Yes raptor, I've altered my materials.txt file quite a bit. Here's mine
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0.250,0.250,0.250,Ambient
0.300,0.300,0.300,Diffuse
0.050,0.050,0.050,Emissive
0.900,0.900,0.950,Specular
8.200,Power
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In doing this, my aim was to get a more "metallic" feel from the glare. Generally metallic glares to me are pretty defined, but where they DO glare is very very bright. I tried to capture this by keeping ambient and diffuse close together (so the aircraft doesn't light up TOO much in certain lights), and the Specular as VERY bright to give that huge blazing glare metal has. I've also made it so that there's a little blue in that glare to kind of give a faux sky reflection.
The skin IS dark, purposefully. Even though I've altered the materials.txt, I always kind of thought the metals in metal skins seemed a little too light colored to me, however, I maybe have went a little too dark.
I like the ideas for the booms.. I'll see if I can dig up some "well used" p-38 pictures to get a good idea of where I can smudge things up.
Thanks for the comments guys =) I really try to learn from them where I can.