GwynO

The game only needs cat files in the core folder, but the second file, keep in the mods Terrains folder.. only the cat files need to go into the core game Terrains folder, and once there, don't need to be reproduced in the mods folder.

Yes, all needs to be done is to drop WhateverOriginalTerrain.cat into the core Terrains folder of SFP2, and in the mod Terrains folder for whatever terrain add ..\WhateverOriginalTerrain\WhateverOriginalTerrain.cat to the mod terrain ini. So my core Terrains folder contains the series 2 terrain cat for SFP2 and SFP2V + the additional cats from the Original versions of WOE and WOI. I haven't had any third party cloned Terrain cat files in the terrain folder since SP3, all that needs to be is the line: ..\WhateverOriginalTerrain\WhateverOriginalTerrain.cat just as it ever was. But some of the newer people won't have a clue what we're talking about.. so for those: Open the terrain.ini eg. Lybia.INI and look for the line that says "CatFile", this line should resemble one of the following four options: CatFile=..\Desert\Desert.cat CatFile=..\GermanyCE\GermanyCE.cat CatFile=..\VietnamSEA\VietnamSEA.cat CatFile=..\IsraelME\IsraelME.cat You can just copy the entire block and add \\ before all but one, kind of delete as appropriate, that is all that needs to be done to get the terrain in the mods folder to work, then it is just a matter of making sure that the terrain.cat actually exists in the core Terrains folder of the game (not the mods folder) Obviously you will have at least one terrain cat in the core terrains folder because each game comes with one! So if you have SFP2 you will have the Dessert.cat in the core terrains folder, if you have SFP2V you will have VietnamSEA.cat in there, for anyone with the original games, like WOE or WOI, simply drag and drop those games terrain cat into the core Terrains folder in lieu of the second gen versions as and when they appear they will go into this location, either way those ini lines above in the mods\terrains folder will work just as before. This isn't clear is it? Or is it? More Vodka needed.

Simples. Copy IsraelME.cat and drop it into the Terrains folder of SFP2... not in the mod folder, but in the core game folder... you follow? Next to the SFP2 Dessert.cat Then everything works just like normal with the ..\IsraelME\IsraelME.cat line in the terrain ini.

I had that recently, the bombs showed in the loadout, but nothing showed externally on the planes, and neither would the cycle ground weapon bring up any bombs or grenades. The problem was that I had used the latest weapon editor, which is for SFP2 so I simply downloaded the correct one from the Thirdwire site here. For First Eagles with EP and the November patch, you need v02.20.08 Run the editor, open the weapon data ini and save. You should now have bombs! You did extract the weapon data ini first and add to it the weapons for the addons yes?

I don't know if well done is the correct term to use! But congratulations! Well done to Mum, Dad and Baby :good:

Nice one!! Time to blow stuff up!! At the risk of getting shot.. I'd suggest the C-130J pit, it's really easy to add a ccip to it as well

I'm really getting into these old crates! Thanks to Laton and Peter, I actually have a use for First Eagles now!!

Your symptoms there are bringing back some awful memories, this is exactly the kind of behaviour (explorer not letting me copy to folder, move to folder etc) that occurred on my previous laptop with the ntdll.dll fault first followed by ntldr is missing error message by which time the click had already started. Knowing what I know now from that experience, I can only advise that you back up everything and anything you need from that hard drive to other media. That laptop ended up meeting Mr. Ground at high velocity and thereby busting the screen from sheer desperation and frustration (almost half my gf's masters dissertation was lost) I repaired the screen on the cheap but the drive itself was to blame, after reinstalling the OS, only a matter of months later the click returned and I faced the same problem all over again thus loosing all my work files, mods and pictures. Luckily that time I was prepared and began to back up sooner.

Ah sp2.. now that might be something to look at, there was a problem with ntdll.dll between sp1 and sp2, I had a look and several forum threads mentioned it around that time, apparently it wasn't entirely fixed by the early beta sp2, so maybe you need to get sp3? When you say misplaced, like how? I found the ARN-101 pit was back to front and on zooming in slightly, turns upside down. Very strange, that the one exceptional case I found so far that I couldn't get to work. I will have a try with ordways pit later tonight or early morning (00:00 here), there must be a solution somewhere.

At that price, I want one! Sounds like a decent little phone! And it will increase my sexual power, after all a man without a Vergatario has nothing Reminds me of a Welsh saying from the mountains which states that a man without a knife in his pocket is like a man without a.. vergatario.

Is there one? Preferably written with the total novice in mind? Also, what would be the absolute cheapest way to go about creating a 3D model cockpit, bearing in mind I don't intend to spend £80 on a student edition of 3DS Max when I don't even know if I'll be any good at it, there must be a free way around it?

Aye! I'm planning to start off with a real model for the WE.177 bombs, then progress to things with more lines gradually! Very gradually :yes:

I thought I recognised this error message from before my HD crash... not wanting to alarm you BUT BACK THE F UP NOW!!!!!!!!!!! Reasons for this error message

Nice one! Thank you! I need all the references I can get! And a lot of cushy sites at work would be handy too, to actually study this somewhat.

Man alive! I can only imagine how brilliant you must have felt sitting in the pilot's seat in the B-1, can you get a better job in aviation? I doubt. Regretfully I have battered computers to death before now, but for quite understandable reasons. I learn't my lesson No matter how frustrating, I will at least give it my best try, however I fear point number 1 is the biggest stumbling block. I have no doubt I could eventually build a pit but not this side of next year or maybe even the next.

