Suggestion - Black Sea Ops-type pack for Su33?

[Ian_cf-18]

Brit,

 

What would be a realistic carrier battle group for either side?

 

From what I can find browsing the internet, it seems that on the American side it's usually 1 CV or CVN + 2 cruise missile cruisers (CG) + 4 destroyers (FFG, DD and DDG) + 1 supply ship.

 

But I cannot find anything consistent about the Russian side. I found various information stating that it often varies...

 

Also, does anyone know the geometrical positioning of the various ships when on the move / doing various operations etc...? Distance of the ships vis-a-vis one another?

[anivanov]

Um, I'm not sure I understand the question.

 

 

Are you asking how I edited them, how I took the picture, or where I got the pictures from?

 

yeah, that"s my question

[britgliderpilot]

yeah, that"s my question

 

 

Heh, a three-parter ;)

 

 

The files are in .dds format in the FUI\Common folder - I opened them with a program called DXTBmp. I then exported them to MS Paint (default for DXTBmp), and then edited them in that. Most of the detailed editing was in fact done in Paint Shop Pro, then back into Paint, and then back into DXTBmp for saving as a .dds file.

 

It may seem complicated, but all things considered it isn't actually that big a deal.

 

 

The pictures you see are just screenshots from the loading screens.

 

 

The picture of the Kuznetsov and aircraft was borrowed from the Flanker 2.0 menu screens, the Kuznetsov logos were borrowed from JJ_Alfa, and the Su33 and Su25UTG pictures were taken from the internet, mainly from this link:

 

http://www.airforce.ru/photogallery/dundin/kuznetsov2004/index.htm

[britgliderpilot]

Brit,

 

What would be a realistic carrier battle group for either side?

 

From what I can find browsing the internet, it seems that on the American side it's usually 1 CV or CVN + 2 cruise missile cruisers (CG) + 4 destroyers (FFG, DD and DDG) + 1 supply ship.

 

But I cannot find anything consistent about the Russian side. I found various information stating that it often varies...

 

Also, does anyone know the geometrical positioning of the various ships when on the move / doing various operations etc...? Distance of the ships vis-a-vis one another?

 

I asked this question a little while ago - I now defer you to the lockon.ru forums Minister for Russian Naval Affairs, JJ-Alfa:

 

If we stick with surface ships, the most likely candidates are: Pr. 956("Sovremenny-class") AAW/AsuW destroyer, Pr. 1155("Udaloy-class") ASW destroyer and Pr. 1144.2("Kirov-class") heavy multirole missile cruiser + one or two underway replenishment ships.

 

We can be certain about the Pr 956 destroyer......during its "Med cruise" in 1996, the Admiral Kuznetsov was accompanied by the # 434 "Besstrashny" (Pr 956A/"Sovremenny-class") destroyer + a "Krivak I Mod-class ASW frigate(the name of which I cannot remember out of hand), the "Dnestr"("Boris Chilikin-class") and "Olekma"("Olekma-class") replenishment ships.

 

If you have seen the short video of the Admiral Kuznetsov´s recent exercise near Iceland, you will see that now 10 years later the "Besstrashny" is still firmly "glued" to the Kuznetsov as its personal bodyguard . The reason is quite simply that the Pr. 956 class is unsurpassed as airdefence ship - the Shtil system(two actually) it carries is a slow firing and little awkward in its mechanical launcher-arm construction, but it has superb cross-path capabilities - i.e. the ability to protect a nearby vessel from an imminent threat, whereas the longer ranged(and faster firing) S-300F Rif system is more useful for long range "theatre defence" and much less efficient at medium to close range, while systems like the Klinok and Kashtan are dedicated "point defence" systems designed solely to protect the ship on which they are installed

 

However, the "Med cruise" was more of a "maiden voyage" than an actual combat deployment, so I would expect its escort to be strengthened somewhat in connection with the latter. My proposal for a Russian group in Lock-on(or a sequel rather) would be a small, but capable group consisting of e.g....

 

# 063 "Admiral Kuznetsov" - (Pr. 1143.5) aviation cruiser

# 183 "Pyotr Velikiy" - (Pr. 1144.2) missile cruiser

# 434 "Besstrashny" - (Pr. 956A) AAW/ASuW destroyer

# 405 "Admiral Levchenko" - (Pr. 1155A) ASW destroyer

 

+ an UNREP vessel.....e.g. a "Boris Chilikin-class".

 

....a rather minimalistic composition, but incorporating all functions required for a realistic aviation cruiser group. If you compare my proposal with the group that went to the Med, you can see that I have pretty much replaced the "Krivak-1 Mod" ASW frigate with the(several times more capable) Udaloy-class ASW destroyer, and one of the replenishment ships with the Kirov-class cruiser :)

 

 

Was from this thread, which if you're into Russian naval aviation will prove fascinating:

 

http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?t=6367

[anivanov]

The pictures you see are just screenshots from the loading screens.

 

 

The picture of the Kuznetsov and aircraft was borrowed from the Flanker 2.0 menu screens, the Kuznetsov logos were borrowed from JJ_Alfa, and the Su33 and Su25UTG pictures were taken from the internet, mainly from this link:

 

http://www.airforce.ru/photogallery/dundin/kuznetsov2004/index.htm

 

 

 

how did you insert them?

[britgliderpilot]

how did you insert them?

 

I copied and pasted the new images into the original files.

[anivanov]

thanx, bgp.can i do the same thing with lomac and where i can find original images?

