Europe WWII Terrain for Strike Fighters ======================================= Introduction ============ 1. A WW2 Western-European terrain for Strike Fighters. 2. This terrain will work with any install of Strike Fighters ("SF"), but will work best with a specific WW2 European ("ETO") install. 3. You should have SF patched to the latest version (currently Patch 3.2, available from the Third Wire website http://www.thirdwire.com/projects/p1/rt_patch.htm). 4. You must have the latest SF Weapons Pack installed (currently Version 4 July 2005, available from the CombatAce website http://forum.combatace.com). 5. Backup. It is recommended that you backup five files before installing this terrain - copy them elsewhere or rename them, otherwise they will be overwritten by this installation. - In your Strike Fighters\Flight folder backup the files Loading.wav and Nations.ini. - In your Strike Fighters\Menu folder backup the file Mainscreen.wav. - And in your Strike Fighters\Objects folder backup the files GroundObjectData.ini and ObjectList.ini (if you have them - if not it doesn't matter). Installation ============ There are five steps to installation of this terrain. 1. Unzip this zip file to a temporary folder. 2. Copy the folder "EuroWW2" to your Strike Fighters\Terrain folder, next to the stock "Desert" folder (which must also be there for this terrain to work). 3. Copy the contents of the "PutInFlightFolder" to your Strike Fighters\Flight folder, overwriting any previous files. These files install the WW2 formations mod and give you WW2-style aircraft silhouettes to your map-icons in flight and a new WW2 loading sound. 4. Copy the contents of the "PutInMenuFolder" to your Strike Fighters\Menu folder, overwriting any previous files. These files give you a new WW2 mainscreen, WW2 theme music at the mainscreen and the campaign selection screen, and WW2-style aircraft silhouettes to your planning-map icons. 5. Copy the contents of the "PutInObjectsFolder" to your Strike Fighters\Objects folder, overwriting any previous files. These files are the WW2 tanks, trucks, halftracks, ships and AA guns. 6. That is all. The WW2 European terrain is ready for action. Some Notes ========== 1. This terrain has been a huge community project. It started life as an adaption for SF by Fng2K of the European Air War ("EAW") terrain (TK's previous flight sim to SF), with maps by Keith Bedford. This was released as the EAWEuro terrain for SF, a 1960s/1980s-era terrain. The terrain was then given a major re-working by Edward to create a specifically WW2 terrain, with a huge number of new WW2 airbases added, and the terrain as whole re-done. Further testing and editing, and the addition of all of the WW2-period ground objects, was done by Charles. 2. It is recommended (although not essential) that you use this terrain with a specific WW2 ETO install of SF. A specific WW2 ETO install has only the appropriate WW2 European aircraft installed (i.e. no WW2 Japanese aircraft and no post-War jets), and has only the stock "Desert" and this "EuroWW2" terrains installed. The advantage of a specific WW2 ETO install is that it prevents WW2 Japanese aircraft,or post-War jet aircraft showing up on missions over WW2 Europe, spoiling the realism factor. Now (since Patch 3.1) that each installed terrain does not require its own copy of the (50 Mb) Desert.cat file to function, it does not require too much hard drive space to have multiple installs of SF with multiple terrains. 3. The terrain is set up using the EAW Autumn tiles, but we hope to have Winter, Spring and Summer terrain sets available soon. 4. Ground Objects. This terrain has a lot more ground objects than most other SF terrains, especially vehicles and buildings (look for the U-boat sub pens, beach pillboxes, railway stations, and the Reich Chancellery in Berlin). It has aircraft factories, ball-bearing factories, oil refineries, U-Boats, V-1 and V-2 launch sites, submarine pens, pillboxes and gun bunkers. There are Roman ruins in northern Italy, dragon's teeth anti-tank obstacles on the West Wall, Gestapo HQs and prisons in France, flak towers on German airfields, and a host of WWII-era vehicles (such as British and French tanks, and US and German tanks, trucks and halftracks). 5. There are also parked aircraft (for strafing) at all airfields. The parked aircraft you will see (which will vary as the war years progress) are the Hurricane I, Hurricane IIC, Spitfire I, Spitfire IX, Lancaster, P-38 Lightning, P-47 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang, B-17 Flying Fortress, Bf-109E, Bf-109G, Fw-190A, Bf-110C, Bf-110G, Ju-88A, Ju-88C and Me-262A. 6. Some of these targets (like the V-1 and V-2, and the railway fuel wagons) are fairly easy to destroy by strafing, and go up with a satisfying bang. Parked aircraft are a little harder (and beware of the light flak at low levels over enemy airfields - it was real menace in WW2, and it is here too). Pillboxes and gun emplacements are a bit more difficult, while a sub pen will take a Tallboy 12,000lb bomb or at least 8-10 hits with 1000lb bombs to damage. 