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Thank you gentlemen really for you kind words, for the first time I really don't have the words to explain my feelings. I just want to say thank you for everything.

New update for the M577 with command tent.

A new update for realSKY is in the works; fixed night ambient colour being too dark, slightly tweaked cloud textures from Cellinsky's Widesky mod, brand new sun flare, different space sun flare, smoother rainbow ring flare and newly recoloured Stary's original lens flare drops. Last but not least, a new experimental shader providing a minor bloom at daytime with Effects set to Unlimited, in place of the original blinding effect at dawn/dusk by TW. New horizon glow, fog and ambient colours, with reworked bloom shader. New sun and reworked lens flares, bloom effect being visible only with exterior views (thank your cockpit glass for not blinding you). Extra shots at high altitude, with new space sun flare textures.

Something else I'd like to say about GKABS. How many of you have noticed this first line in every one of the announcements for his uploads: There's something special about that simple statement. Even some of us that have been doing this for nearly 20 years don't see that sort of thing very often, yes?? THAT kind of courtesy is hardly seen these days, anywhere. I wanted to bring that to you all's attention. carry on, gents.

Sunday suprise, awaiting approval at 12MB, it might be my smallest mod ever

Gunfighter

Close Up

Yugo Faster

Not only a terrain with locked year, how about the ENTIRE game???? Lets not forget THIS most important tweek

but you are an active modeller at the moment. thats a very big statement these days, and i for one thank you for stayin active in this old sim

Best Answer: They heard you were in the neighborhood, and ran away. Probable Real Answer: you don't need Dhimar and Paran listed; it's automatic on the desert terrain. By deleting the unused aircraft (which are all exported, including western birds ExportedToEnemy=TRUE), you removed the possibility of their random generation for Bad Guy (tm) usage. You'll have to reinstate them if you want E/As to show up

We can finish 1st my Forrestal together then go for QE . I've no time for 3d last days ;-)

let me reccomend some light reading for tonight. it will help you enjoy the game and this site better. for the SF2 otherwise known as Gen 2 stuff https://combatace.com/forums/forum/268-thirdwire-strike-fighters-2-series-knowledge-base/ for basic modding (that includes just adding stuff from here) https://combatace.com/forums/forum/99-thirdwire-strike-fighters-knowledge-base/ modders vary in how they upload. some include everything you need, some dont. some give detailed directions, some dont. of course some end users also dont read the detailed instructions. this mod was one of the less simple ones so i figured i'd help. the above links and all the threads within should help you be able to trouble shoot on your own

guessing that your using viper63's pack, add this to your pilots folder FakePilot.7z the fake pilot trick doesnt work without a copy of the fakepilot. its how other parts are added onto completed models (like the canards)

well, its CenUS folder and MidWest USA. plugged straight in from a copy of the mod folders on the semi retired laptop. was unaware of any other Midwest terrain. but presuming its yours, and if you ever retool it, the city is so damn close to Midway when i flew out in April i could see faces in cars going by . iirc, couple years back there was an accident where an airliner overran the runway, through a wall and into traffic! mandatory screenie