[britgliderpilot]

thanx, bgp.can i do the same thing with lomac and where i can find original images?

 

Sure - you just need a .dds editor.

 

Ah, there's one more thing - the menu screens are actually square - they're in a resolution of 1024x1024, which is then stretched out to a rectangular image to fit your screen. You need to make sure your image is in the right aspect ratio, and then you need to compress the width so that when it's expanded from the square texture, it looks right.

 

Have a play with the maths, it's relatively straightforward.

 

 

Original images - well, there's the old favourite Google ;)

 

The USAF gallery at http://www.af.mil/photos/

 

A good Russian gallery at http://www.airforce.ru . . . which you may need a translator for, try using Altavista's Babelfish:

 

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

[britgliderpilot]

Cheers, T-Bone, payload editor graphic found. Need to tweak that aspect ratio, but as a proof of theory:

 

[anivanov]

Sure - you just need a .dds editor.

 

 

can i use ModMan?

[britgliderpilot]

can i use ModMan?

 

No - ModMan only browses through .cdds files and exports the contents. It doesn't read the individual .dds files.

 

A bit more info - a .dds file is just a specific format of image file.

A .cdds file is just a number of .dds files compressed into one massive file.

 

The files for the menus are stored as raw .dds files, they're not compressed.

ModMan can only export files from within .cdds files - it can't edit .dds files.

 

 

 

Further addition - orange survival suits for Russian flightcrew.

 

[britgliderpilot]

Crossposted from Ubi:

 

Bear in mind I'm not Ironhand, so the voiceover training won't be perfect just yet. Will release a beta minus campaign as soon as I've got the voiceovers lined up, since I suspect I'll be forced to re-record tracks as soon as v1.12 anyway. That no-half-flaps thing is going to kill Su33 tracks stone dead . . . .

 

 

Two questions at this stage (I'll welcome comments when it's first released for public consumption, too):

 

- Su33 pilot leg textures. Need to be orange. Where are they?

 

- Choppers are happily landing on the Neustrashimy and Pyotr Velikiy - however, on the Neustrashimy they're landing a smidgen too far back and a foot under the helipad, and on the Pyotr Velikiy they're landing, err, IN the main superstructure.

 

Can you mod the position of the helipads?

Would be useful for the Kuz, too - the Ka27 seems to remain parked at the end of the angled-deck indefinitely.

 

 

Oh, after further consultation with the Black Sea Ops team . . . . their first Su33 campaign is going to be solely between Turkey and Russia.

 

This limits some mission plans, and I'm now down to 25 planned campaign missions, of which the first few are non-combat. Skippable, naturally, but non-combat.

 

So a 20-mission campaign as far as combat is concerned.

. . . . . At least in the FIRST Su33 installment of the Black Sea Ops. They plan further campaigns as well.

 

 

Pyotr Velikiy from Flanker 2.5 - can operate the AI from Ka27 here as well:

 

 

 

If anyone mentions flyable choppers from carriers in v1.2 . . . . well, just don't yet, mmkay? :p

 

Discovered the MeInit tweaks for them, though.

[T-Bone]

Britgliderpilot and MBot have just joined the Black Sea Operations team to work on campaigns for the Russian side. Currently we are restructuring everything. In addition to the F-15 campaign we are now planning on doing Su-25 and Su-33 campaigns to parallel the story from the other side of the war. We may also be downsizing the Black Sea Operations F-15C campaign from 100 missions to 60 missions because we do not want to redo ~100 missions after the next few patches and in addition we want to shift attention to provide the campaign experience with other planes as well. Everytime a new patch comes out we have to fix the old missions. For example when 1.11 came out, some of the missions did not even work anymore so we had to rebuild them all.

 

Plans are being laid out to create a sequel campaign to the Black Sea War campaign so you can expect to end up with more F-15 missions than just 60. However for the time being, the plan is to expand the campaign experience outside of just one player and nation's aircraft in order to tell the whole story of the war.

 

The Su-33 campaign Britgliderpilot is working on should have around ~60 exciting missions.

 

 

 

 

 

T-Bone

[SuperKungFu]

i posted over at Simhq but it didnt seem to go through so i guess ill say it here. So now that we have the Su-33 campaign being worked on, does this mean that ch 1 that was schedule to be released early this year has now been pushed back? I guess that's alright, I'm looking forward to both missons and especially the new menus :icon_supe . Hopefully the 1.12 patch doesn't mess up any missions.

[T-Bone]

D-scythe is testing the 1.12 beta and yes, the missions are already screwed up. They will have to be redone as soon as the patch is released. Guess what happens when 1.2 comes out?

 

*sigh*

 

This is the reason it has taken us so long.

 

 

T-Bone

[SuperKungFu]

damn thats bad to hear. Well 1.2 is "suppose" to be launched in march...that's not that long of a wait. But knowing how FC was released, i say the real release date is probably summer. But thank god you guys are still sticking to this project after all these annoying problems. I applaud you for your persistence :horseback

btw britgliderpilot, where can i get my hands on that Su-33 skin with the organce jumpsuit? vbmenu_register("postmenu_147546", true);

[britgliderpilot]

btw britgliderpilot, where can i get my hands on that Su-33 skin with the organce jumpsuit? vbmenu_register("postmenu_147546", true);

 

I'll post when it's ready - it shouldn't be too long now.

 

Just waiting for a couple of my own attempts at voiceover training tracks . . . .