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Author
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Topic: Fokker DR1a / OPS bug?
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Sv
Pilot
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posted 03-01- 07:54 PM
   
The WWI guys know this, but for anyone else who may be able to help me:My Fokker DVIII is very sad  It works perfect, all except the AI won't touch it. They don't even start the engine. After about 8 hours of testing old versions of my DVIII and testing the original Parsoft Fokker Dr1A I have discovered the problem area: It is a problem with the original Fokker DR1a and/or OPS. If you delete any 2 pairs of wings off of the triplane, the AI will no longer fly it! Examples: All wings = AI will fly
2 top, no middle, 2 bottom = AI will fly
2 top, 2 middle, no bottom = AI will fly
No top, 2 middle, 2 bottom = AI will fly
2 top, 1 middle, no bottom = AI will NOT fly
2 top, no middle, 1 bottom = AI will NOT fly
no wings = AI will NOT fly This includes setting the aircLeftWing/etc. stuff to match what wings are there each time. I have no idea why this happens. My only guess: part/group hierarchy? OPS bug? Fokker bug? I may have to base my Fokker DVIII off of the FW190 or something This means starting over, but I do have the basic models saved at least. Does ANYONE have a clue here? Let me know any other details/files you might want... This is a sad thing
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-Sv =FC=
WWI in SDOE!
IP: Logged |
Zoycite
JAG
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posted 03-01- 09:23 PM
Heya,Since the 2 middle wings have been removed we think that they arnt there, but the leftover references to them remain, so the AI thinks the plane is damaged and will try to land or in your case not fly the plane. The DVII had the same problem. I think it was Michael who brought this to our attention. After removing the references to them, the AI flew the plane with no problem. This problem will also keep the enemy from attacking your plane. Thats one thing I wish OPS could do is remove the left overs from deleted items, via the names trees or something. ------------------
Zoycite {GS}
GUNSLINGERS  visit The War Paint Factory IP: Logged |
charmstar
Pilot
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posted 03-01- 09:40 PM
SV-
The problem isn't the Dr1, and it isn't OPS. I think that its a limitation of SDOE. You'll notice that all planes (I think) have at least two airfoils for each wing (like LeftWing, and WingTipL). Your d8 only has 1 rightwing, and 2 leftwings. I applied my aileron DM "fix" to the d8 by turning the ailerons into their own little airfoils, one for the left wing and one for the right wing, and transferred the aircontrol property to them from the wing. The fix accomplished two things: 1) if you shoot out the ailerons, you can't control roll. 2) the AI will now start the engine and try to take off, since it has enough wings declared to keep it happy.If you'd like, I'll email you the .sm with the change. charm IP: Logged |
Sv
Pilot
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posted 03-02- 05:41 AM
Zoycite,Like I said, I removed ALL references each time I removed a wing. I even searched teh entire .asc file each time to check for any hidden references. SO that is not the issue. Charm, If you are correct then this is a key issue! I could easily update the Fokker DVIII to make use of 4 wing sections instead of just left and right. BUT, I did not read anywhere in the OpenPlane Doc that this is the case. So... is this an OpenPlane bug? IT sounds like it might be, or at least an undocumented spec. I will re-build the DVIII wing to be in seperate pieces. We'll see how this works... Thanks all! -Sv IP: Logged |
Sv
Pilot
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posted 03-02- 07:16 PM
Ok. This is now fixed  You were right Charm!WARNING: It appears that ALL OpenPlane aircraft must have at least four wing parts! Two on each side. Any less and the AI will give up from the start - not even start the engine. I will post the update soon. Thanks for all the help guys! I couldn't have fixed it without you! -Sv IP: Logged |
charmstar
Pilot
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posted 03-02- 11:07 PM
SV-
I noticed in your patch to the dviii you chose to split the wings up into inner and outer wings. I'm curious why you didn't split them up into wing and aileron? Does the latter way screw up the flight model somehow? I've been converting all of my offline planes to use the aileron as its own airfoil due to the improved DM that results. However, now you have me worried that this is causing the FM to be messed up. What were your findings/reasoning for doing it the way you did?cheers,
charm IP: Logged |
Sv
Pilot
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posted 03-03- 07:30 AM
