Airfield Apron

Back in the day the global layer used to be modified with an "empty land" facility to keep trees from generating too close to the approach line to runways.

Recently I've had a couple of stock single runways that have suffered from this problem. I have increased the groundplane in the airbase facility file to try to address this.

It appears to me, after a bit of testing, that this increases the clear area before the runway, quickly and easily. Has anyone tried increasing the ground plane in the airbase facility files? If it works it is an easy solution rather than fiddling about with empty land facilities in the GL.

No but a good idea that I might look into, assuming that it doesn't effect approach lights.

If I'm not mistaken, this will also stretch the airfield layout texture and it won't match the building placement anymore.

Hmm; that might be an issue. Meanwhile, I assume the "empty land" facility is placed at identical coordinates to the airbase?

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Originally Posted by gecko

If I'm not mistaken, this will also stretch the airfield layout texture and it won't match the building placement anymore.

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This sounds pretty plausible, however I haven't noticed as yet. Will need to test more.

I should mention that the increase is not very big, going from say 1400 1400 to 1600 1600.

OK I've had a closer look. I think that the ground plane can be expanded a little without the effects being too obvious. When you expand by 200 or 250 (eg I took the single_2 groundplane out by 250 each dimension) then the changes start to look obvious. As Gecko says, the airfield layout texture and the actual vehicle pathways do not match and other facilities don't sit where planned for in the texture.

The advantage of increasing the groundplane by 100 or 150, is that when there are four aircraft sitting on the runway waiting to take off, they do not straggle back onto the nearby paddock, they stay on the area textured as runway. Some runway layouts the autogen trees are further away from the point of landing, which is also a good thing. Nothing worse than returning after a 90 minute campaign flight, and your AI wingmen crash into trees as they approach the runway.

The other cause of landing crashes is when the runway landing point sits above the surrounding terrain. This is fixed by lowering the altitude of the airbase facility in the global layer csv. All little tweaks which help immersion.

This is more an issue for stock installs of CFS3, as ETO has different airbase layouts and a more carefully set up global layer.

When you make an airfield and set the size this flattens that area in the landclass. You can see its effect in non flat regions. It also eliminates any other scenery from being displayed in that area. It has to be set when you make the airfield mesh and textures. Changing it in game I would think would distort the airfield and the texture.

What is the effect with the "empty land" facility?

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Originally Posted by NachtPiloten

When you make an airfield and set the size this flattens that area in the landclass. You can see its effect in non flat regions. It also eliminates any other scenery from being displayed in that area. It has to be set when you make the airfield mesh and textures. Changing it in game I would think would distort the airfield and the texture.

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That could be true I'm definitely seeing slight displacement of textures. The point is the change is small and you have to look for it to see it. I've got my AI airmen lining up behind me on the apron now, not in the adjacent paddock. This is using stock airbase facilities, I imagine the purpose built airbases in ETO don't have the same problem.

If you are just wanting to have the AI aircraft lining up on the runway, a better solution would be to edit the runway file in the objects folder. You can set the starting position of each aircraft and define starting positions for as many aircraft as you like.

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Originally Posted by gecko

If you are just wanting to have the AI aircraft lining up on the runway, a better solution would be to edit the runway file in the objects folder. You can set the starting position of each aircraft and define starting positions for as many aircraft as you like.

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That's a good suggestion, Daniel. One of the things I'm a bit worried about is that on some airbases the AI wingmen land from 1/3 to 1/2 way along the runway and I would prefer them to land closer to the start. I'm not sure if encroaching on the runway object would affect this.