Patching Made Easy, Part Deux

[Wrench 9,853]

First off, let me state that the instructions shown here, work the same for ANY of the 3rd Wire sims, be it 1st Gen SF/SFG/WoV/WoE/WoI/FE and with all the SF2 series, including FE2. As all this will do, is show how to keep the AI controled aircraft that have been made User-Flyable, still flyable after patching. With the minimum amount of work.

 

Those that have been around a while, and have been through several rounds of patching, can tell you that one of the things any patch does is remove all extra inis from STOCK aircraft/ships/other ground objects. However, it may NOT remove add-on inis (we'll get to that in bit) that have come with, say, the Fishbed or Fresco cockpit packages.

 

So, what's removed, you might ask? Well, if you've extracted any ini for the aircraft -data, loadout, avionics, cockpit, etc, and modded it (even if it's just to activate the manual canopy animation) the patch exe will remove from the aircraft folder. This can become annoying with the standar player-flyables expecially when you've gotten the loadout and/or lights juuussst where you want them.

 

I'm not going into HOW to get them flyable; that's been covered in dozens of posts, and in the 1st Gen SF/Wo* series Knowledge Base.

 

Your stock, unflyable main aircraft ini looks something like this (our example will be the ever popular MiG-21MF, my personal fav Fishbed):

 

 

[AircraftData]

AircraftFullName=MiG-21MF Fishbed-J

AircraftShortName=MiG-21

AircraftDataFile=MiG-21MF_data.ini

LoadoutFile=MiG-21MF_loadout.ini

 

Well, in the case of the aircraft's main ini ), the easiest thing to do is after adding all the lines to make if flyabe, is do the normal "Save". Now, it looks like this:

 

[AircraftData]

AircraftFullName=MiG-21MF Fishbed-J

AircraftShortName=MiG-21

AircraftDataFile=MiG-21MF_data.ini

LoadoutFile=MiG-21MF_loadout.ini

CockpitDataFile=Cabina_MiG-21MF.INI

HangarScreen=21MF_Hangar.bmp

LoadingScreen=Imagen02_MiG-21MF.bmp

LoadoutImage=Imagen00_MiG-21MF.bmp

AvionicsDLL=Avionics60.dll

AvionicsDataFilename=Avionica_MiG-21MF.INI

 

after running a patch, it WILL revert back to the stock configuration as show up above.

 

To prevent this, and having to go back and do it ALL over for all the MiGs, Su-7s, Mirages, Thunderstreaks, Hunters, etc, this is the Easy, Lazy Man's Way ™.

 

REopen the main ini, and do a "Save As..." and name it "xAircraftName.ini" (where AircraftName is the name of the aircraft) In short, just add the X in front of the name. The screenie show the extra ini quietly residing in the aircraft main folder, with all the pointer statements safe and intact.

 

For to be safe, you might want to consider doing that for any/all other inis -including the data ini if extracted- so you can easily transfer any changes to the NEW data/loadout/whatever ini. Be advised, however, that extraction of new data ini IS reccomended, as the latest patch always seems to incorporate Flight Model improvements and such.

 

As to the add-on inis, like for the Fresco and Fishbed or Floggers, just to be safe, you might want to create 'xnamed' copies for them as well. They're small files that don't take up a lot of HD space, and might wind up saving you all kinds of time in running around trying to find them from a backup disc or another install or Mod Folder.

 

wrench

kevin stein

[Wrench 9,853]

Addendum to above, courtesy to Jomni:

 

He reminded me, that any skins you may have added will not be be saved on the patched ini'. So you can do one of two things:

 

1) copy/paste the textureset listing into the 'x***.ini' (mind you, if you've already ADDED skins, they'll still be there)

 

or

 

2) just let the game engine re-add them via the skin's textureset.ini the next time you start the game.

 

the only dis-advantage of #2 is, if you have changed their ordering (meaning: you've moved your favorite to the Texture001 postion), you'll have to re-edit it to move it back up.

 

wrench

kevin stein

[Wrench 9,853]

Part 3-ish, With Reference to Expansion Pak 2:

 

It updates ALL the exes, so if you've created 'stand alone', theatre/era specific mods folder, the exes for those will need replacing with the new one (for esample, the 1956 Suez mod ... I used the expansion1 exe, and ONLY have stuff for the 56 war)

 

1) back up ENTIRE mods folder by renaming to something like "z-NameOfModsFolder". Do this for ALL mods folders!!!!

2) run exp2 exe, and allow it to patch all. Use WinDoze Explorer to visually confirm new dates on the main exes - SF2, SF2V, SF2I, SF2E SF2I Exp1

3) Run exes to create new mods folders.

4) Start each game to confirm creation of new mods folders -For ALL installs

5) Delete newly created mods folders

6) Un-rename old mods folders. Be advised, there will probably be changes to some aircraft's data inis. Be ready to re-extract and re-edit.

7) -VERY IMPORTANT!!- Open each Options ini, and scroll down to [singleMission]. You'll need to change the EndYear=, as it reverts to 0, causing the games to have a max year of 1982-ish.

 

8) If you have stand-alone installs (Korea, DesertStorm, Iran/Iraq, Indo-Pak etc), you'll need to do the same thing with their mods folders as described above.

Then, take the SF2.exe, create a copy and rename to to match the one you're replacing. Follow the steps above just like it was a standard install. (ie: run exe, create the mods folder, delete it, un-rename the original, etc)

 

Year Change/Adjustements in Options.ini:

 

[singleMission]

AircraftType=F-4E_IRIAF

Service=Iran

MissionMap=DESERT

MissionType=SWEEP

MissionTime=RANDOM

MissionWeather=RANDOM

AirActivity=RANDOM

AirDefenseActivity=RANDOM

FlyAll=FALSE

LoadMission=FALSE

LoadMissionFilename=C:\Users\kevin\Saved Games\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2\Missions\640802_TONKIN_GULF_INCIDENT.MSN

MissionDate=1975

StartYear=0

EndYear=2050 <-- this is the line in question!!!

EditMission=FALSE

 

Apparently, Exp2 does something (now!) different than before, locking end years. So, edit accordingly.

 

wrench

kevin stein

Edited December 4, 2010 by Wrench