Today we are taking a trip back to 2004, a time when as you can see from the photo above featured PC CDROMs! Before Internet speeds for most were high enough to consider sending entire game files they had to distribute games to people using good old fashioned Compact Disks. The shiny CD came complete with its own (Jewel) case with cover and even a printed manual. As you can see a time when even Thirdwire had to distribute games and make them look like games used to - the manual even tells me to go to http://www.softwarehelpdesk.co.uk/ for technical support…………..ha looks like that domain is up for sale! Looking at the back we can see it even ran on Windows ME with 256MB of RAM! - Yes, I had to look back to remember what Win ME was – the very last of the Win 9x line before Microsoft thankfully ditched that and we got Win 2000 then Win XP. Of course, in 2004 or nearly all of that decade Win XP was the only game in town for home users and it was great for its time. For anybody who had bought Strike Fighters: Project 1, a Vietnam game was a logical and most welcome step forward….a game that recreates the intense air combat experience in the skies of North Vietnam at the height of the air campaign……………..what could be better! The manual lists the Player and AI aircraft, and although the VPAF selection looks fairly complete, the US selection was very limited compared to the later Strike Fighters 2: Vietnam. This was a time when there was hope for the future and many opportunities to modify the hell out of the game and start getting into place the absolute ton of things not included in the box. Terrain & Environment As you might see (from the case) the Terrain that came with WOV wasn’t much better than what comes with one of Thirdwires Phone & Tablet PC games – a pretty poor and unrealistic looking barren wasteland. Unsurprisingly it was not long before modders produced somewhat better tilesets - one of the first I remember and although free was used by Yankee Air Pirate later: The RA-5 Vigilante - does not come with WOV There was a payware tileset for sale at Razbams store at some point – but suffered from having obvious borders and tile edges – also 512 x 512 bitmap files were pretty big at the time but very low res by today’s standards. This later effort includes a version of Starys Green Hell which included a lot more trees for the first time: Vietnam was hell - Green hell! When released WOV also had no clouds either but they were added in a later patch: Low level clouds, gone but not forgotten Game play The North Vietnam Air Force (VPAF) and air defences were quite well set up as part of the terrain, with relevant SAM and AAA models for the era along with relevant AI. The MiGs varied in effectiveness from patch to patch whereas some of the SA-2s had a Kill probability of about 99% - this was rightly toned down somewhat in Strike Fighters 2 (SF2). WOV included an airbourne FAC (Forward Air Controller) role and this was usually represented by an 0-1E Birddog flying over the battlefield (Callsign Snoopy) – this was removed from SF2. The game added Carrier operations for the first time although the carrier was pretty lonely by itself most of the time, and players could only fly off it in campaigns and scripted single missions! The B-52s thought they were safe from Thirdwires lesser spotted MiG-17F Payware There were some options for payware – mostly from Razbam and Yankee Air Pirate – both had air of controversy that I won’t go into here. One of the very few payware aircraft was the A-1 skyraider pack Before the Mission Editor arrived in SF2 you had to create single missions using Notepad basically, quite a time consuming and difficult process. Yankee Air Pirate basically created single missions based on real missions from Vietnam and was quite an important addition for anyone with an interest in that subject. Populated carrier deck Landing and taking off in Hueys from smaller boats like this Shooting down Colts in Hueys Shooting the side gun in Hueys - Get some!. Of course, with scripted missions you can do quite a few things you cannot in auto generated single missions and campaigns! Advance clone army! The VPAF, masters of camouflage Looking back Wings Over Vietnam certainly started out as a fairly serious attempt to put together a decent standalone Vietnam war Air Combat simulator and in that respects, did a pretty decent job, but only if you took time to add a lot of the mods available and change the game yourself. Graphically it was using DX9.0c so was up to date in that regards although again you had to add mods to get it looking to what it should have perhaps been out of the box. F-111A - not included with WOV EB-66 - not included with WOV …………and Here we are at the tail end of 2017 and still no real alternative to WOV and SF2V on the Vietnam War flight sim front.

