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A threesome of DC3's


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Currently I am uploading 3 versions of Markindel's DC3 mod with his kind permission and assistance with 2 new versions. These being a DC3/C47 military cargo version and a DC3/C47 military paratroop version.

 

 

The civilian version is visually the same as before but has been packaged with a livery collection (by kind permission of CrazyEddie and Markindel) and updated FM.

 

 

The new military versions have a new 3D shape for the fuselage and include new 3D shapes for A4 and A5 WW2 era soft supply containers courtesy of Markindel along with him providing me with the 3D shapes for the paratroopers and a fictional hard supply box that he built for Eric and Patrick's AC130 mod. Hard containers were not used in real life as it was found that the shock of impact usually badly damaged both the container and contents. Instead soft containers were used with padding on the point of impact. The A5 containers will deploy correctly coloured parachutes to represent the contents: red for ammo, white for medical, green for general equipment. There was also various other colours used in real life such as blue for water supplies but these have not been modelled.

 

 

All droppable load-outs have an alternate version with smoke and a flare attached. I know in real life A5 containers had a special coloured light attached for night drops but I don't think any of them used smoke canisters or a flare but have added them in case people find a use for them. Similar philosophy for the hard container.

 

 

As part of this I have also reworked the FM values in an attempt to get much closer to the real aircraft. While I did find some new sources for data and have included this I do not claim 100% accuracy but do believe that the new version is much better than those previously released.

 

 

As far as dropping supplies or troops goes the best method is to use the WW2 carpet bombing action as manipulation of the bomb pattern length will change the frequency of dropping and provide something which visually is similar to real life footage.

 

 

For the cargo version the rear cargo doors have been removed. For the paratroop version the jump door will open when the aircraft reaches the IP just before dropping troops. This uses the same DCS World mechanism used to open bomb bay doors in other aircraft.

 

 

Couple of caveats. Unfortunately even when in WW2 bomber element formation tasked with being part of a WW2 Big Formation the aircraft will tend to manoeuvre when they are attacked. Probably this isn't that bad when you consider these aircraft are unarmed and in real life would likely do the same. But it may result in unplanned collisions so give them appropriate spacing when setting up the formations. Also a quirk of DCS World disallows dropping a mix of bomb types on the one waypoint action and it seems it is not possible to drop a mix of A5 types. I have therefore set up the load point so that you can only have the same type of "weapon" on each one.

 

 

Some links:

Civilian https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3302330/

Cargo https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3302331/

Paratroop https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3302332/

 

 

Note that the initial upload of the Civilian version had a glitch with a zero size file being in user files which I think is now fixed.

 

Attached is a simple demo mission of the cargo and paratroop versions in action. The mods should be installed into your Saved Games\DCS\Mods\aircraft folder. So it should end up looking something like:

 

 

C:\Users\your username\Saved Games\DCS\Mods\aircraft\DC3 Cargo

 

I'd like to say thank you to Markindel for his work and help with the additional 3D shapes and liveries and his agreement for the revamp to take place, CrazyEddie for his permission to use his liveries, uboats and others for helping investigate the issue with dropping a mixed "bombload" and Eric and Patrick for showing it was possible with their AC130.

 

 

Hopefully it all works ok for everyone and it's useful to people.

 

 

Thanks,

Stonehouse


Edited by Stonehouse
DOH forgot the example mission;add link
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Thanks a lot .. it really entices one to try the WW II era within DCS. I look forward to the paratroop version.

 

 

Edit: here a few images of the demo mission :)

 

 

oVwJvQu.jpg

 

 

K5VqAZ6.jpg

 

 

hqnmWlm.jpg

 

 

hqhmvZR.jpg

 

 

They look really nice, cant wait to make an Invasion mission that uses them.


Edited by Rudel_chw

 

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Paratroop version went active overnight (for me), first post updated with the link. Thank you both for the positive comments and thanks also Rudel for providing confirmation that things appear to be working ok.

 

 

You are most welcome .. I loved the fact that you went all-out with the liveries options: 23 for the Cargo & Paratroop versions, and 7 airlines for the DC-3 (plus one blank all-metal, for skinners to use as a base for creating more) .. I specially liked the one for Israel's AF :)

 

 

Thanks a lot

 

For work: iMac mid-2010 of 27" - Core i7 870 - 6 GB DDR3 1333 MHz - ATI HD5670 - SSD 256 GB - HDD 2 TB - macOS High Sierra

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Great work from all involved, thanks fella's ! It brings more life to our beloved DCS !

