Board Numbers rendering wrong

[Laxxor]

This is not module specific, other than to say it effects every module i think in DCS, but in different ways.

Set a custom board number and review the effect:

• reversed on tails
• repeating / overlapping rendering
• Reversed and wrong order on Gazelle doors
  • Gazelle renders different board numbers when viewed from inside

[Flappie]

Please attach a DCS track, a screenshot or two, and your custom board so we can give it a try.

[rob10]

That's a long term issue that started a few years ago when they updated the way liveries info was saved in their .lua files.  ED hasn't updated the included liveries to the new formatting.  If you search around the forums you'll find info on this and how you can change (at least the F-18) livery .lua to fix the issue.  Here is one thread regarding this

 

[Laxxor]

7 hours ago, Flappie said:

Please attach a DCS track, a screenshot or two, and your custom board so we can give it a try.

1st 3 images exhibit vanilla setting of 132 with default DCS-supplied livery.  Gaz\L in this case; the Ga\M does not display any board number)

Nose shows bird 2, but "2132" above it. Tail number repeat board numnullber to padd out to 5 characters. and then repeats in smaller font

White font version completely wrong.

4 images following show change of board number to "749"

In these example under the doors is the only place is it wholly correct.  Notice that from inside cockpit, despite board of 749, door numers show an 132, witha "2" overlayed on the "1"

 

only RAF Standard works for spitfire, but the tail number is backwards on the right side (same for other warbirds)

russian helo, harrier truncate 3-chars to 2-chars

Edited January 25 by Laxxor

[Flappie]

Some modules can only display 2 digits (Mi-24P), or an association (the P-47 has one digit, the roundel, then 2 digits), because they were coded that way, influenced by the main users of the real aircraft (e.g. Russian Mi-24 have only 2 digits).

The "real" issue here, as stated by @rob10, is the change that was operated in 2023. More explanations here.

I couldn't reproduce the Gazelle issue: my Gazelle does not display any number. Can you please attach the mission you used?

[Laxxor]

1 hour ago, Flappie said:

Some modules can only display 2 digits (Mi-24P), or an association (the P-47 has one digit, the roundel, then 2 digits), because they were coded that way, influenced by the main users of the real aircraft (e.g. Russian Mi-24 have only 2 digits).

The "real" issue here, as stated by @rob10, is the change that was operated in 2023. More explanations here.

I couldn't reproduce the Gazelle issue: my Gazelle does not display any number. Can you please attach the mission you used?

Gaz\L or \M? M does not display anything

 

Does the warbird instance cater for the number being in the wrong ordrer though? grouping is one thing but theright side is backwards

 

Truncation of charaters is fair if is as real, i'm just not an aviation person to know that.

Edited January 25 by Laxxor

[Flappie]

8 minutes ago, Laxxor said:

Gaz\L or \M? M does not display anything

I tried both, plus the Minigun one.

[silverdevil]

P-47D had letters instead of numbers for the side for some instances. i shared a relic from the USAF museum. this instance was LHE. 

On 1/25/2025 at 6:32 PM, Laxxor said:

Gaz\L or \M? M does not display anything

 

Does the warbird instance cater for the number being in the wrong ordrer though? grouping is one thing but theright side is backwards

 

Truncation of charaters is fair if is as real, i'm just not an aviation person to know that.

null

[Laxxor]

22 hours ago, silverdevil said:

P-47D had letters instead of numbers for the side for some instances. i shared a relic from the USAF museum. this instance was LHE. 

null

In my example the board number is "104"

 

On the left side this is shown as 10<roundel>4

on the right side it is shown as 4<roundel>10

 

The spitfire example, the board number is "BILL1949"

Left = BI<roundel>L _L1949

right = _L1949 L<roundel>BI

 

If this is correct then fair enough, its just my lack of knowledge on for hte numbering works but, as a layman, reversed character sequences would not seem a good idea for ID purposes in RL

Edited January 29 by Laxxor

[silverdevil]

9 hours ago, Laxxor said:

If this is correct then fair enough, its just my lack of knowledge on for hte numbering works but, as a layman, reversed character sequences would not seem a good idea for ID purposes in RL

most definitely the board numbers are important for keeping track of your wingman or wingman keeping track of their lead. the reason for letters + numbers is there are more variations with letters + numbers as opposed to just numbers. for example you would have 36 variations rather than just 10 variations for each digit.  

