DCS A-10C F-16 flyable ?

[marc15yo]

Hi, I'm new to the scene, but I've been watching the forums for a while. Modding the series is still new to me, but I've managed to learn how to mod a bit and make ai aircraft flyable in lock on flaming cliffs 2.

 

However, since I'm in love with DCS A-10C i wanted to see if i could get the F-16a and f-16c flyable with the a-10c cockpit. Unfortunately for me i've hit a dead end. I managed to get the F-16C and F-16A to be selectable and everything and load with no errors. see below:

 

 

All I had to do differently was add a few missing lines like radio etc in the f-16x.lua and it fixed the crashes. Now my only problem is even tho i load it, when I get in-game the aircraft is still being controlled by AI. Only external views allowed etc, not contrallable and of course and no cockpit.

http://www.picdrop.net/images/20110615111206845.jpeg

The only thing I've noticed that's changed is that the Airplane now engages full afterburners and goes straight down vertically into the ground, almost on purpose. :joystick:

 

Then i realized, maybe people can give me a hint so i came here. Is it really just impossible to make ai aircraft flyable with dcs a-10c? I remember seeing a guy in the screenshots thread flying the f-15c in dcs a-10c with the old flaming cliffs 2 f-15c cockpit. :cry:

Edited June 15, 2011 by marc15yo

[VirusAM]

mmm....i never tried that, but if you discover how to do, share it becouse it could be interesting

[Conure]

Hi, I'm new to the scene, but I've been watching the forums for a while. Modding the series is still new to me, but I've managed to learn how to mod a bit and make ai aircraft flyable in lock on flaming cliffs 2.

 

However, since I'm in love with DCS A-10C i wanted to see if i could get the F-16a and f-16c flyable with the a-10c cockpit. Unfortunately for me i've hit a dead end. I managed to get the F-16C and F-16A to be selectable and everything and load with no errors. see below:

 

 

All I had to do differently was add a few missing lines like radio etc in the f-16x.lua and it fixed the crashes. Now my only problem is even tho i load it, when I get in-game the aircraft is still being controlled by AI. Only external views allowed etc, not contrallable and of course and no cockpit.

http://www.picdrop.net/images/20110615111206845.jpeg

The only thing I've noticed that's changed is that the Airplane now engages full afterburners and goes straight down vertically into the ground, almost on purpose. :joystick:

 

Then i realized, maybe people can give me a hint so i came here. Is it really just impossible to make ai aircraft flyable with dcs a-10c? I remember seeing a guy in the screenshots thread flying the f-15c in dcs a-10c with the old flaming cliffs 2 f-15c cockpit. :cry:

 

+rep because although I can't help in anyway, I have a lot of respect for you modders.

[marc15yo]

:) Thankyou, It seems I've managed to do it but unfortunately this is definitely not the right way of doing it. And I'm still trying to fix the bugs.

 

But I'm going to explain how I did it nonetheless to share with the community.

 

Let's get the bad parts out of the way first. There is a lot, aside from the bugs here are the negative side.

 

1) So far only works with the first beta of DCS A-10C the old old one. The one that's buggy i mean super buggy compared to the final, you know the one that runs like crap :music_whistling:

I tried doing the same thing with my current install (1.1.0.7) and it caused the AI still flying the plane bug (as seen above with the F-16). But with the original BETA it works but it crashes. Something about looking for F-16A cockpit folder "device_init.lua".

I looked in the "Scripts/Aircrafts/A-10C/Cockpit" folder and sure enough i found a device_init.lua file. So i copied all the data in the cockpit folder over to a new folder "F-16A/Cockpit" and the error disappeared but as I loaded into the game right at the last second the game would crash :/ . I think it was probably ED trying to wipe out any and all possibilities of this ever happening. Im not sure. But what fixed it was using a dll file from FC2 which brings us to the second problem.

 

2) This will definitely be hard to distribute because I had to use the "cockpitbase.dll" from FC2 to enable the cockpits and stop the crashing. This probably means I CANT distribute it, but I still can show people who have flaming cliffs 2 how to do it I guess.

 

3) A-10C becomes crap. I mean no cockpit, buggy unflyable peace of junk.

 

4) The most annoying thing of all so far at this moment are the following drawbacks:

- cockpitbase.dll (FC2 dependency)

- Landing Gear is not responsive on any aircraft i tried (I can hear the gear thing happening when i press "g" but external view nothing happens. If i start from runway or ramp however the aircraft has its landing gear out BUT it's like it has no collision mesh and it looks like the aircraft is jus sittin there on the pavement on its belly. However taxing slowly rises the plane back to normal height but the wheels become non-animated and dont spin. And after take-off the landing gear refuses to go up.

- Airbrakes on certain aircraft don't seem to work. F-15, su-25 series, su-27/33. Works on mig-29, F-16. The thing It's not that it Doesn't work it's more like the animation doesn't happen I can hear the airbrakes going on and off, my speed decrease, but no anim or visible airbrakes. Flaps however work on all aircraft.

