Zephyr Net

Hey guys. I'm starting to make my own set of missions and I want to alter the loadouts of the aircraft in my missions (that is, aircraft other than the player's). What would be the best program to do so and at the same time be user friendly? (I'm kinda new at this )

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-If you want to kick the tiger in the ass, you'd better have a plan for dealing with his teeth-Jack Ryan Jr.

The FA Mission Extender can do that and it's an easy to use tool. It comes with a variety of loadouts for different mission profiles for most of the aircraft in FA, but you can create your own loadouts, too. Apart from that there is only the text editor.

Whichever tool you use make sure that your mission is in a final state before you change loadouts (and make sure to save a backup of it before you add any loadout), since opening the mission and saving it in the Pro Mission Editor will cause a CTD and corrupt the mission file.

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I used Textpad. I find it to be the best.

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Centurian

OK i've got both programs. I just need to know where and how to alter my specific aircraft's weapon loads (i.e. the ones in my missions). I'm not sure if this causes any porblems, but I'm using JKP 4.55 for my mission objects. How exactly do you change the loadouts of aircraft in missions? (I have opened one mission with textpad but i dont know where to alter the weapon loads).

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-If you want to kick the tiger in the ass, you'd better have a plan for dealing with his teeth-Jack Ryan Jr.

The FA Mission Extender is by default NOT configured for any libs. If you want to make loadouts for a lib it's easier to write them in a text editor except if you are planning so many missions that changing the FAME is less work.

There is a help file somewhere which describes it, but basically it comes down to adding lines of this type to the section of an aircraft (or any unit):

hardpoint [No] [Qty] [weapon]

with:
[No] the number of the hardpoint (starting with 0, but on most planes the weapons start at 3 or 4, because the first hardpoints are for radar, ECM, ...)

[Qty] quantity of the weapon

[weapon] name of the weapon file in FA or in the lib respectively

e.g. adding the lines
hardpoint 5 1 ALE40.ECM
hardpoint 6 2 AA11.JT
hardpoint 7 4 RBK500.JT
hardpoint 8 4 AS14.JT
to an SU25 object section would make that plane keep all sensors and its gun and replace the rest of the weapons with
1 chaff/flare pod
2 AA11s
4 Cluster bombs and
4 AS-14s

In the same way the following line will cause an Mi24 to carry 6 Mavericks instead of it AT-2 (or whatever it carries by default)
hardpoint 2 6 AGM65G.JT
So you see it's possible to create loadouts, which are not possible to load manually in FA.

If you create "invalid" loadouts like this one make sure that you turn off the arming screen, as FA will modify invalid loadouts of player planes (AI will keep its invalid loadouts). Don't load too much though, even if FA will accept any loadout you will have to cope with the weight of all the ordnance.

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Just remember if you want to have nothing loaded it's this:

hardpoint 1 0

you don't include the filename or else it's going to hate you.

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Centurian

ok i understand how to change loadouts but still cant find where to do it. I want to change loadouts for each mission, as the aircraft have different objectives. (i.e. i want to have a bunch of MiG-23BNs attack a carrier, but their default loadout is more for ground attack, while i want to change it for ship attack). So basically which file do i open and where in it can i change the loadouts?

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-If you want to kick the tiger in the ass, you'd better have a plan for dealing with his teeth-Jack Ryan Jr.

the m file and just follow what tank said

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Centurian

exactly. If your mission is called "mission" then you'll have a "mission.m" file in your FA directory. In that file look for:

obj
MIG23.PT

or something like that (planes often have different filenames in libs, just as weapons do). If a lib is importable you can look at the objects in the Toolkit to find out their filenames.

If I remember correctly there is also a way to change the amount of fuel at takeoff.

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oh ho ho! so thats how! yeah i have the aircaft, so i just type in e.g. hardpoint 4 2 AS-7.JT sorta thing right? I guess it doesn't really matter where i type the harpoint thing in, i hope.

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-If you want to kick the tiger in the ass, you'd better have a plan for dealing with his teeth-Jack Ryan Jr.

You need to hit the right filename. AS7.JT and make sure its all in CAPS.

you can't do like as7.jt it needs to be AS7.JT

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Centurian

Of course it goes without saying that you have to email me a copy of that mission when it's ready.

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Is there a way to give an AI plane unlimited fuel without it crashing due to the weight?

im having problems with planes running out of gas in some of the missions im making, and this would be a good solution.

fuel xx

for xx you put the #

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Centurian

I was thinking of that, too, but can you actually give them more fuel than 100%?

Additionally there is this mysterious "refuel" command, however nobody knows how it works.

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