Kuban Autumn Nth Africa Desert Beta upload - Updated version to 8. 10-01-2023

[Stonehouse]

@DD_Friar I just noticed over in the Historically Accurate Skins mod thread that Milktoast has advised that stock skins have moved about a bit. Rob did a lot of work switching around defaults skins with this Kuban Tunisia you didn't have to worry about skins showing non desert skins. So, this may need him to patch the skins if 5.001 has impacted things. Not sure if this is important to you but thought I'd mention it. No idea of how much free time Rob has at present so no idea when a patch for this mod might get generated.

[DD_Friar]

@Stonehouse Thanks for the heads up. I will check that thread out.

[Off_Winters]

On 9/9/2022 at 3:11 PM, DD_Friar said:

@Stonehouse Thanks for the heads up. I will check that thread out.

Hi DD_Friar,

I'll double check the impact of latest patch and release a small patch soon. There should be no impact on your missions from anything I change in the future.

regards Rob.

[Off_Winters]

On 9/9/2022 at 4:23 AM, Stonehouse said:

@DD_Friar I just noticed over in the Historically Accurate Skins mod thread that Milktoast has advised that stock skins have moved about a bit. Rob did a lot of work switching around defaults skins with this Kuban Tunisia you didn't have to worry about skins showing non desert skins. So, this may need him to patch the skins if 5.001 has impacted things. Not sure if this is important to you but thought I'd mention it. No idea of how much free time Rob has at present so no idea when a patch for this mod might get generated.

Hi All,

The recent official game patch 5001 has impacted the aircraft skin selections as outlined by Stonehouse above. this means some of the work I did replacing stock skins with desert schemed skins will need to be amended. a lot of rework in the skins.tab file, renaming of textures to suit, additional default skins for the new "Blank" skins option in a lot of the aircraft and in game menu preview pictures to be fixed.

So far in game other than the skins/menu images issue above I have not seen anything else that seems to be broken.

Two weeks

regards Rob.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Off_Winters

[DD_Friar]

@Off_Winters

Salute

 

Is there anything I can do to help?

[Off_Winters]

G'day All,

just an update, the work on resorting the skins is complete, and I have been able to add in a few more skins here and there as more slots were added for some aircraft with the recent update. I'll be adding in a few more as well. The Dev's have actually put in a few default Desert skins for some planes, thanks very much

Now working through ground objects and checking file names have not changed and fixing were they have. I will take the time to replace more Russian vehicles/artillery/ships etc with British and US options.

Also taken the time to revamp some of the load screens and other UI images. 

just thought some would like an update on work.

regards Rob.

example, the extra P40 blank skin slots that have been added, I've been able to repurpose into extra default camo and marking slots, and the same with a few others, Spitfire Mk.V and MK.IX's I've been able to do a few more textures for both blank code skins and replacement historical skins.

[Mtnbiker1998]

Looking good! Very excited to see the next iteration of this mod.

 

based on the 5.002 teaser, it sounds like we're gonna get even more blank default skins in the next update, so it may be wise to hold off on more skin work until we see whats coming

[Off_Winters]

G'day all,

A little bit more progress, Russian AA gun models replaced with British Bofors 40mm AA, and British uniforms changed to Khaki Drill cotton pants and sand painted helmets.

regards Rob.

[Stonehouse]

If people's guesses about Sicily 43 for the next module are right, then I think you might see a boost in downloads for this lol.

[pjmack11377]

The mossey was in north Africa according to my research, since 1943.

 

[Stonehouse]

Very nice skin as always!

They were I agree. 23 SQD RAF flying out of Malta doing night intruder missions and 60 SQD SAAF which was a light bomber squadron using Baltimores and Mosquitos and later on 5 SQD SAAF. Think 23 SQD was Mk IIs at least to start with though. Considering today's patch do you have a generic version too?

[Off_Winters]

G'day All,

Well the latest patch has remixed and added skins, so I'm back to sorting out aircraft textures, but at least its not as many this time. and the latest patch has added more allied models to replace various Russian models with, so thats a bonus.

regards Rob.

