Awesome work on U3…even sitting on the ramp looks pretty now.
Best posts made by Zeus
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RE: BMS 4.35 Screenshots
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RE: Quick update from the BMS Frontlines - November 2021
Thank you BMS Dev team and all those that support them!! I think having periodic updates like this goes a long way. Personally, just knowing that there are plans for another release (or two, or three…) is enough to sustain me. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication!!
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RE: ATC MENU FILTERING
While I’m all for realism, the reality is that in real world, if I make a bad call on ATC (like calling departure “approach” or “tower”, the ATC personnel will respond and give me the instructions they were going to if I had called them correctly (they’ll also use their correct callsign and if I’m paying attention I would pick up on that and correct on my response).
So for me, having filters doesn’t take away the realism. Just because I “fat finger” a menu command doesn’t mean I would really do that in real life.
Thanks for the filters!
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RE: Headache Saver - Alt Launch Override
This is a really important note (maybe even something for the manual). Defaulting to the Alt Launcher seems like a destructive choice. Defaulting to NOT use the Alt Launcher doesn’t seem have any adverse side effects might be a better choice (the “do no harm” approach). Just my two cents.
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RE: Mission Commander beta release
Wow, I do hope threads like this never get leaked out to a behavioral psychologist. Reading through this from the sidelines is eye-opening and a bit scary.
But thank you to everyone that kept focusing on the issue and tried to calmly restate the problem as best they could (and those that rationally tried to debug / replicate the issue as best they could).
Thank you @Falcas for wading through this and releasing updates as well.
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RE: Mod: Using MSFS as rendering engine for Falcon BMS - and enable VR
@bms-for-msfs
I think every would love to see real world scenery at a global level in BMS - why wouldn’t you. However, and I must preface this by saying I have never seen the BMS code, I think the 4-ohase plan above is probably a little naive. Trying to put BMS into MSFS is not simply taking aircraft models and locations, there are complex system models, campaign dynamics, etc. Not to mention having to ensure some base level of common terrain so that everyone is at least seeing the same objects, making sure they are interactive (can they be destroyed or is it all just eye candy), etc.Maybe I’m misinterpreting the approach, but I think bringing better scenery into BMS is “easier” than bringing BMS into a new scenery engine.
Nonetheless, I think the BMS Dev team knows best on how to proceed and if they feel this approach has merit, I’m sure someone will be in touch. There is no doubt in my mind that if a full globe of photorealistic scenery could happen, without compromising the fidelity of the BMS system and engine, everyone would love it.
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RE: Bear Trap
What you are running into here is a conflict between what you “want to do” and what you “need to do”. The bottom line is you can’t fly low to evade SAM coverage if the enemy has control of the air; you either need to eliminate the air threat or eliminate the SAM threat.
SA-10s can absolutely be taken out with HARMs from long range. Our squadron has found that having 2-3 pilots fly along the edge or the threat rind (so they can build up the location to a PGM1 state) and being separated by about 10-15 degrees or arc from the SA-10 works quite well. Once all pilots have a solid PGM1 location on the 10T of the HAD, they all turn in and launch 1-2 HARMs. the combination of multiple incoming HARMs and the fact they are coming from different directions, usually allows at least one to make it through.
As for inappropriate loadouts, keep in mind that the flight generator doesn’t necessarily know what conditions exist (or at least I don’t think it does) in terms of threats. Since you are fragging it manually you should check the loadout anyway. That’s part of what it takes to plan a successful mission. You really need to understand your target, any and all threats and your weapon choices - taking all that in will allow you to plan mission that has the optimum chance for success.
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RE: Israel Theater of Operations for BMS 4.37
@vAiCon said in Israel Theater of Operations for BMS 4.37:
Finally… It took me a while … Israel Theater of Operations v1.07.1 is here,
without further worthless words:
Download - GdriveAwesome - thank you! However, GDrive is only giving an error.
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RE: Tanker question
@lorikeolmin said in Tanker question:
@alfred y-2 used to be used by some people in 4.33. Not the same function anymore. People keep recommending it as a tradition.
