There is no conspiracy behind anything
First things first, I stand corrected. Hades, good work on the exes.
Now, the goal was to de-brand. The goal was to work together. As you and I spoke, HSFX for now is a neutral build.
Lets talk about CTR2 shall we. If you remember one reason all this came to a head was because I as CO of the Fallen Angles explained to my squadron the pitfalls of running a MOD competition without extra security. FA left followed by others. I did send you , pappy and one other USL guy that are admins at USL they why and how things can be done to allow cheating. After which you accused me of undermining "working together" I called for a meeting on TS so we can iron out things and point out what could be done.
The conversation at USL TS went something like this. In a mod situation you still have areas that can be exploited mainly XXX and XXX were you can edit XXX and fly XXX and ...
On TS you said yes and some kind of requirements were garnered from that conversation from all of us. Now CRT2 thanks to many is much tighter. This however falls short in that a new value should have been rather than '2' because 2 was designed as is to check for classes and fm. CRT2 could have been left alone as it was and for competitions a new checkruntime value could have been used allowing for more stringent checks. This would have allowed a couple of things:
- (a). Enforce FM and Class files using crt2 (standard). This allows the user to install new maps textures and the like, just like game default.
(b). New values starting at say 10 (equal to 0 game default) - no runtime check; 11 ( enhanced CRT1); 12 (enhanced crt2 as Zuti has done.
Using different checkruntime values would satisfy any additional security measures without stepping on existing game security values.
Now to continue. After these USL checks were added I passed the information to my squad (FA) that the new CRT2 works like a charm. If they opt not to participate, its not me. After all it is up to the guys not me.
To clarify a bit further, USL went mod competition before these changes. I specifically explained to the squadron that under no circumstances should any competition be performed under ANY mod pack, meaning HSFX, UP, UI or any other mod pack out there simply because of the open security holes brought up by the wrapper.dll and the original sound mod.
I reiterated the same message while I was on TS with you, Pappy and Lazarus. If you remember, Pappy left for dinner as well as I during our meeting on TS. We then continued to hammer out what could be done before USL went live.
To clear the air, I'm not degrading anyone, every ones efforts are appreciated by many (including me) especially the new check runtime by Zuti (see note (b) above) with requirements gathered at the TS meeting.
Now, HSFX is a different project I agree but that by no means makes it unviable for online play. After all, SOEW is using that as a coop and we have been using vanilla HSFX 4.1 under single user, QMB and dedicated dogfight campaign without issues at all. Hence the statement that HSFX is for SEOW and UP is for online is baffling, unless of course UP has totally different flight models and more aircraft than HSFX
at this time.
HSFX is the root of your mod pack plain and simple. HSFX contains all the mods by many people all debugged without java errors.
Now this is what kills me. UP uses HSFX and now everyone on the planet gives accolades to UP all the while the core of the UP functionality is HSFX.
The additional content by you to community are the new JVM fixes to the game EXE. Zuti has done an excellent job on the MDF and everyone loves it. Many authors be they map makers, effects guys, 3D modelers and the like have donated as well to the "mod pool".
Let's look at HSFX, much of every ones content is used with due credit and it is specifically tailored (meaning aircraft and functionality) to be used for SEOW. That however does not diminish the fact that HSFX can still be used as a dedicated server, after all you now have a slider in 2.0 that allows a server to be HSFX.
Now is it right to re brand all that content and call it UP?
As far as the UI, again I state, the UI was made to fill a gap allowing the non-tech guy to install all the mods simply. It was never intended to be the answer to everything it was never intended to be the de facto in any way. It was a collection of mods that were easy to install and gave the end user (online and offline) flexibility.
I'm aware that for a very long time you have collaborated with Charles and the efforts of SEOW. That however does not diminish the fact that UP for some reason changes the FM from HSFX and from other modders at will without any notification.
For the moment let's take the current P51's you guys placed in UP 1.8 totally different than what we originally had. Let's look at the 51's you placed in 2.0, very different from 1.8, the 51 in UP 2.0 one as noted bySani at your site are so close to each other (UP 2.0 and Wolf FM) that now they are almost twins. Seems Wolf did his homework after all.
Now, what about other FM's? I ran a small data mining report if you want it.
See, the bigger picture is give credit where credit is due and don't change squat unless a contact with the original author is established. If by some change the author was unfortunate and got hit by a bus then and only then can an edit be accomplished by a team of more than one person.
We all need
ONE set of flight and damage models so everyone is compatible with everyone. This way there is no need for a specialized/branded FM mod slider to JSGME.
The door is still open, I'm all ears.