[nodlew]

Since this post (yesterday) and irrespective of the ensuing brouhaha and completely unrelated in any way to the fine people of Bulgaria, I have made some more discoveries about Histomod which I will pass along to anyone else who becomes enamored of it as I have. I did not know--and much hassle resulted--that Histomod 4.0, although made to be installed over top of UP 2.01, is not mix and match compatible with other mods and missions that are made for UP 2.01. Histomod is programed using a different Java class--the aircraft which come with the mod are all built and programmed to respond to the game in a different way, which allows for all of the new controls, etc. So, it is inadvisable, for instance, to try to use histomod plane mods without the main Histomod (000_Korea) folder installed, and likewise, it is not advisable to try to use plane mods not made specifically for Histomod with the Histomod. As a result, most of the missions available for download will not work at all with Histomod, and the ones that work don't work very well. Histomod is mostly played on-line at the moment, and there is very little off-line content, although I understand that such is being worked on. I cannot play on-line, however, because I am stuck with a satellite internet connection living as I do in a rural area. LeBig has taught me a way around the problem, which requires a little work on the player's part, but I have found, once you do it a couple of times, it becomes more second nature.

You can't use UP 2.01 planes in Histomod, but there are Histomod equivalents, and more, for all of the UP 2.01 planes. In order to play a campaign built for UP 2.01, say, Gabby in Korea by Cracken, which I am playing now, with Histomod, you have to open the mission .mis files with notepad and replace the UP planes with their Histomod equivalents. For instance, the second Gabby mission, Gabby02.mis, the player's flight looks like this:

[8AF_004FG_0HQ00]
Planes 4
Skill0 1
Skill1 3
Skill2 1
Skill3 1
skin0 F-86A-5 49-1319 334TH FIS USAF.bmp
skin1 F-86Sabreeaglestone2.bmp
skin2 F-86A-5 49-1319 334TH FIS USAF.bmp
skin3 F-86A-5-NA 48-259 334th FIS.bmp
pilot0 Gabreski_USAAF.bmp
pilot1 Eagleston_USAAF.bmp
pilot2 Korea_US_01.bmp
pilot3 Korea_US_02.bmp
numberOn0 0
numberOn1 0
numberOn2 0
numberOn3 0
Class air.F_86A5
Fuel 100
weapons 2x207gal

The part in red is the part that needs attention. If you look in the 000_Korea folder, @ 000_Korea/Mods/STD/Com/maddox/il2/objects...in there you will find the air.ini. Open that with notepad and you can scroll to find the plane that is the match, or the equivalent of the F_86A5. In the Histomod air.ini that plane is the F-86A_Sabre, and its class is air.F86A. simply copy and paste air.F86A to where air.F_86A5 is in the mission. You have to do that with every plane in the mission. Some of the planes have the same names, Mig_15(bis) for example, but that is an exception. I believe it is necessary to do the same thing with the weapons loadouts, or at least to check to make sure that the histomod loadouts are the same syntax as the UP loadouts. I have found it difficult to open some missions in the FMB with Histomod installed, so my method of checking loadouts is to use the FMB to make a scratch mission, and place the planes in it that are required for the mission. Then assign those planes the proper loadouts and then close the game and check the .mis file for the scratch mission that you just made. If necessary, copy and paste the proper loadouts into your campaign or single mission you want to play.

I know this sounds labor intensive, and many will balk at it, perhaps even more so than learning to press a button to turn your magnetos on, and for those I say to thine own self be true. But as I said, this info is for those who like Histomod and want to play some missions for it. Until then, yours...




Since posting this last night I have been converting The Legend of Y-29 (version 3) for Histomod, and it turns out that it needs, so far, very little conversion at all. Version 3 is made for UP 2.01, so it turns out that the differences between the names of planes and the load-outs in Histomod 4.0 and UP 2.01 are not nearly as extensive as I'd gathered from my first attempts to convert a mission. And that's good news. But it is still necessary I think to check all of the plane names to make sure there is no problem. Or at least, if you have a problem, then you might know where to look to fix it now.