What I have found is that in 4.35 if you need to refuel more than once in a flight - for example in ingress and then again on egress - you HAVE to use the Y2 command or you wont get back on the boom. So the sequence of events is…
- fly to tanker -flight lead presses Y1
- do your first AAR and then press Y3 (if other in flight they also take fuel and press Y3 when done)
- go strike your target and then fly back to tanker
- flight lead presses Y1…once in pre contact press Y2 (if you don’t you will never get cleared on to boom)
- take fuel, press Y3 when done
Not sure if that’s a function by design or a bug but it never worked that way in the past and reading the manual would seem to indicate that a Y2 should never be required in normal operations.
Having just flown a mission that required five refuelings I can assure you that pressing Y2 was required on all but the first one.
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RE: Anyone noticed any tanker issue? [Israel Theater]
There are a lot of variables when it comes to AAR so let me present a possible explanation. Any additional info you can provide might help to narrow it down.
First, I personally have never tried the scenario I think you are presenting; a 4-ship flight made up of human, AI, human and human in that order (so 1, 3 and 4 are human but 2 is AI). I don’t think that will make a difference to the tanker but again, I have never tried that.
One possible explanation could be in when the tanker was initially contacted. If, for example, #1 and his AI wingman were within the 10nm bubble of the tanker but 3 & 4 were outside the bubble then only 1 and 2 would have been entered into the queue. There would be no way for you to know or recognize this until #2 finished in which case the tanker would think it was done (this appears to be what happened). If #3 would have called for the tanker at that point (using Y1) the tanker should have put him (and #4?) in the queue and possible even 1 & 2 since they would all be inside the bubble.
The only thing strange we are seeing on a consistent basis is that if you need to refuel more than once, on any AAR after the first one you will likely need to press Y2 after being cleared to precontact in order to get cleared into contact position. First AAR works fine but second, third, fourth, etc. all require this extra step.
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RE: Falcon BMS 4.37 VR READY "and Beyond" Trailer 4K
Once again, the team looks to have done an incredible job. Thank you , what a way to close out the year. And clearly so much to look forward to.
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Maverick Timeout Issue / Question
On a recent test flight, I noticed that one of my Mav G shots missed despite having all weapons parameters correct. After reviewing the ACMI in Tacview, I noticed that the Mav was “destroyed” just a moment before impact (exactly 1:45 after release). My second shot at the same target worked fine - missile run time to target was 1:38 which got me thinking and doing some testing.
Specifically, for the Maverick G with its 20nm range, it’s quite possible to have the missile timeout prior to reaching the target. One could argue that the missile ran out of energy but in several cases, at least to me, the missile was on a good trajectory and would have impacted the target.
Is this timeout a real thing (weapon self destructs after that time period) io a BMS thing? With the earlier models having a shorter range, this doesn’t seem to be an issue. But with the G (and I’m assuming the L as well) I can shoot from the same distance (say 14nm) and either hit or miss the target depending on my airspeed at launch.
Again, I get that different airspeeds at launch will impart different energy to the weapon and therefore could affect range. Just wondering if the timeout value is too low or if this is a real limitation.
I can provide TE and ACMI files if interested / needed.
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RE: Multiple BMS Installs
@airtex2019 - Thanks, knowing its not supported because there is risk of people not doing it correctly or accidentally running things from incorrect folders makes complete sense. I get it - not everyone has the same comfort level with PCs and many a good pilot can fly a Viper while at the same time struggle with file-level changes. I have been in the IT biz for over 4 decades so I get the need to protect people from themselves.
Just glad to know that the above practice, when followed correctly, isn’t setting me up for an unknown risk or impending disaster.
Thanks again for the feedback
@Icarus - thanks for your feedback too…I’ve scoured the registry and there isn’t anything in there that would indicate a potential problem or favor why major update vs minor update would be better or worse than the other. And based on @airtex2019 comments, it sounds like care is taken to make new entries when needed.
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RE: Campaign Squadron Logistics
So the mystery deepens, at least for me. I did the following to set things up…
- Open a New campaign (Bear Trap), let the clock run a few seconds, save it as “Test”, exit BMS.
- Open Test with MC, add a new squadron; team ROK, non-HQ controlled, save
- Open BMS, open Test, , run clock a few seconds and save as Test2
- verify in MC that all looks normal;
This is now my starting point for tests.
