Solved F/A-18 - Kneeboards blank

[tpetter795]

Hello! A HUGE thankyou too all who have made BMS as amazing as it is!!!

I have been trying to play with the F-18 but I can’t seem to get the kneeboards to show anything. They are always just blank. I haven’t found any other posts regarding this so I hope this isn’t an already well discussed issue.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated!!!

Thank you!

[white_fang]

@tpetter795
Ok, Thanks for cudo’s… but… WHAT F-18? In what Theater?
There at least 10 versions of F18 in BMS - YES, 10 !!!

F-18 in kinda low support in BMS, …
But… you need to talk to this guy @drtbkj … he (they) did custom F18 project so probably solved your case

Cheers

[tpetter795]

@white_fang
Ah yes! Well, it seems to be any of the F/A-18 models and I have been trying in the Korean theater mostly. I also use the Weapons Delivery Planner and have messed with trying to get that to work, but no joy. I went ahead and messaged the individual(s) you suggested so here’s hoping!

Again, the work the BMS team has put into this has been completely fantastic! I’m an older sim duffer who used to play Jane’s games a lot and had been missing them a great deal. Tried Jane’s F/A-18 with no luck at all and then stumbled upon BMS which has been so great haha! So I am very appreciative of the work done!

[white_fang]

@tpetter795
Uhh… Janes F/A18 , I finished both campaigns 20?yrs ago… (God, time flies - literally )…

Running JF/A18 on modern (pc) computer is a miracle… it was designed for 1999 hardware (win/98/xp) with some stupid DX7 implementation, also likes Nvidia more then Ati(amd).
…so I went that far to contact guys who are working gfx “wrappers/emulators” , to run old games on modern pc’s … long story short, limited success in 2 cases…
I managed to run it on Win10 , but wouldn’t call it “working fine”.

Just stick up with BMS - you’ll live longer (less stress)

That your kneeboards are blank, is model is using old legs (pilot model) …iirc, 8019.dds , pilot model got upgraded in 4.36 … and is kinda easy to fix this… but really need to know which F-18 and in which theater - even it does not seem so - Falcon is huge

Cheers

[tpetter795]

@white_fang

Ahhhh, yeah I gave up on the Jane’s F/A-18 completely after discovering BMS.

So, as to the F-18 I’ve been playing around with is the F-18E in the Korea theater. I started digging around and figured it must have to do with the pilot character file. I was trying to see if I might be able to somehow stumble upon a solution but I’m afraid I’m not that savvy haha.

In all honesty though, I was hoping it was more of a “Oh yeah you just need to do this…” scenario. I don’t want to add any unnecessary stresses on anyone to try and fix such a unimportant issue. I can always just keep the kneeboard info on a separate window to alt-tab to real quick.

Thank you for the responses! : )

[white_fang]

@tpetter795 said in F/A-18 - Kneeboards blank:

“Oh yeah you just need to do this…”

well… actually YES, exactly that
Since now I know it is for KTO’s, F-18E … (coordinates )
you have to do this:

file:  "Falcon BMS 4.37\Data\Art\CkptArt\F-18E-type\3dCkpit.dat" 
line: cockpitlegsmodel 2405;
replace with: cockpitlegsmodel 1913; (this line is from F-18C)
(you can rem old line with // , so have backup, no need to save file.bak)

I haven’t tried how new legs/pilot will look, but if they don’t “fit” , there are more “legs” for other planes … one will surely fit - just search other 3dckpit.dat(s) and see what number is used , then you can open BMS editor and in last tab “Model” you can check if they are new-legs , with new kneboards … or if they are old type of “legs” with EMPTY kneeboard)

Maybe you will have some touch’n’go’s , but surely one will fit. - That’s why I send you to those guys in first post, maybe they already tested and found legs/kneeboards that fit. - so less trouble for you.

Good luck.

[tpetter795]

@white_fang

Aha! Yes, that did it! I’m unable to change the pages by clicking on the usual hotspots but the keyboard shortcuts work though so that is excellent!

I appreciate you taking the time to look into this! You have been a great help! : )

[drtbkj]

@tpetter795 said in F/A-18 - Kneeboards blank:

@white_fang

Aha! Yes, that did it! I’m unable to change the pages by clicking on the usual hotspots but the keyboard shortcuts work though so that is excellent!

I appreciate you taking the time to look into this! You have been a great help! : )

Hi, tpetter. I pm’d you on this.
The kneeboards are fixable. Check out Section 1B here : https://www.mediafire.com/file_premium/5qjvs9l5y9p9c1y/BMS_Fighters_Manual_%25282%2529.pdf/file. Those are older notes but should still work. Let us know if you have problems. I would think it would work in the stock theaters. They should be in all the Chuckles -OFM Family Theaters that use the Hornet or Fifth Gen cockpits.
UPDATE: I just checked and the stock KTO does still have the 3d.button.dat with the kneeboard values. So, that should be ok. As for selecting the kneeboard pages, they are set up with the center-of-the-kneeboard hotspots only.

[tpetter795]

@drtbkj Awesome! Thank you much! This fixed it right up!