'Ullo 'ullo

[PipsPriller]

Thought I'd pop in and say hi.

Col. Gibbon was kind enough to ask me to be a tester on the new 1.28a. Of course I said yes.

[Col. Gibbon]

And?

[Moggy]

Ullo Pips - how jolly good to hear from you!

So what did you make of 128A?

[PipsPriller]

Initial impressions are favourable, although to be honest I'm not sure just what improvements/changes I'm looking for. Is there a detailed readme covering whats been done?

One thing that struck me quickly is that the roll damage has been changed. Seems now that any hits results in a very degraded roll - to the point that one could fall asleep while waiting for the aircraft to react. I have to say that I am not a big fan of this type of damage modelling, it's too CFSish. I've always preferred the damage modelling that was in the standard 1.1 version.

I'm a bit rusty on my flying but flying both the Tempest and Typhoon seems more difficult - both are prone to stalls and spins. Don't remember them being so bad. And both the Spitfire and Hurricane also seem slower in the roll plane.

I'll have to make another installation using standard v1.2 as a comparison.

Haven't been down on the deck yet looking for any changes, just getting familiar with the FM.

[Col. Gibbon]

Hi Pips.

A blind test sometimes can show up things, we are not looking for. Most of us have tested the mods, which have been added, so we know they work, but you can give a impression of how it feels to someone loading the patch for real.

That's the value of your feelings.

[Knegel]

Hi Pips,

here is the latest list, althought it isnt absolut complete, it keep maybe 95% of all.

Differents to V17:
The "achieve_speed" routine got rewritten, now the planes cruise and max speed will fit to the related planes.dat entrys.
Before (also in EAW1.2) the calculation didnt work right, cause the influence of the altitude on the speed got forgottten.
SO now also the wingleveler work like it should!

When using "IAS" as displayed speed, now the Ai´s speed will get displayed correct.
Before (also in EAW1.2) the influence of the altitude to the speed found twice the way into the calculation of the displayed AI speed(HUD display).

A bug in the ground object(MGO) routine got fixed, now the turrets will work in all convoy ships.

A bug in the Tmod table got fixed(german Trandports wasnt marked as ship).

Now you can leave the plane selection screen with "esc"(like all other sceens).

The Online Sea convoy routine got rewritten. Now the targets where a sea convoy is linked to are marked black.
(choose interdiction + ships, then click to the target, so the target list will appear)

The E 1.28a_KnegelV18 folder include two *mpf files, this are new homebase setups for 1944(we have one more frontline now!!)
So now we can use close bases(around Brruessel) without additional files.

The online target selection routine got rewritten. Now also sweeps will have friendly targets by default.
This is so, cause before the enemy Ai´s often already did return to base, cause they often was by far more early
over the target. Now they normaly have the longer way to reach the target area, as result we can intercept them.


Differents to V18:
The AI Torpedo attack routine got fine tunes(FW190A will do it now)
Many Ai routines got adjusted, cause former particular wrong calculation between IAS and TAS.
Specialy the escort routine should work better now(need to get tested).

The "online join" but (probably) got fixed(need more testing).

The undercarriage will extend one more time after the hydraulic got damaged. This will happen without sound!!
Then it wont retake!

Differents to V19:
The take off routine got adjusted. Planes will perform a more flat climb right after take off and they will start to form up
more early.
The aproack speeds for Ai´s, while attacking other planes, got adjusted.
The "achieve_speed" routine got adjusted again, so the throttle will stay more constand.
The Torpedo routine got adjusted:
1. Torpedo impacts show a big watersplash on the target.
2. Torpedos also explode on just desroyed ships(ship graphic still there).
3. A human leader can lead the squad to a wanted direction, until the distance to target is smaler than 3.5 miles.
Its recommended to lead them to low altitude(300 FEET) and to command the different squad, one by one, to attack,
to achieve a wider spreading.

Differents to V20:
Only online related!!
The respawn bug got fixed.
The bail out routine got dissabled if the plane is below 30 feet alt!
Instead the player need to use "alt j"(jump to next plane).
In a coop mission the player will jump into another Ai plane, if the breaks are enabled or if he is crash landed.
In a mayhem its a bit different.
After the plane got landed without combat damages(out of amo), the player will respawn right away into a new plane.
In this case the plane dont count as loss!!
After the plane got ditched without combat damages, the player also will respawn right away, but the plane will count as loss.
After the plane got landed or ditched with combat damages, the player will get to a external view, after a while he will respawn.
The the plane count as kill for someone and as loss.

