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[kingle92]

Hello all,

I'm currently playing the B-17 "Big Birds" camapaign and often run into the problem that me and my fellow Fortresses need ages to have all engines running and be able to take of in time to meet the other flights due to the very realistic random engine start up failure feature that makes you sometimes need 2,3,4 or even more tries to get the engine running. I know that's how those engines behave but as all flights start at very different times because of that they barely can manage to build up those large formations as they are all split up over the place and don't meet at the same time at the meeting point. Of course the AI isn't able to slow down or speed up to close the gaps between the flights.

So my question is - as I'm not into active modding - if someone can create a mod (or maybe even have one) for JSMGE to make the engines start up at the first attempt - for the player and the AI planes. I already talked to Vampire - he said it is possible if you have the know-how and time, so maybe someone is searching for a challenge

Regards
kingle

[tomoose]

I've run and tweaked the Big Bird campaign for HSFX.  The random engine start-up mod wasn't in HSFX so we didn't have that issue.
I'm still relatively new to BAT so was not aware that the random engine start-up mod was 'on' by default.  That's good to know.

That said, I was tweaking the Big Bird campaign to incorporate taxi-to-takeoff and did not have an issue with engine start-up at all.  I can only assume that the engine mod was not 'on' so all that to say, can you not simply switch that particular mod 'off'?

[kingle92]

I understood this 'mod' or feature is part of the BAT installation itself and integrated deep inside the classfiles - so you kinda need a mod to disable this mod. You can't just turn it off.

[tomoose]

I just remembered one little thing which is a long shot.  In HSFX I noticed that if I had chocks-in on start-up I tended to get engine start-up issues.  Any time chocks were not engaged the engine would start first time every time.   Not sure if this was just some planes or all.  Again, a shot in the dark and no idea if this applies to BAT but no harm in checking it right?

[kingle92]

Unfortunately that doesn't make a difference whether chocks are on or off. The AI planes also have this feature. In one of the last missions I flew, the #3 plane in my flight was still struggeling with getting engine #1 running while I was fully operable.

[tomoose]

Oh well, I thought it worth a shot.  Sorry it didn't help.
It's definitely weird that this 'item' doesn't have a simple 'off' option as clearly it can hinder game mission building/planning.

[kingle92]

Yep, that were my thoughts too, so thats why I made this request, maybe some talented modder wants to take the challenge and create a mod to have this option to disable this feature but thanks for your suggestions!

[genXgamer]

Hi kingle92

I was wishing for such a mod while making my latest mission (not released here yet).
Accurate timing was critical and during testing it was so frustrating to watch Zeros lined up on the runway continually having missed starts.

Would of definitely liked to of told players to turn OFF random starts.

[tomoose]

I'll have to revisit my own attempt at a B-17 campaign now (I'm using the La Chute map).  I had intended to duplicate the Big Bird style of campaign (i.e. 25 missions) but take advantage of BAT and the huge map etc.  The whole aspect of timing all the flights to get them together as one formation is thrown into question now if every start has numerous B-17s unable to start their engines and therefore not meeting their timings.

[Vampire_pilot]

I am building a  B-29 campaign and have decided to have a limited number only scramble from the ground.
Most of the stream starts airborne (and will do a formation low pass over your head as you start your engines up). With airborne starts you can also easily hook flights together without having to trace each and every flight's path fully.

[kingle92]

That's definitely a good workaround. Just for some already finished and existing missions/campaigns (like the Big Bird I mentioned) it would have been a nice addition because all those flights start from ground, so if you want them all in formation you have to rework all those missions from scramble to air-start. But it seems this is easier and faster than creating a mod to reverse the engine start behaviour to make this campaigns work like they were originally meant to be played.

Just for curiosity as I'm really not into BAT-Modding (unfortunately): Would this be more like changing a general file somewhere hidden or more like many classfiles for each engine/plane? 

[Epervier]

In my opinion... one or two generic Java classes need to be modified.
But I'm not good at Java... I can't find these classes...