Baltika

Working on . . . (Offstage: WRENCH! How do I make smoke come out of hills? REALLY BIG clouds of smoke??? plz ) Meantime, one more flight before I call it a night:- Checking out Reykjanes Geothermal Power Station Climbing glaciers, the easy way Down into the valley Rubbernecking the scenery Tally ho! Baltika

On finals at BIKF KEFLAVIK NAS:- Progress update:- Core tileset is now completed. There are a few specials still to do, like Njardhvikur as featured above. HFD completed. All tiling work is finalised. Those fjords are sure tricky, but, they're done. Now, if I can just find that thread which tells me how to make smoke come out of a volcano. . . Cheers all, Baltika

Very interesting to find out about the service history of one's relatives. Thanks for posting. The sad truth is that one often has to go digging in government archives to discover basic information. My paternal grandfather was British merchant navy in WW2 and apparantly survived torpedoing and sinking of his ship in the Pacific, but he died before I was old enough to ask him the sort of questions I have now. Curiously, my father, aunts and uncles do not even know the name of the ships my grandad served on. But the pattern in those days was, do not talk about it. So I am not surprised. The value of these forums becomes self-evident when these sorts of questions are asked. Cheers, Baltika

Looks like Judge Dredd dispensing the appropriate penalty for an attempted mugging, having followed the due process of investigation and trial, Mega City One style. Although why any perp would try to mug a Judge is beyond me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Dredd

Hi there, You have two options, either hand-place all your river tiles to avoid hilly spots (difficult I know), or use the "Adjust Sea Level" function in TE, which will flatten all the water parts of water tiles (sea or river). However, use "adjust sea level" with caution as it will reduce all water areas to sea level, or zero altitude. This is fine for rivers near the coast, but for rivers at altitude it will make deep canyons with rivers at the bottom. It may cut mountain ranges in half and so forth which may not be the desired effect. Using Adjust sea level should also be one of the last things you do in TE as it will flatten chunks of your HFD file and can't be undone. After that, your terrain won't autotile properly at the coastline. Keep a back up Looking forward to your terrain Cheers, baltika

Excellent, thanks very much for this one, cheers

He certainly has that ineffable quality of "Doctorishness" - like Tennant, I think he will mature into the role, my wife who was totally opposed on the basis of his youth and somewhat poncy manner was won round by the first ep. I think the new ser4ies will be magnificent, now we have Moffat at the helm, based on his episodes from Tennant's run. The new trailer ran at the end of the episode has something which has me wetting my pants with excitment. . . . . .. .. .. .. .. .. Spitfires in space!! Spitfires in space!!!!! Spitfires in spcae!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did I mention. . . Spitfires in space!!!!! I can't even let myself think about how cooll the new look Daleks are!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gets my vote I started to convert the NF campaigns to create red-side flyable versions (simple .ini edits, not changing anything in the campaigns themselves) but it got stuck under a pile of terrain stuff. If you feel like getting the cockpits together I can try to sort those campaign mods, and we can have a "WARPAC Fighters" add-on

Agreed, the DAT's Ostfront will give this little map a proper home. Truth is, I was full speed ahead with this terrain when the Oct 08 patches came out . . . And after a burst of enthusiasm for the new AI and various enhancements, the fact that it hosed a lot of the WW2 prop FMs kind of discouraged me, and so I haven't done much work on this map since then. So, I got distracted into other things, mainly terrain development for Cold War and modern settings, culminating in my recent Kamchatka release. There are quite a few terrain wips more advanced than this one (North Cape & NZ at the top of the pile, Japan/Kuril Islands close behind). And Iceland - always Iceland. Of course, things are looking up on the TW WW2 front, what with the avhistory guys working up their excellent FMS, and now the DAT Ostfront, which I understand will bring all the included WW2 FMs up to Oct 08 patch levels. So, yes, I am getting excited about this theatre, and all of the WW2 stuff, once again. Personal wish: SF2 level FMs for the BoB planeset - that old campaign really needs updating. So, I am awaiting DAT Ostfront with bated breath. Once it's out, you bet I will be working on a little "Expansion Pack." Good to hear from you, Cheers, Baltika

