Ideas for Pat's BoB Install

[Daiwilletti]

Seeing as how Pat sees his install as a bit of a sandpit for others to contribute to, here are a couple of very minor ideas. I will add to this thread as other things become apparent. Hopefully others will add ideas/their tweaks here too.


I've added my favourite ViewUI.xml to the BoB folder under the Application Data pathway, otherwise the stock ViewUI appears.
I've tweaked the aircraft.cfg file for the 109 E4 JG-26 to lock the tail wheel so I don't prang the darn thing on landing after a successful Coventry mission! (tailwheel_lock=1)
The "left service" date in the 109 E4 JG26's xdp could be brought way forward say to August 1940, so as to allow cannon-armed variants of the 109 to spawn after that.

Speaking of spawning, I think mrjmaint's idea of using a mini spawn selector for this install is a good idea if campaigns are to be made. Without specific sets of spawns for the british and German sides, there would be problems with American planes, ships and vehicles spawning for the allies....Incidentally, a lot of early war ETO vehicles need to be imported to provide flavour.

In my heavily modified ETO BoB install, I've created duplicate sets of BoB-era vehicles and ships and aircraft, all British, but with xdps saying the nationality is USA to get around the spawning problem. But the use of a spawn selector would get around this problem so long as all allied ship and ground spawns were specifically set to British, in the spawn files. Don't know which is easier or less work, actually. It gets pretty quick to create new vehicle and ship folders with an "a" prefix and renamed xdp and m3d files, to create country=USA copies of British stuff.

What do other people think? Is it less work to create sets of allied and axis spawns for aircraft, vehicles and ships and use a spawn selector, or is it simpler to create a copy of the British aircraft, vehicles and ships with country=USA?

[mrjmaint]

Is it less work to create sets of allied and axis spawns for aircraft, vehicles and ships and use a spawn selector, or is it simpler to create a copy of the British aircraft, vehicles and ships with country=USA?


If you just have a set group of aircraft, vehicles and ships you want to use then the split IMHO is 50/50. If you want to keep adding aircraft, vehicles and ships as they become available then spawn files would be much better. Once the spawn files are created you don't have to worry about modifying individual files as you add them.

[Led Zeppelin]

If you want to change country=USA to country=Britain on several vehicules, it's easy and take about 2 minutes.

1- drop the vehicules you want change in a seperate folder

2- use a tool such as PSPad Editor (freeware) or Ultraedit for exemple. With these programs, you can change country=USA to country=Britain in all xdp's files under the main folder in one clic.


Other solution: use the excell sheet that allow you to list all vehicules in an install. Then, select all USA vehicules you want to change and make a list xdp of files you want to modify (copy-paste, 2 minutes). Then, run PSPad or whatever and it's done in two clics.

[ndicki]

The first and third nationalities in the body of country.xml (being also the first in the header on either side) will spawn, no matter which they are. If you swop USA for Britain, that's it, finished. The only glitch I've seen is that the air.spawns file seems (on my install) not to work, but then I've been having trouble with it anyway. The other spawns, cap etc, work well. That includes vehicles and ships. Air.spawns will probably work after a bit of tweaking, whatever the problem might be.

Saves a hell of a lot of messing about...

[Daiwilletti]

The first and third nationalities in the body of country.xml (being also the first in the header on either side) will spawn, no matter which they are. If you swop USA for Britain, that's it, finished. The only glitch I've seen is that the air.spawns file seems (on my install) not to work, but then I've been having trouble with it anyway. The other spawns, cap etc, work well. That includes vehicles and ships. Air.spawns will probably work after a bit of tweaking, whatever the problem might be.

Saves a hell of a lot of messing about...
Hi Nigel,
I'd wondered why it never seems to work for me. I think you have provided the missing link. Whenever I've changed the order of nationalities in the country.xml, there has seemed to be no difference - because I've been looking at aircraft, and it seems the air.spawns table is the problematic one!

In that case, I will need to take a closer look at ground and ship spawning activity.

Thanks for that useful bit of the jigsaw!

David

[Daiwilletti]

If you just have a set group of aircraft, vehicles and ships you want to use then the split IMHO is 50/50. If you want to keep adding aircraft, vehicles and ships as they become available then spawn files would be much better. Once the spawn files are created you don't have to worry about modifying individual files as you add them.

