Friction level at Fifis!

[=CfC=Bounder]

Mac.....

Having ended up buying the farm within 5 minutes of the Dead-is-dead mission last night, I never had a go at destroying the infrastructure at Fifi's new establishment near Dover!

I downloaded the mission today to see how much damage I could inflict by landing a Spitfire on the strip but found that the farmer who loaned Fifi the land had failed to level it sufficiently.

The friction setting in UP3 is quirky. It is necessary for the invisible runway and the HB icon to be at the height of the airstrip or the friction setting won't work. Looking at Mac's airstrip, the invisible runway and HB icon are on the hill to the west of the flat land forming the airstrip and considerably higher than the strip itself. Although bombers and some fighters like the Hurricane can withstand the default map friction, the small wheels on the Spitfire usually result in nosing over.

I have re-positioned the invisible runway on a template of Mac's mission and I enclose the template (set-up as a single mission with one Spit spawning at Hawkinge)

The way to get the friction to work is to move the invisible runway object around the airstrip until you find the correct level. This is best achieved by looking at an object such as a tree or in this case the barrage balloon base located on the invisible runway making sure that the level of the runway is the same as the object. In this case it was necessary to slew the runway object out over the port of Dover to get one end to be the correct height of the middle of the airstrip. it is also necessary to move the runway object clear of any taxi area as a/c like the Spitfire will "flip" when taxiing over the edge of the invisible runway. You will see that I moved the runway object east of the airstrip and under the trees that line the eastern side.

Having got the runway object in at the correct height, you then add the HB object and using right mouse and F2 pressed, drag the HB icon away from the middle of the runway to a point on the invisible runway which will form the datum for the friction level. You will see that I moved it close to the barrage balloon base on the eastern side.

Unfortunately, all the terrain on maps is not entirely level unless the map maker has made an effort to get all the heights the same, as in an airfield. This means that although an area suitable for building a Fifi strip looks level, even with the friction level set to around 2, there will still be the odd lump and bump. Testing by taxiing around the airstrip in a Spitfire will soon expose major bumps but there is unfortunately nothing you can do unless you place objects over the bumps and move the centre of the strip sideways a little.

I have torn much hair trying to achieve flat airfields! BD beware!

Bounder

[CFC_Conky]

Good advice Bounder, another thing I do is hit Enter once I runway is placed to get the 3D view. It will become immediately apparent whether or not the runway is flat on the terrain. I now use a friction level of 1.5 for all grass runways, home-built or not.

Pip, pip,
Conky

[=CfC=Bounder]

Yup Conky....1.5 covers all the a/c with small wheels.

Only other problem that I think we will never be able to beat is the "dynamic tree generator" (the trees that you can fly through and that appear in the middle of our newly constructed runways).

Very frustrating!

Bounder

[Mak]

Thanks for that Bounder. I was unaware that the homebase marker/friction level had to be at runway height, though it seems obvious after the fact. I will use your template to update the rest of the missions in the series. Would you advise lowering the friction level to 1.5 as Conky suggests, or leave it at 2?
Thanks again
Mak

[=CfC=Bounder]

Ref. the friction setting.......if you know the chaps will be using any a/c with small wheels / narrow gear / nose heavy etc. it is probably best to set a low level such as Conky suggests.

it is sometimes very difficult to find level ground on a map and although it looks level, when you move an invisible runway object around on it you soon find that one end of the runway disappears into the hillside. You will notice this even on the new position that I set the runway object to as moving it any nearer to the landing threshold moves it into rising ground. The effect this has is that the initial 50-100m of runway is not getting the benefit of the friction setting. This makes it more challenging as you have to gamble on touching down further into the runway! I have had the exact same problem on several Fifi airfields and it is sometimes necessary to move the threshold: however, with the sloping ground where you have placed the threshold it would be a shame to move it as it does provide an excellent challenge and requires stick held firmly into the beer gut to avoid hitting the bumps just after touchdown!

Bounder

[Mak]

I see what you mean Bounder, the runway is level but the ground slope's slightly. I will have to be more allert to that in future. I will leave Fifi's there for these missions I think as they were only meant to test the idea of Dead is Dead and may not be used again, and it does provide a challenge to the Spits. I will follow Conky's recomendation and set the Friction level at 1.5 both on these missions and on the Blue version as that uses the Bf109 which can also be a bit touchy.
Thanks again for your help on this Bounder, much appriciated.
Mak

[CFC_Conky]

Hi Mak,

The reason for the 1.5 friction setting is that you have to set it to anything but the default setting if 3 in order to enable RRR. For a long time I used 3.1 but then discovered that on unsaved runways, particularly on the Finland map, that the runway surface was extremely rough, so I lowered it. It's not a problem on the grass strips on the Channel map but I do it every time so I don't forget 

Pip, pip,
Conky