11 June 2021 Dear Fighter Pilots, Partners and Friends, It is with great pleasure that we announce 2.7 has moved to DCS World Stable. We would like to thank you for your continued support and detailed bug reports. Today, we are also introducing a new Free to Play program that lets you evaluate all of our modules (aircraft and maps) for 14 days. You can play each module sequentially for 14 days or any number of them at a time. Once you have ‘consumed’ the 14 days, you will be given another 14 day free trial period for all modules six months later. Enjoy the offer and please tell your friends! DCS: F-16C Viper has been receiving some important attention. Recently, the GBU-31 and GBU-38 JDAM bombs have been added, and they are currently in internal testing. We are working at full power to iron out existing Air-to-Air Radar and Navigation System bugs, and these fixes should be released soon to an Open Beta. In April, we conducted preliminary CFD research of R-27 missiles family aerodynamics. The focus of this research was zero-lift drag correction and missile ballistic refinement. Please read our R-27 Missile Family Report. Thank you for your passion and support. Yours sincerely, Eagle Dynamics Team Free Trials 14 Day Access Fly the DCS: F/A-18C Hornet for two weeks and then DCS: F-16C Viper for another two. You can download new terrains at the same time, whatever you fancy. Each module will give you 14 days to evaluate and enjoy them without any limitations or obligations. If you’ve tried a module and aren’t 100% certain about purchasing, you can re-evaluate six months later. Campaigns are excluded. And for all newcomers to DCS, you can benefit from a 50% joining discount on your first purchase, whether you buy one module or the whole library! Spread the news. We truly hope our new free to play system will give you the flexibility you need to enjoy each module and make informed purchase decisions. Thank you! We apologize that this offer cannot also be made available on Steam. Check out Free Trials F-16C Viper Development Roadmap In the next Open Beta, you will receive the GBU-31 and GBU-38 JDAM for the Viper! We are now working on fixing outstanding bugs related to the Air-to-Air Radar and Navigation Systems. Enhancements are also being made to the Flight Model in regards to available G and angle of attack modeling. Once we have addressed the critical issues, we will focus our Viper efforts on completing important Air-to-Air Radar functions: DTT SAM mode, bullseye, intercept steering cue, ACM Slew, and more. The Helmet Mounted Cueing System (HMCS) with the HARM Targeting System (HTS), Link 16, Air-to-Ground Mode, and IFF will also be integrated. The AGM-154 JSOW and the ALQ-131 and ALQ-184 electronic countermeasure pods are also next in line to be added. Supercarrier Deck Crew Development Report DCS: Supercarrier has received a number of notable updates to the deck crew that includes improved meshes and geometry tweaks: Plane director “Shooter” model has been edited to include skinning and geometry corrections. Improved mesh and skinning for the hands and gloves. A completely new and anatomically correct skeleton for the hands. The sailor head model has been replaced with a much more realistic one. The airboss model has been improved with improved hands and removed beer belly. Missing Level Of Details (LOD) have been added for all models. All seated and standing poses have been corrected and improved. Fixed excessive bending animation of the legs while walking. Fixed sliding legs. Fixed the intersection of arms and legs. Several new idle animations have been added for a more natural look. Mesh and skinning have been adjusted at the elbow area to reduce the effect of no mass. All the models have been converted to a new version of the skeleton that will provide more natural movements. R-27 Missile Development Report In April of this year, we conducted preliminary Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) research of the R-27 family of missile aerodynamics. The objective was the correction of zero-lift drag and missile ballistics refinement. As a result of this research, the zero-lift drag coefficient was reduced for all R-27 missile types. Please read our R-27 Missile Family Report. Thank you for your trust, passion and support. You make our dreams come true.