Regards

 

DL available skins here:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/?CREATED_BY=Strut

 

 

Pictures of my Skins here: https://imgur.com/a/bOQyQqW

 

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Hmm don't know Eddie. I didn't do anything in the way of sound changes and the engine is declared as a piston engine but perhaps it's defaulting somehow. I tend to hear somewhere between piston and turboprop myself. I'll see what I can do.

 

 

<edit> no you are right, it's more jet than anything else


Edited by Stonehouse
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Solved it I think, the engine type was set to "Piston", never seen that before so I change it to this in the lua:

 

typeng = 2,

 

I also changed the mappclass to this, not sure if it makes any difference but it still works okay.

 

},

mapclasskey = "P0091000025",

attribute = {wsType_Air, wsType_Airplane, wsType_Intruder, WSTYPE_PLACEHOLDER , "Bombers"},

Categories = {},

 

It all sound right now and I cannot see any differences in performance etc, so I think that's all that's needed.

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Ok, think it is more likely the typeng = 2. Pretty sure the mapclasskey really only sets the map icon but you do need to make it match the attributes I believe or else things stop working. Piston is used in some of the new WW2 aircraft like the Spitty. I thought it was the same but I can see I goofed in the lua and I would have been ok with type = "Piston" but instead I've ended up with typeng = "Piston"

 

 

I'll have to re-upload them again with the correction. Sorry but probably it will be tomorrow before I get to it as it's past 11pm here and I have to be up at 5:30am to head into work.

 

 

<edit> yep confirmed that changing the line typeng="Piston" to type="Piston" or typeng=2 works fine.


Edited by Stonehouse
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Ok user files has been refreshed with a corrected upload to sort out the sound issue. Thank you again Eddie for spotting the problem.

 

 

To save hassles for those people who have already downloaded the mod, please download the attached lua's and replace the one in the main mod folder. ie replace DC3.lua with this new one, DC3paratroop.lua with the new one and DC3cargo.lua with the new one


Edited by Stonehouse
removed attachments as they are incorrect
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Someone has pointed out to me that the last change to fix the sound has impacted the performance of the aircraft and I have double checked this and they are correct. With either type = "Piston" or typeng = 2 you get different results than what I originally released and the aircraft accelerates and climbs much more quickly..........so I suspect I am going to have to rework the power values again unfortunately to get things back to what they should be. People using the mod need to take this into account.

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I've done some experimentation and discovered something that I guess is not that amazing with some hindsight and should have been seen before. If you set typeng = 2 or type = "Piston" then the values of thrust_sum_max, thrust_sum_ab and the values for each mach number in table_data in the engine section have little or no impact on the performance of the aircraft. This is based on several observations. First these values are identical for the Spitfire, 109, 190 and P51. Second and most important I've tried setting these value all to 1 and the DC3 will still accelerate and climb too quickly as if there is an excess of power. Particularly at MTOW I am seeing ridiculously short take off runs.

 

 

I have come to the conclusion that internal DCS code is using typeng=2 or type="Piston" to switch to a completely different module of logic for power calculations based on the detailed engine values. Therefore by using similar values to those found on the Spitfire I think I've given the DC3 two late model Merlins at approx. 1300kw each compared to two P&W at about 890kw each. Like giving it an extra engine for free. Fairly obviously (as I said isn't hindsight wonderful) this new code was introduced for the P51. This would apply to all other community piston engine aircraft that have been released so far too I think.

 

 

So bottom line is at present I do not know how to derive the detailed engine values required to represent the correct engine for the DC3. Possibly if I set the engines to be turboprop then the old DCS code and values of thrust will come back into play - I will have to experiment and see but think it will as this is how the stock C130 etc is set up. Obviously though the sound will be wrong. Perhaps some other mod maker who specialises in sound mods can do something here so that if a piston engine mod uses turbofan or turboprop values we can still hear piston engine noises?

 

 

Therefore the community needs to indicate what is more important to them at present for the DC3.

 

 

More realistic performance in the air or having it sound right?

 

 

 

 

<edit> I have confirmed my thoughts. Setting the aircraft to be a turboprop gives it back believable performance and allow the detailed engine section to be deleted. Setting the aircraft to be piston allows the thrust values to be ignored (probably have to be non zero) and requires the engine section to be present for the AI to be able to start the engines. However the performance is very wrong.


