Tacview 0.95 for FC2

[Case]

Unfortunately Tacview 0.95 is not able to open compressed ACMI's (those that were saved from within Tacview to write out a binary file).

[Maenniskopesten]

Hi guys, I've just downloaded this programme but I can't find the ACMI files. I've got Flaming Cliffs 2 and Black Shark recording set. Is it possible that the Sims are not creating a flight log?

[coolts]

Hi guys, I've just downloaded this programme but I can't find the ACMI files. I've got Flaming Cliffs 2 and Black Shark recording set. Is it possible that the Sims are not creating a flight log?

 

 

in your FC temp folder. thats the defualt i believe

[Maenniskopesten]

Thanks for the response coolts, but the temp folder is empty. Could it have something to do with my Sims being installed under programme files (x86)?

[Maenniskopesten]

The Problem seems to be with FC, when I run the programme as administrator it does create a ACMI File and it works with tacview, but when I run it normaly it doesn't. I've now changed my properties for the Eagle Dynamics folder so the User has full control of all subfolders and files and now Flightlogs are created and can be used in TacView. I realy should check out this administrator stuff more...

Edited June 13, 2010 by Maenniskopesten

[Vyrtuoz]

Your compressed flight recordings are safe

 

Ooops, you are right!

 

Sorry for that, I forgot to update the loading procedure.

 

Don't panic your compressed flight recordings are safe and you will be able to load them with the fixed version. I'm going to publish it as soon as possible.

 

Unfortunately Tacview 0.95 is not able to open compressed ACMI's (those that were saved from within Tacview to write out a binary file).

[Vyrtuoz]

If nothing seems to be recorded when you are playing offline under Vista/7, you should have a look in a folder like the following:

 

C:\Users\<<your name>>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Eagle Dynamics\LockOn Flaming Cliffs 2\Temp\

 

 

The Problem seems to be with FC, when I run the programme as administrator it does create a ACMI File and it works with tacview, but when I run it normaly it doesn't. I've now changed my properties for the Eagle Dynamics folder so the User has full control of all subfolders and files and now Flightlogs are created and can be used in TacView. I realy should check out this administrator stuff more...

[Maenniskopesten]

So that's where my files have gone! Thank you Vyrtuoz, I've checked that folder and all the acmi's are in there!

[Sov13t]

For those who are interested in modifying the export directory of ACMIs you can do so by editing line 338 of TacviewExportDCS.lua located in /config/Export/ which in unmodified state contains the following:

 

        self.AcmiFile=io.open("./Temp/Tacview-"..os.date("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S")..".txt.acmi","wb");

I for example changed the directory to:

 

        self.AcmiFile=io.open("D:/[01].LockOn/Tacviews/Tacview-"..os.date("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S")..".txt.acmi","wb");

This puts all of my tacviews on drive D in folder [01].LockOn/Tacviews/

 

Some reasons you would want to do this are:

 

• Keep your Temp folder just a little bit neater.
  
• Reduce amount of writes/rewrites on memory cells on your SSDs to increase reliability and life cycle.
  

Hope this helps someone, and thanks to Vyrtuoz for this great tool and for answering some of my PMs a while back :thumbup:

Edited June 16, 2010 by Sov13t

[Vyrtuoz]

Tacview 0.95a

 

Here a new release which should fix most of your issues:

 

• You can now choose where to record your flights!
  
• The bug which prevented from loading Tacview 0.95 compressed files has been fixed
  
• Several minor fixes
  
  

 

Enjoy!

 

http://tacview.strasoftware.com

 

Flights are now recorded by default into [\My Documents\Tacview\]

 

Edited June 19, 2010 by Vyrtuoz

[104th_Crunch]

Thanks Vyrtuoz for your continued hard work. May I ask once again, as I can't remember anymore, what is the reason why Tacview can view acmi files of your current live flight and can we ever go back to the old way of not doing this? A release of Tacview that does not open acmi files of your current flight would be so helpful for the multiplayer community.

 

Merci beaucoup!

[MoGas]

as Crunch pointed out, is there a way maybe?

[Vyrtuoz]

anticheat

 

That problem started when I’ve improved Tacview to make it able to read corrupted files. This is useful when Lock-On crashes. The unexpected secondary effect was more cheating on Lock-On public servers.

 

That problem however is as deep and as hard to solve as any security issue over a network. Even with older versions of Tacview it was possible to open files while playing. It was just less free and obvious than with latest releases.

 

Be assured that I’m thinking about the best solution to avoid easy cheating with Tacview 1.0.

 

Thanks Vyrtuoz for your continued hard work. May I ask once again, as I can't remember anymore, what is the reason why Tacview can view acmi files of your current live flight and can we ever go back to the old way of not doing this? A release of Tacview that does not open acmi files of your current flight would be so helpful for the multiplayer community.

 

Merci beaucoup!

[104th_Crunch]

Thanks Vyrtuoz. Nothing is 100% safe. As you say it was possible in previous versions, but not so obvious. Even if it is something small, it is better than nothing. Thanks again for your continued hard work!

[CyBerkut]

That problem started when I’ve improved Tacview to make it able to read corrupted files. This is useful when Lock-On crashes. The unexpected secondary effect was more cheating on Lock-On public servers.

 

That problem however is as deep and as hard to solve as any security issue over a network. Even with older versions of Tacview it was possible to open files while playing. It was just less free and obvious than with latest releases.