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Time alone
For this test I just ran the clock ahead about 4 hours and saved campaign (Test3). No flights were fragged during this time. Not surprisingly, MC shows all stores remain (nothing stolen). -
Quick flight
Going back to Test2 as a start point, frag a single ship flight with t/o time approx 25 minutes in the future save as Test2B, verify in MC that the only stores “missing” are the ones allocated to that single aircraft (2x120B, 2x9X, 2x370gal, 1xjammer, 4xGBU54). Then fire up the jet, take it around the pattern and land (10 min flight or so). Exit aircraft, verify that flight really ends (AI doesn’t hop in and takeoff, etc.) Save as 3B. MC shows that all stores returned, all inventory back to 100%. -
Full flight
Start from Test2B (single flight already fragged) only this time do a real flight - go out, drop the GBU-54s, come back. Save as Test3C. MC again shows all stores returned except for the 4 GBU-54s that were dropped. This seems 100% correct.
So the only differences I can see between this test and what I saw in my original post were the number of a/c used (1 in this test, 5 in the original) and the fact that the original was MP and this was SP.
I’ll keep testing.
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Multiple BMS Installs
I read in another post recently that having multiple installs of BMS is not supported and should be done at our own risk as it potentially drives you off a cliff. This is news to me as it had been a standard practice for many years and, as far as I know, never caused any issues. Maybe it’s the way we have instructed our Wing members to do it or maybe something has changed or maybe we’ve just been lucky but I wanted to see if we could get some clarity on this and make sure the reason many do this is clear to the Dev team (and others). My hope is that we can find a safe way to test out new releases while still providing an easy way to go back if needed.
I’ll start with why I feel this is needed. Quite simply, many of us have ongoing campaigns, new pilot training or just regular routines of flying online with each other and when new releases come out we want to make sure that we can continue those routines while still learning the new features, etc. while waiting for everyone else to come up to speed. Some people barely have enough time to fly and they need to make time to do an upgrade and learn anything new specific to the release. That’s were having a separate install comes in handy.
The way I have always done this is as follows:
- make a copy of the entire X:\Falcon BMS 4.XX folder…call it Falcon BMS 4.XX.Y where Y=0 or 1 or whatever.
- Run the updater (recently) in the original 4.XX folder or do the old red setup.exe to upgrade after downloading the new bits
This would give me the latest version to play with. If I needed to run the previous one, say for a Wing flight with others who have not upgraded yet, I would simply rename the 4.XX folder that has the latest to 4.XX.Z and rename the 4.XX.Y back to just 4.XX. And to go back to the latest, just reverse the process.
To my knowledge, that does not change any references in the registry and BMS is none the wiser and doesn’t even know about the other versions on the disk (admittedly if new entries where made or values changed to those only supported by the latest version there could be a problem). To be clear, I would never run BMS from any folder other than its original 4.XX folder.
To the Dev team or others that REALLY KNOW what the code, libraries, registry entries, etc. all do and expect, is this a dangerous practice? And if it is, can you recommend a way for people to try out a new release of BMS while still preserving a practical option for going back and forth so that Wing operations can continue while some people test out the new release and prepare new TEs, campaigns, etc.?
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RE: Double Dragon Win Conditions
@white_fang @MaxWaldorf
Still something wrong in the trigger file for that campaign (even in 4.37.2) but I think I figured it out. I think there is something wrong with the #IF_CAMPAIGN_DAY check. Using Mission Commander I set up a scenario where ALLIED forces should win (controlling 260 404 694 428, Day 2 of campaign, and have totally decimated PRC forces)) and then opened the campaign in BMS and but failed to get expected win condition.I systematically started commenting out various conditions in the trigger file until I narrowed it down to the #IF_CAMPAIGN_DAY < 10 line. If I commented out that line and its corresponding ENDIF I would get the win. Looking through the rest of the trigger file I could see that command being used in other spots however, in all other cases it was used with either a <= or >= but never just < on its own.
So I changed it to be #IF_CAMPAIGN_DAY <= 10 and now I get the win condition. Is it possible there is something wrong with how that comparison works?
