PE skins issue

No Nieuport 23 skins are available in PE 5.01.

Ooo I just logged off but am pending a 23 but what do you mean exactly?
No skins not even the Squadron default?

Well, it shows "squadron default" but it means there's one and only one skin available even though there are several different skins included in the skins pack.

Now I've become more confused. I'm in Escadrille 38 in Jan. 17. I was assigned a Nieuport 23-Vickers and that gives no options for skins. I looked at the names of the skins within the game. Some specify that they are for N23-Lewis and some are just N23 with no indication of which gun. When I go to Quick Combat it shows only one N23, with no indication of which gun it has. QC also forced me to use the default skin.

Off the top I would say the “23 Lewis” is the British version and unless you have HA’s in your Squadron everyone will have the default Squadron skin - but I am not at my computer actively looking so I may be talking out my arse a bit. Without digging in my books I have to guess N38 must have had at least one ace during their Nieuport time - maybe not. A lot of French Units had limited success.
Also Escadrille 38 sounds familiar...have you been to Sandbaggers website and looked at the WOFF Skin Packs? Plenty of the French units are getting love with the add-ons that I believe are, in some cases, fixing issues. I’m a bit of a plane skin junky and get everything available- if not for me then to see them on my target.

Being the curious type in regards to all things involving WW1 aviation I looked up N38.
There were several aces assigned to the unit (sometimes achieving acedom after leaving) during its 3 year history and went to Spad VII’s in the fall of 1917 which, with it and the XIII, the unit scored the bulk of its victories. 98 total for the war.
In looking at the “ace rolls” I am not convinced they had any during their 23 time but my info is sketchy on exact dates. And to expect OBD to include everything, while a fantasy of mine, is not realistic.
Maybe one of our French experts has more details. Looking forward to checking out the Skin folder.

I think his point is that there are no available skins for French Nieuport 23 in the entire game. Open QC for the French, pick Neuport 23 and there's only the default skin for the plane. I guess some filename prefix has been accidentally altered.

http://www.thatoneplease.co/UpdatedskinsWOFF.html

On my phone so I can’t check the exact file contents of the 48MB download, but scroll down the page to the Nieuport 23 Skin Pack.
“Introduces new or corrected skins...”

Clearly at one time or another a French Ace was in a N23 but, as I stated, to expect OBD to include a custom Skin for each ace, in every plane type they ever flew, is not realistic. Guess we’ll throw Squadron defaults for every Squadron in that category also. And I have yet to fly French.

I have the Nieuport 23 skin pack installed but there's literally not a single alternative skin for the plane available in-game. Not squadron defaults, not ace skins, only the one and only absolute-default skin. The issue isn't with the files not being there (I checked), the game is just not looking for the correct files I suppose.

Then (again not being on my machine) I believe it is an issue with the campaign files as you say and “fixable” only by OBD if I am understanding this all via the texted word. With some file renaming you can change the default Squadron skin and you always have the option to pick your own - which I personally save till I achieve acedom.

EDIT: Wait. You can’t pick (or see) any of the new skins via the drop down boxes in QC or in the campaign for yourself?

This...

Weird.
Is the naming convention radically different? Or a .mdl change? Dunno.
Sounds like we need our skinning experts to step in here. It didn’t seem complicated with UE perhaps something has changed with PE.

There is a whole bunch of skins for N23. All default squadron skins. No HA skins and they all show up in QC. Maybe it's just your install?

Correct, skins are all there. Even HA skins. So many to choose.... check out the scroll bar (red arrow). Maybe missing files?





EDIT: version 5.01

That is odd. It's definitely not just my install since hoongadoongas the one who started this thread. Have you guys installed the 5.01 patch already or are you still using the 5.0 version?

Oh. A mystery. Looking forward to firing up in a few hours and seeing where I stand.

Sandbagger made, by my count, 106 Noop 23 skins. If you don't have them in your PE install, dig them out of the skins folder from your old UE install.
Cheers,
shredward

Interesting. Another game twitch?
I have any and all skins and reinstalled the N23 skins just to make sure.

Like mvp7 and the OP I only show the N23 Default Skin in QC. Have not tried in a Campaign.
N23 (Lewis) show just fine. Its just the N23 with the problem.

