North Sea Terrain v1.1

North Sea Terrain for First Eagles

June 2013

Terrain and ground objects by by Stephen1918

Testing, modding for FE2, and help with effects and data files by ojcar

Ojcar's AI Flyable Airships are included in the download - LODs by Stephen1918 - data, loadouts, and ini files by ojcar

This terrain was made just so I would have a place to fly my sea planes. It's realistic, but not historical. The ships are all generic. I didn't attempt to recreate actual ships, but the types are similar to World War I era ships. All nations have the same ships, but with different flags and skins. My intention was to make it look reasonable from the cockpit.

There is no land at all in this terrain, so it will require a separate install of First Eagles. Otherwise you will find trucks and tanks driving over the water and land based aircraft taking off from the sea. I have included installation instructions.

There are no campaigns (yet), but you can fly all the mission types as single missions. Supply ships replace trucks in armed recon missions. Torpedo boats replace the tanks in army co-operation missions. Airships replace balloons in the balloon busting missions. All of the ships and airships are armed with anti-aircraft weapons. There are a few neutral country merchant ships cruising around the edges, be careful not to create a diplomatic incident by attacking a non-combatant.

I created a new kind of airfield (WWI_SeaPlaneBase.ini) which uses seaplane tenders. The tenders had hangars on the decks and planes were moved in and out of the water using cranes. WWI seaplane tenders carried small numbers of planes, usually 4 to 6, rarely more than 8. But my "airfields" have take off positions for 16 planes because First Eagles sometimes assigns large numbers of planes to missions.

I have included ojcars AI airships in this terrain. I have adjusted the formations to keep them from colliding.

This download includes all the ground objects for the North Sea terrain. I have created two new effects which make the static ships appear to be moving when they're really just sitting still. I have made new formations to spread the "trucks" "tanks" and "bombers" out more. I have made a new view list so you can use the F7 key to see all the ground objects. And I have made new icons for the in-flight map.

All the ships have a separate skin for the flags, so you should be able to quickly make Austrian, Italian, Russian, or Turkish ships for different sea terrains.

Installation Instructions:

Start by making a new install of the game. In FE1 the following changes will be made directly in the game folder. In FE2, the changes will be made in the game's mod folder.

If you haven't already done so, download the seaplanes from Combat Ace/Downloads/First Eagles Add-On Aircraft.

Open the Objects folder. Delete the entire GroundObject folder and replace it with mine.

Open the Aircraft folder. Delete all the planes, do NOT delete the pilot skins. Copy the two folders from my Aircraft folder into yours. Then install the seaplanes following the instructions in each download.

In the new game folder, open the Effects folder. Copy the three files from my Effects folder into yours.

Open the Flight folder. Copy the five files from my Flight folder into yours.

Open the terrain folder. Delete all the terrains EXCEPT "wwiVerdun." You need the Verdun cat file for my terrain to work.

Copy my wwiNorthSea folder into your Terrain folder.

If you have FE2, open my "TerrainDataForFE2" folder, copy the wwiNorthSea_Data file and use it to replace the data file in the new North Sea folder.

** A note about the water - In the download, I have included a water tile (FRLAKE.tga) which is intended to look good in Medium graphics mode. It will still work in High graphics mode, or you can delete it and the stock Verdun water will be used instead.

Ojcar has made a new data file which takes advantage of the graphics effects in FE2. This only works in FE2. If you are running FE1, use the original wwiNorthSea_Data in my terrain folder.

** Other notes - The stock campaigns and missions from the original game don't work anymore because you have deleted all the planes and terrains for them. When you run the new version of the game, it will hang if you click the "Campaign" or "Instant Action" buttons on the Main Menu Screen.