Also playing catch up, spent last evening and this morning/early afternoon flying almost non-stop lol. Anyway here goes... (Private journal/log) 27November 1917 Mission 9-- A pre-dawn briefing then cold scrambled eggs, toast and bully beef. Tuds found a shovel, cleaned it off, dumped our plates on the shovel and set it in the stove over the coals...said it was a traditional British Rail 'fry-up'. Whatever it's called with a bit of HP brown sauce it was damn good. Any way we then took off to rendezvous with RE8's of AFC3 and headed for FF6226. We mostly arrived over the sector when the enemy sent up some Pfalz's whom we engaged around 6000 feet. I managed to get one, so did Tuds, and one of the new boys got 2!. All of us got back, including the RE8's. 28November 1917 Mission 10-- Not as early, which was good. My hangover was bad. I guess I had fired my Webley several times as I ran around the aerodrome in a state "unbefitting an Officer". It's a good pistol, served my dad well enough in the Boer War, and I take it up with me in case I'm set alight. Our patrol over our lines today was a bad one. We were bounced by Albatrosses...?Jasta 18? My machine was shot up but luckily I wasn't. 29November 1917 Mission 11- My punishment for letting off steam the other evening is an assignment as Mess Officer for a week. Good thing today's patrol was a bust. I've got inventory to count yet. Ugh. 30 November 1917 Mission 12-- No one liked my special cappucino with extra frothing so I've been pulled off Mess Officer duty and the hats warned me "no more indiscretions." I might go tobogganing later if Naps is up for it. Our sortie today was an attack on the enemy field at Haubardin. We were met with Ack-Ack all the way after crossing German lines. No enemy air though. The searchlights were annoying. We managed to wreck some tents. 01December 1917 Mission 13- A balloon attack was ordered by the rear chappies. Apparently they are thinking the German successes in Cambrai are due to the observer balloons spying on our troop movements and they caught the muddies in the middle of a unit change. It didn't matter much in the end as we couldn't locate the balloon we were supposed to attack. Only resistance where we were was some anaemic Ack-ack and some ground fire. I didn't even see a winch truck. 02 December 1917 Mission 14- I think I met my future wife last evening. We'd gone to visit Sanders in the field hospital nearby Bruay. Two nursing sisters were on duty, Abigail, whom all the fellows seemed to fall in love with immediately, and Dorothy. I don't think I've been more captivated. Bright smile, intelligent, pretty. When we left the ward she had said "Next leave, take me to London and we'll go dancing. Oh and since you forgot to ask, it's Lieutenant Stowell, Dorothy Stowell." I think I'll go see Sanders this evening, I'm sure he'll need cheering up. We intercepted a gaggle of DFW C.V's this morning in the clear skies. No escort! We caught them at the perfect time, the observers handling and manning large cameras over the side rather than their usual parabellums. I almost collided with one. Must not be so brazen. Kill confirmed later in the afternoon by a line unit's FOO. So that makes 4 confirmed. Screw this evening, I'm headed for the field hospital as soon as I wash up.

Hey, that's my Ysabel your talking about!

11-Dec-17 0746 Hours Mission 13 Four days of foul weather temporarily halt the war for Spiv. He takes the opportunity to acquire french letters, cigarettes and booze other than military standard. However, despite the continuing inclemency, the brass-hats are anxious to move things along. And thus, RE8's are ordered up on a photographic recon mission. It is arranged for B flight to escort and protect them. Weather is still dirty. Like a French peasant girl on the vino. The Harry's slowly cross the lines and head deep into Hunland. B flight follow at 11,000 feet, above and behind, alert for enemy attacks. The recon machines circle their designated objective and eventually head back across the lines. Spiv shivers with relief. Piece of cake. Then the bloody things turn back toward enemy territory. And again circle the same area. The weather worsens and they disappear into thick cloud, reappearing at intervals as Spiv squints through his goggles, his head on a swivel scanning the skies for hostile aircraft. After what seems an age, the Harry Tate's emerge from the misty mountains and proceed in the direction of friendly territory. The weather brightens along with Spiv's mood as B flight follows them across the lines. A final scan reveals no huns about and the dissolving tension is invigorating to body and soul. Well at least for Spiv. And then, inexplicably it seems, the Harry's circle back toward their objective. For the third time. Back across the lines! Archie barks and Spiv jumps. And curses the war with piercing screams of every expletive he learnt in the Melbourne slums. With a few extras thrown in. No-one can hear you scream up there they say. And it is true .... B flight trundles on, unmoved and resolute, intent only on their mission and oblivious of all else. The Tate's continue into Hunland. A flare arcs into the sky signaling successful photographs have finally been taken. The RE8's swing westward, noses down, tails up. B flight follows. It is only when they have crossed the lines that Spiv can relax and breathe again. He can't believe there were no huns about. But the threat was always there. And never knowing when. Perhaps that's worse. B flight lands at Bruay without casualty after over one and a half hours in the air. It is reported that members of 40 RFC scored victories against huns threatening the photo recon chaps. A flight? If that is so, Spiv never saw them. It is a big sky after all. Nervous exhaustion sets in, he closes his eyes and drifts off ....

