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[Chaoic16]

Hello everyone,

I have an important question about managing the aircraft list in air.ini:

I noticed that in air.ini, there are a case where there are more than one copy of aircraft.  So my question is:

- Will the multi copies of an existing aircraft affect the engine limitation of having aircraft or not?  If it does not affect the limit, just in case, if it is only related to the aircraft 'slot' system, can I have as many copies of aircraft as I want to?

I am not going to make a hundred copies of aircraft, but i would like to fill up some of nation aircraft based on an existing aircraft.  For example, some of aircraft from one of nation are an export for a few another nation.  I would like to make a copy of that aircraft and place it in another nation and rename it (plane.properties) as what they were designated historically.

Cheers

[FL2070]

- Will the multi copies of an existing aircraft affect the engine limitation of having aircraft or not?

I don't know, but here's something that you should try: take the entire air.ini, and repeat it three or four times. Then, try to start the game and see what happens. That should answer your question very quickly.

[Chaoic16]

- Will the multi copies of an existing aircraft affect the engine limitation of having aircraft or not?

I don't know, but here's something that you should try: take the entire air.ini, and repeat it three or four times. Then, try to start the game and see what happens. That should answer your question very quickly.

Ok I will try it and see what happens.  Thank you for the advice.

However, I still want to know if it still affect the 'slot' system though.  The reasons? I am thinking in a term of 'long run' in the future.  In case if my new air.ini for the community usage uses many 'cloned' aircraft and it crash BAT, it would create more problems for SAS modders. I do not to take that risk.

If I learn that having a cloned aircraft does not affect the slot system of IL-2 1946, then I will happily make some of cloned aircraft for certain nations that use export aircraft.

[FL2070]

However, I still want to know if it still affect the 'slot' system though.

What do you mean by slot system? I'm not sure what you've read about making new planes, but slot doesn't mean exactly what you seem to think it does. When a new plane is made, there is a new classfile that defines the various properties (number of engines, 3d model, flight model, weapon hooks, years of service, etc) and the air.ini tells the game which classfiles to load as planes. I don't know exactly where the word "slot" came from, but it doesn't accurately describe how adding new planes to the game works at all. There are no "slots" to put planes in; it's more like an empty space being filled with objects.

[Chaoic16]

However, I still want to know if it still affect the 'slot' system though.

What do you mean by slot system? I'm not sure what you've read about making new planes, but slot doesn't mean exactly what you seem to think it does. When a new plane is made, there is a new classfile that defines the various properties (number of engines, 3d model, flight model, weapon hooks, years of service, etc) and the air.ini tells the game which classfiles to load as planes. I don't know exactly where the word "slot" came from, but it doesn't accurately describe how adding new planes to the game works at all. There are no "slots" to put planes in; it's more like an empty space being filled with objects.

Thank you for the explanation. I see, I was confused with the slot system as you stated. 

I hope you don't mind me asking a few more questions, as i am still learning more about the situation with IL-2 1946 engine and modding.  If I remember correctly, a long time ago, SAS modders faced the problems with Java engine limitation when adding vast number of aircraft. 

Have this problem been solved yet?

I appreciate your time answering my questions. 

[Griffon_301]

Actually this question is very relevant and interesting in the light of the java wall...
To maybe rephrase that question: will we hit the java wall through the number of planes as called up in the air.ini or by the presence of their java files in the game?

If we approach the java wall only through the number of planes as called up by the air.ini, then creating theatre plane sets might be a good way of keeping away from the java wall for a rather long time...
If it's the class files though, then a more thorough and tedious process to keep away from the wall will be necessary...

[Kelso]

A small hint of an aesthetic nature. For country names, aircraft types, consider using ___ or other characters - a character that is not displayed by Windows. I mean 'left Alt + 0160' The effect of its use looks like this:

You just have to be careful and do it carefully, preferably on the air ini copy - one mistake and the game will not start.

[FL2070]

If we approach the java wall only through the number of planes as called up by the air.ini, then creating theatre plane sets might be a good way of keeping away from the java wall for a rather long time...
If it's the class files though, then a more thorough and tedious process to keep away from the wall will be necessary...

If I remember correctly, the amount of code in the classfiles has an effect on the Java wall, and somewhere along the line, the BAT team did a massive cleanup of all of the air and ground object classfiles to make them more streamlined—if I remember even more correctly, this was called the Java wall fix. Don't quote me on that though.

[Griffon_301]

That does make sense...
But then again, as the ini files are responsible for what the game loads, I was hoping that limiting the number of planes in the air.ini for example has an effect on the java wall and when one install runs into it...

I have created my own theatre specific Moduls, leaving out many planes not used in the specific theatre while adding a host of others that are not in BAT as of yet and have not run into major problems yet....same is true for ships...
So either way there is hope that we have some air to breathe still before we run into the wall again

[Epervier]

Before the appearance of the BAT package, frequent questions asked about the maximum number of aircraft allowed in the air.ini!
The answer is impossible to give: some could not exceed 1000, others 1500...
But one thing was certain: the total number of Classes (planes, ships, vehicles, objects and all others possible Mods) used in the game has a limit!

[Chaoic16]

After reading this thread, I have decided not to clone any aircraft in air.ini for aircraft list overhaul project.

In case, if the java wall no long exist anymore in the future, the mod project may expand too.

[WxTech]

If two or more air.ini entries refer to the very same set of plane classfiles, I can't see how this will impact the Java limit. I'm pretty sure the game will not load multiple instances of the same classfile. Already we know that where class conflicts occur when different versions of a particular class are present, the game uses the first class loaded, ignoring any others. And that's when the file content is different. Should be no different where calls to the one and same class happen to be repeated; the second, third, or 39th call will be ignored. The plane is already loaded up.

I'm reasonably confident that 'cloned' air.ini entries are fine.