May 11 updates out now!

[smithcorp 0]

Quick question - just bought SF2 and Europe and the Expansion Pack 2 yesterday - if I bought them after the May 2011 updates, I don't need to install the updates as well (ie the original games are up to date)? When I installed the SF2, SF2E and Exp Pack 2, each shows May 2011 on the menu screen.

 

thanks

 

smith

[Bossco82 11]

Quick question - just bought SF2 and Europe and the Expansion Pack 2 yesterday - if I bought them after the May 2011 updates, I don't need to install the updates as well (ie the original games are up to date)? When I installed the SF2, SF2E and Exp Pack 2, each shows May 2011 on the menu screen.

 

thanks

 

smith

 

Your install will be at may 2011 patch mate.

[+malibu43 142]

Just curious, how does the new patch work with NF4+, Vietnam Exp Packs, and Falklands mod?

 

I'm assuming since the Falklands mod used a custom .cat file, it probably won't work. What about the others?

 

I've changed my mind about not continuing to patch. This isn't the end of the world. I will continue supporting TK (as my bank account allows).

Edited May 26, 2011 by malibu43

[Bossco82 11]

So far for me the expansion packs seem to work ok. I havn't bothered altering the aircraft .ini's and skins and decals seem to be ok but I dont pay these much attention anyway. As for the falklands mod, unpack the menu cat with the old extractor and put its entire contents into the menu folder in the saved games folder. I did this and my menu's for the falklands mod work fine.

[+dtmdragon 2,703]

I'm getting a CTD every time I request fighter support in any of the Nato fighters campaigns and sometimes when I hit the accept/continue button after a mission in the debrief screen.

 

Edited May 26, 2011 by dtmdragon

[smithcorp 0]

Your install will be at may 2011 patch mate.

 

Beauty, thanks!

[+Piecemeal 450]

Just curious, how does the new patch work with NF4+, Vietnam Exp Packs, and Falklands mod?

 

I'm assuming since the Falklands mod used a custom .cat file, it probably won't work. What about the others?

 

I've changed my mind about not continuing to patch. This isn't the end of the world. I will continue supporting TK (as my bank account allows).

 

 

I'm getting a CTD every time I request fighter support in any of the Nato fighters campaigns and sometimes when I hit the accept/continue button after a mission in the debrief screen.

 

 

 

As regards third party campaigns, you're gonna have to do what I just spent the whole day doing. I Extracted fresh stock campaign files, and edit them SLOWLY by comparing it with the old one. I was having trouble with my old edited SF2 campaigns freezing when I clicked 'accept' in the Campaigns menu. So when I edited the new files I made one change at a time - tested - then continued editing. That's the only way you'll know when you're making mistakes. And whatever you do, don't try editing the pre May 2011 ones. It doesn't work that way so best thing is to start from scratch with an up to date file and edit one step at a time. Sounds like a real pain in the arse but it's the only way I could do it. Compare with original - edit the new one - test quickly. And so on .................................

[+ravenclaw_007 7,633]

I'm sorry we came such way in this discussion, as it's very nice patch after all. Just the "locking stuff away from users (modders)" worries me big time (and no, I'm not talking about LODs here)

 

 

by going through this post i cant find anything that convinced me to patch my games to may/11 , and furthermore i have to agree with stary "locking stuff away from users (modders)" worries me to

as for the terraine objects/trees i dont know if TK has ever noticed how popular such mods are with the users

[+Stary 2,427]

Volker you might be right, from day one it was quite obvious to me TK doesn't care about terrains looks of the series but on the other hand that gives us some prettiest planes out there, and constant free updates to them in patches. So he should still let the terrain modders improve further the area he's not interested in, and locking stuff away isn't going to help.

