streakeagle

Here is a comparison I did between WOE and LOMAC during WOE beta testing. Note how the extra width of the WOE cockpit causes a distortion toward the rear of the canopy), in this case, the LOMAC image is better overall... but only by a very small margin. Also note that neither model captures the shape of the nose perfectly, and that once again, LOMAC does a better job: Here is an equivalent screenshot from WOE in the current release. Note that the lighting changed a bit, the shadow model is now present, and the seat is different (apparently tryinig to reflect the F-15A's original Escapac seat):

Whose eyes are off? Look at the canopy very closely in each pic. None of them are 100%correct, but the F-15 mod has always had and continues to have a badly distorted canopy: way too wide at the front and way too narrow at the rear, which is very obvious from almost any angle. It isn't even close. The WOE canopy is just a tad too wide at the rear, but you can barely tell even from a direct overhead view such as this, and by far looks much closer to actual photos than even the LOMAC F-15. LOMAC didn't use enough polygons: the rear part of the canopy has distinct corners and overall is a tad too narrow by about the same amount WOE is a tad too wide in the rear section. Also note the blending of the engine nacelles into the fuselage, which is another area that the stock WOE F-15 beats out the other two. The MF F-15 nacelle blending comes to a sharper point. The LOMAC blend is too blunt. The stock WOE is hardly different from the photo. To each his own. But I don't see any reason to replace the stock F-15 unless you want the nozzles without the turkey feathers.

I may be going back to Atlanta sometime between July 24 and July 31, but if you make here before I leave, Orlando is less than an hour from my workplace and just over an hour from my home... we could meet for dinner one night ;) Airshows I am not sure about... Sun-n-Fun is the big one and has already happened for this year. The closest air museum of any decent size is: http://www.fantasyofflight.com/ It is a little small for the price, but the aircraft collection is very respectable considering that all of the aircraft are owned by one person: Antonov AN-2 Avro Cadet North American AT-6D Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Douglas B-23 Dragon Consolidated B-24 Liberator North American B-25J Mitchell Martin B-26 Marauder Bachem Ba 349 Natter Viper Bell 47G Helicopter Bucker Bestmann Bucker Jungmann Bucker Jungmeister Chance-Vought F4U-4 Corsair Cierva C 30-A Autogyro Curtiss Junior Curtiss Model D Headless Pusher Curtiss TP-40N Fieseler Fi-156 Storch Fieseler Fi-103 V-1 Flying Bomb Focke Wulf FW-44 Steiglitz Fokker D-VIII Ford 5AT Trimotor Gee Bee Z Grumman Duck Grumman F3F Flying Barrel Grumman FM-2 Wildcat Hiller Hornet Lockheed Vega Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero Morane A-1 Morane/Brock Monoplane Norde Stampe North American P-51C Mustang Piper L-4J Grasshopper Polikarpov PO-2 Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis Short Sunderland MK5 Spirit of Peace Balloon Capsule Standard E-1 Standard J-1 Stinson Trimotor Supermarine Spitfire MK16 Thomas Morse Scout Trautman Road Air Travel Air 4000 Valkyrie Another museum not too far from Orlando is the Florida Air Museum at the Sun-n-Fun in Lakeland. For a look at the aircraft there: http://www.sun-n-fun.org/content/interior....amp;body=planes In Kissimmee (a suburb of Orlando), there was a little warbird museum there, but I have not ever visited it. The website looks cool, but it says the hurricanes in 2004 made them move to Georgia! Another small one to the east near the Space Center is: http://www.vacwarbirds.org/index.html Doesn't look too impressive from the website, but you never know what you will find at some of these smaller ones. The best museum I know of in Florida for military aircraft is the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, but that is a bit of a drive from Orlando. If you have the time to drive there and spend the whole day, it is worth it.

During beta testing for WOE, the CombatACE Teamspeak server was discovered and has proven to be extremely valuable to me. Please tell me this will be restored when the main web site is brought back online!

Thanks for restoring this important service!

To be a tad more precise, the map is 1000 km x 1000 km (540 nm x 540 nm). It looks like this:

Not all of the decals were included. Screenshots of the F-104G will prove that quickly. The tail decals for the squadrons are missing. Not a huge loss, but the F-104G looks naked without these colorful decals on the tail.

