Topic: Effects remaining attached to 'invisible' hooks (Read 501 times)

WxTech · « **on:** March 21, 2025, 10:52:31 AM »

For several years I've been plaqued by a problem. Actually, I can no longer recall if this hasn't always been present to at least some degree. And that is damaged engine fire and smoke effects remaining attached to hooks which don't leave with the engine when the engine has been cut away from the plane. It's especially horrible for wing-mounted engines when the whole wing is gone, for then the effects emanate from a spot in empty space beside the plane.

This can happen when the plane breaks up in the air or when cracking up on the ground but not completely exploding.

A clue to the issue might be furnished from this aspect, evidenced well by twins such as Bf-110s and Do-17s. A plane which has crash landed, with wings and empennage broken off, with no crew inside, being basically just the crewless CF_Dx.msh, can remain on the ground in this state for MANY, MANY minutes (normally an empty plane will 'time out' after a minute--or is it two?). It seems some conditional state has not been completed to indicate the plane is 'dead', probably related to the CF mesh specifically, it being effectively treated as still crewed and viable. If I strafe the hell out of it I can hasten its proper destruction; otherwise it just hangs about seemingly forever, with fire/smoke belching forth.

Additionally, even when stopped on the ground the fire and smoke effects are ALWAYS the SPD versions which are intended to be active during flight. The correct GND versions are never switched to. In other words, the plane is treated as though it's still in flight as far as this aspect is concerned.

In AircraftState.class we have such methods as changeEngineEffectBase(), with equivalents for oil and tank. In Aircraft.class methods cut() and cut_Subtrees() all these changeEffectBase methods. I don't know what this means, supposing it's related to keeping hooks tied to chunks with those chunks when cut away. Of course I could be very wrong.

I haven't determined if the state of the crew has a role to play. For instance, I know that when the crew are dead or bailed while the plane is in the air and the engine falls off, this problem occurs. I don't know for sure if when any crew are alive and the engine falls off whether or not the hooks to which the effects are tied leave with the engine(s).

Where would be the more likely places to focus attention to try to ferret out what's going on? I've done lots of alterations to AircraftState.class and Aircraft.class, and I have little doubt I've done something bad.

WxTech · « **Reply #1 on:** March 24, 2025, 08:01:58 AM »

In this capture you can see that the Do-17's wings and engines have been shot away. But smoke effects are still active for both 'ghost' engines, and one has a fire ongoing.

Here's my current focus. Below is the relevant part of AircraftState.doSetTankState(), as appears in the EngineMod I scoured a couple or few years back. Might be v2.7.

This is the nucleus of what I've built upon, incorporating fuel leak fireball effects (and numerous other effect string substitutions for a variety of conditions.)

My major concern with this code is the casting of the fuel leak fireball effects to astateEngineEffects[0]. I should think astateTankEffects would be appropriate, for these two crucial reasons:

- Engine count and fuel tank count often will not match, with tanks limited to 4 but engines can well exceed 4.

- And The number of damage states for tanks is 7 whereas for engines it's 5.

In other words, we can have astateTankStates[0][0] through astateTankStates[3][6], whereas we can have astateEngineStates[0][0] through astateEngineStates[7][4]. As a result I've long ago changed assignment to astateTankEffects. Among my numerous changes during these past couple of days, reverting to astateEngineEffects was tried, but that didn't help.

Another curiosity springs from the check of the presence of any wing chunk, as from:

if(s1.toLowerCase().startsWith("wing"))
{
flag4 = true;
if(aircraft.hierMesh().isChunkVisible(s1) && j == 5)
flag2 = true;
}

I note that my problem involves missing wing chunks which held the engines whose effects are stubbornly remaining active,

Author Topic: Effects remaining attached to 'invisible' hooks (Read 501 times)