I think so, yes...



Not really...SH5 airplanes are equally incompetent on all veterancy levels...:)



I'm pretty much sure that it can be done, why not? Even fishing boat can be made as AC, 3D model is quite irrelevant IMO. It's only a matter of CFG file and unit type...



I may do one more test since I already have one mission wit AC in it but I'm not very optimistic...


I'll take Azores AB again as an example. This airbase since it's active from 1943 (TP campaign) shouldn't be present in campaign files from TG, HT, WA and other campaign chapters prior the TP...And in TP campaign it should be active right from the campaign start...





That wouldn't be a safe solution IMO. It will cause problems sooner or later...


I don't remember all the trick I did to bypass these problems, it was several months ago, but I do remember that I had to carefully inspect all airbase layers from all the campaigns and set them accordingly. I also remember that I had to create new (clone) airbases in Final years campaign because of this but I dont remember exactly why...:hmmm::D


You can download the archive and inspect the files for your self if you like, it can be opened with winrar or 7zip...:yep:

It seems that airplane radars can detect AI units without problems. They managed to attack and sink German freighter in the middle of the night and in extreme weather conditions with visibility no more than 300m and I set their WP significantly off course... :yep:


But I just couldn't make TDW patches for AC to work again from some reason. :hmmm:

...and I can confirm that regular catapult ship can be cloned to AC and it may launch airplane, outside of 3D rendering area of course...:yep: We dont have in SH5 appropriate plane type for this purpose though.


EDIT:


This plane I mean...


https://i.postimg.cc/DwMzmyR7/SH5-Im...5-23-14-21.jpg

So I thought lol :rotfl2:

Sure, but my idea was to keep the original unit types for correct ship usage within generic traffic. I don't think that air groups will be on any use in the .cfg file of a battleship, cruiser or merchant -type ship, but probably non one has tested that in SH5...

Wait, now that you to rethink about it, I seem to remember that for that patch to work correctly carriers needed an extra bone to be used as spawning point for their aircraft, but don't quote me on that. It has been a long time since I had that conversation with TDW, but the discussion should be somewhere in TDW's patcher's thread :hmmm:

That is reasonable anyway, there would be no point in having that base in early campaigns (thus increasing loading times and memory usage), if it won't be active.

Why? Due to the way I want to set up airbases (according to their real usage by squadrons whose duty was relevant to naval warfare) there might be several gaps between an air group and the next one. Going by your experience, those gaps might cause problems similar to airbases whose first air group is inactive early on. My idea is to fill those gaps with "filler air groups". They would be identical to regular air groups except for the fact that they would include a small number of unharmed aircraft with a very limited range. I don't see why they should cause problems...

Yes, I would like to study your files, where can I download the zip version of TWoS? :)

That's good news :yeah:

Among the other things, that means that we can get Tempest fighters equipped with air-to-air radar to intercept and destroy V-1 flying bombs in late '44 :D

For that to work, TDW's "dogfight" patch should be enabled. Do you have any experience with that?

BTW, I think you should equip your air raid sirens with radar for them to work at night as well as during daytime.

Please read my comment on this subject in the post below

Did you set that CAM ship as a carrier?
If possible I would prefer not messing with ship types. CAM and MAC ships can be set as escort carriers with little consequences on generic traffic composition, as far as they are given historically plausible start end dates, but scout plane-equipped battleships and cruisers spawning in place of carriers woudn't be right :yep:

Aircraft units and 3D models are the least problem. We cam extract that biplane from the ship unit and make it in an air unit or, if need be, we can create a more detailed 3D model for the same use :03:

I tried with two types only, maybe some other AC type is capable of planes spawning by default...I'll test this when I have time...:hmmm:



You were talking about airbase cfg file?? Aaaah ok then...Sry:up: IIRC everything will be OK until we don't have inactive airbase in our current campaign due to not yet reached or passed activation date...


In my signature

Dogfights look a bit silly but they work more or less OK in general. Can't be compared with DCS or Il-2 AI dogfights though...:)


Good idea, although they already have reflectors but with radar, sirens will start somewhat earlier I guess...I'll add them.


Yes, it would be tricky definitively...I'd have to specify the exact ship classes in all taskforce layers for all campaigns although with N++ notepad it wouldn't be so complicated and time consuming...

Accorting to propbeanie, in SHIV all the carrier/escort carrier unit types are able to spawn aircraft. Hopefully this is also the case for SH5.


Do you mean that gaps between an air group and the next one are not problematic?

For example:

BTW, I have noticed that in OHII (as I said, I right now I can't check stock game) there is always a day of difference between the end of an air group and the beginning of the next one, whereas I would have expected them to use the same date. According to your experience, is that the correct way to set up two consecutive air groups, i.e. without end/start dates overlapping?

:up:

Indeed they are. SH aircraft AI is barely able to carry out attacks on naval targets, I would have been surprised if they could perform complex dogfight maneuvers, yet a poor fighter response against port bombing raids would be much more realistic than no response at all :up:

:up:.

It is not only the fact that editing taskforce layers would be a tedious work, but also that generic entries add a nice randomness to the game.

