Custom campaign missions: Did you ever wanna put your own mission into one of the campaigns? (To do so, it helps to get the DuoSoft Toolkit for your game first.) Use it to find the filename of the mission in the campaign you want to replace. Write down (or memorize) the filename of that mission. Exit the toolkit and make your mission in the mission creator of your particular Jane's Air Combat Sim, and save it. Exit the game and rename the filename of your mission to the filename of the mission you want to replace in the campaign. That's it! (This also makes for a quick way to cheat: make the enemy a bunch of cargo planes and shoot them down for easy medals and promotions. You probably don't want to do THAT though, unless you really love to cheat, LOL....)
Naming Mission Items: Have you ever wanted to have your own airport in a mission with a name other than "Airport 7"? Or have you ever wanted to land on the "Roosevelt" instead of the "Eisenhower"? Sick of seeing 5 Ticonderogas, all with the same name? Then this little tidbit is for you. To name an object other than an aircraft (you can name an aircraft using this method, but why? You can name aircraft in the mission creator), you'll need to edit the mission in a text editor (like DOS Edit, or Windows Notepad). Open your mission file in the text editor. Find the player's aircraft object. In the name field, you will see a special character (in some editors it will appear as a block, in others it will look like a smiley face). Select that charater and copy it to the clipboard. Next, find the object you wish to name. Add a blank line after the "alias" indicator in the object's description. On this blank line, type "name" and then the name you wish to give the object. Then paste the special character on either side of the name like quotes (i.e. one before and one after). That's all there is to it.
Mission Specific Weapon Loads (ATF Gold, USNF '97, and FA only): Now we all know how to change the weapon load of your own plane in the game; via the weapon selection screen, of course! (duh) But how about the computer-controlled planes, besides your wingmen? Well, there is a way. First you create you mission as you normally would. Then, save the mission and exit the game. Open the mission file in a text editor. Find the data entry of the plane you want to change the weapon load of. It will look something like this:
obj
type A6.PT
pos 286741 10000 1383982
angle -135 0 0
nationality2 0
flags $4417
speed 445
alias -12
skill 1
react $2000 $8000 $0
searchDist 0
.
...then, change it to look something like this:
obj
type A6.PT
pos 286741 10000 1383982
angle -135 0 0
nationality2 0
flags $4417
speed 445
alias -12
skill 1
react $2000 $8000 $0
searchDist 0
hardpoint 3 1 AGM84A.JT
hardpoint 4 1 AGM84A.JT
hardpoint 5 1 AGM84A.JT
hardpoint 6 1 AGM84A.JT
.
Notice the extra hardpoint data? That's how to do it. The first number after the word "hardpoint" is the hardpoint ID#. The second is the quantity of weapons. The hardpoint ID#s vary from plane to plane, so it's helpful to have a DuoSoft Tookit to find out which hardpoint holds what. It also helps to know the .JT filename of the weapons you want to specify; the toolkits can be used to find them as well.
If you don't want to download a toolkit, or you're just too lazy to look, here is a helpful little rule to remember: the first hardpoint (hardpoint 0) is the visual seeker. The second hardpoint (hardpoint 1) is the radar. The third and fourth hardpoints carry the ECM device and IR seeker (respectively). So for an aircraft with all the above systems, the first weapon hardpoint is the fifth one (hardpoint 4). If the aircraft lacks any of the above systems, shift the all the following hardpoints up, one hardpoint for every system missing. Just keep in mind that there are occasional exceptions to this rule; sometimes there's a plane that just doesn't want to cooperate (trial and error is pretty much the only answer to this). And finally, for those of you who like to cheat: yes, you can specify any and as many weapons as you like, regardless of the normal limits.
Important: once you put hardpoint data into a mission, you can no longer edit the mission with the pro mission creator. For some reason, the mission creator doesn't like the hardpoint data, and will really screw up your mission if you try to save any changes to it. You will have to remove the hardpoint data before you attempt to modify the mission via the mission creator again.
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