56 replies to this topic

[JG1_Butzzell]

S! All

I was on New Wings the other night when something strange was spotted. I saw a plane bombing a German drome. Well, flying German I naturally dove in and started firing. When I saw German crosses, I pulled off and apologized. I was going to make a comment about not bombing your own base, when I took another look at the plane.

The picture is bellow. Sorry for the low res. It was taken at a distance. This is mods OFF. I have downloaded only skins from the RoF site.

It is clearly a Bristol in German markings and is treated as an Entente airplane by AI. The pilot, SkychaserGT was asked and confirmed it.

I did not realize that cross country markings were being approved.

Attached Files

•  Bristol.jpg   38.64KB   1150 downloads

[Nrohtnalu]

There are several captured plane skins in the historical skin packs…I can remember german Spads. N17 and DH4s too. the bst way to not get fooled in MP is to set show playet skins to off so only the default skins will be loaded. This makes visual Identification much easier on no label servers.

[Trooper117]

Deception plans… the military has and will continue to use deception and 'dirty tricks' to fool the enemy.
Seems pretty realistic to me.

[JG1_Lee_J10]

Captured planes are not deception planes. Captured plane carry the marking of their current owners.

That captured skins can only be flown in MMP as deception planes is an unfortunate feature. Although the risk of flying under false colors might outweigh the advantages if your own side in unaware and poor on aircraft recognition.

[Trooper117]

Exactly, regardless of markings, you are still trying to deceive your enemy..

[Nrohtnalu]

Captured planes are not deception planes. Captured plane carry the marking of their current owners.

That captured skins can only be flown in MMP as deception planes is an unfortunate feature. Although the risk of flying under false colors might outweigh the advantages if your own side in unaware and poor on aircraft recognition.

poor aircraft recognition is usually more a matter of the fact that we sit in frotn of 22" TFT screens and have to stare at black pixels virtual 300m away that have the equivalent size of an aircraft 2000m away in nature.

[JG1_Butzzell]

Well,


I finally found it as the Jasta 5 , squadron hack.

It is a captured aircraft skin. Actually it is historical. The problem comes when captured skins are not flown by the appropriate country. Flying this skin on a non captured plane causes great confusion. Flying a captured plane means your friends might shoot you till they see the markings. Flying your plane with an enemy skin means your AI should be shooting you and that does not happen.

My simple solution is to delete this skin and to let all players that I come in contact with aware of the problems I have with this type of play.

Is there a list of captured skins? Should they be in a separate download? Should a pilot

using a captured skin on a non captured plane be shot as a spy. If they land in enemy territory they are automatically killed? Works for me !!

[gavagai]

I did not realize that cross country markings were being approved.

Thank the voting system for mods-off skin approval.

[Moxy]

~S~Gents

Here goes the can of worms. Rummy you did a nice job on it. I mean that!
Don't have any intentions, of opinion's for right wrong, etc.

Its now out of my skin pack….If it fly's by… Il see default.

JG1_Heinz "Moxy" Schulte

[Winston60]

Yes, clearly a cheat if used in multiplayer this way. Deleting all "captured skins" from my game now…..

[thedudeWG]

Yes, clearly a cheat if used in multiplayer this way. Deleting all "captured skins" from my game now…..

Definitely a wise choice. Opening my trash bin now …

[Rover_27]

Is there a list of captured skins? How do I identify them in skin folders? Thanks

[Trooper117]

It's a historical skin, I'm not deleting it…

[Trooper117]

Is there a list of captured skins? How do I identify them in skin folders? Thanks

Rover, I just use the IrfanView 'thumbnails' viewer to quickly skip through skins.

[A1_Phoenix]

my two cents: it is an historical skin, but the pilot clearly attacked with another nation insignas, so completely against combat rules. firing squadron, i say: he should be treated as a spy.

BUT i have no negative feelings if "captured" planes are used with own insignas, apart some "oh, you clever chap!" moment of course heheheh

S!
A1

[Trooper117]

There are lunatics that will be 'on your side' in all online games, and will still 'kill' their own team members for god knows what reasons. You won't know they are going to do it, they will even have the same uniforms or markings as yourself.
If people are genuine cheats then they get recognized and banned, removing 'skins' will not stop people who want to cheat.

[Rover_27]

Wait a minute, you said it was a Bristol. What about his observer? Didn't he start firing at you?

[hq_Jorri]

my two cents: it is an historical skin, but the pilot clearly attacked with another nation insignas, so completely against combat rules. firing squadron, i say: he should be treated as a spy.

BUT i have no negative feelings if "captured" planes are used with own insignas, apart some "oh, you clever chap!" moment of course heheheh

S!
A1

I'd agree. In other words, ban from server

[Moxy]

Rover

When building a mission, you can put any plane at any base.
IE a British plane "built" into a German base, is recognized, by the game as a German plane.
The skin is only a pain job, and has no bearing on game file functions.
Using a skin, is only a choice!


