DCG 3.48 Open Beta Test

[Lowengrin]

Fixed so that carriers are recognized as the floating airfields that they are.

 

http://members.shaw.ca/lowengrin/il2dcg348beta7.zip

 

Note: this still uses the ship ID type in the shipnames.dcg file. I may change this down the road.

[sniperton]

Thanks, I’ll test it tonight.

 

Edit: BTW' date=' I just noticed that I've got some hard coding when it comes to ship's nationalities. For example, for US carriers, the ID must include "USS", British must have "HMS" and Japanese "IJN" so that the proper squadrons get put on them. It will override even assignments through the timetable.[/quote']

 

I see, so a proud USN squad would in no way deploy on a crappy Tommy carrier ?. Anyway, all this doesn’t seem to be a major problem, because within the timeframe of Il-2 1946, only the British and the American might operate carriers together, and these do retain the USS and HMS code in their designations. The only unfortunate exception is the HMS Ameer designated as carrier1 in HSFX.

 

However' date=' you're right that if I expanded it to all ground units, special abilities (like transporting, carriers, capital ships, etc,) could all be defined through this file. More than that, multiple special abilities could be defined to one type. But, that would require a hell of a lot of code rewrite.[/quote']

 

Yep, but what if…

 

Ships.Carrier1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 HMSAmeerCVL

 

Maybe I’m completely wrong, but I suppose that unit names are stored and evaluated as a text array like UnitName[n]. If you gave it another dimension (UnitName[n, 0..1]) and assigned „Carrier1” to UnitName[n, 0] and HMSAmeerCVL to UnitName[n, 1], AND DCG used and evaluated throughout this latter EXCEPT when reading and writing data from and to external files, then the whole problem could be overcome by a simple conversion table as the above one. Then it would be the user’s responsibility to provide DCG-compatible alias-names.

 

Just an idea, again, don’t shoot…

 

[And what if you used one of those useless bits to indicate whether the unit is included in gunits too? DCG would have one less file to process.]

[sniperton]

Fixed so that carriers are recognized as the floating airfields that they are.

 

Quick test done, seems to work, many thanks! Fulmars taking off from HMS Eagle (HMSEagle) and HMS Ameer (Carrier1), no matter whether I place them via a timetable command or via the master file. (Another question that they crash due to the shoortness of both runways, although it's known that Fulmars were operated from HMS Eagle.)

[Lonestar]

Fixed so that carriers are recognized as the floating airfields that they are.

 

http://members.shaw.ca/lowengrin/il2dcg348beta7.zip

 

Note: this still uses the ship ID type in the shipnames.dcg file. I may change this down the road.

 

Many thanks for the new updates, Lo!

[ColHut]

Apologies for not being around. My Computer shot itself about three weeks ago and I only finally replaced the innards yesterday. back to some reading, testing, and updating!

 

regards

 

Wol

[Lowengrin]

...they crash due to the shortness of both runways' date=' although it's known that Fulmars were operated from HMS Eagle.[/quote']

I remember reading way back that the ship models were scaled down from their actual size so that might be why their crashing.

 

You could try increasing their speeds (the carriers). Really, if I was on the ball, I'd work on some code that looked at wind direction and speed and make the carriers turn into the wind to launch and recover aircraft.

 

 

[Lowengrin]

Maybe I’m completely wrong' date=' but I suppose that unit names are stored and evaluated as a text array like UnitName[n']. If you gave it another dimension (UnitName[n, 0..1]) and assigned „Carrier1” to UnitName[n, 0] and HMSAmeerCVL to UnitName[n, 1], AND DCG used and evaluated throughout this latter EXCEPT when reading and writing data from and to external files, then the whole problem could be overcome by a simple conversion table as the above one. Then it would be the user’s responsibility to provide DCG-compatible alias-names.

 

Just an idea, again, don’t shoot…

Where's my gun?

 

 

[Lowengrin]

Apologies for not being around. My Computer shot itself about three weeks ago and I only finally replaced the innards yesterday. back to some reading' date=' testing, and updating!

 

regards

 

Wol[/quote']

I hope it shot itself only because it was in dire need of an upgrade that you were planning to do anyway.

 

Welcome back!

[sniperton]

You could try increasing their speeds (the carriers). Really' date=' if I was on the ball, I'd work on some code that looked at wind direction and speed and make the carriers turn into the wind to launch and recover aircraft.[/quote']

 

Direction changes would make ship collisions even more likely IMHO. Anyway, no need to worry, all this was a false alarm on my side. Since then I have tracked down the problem to an individual mod plane (D.520) I added to my HSFX installation: dunno how, it seems to have screwed up the flight model of other planes as well. In a clean HSFX, Fulmar IS able to take off from both CVs and CVLs.

[sniperton]

Where's my gun?

 

In case you haven't found it yet, please consider to make campaign settings 3rd party folder specific. I mean all settings from dcg.ini except for the working paths info.

 

In case you have found it, please disregard whatever you may have read above

[ColHut]

Regarding planes on Carriers. There is a problem with wind over deck speeds. Really the carriers need to sail into the wind, and have a fuel and ordnance load commensurate with the wind over deck. Generally 30kts was considered a minimum without catapult launches...

 

So in some cases the heavily loaded planes don't make it in Il2 I've watched whole plane loads go into the sea!

 

The only things you can really do are to up the speeds to maximum before take off, and drop the fuel loads if carrying ordnance, and try and be pointing into the wind.

 

regards

 

 

 

[ColHut]

I hope it shot itself only because it was in dire need of an upgrade that you were planning to do anyway.