 

After all, seems everything will change with new terrain data format and engine for Tomcat, as Kevin wrote, we will adopt (I hope so)

[+Soulfreak 6,524]

by going through this post i cant find anything that convinced me to patch my games to may/11 , and furthermore i have to agree with stary "locking stuff away from users (modders)" worries me to

as for the terraine objects/trees i dont know if TK has ever noticed how popular such mods are with the users

 

Same is my point of view.

I´m sure TK has noticed it.

[+ojcar 157]

As regards third party campaigns, you're gonna have to do what I just spent the whole day doing. I Extracted fresh stock campaign files, and edit them SLOWLY by comparing it with the old one. I was having trouble with my old edited SF2 campaigns freezing when I clicked 'accept' in the Campaigns menu. So when I edited the new files I made one change at a time - tested - then continued editing. That's the only way you'll know when you're making mistakes. And whatever you do, don't try editing the pre May 2011 ones. It doesn't work that way so best thing is to start from scratch with an up to date file and edit one step at a time. Sounds like a real pain in the arse but it's the only way I could do it. Compare with original - edit the new one - test quickly. And so on .................................

 

AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH!!!!! I have a ton of 3rd party campaigns in my install, and other ton of stock ones heavily edited by me. I even did the cat thing with the Falklands mod thinking about installing the patch after all....

Too much work...Life was easy before the patch.

[+SkateZilla 49]

I agree.He should provide proof as to the majority using intel chips if he is going to make an unproven claim like that.I have used AMD since I got rid of a P4 years ago.I stick with Phenom.

 

Alot of the Support posts on his Boards are people running laptops with Intel GMA, or Low End AMD/nVidia Mobile Solutions For Graphics.

 

As for the Budget “Excuse”, I can see how working on patches and fixes to this game code would be a waste of money when the code has already advanced to the next stage for the next title (F-14), So any major bugs will get a cheap quick hammer failsafe fix. It doesn’t make sense to spend resources working on a complex fix for a engine that will be replaced by its predecessor later this year,

 

Other than the 5 or 6 images of the Tomcat 3D Model with most of the decals missing that are over a year old and posts mentioning a new terrain engine, no one other than TW employees and beta testers (if there are any left) know what the next engine even looks like, so you cannot say you know what TW’s budget is or how much of it has been used for what.

 

I had to control myself from going off on TWs boards when people started getting a little too nasty towards TK and TW over the fading trees, but I don’t see no thanks for Specular/Bump Maps, Mission Editor, unified Patch Installer, things that people wanted to make it easier to install the game, and things to make the game look better. The mission rating changes make sense, if you don’t make the kill yourself why should you get reward points and a individual rating of success and medals for? That’s all that changed, if your wingman/flight hits the target, its still Mission Accomplished, but your individual rating will be partial success, that’s something people asked for a while ago. So that 4 missions into your campaign your not already being rapidly promoted because your getting rewards for your wingman’s work.

 

Doing Mods to a game (adjusting INI entries, building/textureing 3d shapes etc) is NOT the same as Building and Coding an ENTIRE GAME.

 

How many of you have the $$ to pay for a License to use all the SDKs required for building the game, then pay the person who’s certified to use that SDK. How many of you can write a Terrain engine code or upgrade an entire code and compile it. Not even mentioning the graphics, physics modeling, sound dynamics, and other small engines required to make the main engines work.

 

Modifying Configuration Files, and Adding Content to the Engine is not the same as Building it, Debugging it, Evolving it and re-Compiling it

 

 

Im Not Saying the Modder’s 3d Artists, Texture Artists, INI Guru’s and everybody inbetween don’t do an Excellent Job making the game better (which is why its openly moddable), Im just saying because its easy for you to mod it, doesn’t mean its easy or cheap to create the engine that your modifying.

Edited May 27, 2011 by SkateZilla

[+ojcar 157]

Alot of the Support posts on his Boards are people running laptops with Intel GMA, or Low End AMD/nVidia Mobile Solutions For Graphics.