JG1 Heinz "Moxy" Schulte

[=HillBilly=]

S! All

I was on New Wings the other night when something strange was spotted. I saw a plane bombing a German drome. Well, flying German I naturally dove in and started firing. When I saw German crosses, I pulled off and apologized. I was going to make a comment about not bombing your own base, when I took another look at the plane.

The picture is bellow. Sorry for the low res. It was taken at a distance. This is mods OFF. I have downloaded only skins from the RoF site.

It is clearly a Bristol in German markings and is treated as an Entente airplane by AI. The pilot, SkychaserGT was asked and confirmed it.

I did not realize that cross country markings were being approved.

I say shoot him down no matter what side your flying for!If the pilot chose that skin to confuse the enemy should he not expect the friends be confused too.

[Pirato]

I'd say if someone wants to fly with such a Skin,why not. Afterall it's better to recognize a plane by it's appearance and not by the markings. If someone gets confused by such a skin,he should seriously learn and practice to identify planes by their silhouettes.^^

And why ban him for using the Skin? The skins are there to be used and if it's not clearly stated that its not allowed to use them then he did nothing wrong.

[gavagai]

Afterall it's better to recognize a plane by it's appearance and not by the markings.

Flying captured types did happen during the war, but it was always by the markings that pilots knew whether or not the aircraft was truly friend or enemy.

Anyway, I have no problem with kicking someone who uses a false-flag skin. If I see one in multiplayer I will gladly vote to kick that person if I know who they are. I don't care to go searching through my skins folders to cover for someone else's bad behavior.

[HotTom]

LOL! Notice Panther, who allowed this stuff even when many of us said: "What if…?" and "Don't do it!" is now hiding in his bunker.

Told ya so!!!

[Pirato]

Though not everyone picks such a skin to confuse others or to get an advantage out of it,atleast not on purpose. I still think a Ban or a Kick isn't appropriate when it's not against the Serverrules. There may be an unwritten rule about the use of these skins,but you can't expect everyone to know about it.
After all it doesn't happen often that a skin like this is seen anyway.

[JG1_Butzzell]

S!

False flagged planes are a perverse outcome of what was a genuine good effort. Many people have put a lot of work into these skins and they are very nice.

For me, captured planes hold no interest. If I want to fly a SPAD 13, I will just fly Entente. I definitely do not want the ultimate in fairness, which is identical planes on each side. SPAD vs SPAD? Really? I find the beauty of the combat in planes with varied FMs.

I do not think False flagged planes is a cheat. I find the behavior to be childish and silly.

While I respect the work done on captured skins, I have no need for them and would not fly captured planes on a server. I would not fly on a server with captured planes. As I said, not my cup of tea.

Having the ability to defeat the childish and silly by merely removing skins that I personally do not desire works for me. People that want those skins can keep them. Everyone is happy.

[Winston60]

When removing all the 'captured' skins from my game, I did not find that Bristol skin in question. I had installed all the historical and official skin packs, but never installed any of the fictional packs. Could that Bristol skin in question be in one of the fictional packs?

[Dutch2]

When removing all the 'captured' skins from my game, I did not find that Bristol skin in question. I had installed all the historical and official skin packs, but never installed any of the fictional packs. Could that Bristol skin in question be in one of the fictional packs?

search and you will find it

Think this discussion was started long time ago, when a person made a skin that used Polish markings.

[JG1_Butzzell]

S!

I will check for other skins, as I believe there are several.

The skin posted in the original thread is in the Rof/data/graphics/skins/BristolF2BF2/F2BF2j5hack.dds

It does not matter if it was a part of the Historical or Fictional download, it ends up in the appropriate skin folder.

[Panthercules]

LOL! Notice Panther, who allowed this stuff even when many of us said: "What if…?" and "Don't do it!" is now hiding in his bunker.

Told ya so!!!

He he - yeah, you "told me so", but this is pretty much the 1st time in over 4 years that anybody has really even noticed or gotten upset about it, so I'm not losing sleep over this one (though I'm not "hiding in my bunker" either )

As was discussed at the time the first captured skins were being created (some by me, though not this one), it takes a combination of wierd/unlikely events for this to be a problem in MP, as I understand it (which may not be very well - correct me if I'm wrong). I'll use this captured Bristol skin in Central markings as an example, though of course it would work the same in reverse for a captured Central plane in Entente markings:

1. On the one hand, let's say the mission designer only allows Bristols to be flown by Entente-side pilots. In that case, anybody choosing to fly with the captured skin is doing something blatantly "wrong" (flying for the Entente side with German markings) and could/should be banned from the server for it (assuming the server is trying to maintain some semblance of historical appropriateness - and if they aren't then nobody should be complaining anyway).

