streakeagle

The problem with a merged WoE/WoV install is that when you play random single player missions, the game engine will randomly match aircraft from the entire planeset no matter which terrain you fly in. i.e. You may see a Soviet MiG flying in Vietnam or vice versa. Other than that little problem, the merged install was the way to go, especially if you play multiplayer, as it gives a much broader range of planes to choose from. I used to manually extract and drag over the files from SFP1/SFGold to fill in the few remaining assets: C-130, dessert terrain, etc.

Make a "2nd" skin (a copy of the first one) that only has the lo-vis decals and specify the 2nd skin for your campaign. Or remove the "hi-vis" scheme from the original skin, and make it into a dedicated skin.

The one size fits all fighter always makes sense on paper. Should the USN have accepted the F-16 instead of the F-18? Should the USAF and USN only had F-16s and no F-14s, F-15s, or A-10s? An F-35 is not an A-10. Nor is it an F-22. It is at best an F-16 with stealth and updated avionics. When you put all of your eggs in one basket, it better be a damn good basket. Only time will tell.

SF1 series runs fine in windows mode... but TK's coding doesn't really lend itself very well to multitasking. The game engine measures how much cpu power is available and scales up the processing loop to use as much as it can. So, in a windowed mode, the PC wasn't of much use other than playing the game. Of course, now the SF2 is designed to use multi-core, which should alleviate that problem, TK has disabled windowed mode... probably because he is still scaling up to maximize cpu utilization and doesn't see the point of running it windowed.

Another area to work on besides bombing is unguided air-to-ground rocket pods. Unlike reality, the game allows you to aim them very accurately if you practice a bit. I have been on SEAD missions in F-4s carrying AIM-4D Falcon IRMs and used the Falcons as supplemental air-to-ground unguided rockets. It is not entirely unrealistic to use them this way. There are references which claim AIM-4s could and did acquire and hit trucks at night in Vietnam.

The bombing options for F-4s aren't much different from WW2 fighters (at least in this game engine). The best thing to do is to practice a fixed routine and figure out when to release when following that routine. Mine is pretty simple: come in at 8-10,000 feet and nose over at the range that will result in a steep dive on the target. Chew up some altitude while lining up. Release at the lowest feasible altitude to maximize accuracy. Avoid hitting the ground. Climb out and evade air defenses. Target destroyed? No: repeat entire cycle. Yes: Identify next target, repeat entire cycle.

The steep dive angle + low altitude release allows me to accurately aim with my pipper. If I fly a lot of strike missions, my accuracy gets insanely good. When I am rusty, I pull my pipper through the target. I release one bomb a bit before the pipper is on it, one while the pipper is on it, and one a bit after the pipper passes by the target. When I miss, it is usually because I forced the attack and came in at too shallow of an angle. I also tend to stay in the dive too long if I am having trouble lining up on the target after entering the dive. This can result in a ground strike or even getting caught in the blast of my own bombs.

There are different bombs for different purposes. Learn to use retarded bombs to come in at low level without popping up for a dive bombing run. Level bombing from altitude is possible, but you need to practice at a fixed altitude and speed to find the right distance from the target to release the bombs, or use a mod to create a special view simulating a level bombing sight.

But I am almost exclusively a dive bomber from 10k. If I have to come in low, I pop up steeply to 8k, roll over on my back, pull down into my usual steep dive, roll back to level, line up, and follow my usual procedure. If I can get lined up quick enough after rolling to level, I don't lose much if any accuracy doing this. When I fly a lot of strike missions, I get very good at this.

SimHQ has a nice tutorial written a long time ago for the original SFP1 here: http://www.simhq.com/_air/air_055a.html

That is one cool paint job! I would like it better if the orange were the same as the German flag yellow, but it looks fantastic just the way it is. It is the original colors in Froot Loops plus the black nose for the beak :)

Good stuff :)

Aerial battleship? Really? In your dreams! Though there are some in power who think that way: B-1R

Better yet, simply use large zeppelin as a combination AWACS/missile launcher. Endurance could be weeks... only limit would be crew supplies/comfort.

Love the dog dressed as an AT-AT.

The Luftwaffe's problem was just the reverse: instead of fielding the Me-262 as soon as they could have, they delayed service entry and when it did finally enter service misused it as an attack aircraft rather than air superiority. The Luftwaffe did exactly what you said they should do: they cranked out Bf109s (more or less equal to P-51s) forever and supplemented them with Fw190s (more or less equal to P-47s) throughout the entire war. If you look at the production numbers, the search for uber weapons didn't hurt Bf109/Fw190 production at all. They lost because they did not have the resources to sustain a two front war on the ground (really three once D-Day occurred: West, Med, and East), and steady bombing around the clock (US by day, Britain by night) certainly didn't help even if bombing didn't directly impact aircraft, submarine, and tank production. Like Japan, Germany needed to win quickly. Fortunately for the US, Britain and the USSR didn't play along :) The uber weapon they really wanted was a nuclear bomb... and we all know how that arms race turned out.

Your problem is very simple: somehow you are using an old SF1 style loadout ini file, which won't work with later SF2 F-4s models/ini files. Go to your mod folder, find the afflicted aircraft folders, and delete the loadout ini files. If you need to edit them for any reason, use the SF2 cat extractor tool to get them out.

In the old 3d models/ini files, the fuel tanks and gunpods shared the same external point. In the new ones, they have separate stations. This allows the fuel tank to be part of the 3d model, which allows fuel tank textures to be part of the aircraft skin. However, your installation is putting the gunpod on the fuel tank station, which activates the built-in fuel tank model. So, deleting your loadout files will force the game to use the stock compressed ones in the cat files, which should fix your problem.