Edited by Stonehouse
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I prefer the realistic sound .. the excess speed can be limited on the mission editor.

 

For work: iMac mid-2010 of 27" - Core i7 870 - 6 GB DDR3 1333 MHz - ATI HD5670 - SSD 256 GB - HDD 2 TB - macOS High Sierra

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Ok but the editor will be ignored if the aircraft come under attack. eg your DC3 or HE111 will outclimb your Spitfire IX by a decent margin. Take offs will be very, very short at max weight despite what you tell it in the editor as well.

 

 

But in any case your vote is noted. I'm hoping that someone who is a sound mod whiz might volunteer to help out so a compromise might be possible.

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Is it not possible to create our own sound folder in the mod folder?

Does not DCS read the saved games folder first, and will use the files in that location, if present?

I remember creating a custom sound folder for a 4 engine aircraft and this method did work.

This is how it WAS done.

 

 

See the Realistic Huey sound mod.

However, this mod was installed in the main dcs mod folder, and I have not tested it in some time.

 

 

Inside its sound folder were the lua files indicating the sound files to use, and the sound files themselves.

Perhaps this has changed in 2.5.

 

 

Worth a look?

 

 

edit,

I have found my sound mod folder. It was made for the B-29.

With help from javalina1 who located the sound files for me, tested and offered suggestions!

 

If anyone wishes to look at how it was made, pm me and I will supply a link.

Please note, the file size is large due to the sound files being included in the folder.


Edited by Hawkeye60

"Yeah, and though I work in the valley of Death, I will fear no Evil. For where there is one, there is always three. I preparest my aircraft to receive the Iron that will be delivered in the presence of my enemies. Thy ALCM and JDAM they comfort me. Power was given unto the aircrew to make peace upon the world by way of the sword. And when the call went out, Behold the "Sword of Stealth". And his name was Death. And Hell followed him. For the day of wrath has come and no mercy shall be given."

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Still need some radial engine sounds as per DCS requirements - whatever those are plus the sdef files however they work. I don't know anything about sound mods other than I agree I do recall the same as you about reading somewhere that it loads from saved game folders first. No idea if it still works that way but I know there is a large sound mod thread in the how to area. I can try to see if I can get a different sound being used though even if it's something dumb like a stock siren or something.

 

 

<edit> ok did some quick reading over there and it seems the mount_vfs_sound method is now obsolete (although it may still work). It would be nice to conform to whatever the new DCS method is if possible to future proof the mod.


Edited by Stonehouse
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Or, What is the proper location for the sound folder?

 

 

ie:

 

/saved games/DCS2.5 /mods

/saved games/DCS2.5/sounds

 

 

(matching the main DCS folder structure)

 

 

or located inside the aircraft mod folder sound folder, along with the main menu music folder?

 

 

If I remember correctly, in the old method, It may have overwritten the main dcs files, ie: installed in the main DCS folder.

The sdef files did indicate the specific aircraft, which was already included as ai in DCS proper.

"Yeah, and though I work in the valley of Death, I will fear no Evil. For where there is one, there is always three. I preparest my aircraft to receive the Iron that will be delivered in the presence of my enemies. Thy ALCM and JDAM they comfort me. Power was given unto the aircrew to make peace upon the world by way of the sword. And when the call went out, Behold the "Sword of Stealth". And his name was Death. And Hell followed him. For the day of wrath has come and no mercy shall be given."

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Similar questions raised recently but not answered in the Sound modding thread under How to. There was a comment about a month or two back from Skatezilla that he thought that sdefs were picked up automatically somehow and he was going to check and advise but hasn't so far. Another user I_Gamer bumped the question of how the new sound method worked about a week ago, presumably to help with his F18 sound mod without response so far. I've checked the newer modules that I can view the lua for an there doesn't seem to be a direct link to a set of engine sound files and the sdefs anymore. There is a linkage for in cockpit sounds however as there appears to be specific folders for aircraft cockpit sounds under the main sound folder. ditto for cockpit sdefs. However there doesn't seem to be anything relating say a Spitfire to the contents of the RollsRoyceMerlin folders. Could also just be not seeing something too.

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After reading through the sound modding thread I have managed to get the sdef files recognised by DCS World when they are located under the DC3 Cargo main folder by adding a Sounds\sdef\Aircrafts\DC3cargo folder structure and placing the sdefs in the DC3cargo folder under Sounds. However the game totally ignores the wav files I've given it and plays the default sounds.