7. Lighting and Weather. Under Patch 3 of Strike Fighters, terrains can have their own lighting (EnvironmentSystem) file. This terrain has one specific to Europe (Latitude 50 degrees), which is quite different from the standard SF Desert one (Latitude 34 degrees). The light (both daylight and twilight) looks quite different, and you will find that the days are much shorter in winter. Regrettably, SF does not at present support weather changes for different terrains, so you will not not see rain or inclement weather very often. 8. Front Lines. One thing that SF does not handle well is changing front lines. This terrain is optimized for WW2 1940-44, with the English Channel as the front line, and all of continental Europe occupied. It would have been good to have the German invasion of France in May 1940 and the D-Day invasion in June 1944 modelled, with cities and air bases changing hands as they did historically, but SF does not readily allow for that. Figure that France was conquered in the winter of 1939, and that all of the Allied landing craft were sent to the Pacific in 1943 so there was no Normandy invasion in 1944, and so the air war continues unabated. 9. Ships. There a number of ships (British, U.S. and German) included with this terrain, which can be used for user-created WW2 missions. There are cruisers, destroyers, submarines and various merchant ships. 10. Be aware that SF (as at Patch 3.2) has a limitation with respect to ships in sim-generated Anti-Ship missions. In these missions, the sim only ever chooses (as targets for the mission) "Cargo" ships which have NationName=GENERIC defined in their Data.INI file. It will not choose a ship from a particular NationName (e.g. "USN" or "RoyalNavy"), even where that Nation is defined as one of the belligerents in the terrain's Nations.INI file, and it will not choose "Warships". To work around this as best we can, what we have done is to include, as well as the various nation-specific warships, some generic ships of different types which will give some degree of interest to Anti-Ship missions. 11. Sounds. There are some new sounds to go with this terrain. Loading.wav (which goes in your Flight folder) is the sound you hear when a mision is loading (the original SF version is a jet powering up), and Mainscreen.wav (which goes in your Menu folder) is the the music you hear at the sim mainscreen. 12. These sound files are not strictly required for this terrain, but if you have a specific WW2 European install, they provide some additional WW2 "mood" (the new loading sound is a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine starting up, and the mainscreen music is from the film "Battle of Britain"). The other "country anthem" files, which also go in the Menu folder, (RAF.wav, RoyalNavy.wav, France.wav, Canada.wav, Australia.wav, Italy.wav and Nazi Germany.wav) play the appropriate national anthem when you select a British, French, Canadian, Australian, Italian or German squadron in a campaign (the stock SF only had sound files for the USAF, USN and USMC - these files add the anthems for the other major air forces which fought over this terrain in this time period). Credits =========== Many of the added objects in this terrain are community-mods, and are used with the permission of the respective authors. This terrain could not have been made without their extensive contributions and assistance. The credits are as follows: Original EAW Euro terrain by Fng2k. Major new WW2 version by Edward. Maps by Keith Bedford. Editing and addition of WW2 objects by Charles. New Mainscreen by MajorLee. Map icons by Geo and Charles. WW2 Formations mod by Charles. Parked aircraft models by Capun, from original models by Capun, Wolf and Russo, with skins by Gramps, Russo and Charles. PzKw IVA, PzKw IVG and PzKw IVJ tanks, Jagdtiger and Crusader tank by Russo. Centurion by Phlerp, M-24 Chaffee by ArmourDave, Daimler scout car by Charles. All other WWII vehicles (M4A3 Sherman, M4A3E8 Sherman, M3 halftrack, M16 4x.50 cal AAA halftrack, M-36 tank destroyer, M-8 armoured car, Somua S-35 tank, SdKfz 251 halftrack, SdKfz 251 20mm flak halftrack, PzKw V Panther tank, PzKw VI Tiger II tank and Opel Blitz truck) by Geo. Submarine pens, flak tower, pillboxes, dragon's teeth, beach gun emplacements and 20mm flak gun by Geo. Infantry squads, 3.7" AA gun, 40mm Bofors gun, 20mm quadruple flak gun, 88mm Flak gun and V-1 and V-2 launchers by Kesselbrut. British ships and U-Boat by Hinchinbrooke and Gramps, Kriegsmarine destroyer by Geo, US ships by Capun (Liberty ship), Capun and Mikewhl (DD Benham & DE Jaccard) and Capun and the CFS2 Virtual Navy team (CL Brooklyn). Railway vehicles and railway buildings by Armourdave and Gepard, prison building by Charles. V-weapon bunker by Monty, refinery and factories by Mitch from his "Factory Place" mod, other new buildings (church, brick houses, HQs, radio tower etc) from a MajorLee package (originally created by Jeff Bell and Jack Ralston of Birhle Applied Research for their Wright Flyer sim). Period re-texturing of buildings by Geo and Charles. Conclusions =========== 1. This terrain has been extensively tested, but it is always possible that the occasional glitch has crept in. Report any you find (trees or buildings on runways, for example, or enemy aircraft parked on a friendly runway, or the occasional building in the sea) on the SF forum at SimHQ (http://www.simhq.com). 2. That is all. Have fun with the SF WW2 European terrain. July 2005