Where to begin with all the mods? (new player)

[gregfp66]

Hello ,

I'm new it's my first post.

I will get astrike fighter 2 real soon.

Although i will play it vanilla first, i wanted to know where to begin with mods . What are your tips for having the best experience at the beginning and not be overwhelmed?

Does the game have a good replayability and customability (mission editor etc..)

Am i not too late in that the  community and modding community still alive?

Thanks for your answer.

[Arrow]

I just got into SF2 last year myself - so also late to the party. That said, I did have a good deal of play time with Strike Fighters 1, Wings over Vietnam and Wings over Europe.  As to what mods are best, it depends on what Strike Fighter 2 theater you buy. If you buy SF2 Europe, IMO NATO Fighters 5 is a must have mod as it adds a number of the fan-modded aircraft and a new campaign. There's also the big Weapons Mod, which adds a lot of the missing armaments. If you get SF2 Vietnam, then I believe a terrain mod called Green Hell is still available which provides quite an update of terrain features. For SF2 North Atlantic, I prefer the fan-made Icelandic terrain mod as I encountered some unrealistic targeting by enemy aircraft with the default.

 

There's still lots of fan modding going on; just look at some of the threads in this forum and the file announcement forum. There lots of replayability via all the fan mods and if you purchase the Mission editor,you can create missions to your hearts content. I'm really a SF2 n00b too though, so hopefully a more experienced player will comment.

Edited April 24, 2019 by Arrow

[gregfp66]

Thanks for the answer only good news then.

Will wait for more veteran to answer as well

[+Crusader]

Welcome

Replayability -  enormous. Each single player and campaign mission is created dynamically.

Even if you happen to fail a mission and choose to replay it -  there can be additional or less enemy flights etc, different

SAM types. Very dynamic. Also depends on your difficult settings.

 

[Barkhorn1x]

For me available campaigns drive my mod choices.  So take a look at this link:

https://combatace.com/files/category/744-user-made-campaigns/

...and d/l what interests you.  Most campaigns have all the mods you need and they will tell you what others to d/l and what base game configuration you need.

[Trotski]

Loads of mods, you can if you own the complete series of SF and FE basically play any era of flight from the First World War to present day, I would recommend you can  ( if you can afford to of course ) purchase all the expansions, as for example the North Atlantic scenarios add more carriers into the sim, which is very good for Vietnam, First Eagles is also very good, with an active and very much alive modding community. I would also recommend you get the DLC's as well , although they are not 100% needed to enhance the sim, there are a few mods out there that are dependant on aircraft from those DLC's . Anyway welcome to the community, it has to be , in my opinion, one of the best sim community's on the net, it is rare for a question to not be answered and addressed , everyone is helpful and supportive, so dont be afraid to ask anything at all, as there is usually someone who knows a solution to your querey.........have fun and enjoy !! ..............................

[+daddyairplanes]

to answer specifically about mission editor, there is a DLC mission editor available at the TW store or it comes with the SF2 Europe expansion pack (if budget allows i recommend going with the Expansion pack instead of just the editor)

an theres a few of us around still workin with this old girl, plus plenty of previous content for much of what you could imagine. welcome to the party

[+russouk2004]

1st thing on my list would be....updated terrain reworks..as most terrains are far better repainted by the guys here..

Then New terrains, ground object mods a must ,add on a\c  thousands..lol....some cases modders have made better a\c than stock ones...

campaigns and Missions galore to d\l....also some total era specific mods IE WW2, Korea, etc etc...with custom game files IE,delete all game files and add the custome ones..

theres so much to keep you busy...depends on how much storage you have lol

always some one to help...and still modders supporting the game.

[+russouk2004]

ps...this is the only sim I know of which has models of a\c etc that no other has....planes that never flew in air forces,obscure planes etc..

[gregfp66]

Thanks everyone for your welcoming and answer .

I have others question :

Are plane (mod) from SF 1 usable in SF 2 by any means?

I tried to look at how creating a new campaign ,any sort of guide with no success so far. I 've learned that i have to use an extractor from tripwire and then edit some files.

But if i understand it right, i can only modify actual campaign and not create new one ( with new maps that i can found on this website for example)

Thanks for your answer and i'm glad to see this old game still alive and been supported .

[+yakarov79]

Welcome here.

Answering your question -yes it is.

I highly recommend visiting this part of forum https://combatace.com/forums/forum/268-thirdwire-strike-fighters-2-series-knowledge-base/  where you can find tons of useful information about modding a game...on page two you will find a topic related to your question as well.

 

[gregfp66]

 Thanks I found a topic that answered my question about comptability of plane page 4 or 3. it's a guide an old one with missing "gone" screenshot 

But not for the campaign creation question.

[+Wrench]

98.6% of the SF1 mods have already been upgraded to SF2.

[gregfp66]

Wow, thats quite precise.

[CowboyTodd41]

The Falklands War mod is probably my favorite. HIGHLY recommended.

[Arrow]

On 2019-04-26 at 2:29 PM, gregfp66 said:

 But not for the campaign creation question.

I did a post and some searching a while back about this very question. From all I could find, it appears that the creator of this game (TK) never provided guidelines on how to do build a custom campaign. The current official campaign mod tool from 3rd Wire, is just a simple tool that lets you change the aircraft in an existing campaign to any nation's aircraft that you have installed. From all my reading in some of the forums here and a few external ones, it appears the only way to create a custom campaign is to modify the file for an existing one. That said, I couldn't find a document or posting that explained in detail many of the settings in a campaign file.

I'd personally love to attempt some Northern campaigns (Iceland, North Baltic or Bering Straight), but trying to figure out the file was too daunting a task. Maybe I missed something though and one of the vets here could expand upon or correct what I've said?

[gregfp66]

Thats what i found too while searching the forum.

It seems it existed a guide from an old user , but i've read it has been lost.

 

[Arrow]

1 hour ago, gregfp66 said:

it seems it existed a guide from an old user , but i've read it has been lost.

Yep, now that you mention it I seem to recall reading that too.

[+Wrench]

probably from Major Lee; lost long before SF2 came out. He had stuff on his website on campaigns and more importantly (for me!) terrain building.

[gregfp66]

That's sad though , this guide would have really helped me.   

Well it's not like i wanted to try now, i'm didnt even finished playing my first campaign . Didnt even try the modded campaign out there.

Maybe by looking at them and asking i could try out.

[CowboyTodd41]

That's pretty much how everyone else learns nowadays. There's a lot of info the Knowledge Base section, and people here are always willing to help if you ask, no sweat. Best idea I have, would be to extract one of the standard campaign files, say the stock Desert campaign, then download one of the update/upgrade mods for that campaign, and compare the two .ini files to understand what was changed and added, then ask for help filling in any puzzle pieces. I always think of Strike Fighters as like a model train set for jet fighters, once you get the hang of it, it's very plug-in-play and it usually doesn't get upset about removing mods. It's highly flexible and very forgiving. Good luck!

[gregfp66]

Thanks

Is the info on the knowledge base section for SF 1  applicable to SF 2?

As it seems to have way more usefull info and guide

Edited May 5, 2019 by gregfp66

[+Wrench]

In many cases, yes