FastCargo

Okay, right now F-15R leads the fight for designation...I have no problem staying with that. Advanced Eagle currently is the top of the name list. However, if someone comes up with something more interesting to consider... FC

Okay folks, there is a BIG temptation to dive into politics (that some have already succumbed to) or to make tasteless jokes with the passing of Senator Kennedy. Not here, not now. FC

You're killing me man, you're killing me! I like the M or R suffix...now just a name to explain why the M or R... And no, Max Eagle or Rambo Eagle are NOT in consideration! Advanced Eagle sounds good...official too. Just....I don't know...too matter of fact I guess... FC

Eh...kinda dull. The informal designation for the Silent Eagle is the F-15SE. There is precedent of course...Japan's dual seaters are F-15DJs, the Singapore version is the F-15SG. So although having a letter in specific order as versions appear has recent precedent (the Super Hornet E, F, and G models)...but it's not a hard and fast rule. It's currently designated the F-15X, but I honestly hate the letter...it's used too many times already in Ace Combat style designs. As far as names...I'm mulling Ultra Eagle myself... FC

There is no WOI campaign expansion pack yet. At least, not a ThirdWire produced one. FC

The idea of course was to provide for a fictional Eagle variant that was a logical outgrowth of past modifications to the real thing. Included are the obvious: ACTIVE thrust vectoring nozzles. Silent Eagle CFT weps bays and canted vertical stabs. F119 engines. SniperXR pod and IRST (when so equipped). However, there are some more subtle changes which have not actually been put on an F-15: Mid-canopy bow deleted. Engine intakes redesigned for better stealth characteristics (S-shaped tunnels and rhomboid intake lips). Smaller in-plane canards. Very little of this aircraft is far fetched, and the only real concession I made to gameplay is keeping the internal gun in the right wing root. For beauty reasons, I made the canards smaller and in-plane, realizing that a setup like that could be fraught with airflow problems (though the Su-30 and it's variants seem just fine...). Otherwise, none of the stuff this bird has dives into the Ace Combat realm...I don't believe in unrealistic augmenting of basically sound designs. Now, as to what to designate and call it... FC

FC

The short answer is yes...but you have to work at it. SF2 aircraft now include a file called ****_USERLIST.INI. That file for each aircraft simply lists what 'Nations' used that particular aircraft and what years they used it. The terrains have a file called ****_NATIONS.INI that lists the nations involved in that terrain. So you can already see the benefit...the sim looks at the date and terrain, then compares the USERLIST and NATIONS ini files and simply determines where they intersect for each aircraft. FC

That really has nothing to do with an aircraft being better in an air combat sense. Life on a carrier is hard on aircraft...ask Typhoid, he was a MX officer at one point for Tomcats. It'll never be known if a navalized version of the F-15 would have fared any better. MigBuster's analysis of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Eagle and Tomcat is spot on. Having flown with operators of both aircraft, the sense I get is that in a lot of ways, the aircraft were roughly evenly matched due to various tradeoffs...a trait that continued with the updates to both aircraft. I will also say that exercises that pit various aircraft against each other tend to have their own issues, because you can setup the exercises to favor one side or the other. This can be good for training (make your life harder in training than when the missiles REALLY start flying) but can be bad for straight up evals. Even when the missiles start flying for real, there still isn't a pure objective analysis. Skill of the pilots, tactics, ROE, weather, etc can all play a significant part in the results of an air combat matchup. FC

Okay, so far I've been using a small utility called...Useful File Utilities (UFU). It's shareware, but has a 15 time use rule. The nice thing is that it can not only rename files to all caps in batch mode, but can do it in subdirectories. So I've been simply doing an *.ini search (within UFU) in each mod directory (including those in progress, the whole mod at once), sending the list to the basket (a queue), then running the renamer. Works like a champ, doesn't mess with files already in caps. Fast...just a bit difficult to use at first (UI is not intuitive). The other program is a little utility called ANSI2Uni, and unlike UFU that you have to install, ANSI2Uni is a standalone, and is freeware. Will do multiple files at once...and most importantly will NOT screw up files already in Unicode. Unfortunately, I haven't seen a 'subdirectory' option yet, so it takes a little longer because you have to go through directories one by one. Eval still in progress... Obviously, before using either one of these...BACKUP your crap first!!!! I won't take responsibility if you tube up your install.... FC