EDIT: Just to make sure it wasn't some British Pilot/French skin thing I made a French career in N38 when they had the N23. Only Default skin available in the campaign and QC. No others show in any of the drop downs.
Why is this an issue for only some?

Hi all,
Over the years I made skins for OFF and WOFF for the following Noops:

11, 16, 17, 17bis, 17 Lewis, 23, 23 Lewis, 24, 24bis, 24bis Lewis, 24 Lewis, 27, 27 Lewis and 28.

I recall that during builds for release, the size of the builds was always a problem, especially given the sheer amount of skins.
In order to limit the build to a sensible size, sometimes HA skins were not included and only squad defaults were.
It's just a guess, but if there are skins actually 'missing', then maybe some skins are still in the 'OBD archives' and haven't yet been included or coded into WOFF,
However as 'Shred' said, if they are listed in-game, then presumably they are coded to show and therefore should be available.

Mike

That would seem logical except some can see them (and thanks for your continuing work) and some cannot - like me.
Fresh UE install with PE and patch. Even reinstalled the N23 Pack (it was already there) and they still don't show.

Existence or number of Nieuport 23 skins is not the issue here. The skins are there but the game is not finding them.

Have you tried to delete letter "N" from skin name?
E.g. "off_Nieuport23_t_Esc..."

.

Looks like a labeling mismatch issue. Should be an easy fix for the devs in the next patch I would think.

.

I like your thinking but, out of curiosity and just to be “that guy”, why is it (apparently) just affecting some folks and not all?

Could anyone with 5.01 tell if the skins are visible? Would be nice if this could be narrowed down to a single version. I'm using 5.01 and never checked the N23 skins in 5.0.

Hi all,
I've been through the skins folder in 5.01 and there are no 'ace' skins for the Noop 23, just squad stock and default skins.
I've also been through my skin archives and I can't find any Noop 23 'ace' skins.
I think there were no Noop 23 aces to be skinned therefore that's why the select screen only shows default skin as the option,

Mike

It should still show the squadron skins.

Squad default/stock skins on my WOFF PE 5.01 show and can be selected and are visible - in QC anyway - not tried campaign,

Mike

Remember that PE is an expansion of UE (i.e. you can't install PE without first having had WOFF UE). So, I'd first check to see if it shows up in your UE install with skin pack/skin MOD, then install the PE expansion.

Thanks, so it's not the 5.01... Does anyone know in what file the prefix/label for the skin is defined?

Nothing that you can modify I believe.

Yes indeed. Problem is it shows up for some people but not for all.
Which leads to the big question of “Why?”

Especially if it's something the user can't modify...

Duke and mvp7, if you're up to trying to find out why, then attempt to uninstall and reinstall WOFF UE as I mentioned above, then check if you can see it there. WOFF PE doesn't remove skins, it's an expansion on top of WOFF UE. If you can see it in WOFF UE, then there is no apparent reason WOFF PE won't have it as well. That is my understanding.

I just did a reinstall a few days ago so, since I don’t fly French, I’ll stand pat for now.
This chafes my OCD nature but I can wait till OBD voices there opinion or thoughts on this.
Thanks though!

When PE was released I started over from scratch with a proper uninstall/reinstall of UE and then PE, updated to 5.01.

The skins folder within the game has several skins for the 23-Lewis and just plain 23 (which must mean Vickers). But they are unavailable in any dropdown list within the game.

And here's another oddity - in QC I can select a Nieuport 23 but the Nieuport 23-Lewis option isn't even included in the list of aircraft.

I agree that there must be a problem, but what I'm trying to say is if you have time or interest to find out if the problem is from your side or the sim's side, then check your WOFF UE first before upgrading to PE and make sure you can see the skins in WOFF UE. If not, then I guess you'll just need to wait until the devs weigh in on this issue as Duke has mentioned.

Edit: I know how frustrating it must be not knowing the cause because I had to go through at least 3 complete installs of WOFF PE until I could solve my crash to desktop problem which is even worse than missing skins. And before that, I had to uninstall and reinstall WOFF UE several times whenever I had major issues with it. That's just the nature of software.

If you are going into QC with a French pilot you can't see the Lewis version. Not sure if that's intended but you should see it with a British pilot.

Good point. With a British pilot in QC I can select the Lewis model plane and it's various skin options are selectable.


