First I have to say, I picked this up last night and it is awesome.

Would it be possible to set this up so the weapons can fire from the side of the airplane? I think this would be a great integration for two of Captain Sims products; Weapon and the AC-130. Can you imagine flying in a pylon turn firing those guns at targets on the ground?

Safe flying,
Sal

Thanks, Sal

But who will fly the C-130 while you are busy with the side guns?  :)

Granted you are alone the Weapon is more like figher-pilot experience.

That's what autopilot is for  ;)

Just dial in a spot on the GPS. When the aircraft reaches this point it begins a circle around the spot does it not?

While that's going on you can side look with the HUD and blast targets.

It's just a thought. I think it would be cool. Maybe I'm the only one.

-Sal

Then all you need is to set desired side view angle for the weapon panels (3 of them) in panel.cfg

Sounds great! How do I do that?

-Sal

Hi Sal.

I 'll take a look and work out how to do it. ;)

Mark

I would just put the A/P on, ALT/HOLD, then use the turn knob. The airplane will saty in a nice turn. That's what i do, but without the real firing! But i guess that will change now, wink wink... ;)

Thanks Markoz. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

-Sal

OK. I can get a view looking out over the "gattling guns" or whatever you want to call them, but the guns are still forward firing. I now have to turn my attention to the SDK to see what I need o do to get them firing to the left. Once I figure that out, I should have something to show. This could take longer than I originally thought, but I'll report back on my progress. I'm hoping it's easier than I think it is. ;)

Mark

Sorry guys, I've forgot to mention re-setup of the CSWeapon.xml. The Weapon won't work to the side. All stores positions are calculated from the long axis.  

Sounds like an item for further development. I'll place that into the corresponding thread to get some flying warships correctly fitted.  :D

What about turrets like on the B-17 or so?

Hi Alex.

I need clarification on a few things please.

(1) <!-- Station position (x,y,z) meters, angle of incidence, ammo units quantity --> this lines gives details for six (6) areas
     <Station name="Nose" params="0,9,0,0,-0.039,0,1200" /> This has numbers for seven (7) areas. What is the extra one for? And which one is the extra one?

(2) <Station name="Nose" params="0,9,0,0,-0.039,0,1200" /> Is the one in red the angle that the guns are pointing? If it is. Does 270 = left (as in 0 = north = forward and so 270 = west = left of forward)

(3) I changed the angle for the AC130 to 90, saved it, started FSX and the guns were still shooting forward. Do I need to make it "aircraft dependent" in here: <!-- aircraft dependent weapon settings -->. If I do, how do I do that? My understanding is that the line is commented out by the <!-- and not read by the CSWeapon.dll gauge, or do I have that wrong too.

Thanks in advance

Mark

Hi Mark,

<Station name="Nose" params="0,9,0,0,-0.039,0,1200" />
<!-- Station position (x,y,z) meters, angle of incidence, ammo units quantity -->

0,9,0 - position
0,-0.039,0 - angles
1200 - units

Everythig between <!--  --> is just a comment.

And there are no north or south, everything is in LOCAL aircraft frame of reference.

Hope that helps.

0,9,0 - position
0,-0.039,0 - angles
1200 - units
Thanks Alex. That makes all the difference!

Everythig between <!--  --> is just a comment.
I thought that was the what <!--  --> meant. :)

And there are no north or south, everything is in LOCAL aircraft frame of reference.
I might not have explained it well enough. But it doesn't matter any more. ;)

Hope that helps.
Yes it does. I'll be able to sort out the guns for the AC130 now! ;D

Mark

Thanks for all your work Mark. Looking forward to seeing what you have come up with.

-Sal

Woe is me.

No matter what I try, I can't get the guns to fire at 90^o to the left. I can get it as far as about 50^o but no further.
I have been able to get it shooting up 90^o and to the rear (180^o) changing the -0.039 entry. But not 90^o left or right using the other two entries that deal with the angle of the firing.

I have no idea why. So once again I need some information from Alex.

0,-0.039,0 - angles <--- modify these numbers, I have tried the following
-0.5,-0.039,0 and 0.5,-0.039,0
0,-0.039,-0.5 and 0,-0.039,0.5
-90,-0.039,0 and 90,-0.039,0
0,-0.039,-90 and 0,-0.039,90
without getting the result I need. Where am I going wrong?

I'm not sure if I'm following this correctly, but these lines:
<OptimumAOA>3.0</OptimumAOA>   <-- Optimum Angle Of Attack? I assume.
<!-- aircraft cruise angle of attack. Degrees -->
make me think that the 0,-0.039,0 is a 3.9^o UPWARD angle for the weapons to fire at. If I'm correct, then 1.0 is the largest number you can use. That makes 0.5 or -0.5 either 90^o or 180^o. Seeing as the numbers can be positive or negative, I think that 0.5 should be equal to 90^o.

It seems like once the number gets above 0.5 the angle on the guns (left or right) go no further. I'm at a loss until I get put back on track. :(

Mark

Markoz wrote on Feb 8^th, 2011 at 6:24pm:

0,-0.039,0 - angles <--- modify these numbers, I have tried the following

Mark,
these are not degrees but radians (sorry we've missed that info from SDK).
So left 90 degrees will look something like:
0,-0.039,-1.57

Hi Alex.

