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Night Owl CD-ROM (NOPV8) (Night Owl Publisher) (1993).ISO
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034a
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tuthex.arj
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TUTHEX4.TXT
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1992-05-12
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TUTORIAL "HEXING 101" PART 4
Weapons string continued. the 7th and 8th bytes are related
to the muzzle velocity, for most .50 cals it is 8B 08. The
9th byte is the firepower, in our case 06. The 11th byte
controls how much ammo is counted down per trigger pull. 01
or 02 is normal. I have tried higher values, it does not
give you extra firepower, it just gets rid of ammo faster <G>
The 13th and 14th bytes control the "drag" the weapon gives
to the plane. Internal weapons are normally zero, big fat
bombs and wing pods usually have a value of 32 (hex) or 64
here. BTW, I have a zip called "HEXWPNS.ZIP" that contains
all the weapons strings for the German and US planes.
DOING A "HEX DUMP". The best thing you can do with PCTools
is to select a file, go to the file options, go to print file
menu, but instead of printing it normally, select the "print
file in HEX and ASCII". This is called doing a hex dump of
the file. All the byte values, addresses, and ASCII
equivalents will be printed for the file. If you want to
hex, you need a map. Do a hex dump of every original .SPC
file. This allows you to quickly jump back and forth and
visually compare the files.
ACHMER FLIGHT TESTING:
How do you know what is what? Well, make a "map" of the SPC
file. I photocopied the .SPC printout of a Bf109 and had it
enlarged. As locations were listed as to what they did, I
would block off that section and write in the meaning (ie
what that byte or series of bytes did) Pretty soon, there
were just a few gaps left. My .SPC map now has about 80% of
the locations discovered. Again, as Keith taught me, a basic
knowledge of hexidecimal math will open many doors. Most
speeds and many values are direct conversions from hex to
decimal, and that's how they are found. For example, the LF
SWOTL rulebook states that the different type planes (jet
rocket prop) have a different liftoff speed, and gave the
values of 100, 135 I think. By comparing all the .SPC files,
I found this area. Some are NOT direct comparisons, rather a
relative value. Well, how do you find these?? By use of the
"Rosetta Sone", the B17 bomber. The B-17 is noticably
hideous in almost all flight characteristics when complared
to a P51D or a FW190. Plug in the value of a certain
location, let's say debug 19E-19F, <PCTools address (009E-
009F)> into the B17 from a P51. Normally, this is a 00 F0 in
the P51, and 00 34 in the B17. The actual decimal equivalent
numbers are meaningless...it's the relative values that
matter. To each other, they are relative at the ratio of 15
(for the 00 F0) to 3.25 (for the 00 34). Now fly the
modified B17, and as you "put it through its paces" you'll
discover it suddenly has a super rate of roll, ie the wings
waggle much faster than before. Some relative value
discoveries are a little more subtle, though. The bottom
line is, experiment! No matter how badly you goof up the
.SPC file of your test aircraft, a simple copy command from
the .BAK file returns all to normal. It helps to make the
decimal conversion of a certain area for every plane, then
logically try to figure out what it does before testing. I
list the values for every plane in a certain spot, then try
to make sense of it. For example, the location (000D) had
all 00s for the American planes, and every German plane had a
01 there. Aha! The "IFF" byte. Some files are therefore
simple on/off values, usually 00 vice 01. NEXT-EASY HEX JOB.