Matt Stryker effects, texture, gauges, and airfiles update pack for William Ortis' F-136 Slingshot
Man, this is a huge readme. Skim through it if you'd like, but if you want to try out all of the cool stuff this new plane can do, then you can find it in here!
****IMPORTANT!****
As with any effects-heavy FS plane, you MUST cycle through to the main 2D cockpit view at least once to activate all the effects and gauges. Otherwise, all the effects will fire at once if you turn the lights on!
The fantastic sound barrier effect and sonic boom are from Rob Barendregt's incredible carrier ops package, RCBco-20.zip, not included. If you want the sonic boom effect, YOU SHOULD DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THIS PACKAGE SEPARATELY, but the F-136 is already configured to use it.
Also, this is an UPDATE PACK for William Ortis' F-136 Slingshot. It DOES NOT include the plane, original gauges, or all the docs. IF YOU DO NOT ALREADY HAVE IT, YOU MUST DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THIS PACKAGE SEPARATELY AS WELL. I believe it can be found at SurClaro and others, but not on , for whatever reason.
Introduction:
After the success of the U.S. Air Force's F-136B Orbital Defense Interceptor, NASA (as they had with the SR71 Blackbird) requested they be allowed to operate one of their own. NASA's reasons were publicly scientific, but those in charge knew that the Earth was much overdue for an extinction-level-event collision with any number of our solar system's large asteroids. Thus, the NASA StarBlade kept its advanced, nuclear-capable weapons delivery system and was retrofitted with re-entry heat shields.
The F-136B NASA StarBlade is our last line of defense against any and all threats from space.
This readme is designed to walk you through all the features of the new-and-improved F-136 Orbital Defense Interceptor and its variations, but for an in-depth discussion on the original plane, refer to the original docs.
Find the F136 under "USA" in the plane selection screen.
List of Features:
- Animated wings, wheel brakes, fuel access, sliding overhead canopy, landing gear, air brake, vectored thrust nozzles, variable opening intake slats, working animated suspension (see f-136_Document.doc in the original download for model feature details)
- Appearing wheel chalks, pitot flags, ladder, and engine covers when the parking brake is set
- 'Smart Mirror' camouflage system and gravity wave generator
- Water and belly crash-landable
- Auto-deploying drag chute
- Automatic g-force contrails
- Auto-deploying "Hyper Mach Fuel Nozzles" and "donuts on a string" contrail, as is seen behind the real, top-secret Aurora craft.
- Massive booster rocket afterburner effect
- Opening missile bay with firing missiles and giant explosions
- Sound barrier effect and sound by Rob Barendregt (Rob Barendregt's effects and gauges are used by his kind permission)
- Ultra low flight, mach speed water disturbance effect
- Engine glow and heat effects by Rob Barendregt
- Detailed, working VC and custom panels
- Tweaked air files for a stronger airframe and landing gear for high-speed maneuvers
- Automatic autopilot shutdown when brakes are used for quick manual control and landings
- Several new textures and back stories (read the descriptions in the plane selection menu on FS)
- Auto orbit and de-orbit controls
- Landing Mode button to set up for landings (the Landing Mode WILL auto-land the plane, but this is not 100%. See the discussion on this below.)
- Terrain Follow button for low speed, ground hugging maneuvers
As with any effects-heavy FS plane, you must cycle through to the main 2D cockpit view at least once to activate all the effects and gauges. Otherwise, all the effects will fire at once if you turn the lights on!
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Effects and automatic features details:
This might get complicated, but if you truly want to try everything out, read on. Unless otherwise specified or model-specific, the effects, textures, and automatic control gauges were created by me.
The main exit canopy can be flown open like a car's sunroof. However, the computer will automatically close it once the craft reaches a speed of 200kts, or an altitude around 8500ft. Also, the landing gear will automatically retract at take-off speeds.
The wheel chalks, pitot flags, ladder, and engine covers automatically appear when the parking brake is set. You were done flying for the day, weren't you?
The 'Smart Mirror' camouflage system is activated using the spoilers command, "/". This should only be used at EXTREME slow speeds with the flaps completely extended and the throttle off. Just when you start to stall, activate the cloaking system and retract the wings. The bird will even out around 40kts and pretty much hover, mostly invisible from above and below.
The StarBlade can be crash-landed on its belly or in the water with extreme care. While not visible, there IS a water rudder if you want to activate it (However, there is no screen control for it. You must use the FS hotkey).
The drag chute effect will automatically deploy when you apply the brakes while going faster than 40kts ground speed, as in a landing situation. It is a true effect, not part of the model, so those with a working knowledge of effects can reverse-engineer it into their own planes. It wavers, has chute cords, and is rounded in a mock-3D look. It is best viewed from the front due to the way FS handles layered effects. I created it using LightWave 3D and rendered it in 16 separate slices for depth.
