Liveries
DCS World includes many aircraft liveries representing both historical and fictional looks. Users are able to download custom liveries made by other users, modify the included liveries to allow for greater availability in the base game, or even download template files to try creating their own.
Livery Directories
Custom liveries should be added through the Saved Games directory at C:\Users\<your username>\Saved Games\DCS(.openbeta)\Liveries. For any aircraft you wish to add a livery for, you will need to create a folder named exactly as listed below inside this Liveries folder and place livery folder within. Do note that these are not always the same as the Kneeboard directory names for the same aircraft.
A-10A A-10C A-10CII AH-64D_BLK_II AJS37 AV8BNA Bf-109K-4 C-101CC C-101EB Christen Eagle II F-14A-135-GR f-14b F-15C F-16C_50 F-5E-3 f-86f sabre FA-18C_hornet FW-190A8 FW-190D9 I-16 J-11A JF-17 ka-50 Ka-50_3 L-39C L-39ZA M-2000C MB-339A MB-339PAN Mi-24P mi-8mt mig-15bis MiG-19P MIG-21bis mig-29a mig-29g mig-29s Mirage-F1CE Mirage-F1EE MosquitoFBMkVI P-47D-30 P-51D SA342L SA342M SA342Minigun SA342Mistral SpitfireLFMkIX SpitfireLFMkIXCW su-25 Su-25T su-27 Su-33 TF-51D uh-1h Yak-52
Livery Unlocking
Each livery folder has a file called entry.lua which is tells the game lots of information about the livery. This file also contains information about which countries an aircraft would need to belong to in-game in order to see the livery as a selectable option. By default, for example, you can only see the included Canadian military liveries if your F/A-18 Hornet has been set by the mission to be from the Canada faction. Through editing this can be changed in order to allow the Canadian military liveries to be selected for other countries, or without any restrictions at all.
If you have a specific livery which you would like to change these restrictions on, you may open the entry.lua file in notepad (or code editor of your choice), scroll to the bottom line references Countries, and either delete the entire line or comment it out by adding -- at the front of the line. Do note that if you edit this in the main install then updates or repairs will likely overwrite this manual change.
External Resources
There are many community tools to help make this an easier, more reliable process. Two common recommendations are: Lazyboot's Skin Unlocker[1] For unlocking all liveries included with the base game. vsTerminus' DCSLiveryUnlocker[2] A handy tool for unlocking multiple livery files at once.