Looking through all the other stock trigger files, I don’t find any other instances where #IF_CAMPAIGN_DAY is used without the = as part of the comparison. Given that, and the fact that DD is a relative new campaign (4.34?) is it possible no one has really run into this until now.
I think the correct code should be:
#IF_NOT_EVENT_PLAYED 17 #IF_CONTROLLED 6 AND 260 404 694 428 492 1074 #PLAY_MOVIE 124 #PLAY_MOVIE 125 #CHANGE_RELATIONS 6 2 3 #DO_EVENT 17 #END_GAME 17 #DO_MONOLOG DPRK wins independently -> END GAME #ELSE // this next line contains the change, just added the "=" #IF_CAMPAIGN_DAY <= 10 #IF_FORCE_RATIO GND 5 6 <= 100 #IF_NOT_CONTROLLED 5 OR 260 404 694 428 #PLAY_MOVIE 120 #PLAY_MOVIE 123 #CHANGE_RELATIONS 6 2 1 #DO_EVENT 17 #END_GAME 17 #DO_MONOLOG Combined NATO and DPRK forces win -> END GAME #ENDIF #ENDIF #ENDIF #ENDIF #ENDIF
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RE: Tanker question
@snake122 said in Tanker question:
@zeus On first try, it does indeed seem to require a Y2 to reconnect on egress if tanked on ingress! Mea culpa! I did get a double “cleared to contact” in response from the tanker, not sure if you are experiencing that or that my Precontact position at that point was pretty close.
As mentioned above, I believe this is a bug that got introduced in 4.35 (possibly one of the last 4.34 releases). We do missions that require multiple refueling stop on a fairly regular basis and in the past this was never an issue. However, the Y2 command is now absolutely required when doing more than one AAR. The first AAR works as expected and no need for Y2.
This is easy to duplicate. Take the AAR training flight that is included with BMS, refuel normally then go burn off some gas (or dump fuel) and come back to the tanker a second time. You will get cleared to pre-contact (and likely get that message multiple times) but then no matter how well you hold precontact position, you wont get cleared to contact. When you press Y2 you will get another “cleared precontact” followed immediate by “cleared to contact position” message (usually twice).
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RE: 4.35 U3 Rants, feedback, comments
First of, congrats and thank you to the entire BMS team; the work you do is incredible. As a developer by trade (many moons ago) and at heart I understand the satisfaction you get from completing a release and fixing bugs and deploying new features - I just wish there was a way to thank you even more!
Secondly, this thread was an excellent idea and really shows the maturity that the Dev team has and their true desire to continue to improve BMS. I’m equally impressed so far by the constructive feedback - let’s keep it up.
For me, I always treat every release as a gift - it’s like being a kid again on Christmas morning. So far my limited test flights have all been successful and am glad I can take the sticky note off my monitor that says “raise visor before taking pics!”
Regarding your comments / suggestions about people possibly waiting for the weekend to try it, not adapted to the new forum yet and lost interest, I’ve also noticed a just a general loss of activity, enthusiasm and participation in our VFW as well. I’m not sure if it “just a phase” the world is going through or slow attrition of dedicated fans to other things or what. We keep trying to mix things up and try new ways to engage people but it seems like a losing battle…at least at the moment. We have a core groups that is in it for the long haul and we are all very appreciative of the work you do. It allows us to spend countless hours sharing our hobby with friends from all over the globe. So please hang in there - if there is anything we can do to help promote or improve BMS we would be happy to do so!
Thanks again!
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Cockpit panel drawings
I was just reading through the BMS Cockpit Interaction Guide (great document!) and I was wondering if whoever put that together could also publish unmarked pictures / drawings of the cockpit? That would be a HUGE benefit to anyone looking to make a pit.
So for example, on page 2-17 of that guide you have this pic:
If a “clean” version of that was available (without the yellow mark-ups), those could be printed off and applied to simple MDF material and then holes drilled for switches (cheap and easy pit).
The entire guide is filled with all the right pics that match our current (4.37) 3D pit…just need the clean layout pics. Is it possible to publish those? Or if they are available, can someone point them out?
Or if there is another source that someone knows of that has all the updated panels (something like [http://f16simulator.nl/Panels.html](link url) but those our outdated) that would be much appreciated.