Caesar

Definitely an interesting one. I'm thinking it wasn't 161429; that one was an F-14B convert (started as an F-14A) and was unlikely to have suffered a compressor stall with the F110s. Also, 161429 was AD102 when she went in the drink. You can see a "36" on the rudder of the vert stab, so it's more likely the tail from 162594, a late-build F-14A (block 135) that crashed in 2001, carrying the modex AD136.

"These flight simulators have been the best selling category of entertainment software for years!" Man, how times have changed! Great video, thanks for sharing.

It depends on where you want them on the aircraft. If you want them in the Sparrow stations, you'd change the AllowedWeaponClass=SAHM to AllowedWeaponClass=AHM on SparrowStation1-4 and MissileStation1bis and 2bis in the data.ini. If you want them on the Phoenix pylons, just remove the SpecificStationCode=AIM54 from those stations.

Well, 499 knots is 574.3 mph, so that's pretty close. The line in the data.ini dictating maximum speed in the Meteor F8 shows: MachLimit=0.811. You could bump it up a little bit, which should change your max speed. Usually, the player aircraft winds up a few hundredths of a Mach lower than that number, and that number establishes a hard limit, regardless of other aerodynamic/engine values.

Sooo, KIAS or KTAS? The number down in the lower left is KIAS. If you turn on the debug, you can see KTAS, which at high altitudes has a significant delta from KIAS.

As Fubar points out, there are a number of factors. Not just Thrust to Weight, but also Thrust to Drag. Engine thrust is NOT static; it changes based on altitude and airspeed. An example I included in the F-14 flight manual is that the F110-GE-400 produces 23,600 pounds of installed thrust per engine at max afterburner at 0 airspeed and 0 altitude. At Mach .6 at sea level, it produces about 30,124 pounds of installed thrust at max afterburner. As such, an F-14B at Mach .6 at sea level in full blower is putting 60,248 pounds of thrust out the back of the jet! As you increase altitude, the thrust numbers begin to drop due to thinner air. However, thinner air = less drag, so you start to see higher maximum airspeeds. An aircraft with an advertised max airspeed of 2.5M might only be able to achieve 1.2M on the deck, and only be able to hit 2.5 in clean configuration at beyond 40,000 feet. Loadouts affect aircraft acceleration (and max speed) as well by increasing or decreasing drag. A slick aircraft is going to accelerate better and hit a higher maximum speed than an aircraft carrying tanks, missiles and bombs. Less stuff jutting out into the wind stream to slow the bird down, less drag for the engines to fight. As Fubar also alludes to, the game considers this stuff! There are not just the SLThrustDry= and SLThrustWet=, but also the AltitudeTableData, DryMachTable, WetMachTable for the engines, AND the aircraft's and weapon's drag tables as well. All of these will affect aircraft acceleration. Max speed and altitude are a bit more cut-and-dry, with the entries at the top of the data.ini being Ceiling and MachLimit.

There's two specific instances I can think of that has caused such a phenomenon for me: Loose joystick cord and asymmetric loadouts. In the case of the former, normally, just pushing the cord back in will fix it (normally, the disconnect is between the stick and the throttle), but I have run into a situation where I actually had to quit the game and restart for it to stop an uncommanded right roll. The latter happens if there is asymmetry in the loadout and is exacerbated by the degree of asymmetry. For example, on the F-14, a Phoenix on one glove pylon and a LANTIRN on the other generates a lot of weight differential and noticeable roll in the direction of the Phoenix. Similar if you've got some Anti-Ship Missiles attached and you fire one of them, but not the other. Those are the only things I can think of. What aircraft are giving you the problem?

Beautiful bird! Congratulations to the team.

This is a helpful guide: http://combatace.com/topic/44798-adding-aircraft-to-campaigns-in-sf2/

Best of luck, Raven! Kick its ass!

I took a look at v1.30/1.31 - we actually don't have a skin for F-14A_82 in VF-103 Sluggers livery. We have the A+/B for the Sluggers, but not the A. Will have to look into making one.

