Hi guys. I downloaded a campaign called Kondor which has a bunch of missions for the Fw200. Most of these start at Bordeaux Merignac, and the requisite runway data and scenery was provided. Unfortunately, it doesn't match! The actual scenery is in a slightly different location to the airfield.dat info, but worse, the scenery has the runway crossing a river, which makes takeoff in a Condor even harder (and very damp). In fact I can only get to about 40kts before I hit water.
I know I can delete the scenery and alter the mission files to change the takeoff point and heading and insert a new runway from infrastructure, but I'd have to do that for every mission. Is there a way to move the scenery? Or to group the infrastructure so I can copy and paste it to new missions (I think I may have answered myself... can you copy and past this stuff in the mission files? Can you group this stuff into a 'formation'?)
If not, I'd also like to know how to change the orientation of a runway if I put one in. I know I've read something on this a while back, but can't find it.
I've attached a screen shot from mission builder to show how the mission looks as shipped.

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

cheers

Piers

P

You can move the infrastructure objects shown on your screen shot as a group by drawing a box around them (hold down the shift key and drag the cursor from one corner to an opposite corner).  Once all of the objects are highlighted you can drag them to a new spot.  Unfortunately that won't work for the runway as the runway shown is a scenery object and not movable in the Mission Builder (MB).  

You are correct in that you would have to change the takeoff coordinates for each individual mission.  The takeoff coordinates for a mission are drawn from the airbases.dat file but once thay are written into the mission changing the airbases.dat file won't affect the individual mission without opening each one in MB and resetting the takeoff point.  It would be fastre to simply copy the new coordinates into the mission using Notepad.

The problem with the location of the runway being on a river is probably caused by the author of the mission using a different scenery than you are using.  One or both of you may have non-stock mesh scenery or something similar that is causing this problem.  It is also possible that the author didn't do his homework, but I would suspect he would have seen the same problem you're seeing during testing.

If I were you I'd delete the bad scenery and create a new runway in the same location with the proper heading using one of the scenery design tools available for free download.  The easiest to use is Martin Wright's MkAFD2 airfield creation tool.  It is available at his websight: http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/index.htm under the CFS2 Utilities section.  This is a very simple tool to use with a short learning curve.  It will create a simple, bare runway anywhere in the world that you want.  You can then populate the area around the runway using infrastructure items in MB.  Once activated the runway will always be there like any other scenery but the infrastructure will only show up in the individual mission.  Of course, there are ways to add permanent infrastructure to the scenery but at this point I am trying to keep it as simple as possible for you.

jimski - Make sure with MkAFD that you create both an AFD.BGL file and a runway BGL file.  You might also try using one of the CFS runways instead of a CFS2 runway and see if it shows up. I just tried one and it worked fine. Feel free to contact Martin Wright if you are having problems.  I have always found him to be very helpful with questions about his utilities.  Although I recommend MkAFD for quick and dirty little jobs, I use Flight Simulator Scenery Creator (FSSC) for all of my runway creations.  It is more sophisticated, easy to use and is free as well.  Airport for Windows is another free runway creation tool and equally good for CFS2.

As you found out, the airbases.dat file controls the takeoff and landing spots in Mission Builder (MB).  When you add an entry to the airbases.dat file it places an "X" on the map in MB indicating that you can takeoff or land at that spot.  The airbases.dat entry has nothing to with the scenery you have entered and activated.  You can have a runway visible in the game but if there is no corresponding airbases.dat entry you can't use it for takeoffs in MB.  By the same token, you can create an airbases.dat entry where there is no scenery and that is a valid takeoff point, even if nothing appears in the game at that spot.

You might find my takeoff tutorial helpful.  It explains this and shows you how you can create a takeoff spot anywhere in the world for one-time use in a mission when you don't want to create an airbases.dat entry.  The tutorial is available for download here and at SimOuthouse

piersyf wrote on Feb 18^th, 2007 at 7:24am:

I always install new scenery to the CFS2\Addon folder. Then activate it via the Scenery LIbrary. Check out my CFS2 Scenery Clinic

Once a folder is activated you can add or remove BGL files as you wish.

No luck here yet. Downloaded the fssc program but I am still another program short of running it.

With mkaf2 I don't see exactly what I am supposed to get out of it and where things are supposed to go. I have a folder ready for the airfield with scenery and texture sub folders. In the airfield mode mkafd2 has buttons for a sca output and blg output. Why two? When I ask for blg it gives me an sca file. When I convert the sca file to blg using scasm.exe in dos I now have a blg file. That goes into the scenery file of the airfield file, yes? Same question with the runway file. But where does that go? What I am looking for are the blg files, yes? The sca files are a go between to the final blg files?

Also I get no "file list" and I see all the stock scenery folders have that. Where do I get that?

I did notice that MB will accept runway csf2 runways but if I run those missions in the main program I am told that scenery doesn't exist. But the old cfs runways will work fine and seem to be everybit as good. I could make it all work if I could find flat terrain.

Jimski

It got it!

My trouble with mkafd2 seems to have been my failure to get the runway bgl into scenedb/runways/scenery. The NDB doesn't work but I can live with that. I used the old FS runways which are fine.

No success gettin fssc loaded and I will revisit the site to see if I am trying to load an update without having the basic program.

Thanks for all the help!

Jimski

Yeah, I downloaded FSSC and an update and the .dll. I had no trouble with that so haven't revisited mkafd2. I am now having a problem with MB... not the airbase.dat stuff though. The new scenery shows up just fine as does the blue runway icon, but when I try to edit the mission to move the a/c and infrastructure it crashes to dektop.
I think Cody mentioned before that I may have had different scenery installed to that of the original campaign designer, and I'd say that's likely as I've been editing just about every mission in the luftwaffe BoB missions (but curiously not the spitfire and hurricane missions), so I guess the european fields are a bit different. Anyway only mention that to say that I have been able to edit those missions successfully, but not this one.
I don't think it's the scenery because it works fine in free flight (or I wouldn't have been able to get the screenshot above  ), but I have noticed that this particular campaign has an airstart version and a runway version; could they be linked somehow? I can't see it, but I also can't see why it's doing this. Even when I edit the takeoff point manually in notepad it changes back if I open MB.

Gotta say that once you get FSSC started it is quite easy...

Piers

It's a little worse than that. If I open the original mission in MB there's a stack of infrastructure sitting in the river and in the surrounding fields. I have been trying to move and/or delete this infrastructure. I can move it all fine or delete it, but when I hit the 'save' icon to update the file it crashes.

I'll have a bit of a play today and see if I can find out some more.

P

OK, had a bit of a play.
Removing the airstart versions of the mission made no difference (as expected).
Modified another mission the same way (changing infrastructure and moving stuff) and was able to save without crashing, so the MB isn't corrupted.
Went back and tried again with the Condor mission, and again, crash to desktop.
Makes no sense; the scenery shouldn't interfere, the airbase.dat data is showing in MB in the right place, I get no error messages when the mission loads... I can even open and fly the mission if I accept that there's a hangar in the middle of the runway...
One thing I did notice is that if I taxi onto the runway the plane explodes. I may have to alter the 'flattened' area to try to fix that. May be a local ASL variation.

Piers