical.

FOO FIGHTER

March 21st, 2009, 10:15

Awesome!!! :applause::jump: Nice work Squiffy!!! May I ask how you put the carriers in 'Korea'. A while back I tried to add Princeton, Oriskany, etc. but they would only show up in the list of airfields not in game.

Is this what you guys are talking about? I just made the holes white on the r.dds and got this effect. Will have to tone it down a bit but it does look kinda cool.

Nonato

March 21st, 2009, 10:19

FOO FIGHTER

March 21st, 2009, 10:50

Thanks Nonato.

Red thing? Maybe you're thinking of the stock Panther (VA-172?) with the red flash on the nose. The Toko-Ri Panthers were from VA-192 and had the gold dragon on the nose. Same plane and plane number but different squadrons.

Nonato

March 21st, 2009, 15:31

Squiffy

March 21st, 2009, 17:20

Foo, that is a great shot! Thanks for the detail man. Guys, check out these coordinates in Google maps and tell me if you see rubble from some old bridges:

40.040676,127.512683

Update: Check out the squadron of MiG-21s at the airfield in the valley to the south. I'd be willing to bet they were put there to protect the logistics in the area. Increadible! Who knows when the shot was taken?

This is way too cool. I want to get the name of the river, or both rivers that meet there. The two bridges converge a little and in just the right spot in the valley. The glove shapaed valley is frighteningly close to what we have in our game relief map if not so accurate terrain texture and mesh-wise.

I might mask out the deck on the model so the facility tile shows through. If some could stretch one of our carier models we woudl be in great shape! Or maybe just build a flat top with tower.

To make the holes in the speed brake, paint the holes as 128 grey on the norm tile, and then black out the holes on the alpha mask. they will appear transparent. Very cool. I did it to my F-84. 128 might work on it's own. make sure it is pure. Any bleed and it will not work.

Nonato

March 22nd, 2009, 03:38

Foo, that is a great shot! Thanks for the detail man. Guys, check out these coordinates in Google maps and tell me if you see rubble from some old bridges:

40.040676,127.512683

U.

Squiffy

I did check. Well I'm not convinced those are bridge debris...but it could be as clear images of that area are not easy to obtain.
About the river names..quite the same problem. One of them may be the Songch'on gang river...Near the bridges, at Pujon, there is a dam (power plant facility).
Sorry couldn't gather more info.

N.

popsaka

March 22nd, 2009, 04:19

Squiffy's got Nonato flying U-2's over N.Korea... (nice reece work, laddie):gossip:

Squiffy

March 22nd, 2009, 11:06

Zoom out a tad and look at the two angled lines of dirt/debris shadow that cross the rivers there. Not the silt and sand in the river bed but two geometric man-made lines.

More progress on Essex. A tad wide but the groundplanes entry does control scale. Very handy.

FOO FIGHTER

March 24th, 2009, 04:42

I don't know, I'll have to agree with Nonato. Toko-Ri could be anywhere NW of Wonsan as far as I could tell, with so many rivers converging. Is there anyway to find out for sure? I mean is there actual mission info somewhere?

OT - I was looking for info on LST activity at Wonsan Bay and came across some Korea action reports from USS Bairoko (CVE-115). It seems the area around 38*05'N/125*16'E was a real nasty place for AC to be. Google earth shows it to be a very remote and desolate area with a very small population and some minor development. Just a bit North are hills/mountains and nearly every one of them has what appears to be trenches with bomb craters surrounding them(?). Some have eroded, others are as plain as day. I just thought that was a little eerie. The next time I climb into my computer generated Panther I think I'll reflect alot more on the mission I'm about to fly and the guys who were there that did it for real.

FOO FIGHTER

March 24th, 2009, 05:14

OK, I think I got it now.:173go1:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridges_at_Toko-Ri

http://www.uss-bennington.org/non-benn-bridges_at_toko_ri.html

Squiffy

March 24th, 2009, 11:47

Bingo,

It's been a while since I read it through but we can compare the distances and other information to get a good picture. Those action reports were cool too.

Update: I am leaning towards just repainting the deck to Korea era paint. It's a little too fussy and weird to mask out the saratoga deck, and match the new facility file to the carrier model placement. There' something going on in the cockpit model and the terrain rings that cause the facility tile to blank out up close and only be visible at long zoom beyond a certain surrounding square, relative to the aircraft. With wind as low as ten knots, an full flaps, I can lift off just at the end of the saratoga deck. I've even trided the catapult stations and it's just a bit short. I may not have had full flaps at that point.