2. On the other hand, let's say that the mission designer has purposefully programmed the mission to allow an Entente plane like the Bristol to be flown by a Central player. Seems unlikely, unless they're doing it on purpose to let captured skins be used, and presumably in that case the players on the server would be aware of that and would have agreed to it (or voted with their mice by leaving the server). And if they do create such a mission, that would potentially allow even worse "false-flag" abuses to occur even if no captured skins were being used, because now a Central player could choose a "normal" Bristol skin and would be flying on the Central side in an Entente plane with Entente markings - gotta believe you would hear howling from the Entente players faced with that scenario.

With something so easily controllable by the mission designers and/or MP server admins or players, and with it being so easy to remove the few captured skins that there are from your installation if you don't want to run even that small risk of encountering these skins in MP (which is easy enough to do manually and even easier with Laser's great skin management tool), it hardly seemed worth it to deprive the Community and historical mission makers of the ability to use these captured skins in historically-appropriate contexts.

While I understand the concerns, you're not going to convince me that the sky is falling in this instance.

(But I'm heading back into my bunker, just in case )

[gavagai]

Panthercules, we've had false flag attacks in multiplayer for many years. As soon as people voted to approve captured skins we saw them in multiplayer. This is just one of the few times that it's been dragged into the forums.

[=AH=_Sid]

If you 'see' one of these, just delete it from your skins folder and you won't see it again!

[Panthercules]

OK - for those who are concerned, I have compiled a list below of all the "captured" skins I have been able to locate through various means. Can't guarantee it's all of them, but I think it probably is. Just remove these files from your RoF installation and you should not be bothered with this any further:


B14_RKKVF.dds
DH4_J18.dds
F2BF2_J5Hack.dds
FD8_RKKVF.dds
FE3_Captured.dds
HP400_Captured_1.dds
N11_AOK3_StudCam.dds
N11_AOK3_StudentCamo.dds
N11_Captured_A-H.dds
SP_Captured_Mack.dds
ST_N5429_Captured.dds
S7L_J32_Captured.dds


Now, back to the bunker

[Armincles]

If you delete the captured skins and a mission is based on some captured skins for balance purposes, the persons that deleted them will have the same problem as before , with means that you will see a plane with Allied markings although it should have German markings.
In my opinion everybody should always have all skins, if they like them or not.
It would make missions possible for both sides to have identical planesets with different markings but no need to have enemy icons for instance.
Captured skins should stay part of the skinpacks.

[M.H]

If everyone on a server uses captured skin , THAT would be funny.

[flapping-brown]

[/all a bit confusing to me and enlightening as well i didnt even know there were captured planes/skins in the game!b]
sounds fun, but hope it doesnt become the norm or it will all go to hell, like the cheaters finally killed il2.
with their very clever hacks….so much for crt=2
flapping brown

[JG1_Butzzell]

If you delete the captured skins and a mission is based on some captured skins for balance purposes, the persons that deleted them will have the same problem as before , with means that you will see a plane with Allied markings although it should have German markings.
In my opinion everybody should always have all skins, if they like them or not.
It would make missions possible for both sides to have identical planesets with different markings but no need to have enemy icons for instance.
Captured skins should stay part of the skinpacks.

Very much on point for people that want to fly those missions.


Panthercules, thanks for the list of skins.

[JG1_Lee_J10]

Don't forget this one.

N11_AOK3_StudCam.dds

[Panthercules]

Don't forget this one.

N11_AOK3_StudCam.dds

Thanks for pointing that out - apparently that version (with the shorter file name) replaced the other one (whose file name was too long). I missed it because the readme file wasn't updated and still has the longer file name in it. Only the shorter-named one works in "mods off" mode, so you don't need to remove the longer-named one (but it won't hurt to do so), so I've updated my list to include both file names.

[Winston60]

If you delete the captured skins and a mission is based on some captured skins for balance purposes, the persons that deleted them will have the same problem as before , with means that you will see a plane with Allied markings although it should have German markings.
In my opinion everybody should always have all skins, if they like them or not.
It would make missions possible for both sides to have identical planesets with different markings but no need to have enemy icons for instance.
Captured skins should stay part of the skinpacks.

Not a problem if captured skins are included in historical skinpacks. Since I've never flown in a multiplayer mission or even heard of a mission where a captured skin was required (I fly 99% multiplayer) I'll keep deleting all the captured skins I download from the historical and official update packs.

Also not a problem if captured or silly skins are included in the fictional skinpacks as I, like so many people, never install those.

Captured skins are just too much of a temptation for the cheaters.

[Armincles]

Actually I wanted to build a map like that, but because of the skinpack problems that some dont have all, I dropped that idea.(plus you have to find the skinpack which contain these skins, so that everybody has it)
It is also great like for instance the 2012 J5 new Years challenge were the Fokker E3 was used in both versions.That was a COOP-Mission.
There are some skins I dont like either but I have them all! 40GB nowadays isnt much space.