French aircraft at German airfield

[vonOben]

Hi

I'm flying the ETO "Phoney War" campaign as a German and we are stationed at the Wangerooge airfield.

When I return from missions there are French aircraft parked at our airfield. :isadizzy:


32366

Any ideas why this happens?

Cheers

vonOben

[Frosty]

Defectors or turncoats?? :icon_lol: (They look rather Polish to me...)

My thoughts: You can look in the airfield's .xml to see if the French aircraft are 'set' (=called on by a specific model name) or are added by using a 'joker' (such as '#fighters'). In the first case, the nationality/owner of the airfield is fixed and can only be altered by changing the entries in the .xml. In the second case, the vehicles and aircraft are changed whenever the airfield changes hands: If you capture an airfield, all vehicles and aircraft are changed to your nationality to reflect your victory.
I am not sure that the game engine only uses your own nationality. It might be that it uses models from your general allegiance (Allied vs. Axis), meaning that you could also find yourself surrounded by Italian aircraft and vehicles or so. It has been too long since I flew (a piece of) a campaign. I spend all my time doing models... ;-)

[HouseHobbit]

Of Course, they Surrendered what would you expect??? :icon_eek:

Pro Vichy types I'd say..
Traitors and cowards..No Honor in them..
Shoot them..:tgun2:

Off the hide before a Frenchman sees this..:icon_lol: :icon_lol:

[ndicki]

They aren't pro-Vichy! They're Polish - that lot wouldn't surrender if you stuck a gun in their ears. I think they've run out of petrol and landed, and stolen a boat to get to England to join the RAF and kill more Huns.

[HouseHobbit]

They aren't pro-Vichy! They're Polish - that lot wouldn't surrender if you stuck a gun in their ears. I think they've run out of petrol and landed, and stolen a boat to get to England to join the RAF and kill more Huns.

Thank God, I was worried there for a minute..:applause:

Don't need any more French giving up the fight....:salute:

[Pat Pattle]

As Frosty says, the aircraft should change nationality as the front line moves forward over them.

That airbase is airbase_single_3-Germany36.xml and the entires are correct #fighter_bomber#1 and #fighter_bomber#

So it may be that that particular a/c has it's allegience set incorrectly. I had a quick look through the aircraft folder but couldn't see it.

anyone know?

[vonOben]

Hi guys

So the parked planes are not made as specific ground objects but they are the same as the flyable planes then? :confused:

Cheers

vonOben

[Pat Pattle]

So the parked planes are not made as specific ground objects but they are the same as the flyable planes then?

That's correct.

However there are some static models in the ETO as well.

Btw you can change those entries so that any aircraft model will show up on the airfield.
Replace #fighter_bomber#1 etc. with the .m3d model name of your choice.

[vonOben]

Hi Pat

Some more questions related to previous answers if you don’t mind:



That airbase is airbase_single_3-Germany36.xml and the entires are correct #fighter_bomber#1 and #fighter_bomber#


OK, but how do you find out which airbase xml is for which airbase?



So it may be that that particular a/c has it's allegience set incorrectly. I had a quick look through the aircraft folder but couldn't see it.

OK, but how can I check if that’s wrong?

Thanks for your help! :)

Cheers

vonOben

[Pat Pattle]

OK, but how do you find out which airbase xml is for which airbase?

All of the airbases, factories etc. in cfs3 are defined in the global_layer.csv file, which is a spreadsheet and can be opened with M$ Excel for one. It's found in the Global Layer folder.
Search for your particular airbase and then look at the first 3 columns. These relate to the facility files (which define it's size and what objects go where) so if they are airbase - triple - 3 look for airbase_triple_3 in the facilities.

Do not try editing it without having the SDK and knowing how it works!

In the ETO there is one file and corresponding folder for each era. The active one is the one without the year in the title.


So it may be that that particular a/c has it's allegience set incorrectly. I had a quick look through the aircraft folder but couldn't see it.

I'm at work at the mo but off the top of my head open the aircraft.xdp file and it's in the top 3 or 4 lines.

[vonOben]

Hi Pat

Thanks for the info. I’ll try to find that particular aircraft and check the aircraft.xdp as a start.
More questions might follow… ;)

Cheers

vonOben

[wsmwsm]

The aircraft shown seems to be skinned as (Free) Polish Air Force MS406 fighting at the time of the Battle of France. However, the XDP lists the nation as "France_Vichy" which is why, I think, it shows up at a German airfield since there is a Axis/Allies dichotomy in CFS3. (CFS3 considers Vichy as an Axis nation I believe.) The same aircraft appears as a player A/C in the drop down menu under Vichy as well.

The aircraft is found in the aircraft folder under "w40_MS406". There are multiple textures and XDPs in the folder. This one's XDP reads "w40_MS406_Vichy".

For some reason in ETO, a number of the player flyable French aircraft are categorized as Vichy and, I suppose have post-armistice paint schemes. Why a Polish paint scheme here is a bit of a mystery to me. Perhaps someone can enlighten us on this topic.

[ndicki]

For some reason in ETO, a number of the player flyable French aircraft are categorized as Vichy and, I suppose have post-armistice paint schemes. Why a Polish paint scheme here is a bit of a mystery to me. Perhaps someone can enlighten us on this topic.

Don't look at me, or any of the W40 crew... We were "eased out" of the project once they'd...

[vonOben]

Hi wsmwsm

It seems as you found the problem! :)

Would it be possible to remove those Vichy aircraft from my ETO install or could that damage something?
I could always test and remove them, so I can past them in again if ETO starts acting weird.

