FoolTrottel

Thank You! ChkSkins users: delete the file from your skins folder, then run ChkSkins to download the later version ... (yeah, there's no version / date-time check in ChkSkins, so .. too bad ...)

From today's mission, it started early morning On our way back ...

Done!

Fixed now!

Downloaded it, and used ChkSkin to make it available to others ...

Oh my... Today, we took part in another one of the missions in this campaign. And... this really is something different, and something very special. Is it hard? No, not really, but you need to be focused. And stay focused. And get the job done. This one mission, this was a sweep/recce over France, North of Paris. And we did sweep and recce. Over France. As we did not come across any enemy aircraft during our designated route, we attacked ground targets, where at some point, White leader (the one leading our section: Fenrir, Wingflyr, Painless and FT) decided to fly over the target and draw flak, so Red section could attack it. And yes, rather unhappy being number four, like WTF! But, as it's your job, you go and do so. Somehow, we all four got out of that kinda okay. And next, even made some attack runs ourselves. Now as I forgot to switch to the slipper tank on the way in, and only did that after the French coast had been in sight for a while, I was the first one to call out an RTB due to fuel state. Way too late mind you, cause I had the English coast in sight with like 2 Gallons remaining. I did not make it back, as I also had a different kind of liquid related emergency, and I had to be away from the controls for a bit, and my Spitfire wasn't trimmed as well as I had hoped it would be, so I ended up in the drink... all dead and shift. One out of seven Spitfire pilots one had to bale out due to fuel, one crash landed in a field on the Isle of Wight ... the others made it back, and all were low on fuel. Mind you, some ground targets were destroyed ... but in this stuff, it's not about the kills ... it's all bout the experience. The immersion. A huge difference from our GBS sessions - where we think 45 minutes is a long mission? Well... this one took two hours. But due to the environment, the setup, the immersion, you do not notice that, you do not feel it. After I was done for, I looked at the clock, and was like... eeerrmmm .... What? Really? For sure one could argue GBS has better graphics, and looks better all around, and Cliffs has the Hurricane and the 110 (well, at some time at 20K over the channel today, somehow I wished I was in a docile and stable Hurricane in close formation - lol) and a flight model "feeling" a bit better, this DCS thing combined with the SRS radio module, and the discipline of radio silence just beats them. It really does. Mind you, I enjoyed Cliffs in several SOW missions, flying with our lot of Dogz, Fenrir talking to proper human operated ground control in really Big Missions defending Britain - and that was really awesome - immersion wise - somehow this is a step up from there... So, if you got DCS, and the Spitfire ... please think about joining in. Rumors state it won't be long now - the invasion is imminent - we get to fly Spits with beautiful black and white stripes on 'm. W00T!

In the end, there are three options here: 1. ChkSkins full - all skins downloaded/uploaded, some 3700 at the moment, 40 GB 2. ChkSkins 4K - Limited to 1550 skins at the moment, 30GB 3. No ChkSkins The idea was to easily share skins ... and that has been achieved. In mission, I see a lot more custom skins than before. So, now remind me, where the problem is? If you think your free disk space gets too low, by all means, delete some, and do not run ChkSkins any more.

Great idea Delta. I am working on setting up a secondary server, that can and will run the missions currently in rotation on our primary Dserver for GBS. On the other hand, we simply should get more people involved in hosting !! (As in do-it-all-them-selves, our get them into operating our dedicated server!)

In general, it does indeed what it says on-the-tin, and yes, if we do not look too closely, it's perfect. Yet... there's stuff like this: For sure, this is a 2K skin, so... but it does show a problem. This is probably 100% the very same skin, but it's there three times, just because somebody decided to download it more than once (hence the (1) addition) plus the name has an extra trailing space before the dot. Yep. And I found this 'skin', it the I16t24 folder: So, somebody saved it there, but it should not be there at all, me thinks. Yet, there's a chance everybody has it now, apart from the Only4K Crowd. What I now need are suggestions in the absolute technical part: What could I add to ChkSkins that would make it help us get rid of rubbish? Mind you, I am not talking fuzzy logics, or some level of AI or self learning, and please nothing like : "ChkSkins has gladly offered you this nice skin. How do you rate it on a scale of 1-10.000 where the higher one would be "Over the top me in my Rift just had an out of 3D experience just by looking at it" ... !) No, something simple and sensible. ... Yeah, if it were that simple, I'd have thought about it already! \\:)// As for the more complex solution: I could try and have ChkSkins create a blueprint of each and every skin found locally, compare it with the blueprint in the vault... and use that to compare equal skins... then delete all the equal ones locally, and download the one in the Vault, using one unique name... but... that'd probably slow stuff down like mad! Or maybe not? Still, that'd leave us with deciding what is a good skin, what's a bad one. What Kevin states: Yes, I am all for that: We do not want to go look through 30Gb of skin files looking for the bad ones! So, putting this all together, my suggestion would be: 1. ChkSkins will use 4K skins as a default: this will weed out a lot of "bad" skins. The Skault will not have any only 4K skins in it, and ChkSkins will no longer delete any local non-4K skins. That way, you can use your personal photo's at will. ChkSkins will still have an option 'Delete local non-4K Skins' 2. ChSkins will have a cleanup option for the Skault: It will make a blueprint of all files in the Skault, and clean it up for any duplicates. It will also record the names of these duplicates, and will prevent any new skins with that blueprint yet with a different name to be uploaded. (No, is my initial reaction, way too much work, yet on the other hand, this could be a brilliant idea!) 3. ChkSkins will suggest you that when the disk where your skins are downloaded runs out of disk space, to buy a new one. A bigger one. To fund this, it will randomly select one of the following tips: Sell your car Sell your second car Sell all of the kids Sell your second wife Sell your facebook account. So, in the end, please post any bwilliant hot ideas on this. You can't go wrong. Anything is welcome. Thank you very much. It's cool. I'm not crazy, my mother never had me tested, but there's no need to, she believes me on my blue eyes. (Mind you, in her defense, they are bright, just as bright I am!)

