How to fly other aircraft in Instant Action...

[Guest Charles]

The stock Instant Action in SF puts you in a F-4E Phantom in 1968 over the Desert terrain, up against a variety of 1960's Soviet aircraft, including the Il-28, MiG-17F, Mig-21F and MiG-21MF.

 

If you have a modified install of SF (for example, a Korean War-era install), which does not have the F-4E (or the other aircraft the stock Instant Action uses), then SF will CTD when you click on the Instant Action button at the Mainscreen.

 

Here is how to fix that, so you can use Instant Action in modified installs of SF.

 

The trick is that there are two files to edit, in two separate folders. They are OPTIONS.INI in your main Strike Fighters folder, and INSTANTACTION.INI in your Strike Fighters\Flight folder. To change the aircraft you fly in Instant Action, all you need to do is change the entry "F-4E" in both files (say to A-4E, or A-7E, if you have that installed).

 

To change Instant Action for a separate install of SF is only a little more complicated.

 

The example given below is for a Korean War-era install of SF, but (with corresponding changes) you can apply it to WWII installs, or any other install of SF.

 

STEP 1

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In the main Strike Fighters folder for your Korean War-era install you will see a file OPTIONS.INI. Open this file with Notepad. About halfway down you will see an entry:

 

[instantAction]

AircraftType=F-4E

MissionMap=DESERT

StartTime=16:30:00

StartDate=09/18/1968

TextureSet=0

NationalMarking=0

SquadronMarking=0

AircraftNumber=0

KillMarking=0

StartTimeDeviation=120

 

For a Korean War-era install of SF, change this to read

[instantAction]

AircraftType=F-86F

MissionMap=KOREA

StartTime=12:30:00

StartDate=06/18/1953

TextureSet=0

NationalMarking=0

SquadronMarking=0

AircraftNumber=0

KillMarking=0

StartTimeDeviation=120

 

STEP 2

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In your Strike Fighters\Flight folder you will see a file INSTANTACTION.INI.

If it is not there you will have to extract it from your Strike Fighters\Flight\MissionData.cat file.

Open this file with Notepad, and edit it to change all the aircraft to Korean War-era aircraft. All of the aircraft you specify must be installed in your Korean War-era install for this to work.

 

Under [AircraftMission001], which is the aircraft you will fly, the aircraft entry MUST correspond with the aircraft type you set in the OPTIONS.INI file (i.e. F-86F in this example). Otherwise you can adjust the aircraft which will apear in Instant Action to taste, so long as you have the various aircraft installed.

The changes I have made for a Korean War-era Instant Action are as follows:

 

 

[AircraftMission001]

AircraftType=F-86F

 

[AircraftMission002]

AircraftType=Tu-4

 

 

[AircraftMission003]

AircraftType=MiG-15bis

 

 

[AircraftMission004]

AircraftType=F-86F

 

 

[AircraftMission005]

AircraftType=F9F-5

 

 

[AircraftMission006]

AircraftType=MiG-15bis

 

 

[AircraftMission007]

AircraftType=MiG-15bis

 

 

[AircraftMission008]

AircraftType=MiG-15bis

 

 

[AircraftMission009]

AircraftType=MiG-15bis

 

 

[AircraftMission010]

AircraftType=F9F-5

 

 

[AircraftMission011]

AircraftType=MiG-15bis

 

 

[AircraftMission012]

AircraftType=MiG-15bis

 

 

[AircraftMission013]

AircraftType=MiG-15bis

 

 

[AircraftMission014]

AircraftType=MiG-15bis

 

STEP 3

======

There is no Step 3. With the above changes, Instant Action will now work in your separate install of SF.

 

One further small change you might also want to make is the entry for Speed= for each [AircraftMissionxxx]. This is not essential, but the stock version has the aircraft coming into Instant Action at 1960's-era speeds (e.g the F-4E at Speed=250 is 250 metres per second, which is 485 knots).

 

For Korean War-era aircraft, you might want to reduce these numbers a bit, say to 150 (290 knots). For a WWII install, set it at (say) 100 for fighters and 80 for bombers.

Do this for the initial Speed= entries, and the Waypoint speed entries.

 

Have fun.