FOO FIGHTER

March 26th, 2009, 11:06

Whatever you do Squiffy, I'm sure it will be cool.:jump:

Did I do this one right? I just copied the layer that has the dive brake holes and gave it a layer mask (hide all). Saved the t.dds as a 2048, 8bit, no alpha and the r.dds as 2048, 1bit + alpha. Half of the dive brake (to the pilot's left) has a mask, the right just an r.dds unmasked. The masked side does appear to be almost transparent at certain angles and not nearly as reflective as before.

Squiffy

March 26th, 2009, 11:59

Foo, thats not quite right yet. Do you have DXTbmp? If not, create a single layer dds texture that has that part on it. Then, for each of the holes, fill them with the color 128,128,128 Gray. This si the transparent color in CFS3. If you have DXTbmp, you can separate...

Nonato

March 26th, 2009, 12:03

Squiffy

March 26th, 2009, 13:01

...separate the norm background from the trans alpha mask. This is usually the best way as it helps avoid color bleed and trans corruption. So you would want to mask out the holes with black dots on the trans and color them128 gray on the norm skin. You will be able to see through the holes. My F-84 is set to do this already. Not sure if the F-86's was perforated or not.

Update: progress on surviving landings. Porposing was not helped by cg move. didn't have far to go anyway. looked at damping and compression. Boosting to 2.5 worked pretty well, surprisingly. 3 was silly! plane jittered up and down in ui menu.

Frosty

March 26th, 2009, 13:06

EDIT Sorry Squiffy, your second post wasn't on yet... So you can forget what I wrote below.

Guys, I have a different way of applying transparancy:

For this you need your normal _t texture sheet and an Alpha version where the colour white means solid and black is transparent. If you have no other transparencies other than your divebrake holes, the whole sheet can be white with only black spots where you need the holes to be. Save both files as .bmp's and then start DXTbmp. Open your normal texture in the main window and your Alpha in the small Alpha window on the right. Save this combination as the single _t .dds file needed for your model (I use DXT3 with Alpha). This should theoretically give you transparent holes for your divebrakes.

As far as I know, it is the Alpha part of the .dds that defines transparency, not the grey in the texture part of the .dds. Eg., if I do not use a .dds with Alpha for my groundtextures, the grey parts also show...

Squiffy

March 26th, 2009, 15:15

No problemo Frosty. In fact, the alfa mask is safer. The grays were always a pain in the airfield tiles even with the mask.

FOO FIGHTER

March 26th, 2009, 18:43

This is Squiffy's show. He's the one doing all the hard work. I'm just trying to throw a decent skin together.:mixedsmi:

Did as you said Frosty, except I saved in 565 16bit and got this. Should the t.dds holes be a specific color? Will experiment some more after work.

Some detail specific to Brubaker's Panther (grey area at the wing roots that extends aft) cannot be added due to the texture mapping. The panel lines for the gear doors and the flaps that extend under the fuselage will be gone too. If your interested I should have this wrapped up tomorrow. It will look better than pictured here.

Squiffy

March 26th, 2009, 20:25

Nice Foo. I can't remember the right dds format but if you don't have DXTbmp, one of us can edit it for you to finish that part. This model does have some weird splinters in it. The starboard side fuselage is pretty weird and it effects the wing and star. Otherwise looks good. Just trim back the wingroot effect and leave the flaps visible if you can. You want to be able to see them in other missions.

Here are my last of the test shots. This FM is good to go. Strong landing gear and a good headwind of 15 kts. Wind speeds are in m/s in the weather files so dont' over do it. 10 kts still made for some bad stall pancakes. No yeast. ;) We'll be ready to star packign it up this weekend. I can include a substitute gsl and global layer.cfg to have the Essex/Saratoga on the map. Other wise you can place it where you want for other missions. UI and base choices might not follow in that case.

So here are some shots of everyone down in one piece.

Frosty

March 27th, 2009, 10:49

...Did as you said Frosty, except I saved in 565 16bit and got this. Should the t.dds holes be a specific color? Will experiment some more after work...