Yeah, it's a bit overwhelming now... the numbers! Might even think of a naming convention, so if the filename does not match something like <ACModel><Army><Skinname>Name><Version> before chkskins will accept and upload it... Naah... that'd make too much sense ... and would be way too much work! Something needs to be done, though limiting it to 4K does already help a lot...

Okay, thanks Sid, - and everybody else bothered with it - please delete the file in your local skins folder, it will not be coming back! (Well, unless you run it without 4K option...)

Quick fix for two invalid skins in your TempestMkvs2 folder: - Delete P51D15NA_LAZY DAISY.dds - Delete P51D15NA_RIDGE RUNNER.dds Next, as long as you keep running at 4K skins, they will not come back downloaded. They are now 'converted'/copied from 2K SpitMKIX skins, and keeping them in there as they are now should prevent them from being overwritten by anyone that uploaded them there in the first place. 2K users are still 'bothered' by them, until I've found a way to get them removed completely ... so they will not ever come back. Yeah, Major PITA this shift If you find any other weird skins, let me know their names and in what folder they are. (Mind you, only after you've removed them and they do come back after a full run of ChkSkins.

So, working towards this: The 'Only 4K Skins' will have the extra all special all automatic option to simply delete all non-4K skins from your local skins folders! That should work out fine for you guys that like 'm all shiny now, shouldn't it? First post in this thread will be edited soon ... with a new file to download and shift.

Sure is! Currently some 3700 skins are in there ... lol

For you toad: Bos.reg

Sid, yeah, that's possible. You could make sure you do not have any 2K skins, I empty the Skault, and you upload all the skins. Oh, wait I can do that myself as well ... lol Problem is that once somebody else runs it, he might as well dump all 2K skins back in there! (Yes, I went way too fast here ) Working on a newer version with more 'intelligence' in it - but I found out the basic technique I used is not a good one, it makes operations troubled with some routers. So, I have to do some re-programming. Not impossible, but it will take some time. And, we need to discuss maybe what is needed/wanted: I will add that 4K filter, that may be sufficient - but still... how do we prevent broken or really "bad" skins from popping up in there?

Makes complete sense Arthur ... but it's too late now They are in!I think I've gone too fast too far with this maybe. If you think about it - it's kinda like a virus - spreading files all over Pc's all over the world lol. As for disk space it should not be a problem having all them skins in. As for selecting them for a flight - yes. That's a bummer. What if we can assign a skins-manager, he will maintain a list of proper and valid and perfect shared skins. He only can add them to the Skault, and all others can download those... (Version 0.90 will have that 4K Filter in it, but that check appears to result into a massive slow down!)

So, if you are really not interested in 2K skins, like Kevin is, I will try and see if I can add an option to filter out non-4K skins.

No problem. You could still use it by uploading your skins... for the community Just use 'Start Compare', wait, then press 'Start Upload' - you do not need to download!

Fixed it!

Apart from the convenience of having the same skins so we will able to see each other' in mission, I also enjoy this laziness Both were basically the goal of this little project ...

Arthur, save the attached file, then double click on it ... Bos.reg

Included in the zip is an example bos.reg. ChkSkins reads from the registry where Bos was installed to, and yeah, if you simply moved it somewhere else without uninstalling and re-installing ... then it fails. Editing the .reg file and double clicking it will fix the registry entry and chkskins will run properly...

By downloading and installing and running ChkSkins, you can take part in this: "More Skins is good mkay..." dd_ChkSkins - v0.97 - 2020/06/09 - Excluded skins will now be deleted from the Skault, should an older version of ChkSkins have added one of those. dd_ChkSkins - v0.96 - 2020/05/22 - 4K is now checked at startup - A log file is being created - If a skin is in the list of excluded skins, it will be deleted, and not uploaded. This to prevent bad skins (ie. in the wrong a/c type folder) from spreading. dd_ChkSkins - v0.91 - 2019/11/12 Unzip the contents into a seperate folder, use its own folder preferably. First time run: Right click ChkSkins.exe, and select 'Run As Administrator' (Not needed for subsequent runs, maybe if there's a new version) +Allow it access through your FireWall. +It will read the registry for your GBS installation folder. If it cannot do that, it will let you know how. (I might be able to help you fix that) +Same membership check as CheckMods had, so let me know if it pops up like that. Operating it: - Press AUTO MODE Button, and it will compare the skins and download and upload all in one go. Afterwards, it will start comparing again, and download upload again, should it be neccesary (Failed downloads, or someone else has been adding a skin or two). By using the 1. Start Compare, 2. Start Download and 3. Start Upload buttons, you can do this all step by step. Special note on 'Only 4K Skins' check box: It will delete all locally found non-4K Skins! It will already start doing that once you press 'Start Compare', or 'Auto Mode' If you always want to run it in 4K mode, then run the file Chk4KSkins.cmd, also found in the Zip file! Exit button will close the programme :) DD_ChkSkins.zip

My stable is full of eels ...