Hi Mrjmaint,
judging by Ndicki's input, it looks like setting up the spawns will be the easier way to go as only aircraft need to be worried about. If we cannot solve the air.spawns problem a selector to toggle between playing for Allied and Axis forces will be very useful. All friendly air spawns can use country=britain when flying for the Allies, and enemy air spawns can be labelled country=britain when flying for the Axis.

cheers,
David

[Pat Pattle]

I've added my favourite ViewUI.xml to the BoB folder under the Application Data pathway, otherwise the stock ViewUI appears.
I've tweaked the aircraft.cfg file for the 109 E4 JG-26 to lock the tail wheel so I don't prang the darn thing on landing after a successful Coventry mission! (tailwheel_lock=1)
The "left service" date in the 109 E4 JG26's xdp could be brought way forward say to August 1940, so as to allow cannon-armed variants of the 109 to spawn after that.

Speaking of spawning, I think mrjmaint's idea of using a mini spawn selector for this install is a good idea if campaigns are to be made. Without specific sets of spawns for the british and German sides, there would be problems with American planes, ships and vehicles spawning for the allies....Incidentally, a lot of early war ETO vehicles need to be imported to provide flavour.

Out of interest I think if you put the view.xml (or any of the app'data xml files) into the cfs3 root and make them read only they override the app' data files.

I'll add those mods in for the next revision, thanks David.

I've been taking a bit of a break from it all at the moment, too much RL stuff going on so sorry I've not been around to answer much of this stuff.

I'm not up to speed with the workings of the campaign/spawns etc so if anyone working on this wants any files included or mods done to the install to facilitate anything then let me know.
Adding the FAA in as another country is on the to do list to help with the campaign for one.

I'm trying to move slowly and add new stuff in a bit at a time. We have permission to add the appropriate early era W40 vehicles which I need to do plus London needs fleshing out (docks, searchlights etc.) as do the French channel ports. We also have a couple of important airfields missing.

As well as this there are a few errors to fix too!

Thanks for the support guys. :)

[greycap.raf]

I've tweaked the aircraft.cfg file for the 109 E4 JG-26 to lock the tail wheel so I don't prang the darn thing on landing after a successful Coventry mission! (tailwheel_lock=1)

:pop4: goes the realism though, the tailwheel lock was introduced during Bf 109G production.

[chriseponymous]

Inspired by this wonderful new install I decided to get my paint set out again! Still very much a work in progress so a basic texture for now, but enough so you can get an idea.

[Led Zeppelin]

great!:jump:

[olaf1924]

I just installed battle of britain by just flight on top of the new bob package and I can report that it works great. The new scenery works great with the old just flight missions. The combanation of the two aircraft packages seem to mesh with no problems so far.

[Pat Pattle]

I just installed battle of britain by just flight on top of the new bob package and I can report that it works great. The new scenery works great with the old just flight missions. The combanation of the two aircraft packages seem to mesh with no problems so far.

That's good news, thanks for reporting. Not having it myself I wasn't sure what files it affected.

[Daiwilletti]

:pop4: goes the realism though, the tailwheel lock was introduced during Bf 109G production.
LOL! Maybe I should learn to fly - nah!

I've made up a set of .bat files to swap between no spawns (for flying missions) or flying for Allied (Britain) or Axis. Just for Air, Intercept, cap, recon and sweep missions. I'm rather hoping that using the country.xml tweak, ship and ground spawns will be British, so I'm concentrating on air spawns.

So far I've written the airspawn variations and I'm hoping to cross reference a lot of the CAP, recon and intercept spawns to the some of the air spawn xmls, because in the BOB era the missions are fairly similar, - you either bomb the heck out of airfields, and defend or attack the bombers. Well I've added a few anti-ship spawns for Brit bombers.

Wife and life willing I'll finish this stuff this week but it will need a few testers of course?

Goodness knows my spawn file writing is painful it seems to be an art which I can master only to a rudimentary level. Hopefully whatever I do can complement mrjamaint's ideas.

