TUTORIAL - "HEXING 101" PART 6
Ok, you want to really make a realistic plane.  First, get
the SPC file that most closely resembles your plane in
performance.  Why?  Less changes, of course!  If a plane has
a notoriously "tough" engine you may wish to base it off the
P47.  (engine toughness hasn't been found yet.)  Next, get
the SPCTXT.ZIP from Keith H, it is a "map" of the whole SPC
file.  You need to consider every known value.  Does it match
your target plane?  Damage value, pitch rate, roll rate, turn
rate...the values for the other planes should be listed on a
chart, then you should make a good guess as to what the
correct value for your plane should be.  For example, the
turn rates are: 109=00C0 (relative value of 12) 190=00F0
262=00A0 163=FFFF (relative value of about 16) go229=FFFF
P47=00B0 P51=00F0 B17=0060 P38=00B8 (relative value of 11.5).
This means the values range from 6 (B17) to 16 (Go229 and
Me163).  Use historical references to find the right values
or at least in relation to a known plane.  Next, the infamous
"speed bytes"  These are byte values from (usually) (0060) to
(0095) <160 to 195 in Debug>.  They are taken two bytes at a
time.  BTW, how do you know when something is a single byte,
or whether it is two at a time?? YOU DON'T! <Grin>.  Just
logically look at it.  Anyway, the speed bytes gradually
ascend in value, until they reach the maximum at (0094-0095)
which is the maximum speed.  My best guess is that they
control the max speed at certain altitude bands.  I don't
know really.  However, they should be adjusted to gradually
increase to whatever max value you set at both 12a-12b
(debug) and at 194-195 (debug).  Now, look at the location in
a SPC file at (00B8).  At the right hand side of PCTools, the
ASCII equivalent spells, for example, BF109.  The program
knows to look here for the cockpit name.  In our case, the
BF109 tells it to look for BF109.INT.  Well, mix-and-match.
You can literally put just about ANY cockpit in any plane.
(just don't include the .INT -the computer knows that.)  The
same thing is happening down in sector 1, (0077).  <in debug,
377).  Down there, the name equates to the PAC file used (ie
exterior graphics).  There are some complications sometimes,
but it generally works.  Again, the program knows...when you
type in (at debug 377) BF109G, the computer knows to use both
the BF109G.PAC and the BF109GS.PAC files.  This is how we use
BOB graphics in the game. Just copy all the *.PAC and *S.PAC
files from the BOB planes into the \swotl\ac subdir, and you
can utilize them.  Of course, you'll want to camoflage them
as well...byte (debug) 391 controls the camo combinations,
and there are two camo files, controlled by "camoflag" or
"camoexp" at (debug) 388....  Anyway, I think I'm going to
wrap up the hexing tutorial.  I hope a few folks at least did
their first "mini-hex" job and enjoyed it.  You can get crazy
with it, though!  The BAMERSTR.PAC and BGERMSTR.PAC files
contain all the weapons descriptions (in order).  Don't
change the 0A 00 FF bytes, but you can change the ASCII
equivalent bytes to make it read any weapon or ammo amount
you wish.  The strings are read in order, ie if the second
byte of a weapons string is 04, then the fourth weapon listed
in the BAMERSTR.PAC file is used.  For example, we backed up
the BAMERSTR.PAC file (werner and I) and made a RUSSNSTR.PAC
file that gets copied in just like a .EXP plane into a .SPC
file.  It then has all Russian weapons types. <G>.  This is a
nice touch, I would recommend it for your mods.--Sturmer.