Yes, I agree with Gocad here. Most of the existing WW2 birds only work properly with the 06 patch levels, and I think new online purchases from TW are already patched up to the latest build. It is not possible to revert to an earlier version. But there is hope for the future, as gregoryp and the avhistory guys are working up SF2 FMs for many of the WW2 birds. There are a number of beta FM releases available over at avhistory:- http://avhistory.org/communityserver/files/folders/ww2_aircraft/entry2112.aspx Tempest_MK_V Bf-109G-10DC Bf-110G-2 Bf-110G-2_R3 Do-335A-1 Fw-190D-9 Ki-43II-b A6M5-52a F4U-4 P-38J-25 P-47M-1 P-51d-30 These work just great on 08 patch/SF2 builds. Also, I understand that the DAT team are working on an Eastern Front total conversion mod for WoE, and Charles is updating the FMs for that to 08 patch standard. My advice:- D/L the avhistory beta FMs and set up a separate WW2 install in your SF2, using only those a/c which are listed above. You may wish to set up one for ETO and one for PTO, obviously. Any questions, fire away. Tally-ho! Baltika

Here:- http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=3329

This is exactly what you need, JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler. Here's where to get it:- http://www.users.on.net/~jscones/software/products-jsgme.html Very easy to use, switch mods in and out with ease, you can create specific era installs and swap them in & out of your game folder from a central mods directory. In fact, it was Johan217 who set up his Middle East Wars campaigns using JSGME to do just what Dave suggests. I still use it on an old SFP1 install for Johan's Suez campaign, awaitng TW release of WoI add-on. Cheers, Baltika

There are 3 requirements to establish self-defence in Scotland (which has distinct criminal law system from England/Wales/Northern Ireland) 1. Be under imminent danger/perceived threat of attack (physical violence) 2. No other option than to use force in self-defence (like it or not, the law requires you to run, provided this is possible, the whole circumstances are to be considered by the jury). So, if you are backed into a corner, pinned down, surrounded, blocked from leaving a room or otherwise restrained, or confronted face to face with an armed assailant, the use of force is permissible. Also, my personal view is that the option to run is not available to a person in their home with spouse/children/family members present, although this has not been definitively tested in the Scottish Courts. 3. Force used in self-defence must not be "cruelly excessive," again a matter for the jury to decide, based on the whole circumstances of the incident. The Judge is required by law to direct the jury that allowance must be made for "the heat of the moment." "Self-defence" is an absolute defence in Scotland (resulting in acquittal, should the jury accept that defence) to any charge of assault, up to and including murder. The overwhelming consideration for the jury is whether the use of force was reasonable in all the circumstances of the incident. Self defence of another is permitted, so if your friend is under attack, you are permitted to use reasonable force to defend him/her, provided there is no other option. Also, all decisions as to whether to prosecute in Scotland are taken by the Lord Advocate (or her deputies) who is head of the prosecution service, independent of government, police, or the alleged "victim" of any crime. I have recent experience of cases in Scotland where persons attacked by burglars in their own homes, who used deadly force to defend their families (although no deaths resulted), were not prosecuted, but rather were witnesses against the burglars. Also, a more dubious situation, where a group of people came to the door of an individual's flat and seriously injured him with knives, his friend, who ran out of the flat and attacked the group with a samurai sword, was acquitted of attempted murder by the jury, despite life-threatening injuries being inflicted by the swordsman. But then, that was in Glasgow, where everyone has a samurai sword hanging by the door for just such eventualities @Fortiesboy, I haven't read about the case you mention. Was the accused convicted after trial (by judge or jury), or did he plead guilty? In England as well as Scotland, the law requires people under attack to run if that is an option, otherwise in law the defence of self-defence is not avialable. If he went to trial and was convicted, the jury did not accept his defence, and the judge has shown leniency by not sending him to jail. Maybe the guy with the axe found out your decent man was sleeping with axe-man's wife? There are always two sides to every story.

