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To upgrade the 2001 Midway addon
Stratos

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Post by Stratos »

Hello!

Wondering If we will get a update of Midway with working carriers and hires planes.
S!
rotton50
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Post by rotton50 »

Not exactly Midway but Moggy and I have had preliminary discussions about reviving Carrier Air Wars in the fall of this year.

We have a lot more pieces in place now so the biggest issues would be terrains, TMODS and targets.
Stratos

Post by Stratos »

Carrier Air War? 1943 to 1945 carrier in the Pacific?
Wudpecker

Post by Wudpecker »

No direct reply here...
But I think the SPAW (South Pacific Air War) version of Moggy's CAW, by Rotton50 and team is almost ready for release in August, 2009.
With some hot new carriers and action. :wink:
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Post by Moggy »

I have some hope that I might be finished my book work by some point later in the year, and we hope we might be able to finish off that other long story CAW.

If we can, we shall have all the peices needed to do a fair job on the Midway upgrade. This will now include 3d carriers, the new carrier take off and landing routines, real torpedos, and all the other stuff we have assembled so far for a new Midway.
Wudpecker

Post by Wudpecker »

Can you list the "holes" where new action and mods are needed, Moggs?

Could some of the material you have ready be made available for work?

SPAW has generated a lot of excitement and new developments on sea battles at Coders. Once SPAW is released, the modders may want to try some of their new ideas out on a Midway upgrade or CAW (Carrier Air War).
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Post by Moggy »

As a minimum, Midway needs

(1) a new theatre layout - when I did the original scenario in 2000 we had no idea how to move target locations so I just used a few of the locations which already existed and seemed in more or less the right relationship to each other, even though there is no proper north alignment. What it needs now is a proper geographically aligned target layout. I was also hoping to include Wake in this setup.

(2) consequent upon the above, a new tile layout to include the photo realistic atolls

(3) and consequent upon that all the existing target locations would have to be laid out out again

(4) another four or five Japanese 3d carrier models. At the moment we have one, which is being used in SPAW

(5) a proper 3d US Hornet class carrier model. The US carrier we have seems to be a late war Enterprise class

(6) any other ship models we can get such as sea plane carriers, battleships, cruisers, and smaller patrol craft for each side.

(7) in view of the much expanded Tmod capacity, other new mods to reflect the pacific island location such as trenches, log stockade pill boxes, canvas shelters, japanese tanks and vehicles and the like.

(8 ) An update to the last Midway aircraft update to include any further updated models, cockpits, and bomb and torpedo updates consequent upon 1.28c

(9) a new missions pckage based on the revised thetre layout.

I can check what working files I have later when I'm home.

(1) I believe I made a very basic start on the theatre layout. There are not too many locations to consider, and with the new Editors this job would not be lengthy.

(2) we have all the tiles needed in the new Shreck/Wudy set. One or other of the tile editors needs to be set up with these. Seeing as though 95% of the theatre or more is clear blue sea the job is matching up the few locations with the special tiles. EDIT from HERE I am reminded that the new tile matrix is actually done!

(3) as we have more information now than I did when I set up the original Midway Island locations, this would be done again in a more realistic fashion. But with the editors it will take far less time than when I did it by hex editing. Wake etc would be new

(4) - (7) I have basic converted carrier and ship models for both both nations in the beta CAW. These need converting from type 3 mono-colour panels and skinning. Other tmods need making or converting.

(8 ) I am not closely in touch with all the updates in aircraft models and mechanisms. Someone would need to take the Midway aircraft package and bring it completely up to date.

Anyone wanting to volounteer for any of this now, please feel free. Like I said, I am not going to be available for any of this work probably until next year. We're still working like stink on the book project and I can't see the first draft being completed until early October, and then we will have detailed correction of proofs. Ray wants to go with the CAW project in the Autumn Winter and I said I will assist as possible with that. So any close involvement with MIdway would definitely be next year.
Last edited by Moggy on Wed Aug 05, 2009 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Moggy »

Now, having a look at my Midway2 folder (last activity July 2005) I see

(1) I had gathered/was working on these additional aircraft: Claude, Rufe, Dave, Pete, Betty, and Mavis,