Don't post here... post there! If everyone that ever bought the sim posted at TW forums about this, TK just might listen... but posting on a forum that he doesn't even read does absolutely no good. I share your enthusiasm for SFP1/WOV/WOE MP, but would appreciate it if you made sure TK knows about it too!

I would certainly love the ability to create custom MP missions, but the programmer/developer (TK) does not believe online MP additions are worth the time and effort. Please go to his website and post on the forums there about your wishes: http://www.thirdwire.com/ I have always hoped that if enough people requested MP features, TK would finally recognize the value in adding them. But so far, only a handful of people have made requests supporting his idea that people playing online are an insignificant fraction of the market.

CombatACE has a free teamspeak server. It works great. The beta testing group for WOE used it to test online MP without any issues. The main obstacle is agreeing on what version to play. I suggest clean installs without any mods until everyone is able to join and fly successfully. Progressively add mods one at a time, i.e. add a new plane and/or weapon then see if everyone is still able to join/fly. Do not add the weapons pack! MP for SFP1 game engine does not seem to like that large of a weapons pack. The CheckSix! community always builds a small custom weapons pack for their MP installs, which solves the problem. I am more than willing to help anyone who needs help troubleshooting MP problems. As I announced in another post, I am now hosting a merged WOE/WOV install on HL. Someone paged me via HL to let me know they were able to join and fly. So it works!

The missions I made use the Desert terrain by default (WOV and WOE did not exist when I created the original addon. If you want to use the missions, you can open the missions with any text editor and change the terrain to one of your choice, i.e. VietnamSEA. Otherwise, there is no terrain requirment.

Hyperlobby does not support Wings Over Europe, but it does support Wings Over Vietnam. So, I copied the WOE.exe and renamed it WOV.exe. I then configured Hyperlobby to find the WOV.exe in the Wings Over Europe folder. While I have not yet had anybody join externally, tests from within my own LAN went well. I have a dogfight host up now with the year set to 1978. To ensure being able to join, you need to: Install WOV. Install WOV Service Pack v05.15.06 Install WOV Patch v05.25.06 Install WOE (check the option to merge WOV). Install WOE Patch v05.25.06 Copy the WOE.exe in the Wings Over Europe folder Paste a copy into the same folder Rename the copy WOV.exe If you already have Hyperlobby and it is already set to open Wings Over Vietnam, then you will have to: "Disconnect" from Hyperlobby Select "Wings Over Vietnam" from the Hyperlobby Connect/Select list of games Press <CTRL><SHIFT> while clicking on "Connect" This opens a dialog box for setting the path to the WOV.exe, you must either manually type in the patch, or do a search and select the copy of WOV.exe in the Wings Over Europe folder. I cannot promise compatibility if you have any mods installed, especially the weapons pack. Follow the above procedure and it should work.

Yes, this does work. However, you will be missing some decals from the default skins. The only way to get these decals is to buy SFP1 (available for $5 from Circuit City) or buy SFG. If you don't have SFP1 or SFG, besides the F-104G, you will get the C-130A, the desert terrain, the original campaigns, and guaranteed compatibility with a lot of the older terrain mods that depend on the desert terrain ;)

http://www.yankeeairpirate.net/NavyPage.html Even the simplest historical missons can require hours of research to find the necessary details to make it authentic... but the real work is in all the mods: 3d models, textures, effects. Why would anyone pay for a guy who edited a few text ini files (which is all missions are) most likely using free 3rd party addons to do so. If you are going to start handing out money, it should be to the modders that made this product possible not someone who threw together a few missions. I hope all of the modders invovled approved the sale of their work. Even if the product is top-notch, I don't care for the approach being used. Especially in a sim where everything but the game itself has traditionally been free ;)

Too close, switching to guns! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8...amp;q=luftwaffe

I love it when he rolls over and dives down the side of the mountain to shake the MiG. While I am sure it was all staged for the cameras, it looks very good. Some say it looks like the MiG was mainly doing formation flying with the Hornet... but watch the vapor from the hard turns... no one flies "formation" when they are yanking and banking that hard. I think they had some scripted ideas, and then smiled for the camera :)

Given that you can pick up SFP1 at Circuit City (in person or online) for only $5, I don't see what the big deal is? Go buy it!