 

Be assured that I’m thinking about the best solution to avoid easy cheating with Tacview 1.0.

 

Hmmm... I hate to think of the CPU load that it might impose... but maybe have a routine that encrypts the file(s) [that are to be read by TacView] on the fly during game play, and a decryption routine built into TacView that will only work on closed out, encrypted files? With the newer multicore CPUs, it might not be too bad.

 

Or, perhaps have some sort of key, or code, that gets tacked on to the end of the file after the game is ended, and have TacView require that key/code to be present at the end of the file before it will play it.

 

I have no idea if either of those are feasible... I'm just throwing the ideas out there.

[Moa]

CyBerkut, I think the original problem Vyrtuoz was solving was that the end of file might not get written yet you still wanted to recover the TacView.

 

What would work is if the TacViews were encrypted and the public key was not made available for several minutes afterwards. Unfortunately, it is trivial to bypass this in the Lua export file - the data would need to be written encrypted in compiled code. If your machine crashed before the key was written you wouldn't be able to read the TacView - which puts you back at square one.

[104th_Crunch]

I think the sacrifice of not being able to read a Tacview when the game crashed is worth it for security. Also, As I mentioned, even a trivial security is better than none IMO.

[CyBerkut]

CyBerkut, I think the original problem Vyrtuoz was solving was that the end of file might not get written yet you still wanted to recover the TacView.

 

What would work is if the TacViews were encrypted and the public key was not made available for several minutes afterwards. Unfortunately, it is trivial to bypass this in the Lua export file - the data would need to be written encrypted in compiled code. If your machine crashed before the key was written you wouldn't be able to read the TacView - which puts you back at square one.

 

If the whole machine crashes, then yes you are correct... his original goal is not met. I was talking about:

 

1. Normal game exits.

2. Crashes of the game, but not the entire machine. As such, the 3rd party program that was either encrypting, or adding a key/code to the end of the file, *might* still be able to do that.

 

TacView is obviously a very valuable tool. It's a shame that it is not really available for use on most multiplayer servers due to concerns over unethical use.

[Case]

A release of Tacview that does not open acmi files of your current flight would be so helpful for the multiplayer community.

 

You should realize that if Vyrtuouz were to make such a release and you were to allow it on your server, you would want to integrity check it. This would mean players that do not want Tacview would still have to download and run it to pass the integrity check. With this being the case, it would be just as easy, and already possible at this moment, to run the locked ACMI scripts and integrity check these. You could then make the locked ACMI script such that it only is executed when the client has TacviewExportDCS.lua in his Config/Export folder, which indicates that he installed Tacview. In this way clients that don't use Tacview will not record Tacviews.

 

The downside of this is all clients will have to run a non-stock configuration, which is the typical catch-22 with integrity checks.

[104th_Crunch]

Thanks Case. I guess though doing this now would require clients to download the edites files to lock Tacview, whereas if it was built into to Tacview, they would just need Tacview installed.

[Case]

Thanks Case. I guess though doing this now would require clients to download the edites files to lock Tacview, whereas if it was built into to Tacview, they would just need Tacview installed.

What's the difference?

 

The difference is that you might have fewer people having to download a file (thought a much much bigger one) to get something they may not even want, compared to all people downloading a file (a very small one).

 

If you really want Tacview then I would suggest to try the locked ACMI writing script out for a week, and see how your community deals with a non-stock server configuration.

[Breakshot]

As Case said, a Tacview will write a dofile in the export.lua pointing it to execute the DCSTacView.lua file... locked Tacview or not, the process is the same...

 

BOTH files must then be ICd, because one can just alter the Tacview file with whatever he wants, and it will execute, even if export is ICd... So if someone doesnt have Tacview installed, he cant join the server...

 

But regardless guys, Tacview causes BIG stutters in FC2 in heavy missions... there really is no point in running it unless u enjoy stutter fests.. or if u got an uber monster rig with RAID0 SSDs or something... :) But think of others with lesser comps, now that u force them to use Tacview...

 

So if say a server forces me to fly with Tacview on, i personally will decline and wont fly there... because i hate nothing more than stutter galore, which BTW i experienced heavily on 104th server when you allowed Tacview... Big no no IMO

 

So as it stands now in FC2, its a lose-lose situation, im afraid...

Edited June 23, 2010 by Breakshot

[Slayer]

This is a great program.

It's a great learning tool and a good way to ferret out cheaters. With the way a lot of servers run you just die and instantly go to a view of the airport.

Unless it's a contest or a squad vs squad event who cares if someone can look at a semi live feed of the game? If someone really wants to waste their time to give a blow by blow of what you are doing then just don't play on their server or ban them from yours. On the flip side I also wonder what people who dislike this program are trying to hide?

 

What a shame that Vyrtuouz hard work all goes to waste. ACMI of single player AI is useless unless you are a beginner or mission designer.

[636_Castle]

I'm having issues downloading this...Every time it starts from MU, it either stops halfway through, or tells me the source can't be read anymore. Any chance of another mirror?

[104th_Crunch]

I'm having issues downloading this...Every time it starts from MU, it either stops halfway through, or tells me the source can't be read anymore. Any chance of another mirror?

 

Mirrors posted here

http://lomac.strasoftware.com/tacview-download-en.php

 

Also

http://www.lockonfiles.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=1159#dl

 

http://files.lockon.ru/en/145/?sphrase_id=1472