streakeagle

Evolve (with the last e backwards) looks like the best option for gamers. It looks like they want the to be the modern go-to place like gamespy once was. https://www.evolvehq.com/welcome a vlan room is a "party" :)

The rain has continued to be very light, still getting lots of strong wind gusts. I don't see any damage around my house. I would rather have everyone prepare for the worst and have everything turn out okay than the other way around like Katrina. There's still a lot of people that lost power and I am sure the surge on the coastline is going to do some damage, but our power never even blinked. Very mild for a hurricane that was once category 4.

So far things are going smooth. The rain/lightning of the normal Florida weather had already been causing a lot of problems the past few weeks. I saw one radio go down and somehow my co-worker got it back up despite the weather. I know he didn't climb the tower, so he must have been able to reset the radio and restore its configuration. Two lift stations (that pump the waste water out of neighborhoods) are at a steady high alarm, but one is keeping up, the other has one bad pump and may end up spilling. Out of 400 lift stations, that is pretty good considering how much rain has been coming down (the rain seeps into the lift station wells and overloads the system). But the weather has been pretty mild up to now. Some wind gusts and some rain bands, but nothing extraordinary considering our usual daily schedule of thunderstorms. I hope it just grazes us and I can go back to work without having to fix much if anything.

I am a Florida native and currently reside in Orlando. I only lived outside of Florida for the 8 years I was in the Navy (mostly in California). I have seen a few storms come and go. The worst one in my lifetime, Andrew, occurred while I was in the Navy. Up to now, none of the storms have ever badly hit my location, which was mostly the Tampa Bay area. This will be my first serious one while living in Orlando. It would be nice to get out of the way, but I work for Toho Water Authority for the City of Kissimmee and my wife works for the City of Orlando. We both have to ride out the storm at home and then come in when possible to assess and repair damage to the affected water and waste water control and monitoring systems. I was sent home early today and will wait for orders tomorrow. If the storm hits with as much strength or more than Charlie did, I will be pulling long shifts for a week or more straight until everyone has water and can flush their toilet. With both of us in the same career field, we will have trouble getting our own house in order until we get county-wide systems back in order. Hopefully, the storm misses, weakens, or just happens to do minimal damage so we won't suffer at work or at home.

By the time this was released, SF2 was in full swing. This was released late, after SF2I. It shared many features with SF2I including some of the planeset. However, it was released and then abandoned. TK had promised to release this, and made good on his word. But unlike the past, there would be no patches despite some bugs. If you wanted to see Wings Over Israel with the Expansion Pack done more correctly and completely, you needed to buy SF2I. So the Wings Over Israel Expansion Pack faded into history with almost no one buying it except die hard Third Wire fan bois like myself that wanted to see TK succeed and continue improving the SF series. I am sure I posted on some forum about this some time ago... but this version of the SFP1/WoX series is in many ways the most advanced and best, just a shade short of the early SF2 releases. To minimize duplication of effort, TK patched WoI up to nearly an SF2 standard so he didn't need to make duplicate 3d models of aircraft. What this means is that up to a certain SF2 version, the SF2 3d models/textures can be imported into WoI with the Expansion pack. While the aircraft data ini files won't work without some editing to compensate for differences in the electronic warfare modeling (especially the RWR), the much improved stock cockpits and external models that reflect all the subtle variants of the F-4 are a huge step up for SFP1/WoX veterans. But with SF2 available, why would anyone bother trying to retrofit WoI/XP1 with SF2 aircraft? In a word, multiplayer! Not only does WoI support SF2 models/textures, but it has many improvements that were developed for SF2. One is much better dogfight AI that can be both very aggressive and very defensive compared to most previous versions of SFP1/WoX. Also, terrain and ECM on radar and radar homing missiles are modeled in a more detailed and realistic manner. One of the most obvious things in WOI/XP1 is that missile reliability is the same or worse than earlier SFP1/WoX patch revisions and radically different than what you will experience playing the final patch revision of the final SF2 series game release: SF2NA. Enemy AI will aggressively "beam" you to break radar locks and evade AIM-7 Sparrows. Hitting anything other than an oblivious, straight and high flying target with a Sparrow takes patience and luck very much reflecting real life data. So what would be cool to have but would take a tremendous amount of work is trying to edit/add files as necessary to make WoI/XP1 as close to an SF2 install as possible in terms of plane set, weapons, terrains, and campaigns. At the end, the game wouldn't be too much different from the early revisions of SF2, but would be perfect for the most state of the art and diverse multplayer experience possible in the entire SFP1/WoX/SF2 series.