- Last bug is when switching to air to ground mode by pressing "7" even on aircraft that DONT have air to ground mode the game crashes.

 

Of course there are a lot more bugs but i wouldn't call them bugs only a few things to adjust. For example, for the F-15 I had to do a lot of adjusting to the server.lua in the config/view folder so that i could get a playable view. It's because the external 3d cockpit model interferes with the actual first person cockpit. Causing you to see extra mesh etc. But after adjusting it to proper value it fixed it only leaving a tiny part (hard to notice) still visible. But It's all good :thumbup:

 

 

 

Okay now for the goodies.

- ALL hud functions seem to work.

- Air to air modes seem to work although i have not yet tested with missiles and other weapons

- Possible to do this for ALL aircraft :)

- all russian/english cockpits from FC2 seem to be fully functional except for the a-10a which had a weird orange texture surrounding the canopy and near the wheel pedals.

- guns work fine, ejection seats, canopy opening, flaps, countermeasures etc. Even radar but i havent tried picking up/locking on to targets yet.

- The new models/shaders are very sexy with the new engines, even the hud looks cleaner and better.

 

Here are some pics:

http://www.picdrop.net/images/dcs%202011-06-17%2005-56-16-28.jpg

http://www.picdrop.net/images/dcs%202011-06-17%2005-56-05-12.jpg

http://www.picdrop.net/images/dcs%202011-06-17%2005-56-37-15.jpg

http://www.picdrop.net/images/dcs%202011-06-17%2005-59-56-80.jpg

http://www.picdrop.net/images/dcs%202011-06-17%2005-56-43-60.jpg

 

So basically so far, I have 2 things that bug me the most. 1) how to fix the landing gear/ airbrakes glitch which is making it impossible to land/take-off and sort of rly gives you a turn off. 2) How to make it work with the final version of DCS A-10C. and then of course once I can figure this out, I'll be able to give you guys the config/lua files and instructions if you have FC2 installed on how to get it to work.

 

So If i could please get some help from other people it would be great :helpsmilie: I've spent a lot of days trying to figure this out but no luck.

Edited June 17, 2011 by marc15yo

[jib]

Wicked

 

Good luck with getting it to work with the latest version.

I havent really got time to play around with it atm. but im up for bug testing if you get a bit further with it!

What are the flight models like, is it the same as in FC2?

[acerus77]

Just to make that clear: we are not talking about DCS-Warthog?!

I believe this Kind of Modding is possible with Lock On, FC 1,2,3.....

But not with DCS-A10??

Because i don´t believe that there is a F-15 Cockpit in DCS-WT.

[marc15yo]

well it's not like there's much to 'beta' test. It's just I need help fixing the landing gear and air brakes issues. I've been fooling around with this all day, and i'm beat, I got absolutely no idea how I can fix this. It seems that cockpitbase.dll sort of 'breaks' the landing gear function and the air brakes function on some flyable aircraft. And honestly there seems like there's nothing I can do about this.

 

specifically @jib

To answer your question, yes, they fly just like in FC2 if not smoother, but that's probably because of the new models/engine. But yeah they keep their flight dynamics. I've also noticed some slight improvement in the hud it just looks cleaner and a few new features. Sound FX are of course a lot better than FC2.

 

 

@acerus77 yes this is dcs a-10c warthog (beta) It seems like the cockpits are still there and the data for the cockpit is stored in cockpitbase.dll (from fc2) see my second post.

 

 

Small update, I've just tested air to air weapons for the F-15C and here are the following results:

 

All the cockpit stuff is 100% functional just like they do in FC2. The Aim 120's work great sidewinder's work well. use the boresight mode i was able to lock on no problem. flares/countermeasures work fine, the only problem i've noticed is when pressing "2", turning on radar I can't "lock on" targets on the radar screen.

 

If i remember correctly in FC2 all you had to do was slew the thing over the blip and hit enter, I do that but i cant "lock on" because enter doesnt seem to respond. I also noticed enter is now the launch weapon key. So basically if you hold enter weapon will be launched. My guess its conflicting with the blip select thing. Luckily there is still bore sight mode or air combat mode whatever you call it on the F-15 so it's all about finding the targets first before switching to boresight.

 

 

 

But yes I still need help desperately, I cant solve the landing gear/ airbrakes bug, If anyone with experience could please help me figure this out. Look at my second post for more details.

[Krebs20]

FYI. You can get FC2 aircraft flyable in DCS A10 beta. It's very buggy and you will BSOD a lot. If you want controls you have to copy your inputs file from FC2 into a10 install. Rename a lot of stuff in there. And you won't get your keyboard commands to work but you can get your hotas setup.

 

BTW are you doing this in beta 1 or 2? If I remember correctly beta 2 lost a lot of functionality from beta one. The closer to RC you get. The less the aircraft will work. BTW. You can get blackshark to work using the same method in beta. That's a whole new nightmare.

