Default skins are hardcoded and stored in an entirely different format so there is nothing to change here. The only things that make your skins folder bloat like that are custom skins. :)

Ahh I see :-) I thought the default skins were in the Skins folder too. The 1.70 GB skins are installed with a clean 4.09 though, no custom skins installed.

Thanks for the clarification csThor. :-)

regarding image file formats ..

one problem with .png is that it changes the palette indexes when converting, which might then cause a programming problem with the graphics engine

.gif on the other hand, retains the same 256 color palette as 256 color .bmp and retains the same transparency index

1024 x 1024 .gif about 561kb .. not quite the reduction of .png, but consistant indexed palette with .bmp

I think it's a moot point however .. try to buy a desktop HDD less than 250GB these days !

For me, a bigger improvement would be to allow shortcuts to skins. Right now, a skin may apply to many sub-variants of a plane, resulting in MANY copies of the same file. I had hoped shortcuts would work, but of course, they don't.... Sure would be nice! (I have 15.4g of skins!)

don't know if this was asked but why wasn't 6DOF implemented in the 4.09m?

Firstly thanks for continuing olegs fine work. Secondly im sorry if this has been posted before but trying to read through 55 pages will make my eyes bleed! Anyway my question to you is are there any plans to improve the damage caused from the 0.50cals in american planes? At the moment in my p51 i consider my self lucky to smoke a 109 let alone shoot the bugger down, where as in a spit mk9e which houses the same browning mg its a different story. Oh and 4 less of!! It would be nice if the 50's could be beefed to somewhat close to fearsome capability then i would be gratefull! Btw just in case some smart arse is out there. I shoot at about 6/7 % air gunnery. ;-). Also im no expert of ballistics but it is the general consensus of the il2 community that the 50's in american planes are not quite right. Thankyou for listening and look forward to your reply.

Just heard some interesting news that "josse's weapon mod" was included in 4.09 is this correct? If so please ignore my previous post.

Wild Weasel, I don't feel anything close to that regarding to the .50 cal.

A short burst and a 109 looks more like swiss-cheese rather than an aircraft.

I've never seen any complaint about the .50 cal. before, only about the .303.

.50 cals
 

I do notice certain things are different. Like some VVS planes got the buzzsaw 20mm, then you have the emil 20mms that shoot just as slow as the 30mm wing cannons. There's that blue 20mm that fw 190 inside wing guns that really works great, even the BF109 F4 has one of that type. . .

I think they wanted a variety and adjusting the way the differences of guns. Like the Russian 20mm was essentially a 12.7mm machine gun tooled to fire larger rounds, so it shoots faster etc.

Granted it might favor certain planes, but there's situations where certain guns work best in. They've got 75 page threads on this in the ubizoo. But .50's work, just in close.

Set convergence to 150m and open up around 150m and they will saw off stuff, flame things out, etc . ..

Even the FM wildcat with 4 .50s do a number when close. While its not as quick as P-47's . . .

The reason why the SPit IXe does more damage is it also has 2 x 20mm hispanos.

ok granted that close range really sucks against AI because the modern jet fm the fighters have or the one shot one kill gunners on vet or ace, but vs people its ok to close in.

And to make full use of the P-51, the three way trim . . . to fly american you have be a very good pilot. Since I'm not I just use the P-40 because I like it and Wildcat since that was the first plane I could carrier land (the Dauntless was close second but the SBD 3's lack of gunsight and disorientation from sitting up mode).

P-51's a mystery. Someone mentioned in the UbiZoo they even had modded P-51's so people can get their History Channel on (History Channel has several shows like Dogfights that say P-51s can outturn anything and outperforme anything in West Euro theater and P-47s regularly shot up Tiger Tanks with their API etc).

But thats what makes this game so awesome.

Team D wishlist . . .

For some reason the Wildcat seems to fly like the Hellcat.
FW 190 cockpit adjustment
Add Japanese push prop Kyushu J7 W1 Shinden
Add F8F bearcat
Add A-1 skyraider
make flyable torpedo bombers
flyable fiat g55
german ground attack rockets
torpedo fw-190
include more pac theater torpedo / dive bombers in planeset (flyable)
Flyable kamikaze (explosive laden planes) and Ohka rocket because some people online prefer ramming to gunning.


more maps would be cool (Italy)

oh that German catapult Zepplin carrier and navalized 109's and 190's :) ok this is too much to ask.

How long will 5.0 patch be released ? Sorry for my bad english !