The g-force contrails are activated thanks to Rob Barendregt's gauge programming.
The afterburner control programming and "re-heat" switch for the afterburners were created by Rob Barendregt, used by permission.
The auto-deploying "Hyper Mach Fuel Nozzles" appear at mach 4+ speeds. However, they can be triggered manually when on the ground for maintenance purposes using the tailhook command. Once deployed, the Hyper Mach effect replaces the rocket burn afterburner effect, and the "donuts on a string" contrail effect activates. Bill explains the theory of how the real hyper-mach engine works much better than I do, but I have been assured that the effect looks correct. (Basically the plane releases fuel which ignites in the sound cone, pushing the plane forward. The effect is based on real photos of the top-secret Aurora's "donuts on a rope" contrail.)
DON'T fire the afterburner on the ground with the hyper-mach nozzles out! That's just plane stupid! Don't say I didn't warn you!
Part of the afterburner effect was based on an effect from an SR-71 Blackbird by Bob Chicilo. Although it has been completely re-worked and a massive burst of flame and smoke has been added for the F-136, I give credit for his original effect, used by permission. The flames are animated with the same explosion images used with the missiles.
Opening the missile bay (exit 2 with the "Shift+E, 2" combination) will launch a series of missiles followed by some massive explosions. To reset the effect, close and re-open the bay. If the bay is opened while grounded, nothing will happen. I created the animated missiles and volumetric animated fire using LightWave 3D (See "Known Issues" regarding some missile problems).
The fantastic sound barrier effect and sonic boom are from Rob Barendregt's incredible carrier ops package (RCBco-20.zip, not included. You must download and install this package separately, but the F-136 is already configured to use it.)
Hard to attain, but worth it, is the mach speed water effect. Fly 100ft over the ocean at mach 1, and you'll be treated to what happens when a sonic boom hits water. The easiest way to do this is to set the autopilot for Mach 1.01 (increase the mach setting until it rolls over to .01) and set the terrain-follow mode to 100 ft while over the ocean (See "Terrain Follow Mode").Anyone remember "Firefox?" Great movie. Rent it. That's what gave me the idea.
Engine glow and heat effects by Rob Barendregt.
The new F136.air file is only a tweaked version of the upgrade. I just wanted to be able to put more stress on the bird so I could do loops and other maneuvers, mostly. However, there are also other changes to the aircraft.cfg file too numerous to remember.
The "autopilot off with brakes" feature was my first gauge. Many thanks to Rob B (again) for his patient help in teaching me xml programming. Use the brakes to turn off all F-136 autopilots.
The NASA textures were born from the idea that my new afterburner looked kind of strange coming from a stealth aircraft. Oh, well. The other textures are explained in the descriptions which appear on the aircraft selection screen in FS.
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"Auto-Orbit And Return Controls"
Two buttons are located next to the pitch trim on the left of the panel: "Hyper-Mach Initiation" and "Auto De-Orbit Initiation"
In short, set a destination 400 miles or more away in the GPS and set for GPS navigation and autopilot.
Press the hyper-mach button and hold on. The bird will take you up to 95,000 feet all automatically, activating the afterburners at 30,000ft and changing speeds and auto-deploying hypermach nozzles as necessary.
When you are about 1 minute from your destination, the computer will automatically drop you out of orbit and plunge you toward the ground, leveling out at 1000ft agl at the last minute and putting you about 10-15 miles away from your destination, or you can break out early with the "de-orbit" button.
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"Landing Mode"
This is experimental, but does work at many of the airports I've tried. For some reason, some European airports don't work correctly.
This also only works under very exact conditions, so make sure you keep an eye open for problems when auto-landing!
When flying about 500-1000 ft AGL, and about 10kts from your destination, set the GPS to an airport, then activate an ILS vectors approach to a convenient runway (for instructions on how to use the GPS, please refer to the FS documentation. It is a complicated beast, but once you get the hang of it, it isn't too bad).
Make sure you are on GPS navigation, and have the navigation autopilot and altitude controls on.
Press the "Landing Mode" button.
What SHOULD happen at this point, is the terrain follow mode will come on and set itself for 500 ft AGL. The F-136 wings (flaps) will extend fully. The engine will cut to 0 thrust until 120 kts is reached. Then the auto-speed will come on set to 120kts, the landing lights will come on, and the landing gear will drop.
The plane will fly in to the airport on the ILS approach. When it is about 1 minute away from landing, the terrain follow mode will turn off, and the plane will continuously re-set the altitude to bring it into a smooth landing.
Upon touchdown, all autopilots will turn off, the throttle will cut, the brakes will come on, and the drag chute will deploy.
At about 50kts speed, the plane will return control to you, and you must bring it to a stop yourself.