Cheers

vonOben

[wsmwsm]

I really don't know, but I would be reluctant to completely remove anything. Perhaps someone else here can give you an opinion on that.

The other alternative, I suppose, is to simply open up the aircraft XDP and change the nationality from Vichy_France to France_Free. You could always change them back, I suppose. Perhaps someone else would know for sure.

My puzzle here is why that particular aircraft (Polish) appears with Vichy as the nationality. You could understand that some of the other French craft would receive that designation, but not that specific example.

[ndicki]

The French aircraft in MAW were nearly all Vichy, for obvious reasons. As ETO borrowed a huge amount of material straight from MAW, there were things which apparently were overlooked... The version I have of this aircraft is not France_Vichy, but then my version is the original and has not been recompiled into the 4-in-1 package you get in ETO. Just do as suggested and replace France_Vichy with France_Free in the XDP. Don't forget to delete the BDP file.

[Led Zeppelin]

The other alternative, I suppose, is to simply open up the aircraft XDP and change the nationality from Vichy_France to France_Free. You could always change them back, I suppose. Perhaps someone else would know for sure.
Or, simply change from allowsoawn="y" to allowsoawn="n" in xdp file.

[vonOben]

Just do as suggested and replace France_Vichy with France_Free in the XDP. Don't forget to delete the BDP file.

OK, I'll try that!

Thanks for your help guys! :)

Cheers

vonOben

[vonOben]

Hi

I'm flying another ETO "Phoney War" campaign as a German and this time we are stationed at the Boeblingen airfield.

I've edited the MS406, BR693 and PO631 xpd files and changed France_Vichy to France_Free but now other French aircraft show up and I can't find which one it is.

Any ideas?


62619


Cheers

[ndicki]

Those are Po631s. I imagine that it's still the usual problem, that the xdp file nationalities were not set correctly or something to that effect.

If you reset the xdp files to read 'france_free,' deleted the bdp files and then updated your install, the probability is that it simply over-wrote your version with the original one from MAW - though why, I don't know.

[vonOben]

Thanks ndicki

I'll check again so I haven't missed to change any xdp-files.

Cheers

[Daiwilletti]

Hi von Oben,

if you download "campaign generator 1-1.xls" from here at SOH, and if you have MS Excel, you can list all the aircraft in a spreadsheet and see their nationalities at a glance. Then you can open each xdp you need to modify, directly from the spreadsheet. Much quicker than manually doing it.

Another left-field thought: what is the order of nationalities listed under the <Alliances> section of your country.xml file? The order of nationaliteis will affect which nationalities spawn for Axis and Allied as default.

it seems you have persistent spawning of a particular nation for Axis Alliance, so maybe its the country.xml file?

David

[gosd]

Hi von Oben,

if you download "campaign generator 1-1.xls" from here at SOH,

David

Where is this ?
Thanks.

[Daiwilletti]

Where is this ?
Thanks.
here is the link - it is in the Warbirds archive, CFS3 Other:
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/downloads/download.php?lloc=downloads&FileID=2461

sorry I was dashing out before so did not have time to find it.

D

[vonOben]

Thanks for the tip David! :salute:

I'll try the campaign generator and check the country.xml when I get home from work.

Cheers

[vonOben]

Hi

The Country.xml (ETO default) looks like this in the beginning:

<Base>
<!--NEK ETO Edition-->
<Defaults CountryID="USA" PilotModel="Walker"/>
<Alliances>
<Alliance ID="Allies" Name="Allies">
<Country ID="Britain"/>
<Country ID="USA"/>
<Country ID="Australia"/>
<Country ID="Britain_FAA"/>
<Country ID="Canada"/>
<Country ID="Italy_Allied"/>
<Country ID="France_Free"/>
<Country ID="US_Navy"/>
<Country ID="Other_Allied_Nations"/>
<Country ID="Russia"/>
<Country ID="Belgium"/>
<Country ID="Netherlands"/>
<Country ID="Spain_Republicans"/>
<Country ID="Poland"/>
</Alliance>
<Alliance ID="Axis" Name="Axis">
<Country ID="Germany"/>
<Country ID="Italy"/>
<Country ID="Vichy_France"/>
<Country ID="Finland"/>
<Country ID="Other_Axis_Nations"/>
<Country ID="Spain_Nationalists"/>
</Alliance>
</Alliances>
<Countries>

I tested the campaign generator xls file and there were two Vichy_France aircraft I had missed to change:

ai_Po631.xdp and DR_D520_ChauP.xdp.

So that explains my problem!

There were some other strange things in the aircraft xdp files also regarding some tanks, armored car and U-boat saying Left service: eral Allegience=
Is that correct and what does it mean?

One aircraft had the wrong left service date, but it's not an ETO aircraft so that might be intentional:
DR_LeO451_Syria.xdp Left service: 13/31/1942

Cheers

[ndicki]

13/31/1942 can't be right, because the calendar stops at 12; the date is given the American way, month first, which is rather confusing to say the very least. I'd change it for something more reasonable, say, 12/31/1942...

Glad you found the trouble with the aircraft spawns.

[Daiwilletti]

Nothing wrong with the country.xml. Germany is set as the first Axis nation. I wonder of the "owner" column in the global layer is set for Vichy_France for the airfield you are looking at?

You will get a bit of corruption in the results in the Cagen file, because different xdp files are set up differently so the macro cannot cover every eventuality. I think the Allegiance= stuff is because the left service date is optional in xdp files so is sometimes missing.

[vonOben]

My airfield is Boeblingen which is German in the Global layer.

I've changed France_Vichy to France_Free in ai_Po631.xdp and DR_D520_ChauP.xdp now, so I hope that will fix the problem.

Cheers