Nope, the holes on the _t .dds don't need to be a specific colour. In fact, I think that if you don't paint them at all (only on the Alpha mask), you get less colour bleed around the edges of the transparancies (but I usually use the grey that Squiffy mentioned if I need to paint something)

Thanks Squiffy, your remark about the grey lines surrounding the ground texture tiles just gave me something to experiment with!

Squiffy

March 27th, 2009, 11:46

OK, just don't go crazy. Mask only is better than a split personality

:argue: :wiggle:

Nonato

March 27th, 2009, 13:10

I've just got my Bridges at Toko-Ri DVD I had bought by mail!!! At last!

Non

Squiffy

March 27th, 2009, 16:07

Sweet! It won the oscar for special effects that year. Maybe we should have smoking tracers and basketball flak from ETO?

Well, maybe later. We'll finish this with DPC plus the mission set.

Nonato

March 27th, 2009, 18:34

Sweet! It won the oscar for special effects that year. Maybe we should have smoking tracers and basketball flak from ETO?

Well, maybe later. We'll finish this with DPC plus the mission set.

Great! Can't wait for this Squiffy-Ri pack!

N.

FOO FIGHTER

March 28th, 2009, 03:29

Had to work OT at work Friday and did what I could before falling asleep on the keyboard. As you can see its just not quite there yet. I even forgot to add Brubaker's name! Squiffy do your thing and I'll upload this Sunday or Monday after I fix a few things on it (have to work this weekend).:frown:

Nonato

March 28th, 2009, 12:17

lewis11777

March 28th, 2009, 14:55

Barry nice skins!

:jump:

Nonato

March 28th, 2009, 15:34

O-1Driver

March 28th, 2009, 18:30

When I was a kid many years ago back in the 50's, one of my favorite shows on TV was "Navy Log". it always featured the Panther which was my all time favorite aircraft then. I built several plastic scale models of that plane. Also I can't even count the number of times I have watched the movie "Bridges of Toko Ri". It simply does not get any better than that.

You guys are doing a bang up job on this one. I did a CFS 3 version of this mission years ago but used a non localized wind to get the Panther off and back aboard the carrier. It should be a snap today knowing what we now know about building the windspeed just around the carrier.

Looking forward to this one,

O-1

FOO FIGHTER

March 28th, 2009, 22:10

Thanks for the kind words. The mission set Squiffy is putting together looks to be a real blast!

Nonato - The pic in post #36 shows an almost pristine aircraft (probably because it was gonna be in a movie - LOL). I'll try to give it a little used look as it might have appeared in real life and not too factory fresh. Also, this will be the whiz bang version as the panel lines are fudged just a bit and the rivets are no where near accurate.

O-1 - I wish I could see more of Navy Log. Looks like it was on VHS some time ago but is ultra rare now. A few episodes available here:

http://www.usssealion.com/sealion/Silent_Service_Tapes.htm

Squiffy

March 29th, 2009, 07:29

O-1Driver

March 29th, 2009, 07:44

Sorry you had to work Foo. I was outside working on projects yesterday. I also tried to load my files to my website but it's just too big, zip and all. So I will point people to the SOH dls and zip what I can of my own stuff. Or we could do email distribution, I think!? O-1, can you tell me how to make the local wind? 15 kts is still a lot over the target area. More projects today but I will try to load something tonight. We need to give Foo Fighter a chance to polish off the skin. Looking good by the way!

:woot:

Squiffy,

Take either the operation Leader or Operation Dragoon weather from ETO 1.2 and use it as a basis to make your new weather file. You can use the entire file in Korea and just change the subtitle and the coordinates in the xml. You may have to substitute a differnt cloud formation as some of the ETO clouds are not over in Korea yet but eventually will be. Then follow these steps:

1. Open your mission in MB and take any ship or vehicle with an easily recognizable name and place it is close to the carrier you are using for takeoff.
2. Make a rectangle around the carrier using this vehicle/ship with four complete waypoints.
3. Open the mission in notepad and get the lat long coordinates from the waypoints.
4. Transfer the new lat longs to my existing weather file and the wind will stay within the new lat longs.
5. Be sure you edit the wind speed and direction in the current file to suit you for your new setup. I had to use about 22 kts to get that loaded Hellcat off the deck in Operation Dragoon.

After you have the wind and lat longs working to your satisfaction, go back in to MB and remove the "setup" vehicle you used to build your lat longs.

