CFS3 Jet Combat Question

[Autothrottle]

Hello all,

Not to be much of a bother, but I seem to be having issues with Jet combat in CFS3. The stock P-80C seems as if it would do better as a horizontal V2 rocket than a jet fighter. It seems as if its too twitchy in its turn radius, stalls seem to accompany me right after takeoff until landing. I played the stock mission in hunting Me-262's and failed abysmally, this fighter did little more than go up and down. turns were impossible as the 262's seem to turn much tighter into me.

Whew! The Me-262 is okay, but I know it performs poorly with piston-engined fighters. The game describes it a purely zoom and boom aircraft. How do you zoom and boom if the targets are P-51's or Spitfires? They seem just to quick and nimble, even if I slow the Jumo engines down to 50 percent. It makes a better bomber than a fighter it seems.

The game's Vampire seems to be the best of the three. Its excellent in hunting down those pesky Horton 229's. Its not bad on the stall factor either, and rollovers are easy to recover from, at least if you've tried a few.

Basically, I've seen everyone here producing piston engined fighters and bombers it seems because jets are more likely going to be the hunted rather than the hunters. Can anybody point me in the direction of Jet combat tactic information? I've read the CFS3 manual and all, but it doesnt translate to the game, it seems off to me. Almost every stock aircraft is listed as zoom and boom. Any thoughts anyone?

[ndicki]

Well, early jets WERE pretty poor performers in many respects, which led to a certain mistrust in some circles - the Royal Navy and US Navy among others. That I think is one reason why the MiG-15 came as such a shock - firstly that it performed rather well overall, and secondly that it came from the Soviet Union, even if the engine was essentially a Rolls-Royce design.

I'd suggest getting rid of the stock jets and replacing them with the AvHistory equivalents. THat might be a start.

But your comments about booming and zooming piston-engined fighters seems pretty valid! Did a 262 ever shoot down a Spit or a Mustang or anything of that sort?

[Led Zeppelin]

Did a 262 ever shoot down a Spit or a Mustang or anything of that sort?
Yes I think so but it was not in a dog fight.

[Autothrottle]

I'd suggest getting rid of the stock jets and replacing them with the AvHistory equivalents. THat might be a start.

AvH only has certain jets available, Didnt really know you could replace the stock ones though.

[ndicki]

Easy. Strip out the aircraft's main folder so only the sound folder remains. End of operation. That kills off the stock aircraft.The point in leaving the sound folder there is of course so that any third-party aircraft you bring in which uses that sound alias, will still work. Just in case you don't check them systematically... You also need to watch out for shared texture files - especially cockpit and damage textures. These can be safely dumped into your aircraft/shared folder in any case.

Alternatively, leave the stock job in place, but copy the air file, aircraft.cfg and xdp files over from the AvH equivalent. Adjust the names as if you were making a stand-alone so they reflect the m3d name of the original model. Rename the .air file to originalname.air, the xdp file to originalname.xdp, and open the aircraft.cfg with notepad. ("Originalname" here means the m3d name of the stock aircraft, so for example b_25c or p_47d_25.

Change the modelname and simname to =originalname

Then open the xdp file with notepad and change modelname=XXX to modelname=originalname

Make sure you delete the bdp file.

You can now use them automatically in missions, campaigns, etc.

They will NOT work in multiplayer however.

Do NOT delete the following aircraft however - P-47d (keep sound folder only), P-47d-25, Bf109g-6, B-26 and Ju88. These four are required aircraft and if you remove them, you'll have trouble. You can replace their FM/DMs though with AvH versions, as described above. Just make sure the original model names stay intact. All the other aircraft can be safely deleted as long as you take care about sound files and shared texture files.

[ndicki]

I thought AvH had versions of all the stock jets...

[Autothrottle]

Thanks Nigel!

However I'm a bit nervous in deleting the stock versions. I think that they are the glue holding the game together so to speak. However, I wish to learn from them to become a better sim pilot is all, but the stalls are a bit of a nuisance, Cant I revert the games flight model back to meduim? Will this affect the third party addons I have? Or will they remain the same?

Also a quick question: Do ETO addons work well in stock CFS3 with NEK installed? I have an Older PC and it doesnt seem to like too many addons that the processor can't handle.

[ndicki]

It should not influence your addons unless you delete a shared texture file, in which case you'll simply see a part of the skin, interior or exterior, missing. As long as you have models where the simname/modelname (ie the m3d name) is the same as those used by the stock aircraft, CFS couldn't care whether they really are the stock aircraft or not. If you take Greg's Blenheim and rename it as the b_25c, the sim will use it as the b_25c without noticing.

You can switch back very simply - copy the original aircraft into a hangar folder outside your install. If you decide enough is enough, delete the modified ones and move the originals back in.

Obviously take care with sound aliases, as stated above.

If by ETO addons you mean aircraft, yes, they will. You can use any version of any CFS3 aircraft in any install, no matter how heavily modded it may be. I have an install of MAW with the aircraft from OFF, for example. The thing to do is to copy from ETO into the projected install, the following folders - pylons, weapons, guns, and all sound files and shared files. You may have a bit of fun locating these last, but method and careful application will get you there. Finally, copy the effects.xml from ETO root into your install root, and the effects folder from ETO into your install. And that should do the trick. Obviously, you will want to back up every file you overwrite, outside the operational install.

[dancat]

why not just change the stock aircraft's FM's to the AVH ones?
then you can keep the "stock" ac but they'll fly like AVH.

[Autothrottle]

How does CFS3's game engine handle all these aircraft without any trouble? I have all these aircraft with the NEK installed and it seems as if the sim gobbles them up like they are nothing at all.

[hairyspin]

why not just change the stock aircraft's FM's to the AVH ones?
then you can keep the "stock" ac but they'll fly like AVH.

That's certainly true for the AvH jet aircraft based on the stock models - P-80, Me262, Vampire - but beware of borrowing FMs from models which aren't based on the stockers. There are some very important differences in model layout which will give downright screwy behaviour in flight.

[dancat]

well yeah that's what I thought the subject was about.
stock ac fm's