[Laxxor]

On 1/29/2025 at 9:21 PM, silverdevil said:

most definitely the board numbers are important for keeping track of your wingman or wingman keeping track of their lead. the reason for letters + numbers is there are more variations with letters + numbers as opposed to just numbers. for example you would have 36 variations rather than just 10 variations for each digit.  

YEa, but my query is:
is the character sequence being different on left and right sides correct?

[rob10]

2 hours ago, Laxxor said:

YEa, but my query is:
is the character sequence being different on left and right sides correct?

I have no proof, but I'd think not.  That's maybe a different (or maybe related?) issue to when they changed the structure of the .lua for that stuff.  I get limited resources so they can't do everything instantly, but it would be nice if ED could update stuff like this on the included aircraft eventually.  Drove me nuts on the F-18's in our squadron's custom liveries until I finally got it to work right.  And really don't even see it that much

[silverdevil]

On 1/30/2025 at 5:43 PM, Laxxor said:

YEa, but my query is:
is the character sequence being different on left and right sides correct?

most definitely it matters. as far as the P-47 it is two alphanumeric and then one alphanumeric. reading from left to right. now a problem is some early P-47s had numbers only.

[Laxxor]

On 2/2/2025 at 7:34 PM, silverdevil said:

most definitely it matters. as far as the P-47 it is two alphanumeric and then one alphanumeric. reading from left to right. now a problem is some early P-47s had numbers only.

So we are saying this is a valid bug?

[Nealius]

P-47 and P-51 will follow USAAF convention as of WW2, which is XXY#### where X is the two-letter squadron code, Y is the aircraft code, and # are the last four digits of the aircraft serial number.

Example: QP-U 473304 is a P-51 Mustang with serial number 473304, belonging to 334th Fighter Squadron (QP) and is possibly but not always the 21st aircraft in that squadron (U). In DCS we can only input "3304" for the serial number so a livery creator would have to bake in the leading "47." So in the mission editor you would have a number like "QPU3304."

Spitfire and Mosquito will follow RAF conventions as of WW2, which are similar to USAAF in that you have a two-letter squadron code and a one-letter aircraft code, but the serial number format is different: ZZ###, where Z is a letter part of the serial number. 

Example: EG-T MM417 is a Mosquito FB with serial number MM417, belonging to No487 Squadron (EG) and is possibly but not always the 20th aircraft in that squadron (T). In the mission editor this number would be EGTMM417.

 

Edited February 17 by Nealius

[Laxxor]

@Nealius Right, thats great, but if you refer to my images (in this instance the spitfire ones where the tail number has been set to "bill1949" in the ME) where the serial numbers are reversed, is the representation of the serial numbers IN DCS correct?

Left side, read left to right: Bill1949

Right side, read left to right: L1949Lbi

[silverdevil]

51 minutes ago, Laxxor said:

@Nealius Right, thats great, but if you refer to my images (in this instance the spitfire ones where the tail number has been set to "bill1949" in the ME) where the serial numbers are reversed, is the representation of the serial numbers IN DCS correct?

Left side, read left to right: Bill1949

Right side, read left to right: L1949Lbi

laxxor. you are correct. i do not have P-47 to check. but either side of the AC you look at, the bort numbers should be read from left to right. if you are seeing it backwards, then it is indeed a bug. inane one too. sometimes the bugs that arise just make me SMH.

[Nealius]

On 2/18/2025 at 11:34 PM, Laxxor said:

Left side, read left to right: Bill1949

Right side, read left to right: L1949Lbi

This is correct. Squadron code and letter code have the same placement regardless of port/starboard. Typically squadron code always forward of the roundel, aircraft letter aft. There are some exceptions like the Mosquito where this is reversed because there's not enough space between the roundel and wing root for two letters--some squadrons using smaller fonts crammed them in there though. Some P-51 squadrons had the aircraft code on the vert stab instead of fuselage, etc. 

The system thinks L1949 is the serial number, BI is the squadron code, and L is the aircraft code because the system is designed to work with real codes/serial numbers that follow that logic.

(Fun fact, L1949 was registered to a Hawker Hurricane that was lost in May 1940. BI doesn't appear to belong to a specific squadron but was allocated to RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moore.)

Edited February 21 by Nealius