 

Send me a PM. I will send you to someone that can truly help. If they are still willing.

[Krebs20]

Im sorry I just reread my post and sounded like an ass. Mar15yo. Keep up the good work!

[Krebs20]

Just to make that clear: we are not talking about DCS-Warthog?!

I believe this Kind of Modding is possible with Lock On, FC 1,2,3.....

But not with DCS-A10??

Because i don´t believe that there is a F-15 Cockpit in DCS-WT.

 

There was in the 1st and 2nd beta. Infact all of the fc2 aircraft were.

[SilentEagle]

I can't say that I would be any help, as I and several others have previously attempted everything you listed above (during the initial betas) and got the exact same results (just not publicly), but I do admire you for trying! It does seem that these dlls kill essential functions in the game, but were the only easy way to make these aircraft work. Later betas and release version did not work at all, AFAIK. There is at least one on these forums who has cracked the code (I believe literally) to make this work, but has unfortunately not been kind enough to share the secret with the community :(.

[marc15yo]

recently I had a chat with someone he told me he was able to enable the aircrafts/cockpits without having to use a dll file. There has to be a way to enable each aircraft cockpit without having to refer to a dll. But I cant put my finger on it, i've searched inside every possible file.

 

I have made a couple small tiny little discoveries. But one that intrigued me was the WolrdPlugins.cfg file in the Config/world folder. It enables me to set which clickable cockpit dll file the game needs to point to. At least now I dont have to overwrite/replace the original. All i have to do is change:

 

WorldPlugIns = {

ClickableCockpit = "CockpitBase.dll";

}

 

to

 

WorldPlugIns = {

ClickableCockpit = "CockpitBase_FC2.dll";

}

 

To enable the old flyable aircraft cockpit.

 

So far what i've gathered is the cockpitbase.dll (the original from dcs a-10c) has all the important functions for flyable aircraft to work with the new engine such as airbrakes, gear, probably even speech like audio warnings.

 

So if you switch which dll the game will use to flaming cliffs 2 dll, It also removes the new engine gear function/airbrakes etc. If there was a way to have a custom made cockpitbase.dll so we could sort of 'import' the fc2 important functions into dcs a-10c it would fix about 90% of the issues.

 

Unfortunately the game only allows for one "ClickableCockpit" dll file to be loaded at once. so loading them both together in the worldplugins.cfg does not merge them it just loads the last one it sees.

 

I have basically only 2 options here.

A. I can try to figure out how to redirect the cockpits 'functions' to not use a dll file but rather use some lua files instead (which seems impossible)

B. I can try to 'de-compile' 'hex edit' or figure out a way to find out whats inside those dll files. Which i think is probably not something ED would be okay with. Even if i knew how i doubt i'd be able to 'recompile' it for the game to use.

 

 

Unless of course everyone from the community comes onto this thread and pours out all their discoveries and knowledge on this matter. The more info we have the closer we can get this to be possible. Imagine that flying almost anything you want using the new engine? , It would be like a custom flaming cliffs 3.

 

 

If anyone could share what they know i and i'm sure everyone else would be grateful. In the mean time ill keep messing with these files see if i can find anything new

[VincentLaw]

I realize this is sort of a necro-post, but otherwise I would just be making a duplicate. After a bit of digging through DCS, it appears that A-10C is coded to prevent any plane index from being flyable other than index 58, either that or I have missed some important part of a file somewhere. There is nothing preventing you from swapping the indices though. It just means you can't have more than one airplane flyable at a time.

 

To be able to load into an airplane, the index has to be swapped with the A-10C index in the following files: (note that both indices have to be changed. They can't be duplicate or the game crashes)

Bazar\PlaneTable.sht

Scripts\Database\wsTypes.lua

 

and you will need to set HumanCockpit = "yes" in the appropriate file here:

Scripts\Database\planes

 

At this point (if you are doing the F-15C) if you try to load a custom mission with the plane, you will load into the nice low res cockpit of the F-15 that you normally only get to see from the outside.

 

To make the joystick controls work you need to copy the following file and rename it to your plane:

Config\Input\Aircrafts\A-10C

 

Then to make the keyboard work you need to do the same thing with:

Scripts\Aircrafts\A-10C

 

At this point if you load into the plane again, you will notice that all of the controls work properly, and now you are greeted by the fancy A-10C glass cockpit. If you loaded up some AIM-7s, those are launchable too. Unfortunately, now you are also staring at the backside of the chair you were sitting in a minute ago.

 

The 3 main problems:

1: This makes the A-10C unflyable.

2: The new airplane will have the A-10C flight model (I think that is associated with index 58 somehow)

2.b: That means no afterburners too.

3: On the F-15C, the landing gear can't hold the airplane up. (I have not tested other planes)

 

The good part:

1: This method works with 1.1.0.9