Admin Tips and Tricks

Saves and Maintenance

It is strongly recommended to perform a save of the database just before downloading a mission (Build) and just after (Analyze) if your DCS and database are located on separate machines over the internet. A dropout of communications between the console DCS and the MySQL server could make big coherence problems in your campaign database.

For maximum safety, make a backup each time the database is changed significantly. i.e. before mission built, after mission built, after mission analyzed, and after a clock advance. (OK, the last one may be a bit paranoid).

How to make an HSFX modded plane flyable

Planes that are AI in the unmodded game are marked as 'AI' in the 'Control' column of the Object_Specifications table. A plane that can be flown in HSFX can be made available to pilots by editing this table and replacing the 'AI' with 'Human' in the 'Control' column. (Of course the server and clients will need to use a compatible mod set.)

How to Remove a Loadout

To remove a specific loadout, edit the AircraftLoadout table, and append an 'X' to the aircraft name in the first ('Obj_Long_Name') column of that specific loadout. This will prevent the aircraft name for matching for that loadout, so it will not be available in the campaign. (Of course any other character can be substituted for 'X' so long as it doesn't result in an actual aircraft designation.)

How to Remove unused units from the OOB

Set the 'Nationality' of an unused unit to 'x' in the Object_Specifications table to prevent it from being used in the campaign. This works because only 'r', 'g', and 'n' are meaningful entries in this field.

When configuring a campaign it is often convenient to remove all units and then just redefine the ones that are called for by the campaign designer. An SQL command to do this easily is:

UPDATE Object_Specifications SET Nationality='x' WHERE TRUE;

Then when defining the Order of Battle, set the nationality to 'r', 'g', or 'n' as appropriate and those units (and only those units) will appear in the Mission Planner 'costs' table.

How to Save a Crashed Mission

If IL-2 crashes or is closed improperly before a mission is over, the resulting log file can not be analyzed without some help. DO NOT restart IL-2 (that would overwrite the log file). Go to your game directory and make a copy of eventlog.lst for safe keeping. Then open eventlog.lst in notepad, go to the bottom and note the last line, which may look something like this:

13:18:03 140_Static destroyed by 43_Chief at 111234.42 292849.2

Immediately after that last line add a line in this format:

13:19:00 Mission END

The time you select will be the mission ending time, and needs to be later than the last noted event.

Save the edited file and then try analyzing the mission. It usually works, though there will be no gunnery stats for this mission.

Tweaking Navicat Lite

Navicat Lite is the free but crippled version of Navicat. To convince it to show all the lines of a large table: go to Tools - Options - Data & Grid and remove the checkmark from "Limit Records" and then click "OK".