We aim to please Glad you got it sorted, I like your solution. All knowledge is good

Better yet, here's the fix. Unzip and drop the Kamchatka_Targets.ini file into your terrain\kamchatka folder, over-writing the old one. This will enable airfield take-offs for those who are not using the GermanyCE.CAT file, by activating desert_airfiledX.ini call-outs for each runway. Use with Desert.CAT.rar Cheers, Baltika

@Wrench, thanks for the tip. I'll bear it in mind for future terrain releases to ensure maximum compatability. @ikon71, I'v looked at this issue again and deleted my earlier advice as it was overly complicated. Open up the KAMCHATKA_TARGETS.INI file and look at the following entries for each airfield (there are 18 in Kamchatka terrain) :- [TargetArea002] Name=YELIZOVO-1 Position=506000.000000,478000.000000 Radius=8485.281250 ActiveYear=0 Location=1 Alignment=ENEMY AirfieldDataFile=soviet_airbase3.ini <<<--- THIS IS IMPORTANT! NumSquadrons=6 Target[001].Type=Runway4 <<<<---- THIS is ALSO IMPORTANT! Target[001].Offset=0.00,0.00 Target[001].Heading=340 The desert cat file does not contain the soviet_airbaseX.ini or german_airbaseX.ini files, which is why your planes are piling up in the starting grid. AS Wrench says, the actual runway >LODs are the same in each game, and the airfield layout is roughly the same. Open up the desert_targets.ini file in the desert terrain (you may need to extract this file) and look for the various "AirfieldDataFile=" entries. These are called things like desert_airfield1.ini, desert_airfield2.ini, and so on up to desert_airfield6.ini. As a very quick and dirty fix, go through the KAMCHATKA_TARGETS.INI file and change each of the AirfieldDataFile= entries to call out the desert airfield .ini file which matches the number of the runway called out for each airbase. So, for YELIZOVO-1, your new entry should look like this:- [TargetArea002] Name=YELIZOVO-1 Position=506000.000000,478000.000000 Radius=8485.281250 ActiveYear=0 Location=1 Alignment=ENEMY AirfieldDataFile=desert_airfield4.ini <<--- CHANGE THIS ENTRY AS SHOWN NumSquadrons=6 Target[001].Type=Runway4 <<---- TO MATCH THIS NUMBER Target[001].Offset=0.00,0.00 Target[001].Heading=340 Go through each of the runways in the Kamchatka_targets.ini file, making the same change for each runway type, and you should be good to go. There is no need to change anything in the KAMCHATKA_TYPES.INI file. Any problems with this procedure, just give me a shout. Cheers, Baltika

Yes, Thirdwire have the 1st-gen WoE for $9.99 in their download store. Well worth the investment if you don't have the rig for the SF2 series. As Wrench says, to use the desert.cat only, you would need to convert the terrain_targets.ini and terrain_types.ini to use desert.cat equivalents for many, many items, not least the runways. It's a lot of work for minimal return. EDIT: See my post below for details on how to convert the KAMCHATKA_TARGETS.INI file for use with the desert.CAT terrain file. Cheers, Baltika

Very impressive terrain work, I have been tearing my hair out over a Northern European map using the standard method, and there is some great info for terrain builders here. S! Baltika

Good work

I think all the targettypes are hard-coded into a .dll somewhere. If you look in any campaign_DATA.ini file, under each [FORCEXXX] header you will see a whole list of AirOffensive[xxx]. entries various target types listed for each one. The campaign engine uses those settings (which match the target type assignations in the terrain_types.ini file) to select ground targets for air strikes at each stage of the campaign. I did a fair bit of work with this for BoB campaign to ensure a properly "phased" campaign, before TK came up with the AirOffensive[xxx].FocusArea= parameter, which directs an air strike onto a particular target area, as defined in the terrain_targets.ini, and I seem to remember that only the existing target types are recognised by the game. An easy way to check is to list your new runway as targettype=TINY_RUNWAY in the terrain_types.ini, place a few tiny runways in your test terrain, then set up a campaign file where all the air strikes are directed onto TINY_RUNWAY, then fly a campaign squadron with 100% chance of strike missions. If you get assigned a strike on one of your new tiny runways, you know it works Cheers, Baltika

@ Derk I'm glad you're enjoying it, thanks for the positive feedback, if you spot any problems, let me know, I'll fix them (North Cape is coming, I am working on Norway Airfields right now ) @ Eric Man, you found it, got the shot, kudos is yours Like I said, Kevin sowed the seed. I just thought, I can't do 3DMAx, how do I get Cthulhu in game? Sorted I will do Godzilla for Tokyo