That makes perfect sense, thanks again Cliff!

Agree with all of the above. SF2 has gradually drawn me in and taken more and more of my hobby time (from my other favourites IL-2 1946, MS Flight Simulator X, Orbiter, GT Legends and GTR 2 on Win XP and Win 7; and Forza Motorsport 4 on XBox 360). My installs have slowly evolved to where SF2 Vietnam is a Cold War Pacific based environment--with a detailed A-4K version of course, and I've really enjoyed recently installing Vampires, Venoms, Canberras (Kiwi and Australian) and USAF B-57s. I have some really nice customised Vietnam era F-4s naturally, and I like to have accurate historical loadouts for all my planes (but customised to suit my preferences for SF2 gameplay too). SF2 has a "sim-lite" reputation, but I find it interesting how many times it actually reflects real world experience. Just the other day I was reading about real world experience with convergance of the B-57B's 4x20-mike cannons, then found myself adjusting the "aim angle" ini parametetrs in the sim, and creating new weapon stations to support dual 5-inch HVAR racks per images in the real B-57B flight manual. I find similar parallels in gameplay too, for example modding the inis for my AI wingmen to fly lower in Europe; or working out methods for low-altitude level-bombing with Tornadoes and F-111s, and high-altitude bombing with B-52s. And my SF2 mod folders are becoming nice libraries of documents and references that I've found online. My SF2 Europe install specialises in mid to late Cold War USAFE and RAFG models, plus a growing collection of French Mirages. I'll be exploring the Hawker Hunter here too in the near future (including the Swiss Air Force models which I really admire). SF2 North Atlantic is home to some very nice customised Royal Navy models (HMS Ark Royal takes pride of place, and I have a cloned 'Royal Navy' terrain to get RN CVBGs and Amphibious Ready Groups for campaigns and single missions too). SF2 NA is also home to a customised Arctic terrain for my Air Defence Command interceptors (with customised Soviet Long-Range Aviation to create the style of gameplay I like for my interception missions). I've started exploring IAF aviation in my SF2 Israel install, and enjoy a customised KAW install too. My computer is very old--so I have to make lower rez versions of some mods to get good frame rates. I actually have a decent budget to build a modern Win 10 replacement, but I haven't done it yet--partly because the price of PC components (especially GFX cards) is outrageous right now, but partly because I still get so much enjoyment from my old but treasured sims on my ancient dual boot XP/Win 7 machine. Kind regards and much thanks to the community, Steve (Auckland, New Zealand)

week 3 started with results beyond my hopes: mission 15, patrol enemy front lines. We had 7 of us, and we went down by Arras before looking to head North up the lines. I guess the Huns didn't like our previous big stunt, because there they ere with their own 12 Albatrosses, the blue-bodided ones. Oh boy, was that confusing! For a while it was just a question of quick shots and checking my six, until one of them that I got behind was nice enough to break away from the crowd, so I con focus more on him and not worry about a collision. I ran out of Lewis, but rather than take the time to reload, I kept on him with just the Vickers, which proved enough... So, I was going to get back into the fray, but where was everybody? I'm still amazed at how 19 planes can just suddenly not be in sight. I did manage to see two others circling, so I pointed that way, when to answer my question of 'where was everyone?' you know there was hun right behind me! Cheeky bastard. Don't know if he was new or injured, but he pulled up in a slow turn in front of me, and I let fly with both guns. He went down, maybe because of just the extra weight of all that lead he caught! Now, I was figuring out which but to push to get a picture of two smoking heaps that were right by each other, when here comes a 3rd head on! Criminey, get that lewis reloaded, and in a bit I got my 3rd kill on the mission. I didn't think I was shot up at all, but there weren't any friends to be seen, and I didn't feel like tempting fate, so I headed home. Afterwards, it turns out that not only did no one else get one, but three of our boys were banged up badly (all healthy, at least). I asked Tud to sign as witness for me, and all 3 were confirmed!. That was enough for a night in the club, so imagine what happened when the C.O informed me that I got another ribbon:

The flight was last night 6/11/2021. The passenger didn't know that physically opening the door of a passenger jet is impossible until the inside and outside air pressure reach equilibrium. We ignore mental health as a society at our own peril.

You mean like this..?

I really appreciate your offer to help and kind words, maybe later as I have a lot of projects to complete for example the Fragata Niteroi (F-40). Maybe after that, I can think about it.

That is a big project, and I am not the ship expert modeler nor the FM data structure professional, I am just barely scratching the service with ship building lol 😆

It may only be coincidental, but after changing on ini option in the enb series ini, I am able to quit without crashing: AllowAntialias=1 I always use antialiasing, so when I was poking around the ini looking for something that might help out with the CTDs, I saw this one and toggled it from 0 to 1.

This will tell you how to change to 'year spread' of the game; making it cover a wider range of calendar years, and not having to mess with aircraft data ini service years, which should NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER!!!! be messed with. The ServiceYear= entries of an aircraft should only be adjusted when you are 1) creating a 'nation specific' version that has carved in stone, hard data service years, or 2) correcting a mistake in said service dates That's covered in another thread in the KB, and not truely relevant here. Ok, there are 2 files you need to tweek for expanding the available years in ANY of the 3rd Wire games. Options.ini Singlemission.ini* (*SingleMission.ini is optional, but add more targets and Fun Factor ™ to missions) Options ini is found in the root directory of your game ie: assuming the standard install path, C:\Users\*nameofuser*\Saved Games\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2 or whatever mod folder that EACH of the SF2 exes (SF2:V, SF2:I, SF2:E, and expansion paks 1 & 2) you may have created. Open the options ini in any text editor; notepad works really good, and scroll down until you find these entries: StartYear= EndYear= There'll be 3 of them, one in each of the entries for SingleMission, DogFightHost and CoOpMission. Now, mind you as SF2 dosen't have any multiplayer, they really don't do anything now. But, adjust them anyways. Change the start and end years; I try use at least a 100 year spread, due to having several WW2 installs. So, it can look something like this for your normal, jets install: If you have aircraft pre-dating these years, use the entries below (this will include ALL WW2 style aircraft): Plenty of leeway there, given as with the SF2 expansion paks we have WW2 aircraft, and immeadeate post-war aircraft readily available (Mustang, Spitfire, Meteor, Mig-15, Yak-23; you get the idea) Save and Close the Options ini. Now, using the 3rd Wire Cat Extractor, available here at CA in the SF2 Downloads/Utilities section, open the MissionData001.Cat, and extract the SingleMission.ini. Place it into your mods folders /Flight folder. Open the SingleMission ini, and you'll see this: [TargetValues] MinStrikeTargetValue=100 HeavyStrikeValue=1000 NormalStrikeValue=200 These show the 'minimum value' for targets on the Strike Missions. Since us Terraformers put all kinds of interesting stuff on the terrains, many that have values far below those stock ones, do this: This will give a wider variety of targets, based on values assigned in each terrain's **_types.ini. The targets are assigned randomly in single missions, and semi-randomly/partly scripted in campaigns. So, in some missions, you might find yourself being tasked against a high value target such as a HQ building, or something as lowly as a single tent or parked Jeep/BRDM. Save and close the SingleMission.ini That's it...your done! Go Fly!! Wrench kevin stein