I shall give that a try. Just so you know, I'm not very good with radians. I learned them at school, but until now, haven't needed to use them. It's amazing what you can forget after 35+ years since leaving school!

I'll see if Windows default scientific calculator has something that will help. LOL

I have the CameraDefinition all set. It was just those angles that had me beat. I'm off to continue my task.

Thanks again.

Mark

Keep at it, Mark!
I'm 50 years out of high school and remember even less about radians than you do.  When you get it, please post it along with the camera angles;  I'm a huge AC-130 fan.

Jim Codlin

Don't worry Jim. I'm a whole LOT closer now than I have been in two days of fiddling. Once I am done, it will be available to everyone. ;D

Any luck yet Mark?

-Sal

I have got 2 M61 Vulcan Cannons firing out the left side, located on the two that can be see in external view. I have made (using gmax) a shell for the 105mm Howitzer, but I can't find a sound that suits it. I could use a rocket sound (YUK!) for now. Same deal with the 40mm Bofor.

If anyone knows where I can get them, let me know. Or if anyone knows how to extract the sound from a video, that will help too.

Mark

Here are some Public Domain sounds that might be useful.  The Muzzle Shot sound in particular.
[code]http://www.mediacollege.com/downloads/sound-effects/weapons/[/code]

Hi.

I found the files for the AC-130 Weapons Panel so I'm going to use them. I'm sorry this is taking a while to do, but I get carried away shooting things when I'm testing. Not to mention that sometimes, I switch to another aircraft and just start shooting anything and everything that I possibly can.

I'm also not very good with UV mapping in gmax (probably one of my weakest points), not that that is too much to worry about, seeing as you can't really see the shells themselves.

Oh well. Back to the grind. ;D

Mark

Could you post the download somewhere? Altough it woukld be a lot of Installation. :o

This sounds awesome, but can someone make a step-by-step instruction?

I have run into a problem with the sounds of the weapons (not the M-61 Vulcan because the sound is already there).
But I am for the 105mm Howitzer (g105.wav) and 40mm Bofor (g40.wav). As soon as I point them to the sound included in the FSX\Captain_Sim\130\sound folder, Weapon becomes unusable (0000 ammo and so they can't be fired). :(

It has been a while since I worked on them, I should get back to it. Sorry.

OH. And a step by step on how to do it, would take a lot of time to do. Even worse if there are any mistakes. :-[

Mark

hmm is it possible for you to upload the files to simviation or something?

Try placing sounds in main Sound folder of FSX instead of CaptainSim/Sound, of course modifying path to correct one in .xml. It worked for me, when I was making sound for CaptainSim Weapons GAU-8 Avanger gun for my IRIS A-10 Thunderbird. For bullet I used CSW Vulcan with tweaked range, weight and 200 burst rate (couldn't figure how to tweak RPM).
About sounds I think YouTube is nothing short of a gold mine in regart to any imaginable military sound. I using about 20 different gun sounds on my FSX planes - all from YouTube.
By the way, when searching: Vulcan, Avanger, GAU-8, Gatlin gun, Phalanx, CIWS - all sound very similar.

I thought of doing that, but because they are a part of the Captain Sim C-130 X-perience, I don't really want to touch them, if you know where I'm coming from.

But it just got a whole lot worse. I did something to mess up my installation of the C-130 X-perience. I uninstalled it, then deleted all the aiurcraft folders associated with the C-130. I then reinstalled it and once everything was working fine, I emptied my recycle bin. Guess what went out with the trash?

As you can well imagine, I am very angry with myself over this. I'll just have to start all over again. :'(

All,

I was messing around with the xml file and came up with these numbers.  They're not perfect but maybe someone can tweak them.  I hope this helps.

20mm

<Station name="Front" params="-2.83,6.07,-3.83,0,0.32,-1.57,1500" />
<Station name="Back" params="-2.83,5.27,-3.83,0,0.32,-1.57,1500" />

40mm

<Station name="Left side" params="-3.53,-2.63,-4.25,0,0.32,-1.57,256" />

105mm

<Station name="Left" params="-4.93,-4.55,-3.45,0,0.32,-1.57,100" />

I'm also trying to add the correct weapon stations on the MH-47 from Area51 and cannot get the correct radian for the right-side mini-gun.

I figured it out.  I had to put "1+2" in the mode of fire for both guns to fire at the same time.  Now my MH-47 has door gunners who can shoot.

nunweilr wrote on Nov 21^st, 2011 at 1:21am:

I figured it out.  I had to put "1+2" in the mode of fire for both guns to fire at the same time.  Now my MH-47 has door gunners who can shoot.

I'm glad you worked it out. You didn't provide enough info for me to help you with that.

Thanks for those locations for the guns in the AC-130 Spectre. I should get back into it, but because I deleted all I had done, I have just not ben able to get back "into it". With your help, I can. I still have to work out the sound issues I was having using the default weapon sounds (FSX\Captain_Sim\130\sound)

Mark