posted 12-13- 06:50 PM               

I got all that tutorials I could find from all the various sites,
For my first crack at it I wanted to do something simple,....

A Spitfire Mk IIIa armed with 4 Hispano 20mm Cannons.

I took the .sm file from the spit mk V, used the extractor, changed all the references in the .asc file, except for the texture references since I couldn't get the untiff program to work for some reason (I believe I did this correctly, did search in wordpad 5-6 times to make sure) changed the references in the .ppf file, saved it, and used the builder.

Everything seemed to go smooth, so i fired up OPS, deleted the Machine guns, and though it took me a while to figure out I cut and paste 2 more cannons on the wings. great worked just fine. (Although I still can't figure out how to use the convergence option, the button never became selectable for me.)
Anyway, I would worry about making the 2 new cannons fire later I just wanted to see if the 2 new cannons would appear on the plane in the game first.
So I fired up FSSDOE, good my plane is in the hanger just as planned, hit "Fly",

Didn't crash, this is a good thing. BUT,........

Damn, no cockpit at all!! here i am looking at the whole prop, ok I think I can fix that.

Start the engine...

Damn again, engine doesn't start, shit what causes that???

switch to external view,....

Shitfire, not only do the new cannons NOT show up on the wings, but the origonal pair are gone now also, Now I'm really in over my head. GLUB, GLUB, I'm drowning!!!!

Any Ideas Guys???
Sorry the post is so long but I wanted you to know exactly what I did to get here.

Signing Off,

posted 12-13- 07:05 PM               

The Cockpit Thing
If you changed all of the "spit" references to "spitiii" you will need to rename the spitpit.sm file to spitiiipit.sm

The Texture Thing
You should be able to change the texture references without untiffing, just copy the orginal spit tiff file into the new texture directory (probably "./media/aircraft/spitiii/textures") and rename it to "spitiii.tif" (or what ever) . That way it will be all set up for when you can untiff things.

The Convergence Thing
You need to select the model that owns the gunlist to enable the convergence button. In the spit this exists in the spitpit.sm file in the model called "pilot". So once you fix the above, make sure "Load File Refs" is checked in the OPS options, load the SM file, select the "pilot" model and away you go ( I could be wrong about the gunlist owner being the pilot model, just check for the gunList property in a model around there somewhere)

The Engine and Disappearing Guns Thing
The Engine and Guns are controlled from the pilot position, which is in the cockpit for the spit. No Cockpit, no engine and guns. Unless you set a property in the Gun proplist, a gun will not show up unless it is defined in a active gunlist, and it is in the loadout selected in the MissionEditor. To fix this, get the cockpit working, add the new cannon to the gunList, change the loadout.ppf so that the new cannon are included in a loadout, select this loadout in the mission editor.

If you've got any other questions just fire away.

Bryan

posted 12-13- 07:51 PM               

Signing Off,