Can't say I've done that for a specific game, and for the most part, I've kept up a lot of my old consoles and DOS installs, so I haven't really been away from them long enough to feel "nostalgic" or have that feeling cloud my memory (e.g. with Atari VCS, NES, DOS, etc.) What I will say, however, is that with games to compare the older ones to, I have come to realize that certain games really did have poor control or gameplay, and that it wasn't just me sucking at it! Some that come to mind include Back to the Future, WWF Wrestlemania and some of the other LJN titles on the NES (especially).

Odds are the bomb you're looking for is just "GBU-12D". It has been a while since I've worked with the Gen1 sims, but you should have a weapondata.ini that lists all of the weapons available. There should be a line within each entry that is the weapon's name (e.g., FullName=AIM-7E Sparrow). If you do a Ctrl+F for GBU-12, you should be able to sort through the available variants of the GBU-12, their attachment type, guidance, etc. For example (from SF2), the GBU-12D data should look something like this: [WeaponData001] TypeName=GBU-12D FullName=GBU-12D/B Paveway II LGB ModelName=GBU-12D Mass=275.000000 Diameter=0.274000 Length=3.331000 SubsonicDragCoeff=0.120000 SupersonicDragCoeff=0.259200 AttachmentType=USAF,NATO SpecificStationCode= NationName=USAF StartYear=1980 EndYear=2020 Availability=2 BaseQuantity=24 Exported=TRUE ExportStartYear=1980 ExportEndYear=2020 ExportAvailability=2 WeaponDataType=0 RailLaunched=FALSE Retarded=FALSE FinStabilized=TRUE SpinStabilized=FALSE EffectClassName=MediumBombEffects DragAreaMultiplier=1.000000 WarheadType=0 Explosives=89.000000 FusingDistance=0.000000 ClusterBomblets=0 ClusterDispersion=0.000000 GuidanceType=4 Accuracy=90 MaxTurnRate=3.000000 MaxLaunchG=4.000000 LockonChance=80 LaunchReliability=90 ArmingTime=4.000000 SeekerFOV=30.000000 SeekerGimbleLimit=60.000000 SeekerTrackRate=20.000000 SeekerRange=15000.000000 LiftDragRatio=6.000000 ReleaseAnimationID=1 ReleaseAnimationTime=0.250000 ReleaseAnimationDelay=0.450000 EODisplayFlags=0 CEP=0.000000 In your loadout.ini, you'd use the TypeName on the specific pylon you're trying to arm. For example: Loadout[18].WeaponType=GBU-12D Loadout[18].Quantity=1 As to why you don't have them available in the campaign, I'm not sure. Could have to do with supply availability, entries in the campaign data.ini, etc.

Well, your PC can already do that if you have the right programs. DOSBox allows you to play most DOS games up to 1995, and is so good at emulating the DOS environment that you can install and run Windows 1, 2, and 3.1/3.11 on it. Where it gets trickier is in the 1996-2002 timeframe. Compatibility modes are iffy; some games work, some don't, which is why a virtual machine is an option if you still own older versions of Windows (95, 98, etc.). I seem to recall on Vista I was able to get MechWarrior 3 (released in 1999) running well enough, but its expansion Pirate Moon just would not run on that OS no matter what I tried. GOG usually does a good job at getting the games from that timeframe to work on Win7+, though some don't work as well (e.g., Worms 2 has some problems with the menus).

If you still have your install disc for Windows XP, you can use a virtual machine (e.g., VirtualBox) to run it within Win7/8/10. It's been a long time since I've messed with VB, but it's an option if you can't get the games running in Compatibility Mode.

No, it will not. I found my old WOV disc and tested it in DOSBox. The specific error returned when I attempted to run the Setup was "This program cannot be run in DOS mode." This shouldn't be particularly surprising, however. Most Win98 games won't run in DOS. Even certain Win95 games wouldn't; Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries comes to mind in this regard. Trying to run the Windows version of M2M in DOS returned a similar error; you needed the DOS version to play the game in DOS. The basic Mechwarrior 2 had certain workarounds, even for the "Windows" version, but not Mercenaries.

