Aircraft Discussion

[Darkhunter]

After playing the new LWAMI mod I was utterly impressed with the way the aircraft AI function. They ACTUALLY fly now. Awesome.

I want to get more of my friends interested in DW, and I think the way to do that is through aircraft. I searched and searched all over the forums to understand why new playable aircraft---yes, I brought up this dreaded subject---aren't playable. Why can't, for example, an f-14 tomcat or B-2 Spirit be playable? If anyone can give me the general consensus that would be helpful. What I found is that essentially chagning the interface is the biggest obstacle. Aside from that, it seems it can be done. I want to use the P-3 as a base, change the model to something else, modify the "hitbox," alter speed characteristics if possible, and change the weapon loadout. I don't care about the interfaces being the same as the P-3 Orion, or the lack of certain stations (such as acoustic station or camera turret). My objective is to make an aircraft like an F-22/F-16 be playable and able to shoot weapons. That's it. Anything else is an extra (such as ESM and radar). Obviously this is very limiting but the aircraft would serve as a support role, not a standalone platform.

The reason I ask is because I think this would get my friends to give this game more of a chance. A couple are interested but they care more about blowing crap up than learning the difference between active and passive sonar. I made a quick custom scenario of us vs two surface ships and they actually enjoyed that since it was chaos nonstop with missiles flying everywhere.

So I have a plan: start small, go big. First, I want to get them familiar with how the game works by introducing simple concepts that emulate an arcade-like theme. An aircraft that can only shoot weapons is simple and arcadey, right? After they realize there's much more to the game, I'll introduce the P-3 Orion and why it's enjoyable to play. From there I can show how the submarine utilizes a different playstyle but is just as fun if not better.

So, this master plan is dependent upon aircraft being playable. RA team did it with the Tupolev Tu-95 (Bear), I'm curious now just how difficult it would be. I'm eager to learn, but if people more knowledgeable than me can indicate this being a futile effort then I'd rather learn this now than later.

Thanks guys,

Darkhunter

[dd149]

RA team is planning playable Bréguet Atlantic aircraft for the next release (1.35).

[Darkhunter]

Originally Posted by dd149

RA team is planning playable Bréguet Atlantic aircraft for the next release (1.35).

That's cool, look forward to it.


Guys, I downloaded DWEdit and have been fooling around with that. It seems pretty easy to do most of the changes I want to make, except I cannot figure out how to get the model changed. Can someone assist? I'm just trying to take the P-3 Orion model and replace with F-14 Tomcat. So far:

1. Went to "p-3 orion" in object editor, then went to "link to 3DObject" and changed all the low, medium, and high models to the respective F-14 Tomcat models. This is what it looks like:



It appears that's all I need to do from what I've read, but it doesn't work. I tried linking it with multiple entity dialogs but that didn't seem to work either. Should I be changing something with the object dialog? Am I even changing the models correctly? I'm likely missing something obvious, just can't figure it out.

Could use some guidance. Thanks

Edit 1: Appears Entity Dialog is strictly used for naming ships. Should not affect model.

Edit 2: I'm running the newest Lwami, could that perhaps be the problem? My game now crashes if I run stock DW -- error happens before intro starts.

Edit 3: Going to try replacing model on a fresh 1.04 install of DW and see if same problem persists.

[Darkhunter]

I reinstalled fresh DW 1.04, tried replacing the Orion model with the Tomcat model and now it works (although weapons are misplaced). The weird thing is now I have to run everything via Administrator for it to work properly. Does anyone know why? My account has administrative privileges but for some reason DWedit and (now) DW don't work properly without running as admin.

If I don't run as admin I get an "Error 13018 occurred with game data base" at screen startup. When I run as admin, everything works properly.

Furthermore, if I revert all the changes I made in DWedit to create a "stock" DW game data base, I still have to run the game via admin to avoid the error. Anyone know why?

Edit: Wow, just enabled LWAMI mod and ran DW as admin and the Tomcat now shows up. Just wasted hours last night doing the right thing, only to have it appear incorrect due to not running as admin.