 

As for the Budget “Excuse”, I can see how working on patches and fixes to this game code would be a waste of money when the code has already advanced to the next stage for the next title (F-14), So any major bugs will get a cheap quick hammer failsafe fix. It doesn’t make sense to spend resources working on a complex fix for a engine that will be replaced by its predecessor later this year,

 

Other than the 5 or 6 images of the Tomcat 3D Model with most of the decals missing that are over a year old and posts mentioning a new terrain engine, no one other than TW employees and beta testers (if there are any left) know what the next engine even looks like, so you cannot say you know what TW’s budget is or how much of it has been used for what.

 

I had to control myself from going off on TWs boards when people started getting a little too nasty towards TK and TW over the fading trees, but I don’t see no thanks for Specular/Bump Maps, Mission Editor, unified Patch Installer, things that people wanted to make it easier to install the game, and things to make the game look better. The mission rating changes make sense, if you don’t make the kill yourself why should you get reward points and a individual rating of success and medals for? That’s all that changed, if your wingman/flight hits the target, its still Mission Accomplished, but your individual rating will be partial success, that’s something people asked for a while ago. So that 4 missions into your campaign your not already being rapidly promoted because your getting rewards for your wingman’s work.

 

Doing Mods to a game (adjusting INI entries, building/textureing 3d shapes etc) is NOT the same as Building and Coding an ENTIRE GAME.

 

How many of you have the $$ to pay for a License to use all the SDKs required for building the game, then pay the person who’s certified to use that SDK. How many of you can write a Terrain engine code or upgrade an entire code and compile it. Not even mentioning the graphics, physics modeling, sound dynamics, and other small engines required to make the main engines work.

 

Modifying Configuration Files, and Adding Content to the Engine is not the same as Building it, Debugging it, Evolving it and re-Compiling it

 

 

Im Not Saying the Modder’s 3d Artists, Texture Artists, INI Guru’s and everybody inbetween don’t do an Excellent Job making the game better (which is why its openly moddable), Im just saying because its easy for you to mod it, doesn’t mean its easy or cheap to create the engine that your modifying.

 

This make sense. There are some nice features in the patch for free. I'm not against TK nor Thirdwire, but updating all my install (very nice now as is), seems to be an overwhelming amount of work (for now, at least until someone make patches cleaning the possible issues with Vietnam Gold, Independence war, NATO fighters, etc (I'm talking about environtment, skins, decals, squadrons and ini edits in planes among others). In addition to this, there seems to be problems with custom campaigns. I fly mainly campaigns and I have customized to my taste nearly all. I have spend many hours to tuning these campaigns, so, for now, I'll stay without updating, because my install works perfectly.

I'm sure that in some time, TK will give us some fix to the issues. If so, I'll be very grateful and will update the whole thing. The fade thing is a little disgusting, but I can live with it, because all good things in the patch. The deffinitive show stopper for me is the breaking of custom campaigns.

Edited May 27, 2011 by ojcar

[Bossco82 11]

I have to agree between Skatezilla and Stary on this one. It is TK's game to do with as he pleases at the end of the day, if he loses fans or upsets a customer group at the end of the day thats his choice to make. I like Stary and many others do wish that since the May 2011 patch I could alter an ini file and double the fading distance for the trees. My favourite game of the TW lineup is Vietnam, in fact I like it so much I built a custom watercooled sandybridge setup so I could play it with unlimited settings using all the eye candy modders have made. I dont play any other games I built my system solely for Strike Fighters, so TK if your reading thats how much of a fan I am and i'm sure i'm not the only one.