[Stonehouse]

8 hours ago, Off_Winters said:

G'day All,

Well the latest patch has remixed and added skins, so I'm back to sorting out aircraft textures, but at least its not as many this time. and the latest patch has added more allied models to replace various Russian models with, so thats a bonus.

regards Rob.

 

I've been doing some looking around at how the skins work now in case it helps with PWCG. I think the basic rules are the official default skin and the official skins with the word blank in the file name are able to accept tactical codes. The official skins without the word blank in the file name are not and the GUI in game changes and stops you entering codes. Custom skins can always accept tactical codes. If the codes are unpopulated, then the skin appears as is and the default colour for codes is black.

 

From a professional point of view the idea of the "blank" string thing as a control for the GUI change makes me uncomfortable and I would probably have expected something in skins.tab.xxx to control things but I can't tell if this is the case. My point being Rob is you edit skins.tab so possibly you might have interesting things happen.

 

<edit> The other control that occurs to me just now is simply the gtp source ie tactical codes skins are default and those from camoN.gtp and custom skins. Anything from skinsN.gtp are not tactical code enabled. If this latter is true, then likely it won't cause you grief.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Stonehouse

[Stonehouse]

Been mucking around with skins.tab.eng and the control is not the string "blank" in the file name even though from our viewpoint that is the only distinguishing feature we can see. I added a custom skin to skins.tab.eng with name P40e1_blank_10.dds with all the correct details except the hex number. I suspect this is a unique id assigned to official skins but don't know how it is generated. Anyway, the custom skin appeared in the Official skin list in QMB and allowed me to enter tactical codes so "blank" string control neither proved or disproved at this point. Repeated the exercise, this time the skin was named P40e1_skin_12.dds. If "blank" was the control, then I should not be able to enter tac codes. This was not the case however and I was still able to enter tactical codes.  

 

So, at this point I believe the "blank" string is just for the dev teams' convenience so they can look at a list of skin file names and easily know what to expect. 

 

Looking further afield I found what I was looking for. An explicit control for whether a skin has access to tactical codes or not. If you look in the planes folder in swf\il2\worldobjects and locate the correct folder for your plane and look in the info.txt file, you can see what determines access for a skin to tac codes.

 

If denyTaccode = 1 then the skin cannot access tac codes in aircraft setup. I think the country code is also a new thing but can't be sure. This may also be useful to you.

 

Spoiler

&paintSchemes=
unlockId,    id,                country,    denyTaccode|
1,    p40e1/p40e1_blank_01.dds,    101|
2,    p40e1/p40e1_blank_02.dds,    101|
3,    p40e1/p40e1_blank_03.dds,    101|
4,    p40e1/p40e1_blank_04.dds,    101|
5,    p40e1/p40e1_blank_05.dds,    103|
6,    p40e1/p40e1_blank_06.dds,    103|
7,    p40e1/p40e1_blank_07.dds,    103|
8,    p40e1/p40e1_blank_08.dds,    102|
9,    p40e1/p40e1_blank_09.dds,    102|
10,    p40e1/p40e1_skin_02.dds,        101,    1|
11,    p40e1/p40e1_skin_03.dds,        102,    1|
12,    p40e1/p40e1_skin_06.dds,        103,    1|
13,    p40e1/p40e1_skin_07.dds,        102,    1|
14,    p40e1/p40e1_skin_08.dds,        103,    1|
15,    p40e1/p40e1_skin_09.dds,        101,    1|
16,    p40e1/p40e1_skin_10.dds,        103,    1|
17,    p40e1/p40e1_skin_11.dds,        103,    1|

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Stonehouse

[Off_Winters]

12 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

 

If denyTaccode = 1 then the skin cannot access tac codes in aircraft setup. I think the country code is also a new thing but can't be sure. This may also be useful to you.