However, the problem with the "regular" 23 skins remains. I reinstalled UE. This is stock WOFF - no mods. I did a fresh download of the skins pack (just in case) and installed that. I noticed that it has skins for the 23-Lewis model only - no skins for the regular 23 model. Then I installed all of the additional skins that Sandbagger released a couple of years ago (now on the mods website). Now the skins folder in the game contains 49 skins for the regular Nieuport 23. However, they don't appear in the dropdown list in either campaign or QC. So this issue is not related to PE.

Time to move on as far as I'm concerned. It would be nice to be able to use these skins but it's not important and I don't fly French very often anyway.

Hopefully we can get a response from OBD indicating acknowledgement and it’ll be in the next patch.

Yes! Once again JJJ65 proves to be a wizard.

By changing the skin names from ...NieuportN23...to ...Nieuport23...the skins become available in the dropdown lists.

Thank you.

Makes perfect sense I suppose. Suspected here but dismissed (at least by me) as improbable for reasons mentioned in my last paragraph.
But why the change from UE to PE? Or was this a problem in UE too and no one noticed?

And I hate to keep bringing it up but if the WOFF.exe is not recognizing (or attaching) skins named like that and assigning them to the 23 in-game why are only some people having this problem??? Shouldn’t it be affecting everyone? And if not why not? What is the real problem? And what else is being effected?

It's not related to PE. I just reinstalled today and experienced this issue in UE.

Perhaps it wasn't noticed. It's from a fairly recent addition. It wasn't an issue with the original main skins pack since that has no 23 skins (other than the Lewis model). It's from the additional skins that Sandbagger released within the last couple of years. Perhaps some people figured it out and edited their own file names.

Glad that the issue was discovered by JJJ.

Well, that was surprising reason. Is there really only one single default skin for Nieuport 23 in the vanilla WOFF? Thanks to everyone for helping. I guess some people had fixed their filenames and forgotten about it or something .

The reason is less nefarious than what you may think. There were 2 packs issued. One has that extra 'N'. Simples.

Ahhh....
N23 skins being the good one then.
Since I download all skin packs I must have that one stored unless I thought Noop was the “updated” version and deleted the “old” (good) one to avoid confusion.

That explains it. Could you tell where that second N23 pack is from? It's not on Sandbaggers mod site is it?

And thanks for your discovery Fullofit.
Bit WOFF OCD and don’t like unexplained mystery issues!


EDIT: Now I wonder if the Noop 17 skins are properly named. Got some investigating to do.

Unfortunately my memory doesn't reach that far. It could have been from a hooker on the corner. Who knows?

Is some kind soul going to upload the “N23 Skins.zip” to Sandbagger for all to enjoy?
I checked and I don’t have it. Did delete the Noop file though while I was in there.

Hi all,
A French Noop 23 skins pack (49 Esc defaults) was created February 2018 is available at the 'User mods page'.
The naming of the files does have the 'N'.
The README states ' The Nieuport 23 may not show in-game yet as the game data files may need updating to include it (for in a future update).

http://www.thatoneplease.co/UpdatedskinsWOFF.html

Mike

BTW: The statement on the download box 'Introduces new or corrected skins' was probably copied from another box on that page. I don't believe there were any Noop 23's before this.

Duke:
Mine did not show either, so I took all the French Nieuport 17_1917 Squadron skins (not 1916 skins), copied them, renamed them to Nieuport 23 (using the same Nieuport 17 name convention) and they now show up in QC and Campaigns.

Since the French used the same Squadron symbol from the Nieuport 17, to SPAD VII (with the in between Nieuport 23 nothing more than an up-engined Nieuport 17), it follows that the Squadron symbol would be the same.

Thanks PR. I will certainly take a peek as it sounds like a perfect rainy day project.
In fact, as part of my OCD, I may recreate the stock Skin folder and only add what I know are working (called up by the game) and historical. Wish some of the mods were a little more clear if the WOFF.exe calls them up.

It took less than 10 minutes to make the fix.

Just for the record the correct naming is without the "N" before the 23. The aircraft textures folder will usually give a clue, but they do not have always off_ in front.

If you simply rename one of the 23_Lewis skins by just deleting the "_Lewis" off a name it shows in the QC list

Changing datafiles would unfortunately break many things including squads, aircraft etc.