Carrier height

[rotton50]

I am uploading a BETA SPAW package later tonight.

It includes a catapult battleship among a lot of other new stuff. The modified battleship is parked near the Enterprise.

There are three problems that need to be hashed out:

1 is the height, which I think you have a handle on.
2 is that the planes go way past the end of the catapult before taking off. Again, I think you know what to do.
3 is the fact that the plane destroys the catapult when it takes off. This will require some hit bubble fiddling.

Another thing you could look at if you have a moment is the location of the carriers. I moved them quite a bit in the hopes that we can do with one version of SPAW for offline and online play.

Also, don't worry about the multipart carriers. They are not ready yet because I'm working of some rendering issues and changing some of the parts to better reflect the ships' look.

[rotton50]

OK, I put a file in your folder named SPAWTheatre6-30-2019.

[Moggy]

As we can have 32 different runway types, I'd suggest we allocate four in the default runways.dat for cat planes, being PAW superbattleship (Yamato), standard battleship, cruiser, and Ray's sub.

I'm assuming these will need different heights. But they may not, I suppose.

As to getting a catapault effect, back in the early bodging, pre-code days of Midway, I got a short take off effect by fiddling with that number that Charles Gunst located in the .flt files:

08 float unknown Horsepower at sea level (jets in lbs of thrust). This seems to be a sort
of power loading factor, ranging from 0.00 (worst case, P38H) to
-0.09 (best case, Tempest). Reduces time to lift-off

[rotton50]

Fine by me, we have 32 slots to play with.

I don't think we should mess with the FM horsepower ratings or "time to takeoff". The floatplanes aren't just going to be used for catapult launches, sometimes they will take off from seaplane bases. If we make the planes work for catapults then they will perform the same way on water takeoff's.

I think the answer lies in Jel's various MPF files.

HOWEVER, I will tuck that "time to takeoff" parameter in my slowly fading memory bank because there are some planes in inventory that struggle to take off and fiddling a bit with the data point might come in handy.

[Jel]

I have got the file, set it up and added the terrain tiles. Are there any other files I need to add.
There are a few bugs which need investigating, but I will report back on that.
What I need are the names and locations of the airbases which are ships with catapult launches so that I can have a shot at fixing the issues raised at SimHQ

[Jel]

Bug report.
I have been flying a host only multiplayer Ground-start from the Allied carriers in my MB-3 with about eight MB-3s on the deck in total.
They are in two lines of MB-3s on the deck.

HMS Vic: No problem
Long Island: OK
Saratoga: CTD on launch
Enterprise and Hornet: No CTD but on launch the entire starboard row of MB-3s blow up.
The port side ones are OK, as are the other US planes on the deck.
Edit:
Re-test as a sngle mission with just two MB-3s



Jel

[rotton50]

Yes, there are some problems to be worked out with the mulitpart carriers. Rendering issues AND hit bubble adjustments.

In the files I sent you there is only one catapult equipped battleship. It is named battleship 2 and is located near the Enterprise.

[Jel]

I am having reservations about spending too much more time on the catapult thing.
I have it working and I will get the files to Ray.

My reservations are because a number of game issues arise because only one plane can be launched.
The only way we can have just one plane is to fly the catapult launched plane in a single mission with the number of planes set to one, and a ground-start.
Once you are in the air it makes no difference, and it is equivalent to instant action. Furthermore, if you get shot down or need to bail out you cannot respawn.
The catapult plane cannot be set as the AI to be escorted, as the exe is unlikely to pick the battleship as the base for secondary planes.
In multiplayer we can set a base to the battleship, but the number of planes is always more than one and you will get explosions at the battleship.
With these restrictions the catapult launch is a novelty, with little entertainment value.

Jel

[rotton50]

True enough, much like level bomber and patrol bomber missions.

But I do plan to add the catapults, crane and floatplane TMOD's to the static battleships and cruisers in SPAW in much the same way as the deck guns and deck planes so it was a worthwhile endeavor.

Besides, I can see the smoke coming out of VBH's ears all the way from the USA.

[Jel]

If you add the catapult to a ship then will the height be the same as the height it is on the battleship ?
If not, then new code would have to be written, and more runways configured, and I do not really want to have to do that.

[rotton50]

The catapult will not be functional, just another target set on the BB deck. To avoid height issues I'll add a catapult model in a separate TMOD slot.

[Jel]

Excellent

Any progress with the Saratoga CTD with a groundstart?

[rotton50]

Still working through the problems with the multipart carriers.

1 - The aim point for the towers is centered, not offset to match the actual location of the tower. The tower 3dz models are all shifted to the right by about 25 units so that they're in the correct place on the deck. If instead I center the tower 3dz's and then move the towers over using the target editor they don't render properly. Might be insurmountable. If so, I'll leave the aim point centered because the rendering problem is a bigger issue.

2 - Still have a problem with the damaged TMOD's dropping to ground level. No big deal for smaller deck targets like guns and planes but sometimes the entire deck of a carrier drops to ground level which looks really bad.

3 - I'm going to have to work through the hit bubble issue one TMOD at a time until I find the sweet spot that gives a big enough area for a hit without the planes blowing up on the deck.

FWIW, I've kinda spread myself too thin so I have to get back to my more methodical approach, picking one issue and solving it rather than the helter-skelter approach one the past week.

[Jel]

There is a "Ray160Patch.zip" in your folder with my working version of the theatre, the new exes, and the runways.dat editors.
The latter might not fit on your screen, but they are sizeable by dragging.

[rotton50]

Ok, thanks.

BTW, there's another issue I forgot to mention.

The date limit for TMOD appearance works for the TMOD models but not for the accompanying tartypes.str.

For instance, I have F4f's on the carrier decks in '42 and '43 which change to F4u's in '44 and '45. In the game you see the correct models but when you scroll through the targets using CTRL E ( or whatever keys you have set up for that function ) you see all the tartypes names.