 

G'day Scott,
thanks mate for fishing around and giving pointers on what controls what. some of your finding I knew about, but others I did not,, so have gained some good info.

the country codes in the text files located in each plane folder are a good tool for controlling which pilot model and Tac-code sets are used. I shy'd away from editing the text files in each aircraft as it would be a large amount of work to redo with each game update. My Pilot model switching Mod was easier to implement to get British or American pilots into aircraft that defaulted to Russian pilot models.

And its the same principle for the mod I just made to remove tac-codes in game. For the Desert Mod there will be custom skins taking the place of stock official skins so tac-codes applied by player wont be necessary. 

But reading your other thread it looks like the dev's are also working towards having custom skins display without tac-codes. but because I'm replacing official skins with custom skins and revised historical content in the descriptions I'll use the tac-code removal mod to ensure the skins in game are displayed correctly.

regards Rob. 

[DD_Friar]

Salute @Off_Winters,

 

I would ask that if at all possible, when considering using country codes to assign skins etc you include 03 as Allied and 04 as Axis. In a campaign I am designing, as I am still not aware of a Great Britain flag to use on the flag pole, (it is just not right to use the Soviet flag raised for an Allied capture in North Africa or Normandy come to that!) I currently have Allied forces as Entente (country code 03 on the flag pole) to get a Green flag and Axis forces as Central Powers (04 on the flag pole) to get a Blue flag.

 

Many thanks for the work you are doing on this mod.

 

Cheers

 

Friar

[Off_Winters]

11 minutes ago, DD_Friar said:

Salute @Off_Winters,

 

I would ask that if at all possible, when considering using country codes to assign skins etc you include 03 as Allied and 04 as Axis. In a campaign I am designing, as I am still not aware of a Great Britain flag to use on the flag pole, (it is just not right to use the Soviet flag raised for an Allied capture in North Africa or Normandy come to that!) I currently have Allied forces as Entente (country code 03 on the flag pole) to get a Green flag and Axis forces as Central Powers (04 on the flag pole) to get a Blue flag.

 

Many thanks for the work you are doing on this mod.

 

Cheers

 

Friar

G'day Friar,

I'm not editing country codes in any of the text files at this stage. in the Desert mod I have repainted the Russian flag to a Union Jack, so if you use the default Russian value you should see a British flag displayed whilst using the Desert Mod.

regards Rob.

[DD_Friar]

@Off_Winters

Salute Sir,

 

Was that already in the mod or have you just done it? If it was always there...doh! I didn't think to check before assigning all my units across multiple spawn points to the 3 and 4 values grrr......

 

If you have just done it. Thank you and I look forward to the next realease

[Off_Winters]

7 hours ago, DD_Friar said:

@Off_Winters

Salute Sir,

 

Was that already in the mod or have you just done it? If it was always there...doh! I didn't think to check before assigning all my units across multiple spawn points to the 3 and 4 values grrr......

 

If you have just done it. Thank you and I look forward to the next realease

G'day Friar,

The flag change was already in the Desert Mod, but having said that would be helpful if I changed the green flag to a USA one (or even a half - half USA British?), and blue flag to another German flag type (or even a half - half German Italian)?

regards Rob. 

[DD_Friar]

Salute @Off_Winters

 

No, I would not want you to do any special changes, I will keep the blue and green for now. I may look into doing a global change via wordpad++ or similar, but thank you anyway for the offer.

 

Cheers

DD_Friar

[Off_Winters]

G'day All,

Still working on aircraft skin sorting after last update, almost there. and have taken a bit more time to make extra skins to fill in some of the extra slots now available. Have several new skins for the P40, Hurricane, Spitfire V-IX's, Bf109's, Fw190's, He111's & Bf110's.

Its taken a bit more time to sort the aircraft skins second time round then I thought it would, but almost done.