D

[wsmwsm]

I just installed battle of britain by just flight on top of the new bob package and I can report that it works great. The new scenery works great with the old just flight missions. The combanation of the two aircraft packages seem to mesh with no problems so far.


Question: How do you install Just Flight BoB to any directory other than the default path? Alternatively, can you selectively choose JF BoB aircraft and place them in another install of CFS3?

[Pat Pattle]

I've made up a set of .bat files to swap between no spawns (for flying missions) or flying for Allied (Britain) or Axis. Just for Air, Intercept, cap, recon and sweep missions. I'm rather hoping that using the country.xml tweak, ship and ground spawns will be British, so I'm concentrating on air spawns.

So far I've written the airspawn variations and I'm hoping to cross reference a lot of the CAP, recon and intercept spawns to the some of the air spawn xmls, because in the BOB era the missions are fairly similar, - you either bomb the heck out of airfields, and defend or attack the bombers. Well I've added a few anti-ship spawns for Brit bombers.

Wife and life willing I'll finish this stuff this week but it will need a few testers of course?

Goodness knows my spawn file writing is painful it seems to be an art which I can master only to a rudimentary level. Hopefully whatever I do can complement mrjamaint's ideas.

Good show David! I've been running mrjamaint's campaign on and off and it makes the install come alive. If there's anything that needs testing please send it over, I'd love to have a go.

What do you chaps think of having small campaigns covering just weeks or even single days of the battle? Just trying to survive 3 or 4 sorties in one days operations appeals to me and the accompanying missions could be made quite authentic that way.

[Daiwilletti]

What do you chaps think of having small campaigns covering just weeks or even single days of the battle? Just trying to survive 3 or 4 sorties in one days operations appeals to me and the accompanying missions could be made quite authentic that way.

Yes Pat I've thought that would make a campaign engine generating missions that are reasonably realistic - one can modify the campaign mission parameters so that reasonably historically accurate missions are flown. So a week would be feasible the trouble is I don't know too much about the finer detail of the events week by week over the Battle of Britain. But you can certainly control the number of missions flown per day at least for AI - not sure about for the player. Would have to modify the file controlling fatigue so that fatigue levels did not build too quickly otherwise the player would come to a grinding halt fairly fast. The standard campaign needs a few days for fatigue to clear.

All grist to the mill.

[mrjmaint]

What do you chaps think of having small campaigns covering just weeks or even single days of the battle? Just trying to survive 3 or 4 sorties in one days operations appeals to me


That is possible from what I see in the "Campaign SDK" just would take some experimentation.



and the accompanying missions could be made quite authentic




make a campaign engine generating missions that are reasonably realistic - one can modify the campaign mission parameters so that reasonably historically accurate missions are flown


The only way to control mission generating in the campaign is have a short list of mission types for the specific campaign. As far as I know you can't set up specific targets for a mission. The campaign engine does that for you based on the mission type and the map sector you select.

[Daiwilletti]

The only way to control mission generating in the campaign is have a short list of mission types for the specific campaign. As far as I know you can't set up specific targets for a mission. The campaign engine does that for you based on the mission type and the map sector you select.

Agreed! I tweak the "Missioneffects" section for BoB era so it gives most weighting to intercept, CAP and some strike missions. From the SDK, the available campaign Mission Options are:
Intercept
Escort
Cap
Sweep
StrikeBridges
DestroyRailTraffic
AntiShip
DestroySupplyTrucks
StrikeAmmoDepots
StrikeRailYards
StrikeFactories
DestroyTroopColumns
DestroyTruckColumns
DestroyArmoredColumns
StrikeBunkers
StrikeDugInTanks
StrikeInfantryPos
StrikeArtilleryPos
CASArmoredVehicles
CASTroops
Recon
The glaring deficiency is working out how to get airbase attacks into the campaign mission options. IIRC Winding Man has solved the problem for OFF - maybe if we ask him really nicely and it isn't too deeply lodged with his proprietary IP, he might help us out with an idea of how to tweak the list of available missions for campaign play.

That said, we could also get into more detail by tweaking a set of Global Layers for short time periods, like in ETO but only covering a month or a few weeks rather than a year. That would allow us to reduce the number of potential targets and leave in only airfields and facilities (eg. radar stations, Dover, etc) that saw direct action over the historical period. This would involve setting up yet more bat files and adding complexity, but it may be worth doing.