Some valid installations may have a registry issue, etc. that blocks the communications that the validation program needs. You need to go to Microsoft's website (and maybe even contact microsoft directly) to get the proper solution to the problem.

Good news: the latest Service Packs/Patches fixed the TrackIR uplook angle bug! see my most recent post in the above referenced thread at TW forums for more details.

Hello, I am the host of the WOV server. For a variety of reasons, SFP1/WOV multiplayer has never really caught on. There are a few dedicated people who have promoted it as much as possible and they can be found almost daily at Hyperlobby if you check at the right times. Most hang out in the WOV room, though some pop in and out of the SFP1 room. I tried asking for HL support for WOE in the HL forums, but it has gone unanswered. My intention is to host a merged WOE/WOV install. Even if HL doesn't support it directly, I think I can accomplish this by copying, pasting, and renaming the WOE exe to WOV exe. Hyperlobby can then be told to find WOV in the WOE folder, but will actually be running WOE :) I will do this and leave it up and running instead of WOV after I am certain that it works and that others are able to figure out how to get in using the same install, patches, and exe trick. I am away from home on a work assignment. I won't be able to set up and test my server for another week. If you have WOE and WOV and want to help me validate my server, let me know.

In the mean time, people who need to use the server can do so without the webpage by using: Server Address = 64.119.37.62:8769

While you can't get a demo of wins over europe, I believe strategy first allows a brief demo period on their Strike Fighters Project 1 downloadable version (never tried it myself but I remember posts from people seeking tech support on it). If you want to see if that works, try: http://www.strategyfirst.com/en/games/StrikeFighters/ Coming from Aces High, here is what you are going to lose: Multiplayer is very limited (though fun for those who bother to try it). Single player depends on AI, which isn't the brightest. Stock flight models are distinctly different, but dumbed down quite a bit (kind of like playing AH with the newbie stall limiter turned on). If you can live with the above, here is what you gain: Nearly unlimited moddability: you can add hundreds of different aircraft and weapons, and if there is anything you don't like about them, you can change it yourself. As I love F-4 Phantoms, I have spent more time playing Strike Fighters/Wings Over Vietnam/Wings Over Europe than I ever spent playing Aces High. There are plenty of WW2 addons for SFP1/WOV/WOE, but I prefer AH for WW2 fun. Rather than reading posts on forums, why not spend $20 or $30 to find out for yourself if you can afford the $15/month for AH? I haven't started hosting MP for WOE yet, but I am still maintaining a WOV server at HL for the moment. I prefer to have a merged install of WOV and WOE for the expaned planeset (available as a checkbox when you install WOE if WOV is already installed), so that is what I am going to host eventually. I suggest you get SFP1 and WOV if you decide to get WOE. SFP1 is $5 at Circuit City. WOV can be found for $10 to $20 at the usual BB, CC, and CompUSA.

The nearest Best Buy has it here. I saw three copies on the shelf and bought one for myself. I don't know how long they have had them or how many they originally had on the shelf. Two copies had flaws on the back of the box. One was scratched and one had a printing error. I took the flawless one and was able to peel off the price tag without damaging the box :)

From TK: If you download the fictional F-19 Stealth Fighter, you can see a working example.

While you don't "need" Strike Fighters, I think you will want it. It has the desert terrain which is the basis for many addon terrains. It also has the F-104G and C-130A which are not part of WOV and WOE due to licensing issues with Lockheed. It can be found very cheap. The Value-Soft edition sells for $10 or less online, but I just bought SFP1 from Circuit City for $5 to send to Brazil... if you can afford WOV and WOE, what's another $5 or $10? Strike Fighters Gold is another option, but the cost-effectiveness is questionable. You have to order it from Europe, so both the price and shipping is much higher than buying SFP1 in the US. It is missing the F-104G and C-130A, but the F-104G is available as an official addon from ThirdWire. It does come with a few more campaigns (SFP1 comes with only one). I am an SFP1 fanatic, so I bought this version too. This had the side benefit of allowing me to provide good tech support for other SFG owners as well as support SFG when beta testing patches for TK. If you have money to burn and really want to show your support for TK, you could get this version too... but I am in a very small minority as a US resident who owns SFG.