One of the new MkIX's, Lt. Dave Hastie, 1 Squadron, SAAF, Goubrine air strip, Tunisia April 1943. Just below the windshield on the left is written 'Billy Boy II' in cursive writing. Apparently, the OC used to call his pilots 'Jou biellie' (Which means - You're a stalwart, in Afrikaans) over the radio if they had done something exceptional. The RAF pilots started calling them 'Billy Boys'. However, the SAAF pilots were kind of proud of this and Billy Boy appeared on many of the squadron aircraft.

regards Rob.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Off_Winters
spelling

[Off_Winters]

G'Day All,

New Mk.V Spitfire, 92 Squadron. F/L. Neville Duke. Highest scoring allied pilot in MTO with 27 confirmed victories at the age of 22.

regards Rob.

[esk_pedja]

Hey Aussie,

Could you simply - trough black alpha channel in grass files, remove it ...and simply leave the sand desert ? ( or shorten it 50% )  

[Off_Winters]

16 hours ago, esk_pedja said:

Hey Aussie,

Could you simply - trough black alpha channel in grass files, remove it ...and simply leave the sand desert ? ( or shorten it 50% )  

G'day EP,

Yes mate that could be done. let me get my next update out and I will revisit the grass files and send them through to you for comment.

 

regards Rob.

[esk_pedja]

Don't get me wrong... don't want to get involved.

I am not using your desert mod (have my own - that I don't use) as I am focused on Normandy, Velikie Luki,...etc

It was only hypothetical question... as I assume that total black "alpha" instantly makes a desert!

 

[Off_Winters]

More Mk.V and Mk.IX Spitfires.

[Off_Winters]

G'day all,

working on replacing German Flak crew uniform with DAK themed uniform.

regards Rob

Edited October 27, 2022 by Off_Winters

[moustache]

Hello @Off_Winters, I'm sorry, I have a little problem with your mod: AA defense cannons are invulnerable

 

[Off_Winters]

8 hours ago, moustache said:

Hello @Off_Winters, I'm sorry, I have a little problem with your mod: AA defense cannons are invulnerable

G'day moustache,

Thanks for pointing that out, I found the issue. I had to change the trigger for the "object=0" name from:
Name="collision_00" to Name="collision" in the 52k.col file.

I rechecked the other canons and AA guns in the MOD and appended new data where required. I have the various guns able to be destroyed again. 

regards Rob.

[Off_Winters]

A little more work on Flak crew uniform.


original texture sheet



revised texture sheet

Edited October 28, 2022 by Off_Winters

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Just downloaded the Kuban autumn 1943 desert beta 7 missions, what needs to be installed first into my JSGME activated panel to get this all to work

 

Cheers

[Off_Winters]

1 hour ago, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

Just downloaded the Kuban autumn 1943 desert beta 7 missions, what needs to be installed first into my JSGME activated panel to get this all to work

 

Cheers

G'day Taffy,

To get the main  Kuban autumn 1943 desert beta 7 mod to work just install it with JSGME. there is no prerequisite files required.

Then to get the included missions to work install that folder with JSGME as well.

However, the missions will need to be resaved in the mission editor, as with each official game update all 3rd party missions cease to work until they have been resaved. If you open the mission editor and look across the top of the screen for the tab that say tools, then select the resave missions in a folder option. a small window will open, navigate to the folder that has the desert missions in it, then hit save. it will take several minutes. once saved close the mission editor and reload the mission files with JSGME and you should be good to go.

the missions will be included with the next update of the mod (V8) to work with current game version.

Version 7 of the Desert mod, still works but you will see some minor anomalies with skins, and damage models of some ground units as the most recent game update changed the names of a lot of files. I have corrected most thus far and will release update soonish.. 

regards Rob.

Edited October 30, 2022 by Off_Winters
spelling

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Thanks very much for the info

[DD_Friar]

Salute @Off_Winters

Sir, we had a bit of a funny with our co-ops tonight which we ran with your mod.

 

Have you any experience of the F2 function (external view) not working when your mod is applied to the Kuban map?

 

We later moved on to Normandy, and the majority of us had NOT de-installed the mod and the external view F2 was back correctly working.