I may have found a few small utilities that will let you: A) Convert the ANSI files to Unicode and B) Convert the names of the files to ALL CAPS Best of all, both utilities can do this in batch mode. I'm using the utilities now on my own install to make sure there aren't any unintended side effects before I recommend them. I'm also checking to make sure there isn't any malware in the code. FC

That's just sick! Rock on... FC

That is an old menu and needs to be updated. FC

Check your thread, question answered. A faster way is simply to fly zoomed out, only zooming in to read the instruments as needed. No tweaking required. FC

Yes, but it will involve some work. Go into the avionics.ini of the particular aircraft. Look for this entry: Note the bolded text. This is the 'hole' that defines where everything visible in the HUD is seen...it's defined as 2 corners of a rectangle. The first number is left/right, the second is up/down. Increase the size of those numbers, that will increase how much of the screen the HUD takes up. Now, look for this next section: Note the bolded area...adjust this number to adjust the size of the text in the HUD. Now, note the entries similiar to this See the bolded areas. These numbers define where in the HUD space the TGA falls, and how big the TGA appears. You will have to play with each component to get the position and size right. Good luck...you will need to do this with each model. Of course, it could have been easier to simply fly around in 'zoomed out' mode, hitting the view key to be able to read the instruments...then zoom back out. FC

Mike, Any mesh can be moved either up down or left right...most times folks to make things 'disappear' will move them down 100 meters. Removing the entry in the cockpit.ini file just removes how the sim engine manipulates it, it doesn't make it disappear. As far as MFDs go, it honestly depends how it's setup. Usually, making things appear and disappear is a matter of meeting certain conditions for it. I'm not sure if you can move stuff on the MFD and yet have the symbols still work properly. FC

Well, asking a question like this is kind of like asking why folks prefer one color over another. That being said...there is a certain romance associated with WWI air combat, a sort of 'honorable duel' in the skies because the fliers at the time were a rare breed and the whole concept of air combat was relatively new. Verses in later periods where the science and art of airborne killing had become much more prevalent (not to say there wasn't a bunch of killing in the skies in WWI). As someone else mentioned, it is almost all skill to be able to fly and fight effectively in these aircraft of which a lot of them weren't much more than ultralights with guns. A lot of them had nasty characteristics that you couldn't power or fly out of...and unlike aircraft of later periods, if you made a mistake and killed your energy early, you were toast on a stick against anyone with a decent amount of skill. FC

You have to remember when you move something in the cockpit, everything in the hierachy underneath that mesh will be moved too... For instance, if you have: - Cockpit -- Bow --- Panel If you move Cockpit down, Bow and Panel will move too. Now what you can do is move Cockpit down, then move Bow up the cooresponding distance, and so what you'll see is: -- Bow --- Panel That's all there is to it. You also have to remember, there may be nothing you can do if the part you want to move is the same mesh as the part you want to keep. FC

If there are files here that are using reverse engineered LODs from ThirdWire, please tell us so we can have those files removed. Multiple LODs are used to use less detailed LODs as the viewing distance increases to save processor cycles. FC

Well, what about the ground object itself? Doesn't it need to be MERC for the nation it belongs to? Post the data.ini and merc unit entries. FC

"Code 1, no writeups there chief." "Sure boss...nothing here a bit of servicing can't clean up..." FC

Welcome! Question 1: Sure, just set 'On Runway' as a starting point in options, then takeoff and don't go anywhere, just hang out at the airfield doing circuits. Question 2: Yes, once you are patched up to the Oct 08 level, any first generation ThirdWire sim should run on Vista without tweaking. FC

Actually Wrench, you may have solved a problem that was bugging me on the F-15SE...hmmmm... FC