You must make sure you have a long enough runway. Most runways with an ILS approach are plenty long, however. Also, on some European runways, the ILS is set PAST the end of the runway, so the plane actually touches down at the END of the runway, or not at all! I don't know why that is different than US runways.
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"Terrain Follow Mode"
I was using an AGL mode in so many autopilots, I decided to make a button that could be set and turned on independently.
To use the "Terrain Follow Mode" button, set the HEIGHT ABOVE THE GROUND that you want the plane to stay at in the ALT area of the autopilot control. Then press the terrain follow button. The button will take the number in the ALT setting and add it to the height of the ground, then replace the ALT setting with the new altitude. It will then continuously update the ALT setting depending on ground height and will set the vertical speed setting very high or low depending on how close it thinks you are to crashing.
For example, if you want to fly at 300 feet above the ground, then set "300" in the altitude setting of the autopilot and press the "Terrain Follow" button. If the ground altitude is 800ft AGL, then the autopilot will automatically set itself for 1100ft and go up or down depending on the hills below you.
Just make sure that the master AP button is on and the ALT button is on as well.
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"Auto-Takeoff Button"
Nothing special here. Press and go. The plane will switch on the afterburners and set the wings for 2 notches of flaps. All relevant autopilots will turn on and off as needed. At take-off speed, the Terrain Follow mode will kick on and take you up to 1000ft AGL, raising the landing gear and setting the speed to 160kts. At 1000ft AGL, the afterburner will turn off.
You don't really need the afterburner to take off, but it looks cool.
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"Known Issues"
--Missiles
Driven by the desire to have a really good missile effect, I spent way too much time doing this.
Open the missile bay (Shift-E, 2) and the missiles will launch. To re-set the effect, close and re-open the bay.
They are animated, spinning missiles with animated rocket blast contrails. The explosions are animated as well, and are designed to explode on the ground in front of the craft. The explosion is a looped animation created using LightWave 3D's volumetric rendering engine, and the missiles are a LightWave rendered sequence as well.
There are problems, however, that I don't know how to fix.
The first is the fact that if you turn on all the lights manually (L) a single missile will launch before the effects controller gauge can turn it off. Usually the collateral damage is already being covered up by a government conspiracy by the time that happens. Just don't use "L".
The second is that sometimes the missiles and the explosions will simply vanish. I don't know why. If you change views, sometimes you can see that they are still there. I think that this has something to do with the way FS handles fog. If you set the weather to "clear," then most of the time that problem goes away. Maybe it is just my computer setup, and no one else will have that problem at all!
The third is "Shift-E, 2" itself. Sometimes, it just doesn't work, and only the main hatch opens and closes. I think that has something to do with my autopilots, however. If you hold the brakes for a couple of seconds, all autopilots will shut off, and "Shift-E, 2" will work. I should probably make an actual fire button so that it always works, but I haven't done that yet. If someone else wants to, please do and send it to me!
--Auto Mixture Enabled
In the FS options under "realism settings" is the ability to fly with auto mixture turned on. This is how I fly all the time. However, there are some very rare occasions where you can drop from EXTREME altitudes (98,000 ft or more) after flying for a VERY long time (45 minutes or more) and the auto-mixture seems to fail. This is a Flight Simulator problem, as far as I can tell. What happens, however, is that your plane is supposed to drop to just under 300kts before it levels off at 1000ft AGL. Well, with the Auto Mixture messed up, your speed won't drop below 600kts and you will slam into the ground.
If you are not slowing down to 300kts by about 5,000 ft AGL then the work around is to shut off the engines, then turn them back on. This will reset the fuel flow. You really should not have to do this very often, but keep an eye on it anyway.
--Transparent plane
This might only be MY graphics card. However, certain planes that use the Alpha channel for reflection maps might go strangely transparent at night when one of the effects is active. I don't know why, but the only workaround I have found is to remove the alpha channel from the textures. However, the NASA plane and the Production Line Model both look so good with the Alpha channels on during the day, that I left them in place.
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"Frequently asked questions"
If your question is not answered below, check the "Known Issues" section for some more common problems.
Actually, I've had no questions because nobody has flown this finished package except me. I'll try to anticipate some questions, however.
"Where is the F136?"
Find the F136 under "USA" in the plane selection screen.
"How do I shut off all these autopilots?"
Hold the brakes for about 2 seconds. All autopilots are designed to be canceled (with the exception of the VERY END of the auto-landing sequence) when the brakes are turned on.
However, most of the time pressing another autopilot button will cancel the others. Therefore, if you want to fly at 300kts an 1000ft AGL, press the "Auto Drop" button at any altitude and speed. If you want to fly at 120kts and 500ft AGL, press the "Landing Mode" button at any altitude and speed. Likewise, the "Auto Take-Off" button will set you at 1000ft AGL and 160kts.
