Indefinite Hiatus

[zachtan 66]

Good Day proud members of the Combatace SF Community,

 

Over the past few months, I've made 16 skins for Strike Fighters 2, for 14 aircraft types, accumulating around 800 downloads in total. I would like to take some time to express my gratitude and thanks towards every one of you. Thanks for all the help you've given me that have helped make some of the skins I've created, your invaluable feedback as well as the many kind comments you guys have left on my downloads. I would like to give special mention to Menrva, who has been a good friend and an extremely helpful senior in the community.

 

Having completed my conscription service in the Singapore Navy as an Underwater Combat Medic in January this year, I had hoped that the next few months (University starts in July) would have been a great time for me to focus more on my hobbies such as reading about history, learning how to drive, and of course, continuing to create skins for SF2. Unfortunately, this will not be the case.

 

Last week, after 5 years of exemplary service, my laptop, having served me faithfully as the tool upon which I would create most of my work, finally died. Everything, from my SF2 installation, all my templates, screenshots and tools I used were gone. Having gotten a replacement laptop, I had initially hoped that I would be able to salvage the data from old computer and continue my work. However, my worst fears were confirmed when I booted up my hard drive into a external reader, and it read RAW.  I brought my hard drive to a data recovery service, which quoted the file recovery at approx SGD1400-1700 (They were nice enough to give free evaluation and testing, then asked whether you'd like to continue with the recovery). With no college degree yet let alone a full-time job, I decided that it wasn't worth the cost.

 

And so today, it is with deep regret that I let you guys know that I will no longer be able to make skins for SF2. The problem isn't money though, it's just.... I cannot justify the amount of effort I'm using to continue a hobby.  It took my months to create my "perfect" SF2 installation , and paying over a thousand dollars for a hobby which doesn't pay isn't my priority at the moment. In future, when I've had enough money leftover and when it's convenient, I may come back to skinning, but until then:

 

I'm Zachary, this has been zachtan's Ace Combat Skin Collection, thank you very much :) and goodbye :(

Edited March 4, 2018 by zachtan

[+Menrva 4,226]

So sad to hear this! But you've given so much to us Ace Combat fans! Thank you very much and best of luck, mate.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Menrva

[MigBuster 2,887]

Zachtan I can understand the frustration and hope you will be back and I am sure many appreciate the work you carried out for the SF community.

One thing we have not done for a while is remind everyone to back up their data....maybe everyone assumes people just do this now?

Simply if you only have one local copy of something there is a good chance it will be lost. (applies to all on any device Desktop,Phone, Tablet)

Years ago we backed up to CDs and DVDs which was hell because of the time it took........but more recently USB hard drives became the norm and are much easier to use.

There is of course cloud based services these days but even they are not really true places to back up long term due to the policies they have........there is also no guarantee on the data and for some it is not an option due to the bandwidth required for GBs of data.

So if you do invest in something get an external HD say 2TB and start backing things up..everything important not just SF stuff.........just plug it in when you need it don't keep it plugged in...it will require some discipline.

 

 

 

 

[Snailman 517]

I really wish I could take a look at that hard drive. I had done miracles in the past at my workplace and with my own hard drive not long ago. Do NOT discard it or let anyone to disassemble it. Im sure it can be salvaged.

I did lost EVERYTHING I had, not so recently, but I did recover it all before the need to climb up the attic with a rope... ))  Now I have expanded my NAS server, and made it RAID.  Devil never sleeps...

[zachtan 66]

Thanks for all the comments. In any case, I've decided to compile all my skins into one place so that they'll be easier to find:

 

F-16C Windhover Squadron (Ace Combat 6)

F-15C Galm Team (Ace Combat Zero)

F-22A Gryphus Squadron (Ace Combat X)

F-5E Wardog Squadron (Ace Combat 5)

F-15E Sorcerer (Ace Combat Zero)

JAS 39 Gripen-C Indigo (Ace Combat Zero)

F/A-18E Grun Team (Ace Combat Zero)

F-14D Schnee (Ace Combat Zero)

YF-23A Wizard (Ace Combat Zero)

F-22A Aggressors (Fictional)

F-4E Mobius (Ace Combat 4)

Eurofighter-GmbH EF-2000 "Typhoon" Rot Team (Ace Combat Zero)

F-14A/B/D Tomcats of The Unsung War (Ace Combat 5)

J-35J Draken & Rafale-M Espada Team (Ace Combat Zero)

Su-27 Gelb Team (Ace Combat Zero)

 

If you'd like to use/modify them, feel free to contact me via PM.

[Caesar 305]

Thanks for the work you put in.  See you around!