Hi,

I guess you have all heard this before so I am probably being stupid. I have used EAW since it first came out and have gladly added all the improvements as they became available, but found them increasingly technical as time went by, and bit over my head.

I loved the original OAW and the ease with which I could swop skins, sounds, campaigns etc, but a couple of years ago following a computer crash I lost it. I have reinstalled most of the campaigns and they still work fine, but having a seperate copy of EAW for each is a bit of a pain. I upgraded to 1.28 in its various versions as they became available and loaded Jelly's 1.28E a while ago. It works fine and I have the preloaded Campaigns including ETO-01 with a number of Mike's planesets, but would like to have all of them. Can I load them into the 1.28E package without OAW is my first question, and if so how?

From some of the posts I suspect Ralf has issued updated sets - what updates do I need to bring EAW 1.28E fully up to date is my second question, whilst my third is do I still need OAW for the terrain, sounds, skins etc? If not how do I load them into 1.28E.

I have tried loading OAW 1.28E in and whilst it seems to be working it is completely empty - no plane sets, campaigns, terrain, ground objects etc - do I have to load them in. I also came across the v2011 Selector Jelly posted in November but can't get the file to do anything.

Basically how do I download individual and sets of planes, sounds, ground objects, terrain, sounds, speech and all the other things I could do with the old OAW - what files do I need, where can I find them, and how do I use them, and do I need OAW and where can I find an up to date version that actually works - keep it simple like me.

Pete

Hi Pete,

EAW1.28e is not that backward compatible anymore. Old screens and several other things wont work anymore. Thats why Tony did update as many of the old campaigns as posssible to run under EAW1.28e.

Terrains, Plane sets(EAWrp2.6), Plane skins etc still work like before, so if you have them on a other OAW setup, you can copy them to OAW1.28 and use them there, if you want.
Since you dont place addons into the EAW root, when you load one of the addon campaigns, you can load any of the old addons to see if they still work as they should, if not, you just unload them.



EAW1.28e got a important new feature: The splitted multi-plane-files.
Up to EAW1.28d we had just one Planes.dat, one pnames.str, one loadout.dat etc for all 30 planes. As result we never could offer a complete single plane in a easy way(with OAW we actually could, but read on).
To split up this files was a major goal and so we did introduce a "Planes" folder, where we did store complete single planes(only splitted in a FM/DM and skins, for the reason that one FM/DM can wear several skins).
As i wrote, with OAW we already could switch a single plane in/out of a plane set, but hangar screens and other pregame graphics still as wrong.
The later version of OAW1.28(OAWSelectV128V13 or OAWSelectV128ESE) got a tool incooperated to adjust the planesets. For example ETO_01 comes with 4 different plane sets(ETO early/late, East-front early/late), with the tool you can open the related FMdir.set and Pdir.set files and you can select other skins or planes. You also can create own plane sets with help of this too, by placing the changed *.set files into a Planeset5 folder(there might be more files needed, like frontline, year.mpf etc, but thats another story).
So this tool is the equivalent to the old plane selection screen in OAW(which is still present in OAWSelectV128V13 and OAWSelectV128ESE).
So in EAW1.28e we still support the old plane and skin selection system, but also have a new system.

With EAW1.3(not released yet) we got one step forward, now we got rid of the ugly plane slot binding, so we have to store every skin and every FM/DM exact one time, while we can use this plane in every of the 30 plane slot.

This is a so big advantage over the older systems that we wont support them anymore, so with EAW1.3 all will be more clear, cause we only have one plane selection system left and also the plane skin and FM/DM administration will be way more easy.

The latest version of EAW1.28e is EAW1.28e Fix16.
https://rapidshare.com/files/1365208221/EAW1.28eFix16.zip

Greetings,

Knegel

When OAWUnified was released it came with a Skinfolder containing about 300 skins, individual flight data scripts, and a system of loading ready made autoscripts to let the user select a plane combination from about a dozen choices.
Since then the OAWSelector has been revised and updated to cater for needs and changes since that release, but only the newer selectors plus any essential files have been downloadable. The Skinfolder and other stuff that came with OAWUnified have not been included in the updates.

When you load a folder using OAW its files are copied into the root folder, and when you unload the folder the copies are deleted. This is a good system, and the only one that could be used with the 1.2 exe. However, the continual writing-deleting process can cause hard disk fragmentation, and this emerged as a problem when multiskin file sets became possible with the 1.28 series, as much larger numbers of files were involved.

As a result, we developed the "Dir.set" system, which we used in 1.28C and have retained. If there is a "Dir.set" file in the root folder is read by the 1.28E exe. The file tells the 1.28E exe which folders to look in for the files that it needs. So apart from a "Dir.set" file no other files need to be copied and pasted into the root folder.

To manage this system I wrote the DirSet Picker utility. When you run it a list of files in the DirSets folder is listed for selection:



Here have selected "SAW", and the picker has copied the file named "SAW" in the DirSets folder, and pasted it named as "Dir.set" in the root folder.