Group 4v4. 2x F-14B and 2x F-8J vs 2x Su-33 and 2x MiG-21Bis

Concur! It has been 12 years - more data gets found, claims get checked. Will try to register there and see what's changed.

Sounds like they need to revise their book! That contradicts the information published in 2004, so maybe more data came up. Supposedly, they had purchased over 800 AIM-9P, AIM-7E-2 and E-4 missiles (p. 18), which the F-14s were compatible with. Will have to take a look.

That's kind of strange. Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop's book indicate that the IRIAF F-14As were carrying AIM-9Ps in 1980 (not the J or the E), and had the AIM-7E-4. In the front matter (p.22-23), it is explained that the first IRIAF F-14 kill was achieved with the 20mm Vulcan when an AIM-9P failed to achieve tone and the aircraft was closing on an Mi-25. In the appendices, the first three kills are noted as being achieved by the Vulcan, AIM-9P and AIM-7E-4 on 7 Sep, then 10 Sep 1980. The first Phoenix kill is listed as 13 Sep 1980. The first fifty claimed kills (before the turn of 1981) all include AIM-9P and AIM-7E-4 kills alongside Vulcan and Phoenix kills, which makes me suspicious about the comment that they weren't carrying AIM-9 or AIM-7 at the start of the war, or that integration started in 1981. This being said, the only source I have that has any depth on this is Cooper & Bishop's book, so if someone is operating off of different sources, it would be neat to see them and do some cross-referencing!

So, right at the top of the download page, you have this note: This mod has been tested with Strike Fighters 2 Full 5 merged install; it should work with individual installations of SF2V and/or SF2NA. Cockpits (not included) required in order to make the A-6 flyable. As such, you'll need to drop either your Razbam or WOV cockpit into each A-6's folder, and add the cockpit line to each A-6's base .ini file (e.g. A-6A.ini) [AircraftData] AircraftFullName=A-6A Intruder AircraftShortName=A-6 AircraftDataFile=A-6A_data.ini LoadoutFile=A-6A_loadout.ini UserList=A-6A_UserList.ini //CockpitDataFile=A-6A_COCKPIT.ini <- Remove the comment marks AvionicsDLL=Avionics60.dll AvionicsDataFilename=A-6A_avionics.ini HangarScreen=A-6A_Hangar.jpg LoadoutImage=A-6_loadout.tga LoadingScreen=A-6A_Loading.jpg Your TW A-6 should have the cockpit.ini file which you'll also need to drop into each A-6 folder, or again, use your Razbam one.

KJakker, It might be possible. I know that back in the day, I added tailcodes to the player aircraft's bitmaps, but I never tried adjusting the resolution.

Yeah, youtube has some footage of it. If you have Steam, you can actually get it from there for like $5. I don't know the peculiarities to setting up things like joysticks through Steam, however, and still have my disc from 21 years ago, so I haven't ever had to try. FD did a great job on the avionics and radar of the F-14 (probably still has no equal out there in the public), but the flight model was mediocre. Always feels heavy, sustained turning performance seems well below the charts, approach speed is ridiculously fast, no flaps/slats modeled, etc. The graphics nowadays are dated, but the gameplay, especially from the Fleet Defense standpoint, is still a lot of fun.

Missileman, I ran setup through DOSBox itself, rather than Windows. FD Gold's Windows install is a 16-bit program; the last version of Windows to support that was (I think) Windows XP (could have been 98). Since I got it running again, I've just copied my DOSBox game directory to every new build I've done, so I haven't tried to install FD Gold since 2009. All this being said, if you follow the procedure I wrote above, it should work. If not, you might need to adjust how you mount your CD\DVD\BD drive (depends on the version of DOSBox - should be in the included text manual). Another option is to install Windows 3.1 into DOSBox (I've done this as well), and install FD from Win 3.1. That is a hell of a lot longer process, though, and requires you to own a copy of Win 3.1/3.11 - I actually ran the FD Gold Windows program in Win 3.1 for sound capture for the FD Gold menus available here on CA. Hope this helps. Any further questions, I'll see what I can dig up.