 

Well it turned out for the best

 

Mind you I had recently added extra RAM to the old one so it could be all it could be, but you have to expect losses in a big operation.

 

regards

 

Wol

[sniperton]

Regarding planes on Carriers. There is a problem with wind over deck speeds. Really the carriers need to sail into the wind' date=' and have a fuel and ordnance load commensurate with the wind over deck. Generally 30kts was considered a minimum without catapult launches...

 

So in some cases the heavily loaded planes don't make it in Il2 I've watched whole plane loads go into the sea![/quote']

 

You're absolutely right. It has been discussed here, albeit from the aspect of the human player: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=39284

 

In DCG, the problem is that so far we cannot guarantee a minimum 30 kts of 'wind over deck' surplus speed, most planes won't be able to take off with a maximum fuel/bomb load. There are three possible solutions IMO:

 

1) Paul implements a 'turn into the wind' routine for carrier ops; it's somewhat risky as sometimes the fleets might want to set sail backwards;

 

2) Paul enforces a wind direction opposite to the carriers's waypoints; doesn't really help if multiple carrier forces are present;

 

3) The campaign designer voluntarily reduces the bomb and fuel load of carrier based aircrafts in the class file; on most maps and in most campaigns, 50% fuel is not a problem; the rest is subject to individual testing, e.g. a Swordfish can take off with any load, while others might require a reduced bomb load to operate safely; so just don't want to launch a Corsair from a CVL with 100% fuel and 4000 lbs bombs...

 

I think No. 3. is most close at hand

[idefix44]

In dogfight mode.
I was running a campaign created with the 3.48b1 il2dcg.exe version.
I have replaced the 3.48b1 .exe version with the 3.48b7 version and things go wrong when I created the next mission.
Some red squadrons become blue squadrons.
It happend two times in two differents campaigns (Finland39 and Normandy44).

Best regards.
 

[WindWeapon]

In dogfight mode.

I was running a campaign created with the 3.48b1 il2dcg.exe version.

I have replaced the 3.48b1 .exe version with the 3.48b7 version and things go wrong when I created the next mission.

Some red squadrons become blue squadrons.

It happend two times in two differents campaigns (Finland39 and Normandy44).

 

Best regards.

 

I have found that when red squads become blue, this is due to the red squad id not being found in the squadids.dcg file.  I guess they default to blue if not found.  I had this happen just recently for a campaign I was starting.  Once I added the missing squadids all was well.

 

~S~

wind

[sniperton]

I second to WindWeapon. IF a squad is not positively identified in squadids, THEN it's regarded as German by DCG. That is, check your file for missing squad ids.

[Lowengrin]

Any squadron not found in the squad id file is assumed to be German.

[idefix44]

Thx Sirs.

 

In the squadids.dcg file coming with the 3.48b7 version (last beta) the line 261 must to be modified.

 

from:

NN                      Esquadrilla Normandie-Niemen

to:

NN                      Escadrille Normandie-Niemen

 

Indeed "Esquadrilla" is a catalan word use in spain and a french squadron in an "Escadrille".

[sniperton]

Copy that, Sir. My French is very poor (my Catalan even worse), but you seem to be right.   

 

Edit: Maybe the Russian Ð­ÑÐºÐ°Ð´Ñ€Ð¸Ð»ÑŒÑ was transliterated here.

[idefix44]

Sorry Sir, but I'm unable to read the cyrillic...

[sniperton]

Il-2 is a Russian game, squad is Ð­ÑÐºÐ°Ð´Ñ€Ð¸Ð»ÑŒÑ in Russian, which reads eskuadruilla when transliterated...

[Lowengrin]

Hopefully fixes carrier squadron transferring to land bases for absolutely no reason.

 

http://members.shaw.ca/lowengrin/il2dcg348beta8.zip

[Pisces]

Hello there. Enjoying the DCG, and currently testing the 3.48b8.

 

I noticed whatever I do I cannot start any of the pacific campaigns on a carrier. Whatever setting I choose I always have to set myself onto a carrier via the squadron editor, or else I get airstarts. Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug, or deliberately so?

 

Thanks

[Lowengrin]

Are you getting airstarts above the carrier or are you based at an off-map airfield...?  The briefing should tell you without actually flying the mission.

 

If it's that you're getting airstarts above the carrier, it's probably due to your rank and position in the formation.  Most carriers can't support a full squadron taking off at once and the junior flights start in the air.

[Pisces]

Are you getting airstarts above the carrier or are you based at an off-map airfield...?  The briefing should tell you without actually flying the mission.

 

If it's that you're getting airstarts above the carrier, it's probably due to your rank and position in the formation.  Most carriers can't support a full squadron taking off at once and the junior flights start in the air.

No, not above the carrier, it says I am based at "Townsville airfield" which is I understand in Australia!? That's an off map airfield then.

 

I start mid air and the waypoints guide me over the target and then off the map. This is the Okinawa campaign, but other pacific maps I tested were the same (airstarts).

 

Then I used the squadron panel and set myself to be based onboard one of the carriers and the campaign continued normally from there.

I'm using SAS ModAct 5.3 but I tried to disable all the mods and the result was same, eg. unwanted airstart. I don't see how modact would be causing this, but if you think it is, then the problem lies with my modded game. It's not a big problem since it can be corrected with the squadron panel, but I wonder what's causing these airstarts? Am I missing something? What settings do I normally have to choose to start a campaign on a carrier?

 

The rest of the DCG works nicely except for a few minor quirks that I will mention in another post when I finish my current campaign.

 

Thanks for your help in advance.