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[UberDemon]

Quick update for not so quick work…

Besides working on some bugs, I got the routine to adjust Squadron/Flight uniqueness to work.  I actually used my code from UQMG classic, with of course, updated syntax, because it is different, and adjusting for instead of using two controls, combining everything so you have 16 choices from 1/1 to 4/4.  I know this must be boring but it is absolutely necessary to make sure the missions will be built correctly, especially when I start tackling the Cloning Engine, which I hope to re-use much of the original code.

Allow me to demonstrate… so we fill all flights with data.



By default the regiments will be sequential when you do an auto fill.



Let’s make Red Flight Group 1 the player flight



Then let’s open the Flight Editor.  So that flight is Generic USAAF regiment, with Squadron 1, Flight 1, or 1/1.  If you try to pick Squadron 1, Flight 3…




It does not let you, because that Squadron/Flight is already used… so it suggest the next available flight, which is 4/1.



That is just an example to show how it works.  If you picked another flight it would pick the next flight available which is the existing flight… however if you pick one that is available, you will be able to pick it.  And of course if you pick another regiment altogether (say one of the many fighter or bomber groups) you can pick whatever flights have not been used.

Of course there are 12 Flight Groups per team, but consider that you can clone them for hundreds of flights in a mission… and the Cloning Engine must keep tabs on what is used.  So this is a great step on that direction.

Yeah, it is boring, but necessary.

[UberDemon]

Greetings.

I have been busy with other things in life.  Work & family of course.

But I had time today to do some work I really wanted to tidy up in the Air Database interface, so that searches are handled correctly, the GUI has all functionality, and also adding the ability to do searches based on Load choices (Weapons, Cargo, paratroopers, etc).

Regarding the Load choices, please understand that results in a search are not 100% accurate because there is no standard in the naming of weapon or loads amongst the original developer and much less amongst modders, so I hope you will be patient with search results.

The good news is that I have developed the okayest working model for using weapon load search parameters.  By that I mean it is a good working start, and it will be super easy to update with a simple text file update that provides additional or updated search parameters based on the BAT text weapons initialization file.  Although in the past that would have been an incomplete solution, with SAS~Storebror’s Loader MOD, this is totally possible, of course with some coding magic due to issues with some aircraft naming conventions.

Now… there are some things that are impossible to do unless I do some complex updating of my search engine, so there is a chance that some things are just not 100% accurate, but we’ll worry about that later after the release.  I have a 95% solution that is better than most releases, I think.  An example is choosing aircraft with 20mm cannons… unless it is explicitly mentioned in a load out that an aircraft has that, obviously they will not appear in the search results.  For aircraft that only have Default and Empty choices, they will not come up… so this weapon search is really meant for the weapon loads, like finding which planes carry Torpedos or Bombs.

In the original UQMG Classic, it took me weeks, months to create a database with the details for each plane, and I want to avoid this by using the power of programming.  It will make updating much faster as new mods and BAT updates come up.

So OK, lets look at an example…
Here is the Air DB for the new UQMG.  Note the addition of “Load Options”.



We are currently editing a blue flight group.  First we will use the Select All option.  And as expected everything gets selected.



Let’s look at a fictional scenario.  I want first 1945 or later German planes that carry Nuclear bombs.  So let’s setup the search.
* Flyable planes (uncheck non-flyable)
* German planes (so uncheck all Red countries using the right-button click Uncheck All option in the Red and Blue team selection list boxes, then select Germany in the Blue list box)
* Keep all IL-2 Type DB parameters checked, because the limitation right now is based on weapon loads.
* In load options, uncheck everything with context menu, then select only Nuclear Bombs.
* For Year parameter, let’s use low year as 1945, high year as 1950, and low-year limit of “2”, that is, any airplane that meets the parameters and was available from 1943 would be available.



So we Click the Go button and we wait about 15 seconds (really it takes a lot of time to go through all the search parameters).  I have the search updating with some numbers so you don’t think there is an eminent crash…



We can see there are two planes meeting the criteria.  Let’s go ahead and move all to the right box.  Because we want to add some other planes to the potential set we are creating.



We now want to add all fighters from that time period that can carry drop tanks, because they need to escort those bombers.  We will deselect all the IL-2 Type DB options and select only Fighter options, then we will select in the load Options, only droptanks, of course.  I want only planes that were available from 1945 and later in this case, so I will lower my low year limit to “0”.



We get 18 planes in the result, including some fairly advanced designs, like the BV 237 series, the Go 229, late model 109s and 190s, as well as the Me-155.



Let’s add the BVs, Horten, and Me-155 to this set.  You click on them and transfer them.



So you see you can build interesting sets for interesting scenarios.

The Rule Set building Engine will be next, but it will follow a similar pattern, but easier, compared with UQMG Classic, and it will be hopefully easier to update as well.

[RealDarko]

Makes sense, and it will be really useful.

[UberDemon]

Although I have not updated much, I have been doing quite a bit of progress.

I'll post some more screens in the next few days.

Interaction between FoW and DF Homebase with the Air DB is close to being complete.  There are many complexities in saving the Recon Planes of FoW of both teams.  Even more complex is the DF Homebase settings for selecting planes, and adding Weapon Load and Number Limitations.

Below is the new Form for Weapon Limitations and Numbers for DF Arenas:

[RealDarko]

Was a bit scary about the development, cool to see you back!

[UberDemon]

Saving DF Plane preferences, that is, number of available planes per plane type and weapon limitations per plane type, was a lot more work than I thought.  It took a while to debug where the problem was, but it is finally working now, very well.

[UberDemon]

Was able to implement a fully working "edit feature" in the main Mission Aircraft "grid".

There are two separate caches, one for Red Team, one for Blue Team.

By Right-Clicking on a Flight Group you will be able to:
* Copy Flight Group (to Cache)
* Paste Flight Group (from Cache)
* Remove Flight Group from Mission

More pictures coming in a day or two...

[RealDarko]

Are you aiming for a beta soon?

[UberDemon]

Not quite there yet.  I have not gotten to the mission generation yet.  The GUI has to be solid because that is where all the mission data gets saved so that it can be used for the mission generation.  I am going to use a different approach than in UQMG Classic.  There is much work to be done still.

[RealDarko]

Rgr, will be patient!

[UberDemon]

It is just that I want to come up with something much better than the original.  If I just adapt the original one, I am stuck with some pretty hard things to overcome.  For example, the addition of new features, and principally, how hard it is to update when there are upgrades and maps.

[UberDemon]

Begun working on the Mission Briefer.  It will be in the old Mission Conditions Tab, now re-named.  I re-arranged the MDS/FoW settings to make space for a decent Briefing Writing interface.