 

However my love of the TW titles is its modability. I love the fact that I can buy it and change things just to my taste. I totally appreciate TK's work to provide somthing that simply isn't available anywhere else. Although 50% of the reason I play these games is the work the modders do to make it even more realistic, Vietnam is a classic example. Locking out part of the game engine is something I hope isn't continued or expanded on. The lack of modability is why Il2 sits in its dvd box and isn't even installed on my system, I know there are thing like UP.20 but it just isn't the same as Strike Fighters for customisation. To sum up, TK I appreciate all that you do on the SF titles and look forward to what the new F-14 tomcat has to offer but please keep the ability for us to modify it to our own taste as that is the reason many of us but the titles in the first place

[Heretic 2]

I think that the only valid fade distance for trees is when they've reached 1 px in size. But then again, I'm a militant autogen freak...

 

So definately no new patch for me. SF2E runs fine on this rig as is.

[+Sundowner 4,819]

Save the trees!!!!!

 

 

Its not only us that like them.

[+ravenclaw_007 7,633]

[Icarus999 70]

By built in Intel chips, TK means grafix chips integrated into the motherboard, instead of real gaming video cards. Intel's grafix chips are world famous for dirt poor non-performance. Most of the motherboards in the world use Intel integrated grafix without gaming cards. I too find it odd that TK's customers are doing this, but then, as we all know, TK does not make hard core computer games to compete with the Shooters. There may be a good number of souls who buy THE SF as a lite fun game or for use on laptops, as basic entertainment, to get away from the day's work. Who knows?

 

 

I Don't think he knows what he is saying, anyone who tries to run a flight sim with out a quality graphics card is a fool. I personally run a Quad SLI rig, it was an investment , it was freaking expensive and I bought those cards for one reason... to run this sim at its full potential.

 

I have made a huge monetary investment in all of the equipment required to get the most out of TK s sims and I find it funny that some one here feels the need to hide in the shadows and vote down my post simply because I have the balls to say what most of us thinking, but you know I can pretty much guess who that was.

[+Stary 2,427]

+1

 

well said Jules

[pablo10692 4]

Thirdwire at Twitter

 

" by popular demand, next patch is delayed about a week to add an option to turn off some features and fixes we added in the last patch. "

 

http://twitter.com/#!/thirdwire/status/74603425203097600

[+Baltika 85]

@ TK -

 

S!

 

Baltika

[+Stary 2,427]

heh, good

 

so, TK listens to us after all

[+Baltika 85]

This from TK over on the TW boards:-

 

 

"by TK » Sat May 28, 2011 6:14 pm

 

MigBuster,

 

"Cant you just define a policy that states you modify the games at your own risk - TW does not support any issues that arise from adding mods??"

 

Well, that has been our policy since day one, but that didn't stop people from coming in here and complain about them... :S

 

Baltika,

 

Yeah, we'll be adding an option to turn this off in the next patch. We were working toward getting a new auto-patch this weekend, but this will delay the patch probably 1-2 weeks. Keep in mind that because all the parameters are linked, if you turn this off, none of the work we do to fix the terrain issues in the future will work.

 

CA_STARY,

 

Our next terrain engine will not use TOD, everything will be done in max and LOD format. And the map is going to be smaller, and have shorter horizon/clip distance so we can have much more detailed terrain up close. Just reducing the map size from 1000km to 300km (size of iceland, surround by repeating ocean) allow us to increase the detail by 10x already, and by bringing in horizon a bit more, we can display even higher density of objects/terrain details up close. The map is still 100x large than any maps on FPS, helo-sim, or arcade flight games, so we can't never get to that level of details (without further reducing the size and horizon, or throwing ridiculously huge sum of amount of money at it), but we feel it may strike a better balance for most casual players with better graphics."

 

Interesting. . .

Edited May 28, 2011 by Baltika

[Guest Pfunk]

So, the terrains are going to be smaller so more detail can be rendered...wonder what that does to 'The Wall'...

 

 

[Icarus999 70]

Well it is encouraging that TK listened and will give us the ability to set the fade distance... if you are reading this TK, please give us back our clouds..

 

And as far as auto patch my suggestion would be that the user should have to manually switch that feature on if or when they decide they want to move up to the next patch.

 

I can see big problems ahead if the game automatically seeks out and patches itself.