Furhter more a "Auto climb" got introduced for online gaming.
While online gaming the Autopilot dont work, so the "A" was free. If the player now push "A" the plane will climb with current course
and "Autopilot enabled" will show up.

Differents to V20a:
Only online related!!
another try to fix the online respawn problem.
The ingame chat got fixed to handle 16 players.
The prebriefing screen got changed to be able to handle 16 players(player list).



Differents to V20b:
Some more code link´s got added(multi skin related, to cover jan Tuumas work).
The respawn problem is fixed now.
The mayhem kill count work like this:
Plane destroyed and player killed work like usual.
Respawn after Plane landed without any impacts = no plane loss, no kill for anyone.
Respawn after plane landed with impacts = no plane loss, but 1 kill for the enemy.
Respawn after the plane got ditched, without any impacts = plane loss, no kill for anyone.
Respawn after the plane got ditched, with impacts = plane loss, 1 kill for the enemy.

Differents to V21:
A respawn problem (ditched planes in mayhem) hopefully got fixed now.
The escorting Ai´s are by far more agressive.

Differents to V21a:
The padlock by default got dissabled when the plane stalled, now it only will get dissabled, when the plane spin.

Differents to V21b:
A bug in the escort routine got fixed(Ai´s dont wanted to ascort humans anymore)
The AAA got more accurate when flying toward it(not much better though).
A flakdata.dat got introduced, here we can adjust the following values:
LightAAACaliber;
LightAAADuration;
LightAAArof;
SmalAAACaliber;
SmalAAADuration;
SmalAAArof;

Differents to V22:
The "jump to next plane" routine, while online gaming got fixed(it was wrong by default).
The bomber cruise alt, while ground started missions got lowered(now 2500-3500m)

Differents to V22a:
A new EAW.ini entry got introduced, called "OldDamge=0". By changing it to =1 , a more EAW1.2 compatible bullet damage calculation get used and
the default EAW1.2 engine overheat system.
Also the EAW1.28a bullet damage calculation routine got adjusted, with my upgraded programming skill, it got clear to me that the old rutine
particular didnt work and all over it was a slow calculation. This also need to get tested ad probably fine tuned!
In this version i change the net code, in the hope to solve some old problems when playing mayhem games. Although i didnt encounter problems
in my LAN, tests are needed, cause in my LAN i cant reproduce the strange results we particular get online.
Its recommendet to use F WeaponRelease_06 with this exe. Now the 109G gunpods work.


Differents to V23a
Up to four different "Tmod skins" can be used for every Tmod.
Axis Tmod graphic file names:
TMOD**G_H.3DZ
TMOD**G_D.3DZ
TMOD**G_S.3DZ
TMOD**G_L.3DZ

Allied Tmod graphic file names, used if close to the front:
TMOD**F_H.3DZ
TMOD**F_D.3DZ
TMOD**F_S.3DZ
TMOD**F_L.3DZ

Axis Tmod graphic file names, used if close to the front:
TMOD**GF_H.3DZ
TMOD**GF_D.3DZ
TMOD**GF_S.3DZ
TMOD**GF_L.3DZ

If no file with the above name is available, the default files will get used.
So the default files represent the allied skins and main skin at same time.

The bail out sequence got changed.
If we land and bail out, we will see the pilot running away and we dont count as dead.

The Alt-J-online(jump to other plane) system got removed cause to many complications. Due to lost packages,
the game sometimes got trouble while setting the right player to the right plane(after respawn).

The included "Tmod" files need to be used with this exe(later they will find place in the CDF´s).

The "OldDamage" bullet routine got adjusted.

The plane weight now will reduce with every bullet shot.

Differents to V24
Two more person srites got added. (person2.spt, person3.spt)
Both currently only get used close to the frontline(1 mile), person2spt = allied(former alien), person3.spt = german.

Ground battle action close to the frontline got added.
It can get adjusted in the EAW.ini
GroundBattle = 0 is No ground battle.
GroundBattle = 9 is max action.

Differents to V25
For glide mode the day pallet get used again, to solve the "pink colour" problem.
The Bullte_weight routine work now as intended.
The 7217 error fix got a EAW.ini entry, so it can get dissabled(although i doubt it, maybe this can solve problems).
The F WeaponRelease_07 folder include a planes.dat with decreased render distances to increase the fps and the B17/24 pilot position
got adjusted to show the engine damage smoke at the right position.



