Seems a bit quiet around here now, anyone still playing CFS3?
I'm working on a general "tweak" mod which makes various changes to the campaign, aircraft and ground vehicles,
both for accuracy and balance. Is anyone interested in it? If so I'll release a beta version as soon as I can
for people to try out.

These are the current features, I'll probably add more before I release it.

-Mosquito FB.VI and XVIII are now classed as fighter-bombers and are available in the RAF
fighter campaign

-Corrected ammo loadout for Spitfire V and IXc, Bf109E-4 and G-10, Fw190A-5,A-8 and D-9,
P-40F, P-51B and D, B-25 and B26 gun turrets

-Guns on the Bf109E-4 are now the correct way round (MGs in the cowling, cannons in the wings).
The MGs are also the 7.92mm MG17 rather than the 13mm MG131 (but have the correct loadout of
1000rpg rather than 300)

-20mm cannons now use their own sound, rather than the 30mm one

-Reduced the chance of control surfaces, engines and oil reservoirs being hit when
damaged (all aircraft)

-Added minimum firing angle to heavy flak guns (can't fire at you when you're very low down)

-Adjusted "entered service" dates for ground vehicles to roughly match real-life ones
(no King Tigers or Pershings in 1943)

-Ditto for third-party aircraft (so you don't encounter Fw190D-9s and P-72 Superbolts early in the war,
and the Bf109E and P-40 don't appear later on)

-Modified ship groups so they don't consist solely of coasters, destroyers and cruisers. The possible groups are:
- patrol boats
- U-boats
- destroyers and cruiser
- destroyer and coasters
- destroyer and patrol boats
- patrol boats and coasters

-Reduced the number of AA guns at factories, airbases etc., and added a few vehicles and light AA
to ammo dumps, artillery positions etc.

I am working on a similar mod, though my overirding goals is historical accuracy, even at the expense of play balance.

I would be interested in any upgrade to CFS3.
You may include me. All I need is my joystick fixed too. But will use your upgrade in the mean time.

What are the changes in the mod you're working on, Nimits?

Most of the changes in mine are to increase realism/accuracy (ammo loads, service entry dates), however some (such as the changes to flak gun numbers and fleet composition)
I've no idea what the normal number of flak guns and vehicles used to defend a factory or airbase was, or what the exact composition of German or Allied fleets or convoys was.
The reduction in flak gun numbers is simply to try and offset the extreme lethality and accuracy of the flak in CFS3. I know that the 88mm flak guns, particularly, were very deadly, but the problem with the CFS3 flak is that it seems to hit you nearly every time and usually knocks out your engine or fuel line and/or wrecks your control surfaces. Even 20mm and 40mm flak seems to do this. I also reduced the chance of plane engines and control surfaces taking damage, to reduce this effect.
Again, no idea how accurate this is since I don't have enough data

About the Mosquito - were the fighter-bomber versions of it normally flown by fighter squadrons, or bomber ones? I assumed they were flown by fighter squadrons.

Drawde, What campaign are you referring to? Fortress Europa? And where did you get the bf109 E4?

The mod should work with any campaign, since it modifies the spawn .xml files which are referenced by all campaigns.
The Bf109E can be downloaded from http://www.aeroplaneheaven.com if you register (for free), the direct link is http://www.theheavenlyhangar.com/BattleOfBritain/CFS3/AH_BF109E/AH_BF109E_CFS3ZIP.zip
but this may not work if you haven't registered first.

Mosquito's were assigned to Fighter Command, not Bomber Command, as far as I can tell

In the mod I am working one, I am have not modified the xdp files (though I was planning to possibly include the ones Leon had posted on his site). My main focus was on the spawn files and the campaign file itself (I have struck on a couple of ideas for eliminating the need to sink the whole Keigsmarine a few times over to get the Frontline to Germany).

I would love to see a mod that takes care of all that stuff. I am a "techno dunce" and cant't help much other than to say whether things work or not. I came from EAW. That game has been blessed with all sorts of great utilities that move around flight models etc with a the click of a mouse. So this sound like a GREAT idea to me.

BTW Mosquitoes were assigned to Bomber Command but those with guns are quite correctly classed as fighter/bombers....check out these links

http://214th.com/ww2/england/mosquito/index.htm

http://www.rafcommands.currantbun.com/home.html

Drawde - I am very interested.

I'm retired, so in winter (Michigan), I have lots of time to play. I see really great things in this game. And some really sad things.
The FM is very questionable. I can't get the 1% planes into any other campaign but fortress europea 3, the one made for it.
So this pretty much spoils the dogfighting.
The rest is fixable IMO, stutter is minimal on my system. It taxes my system, Dell MoBo A103, PIV 1800, 512RDRAM, G3 Ti200 (clocked to 400/260), Turtle Beach Sound Card. I get about 25 to 35 fps average. Down to 10 to 15 with dogfighting, snow/rain, and black clouds. Terrain and Clouds on 2, all else on 4.
I've adjusted my German flak also, very playable now. Yours sounds much more accurate, I just turned down mine at random, in a heated frinzie' .

Let me know or post a beta, I can give you my E-Mail if you need.