 

 

From the posts in the sound modding thread it seemed that is not currently possible to add sounds to a new aircraft as there is no way to associate an event with a sound eg engine start = play this sound. I got the impression this was only possible if you had access to the 3rd party sdk and that this linkage is buried in a dll for the published modules.

 

 

So it may be that we're back to FM v's sound effects. I can understand the argument for the sounds being correct but know from what I have seen that having DC3's take off in near vertical climbs when you try to attack it in your FW190 is not a desirable outcome.

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I found a solution but it isn't a pretty one. It turns out that generic turbo prop aircraft use the engine wav files Tu95FrontEngine.wav, Tu95BackEngine.wav and PlaneAroundEngine.wav for sound from in front of the aircraft, behind the aircraft and finally from the side of the aircraft. Therefore if you make a folder Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\Engines under the mod main folder and copy the files ExB2.wav, ExF2.wav and ExS2.wav from folder

DCS World\Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\Engines\WrightCyclone-1820-97 to C:\Users\your username\Saved Games\DCS\Mods\aircraft\the mod folder name\Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\Engines and name them such that ExF2.wav becomes Tu95FrontEngine.wav and ExB2.wav becomes Tu95BackEngine.wav and ExS2.wav becomes PlaneAroundEngine.wav

 

eg of folder structure

C:\Users\your username\Saved Games\DCS\Mods\aircraft\DC3 Cargo\Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\Engines

 

This seems to make the DC3's sound like a radial piston engine aircraft but there are no start up or shutdown sounds.

 

I will update the mods on user files again as soon as I can so that the setting typeng = 3 is used and the detailed engine section commented out so that the aircraft once again will fly in a believable manner.

 

 

@Moderators, I don't think this post breaches any rules - I couldn't see any that seem to apply and my suggestions above don't seem any worse than some of the other mods around that directly change/replace ED sound files and I am certainly not going to distribute the files ExF2 etc with the DC3 mod as I am well aware they are ED's property. If it does breach some part of the forum rules please let me know and I will happily remove this post assuming you haven't done so already.


Edited by Stonehouse
<edit> saw a better way which I should have seen sooner
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Why worry about the sound of a plane that we cannot pilot? I would rather the AI plane fly and act as it should. The only time I hear it is when I'm very close to it but I sure don't want it going vertical when I'm that close in a 109 or 190.

Use your valuable and talented time on other mods and leave this great one as originally created. It certainly isn't any worse than what the developers have made and are continually trying to fix and this one is free.

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Why worry about the sound of a plane that we cannot pilot? I would rather the AI plane fly and act as it should. The only time I hear it is when I'm very close to it but I sure don't want it going vertical when I'm that close in a 109 or 190.

Use your valuable and talented time on other mods and leave this great one as originally created. It certainly isn't any worse than what the developers have made and are continually trying to fix and this one is free.

 

^this

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Ok I have updated all three DC3 mods again. Performance is now restored that of the original release, I have added the sound folder structure to the mod and a readme.txt instructing how a user might substitute piston engine sounds for the default turbo prop sounds if they wish to. The sound files themselves are not included in the mod packages as they are copyright. If I should find or be provided with substitute wav files that are public domain then I will update the packages again to save the user having to do anything.

 

 

Please find attached correct lua's for those people who have already downloaded the mods. Unfortunately you guys will have to manually create the sound folders under the mods as per details below.

 

 

Hope this gives everyone the best of both worlds and it all works this time around.

 

 

make a folder Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\Engines under the mod main folder and copy the files ExB2.wav, ExF2.wav and ExS2.wav from folder

DCS World\Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\Engines\WrightCyclone-1820-97 to C:\Users\your username\Saved Games\DCS\Mods\aircraft\the mod folder name\Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\Engines and name them such that ExF2.wav becomes Tu95FrontEngine.wav and ExB2.wav becomes Tu95BackEngine.wav and ExS2.wav becomes PlaneAroundEngine.wav

 

eg of folder structure

C:\Users\your username\Saved Games\DCS\Mods\aircraft\DC3 Cargo\Sounds\Effects\Aircrafts\Engines

 

This seems to make the DC3's sound like a radial piston engine aircraft but there are no start up or shutdown sounds.


Edited by Stonehouse
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