The SUU-23 looks just fine in my SF2E installation :)

1. The correct shortcut modification may be "-window" not "-windowed"... have seen conflicting posts.

2. It will not work for SF2. As had been previous posted, SF2 does not support a windowed mode.

Impressive, but I bet ArmA 2 could be used to do a better version thanks to native animated people... just a matter of having comparable aircraft and ship models. The mostly static block head people kind of ruin it.

If they had ever gotten it up in the air, it might have turned out to be an awesome fighter. But jets came along and obsoleted all prop fighters.

No one likes "Always"? Plenty of great planes mixed with some decent humor, too AND passes for a chick flick.

I am running Windows 7 64-bit. Performance does not really change much if any between XP and Win 7 for the SF1 series, but the security setup in Win 7 causes some problems with the default installation. So, either Windows 7 has to be tweaked or the much easier solution is to install the games in an unprotected folder rather than the default "Program Files" folder. Also, if you run the series one games at a lower patch revision than the last WoI related patch level, the terrain shaders will cause the games to CTD upon ending a mission. There are only two ways to fix this: disable the shaders in the terrain ini files or apply the final SF1/WoX series patch.

Upgrading to the SF2 series is definitely the way to go for performance, appearances, cockpit detail, avionics, and gameplay... too many improvements to list. But there are some losses. The most obvious is multiplayer. But almost no one uses multiplayer, so that is no loss for most people. In recent SF2 patches, there were changes made in the way objects are drawn at long distances which has made many people unhappy. TK has provided an ini switch to disable the new system, but that defeats its purpose of solving sorting issues and increasing performance when there are a lot of details. As part of this same "improvement", clouds cannot exist below a certain altitude, which makes clouds a lot less realistic/usuable, especially for historical weather patterns. There is a lesson here: if you complain to TK about a graphics issue, he will fix it, but you might not like the fix! Overall, SF2 with all of its expansion packs and latest patches is way better than SF1 at any patch level or even the earlier SF2 iterations. My sole interest in SFP1/Wox is for multiplayer.

Integrating multiple decals into one big decal is the way to go :)

They are less likely to jam if you fire in short bursts. Long bursts will jam almost every time.

There are only three problems you should have running the series 1 games on Win 7 64:

1) Folder permissions to write, which can be avoided by installing the game in C:\Thirdwire\ rather than the default program files folder.

2) DirectX9 not up to date: go online and visit Microsoft to update DirectX9.

3) CTD on game exit. This is caused by the water shaders. Patching the game up to the Oct 2008 patch fixes this, or if you need to run an older revision, then you have to go into the terrain ini and disable the animated water shaders.

Anything else is due to problems not directly related to Win 7 64, such as a corrupt install or bad video driver, etc.

Also, make sure the screen resolution selected in the graphics options in the game setup menu is one supported by your monitor. When that gets set to an illegal value for your video card and/or monitor, that can cause a CTD when you try to fly a mission.

With a good wing/tail combination, the F-104 would have been the US equivalent to the MiG-21. Instead, it was optimized for speed/rate-of-climb/altitude to put it out of reach of the MiG-15/MiG-17 class it was designed to beat. This strategy was a direct outcome of Korean War experience. When MiG-15bis fighters were flown correctly, they used their thrust-to-weight advantage to pounce on F-86s from above with boom-n-zoom passes. So, the goal of the next generation of US fighters was to restore the boom-n-zoom advantage that the US had always preferred over flat-turn angles fighters. This approach was actually quite correct and successful in Vietnam: the F-105 could use speed/power to escape MiG-17s and come back at their leisure to score guns kills. But the MiG-21 had more boom and zoom, better maneuverability, and missiles that the MiG-17 did not. By the time the USAF realized they needed an aircraft like the Lancer rather than the Starfighter, the YF-16 and YF-17 had jumped a generation ahead in technology. Ultimately, the F-16 is what the F-104 should have been from the start, with a bit more thrust and superior aerodynamics thanks to about 15 years of technological advances.

For a glimpse of a "Lancer" class aircraft might have been like, check out the Mirage F-1C. The French figured out they were using the wrong wing, too! Unfortunately, they reverted back to the pure delta with the Mirage 2000. Only by adding the canard with the Rafale does the rear wing/delta configuration become practical or even superior to the conventional wing/tail for anything other than speed. Of course, the Rafale abandoned the pure delta and ended up with a wing a lot more like and F-16 than a Mirage.

Performance aside, your screenshot above looks great! It looks a lot better without the t-tail. It looks like a MiG killer :)

The idea is simply to convert the F-4 radar from 60s avionics dll to 70 avionics dll.

The original mod should mostly work, but may require some tweaks to accommodate any changes between WoX and SF2 70s avionics files.

The name OFP may have belonged to Codemasters, but the game was Bohemia Interactive. Codemasters shutting down their shooter group is no loss to me since Bohemia is still going strong making the only shooter sim that I have ever liked and bought (unless you count Star Wars Battlefront).

I couldn't find cockpit photos of the F7F-3N Tigercat published anywhere on the internet, so I am posting them here for future reference :P

I didn't think the pilot had a radar display, but he most certainly does.

The lower panel is important as it has the fuel gage and the accelerometer.

Would love to see this modeled in the SF2 series... <hint hint>

There is a mild oscillation at transonic speeds meant to simulate the buffeting that occurs in real life. But this is just a visual indication and shouldn't affect your ability to fly the aircraft at all. I have no problems flying the new DLC Mirage IIIC at any speed.