With all it's faults, I just can't stop playing this campaign. There is so much to this game I can't even begin to point out the good points, there really are so many. It is a shame M$ rushed this out the door. Pizzes me off, it's like it was made just for me, all the things I would want in a game, IF I could have thought of them, then the FM and FPS bugs stare you in the face. Some great ideas here. I'll be playing this for quite some time.

Murphy.....I'm pretty lousy at technical stuff but I do know how to put planes into teh campaigns. You need to go to Windows Explorer and find you CFS3 folder. Open it and find the Campaigns folder. Open that and find the campaign where you want to put your 1% planes. It will be called something like "fortress something.xml". Open that file with notepad (make a copy of it first in case you screw up) and scroll down through all the techno-babble until you come to the list of planes (it's far down) then just substitute the name of the 1% plane for the stock plane. Save the file and you're done.

Somebody should be able to make a utility to do this like in EAW but I have no idea how to do it. I subbed the Mossie MkVI 1% for the Mossie MKIV stock FM in my campaign and have had no trouble at all.

Hope this helps.....cheers

Interested!! Put it right in my ´puter and I´ll sing for you (but you won´tneed to listen!) all those things you mentioned really needs to be adjusted, surely there are a "few" more and if interest for this sim comes anything near the interest for EAW this can be the start of something grand in my opinion!
Please send me a copy or put it on some DLsite for testing and evaluating!
Cheers
Flying Hedman

Your right Archie. Mosquitos were assigned to both Fighter Command and Bomber Command

You can use 1% FMs in all missions and campaigns simply by renaming the files to the stock names.

Ahhhhhhhhh :rolleyes:
Simply rename the files in the xml.I tried copying 'some' of the files from the 1% plane into the Aircraft files and changing the name....that didn't work. Never thought to change the xml. I would get a msg the aircraft didn't load and I couldn't use it.
Got to try this tonight, thanks for the info....
-----------------------
Yep, I started on EAW too (Combatsim.com).
I recognized the names here....thanks 'again' guys, 7 years later... .

Hmm, that sounds like a good idea - I'd like to use the 1% aircraft but haven't yet due to having to modify the campaign in order to use them.
Replacing the original .xdp files with the 1% ones in this way might be a good compromise.
Anyone think I should do this with my mod?

Sounds like a good idea!

I am also very interested in your ideas.

The Flak "fix" works very well and should be incorporated imo.

Why don't you two, Nimits and Drawde, work together on this? Just like Nanni and Ghostpony?

You could have one package out!
Incorporating all the stuff you both are working on!

CFS3.2 !

The 1% planes are more realistic. I don't think anyone would argue that point.

Changing the 'xml' file would be easy enough, and if someone didn't have the 1% planes installed in the 'aircraft' folder, you could simply leave it an 'option' to install the new "1% xml" file when installing the mod.

If you can change the xdp to work in an 'ongoing' campaign I think it's a 'great' idea.

I'll post a beta version in a few days so people can try it out and report bugs, suggest changes etc.
If you want, Nimits, you can have a look at it and see if there are any features you want to include in your
mod, or decide whether it's feasible to combine them.
I've more or less got all the basic modifications done, I just need to test everything to make sure it works.
I've also managed to integrate the 1% FMs with the default aircraft, and have created a backup file with the
original .xdp/.cfg files which I'll include with the mod so you can restore the old FMs if necessary.
I'll also eventually include a campaign file, based on Leonard Hjalmarson's Europa II, that has all the current
WW2-era third-party aircraft available.

Well, you have already seem to have done alot of the work I was planning to do (1% FMs, corrected damage models, ammo loadouts, ect) so I see no need to duplicate our efforts there. My main focus anway is on the campaign file (still researching that) and the spawn files (especially for ships). I figure we could either collaberate to make one grant mod, or I can make my campaign file a separate sub-mod of yours.

Also, I think it should be noted that the 109E is not a contemporary of any of the planes in the game or that have been released as add-ons; they had been phased out by the end of 1941.

I modified the Bf109E so it won't appear after around late 1941 (it was getting rather silly to be intercepted by squadrons of it on every other mission in 1944). (Although if I wasn't using Leonard's modified campaign, I probably wouldn't be intercepted by ANYTHING..)
Regarding the campaign, I'd really like to reduce the importance/number of anti-shipping missions (particularly for the Allies) and decrease the chance of an early-war invasion of Europe (frequently when flying for the Allies, the invasion will start after I've only completed a few missions), but I'm not sure how to do this.
There are also a couple of aircraft damage models that seem slightly odd; for example, the Ju88 always seems to explode when damaged enough, regardless of where you hit it. The effectiveness of .303 MGs versus unarmoured targets - trucks, cars, tents, crates etc - could also do with being increased, but again I'm not certain how to do this.

Hi Nimits, Drawde

When setting Flak up I thought this may be of interest :-

Told to me first hand by Air Marshall Chester Hull of the RCAF
(47 WW2 missions in lancs and halifaxes)
"German Flak (88's) was particually bad, but if you knew what to do you could improve your chances."
"Flak battery's usually consisted of 3 guns, If the opening salvo missed, you were usually safe as you turned left and down for a count of 15 secs, then after the next salvo turn right etc etc"

Why 15 seconds?

"That was the time it took for the flak gunners to set the fuses and reload the gun"

Hope this is of interest when setting up flak battery's

S~ from Sly

PS what a guy I could listen to him all day
Salute !