charmstar,I feel that the aileron fix is just too much of a hack for me to use now. It will make the plane code harder to maintain and edit in the future. I really think this needs to be addressed my MH in code. It would be a much simpler code fix than plane update. I appluad you doing this though and think it WILL work very well! I just decided a while ago not to try and work around "not yet implemented OpenPlane feaures" using tricks. I only have so much time, and I like to concentrate on what can be done rather on what can't. There are so many cool things I can add to my aircraft that I have not yet, why take the time to fight the system? Howerver if you feel it is a big issue that bothers you (and many feel this way) I say go for it! One note about the next DVIII version: If you manage to shoot the outer wing off of the DVIII, it will detach AND render the opposite wing's aileron useless! How? When one wing detaches, it will hide and detach the opposite wing. Then it will also show a hidden model that is the wing with no airfoil properties. So when you shoot off the left wing tip, the FM effect is this: Less lift on the both sides, BUT there will be no aileron control. At least this is my latest idea, what do you think? -Sv IP: Logged |
charmstar
Pilot
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posted 03-04- 05:39 PM
SV-
I've got to say, I'm loving your DVIII, regardless of what the DM is like, it is quite a beautiful plane :-) Also, your idea about detaching the opposite wing is intriguing... Maybe you could extend the logic even farther by making the outer wing only the very tip, around the aileron. Then if it gets detached it would jsut take the aileron with it, and you wouldn't lose too much wing surface! But I guess this is just basically getting back to the original idea of treating the aileron as its own airfoil, but adds extra models/work to the mix :-( I'm wondering though, what is more difficult to maintain about making the aileron its own airfoil? This is what I've done for the BleriotXI I'm working on, since that plane didn't even have a normal aileron, but used the wing warping system instead (so the whole wing is the aileron in effect). This seems like the cleanest and most accurate way to implement the FM/DM, but are you suggesting that it might be better to create ailerons, like on all other planes in the game, and then just make them invisible? I mean, especially since DM isn't really an issue for the Bleriot, it would make sense to use the most easily maintainable format for plane building. It's just that I don't see what the difference is in terms of maintenance. Do you mean that MH should just modify SDOE/Openplane by adding a new property like obDisable, which would render a particular control surface unusable? Or, were you thinking that there would be code which would automatically kill the aileron control property/DOF when the aileron is detached? Also, how would SDOE know how much of the aileron area from that side should be detached? I guess it would get this info from the dimensions of the Inertia box bounding that aileron?Well, I suppose that I should get my plane in line with standards, but I want to know why those standards are the way they are first :-) charm IP: Logged |
Sv
Pilot
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posted 03-04- 10:04 PM
Charm,Glad you like the DVIII - still a ways to go though... Here goes my take, I could be wrong though - if I am I'm sure TS will let me know  You must remember that the aileron does not just work by defelcting air, it changes the lift/drag charectaristics of the the wing. The way OpenPlane models this now is like this: Meassure the wing in a wind tunnel to get the lift, drag, and moment coef for each AOA. Now do the same thing with the aileron fully up. Now fully down. These are the three aifoils charts OpenPlane needs to create an airoil. Now in the game, the AOA and aileron deflection are known. Use AOA to find the right part of the chart. Now interpolate a value between the normal and fully up/down airfoil values depending on what percentage of aileron deflection there is. Now use these coef's in the lift/drag equation OF THE WING. So the coef's will be used with airspeed, air density, surface area, aspect ratio, chord length, oslwald eff. number, etc. to determine the final lift/drag/moment forces. So if you make the aileron it's own airfoil, it undermines this process. That is why I don't use it. I think there should be an airObjectDisable property, maybe even take a percentage to disable. Or maybe just have the aileron's effectiveness relate directly to it's current damage level. Still, you cna hack it to work the way you have, and I don't think it is evil or anything LOL. I might even be wrong and what you are doing is just fine. I find I am 100% correct about 25% of the time, and 50% correct about 50% of the time. The rest of the time I am full of crap -Sv IP: Logged | |
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