Assist on Air Groups

[oldman45]

In my mod I fight the AI for control of the DEI. Because of this there are several Dutch squadrons that survive. The problem is there are no aircraft for them. What I want to do is allow them to use US aircraft after a certain date.

I looked at the air group section of the editor and it looks like all I have to do is add the upgrade aircraft that I want in the pull down. The question is, do I have to add all of them ie P-40 various models with the final upgrade being the P-47, or do I simply add the P-40E and let nature take its course.

thanks

[timtom]

The former.

[oldman45]

Great, thanks again.

[Bradley7735]

Generic upgrades use the nationality and plane type for upgrades.

ie, any US Army fighter can upgrade to any US Fighter plane, as long as there are some in the pool. But any Dutch fighter will only upgrade to other Dutch fighters unless you specifically add them to the upgrade list.

You might end up using all the upgrade slots because some nationalities (US) have a lot of upgrade possibilities.

[jcjordan]

You can always add Dutch versions of the planes as well as editing the sdrns to have the later a/c in their upgrade path (for when PDU is set to off) & just set the bitmap to point to the US version.

[oldman45]

If i just put specific planes in ie P40E then P40K, then the P47 all I need is the 3 slots right?

[jcjordan]

The P40E is already in for the Dutch (you'd have to possibly change the avail dates)but yes you'd just need 1 slot for each a/c added & there's plenty of extra slots for a/c but not as much bitmap art spots. You can do a simple copy & paste of the US versions & change the country of the a/c to Dutch from US for the new Dutch ones & then just change the replacement rates, viola the Dutch now have a late war upgrade path.

[oldman45]

Ah that is where I think my mistake was. I simply pointed to the US aircraft. Since mine is just against the AI I didn't care if the art work was right.

So I need to add the planes I want in the airgroup tab, then add the P40K and P47 to the dutch side of the aircraft tab?

[jcjordan]

Going from memory (as bad as it is [:'(]) since I'm not at home to load it up on laptop - find the US version of the P40K & then select copy & paste it in a slot say in the Dutch area planes (should be some blank slots but can be a slot anywhere in the database) of the database then once that's done change that plane's nationality to Dutch from US (forget which tab that is on the a/c panel) then set whatever replacement rates, avail dates etc you want. Do this for any other a/c you want. The 2nd step you'd need to do if you're going to play w/ PDU off would be go to the individual Dutch fighter squadrons & add whatever slots you put the new a/c into their upgrade path so they'll upgrade from the older to the newer types when enough planes are available. If PDU is on then you should be able to change it within the game during play without having to do this step but I do it even though I play w/ PDU on just so I don't always have to micromanage upgrades.

[oldman45]

Thanks for the help!!

[jcjordan]

Sure no problem, good luck