Adding Bombardier Positions to Other CFS3 Aircraft

The latest Air Battle game from Microsoft! Running on an entirely new platform, CFS3 is raising it's fair share of problems & opinions - Good & Bad!

Adding Bombardier Positions to Other CFS3 Aircraft

Postby GooseGoose » Mon Jul 14, 2003 12:20 am

Hello.

I've been trying like mad to add bombardier positions to the other stock CFS3 aircraft that do not have them (but should): B-25H, B-25J, Ju88-C, and the Ju88-P.  It seems tragic that these planes cannot also do accurate level bombing when neccessary.
I realize these later-model versions have massive cannon and machine gun armament in the nose that, in real life, actually prevented bombsites from being installed.  In my humble opinion, however, I think 1940's optics technology was advanced enough that they could have found a way.
So far I have been unsuccessful.  I have been trying to add these positions by manipulating the aircraft's XDP file (see picture below).  Changing these files is also a great way to add more useful armaments to aircraft, such as torpedos for Allied fighters!

Image

Now, you can successfully add a bombardier postion to the aircraft by putting in the highlighted line of code above, but when you change to this postion during gameplay, the view is not the bombsite, but one of the machine-gun positions, or some other distorted view from the pilot's perspective... some quite hilarious.  I've tried many different variations of the 'View="3"' line, but no luck.

Any suggestions?  Has anyone successfully accomplished this, or even tried?  It's my feeling that because the aircraft model itself does not have a glass, and therefore transparent nose, it may be impossible.

My apologies if this post should actually be in one of the aircraft design forums.

All the best.
Alienware Area 51
Pentium IV 3.2gHz
240GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 HD
2.0GB ddr SDRAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB
Windows XP Pro

...and CFS3 still stutters!
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Re: Adding Bombardier Positions to Other CFS3 Airc

Postby Mathias » Mon Jul 14, 2003 4:23 am

You would need a bombsight m3d named according the aircraft m3d.
The "view"-part calls the virtual cockpit to be displayed, to be exact it looks for a node "eyepoint*" inside the **cockpit*.m3d files

This should work to make the Ju88a gunstation work in the Ju88P:
make a copy of "ju88a_4_cockpit3.m3d",
rename it to "ju88p_4_cockpit3.m3d"
and put it back into the Ju88 folder.
Add the gunstation to the ju88p_4.xdp just like you
Last edited by Mathias on Mon Jul 14, 2003 4:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Adding Bombardier Positions to Other CFS3 Airc

Postby GooseGoose » Mon Jul 14, 2003 7:01 am

Thank you very much Mathias.  It worked brilliantly.  I never would have guessed that particular solution, nor would I have ever guessed that the bombsites had their own m3d file.

Speaking of m3d's, I tried changing my CFS3 icon to the "-m3dview" target, but I can still not open up m3d files... it says that CFS3 is an invalid application, and so forth.

Anyway, thank you very much!

:)

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Alienware Area 51
Pentium IV 3.2gHz
240GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 HD
2.0GB ddr SDRAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB
Windows XP Pro

...and CFS3 still stutters!
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Re: Adding Bombardier Positions to Other CFS3 Airc

Postby Mathias » Mon Jul 14, 2003 7:28 am

Oh, I should add you will need the 3.1 patch installed off the http://microsoftgamesinsider.com/CFSIns ... t.htm?nc=1 site.
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