On a side note, I have checked the Wikepedia article on CAM ships, and it states that those vessels were armed with a single 'Hurricat' fighter. The biplane in your screenshot is definitely not a navalized Hurricane, so either the modder who created that ship equipped her with the plane that looked more plausible to him ignoring the real historic armament, or Wikipedia is wrong and more than one aircraft type could be launched by those catapults :salute:

The plane in this picture is Walrus scout plane which we certainly do have in SH5 (though, as per gap's comment, it should be really switched to Sea Hurricane which we fortunately also have).

EDIT: Walrus on CAM ship is set as equipment (from Flieger.dat file), replacing it with Hurricane would just require cloning Flieger.dat and replacing model in cloned file.

EDIT 2: Catapult would require changing too if we are to be 101% correct, it was copied from a warship model apparently and is correct for float planes, but Hurricane-launching CAM ships didn't have a crane attached to their catapults (there's no point as you wouldn't be able to reuse ditched Hurricane anyway)

Well spotted kapuhy. A series of pictures in the Wikipedia article I mentioned yesterday clearly shows the craneless catapult and the Hurricane on top of it:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...pult_c1941.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...n_CAM_Ship.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ship_c1941.jpg

If I can add something, I think that being requisitioned/MoWT vessels, MAC ships would have been painted overall gray. I am sorry to say that because I like more black hulled ships, but in this case I am afraid that the black paint is totally out of place...

One more note: if set in game as escort carriers, CAM ships will fly the white ensign. Nonetheless the red ensign would be more adequate for them, as in reality they were commanded by a civil shipmaster*. I think that a switch of flag can be done by changing the flg node into an eqp node, and by specifying the red ensign in ship's .eqp file.
_________

* There was another class of catapult-armed ships designed collectively as 'Pagasus-class' which, similar to CAM ships, could launch an Hurricane or a Fulmar but - unlike CAM ships - they were manned by military crew and officers. For this class, composed of only five vessels, the RN ensign would be okay.

Well of course it is the case. I was talking about TDW patches, they aren't really functional to the best of my knowledge. Spawning planes outside of 3D rendering range work just fine in SH5 both for AC and air bases, with or without TDWs patches. Spawning planes in front of our eyes which should be possible with these patches is problematic...



I'm not really sure, but if we look at some other SH5 files and logics, that continuity in dates is probably there for a good reason...:hmmm:


I was just thinking, by adding new nation which will be reserved only for British seaplane freighters, we could solve all problems, randomness in taskforces composition, ensigns and gray paint...:hmm2:


You are right! Thank you! :yep::up: I was too lazy last night to go trough the museum...:)

A real pity. That is something that only TDW could fix, but since he is no longer around... :-?

Sometimes stock files and good programming go in opposite directions... even worse for historical accuracy lol :D

Well, for 'seaplane freighters' (CAM ships, MAC ships and Fighter catapult ships) I don't see much problems in setting them as 'regular' escort carriers. The reason is that they actually played the same role as escort carriers before the latter became available, so as long as we set appearance/disappearance dates correctly for each ship and we specify British escort carriers in convoy layers, no ship would be used out of place: seaplane freighters will spawn within convoys early on, and starting from 1941 they will be gradually replaced by proper escort carriers. According to Wikipedia, from August 1942 CAM ships finally ceased sailing within North Atlantic convoys (even though 16 of them kept in service within Mediterranean and South Atlantic convoys until as late as September 1943). As for MAC ships, I think they kept serving as such until the end of the war.

The only minor issue would be CAM and MAC ships flying the naval ensign rather than the merchant one, but in my previous post I already suggested an easy workaround to "force" them using the red ensign.

I couldn't agree more BUT, we shouldn't forget that sometimes "good programing" without adequate testing can lead to game corruption and CTDs. I can not even remember anymore how many times I had to re-do examples of "good programing" from various "must have" mods which were seriously threatening to sink SH5 completely...I remember back then on my Subsim beginnings, I always had strange feeling that modders and mods will be ultimate savers and destroyers of SH5 since there were sooo many hidden problems caused by inadequate testing. My "feeling" proved to be correct...





I like this whole concept of actually functional catapult ships, this wasn't the case in any previous SH title to the best of my knowledge...:yep: I'll think about it for some future Wolves updates... :hmm2:

You are obviously right. My point was trying to limit the number of each base's air groups. Reason is that, with so many new RAF airbases that I want to add to the game, and so many "operational" air groups that I will be adding to each base (due to changes of squadrons and/or to change of aircraft used), I am afraid that loading times and memory usage might go beyond safety level.

Anyway, after your suggestion, I will be adding "filler" air groups to fill the possible intervals between an "active" air group and the next one. These air groups will do nothing but spawning one (or whatever is the minimum safe number) unarmed and short-ranged aircraft. Filler groups will also be used at the beginning and/or at the end of the whole air group sequence, in case a base is not active since day one and/or until the last day of the campaign that it will be used on. To keep on with my previous example, after the aforementione changes the cfg file looks like this:



What do you think? :)

I am actually surprised that no one before has thought about that. Unfortunately we don't have a similarly good solution for scout plane-equipped battleships and cruisers, since converting them into carriers would mess too much taskforce layers and probably their AI too.

A bit on a side from this discussion, but I wonder, if the general rule for capital ships in U-Boat infested waters was to sail at high speed and not stop for anything in order not to become an easy target for a torpedo, how do you regularly recover your scout plane?