FNG Needs some help

[Intruder7011]

Hello, wow am I late to the party. I used to be a huge gamer with the old 56k set up and Janes Fighters Anthology, but as that platform died out, so did I. I recently came across some Razbam addons for FSX just viewing youtube videos, which sparked the fire of the old flight combat sims, and after some searching found SF and this site... to the point, I am wanting to purchase SF2 Vietnam soon but want to know about some things.

 

I have a very capable machine that can run basically anything out now but am curious about if SF Vietnam is stand alone, and what addon/mods are a must for realism/gameplay/graphics ect. I can poor over aircraft and so on, just hoping for a little help to narrow some must have ones right out of the gate. Also, is there a mission creator in SF2 Vietnam, I've seen some mission add ons and that was an awesome part of Janes FA.

 

Thanks in advance and sorry for the FNG post, Im sure its not the only one and you all are sick of them. Hope to become a regular around here now that it seems like the glory days are back for combat flight sims (for me that is)!

[+Wrench]

never seen another mission builder like FAs ... could make that stand up and sing the national anthem. of any country I wanted it to ...ah...the days!

 

SF2V dosen't come with one 'out of the box', but iirc, you can purchase it from 3d Wire as a DLC (down loadable content). 10 buck or so??? disremember...

 

there's buttloads of mods (for the ENTIRE series!), but for SF2V -- the SF2V Expansion Pak is probably the best. It's a VERY large download, and worth the time.

 

Each game in the SF2 series is basically a stand alone, but they all merge with each other (allowing acces to some "oddness" sometimes - like Israeli Mirage over Germany!). If you run each one from it's exe, they create seperat 'mods folders' so there's no possibility of cross-contamination (Red Menace!!!). Or reduced possibility.

 

Best advice we give ... get the game. Play it "as is" for several weeks to get the feel for the aircraft, campaign, single missions, etc. Use that time to get comfortable with the folder system, the 'how things work', and so forth.

When downloading stuff, always unzip and READ the readme.txt that (hopefully!!!) came with it.

 

and Welcome (to MadHouse!)

 

We've got an extensive Knowledge Base for both 1stGens (SF/WoV/WoE/WoI) and NextGens (the SF2 series). A little mouse time browsing the post/thread/tutorial/etc pay off in the end.

[liamp51]

Welcome Intruder7011! If you have something capable of running FSX, you can run all the SF series games on maxed out settings. SF2:Vietnam can be bought stand alone, but you won't get all the aircraft required for a lot of mods around here. There is a mission editor for SF available as a stand alone purchase here: https://store.thirdwire.com/store_dlc.htm (third item down). You can create your own missions. It's EPIC. Welcome aboard!

 

liamp51

[Intruder7011]

Thanks guys, awesome stuff. I will follow your advice and get used to the game before adding on first, not sure how long I can last though knowing that the A-6 Intruder is just waiting for me. That mission creator in FA was awesome, glad to see there is something out there.

 

I am currently building some custom panels for a cockpit I have started and can't wait to get it programmed, anyone with advice or have done anything like that out there? I have a plan already but its always nice to see others and generate more ideas and modify.

 

Im sure theres a post about this, but it seems like the mod community around here is awesome, how does one contribute, more so in ideas I should say since the extent of my modifying things was just changing text in some files in FA.

 

Thanks for the welcome aboards

[Romflyer]

 

 

I am currently building some custom panels for a cockpit I have started and can't wait to get it programmed, anyone with advice or have done anything like that out there? I have a plan already but its always nice to see others and generate

 

Welcome aboard Intruder7011

I am curious to hear a little bit about what you are making ......I too am a bit addicted to trying to make my sim environment more.......emmersive

[eraser_tr]

Welcome! With just text editing, you can still contribute a lot.

 

Campaigns, flight models, effects, weapons, etc.

[Intruder7011]

@eraser_tr, thanks, thats great to hear that I can still contribute to the effort.

 

@romflyer, I am heading out to work now, but once I get the planning stages into actual development, I'll post pictures. But as of now I believe I will go the route of an open front end, since all these games have fantastic 3D workable cockpits I wouldn't want to cover that up. I'll fabricate a chair, angled with center stick position, throttle left and pedals, with probably 32 workable switches mounted front, but left/right.... if that make sense. Ill have it on wheels so I can move it pretty close to my 52 inch LCD and just a bit off the ground to get a good eye angle.

 

I'll be using three different switches/buttons

 

ROTARY PULSE SWITCHES- Which can be programed different for clockwise/counter movement (Ideal for radar modes, ect) SPDT Toggles-- Three position switches ON-OFF-ON

 

SPST Push Botton- ON-OFF

 

I'll be creating a template using modeling software, printing it out, then drilling ect. Still thinking about backlighting the panels with LED. Lots of soldering. That interface will go into some kind of distribution box, using those monitor plug ins... DB9 maybe?? or USB, then into the tower. Anyways, more later, I got to go to work.... sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

[+HomeFries]

Intruder,

 

One other thing: if you decide you like the SF2 line (and perhaps pick up some of the other games), know that the Mission Editor is also part of Expansion Pack 2 for Strike Fighters 2: Europe. Of course, if you want to stick with Vietnam and have no interest in a Fulda Gap scenario, there's no use shelling out for a game and its expansion only to get the mission editor, but if you do like what the Europe games have to offer, you might as well pick them up and get the editor as part of the package.