Asthma...pump....need!

Oh and also, if you have a clear.tga or some other similar thing representing glass in the cockpit folder, you must now drop a copy of it into every skin folder in the objects\aircraft folder (not the decals\aircraft folder)

As for the crazy new extractor, it's not that hard to get used to. If you have a lot of space free somewhere it is worth taking a copy of every cat file from the game and dumping them into an empty folder, then put the extractor exe in the folder and drag each catfile one at the time onto the extractor exe icon, drag and drop. It opens a black box with some wizzing lines of text like ye olde dos days and proceeds to extract the entire contents of the cat file into a folder conveniently titled the same as the cat file right next to it. Delete the cat file as it is no longer required here, proceed until you have converted all cat files into folders. Have a look! It's well worth the effort, for example by looking in the aircraftobject.ini you will find a line stating allow gun unjam=FALSE simply turn to TRUE and save it into the relevant folder in your mods folder (objects in this case) and you won't be stuck with a jam in your gun if your gun has an unjam feature :yes: As for the gun editor, I have all the guns from all my various installs over the years, even the recoilless rifles from the Falklands mod, everything seems to be working so far. Same with the ground objects, everything works, just drop it in. Terrains also work as they did in the old games, however for those terrains that require WOE or WOI terrain cat, simply copy said terrain cat and drop it into the core game terrain folder, not the mods folder, the ini switch line will work then as it always did, so you have CatFile=..\GermanyCE\GermanyCE.CAT etc etc just the same as it always was. The only real major PITA for porting is weapons, tanks and pilots, but KillerBee's ordnace shop is a major major step forward in that regard! Use it as a reference for how you add those things into the new game. Also the effects need some going over, not impossible by any means just a little tedious, but that's the same for everything in these games, from mod building to testing and now to porting. Once you get the hang of it, you will develop a coping strategy to take you through the tedium of repeating each process over and over again for each skin folder, effect, weapon... or like me you may just make do with a lot less in the game! I have trimmed out a lot of dead wood, planes I hardly ever used, some that didn't even work. Slowly but surely I am making my ultimate merged series one install, with only the planes and mods I really really like, everything else gets the chop. Once that is sorted, I will see to adding the cream of the crop over to series 2. Trouble is series 2 is addictive, the more time I spend in it the less I spend tidying up the series one installs! Enjoy your repetitive stress disorder inducing porting/adjustment period as much as you can, and remember that at some point, it will all be worth it.

Calm down mate! You'll get the hang of it! Just a few things I noticed from your post, this thing about saving in unicode, I don't think it is needed, I certainly haven't bothered with that at all and almost all of the aircraft I have dragged over into SFP2 work as is. The decals are a PITA, but what I do is make a folder inside the decals folder named after the aircraft in question, inside this I create folders named the same as the individual skin folders that come with the plane. You don't put any skin bitmaps in there, all you do is empty the contents of the D folder within the skin folder into the new, empty skin folder in the aircraft folder in the decals folder. Next go back into each skin folder inside the original aircraft, in your mods\objects\aircraft folder, and open the decals.ini you look for the lines that tell the game to look inside something\something\something\D\something e.g. A-5A/VAH7/d/Modex and you remove the \d\, that is all, so it becomes A-5A/VAH7/Modex. Now just to check if the cockpit is what is snagging the port, just use the default A-4 pit like in the old days to see if that brings the plane to life in game. That thankfully is just as it always was, no need to copy over any cockpit files, they are all in the core cat files. I suspect it is something to do with the pit rather than the plane because 99% of everything I have sprinkled in has worked so far with the exception of pits that require certain files included in the old game not present in the new versions, but seems you are on the case with that. Check also that everything is named exactly as it is called in the ini's and lod files. It's worth opening the lod in notepad just to have a look with ctrl F for bmp check that the bmp files are named exactly the same, no lower upper case mismatches. It is a PITA admittedly but hopefully, once you isolate what is causing the problem it will reward you with a much much better total game experience.

Is it possible to somehow make the space where the radar screen is in a cockpit into a window, just to make it vanish somehow? If so, would it still be able to display data when turned on and otherwise work just as a window?

Right, ok well for now seeing as I have absolutely zero experience, knowledge or talent at all with any 3D modelling software.. I'll give it a bash with the free stuff. If at some point in the next 7 years I produce a semi decent basic B-1B pit model, I will think about buying the cheapest available full version. It will be a long road.

Hmm so Gmax for example, would I loose the ability to make animations from asking someone else to export it?

Therein my other recent probe into this focusing on getting the autopilot to turn better when the altitude is set very low. Perhaps I'm better off looking into that for this problem, however, I will keep plugging away at this anyway just in case it proves useful for something else. I'm sure at least some aircraft use a FLIR image to aid night flying at low levels, I imagine such systems would have a flightpath marker and all, however I'm probably wrong. Having Russian style avionics with radar superimposed on the HUD is probably wrong too, but I'll keep dreaming

I'll definitely practice with the free one first! About the old version, I can't see why it wouldn't be legal, they are only selling a second hand product after all. Version 5 would, possibly be more than good for Thirdwire games as on McFly's aviation they mention the Thirdwire exporter plugin works for R3.1 and R4.0 of 3DS Max! Cheers Yuri!

I'll just have to win the lottery then. I can't find it cheap even on ebay