The install needs to be a clean install patched to the 083006 level and have the VietnamSEAData.INI file attached in a post above installed in the VietnamSEA terrain folder. The SFP1/WoX multiplayer support is very limited. The only way I can leave an unattended server is to host the dogfight mode. The co-op/team-vs-team mode requires and active host to set up the mission, start the mission, and start another mission after the everyone is finished/dead. There is no way to start on the ground, re-arm, refuel, or repair. The only way to manage a campaign would be to take screenshots of the co-op/team mission results and tabulate them into a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet could ostensibly be programmed to use that data to generate future mission parameters, which would then have to be fed into the host's mission generator screen by hand. While co-op/team missions are generally the most interesting and fun, experience has taught me that dogfight mode is the best way to go. People can come and go from a dogfight server as needed. To start a co-op/team mission, everybody needs to be joined before starting the mission as you cannot join in the middle of a mission. When someone dies, they cannot respawn and must wait for everyone else to finish/die before they can try to join the next mission. A mission might last 15 to 30 minutes or more depending on the proficiency of the players. If someone dies in the first minutes, it is a long boring wait. Dogfight servers allow nearly immediate respawning after dying. You can choose another aircraft. With fuel set to easy (unlimited?) and gun ammo set to easy (unlimited?), the inability to re-arm and refuel is partially bypassed. If you have more than two people, you can agree to split up into teams and play just llike co-op/team mission... with the l limitation that the mission must be air-to-air. Besides air-to-air combat, as long as you don't run out of fuel, you can land, take-off, do formation flying, etc. Limitations aside, I had many great nights playing online with SFP1 and WoV/WoE/WoI. But the limitations have always ensured that there was never too large a crowd looking to play, and that those who played frequently tended to eventually get bored and move on to a flight sim that supports squads and mutliplayer much better.

The setup at home is essentially the same, except easier. Most of the problems with DirectPlay connectivity are caused by routing over the internet: camouflaged ip addresses hiding behind routers and network latency/drop outs. On a home LAN, all of the computers should be able to easily see each other (notwithstanding the problem I had last night due to a router setting that somehow broke my home LAN). Of course, with a router set up properly, you can do it the way I do: all of my home PCs can join locally while simultaneously being available to Hyperlobby and/or other means to allow clients to join via the internet.

So, if you go to Hyperlobby, you will see my WOV server is up and running in up to 16 players (counting the server) with a clean install of 083006 except: You will need to change the file extension to from "txt" to "INI" put the attached file in your VietnamSEA terrain folder or you will get an error for not having the same terrain files as my installation. This only has one small edit, setting the use water shader to FALSE, which eliminates the CTD when exiting the mission. VIETNAMSEA_DATA.txt

I was wrong, I have seen this type of behavior before: if UPnP is enabled on a linksys router, WoV multiplayer no worky! I have now joined the server via internet/Hyperlobby and locally on my home LAN. It is cool to see it working again after so long!

I have considered the alternatives on the game/version. If I can get 083006 to work in multiplayer with the water shader set to false, it is the way to go. It runs much faster. Pegged at 60 fps with max display settings on my gpu and in-game settings on my current PC and 40 fps on my old single-core Athlon 64 PC. Now if I can just successfully link two pcs over the internet despite my failure to do so over the LAN.

Another update: Hamachi no longer exists. The company that superceded it, LogMeIn wasn't making money providing such excellent service for free and when it went payware, it failed and went away. It appears that the replacement is a dedicated gaming overlay called Evolve. I will look into how it works and test it after I try some Hyperlobby experiments to see if I am still unable to see servers from clients using Win 7 64-bit.

I have encountered my first stumbling block: I have two PCs at home physically connected to the same switch yet they cannot see each other using either the local network or TCP/IP modes of hosting. Both PCs can ping each other, but DirectPlay does not find the local host, so the client cannot join. I have done this before with Win 7. The firewalls on both PCs are disabled (verified by the fact that they can ping each other). I am stumped. So far, I cannot find answers for this symptom on the internet.

For those not familiar with the quirks of SFP1/WoX multiplayer, it performs an anti-cheating file check prior when someone tries to join. Some files are not even monitored, so there is some leeway for local clients to have mods without causing problems. However, the safest way to get started is for everyone to have clean installs all patched to the same version. For the purposes of everyone getting started, we need to agree on a game and install version (apparently WoV? but it could be WoI, WoE). WoE merged with WoV is the most flexible with two terrains and a wide array of aircraft to choose. What is WoV patch 84? The only two versions I would consider hosting are 083006 or Sep 2008. 083006 runs smoother, but Sep 2008 looks better.

Hyperlobby is just a tool for meeting players and sharing the IP. If I get a server up and running correctly, I can post the IP or send it by email and people can try to join directly. However the DirectPlay multiplayer code used by SFP1/WoX is very finicky. It wasn't designed with routing/network address translation in mind, so a much more reliable way to play is on virtual LANs that trick the game into thinking everyone is hardwired to the same switch with the same IP subnet and mask. Hamachi was the old free tool used in the past for SFP1/WoX. Hamachi has changed a lot. I don't think the free version is as useful as it once was. I am in the process of trying to set up an old PC to be a server and see if a laptop from and outside network can properly join/fly on this server. I have to make sure my router is set up correctly, too. Clients don't usually have too many issues as long as they can form a good two-way connection with the host. The host server is the one that has to make sure nothing is firewalled preventing clients from joining/playing.