(2) I had gathered illustrations as the basis of skins for the Japanese carriers Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga and Soryu, and the US carrier Hornet

(3) I had gathered a load of Japanese traditional music excerpts in wav files for menu and BG music

(4) we had made a minitile set for the Microprose map editor (1st July 2005) and had made a tile matrix (2nd July 2005) using the Shreck/Wudy photo realistic tile set

(5) Although we had defined the layout of the new Midway theatre in order to make the tile matrix, I had not made a start on making a new targets.dat or tardata.dat

Looks like I stopped working on this in July/August 2005 when we were running into a whole pile of medical stuff here, and never came back to it the following year.
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Post by Iron Mike »

As I said at SimHq the air groups for Kaga, Akagi, Hyru and Soryu are covered in depth. It will be time consuming but not difficult to produce multi-skin squadrons for Zeros, Vals, and Kates.

There is a first rate Zero and the other two need a proper High-rez makeover to be more accurate visually.

Let me know if you or whomever is the project leader would like them started. We are talking about 144 kins here. So a little linear programing for the production is in order.

Just a thought. Maybe Sky or Ade might like to get involved with this because there are the USN carrier groups, Marine and Army Air Force planes too.

B-26, B17, TBF, TBD and PBYs flew from the island.
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Post by rotton50 »

I have a headache.
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Post by Iron Mike »

Take two F6F's and call us in the morning. :wink:
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Post by Moggy »

Iron Mike wrote:As I said at SimHq the air groups for Kaga, Akagi, Hyru and Soryu are covered in depth. It will be time consuming but not difficult to produce multi-skin squadrons for Zeros, Vals, and Kates.

There is a first rate Zero and the other two need a proper High-rez makeover to be more accurate visually.

Let me know if you or whomever is the project leader would like them started. We are talking about 144 kins here. So a little linear programing for the production is in order.

Just a thought. Maybe Sky or Ade might like to get involved with this because there are the USN carrier groups, Marine and Army Air Force planes too.

B-26, B17, TBF, TBD and PBYs flew from the island.


I'm quite okay with any of the preparation work being done now if anyone has the capacity. I'm sure a lot of the stuff required for Midway can be used in common with other scenarios. Seeing as though we seem to have a Pacific focus at the moment, anyone is cordially invited to contribute.

Clearly to bring Midway up to 128C standard, multi skins on the latest hi-res models will be required at least for the principal fighter aircraft involved the Zeros and Wildcats (USMC F3s on the island and USN F4s on the carriers). If we can get them also for the principal bombers (Kates and Vals, Devastators and Dauntlesses) this would be very good. As to the other aircraft already in the scenario (USAAF Marauders and Fortresses, USMC Brewsters and USN PBYs on the island) and the new aircraft mentioned in the post above, I'd be glad to get anything we can.
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Post by rotton50 »

You can take the HR Vals and Kates from SPAW.

I could probably bend and twist the HR SBD into a Devastator.

The existing Avenger model is pretty old though and will require a lot of work.
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Post by Moggy »

Oh yes, the Avenger. It slipped my mind. This was the first use of that aircraft I believe. The squad flew from Midway island and only one made it back.

We still only have Kurt's original low res model. It was quite a widely used Pacific theatre aircraft by the USN, RAF and RAAF so a hi-res model would be worth having for other purposes as well.
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Post by Iron Mike »

Moggs, that was Torpedo 8, from the Wickipedia entry...

"Torpedo Squadron 8 ( VT-8 ) was a United States Navy squadron of torpedo bombers assigned to the Air Group operating from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet ( CV-8 ). The squadron joined the ship shortly after its commissioning in October 1941 and remained in the Pacific following her sinking in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942."

And it was flying TBD's Devestators. My 12 year Sunday School teacher was pilot of one ot the 8 TBF's stationed on Midway. Like VT-8, his Marine
unit was mauled. Ensign George Gay was the sole survivor of VT-8 floating in the middle of the Japanese carrier fleet. Major Maust too was shot down but, unlike Gay he was farther from the action at the time.

Not one of the torpedos droped by Naval or Marine avatiors hit a Japanese ship. They as you well know were all killed by SBD's.
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