As OAW may still be needed to manage other things it made sense to build the DirSet Picker into the OAWSelector, so that is what I did.
Further development of the eaw.exe resulted in the splitting of those 30 plane files, and the use of a "Planes" folder containing skin and FM folders available for each slot.
As a result we extended the "Dir.set" system to include "PDir.set" and "FMDir.set" files, which tell the exe which folders contain the skin and flight data files for each of the 30 slots.
So the later versions of the OAW selector contain tools for making "Dir.set", "PDir.set" and "FMDir.set" files.
This was already set up with the ETO_01 folder and its planesets, and seasons folder with terrains automatically loaded based on mission date. I extended what is available with the downloads (from my webpage) of other scenarios converted to run in 1.28e using either the DirSet Picker, or the one built into the OAWSelector.

The next OAWSelector has already been written so that it can handle the slot-free breakthrough we have made in 1.3. Other parts of 1.3 are still under development, so it has not yet been released.


Jel

Thanks guys,

As I suspected a bit too complicated for an old duffer like me so I think I will wait until the new version comes out. In the meantime I have downloaded the fix 16 zip - what do I have to do with it ?

Final questions - is there a list of the actual multiplane sets included in ETO-01? I have dir set picker but have not a clue what to use to make my own set - do I need any more addons? Incidentally I keep getting the error message "EAW has encountered a problem and will have to close" when I try and pick certain planes from sets 1 & 2 in EAW1.28E ETO. Most work eventually but I have yet to get the FW190D in a single mission without the error. Any thoughts? Don't seem to have IM's Me109F, 110sa or HE111 included, nor the P38H - is that right or do I have a bad download?

Cheers

Pete

bump!

Any thoughts on my last paragraph?

Peter

The plane sets of ETO_01 get displayed and are selectable under "Configure Game"(Set-up Game).
ETO_01 comes with exact 4 plane sets.
1. ETO early
2. ETO late
3. East Front early
4. East front late.

You can create 6 more planesets for your own need, or you can change the 4 plane sets like you want, using the in OAW included tool.

The dirset picker is nothing more than a extreme simplyfied OAW, for users who dont want to use OAW. It just load a dir.set file into the EAW root and remove it, OAW also can do this.

The planeset pointer files(FMdir.set and Pdir.set) are not related to the Dirset picker. You can create plane set pointer files and load them into the EAW root, but the normal way is to place them into a "Planeset1" to "Planeset10" folder.
This folders are located inside the scenario folder, like ETO_01, SPAW, DAW, BoB etc.

So you load ETO_01, then you can fly (currently) 4 different plane sets without to even leave EAW. So ETO_01 is a setup with 120 flyable Planes, oh no actually you also can load the 30 default planes, so there are actually 5 plane sets available, so you can fly 159 planes(V1 remain not flyable) without to löeave the game.

ETO_01 is actually only made as example what can be done now. The campaigns probably wont work correct, cause i dont know how to adjust the related files to fit to the plane sets.
You can add more and better skins, you can add more and better ground objects and maybe other terrains.
For this i just did pick what i had on my HD.

That's why I did not respond at the time

I'll do it in pictures















Jel

Flying the Dora I switched to planeset2














Jel

...finally testing the Dora in default mode I switched to the CDF







No problems here with the Dora in either of the planesets.
Apart from using it to select ETO_01 at the start OAW was not used again.

Jel

Pete,
basically, the old OAWUnified was used with default EAW.
Loading skins, skies, terrains, etc., was a must so that you
were not looking at the same stuff all the time.

OAW can still function that way, however, there are many improvements
to OAW AND EAW. You still can use OAW like you did before, with the same
folder structure as before. For instance, you can just copy the folders
you had in your old OAWUnified folder, and just paste them into your new
OAW128 folder. The 'skinfolder' works better now because you dont have to
name the skins folders the way you use to, (A-00-P38H, etc.) because OAW
looks at the names of the files in the folder (pp38h*.3dz) and lists that
skin when you are selecting skins in OAW.
However, this too will change when we go slotless. (1.3)

Most scenarios come with their own skins, and alot of those scenarios have
been made to work with 1.28e, so there has not been a need to add skins to
OAW.
When you add a scenario to EAW, (SPAW, DAW, SAW, etc.) the download will create
a folder in your EAW root. Example, SPAW. When you load the dir.set file for SPAW,
that file tells the exe to look in the SPAW folder for all files.

ETO_01 utilizes the 'planes' folder, which comes with multiple skins for most planes,
usually a regular version and a winter version. Most of IM's multiskins are included
in this folder, but he has made many more, and upgraded many since then. But if you
examine the folder, I'm sure you will figure how to add or change any skin you want.

SPAW, SAW, DAW, FAW, BOB, IRAQ41, and other scenarios come with their own skins, skies,
terrains, etc., so it really isn't necessary to add these items to OAW, but you can,
if you wish......but remember that 128 by default is 1024 x 768, so some older screens
and such will CTD.

When you get CTD's when trying to select certain planes, you will need to delete the
default**.msn file in that scenarios savedata folder. These *.msn files are a work
in progress to eliminate the CTD's. Each scenario has it's own savedata folder.
(ETO_01 has one in every planeset folder.)

Hope this helps,
AO

Thanks AO,

Removing the def msn files has at last allowed me to select and fly the dora 9 but I am still having intermittent ctd with other aircraft.

Pete