From my perspective, once we've narrowed down the options using available techniques then I am happy for the campaign engine to throw up variety rather than absolute historical accuracy because that is what I love about campaigns - you never get the same experience twice, especially if your spawns are working well.
cheers,
David

[Pat Pattle]

The glaring deficiency is working out how to get airbase attacks into the campaign mission options.

The oddity here is that airfield attackes are possible in QC so why the omission here?

I wonder if it were possible to 'fool' CFS3 by re-tagging the target airbase as a factory..

<Facility Type="RAF Hawkinge - 11 Grp Sector D Forward Operating Airfield" Flags="isAirbase" Outer distance="8001">

Where "isairbase" becomes "isfactory"

I have no idea what effect doing that will have on anything else though without some testing.

Or...how about maybe by placing a dummy and 'invisible' factory facility directly over the airfield, would that confuse the ai I wonder?



From my perspective, once we've narrowed down the options using available techniques then I am happy for the campaign engine to throw up variety rather than absolute historical accuracy because that is what I love about campaigns - you never get the same experience twice, especially if your spawns are working well.


Yes I quite agree, the campaign must remain fluid but within the confines of what was historically plausible. After all as an RAF pilot you would not really have had much idea as to the bombers' target, just that you had to intercept them and as mentioned elsehwre in this thread each day was basically the same as far as pilots were concerned.


That said, we could also get into more detail by tweaking a set of Global Layers for short time periods, like in ETO but only covering a month or a few weeks rather than a year. That would allow us to reduce the number of potential targets and leave in only airfields and facilities (eg. radar stations, Dover, etc) that saw direct action over the historical period. This would involve setting up yet more bat files and adding complexity, but it may be worth doing.

In the campaign xml it refers to the gsl.lib file. Can this be a different gsl file do you know? If so that would negate the need for swappers etc, you'd just need a different gsl.lib for each campaign.

so many ideas so little bl**dy time!! ;)

[Daiwilletti]

The oddity here is that airfield attackes are possible in QC so why the omission here?

I wonder if it were possible to 'fool' CFS3 by re-tagging the target airbase as a factory..

<Facility Type="RAF Hawkinge - 11 Grp Sector D Forward Operating Airfield" Flags="isAirbase" Outer distance="8001">

Where "isairbase" becomes "isfactory"

Hi Pat, this is a good approach - I trialled it once when Squiffy and I were working on something. Can simply change the flag to "isFactory" IIRC. However the campaign engine will still assign factory targets at random. BUT, is there a "priority" line in the facility xml, or in the Object xdps? Throwing in some airbase bits with a very high priority might make the campaign engine preferentially select airbases over other facilities. Probably would work with radar too..




In the campaign xml it refers to the gsl.lib file. Can this be a different gsl file do you know? If so that would negate the need for swappers etc, you'd just need a different gsl.lib for each campaign.

so many ideas so little bl**dy time!! ;)

Ah yes, that sounds right! No need for swappers after all...Another interesting angle is that the Campaign SDK mentions that under a single campaign it is possible to have "layers" that refer to different GSLs - I wonder if this can be tweaked so that all the GSLs occur over sequential periods?

The other thing is that specific airfields can have specific spawn events embedded within the facility file. If it is possible for the spawn file to refer to a specific date (or range of dates), then it might be possible to replicate specific raids and attacks using multiple spawn entries for an airbase or radar facility. Looking at the Mission Scripting SDK I can't see any assistance on specifying the dates. Its not too important if the GSL only applies for a few weeks or a month.

:iidea: However, the SDK does say that in the Route section of an Air spawn file, you can specify a Position parameter for an air formation - using the options available for Ground formations. To this end, I have written some Axis bomber spawns where the Bombing Waypoint is specified to be an airbase. This may be the easiest solution and save a lot of fiddling around with facility files and priorities! (Although I think all the priority settings need to be rationalised anyway to be more consistent or encourage more realistic AI behaviour eg. stop them bombing bridges all the time!!)
So much to try, so little time...
D