Mig-21 paint schemes country narrowing

[carss]

Hi guys,

 

Since the Mig-21 has served in so many different nations and comes in so many different paint schemes as we can see in DCS. Is it ok if in a near future update, all these paint schemes be simply put in their respective countries instead of all being available for all countries?

 

This will make it much easier to pick and choose paint schemes and also fly for the specific countries that are in the game. And since the 1.5 update has brought us so many new countries, we not put them to use? The Mig-21 is a great addon, but sometimes it kinda sucks when you use quick mission builder, pick a country, and end up flying a Mig-21 in completely different colors.

[Schmidtfire]

I have to disagree. Let there be more options for mission makers, not less!

 

One example: I want to put East German GDR liveries on a Russian aircraft. Why? That way, Germany and it's aircraft can still be blue coalition (standing in for West Germany).

Ideally the sim will expand the country list (including former Soviet, GDR, North Vietnam, Yugoslavia etc.) But until then, we mission makers must sometimes use creative workarounds

to create immersive experiences.

 

And what about a "defection" type of mission. Where both friend and foe have the same livery?

 

As long as the livery states a nation (current, historical, fictional) I see no harm in having

liveries available for all countries.

[NeilWillis]

You can actually do that yourself. The restriction on countries is regulated within the description.lua for each skin.

 

For example:

 

countries = {"GER", "SPN", "GRG", "NOR", "RUS", "UKR", "USA", "TUR", "UK", "NETH", "BEL", "DEN"}

 

 

You will of course need to know the correct string for each of the countries, but that information can I am sure be gleaned from the existing skins, or failing that, by trial and error.

 

So, both of you can have the method you like best, and it is as simple as a little lua editing (using Notepad++ of course).

[carss]

I have to disagree. Let there be more options for mission makers, not less!

 

One example: I want to put East German GDR liveries on a Russian aircraft. Why? That way, Germany and it's aircraft can still be blue coalition (standing in for West Germany).

Ideally the sim will expand the country list (including former Soviet, GDR, North Vietnam, Yugoslavia etc.) But until then, we mission makers must sometimes use creative workarounds

to create immersive experiences.

 

And what about a "defection" type of mission. Where both friend and foe have the same livery?

 

As long as the livery states a nation (current, historical, fictional) I see no harm in having

liveries available for all countries.

 

Well that is a very good point, but I think in that case we should narrow it down to two countries that have all the liveries like Russia and the US. For instance, that German paint scheme you said, can be used in GER, RUS and USA. But I don't think every country should have every single livery like that.

[probad]

i think the real solution here is to ask ED for better skin handling, or at the very least, the addition of a skin dropdown selection in quickmission generator.

[carss]

The Quick mission generator skin drop down menu is also not a bad idea

[NeilWillis]

i think the real solution here is to ask ED for better skin handling, or at the very least, the addition of a skin dropdown selection in quickmission generator.

 

As I have just pointed out the way to restrict the skins to as few countries as you wish, or conversely, to open up every skin to all countries, entirely at your own discretion, what exactly needs fixing?

[carss]

I think the idea is the smaller minority countries. Countries like US or Russia can have all the skins, but it'll be somewhat harder to fly it with their appropriate skins on those countries.

[probad]

thats pretty rude to those nations

[carss]

Rude?

[Art-J]

One big "Hell no" for such narrowing from my perspective. For example, If I want to simulate MiG-21 in Polish colours flying in Warsaw Pact scenario, I need Russian speaking ATC and AI units. Thus, I have to choose one of "red" side countries and combine it with Polish paintscheme, because by default Poland is set as a post-cold-war "blue" country in the game. I'm talking about quick mission generator here, which I've been using mostly as well.

 

That wouldn't be possible if the stock PL livery was narrowed down to Poland only (well, possible in full mission editor, but we're talking about quick one over here). That's the problem with default PL skin for MiG-15 for example. Luckily, there are custom PL skins available without such annoying limitation, so I use only these.

 

Flexibility of the software always needs to be expanded, rather than contracted.

 

The bottom line is, choosing a proper skin is only literally 3 mouse clicks away from hitting "generate mission" in a quick mission creator. 3 clicks you do anyway (at least I always do) to choose loadout for the mission, or alternative livery for the same country, so it's not like doing it requires any additional work.

[carss]

One big "Hell no" for such narrowing from my perspective. For example, If I want to simulate MiG-21 in Polish colours flying in Warsaw Pact scenario, I need Russian speaking ATC and AI units. Thus, I have to choose one of "red" side countries and combine it with Polish paintscheme, because by default Poland is set as a post-cold-war "blue" country in the game. I'm talking about quick mission generator here, which I've been using mostly as well.

 

That wouldn't be possible if the stock PL livery was narrowed down to Poland only (well, possible in full mission editor, but we're talking about quick one over here). That's the problem with default PL skin for MiG-15 for example. Luckily, there are custom PL skins available without such annoying limitation, so I use only these.

 

Flexibility of the software always needs to be expanded, rather than contracted.

 

The bottom line is, choosing a proper skin is only literally 3 mouse clicks away from hitting "generate mission" in a quick mission creator. 3 clicks you do anyway (at least I always do) to choose loadout for the mission, or alternative livery for the same country, so it's not like doing it requires any additional work.

 

I spoke of this in the previous post. Now in your example you have Poland. I agree we should keep the Polish skins for Russia and Poland, however I don't think we should keep the Russian skins in the Polish Mig-21s. That was my main point. Let Russia and US maybe have all the skins. But let the other countries have only their skins.

[Kang]

Perhaps a much better approach would be to just change the ordering depending on country, so that fitting skins get picked by default for countries that happen to have a stock skin.