 

Regards

Friar

 

 

[Off_Winters]

9 hours ago, DD_Friar said:

Salute @Off_Winters

Sir, we had a bit of a funny with our co-ops tonight which we ran with your mod.

 

Have you any experience of the F2 function (external view) not working when your mod is applied to the Kuban map?

 

We later moved on to Normandy, and the majority of us had NOT de-installed the mod and the external view F2 was back correctly working.

 

Regards

Friar

 

 

G'day Friar,

no mate I have not seen that happen, I use the F2 function all the time in both single and multiplayer. is it possible that the mission file or server setup used in the Kuban map had some sort of filter applied limiting some external view functions?

I'm traveling for next 36hrs, but once home I'll double check and let you know how I went.

regards Rob. 

[jollyjack]

On 3/8/2021 at 12:26 AM, Stonehouse said:

Rob suggested I should post up something about how the renaming of the map locations is going.

 

Just some background first though, I spent a lot of time trying to find a section of Nth African coastline that (a) matched up roughly to what we see in the Kuban map and (b) corresponded to an area of WW2 interest. Not surprisingly I guess I didn't have much success until I realised that if I rotated a jpg of Kuban somewhat I got roughly close to the coastline of Tunisia giving me an approximation of the region running from Djerba to Tunis, although it doesn't have the Cap Bon peninsula plus some other features. It did seem close enough however to try to give renaming locations a go with the aim of ending up with a usable faux Tunisian Campaign map. This was about Nov 2020.

 

Move forward through about 3 months of looking at normal and sat maps on the internet and looking at ww2 history and using the editor to look at terrain (finding a Kasserine location that gave something like both the terrain features and strategic reqs as well as being roughly right in relationship to other locations was a real pain) resulting in the final draft map below. Apologies for the way it looks I am not a graphics tool user really and pretty much worked in Paint adding names to my WIP pic and keeping track in a spreadsheet.

 

As you can see it is rotated compared to the in game map. I worked with it like this because it made it easier for me to compare it to the real world location. There definitely are compromises in what you see below and even though my aim was to try to keep the spacial relationship between locations roughly correct there were times when it just wasn't possible. Particularly the inland locations were difficult to manage. After all - it is Kuban flipped not Tunisia.

 

So happy to hear constructive comments and feedback but do realise that it has taken 3-4 months of work to get to this point and that at best it will only ever be an approximation of Tunisia. Therefore, while I tried to keep locations which were important to history, some didn't make it or are not quite where perhaps they should be in reality. Airfields are particularly not historically correct as quite a few were just temporary LGs in the real world and I only had the locations available already in the Kuban map.

 

Anyway, obviously in game we will see the non rotated map, this will mean mission builders need to translate history a bit so that N & NE (the Allies main directions of movement, Mareth to Tunis and from Algeria to Tunis)  becomes S & SE in game, please keep this in mind when looking at the attached. Hopefully people generally like what they see and are looking forward to doing missions over Tunisia.

 

Cheers,

Stonehouse

 

PS - you may need to click on the image to get past the thumbnail and then save it and view it outside the forum to be able to zoom in and read names. 

 

Stonehouse, have you maybe got your map somewhere in a higher resolution for download? thnx.

[Stonehouse]

2 hours ago, jollyjack said:

 

Stonehouse, have you maybe got your map somewhere in a higher resolution for download? thnx.

I've only got a final draft not the final release version, so it doesn't include everything that Rob and I discussed via excel spreadsheet mapping Kuban locations to Tunisian locations. I can probably put together something when I have time if Rob doesn't have something already. My copy was way too large to upload here so I'd have to organise a suitable place to upload it. Once we got through the place names side of things my main focus was the order of battle and frontline positions over time so Pat would have something tangible to work with for PWCG.

[jollyjack]

it's not urgent anyway, was just curious on the relocated villages and their original RL situation.

[Mysticpuma]

Such a great mod

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by Mysticpuma

[moustache]

and they come...