Differents to V26
The possibility to add 5 additional tiles got introduced.
The max number of runways got increased to 32
The "EAW.ini debug patch entry" can point the exe to an external directory.
If a new EAW.ini get created, the "EAW.ini debug patch entry" will be missing, still no CD i needed.
The 7217 error fix EAW.ini entry got removed, cause tests did show that the slow downs are not related to the fix.
The campaign date bug got fixed.

Differents to V27:
A external "Year.dat" got introduced. The "Year.dat"- entrys get displayed on the briefing screens(black background) and in the logbook.
Other years need to get changed with help of the dnames.str and sq****,dat´s.

Differents to "KnegelV28":
1. The package include the packed CDF´s, based on the current stage of development.
2. I had to rename the gunsight**.spt files and had to adjust the related code, cause we have a file-name-length-limit, i wasnt able to pack the long named files. So now the gunsight file names are "gsight00.spt" to "gsight29.spt", the default "gunsight.spt" wont work anymore in this setup and got removed from the CDF.
3. The loadout.dat got adjusted.
4. The exe still did include a "tailgunner cheat", where the tailgun bullet power got cutted down. In V26 i did dissable it to see how effective the tailgunners are and they are very effective without this cheat. Since they was to effective now, the tailgunner rounds per sec got reduced.
This will safe computing power!!
Since every bullet of a tailgunner show a tracer, the reduction look still ok.
5. The corrected Mossie 3dz got included. Max188´s people got included as Allied soldiers. Pobs PanzerkampfwagenIII got included as german "Light tank".

Differents to Beta01V29:
1. You can hit Craters with your plane.
2. Homebases are possible on water tiles.
3. The carrier landing routine got adjusted.

Differents to V30:
The Carrier landing and take off routine got adjusted.
The "non water area" around an airbase(carrier) got adjusted.
Squads can have 16 planes while an interdict and bomb mission.

Differents to V31:
The MAX_TEXTURES got increased to 1024.
Carrier runways are lifted up(not flat on the ground anymore).
There wont be craters around and on the carriers anymore.
A carriers dont count as "land" anymore.
The landingroutine got adjusted. The carrier takeoff cheat got adjusted.
The shadows got adjusted to show up on the carrier, not below it.
The rooster tail, caused by planes flying low over water, got reenabled close to carriers.
Special Bullet impacts on carriers got introduced(with ricochets).

Differents to V32:
The Ai combat behaviour got adjusted.
The Carriers got a squary flight deck.
Torpedos now impact on carriers.

Differents to V33:
The year.dat routine got adjusted.
The landing routine got rewritten to make all planes landing more exact(needed for carriers).
The take off spawn position on carriers got adjusted(more tight positions, so up to 16 2 mots find place).

Differents to V34:
The new landing routine got adjusted(now empty bombers can land as well).

Differents to V35:
The touch down point got adjusted.
The Stall/spin routine got rewritten.
The "carrier squad start year" now display the year.dat related years.

Differents to V36:
A online related carrier bug got fixed.
The stall routine got adjusted a little.
A new adjusted flight model set got released with this exe (F Beta01_Fix03).

Differents to V37:
The stall routine got adjusted(need online tests to see if the bugs are gone)
Encounter groups got activated.
Two new EAW.ini entrys will get created. They shal influence the encounter probability, related to the radar.
0 = no encounter
512 = max probability
Airbase encounter groups are not related to the radar, but to the flight height.
The view system always had the possibility to shift the view position.
This never used feature now got activated for snapviews.
With other view systems i did encounter to many problems.
Some cockpits need to get updated!!
I can imagine external files, one for each plane slot, so every addon maker or user can adjust the settings, fitting to his cockpit(just like in Aces High).

Differents to V38:
Two bad bugs got solved(one caused a CTD, the other spawned P38H´s below the ground surface)
The snap view offsets got adjusted to fit better to the current cockpits.
Two offset values are adjustable by the *.flt´s.
One adjust the default Z offset, so the cockpit height can get adjusted, fitting to the gunsight/reticle.
The other implement a Y offset, if you push snapview front, the pilot will move rearward. This offer the sight to the
gauges and around the frames.
We have 4 steps zoom now. If zoomed in, we have also a Y offset, so althought zoomed in, the pilot dont sit that close to the
gunsight. This is a perfect attack view.

Differents to V39;
30 external vc_offset files got introduced. This files need to be in the savedata folder.
Additionally EAW 1st look for same files in the EAW root.
Some smaler bugs got erased.