A long, long time ago, before Wings Over Vietnam was released, I used to host an Strike Fighters Project 1 multiplayer/online server on Hyperlobby. I left it in dogfight mode to support being unattended most of the time. Every night, I would check in and play for a few hours whenever anyone else was around and reboot as necessary. When others wanted to, I would take down the dogfight arena and host co-op/team vs team missions while I was available, then restore it back to the free-for-all dogfight host when I went to bed. As Wings Over Vietnam, Wings Over Europe, and finally Wings Over Israel were released, I continued to host as time permitted. I also would spread the word on how to join my server using Hamachi to overcome some of the routing issues encountered using the Hyperlobby room to join/play. Strike Fighters 2 progressed to DirectX10 which did not support the DirectPlay library used to implement SFP1/WoX multiplayer, which encouraged me to give up multiplayer for the SF2 improvements in single player. Would anyone appreciate a Hyperlobby server running one of the games? I think the best way to maximize connectivity is to run stock installs at either the 083006 (August 30, 2006) patch level or the final October 2008 patch level. The older 083006 patch runs faster but needs an ini file tweak to turn off the water shader to avoid CTDs when exiting with Vista/Win7. The final patch offers more aggressive, but somewhat suicidal AI and better modeling of radar missile limitations near the ground. Neither one is perfect, but the speed/stability/popularity of 083006 probably make it the better patch revision unless playing WOI, which requires running at the 2008 patch level. I need to get my server PC set up and do some hosting tests routing across the internet. However, that shouldn't take but an hour or less depending on whether I run into any problems.

The money is better spent on two things: DCS, which I use almost daily and a 1981 Corvette that needs a lot of cash after years of neglect.

Wishing you the best... may stubborn determination and a little luck see you through this horrible situation with the least possible pain and best possible recovery. <S>

There is another side to that statistic. Consider Desert Storm. The threat from the enemy was so minimized that US forces lost more people to friendly fire than enemy fire. It is not that the friendly fired incidents were dramatically higher than any other war. It is the marked decrease in losses to the enemy. So, if modern aircraft and their associated maintenance standards dramatically decrease losses due to aircraft failures while the number of problems caused by pilot errors stays the same... you get statistics like this. Now having read about the pilots that stalled a twin turboprop and killed everyone on board because they didn't understand the physics of a stall and overrode the automatic stall limiter to pull the nose up even more... I can't believe pilots with that level of misunderstanding were certified to fly any airplane much less a passenger liner. How has this happened?

FSX/P3D with TacPack keeps getting better for combat aircraft. Milviz is doing a great job providing Vietnam/SFP1 era aircraft with TacPack support. But my experience with Simworks Studios' F-4B, TacPack, and available Vietnam mods for FSX convinced me that even with TacPack, FSX is far from a complete combat flight simulator. SF2 Vietnam is far superior for replicating the mission from ingress to egress. However, FSX is better for the takeoff/comms/landing aspects. I am tempted to buy the Milviz TacPack jets like the F-100D, F-4E, and F-4J, but I know they would just mostly remain unused and take up space on my hard drive as the Simworks F-4B already does.

05 punished anyone who disagreed with him in any way. He also ripped off some of the modders who provided material to him. As I prefer to research and create my own historical missions to suite my preferences, my main use for YAP was the models, especially the aircraft carriers. No one else ever released a comparable Vietnam era CVAN-65 Enterprise.

Had to come to and end sooner or later.

I have always loved SAAB aircraft since the first time I saw a Draken. At this point, I am not sure which I love the most, the Draken or the Viggen. The Gripen comes in third, but all three are among the best looking and best performing fighters of their time. What more could you ask except maybe an engine and avionics/weapons upgrade for the Draken and Viggen?

I have been out of country for two weeks and just now got the chance to try the latest patch. LCOS gunsight works much better now. It didn't move before.

I don't understand the argument at this point. The MiG-21's combat record is far from good. It only performed reasonably well when given very specific environments where the enemy had ROE and/or leadership issues that crippled the opfor's aircraft. Whenever it fought in environments where the enemy had no such restrictions, it was decimated... even by large, smokey F-4s and/or F-15s. Even in the best case, using radar and speed to ambush loaded F-4s with inexperienced pilots, it never did better than 1:2 overall. That fact that it couldn't be spotted head-on at ranges longer than 2nm was extremely annoying, but it was only when it performed precision ground controlled hit and run attacks from the blind 6 at Mach+ speeds where its size wasn't a factor that it excelled. What cannot be denied is that the MiG-21 was the most produced supersonic fighter jet and still serves after all of these years. But despite costing far more, F-4 Phantoms were produced in quite substantial numbers and are still serving, too. If I had to fly one against the other in combat tomorrow, I would easily take the latest Turkish or Greek F-4s over any variant of MiG-21 still serving. Despite its size and smoke, the F-4 had the advantage then and still does.