3rd Party Terrains

[+Dave 2,318]

It is possible to install any 3rd party terrain using any of the three .cat

files: desert.cat, GermanyCE.CAT or VietnamSEA.CAT.

 

Most, if not all, 3rd party terrains are created expecting to be used with

desert.cat, but can be modified to work with others with a few .ini edits.

 

Think of a .cat file as a zip file. The .cat file includes everything needed to

make the terrain work. It contains the terrain tiles, ground objects, runways,

and all the .ini's to make it work. Files can be extracted from a .cat with the

cat extractor. Files cannot be put back into a .cat. Files that are in the

terrain's folder, take presidence over those in the .cat file.

 

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The first issue that needs to be resolved to use either the GermanyCE.CAT or

VietnamSEA.CAT with a 3rd party terrain is the airfields. Without the following

edits, runways will not work. All three cat files contain the same 6 runway

models. What differs is name of the "AirfieldDataFile" specified for each

airfield in the terrain's _target.ini.

 

For example, from Gepard's Israel terrain, israel_targets.ini:

 

[TargetArea004]

Name=Tel Aviv "Ben Gurion"

Position=350000.000000,422000.000000

Radius=8485.281250

ActiveYear=0

Location=1

Alignment=FRIENDLY

AirfieldDataFile=desert_airfield1.ini <- AirfieldDataFile name

NumSquadrons=3

Target[001].Type=Runway1 <- Runway name

Target[001].Offset=0,0

Target[001].Heading=90

 

The desert_airfield#.ini's only exist in desert.cat. They exist with different

names in the other .cat files. You'll need to edit EACH airfield's

"AirfieldDataFile" for all the airfields to work. Use the table below to

determine what "AirfieldDataFile" to use.

 

RUNWAY NAME VietnamSEA.CAT GermanyCE.CAT

*********** ************** *************

Runway1 VIETNAMSEA_AIRFIELD1.INI GERMAN_AIRBASE1.INI

Runway2 VIETNAMSEA_AIRFIELD2.INI not available

Runway3 VIETNAMSEA_AIRFIELD3.INI GERMAN_AIRBASE5.INI

Runway4 VIETNAMSEA_AIRFIELD4.INI SOVIET_AIRBASE3.INI

Runway5 VIETNAMSEA_AIRFIELD5.INI SOVIET_AIRBASE1.INI

Runway6 VIETNAMSEA_AIRFIELD6.INI GERMAN_AIRBASE6.INI

 

You'll notice that there does not exist an "AirfieldDataFile" for Runway2 in the

GermanyCE.CAT. If you're using the GermanyCE.CAT file, you'll need to pick one

of the other 5 runway names, and the correct "AirfieldDataFile" for all

instances of Runway2, if you're using the GermanyCE.CAT file.

 

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Second, you'll need to edit the terrain's main .ini file to point to the

correct .cat file. For example:

 

In israel.ini:

 

[Terrain]

TerrainFullName=Israel

DataFile=israel_data.INI

CatFile=..\Desert\Desert.cat <- Catfile name

 

Change it to either:

 

CatFile= ..\VietnamSEA\VietnamSEA.cat

 

Or:

 

CatFile= ..\GermanyCE\GermanyCE.cat

 

********************************************************************************

 

The last issue, involves only those 3rd party terrains who use the

terrain tiles from the desert.cat file. Israel, SCal, and AmericaNW are

examples.

 

For these terrains, you need to download one of the two alternate desert tile

sets.

 

Deuces's "Enhanced Desert" is located at www.sfmods.com

 

Polak's "Photo-Realistic Desert" is located at www.majorleesaerodrome.net

 

Choose one, and copy all of the contents into the terrain's folder.

 

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Couple Of Notes:

 

I have not compared every last file from the three .cat files. These changes

are enough to make the terrains usable. There may be ground objects such as a

building or a mosque that is in the desert.cat, and not the others. If this

is the case, these objects will obviously not appear in the terrain, if used

by the terrain's author.

 

If you have the desert.cat, use it.

[Wrench 9,429]

Addendum to the Above Information: 3/29/08

 

After the last round of patching for the Series (SF, WoV, WoE) a whiles back, several updates were made to the various terrain cat files. What they mostly did was add the various 'terrain objects' from SF - most importantly the 'desert airfields'

 

What this means, is that 99.9 percent of all the earlier terrains will work with each variant of the Game - weither it's Strike Fighters, Wings over Vietnam or Wings Over Europe. They will even work with the latest iteration - Wings Over Isreal, provieded that there is one of the early terrains to "pull the parts from". We'll get into that a little later...

 

This removed the need to 'edit' the terrain's targets ini to rename the various airfields. And believe me, that's a LOT of work. It allows for nearly perfect translations of the terrains between the various games. All you need is one of the original cat, in it's terrain folder, in whatever version of the game you want to use it in.

 

What does that mean?, you may ask. Well, a good number of us have ALL the versions of the game. In a 'maunal merge' of them, you simply copy/paste the terrain from one to the other. Say you have WoE, but need the desert cat for the Isreal2 terrain -- you also have Strike Fighters. Just copy the ENTIRE Desert terrain folder (which, if you've extracted nothing only contains the terrain in and cat file) into your WoE's main Terrain folder. The same can be said and done for, well, any version in ANY direction!! You can have the GermanyCE, VietnamSEA all placed in Strike Fighters -- or all 3 maps, Desert, GermanyCE, VietnamSEA all in the Terrain folder for WoI -- they DO work, although the newly added parked aircrft don't without the NEXT patch...forthcoming we're told.

 

So, the next major hurdle would be desert terrain tilesets for use with the non-desert terrain cats. Unfortunately, there aren't too many choices. Fortunately, those that are availabe are very good! Just puruse the 3rd Wire downloads section here at CA for several choices.

 

A quick note about the WoI IsraelME.cat -- like WoV and WoE, there are name changes in the terrain tiles, and therefore they are NOT usable with ANY of the eariler maps. So don't even bother trying at this point to get it working. I'm sure, by extracting each and every single one of the terrain tiles bmps and tgas, and renaming each and every single one to match the other styles, you could probably duplicate it. But why bother??

Way too much work...

Use what existing, and you should be well down the road to having a nice 'world' to fly in.

 

Now, there are some issues with some of the aftermarket terrain tiles; they usually relate to those 'edge tiles' along the seashore. Some are higher than other in elevation -- which causes displacement of objects placed at ports or other location along the coast. Just be aware of it.

 

Remember: many modders will give you all the necessary information to get a terrain up and running in the various different versions of the game via their 'readme' files included in the downloads.

 

Make sure you read it, understand it, and follow EXATLY what the author suggests. Most good modders have spent inumerable hours testing, adjusting, retesting, readjusting, etc...to make sure it's as easy as possible for the YOU, the end user to get the mod installed and have hours of enjoyment blowing the living daylights out of various and sundry places around the world.

 

That should clarify some issues left open or unanswered by the original post above, and pretty much bring you all up to speed on what was changed from back then.

If you have further questions, or comments or ideas, let us know!

 

 

Wrench

Kevin Stein