AmericaNW Mountain Thaw

[Doghouse 0]

View File

AmericaNW Mountain Thaw

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This is a mod of Major Lee's America Northwest terrain mod using some terrain tiles from Deuce's GermanyCE2 tile set. The terrain tiles hopefully make for a more exciting feel. And the SAM sites will definately get your attention. The waypoints were changed to work better in multiplay dogfights. In an effort to get a more standardized mod for multiplay, I have included these directions, that when followed closely, should allow folks to successfully connect and be able to play dogfights and coop missions on it. And if played in single player mode, should prove to be a challanging terrain to fly on. I have included all the files needed for this mod to work except the VietnamSEA.CAT file. Because it's size is way to big for most people to download and they already have it. This mod works with Strike Fighters, Wings Over Vietnam, Wings Over Europe, and Wings Over Israel.

 

To install:

Unzip this file into your WOV\Terrain Folder

There should be a new folder created that is named AmericaNW

Next open your VietnamSEA folder and copy and paste the VietnamSEA.CAT file from there into the newly created AmericaNW folder. Open the AmericaNW terrain folder and rename that VietnamSEA.CAT file to AmericaNW.CAT.

That's it, you are good to go.

 

For those people wanting to use this mod with Strike Fighters Project 1 the directions are the same except use the Desert.CAT file.

For those people wanting to use this mod with Wings Over Europe the directions are still the same, only this time use the GermanyCE.CAT file.

 

If you want a couple good single player missions to go with this terrain, look here;

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...p;showfile=5426

 

If you want a good campaign to play with using this terrain look here;

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autoc...p;showfile=5661

 

For Multiplay dogfights, you need to edit your WOV\Option.ini file.

In the [DogfightHost] section, change the following command lines to this:

RespawnTime=45

RespawnDistance=2000.000000

MinHeight=1500.000000

MaxHeight=1500.000000

HeightDeviation=5.000000

 

MinHeight and MaxHeight can be as low as 1200.0000 without causing to much trouble, you'll have to play around with that to suit yourself.

The Desert.CAT or GermanyCE.CAT files can be used instead of VietnamSEA.CAT file, but if you do use them, you might have to use a different figure in the MinHeight and MaxHeight parameters above for multiplay. Those you'll have to experiment with. I like to start a dogfight out as low as possible since the game doesn't allow one to start out on an airport yet. I had to keep the RespawnDistance close in to lessen the chance of respawning on the side of a canyon. I might recommend using Desert.CAT for Strike Fighter Project 1 and Strike Fighters Gold so you can be compatable when playing those sims, staying with VietnamSEA.CAT for Wings Over Vietnam, and using GermanyCE.CAT for Wings Over Europe. This mod works with Wings Over Israel as well using the IsraelME.CAT file.

 

Fixing the terrain swap bug in Multiplay:

The problem: There seems to be a glitch when swapping terrain in multiplay dogfights, in that the starting waypoints start out wrong. An example is when switching to the America Northwest Mountain Thaw mod AFTER playing on the VietnamSEA terrain. THe game starts out using the waypoints from VietnamSEA, not the waypoints programmed into the Mountain Thaw mod. To clear this up the host must exit the game and start a new game and everything works just fine. Then when you switch back to the VietnamSEA terrain, the multiplay dogfight starts out using the Mountain Thaw waypoint and again the host must close the game and restart a new one to clear things up. When this problem first presented itself, I thought the problem was in the terrain's Dogfight.ini files. It's not, those waypoints are correct and work as intended.

 

The Solution: In the WOV directory, create a folder named Options_Ini Backups. And inside that folder create two new folders, one named AmericaNW and another named VietnamSEA. Now, after you launch a multiplay dogfight using the AmericaNW Mountain Thaw terrain and it works ok, close out the game and copy the Options.ini file into the the Options_Ini Backups\AmericaNW folder. Then after you get a good dogfight game using the VietnamSEA terrain, again close out the game and copy the Options.ini file into the Options_Ini Backups\VietnamSEA folder. Then whenever you want to swap terrains in a multiplay dogfight, before starting the game go to those folders and swap in the correct Options.ini file.

 

I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but this seems to work. Just editing the Options.ini file and saving the changes before starting the mission doesn't seem to work. This doesn't appear to be a problem with the terrain per say, but more of a "bug" in how the game loads the terrain. And this seems to be a problem not only with WOV, but with SFP1, SFG, and WOE as well. Perhaps someone in TK's group can fix this when they release a patch sometime, but in the meantime this will fix that problem. It's my guess the game loads the waypoints before loading the terrain, sticking you with the waypoints from the previous game. I'm of the opinion here that we may need an Options.ini backup for each terrain we use in multiplay dogfights. Some guys use the Range terrain and may have to create a Range folder (and Options.ini backup) within that newly created Options_Ini Backups folder they created above. And this appears to be host specific so only the host of a dogfight will need to swap out those Options.ini files for the various terrains they use when hosting a multiplayer dogfight. Also, multiplay coop missions seem to be uneffected by all this.

 

And lastly. It's fine with me if anyone wants to use this mod for further development. All I ask is you please give credit where credit is due.

 

Simple as that. You are now good to go in both single player and multiplayer modes.

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• Submitter
  Doghouse
• Submitted
  03/24/2008
• Category
  Terrains

 

[+76.IAP-Blackbird 3,545]

Have to try it, looks nice, thx!

[+Baltika 84]

Glad to see this up again, nice work

 

Cheers Doghouse

[Canadair 16]

Glad to see this up again, nice work

 

Cheers Doghouse

What are the changes in respect of the version that was on CA a while ago?

[Doghouse 0]

When I originally did Mountain Thaw, I was looking for something that would look like spring in the mountains, where the snow has melted off the lowlands yet still clung to the mountain tops. I used some terrain tiles from a source that didn't credit anyone for who originally did them, so didn't credit the tiles in the original posting. Guess you can imagine the problems this caused when folks assumed they were my tiles and started crediting me for them. They were Deuces tiles, not mine. (Sorry bout the confusion Deuce.) The major changes in this version is an updated credits list and.... Major Lee's site is down so the source material for his AmericaNW terrain mod isn't available at this time. So I've included those as well, plus instructions on how to use this mod in multiplay. Lee's terrain has the potential to be the best terrain out there. My intent was to create a terrain for training purposes, one that was very difficult to survive on. One forcing a guy to engage air and ground targets at the same time. For you zoom and boomers I suggest you turn things upside down, go up to make the kill, then zoom back down before SAM smacks ya. Never go anywhere without some Shrikes in your pocket, and keep that foxhole handy. ;-)

[+EricJ 3,937]

No offense man but you're joking right? I flew all around a good portion last night and got the radar on the RWR, but no lock, or launch. The terrain allows for so many exploits that I guess you have to fly high level to get shot at. Maybe if you add SA-7 teams or stuff more in the valleys it'd be threatening... And even then it's with the Air Defenses set to High.

 

But don't me wrong brah, I was enjoying the terrain alot, and it reminded me of EF2000 I almost felt like I was back in Norway... Thanks!

[Doghouse 0]

Tweek you game settings to full hard everything. SAMs are set up for the "Soviet" side. I might add that the sticky airfield at Elk has been fixed also.

[+EricJ 3,937]

Well it actually turned out to be the year... flew the Kurnass and had lots and lots of AAA and SAMs. I think it's the ActiveYear issue as the majority of the SAMs are always there around "2008" but not around 1985. Strange...