What are these numbers?

[Feathered_IV]

So, I had this idea..

 

If I'm flying the new career and I want my individual pilots to each have a unique skin on their aircraft, perhaps I could make or download a set of squadron skins and substitute them for the many inappropriate official skins that we currently have in game. 

 

As unit commander I can currently assign any of the official skins for squad members at the briefing screen.  However the majority of these skins are the freakiest selection of colour schemes from all over the globe, and leave the aircraft looking more like they are dressed for mardi gras than a cohesive and orderly combat unit.

 

There is a skins.tab.eng.txt file which lists every official skin and lets the game distinguish it from any other usermade skin with the same name.  The official ones seem to have some unique numerical value however, and I suspect I'd need to identify the corresponding value for a custom skin to be successfully substituted.  Heres an example below.  The number in question is shown in bold type:

 

  "graphics\Skins\Bf109F4\Bf109F4_skin_01.dds" "2741C38C" "1" "LuaScripts\WorldObjects\Planes\Bf109F4.txt" "White" "Default winter camo (white)."

 

Does anybody know what these are or how they are generated? 

[Pupo]

I suppose It is a Hash of the skin

 

My suspicion is that the game uses Hashes to validate locked content. The way this works is (probably) use some random string contained in one of the DLL's of the game, and combined with any file (think, FMs, DMs, skins, etc...) create a unique hash (such as the one you show). These Unique hashes are stored in the game DLLs. If you try to load a modified content, the hash will no longer match, and the game will throw an error.

 

Currently, with mods on, the game I've only seen the game throw an error if you try to modify plane parameters.

 

So, If my guess is correct you can pretty much forget about generating the correct Hash value. The good news is, if my guess is correct you don't have to worry about that to modify the in-game skins with mods on.

 

 

Edited March 30, 2018 by Pupo

[Feathered_IV]

Hi Pupo, thanks very much for the explanation!

 

It's a shame I can't seem to add more official schemes, but I'll keep trying.  As you say though, it is possible to overwrite the unwanted skins in mods-on mode, so I'll tick with that for now.

Below is a picture of the former Red Five with a new substituted skin...