Hope this helps,

Steve

Squiffy

March 29th, 2009, 16:28

OK I'll look into it this week. Thanks.

O-1Driver

March 29th, 2009, 16:44

OK I'll look into it this week. Thanks.

Roger that,

Squiffy,
The ETO_flak gun is much improved over the old flak and has smaller (splinters), you can take hits just like in the movie and keep flying, you may even make it home.

Also the ETO_flak1 has the same flak explosions and effects but has no splinters, it is a blank and cannot cause damage. You can combine the two to make a custom "flak alley" that you can actually survive. You will have smoke bursts all over the place and right in your windscreen. If you throw in the new 37mm AA gun with the red golfball tracers it should be quite a show as you run the gauntlet. Use them if you think they will help the immersion.

O-1

Squiffy

March 29th, 2009, 17:06

Better and better. problem is I can't remember which version of eto I have and i dont see the weather or mission files youre talking about. Help!

:help:

O-1Driver

March 29th, 2009, 17:15

Better and better. problem is I can't remember which version of eto I have and i dont see the weather or mission files youre talking about. Help!

:help:

Squiffy,
I will zip them up and email them to you.

O-1

O-1Driver

March 29th, 2009, 17:19

Squiffy,

Check your email, they are on the way.

Steve

Squiffy

March 31st, 2009, 11:56

GOt em, thanks. ALso got 1.02. Still busy with my other project. Maybe by this weekend. I have to work anyhow!

:wiggle:

FOO FIGHTER

April 1st, 2009, 05:00

Sorry for the delay. Other than a few moments in PS to correct a mistake, I would call this done.

While reviewing the movie I noticed that Holden is in several different Panthers in scenes were the AC is on the flight deck. Other than the 209 and dragon on the nose they all have different markings in regards to AC tail numbers, lack of Brubaker's name, placement of the red warning decal, etc.. The AC used in the flying scenes appears to be the most consistant. I used that AC as a point of reference and used some markings that were on the deck planes - rescue arrow, red warning decal, etc.. I also added a few stencils that I saw on a Panther in some museum pics.

Sorry Nonato, I tried to give it a little faded look here & there and add some powder burns arround the muzzles but just couldn't get it to look right over insignia blue.

Issues - The rescue arrow cannot be put on the canopy frame so I put it under the canopy in a different style than seen in the movie. The canopy frame cannot be painted. The top part of the fuselage stretches so the aft air intake panels look funny. Should I leave the arrow and intake panels off?

Squiffy

April 1st, 2009, 10:24

Looking veeeery nice Foo. For the rescue arrow, try squishing it a little and maybe it will stretch back to a more normal appearance. otherwise looks great. We can make a mask for the speed break. I'm thinking I will include a DL list because the pack will be just too big to work with otherwise. If anybody knows whether email will handle this please tell me. I want it to be as convenient as possible so we can spend more time flying!

:woot:

Nonato

April 1st, 2009, 10:41

@FOO: it's is an amazing job! Thanks! Brubaker would be proud!
@Squiffy: how big is the pack? Are you including anything in it? What do you think of an installer?

Have I told you guys that I received and watched the film again?

PS: ah..and Mickey Rooney's chopper that I saw the other day...will it be included?

Squiffy

April 1st, 2009, 11:57

YES! Chopper is defintely included. In fact, the Huey sounds are quite large. I can try to reduce them a little but not sure. I think it was coming in like at 20M, or a good bit over what I think is a 15 or 16M limit on my website. I dont' want to remove my other most recent packs unless they've been included in PTO and ETO.

I will need some time to rework the mission with the ETO guns and effects. Defintely need some tracers in there!

FOO FIGHTER

April 1st, 2009, 16:13

Wow! It sounds like your even throwing in the kitchen sink - COOL!:jump:

Can you give us a hint of how many missions there are and some more screenshots?

I could do Cmdr. Lee's CAG and recon Panthers in a snap. Back in the day I started Forney's helo but never got around to finishing it. I'd start a crash program to finish it if you like but this would take a little more time. Mark Rude did the S-51 conversion for CFS3 I believe. Maybe he could remove the guns?

Nonato

April 1st, 2009, 16:19

Beautiful Chopper, FOO!

Squiffy, would you like me to do anything like a briefing or whatever? Or are you going to use the briefing and overview I have written for the Toko-ri mission I had originally sent to you?

