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[Trav]

Hey all,
Not a modder myself, yet, but willing to learn.
This isn't a request, just spitballing.
How hard would it be to replicate the Foster mountings functionality?


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_mounting
Was reading how some pilots, like Albert Ball, would use the weapon for upward firing.
Could you either have another gun in the down positionthat isn't normally visible, but is toggled by a certain command, ex; toggle gunpods or open hatch?

Or adapting a gunners position that could only move along one arc? How many different files would need to be touched for a project like this?

Also, would it be possible to limit specific guns to a certain number of shots, wait x seconds, then commence again to simulate changing drums? From some accounts these guys were pretty conservative with their ammo.

Again,.not asking someone to do this, just curious what it would take.
Thanks,

[David Prosser]

I'm not sure how it could be done. I don't have that kind of experience. I saw a Lewis gun at Airforce World in Christchurch earlier last month. I went there with my cousins.

[Checkyersix]

I've thought about this actually. I think the easiest way to do it would be to make the gun moveable with something like the "open cockpit" key in the aircraft class - if you check out the "movegear" method in most aircraft classes you can see how to use hiermesh.chunkSetAngles to change the position and angle of piece of the aircraft.

There are basically two kinds of machine gun classes in the game - forward firing and turrets, defined by "gunproperties.bUseHookAsRel = false" in the classfile. That way the bullets will fire in line with the gun no matter its angle.

You could set up a magazine-fed gun as you describe in the aircraft file as well - you'd just have to write a new method (called by the "update" method in every aircraft class) that would check when the gun was empty (ie: super.CT.Weapons[1][0].countBullets() == 0), then reload the weapons with something like "((com.maddox.il2.engine.GunGeneric)abulletemitter[1][0]).loadBullets()".

You could track the number of magazines remaining separately as well. This would also be a good option for planes like the DH.2 that used Lewis guns in fixed mounts.

[David Prosser]

That's informative. The Lewis had two kinds of drum. One held 47 rounds, and the later one held 97. Most players would be satisfied with the 97 round drum.

[Trav]

Wow, thanks very much for all the input Checkyersix!
I'll start poking around with this- won't be fast, though.
My knowledge is currently limited to basic heir tweaks so will be a lot of questions along the way, but we'll get there eventually!

[Frankiek]

The simulation of drum use is somehow already in game. In some of the gunner positions you can actually see the drums reducing and then disappear as you keep using your mg