Pressing the "Landing Mode" button and the "Terrain Follow" button will toggle them on and off, respectively.
"Why don't any of these effects you talk about actually work?"
The problem could be in several areas, but the most likely is you need to cycle through the main 2D cockpit screen at least once every time you load a new F136 plane. Other problems might involve placing the effects and effects' textures in the correct folder, and placing the gauges in the gauges directory. See the "install.txt" file for details.
"I don't get a sonic boom at Mach 1+ speeds."
The fantastic sound barrier effect and sonic boom are from Rob Barendregt's incredible carrier ops package, RCBco-20.zip, not included. If you want the sonic boom effect, YOU SHOULD DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THIS PACKAGE SEPARATELY, but the F-136 is already configured to use it.
"I can't make the plane auto-land."
Yeah. That's SOOOO experimental. Follow the directions above as best you can, and try a different airport. KHUF in Indiana is the one I was using for testing purposes. Remember, you must have an ILS approach set in the GPS for that to work. Don't shoot at Terre Haute, International/Hulman Field, however. That is my home airport!
"I landed in the water, but I can't turn the plane."
There IS a water rudder, but it is not animated and there is no switch for it. Make sure you have a key assigned to "water rudder" and use it to turn it on. Then you can turn more easily while navigating in the water.
"I'm using the terrain follow mode correctly, but the plane is still smashing into mountains."
The terrain follow mode relies on the autopilot's ability to change the plane's pitch trim to change altitudes. Extreme elevation changes happen too fast for the autopilot to compensate at lower settings. Usually 1000ft or higher is a safe setting, but as low as 200 can be used on gently rolling hills. Also, make sure that the "ALT" button and the "Master AP" button are lit, or else the "Terrain Follow" mode will change the settings without the plane responding!
Also, make sure you press the "B" key every once in a while to correctly set the altimeter.
Remember, if you want to change your AGL height, you must TURN OFF the terrain follow button, change the ALT setting to the new height above ground you want (for instance, "200" if you want to be at 200ft AGL) and then press the button again to turn it back on. The ALT setting you just changed will then change ITSELF to the correct altitude.
"Why is there no sound for the missiles?"
Um...I never learned to do sound. Maybe somebody out there could write up a quick patch and show me how to do that?
"The drag chute looks funny from behind or from the side."
Flight Simulator layers effects based on their order in the effect file, not their placement in the FS world. I could either make the chute look good from the front or from the back. I chose the front for screenshot purposes. Besides, it only looks bad from the back or the side if you are at an extreme angle.
"How do I deploy the hyper-mach nozzles manually?"
On the ground, use the tailhook command. They will extend for maintenance purposes. In the air, they will extend, but they will immediately retract if the plane is not going at least Mach 4.
"I've discovered a bug/problem. Will you fix it?"
If I can duplicate it, then yes. Send me detailed information about the problem. Keep in mind that this is freeware, however. Some of the stuff I've discovered about the plane and its effects are out of my control, as in Microsoft's error, not mine. Also, keep in mind that a lot of the plane's systems are automatic. You can't keep the hatch open at high altitudes because that would KILL YOU. That is not a bug, that is a safety precaution. Also, read the "Known Issues." Your problem might be in there.
"Is that Lara Croft in the 'Lady Bullet'?"
I'm sure it can't be, because that would probably violate some sort of copy write.
"Is that the Governor of California in 'The Terminator'?"
Yes.
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"Special Thanks"
Of course, special thanks must go to William Ortis of LionHeart Creations for this incredible plane and the imagination to create such fantastic technology! Bill has been very patient with me as I've continuously bugged him throughout this process. "Bill, at what altitude would you need to close the hatch before the pilot blacks out?"
Thanks to Rob Barendregt not only for his amazing gauges, but also for the volumes of information he has imparted to me regarding the programming of XML control gauges. The guy has been amazingly patient with me as well, and generous with his own work to me and the entire Flight Sim community.
Thanks to my family, for not throwing me and my computer out into the cold during the late hours I've spent working on something that they knew would make no money.
There are others, but I cannot remember them all at this moment. I hope you know who you are, and thanks so much for your help as well!
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"Legal"
Rob Barendregt's gauges and William Ortis' plane are theirs, used by permission. YOU, however, are NOT allowed to use their stuff in your own planes without asking them!
As for MY stuff, hey, I don't really care, as long as NO MONEY IS EVER CHARGED IN ANY WAY FOR ANYTHING THAT USES MY STUFF! My effects are FREE and will always remain free. In fact, I'd be thrilled if you wanted to put them in your planes, as long as you mention me and let me know about it so I can see how you've used it. Credit, that's all I ask.