Squiffy

April 1st, 2009, 21:04

Go ahead Non. I was wrapped up with this other project on my car and spent a lot of time fiddling with out a whole lot of gain. I'm through with it now so I'll be on to the mission pack tomorrow and into the weekend. I really only rewrote the two missions you sent me. I will need to rebuild them with eto flak.

mudlark

April 1st, 2009, 23:37

Hi,
Just getting into this sim. I only have CFS3 with latest patch and DPC Korea.
What else would I need, ETO PTO?
Loved the movie. Beats the pants of stuff like Top Gun.

Nonato

April 2nd, 2009, 01:53

Hi,
Just getting into this sim. I only have CFS3 with latest patch and DPC Korea.
What else would I need, ETO PTO?
Loved the movie. Beats the pants of stuff like Top Gun.

Hi Mud

If you want my opinion there is an addon you must not miss: Mediterranean Air War or MAW.
It's free and you get it here: http://www.medairwar.com/

Godd luck

N.

Squiffy

April 2nd, 2009, 15:46

I'm going to pack this so you will only need to DL certain parts. Or I can email the whole kit and kaboodle. I only have the 2 missions that Nonato drafted. Much time was spent on tweaking the jet for carrier ops. The Panther has no real tail hook in the model. So I gave it bigger brakes. ;)

mudlark

April 2nd, 2009, 23:58

Hi Nonato,

Thanks for reply. I'm still trying to get hold of ETO dvd (slow internet) but I'm more interested in flying Panthers in Korean theatre. What addons would I need to fly this Toko-ri misson. The only sim I've been flying for a while is BOB2 so CFS3 is new to me.

FOO FIGHTER

April 3rd, 2009, 14:13

@ Squiffy - Why not just make it a two part DL? Would you like me to e-mail you the skin or just upload here?

@ Nonato - Any new missions in the pipeline?

@ Mudlark - Toko-Ri hasn't been uploaded yet. Go check out the download section for some cool stuff. There's alot of korea related skins & aircraft in there.:jump:

Did this one just for fun before calling it quits:

Squiffy

April 3rd, 2009, 18:59

Sure we can just upload here. This would be a good candidate since I don't have enough room on my ISP. I working on a possible promotion this month too but my car project is done. Work tomorrow and I'll get back to this the rest of the weekend.

Nonato

April 5th, 2009, 13:44

@ Nonato - Any new missions in the pipeline?

Foo

Unfortunately not for the moment. I'm moving from my present apart to a house, buying a dog, convincing my cat that it must accept the dog, and other huge problems...will do something as soon as possible...

Cannot wait for Toko-Ri, though

Non.

Squiffy

April 5th, 2009, 14:11

Hey Nonato,

I guess you're busy too? Well, I took a look at the eto flak, after the long install process. I had to build a mission just to test the individual facilities and got a good look at them. In the end, I discovered the military_radar_british_... seemed to be the best one for Toko-Ri. problem is, it includes a random pick aa call in the facility. Even at this point I havent' touched the Toko mission. So I am asking for help modifying it with ETO flak. I would rather not bust my eyeballs playing with all the assembly that would require. I built the mission using the DPC mission builder. I've already added the Antheor viaduct, the river facility and done the carrier work. I need a volunteer to build a pack for the ETO flak upgrade or we can leave it up to the user. Vehicles, guns, weapons, and effects, and sounds, will all need to be included in a pack. I will use the standard military radar facilities and we can upgrade them later.

OK everybody?

I'm going out for a drive.

Squiffy

April 5th, 2009, 19:51

OK, I tried copying over as much of the eto stuff that I could. It works OK but I am only using the military radar sites including brit option plus the 37mm flak from eto. I had to copy over the extra fx textures so there are no more white squares. I cant' see tracers though. Hopefully you guys can think of a simple way to get good flak added to DPC. I dont' want to burn another week on this. It still has to be packed up and mounted. Is DPC flak ok? I will need to clean out my install or get rid of MAW.

Nonato

April 6th, 2009, 02:26

Squiffy

I guess DPC flak is enough for the moment. I think you and FOO are doing a great job! It is not necessary for us to create a "DPC Korea Update" (maybe it'll come someday).
New Panther FM, Forney' Heli, new carrier possibilities, Toko-ri facility improved? Is it not enough? As I said before all we're lacking now is Grace Kelly!!:focus: