Stwa

That being said, sometimes I go "hog wild" with a terrain. For Israel 2, I retiled the entire terrain with a custom set of WOV tiles. The I customized some of the custom tiles. Here is what the IsraelME terrain folder looks like.

OMG! Its Gephard! Thanks for the info on your terrain. And thanks for the others down through the years. I have Israel 2 and Persian Gulf. For some reason, that I cannot explain, when I get a third party terrain, the first thing I do is remove all non-stock target types. In this case, just reference GermanyCE_types.ini. This step only took a few seconds with Baltika's terrain. Anyway, on my system, I am supporting 9 different terrains, and for the most part each terrain folder looks like the following:

Well, it was a lot of fun using the Hunters in the Falklands, but it just feels weird for some reason. So, I went back to what I had in the 82 campaign, just not as many birds. But now I set the campaign year to 1972, which is a much better date to support the first gen Harriers, and all the Argie A-4 stuff. One problem for the Brits, the GR.3's get booted back to the 9B sidewinder because it's 1972. If you want to play without IRMs you can just select the GR.1 squad, so it now looks as follows. No. 3 Squadron = Harrier GR Mk.3 (8 birds at Port Stanely) No. 1 Squadron = Harrier GR Mk.1 (8 birds at Port Stanely) 1/FAA = A-4P (16 birds at Santa Cruz) 2/FAA = A-4P (16 birds at Santa Cruz) 3/FAA = A-4C (8 birds at San Julian) 1/CANA = A-4Q (8 birds at Rio Grande)

Feel the force. Let the force flow through you. You fail because you do not believe.

Ds are stock in SF1

So, I don't mind having these smaller "excuse me" "what if" campaigns. They are easy to put together, test, and play. I did reduce the verbage in the start screens, which I always like, and looks like the Argies get right to it.

So do you guys know of a FAA (the other FAA ) skin for the stock Harrier GR1 or GR3. I will look again, but me thinks I have never run accross one. Some other particulars that might be important or NOT. According to the in game stock Hunter FGA data file, the service end data is 1969, which I take to mean RAF service end date. The Harrier GR1 and GR3 have service start dates of 1969. So, it might mean that 1969 would be the only date to have both birds. But then, the rest of the FAA A-4Ps dont arrive until 1970, and the A-4Qs dont arrive until 1971. In the campaign, the Mt. Pleasant AB has a start date of 1985, so therefore not available until then. So I thought I would make the campaign date either 1968 or 1969, and just do the following, right or wrong. BTW, all forces are playable. 1/RAF = Hunter FGA Mk.9 (8 birds at Port Stanely) 2/RAF = Harrier GR Mk.1 (8 birds at Port Stanely) 1/FAA = A-4P (16 birds at Santa Cruz) 2/FAA = A-4P (16 birds at Santa Cruz) 3/FAA = A-4C (8 birds at San Julian) 1/CANA = A-4Q (8 birds at Rio Grande)

Well for some reason, I wanted to overhaul my Falkland Islands campaign. The terrain includes the Mt. Pleasant AB and I always assumed I would have a 85 campaign, or even a 82 campaign to match the actual conflict. And I have set up several campaigns along the way. But, overtime, I just never added the necessary add-on aircraft for those campaigns. I have a stock WoV-WoE installation with a few extra custom terrains, the Falklands being one of them. So, it occurred to me that I should re-make a campaign that utilized the stock Hunters and Harriers either each aircraft individually, or perhaps both in the same campaign. I wanted to reduce the number of squadrons, and it would be really the RAF vs the FAA. (i.e. no Sea Harriers or Sea Hunters ). But, I found the following, and therefore I am trying to figure out the right mix of FAA stuff (all A-4s), and what year might be right for the campaign. Argentine Air Force A-4P and A-4AR (All previous owned) In 1965, Argentina contracted to purchase 50 surplus U.S. Navy A-4B Skyhawks for the Argentine Air Force (Fuerza Aerea Argentina, or FAA). After the aircraft were reworked at the Douglas facility in Tulsa, OK, they were redesignated A-4P "Caza" (Hunter). Twenty-five A-4B/A-4Ps were delivered to the FAA in 1966 and another 25 (A-4B/A-4P) were delivered in 1970. Argentina also purchased four A-4Bs (BuNos 144894, 144932, 145017, and 145053) for FAA non-operational use as spare parts sources. In Argentina, these aircraft will simply known as "Bravos". In 1975, Argentina purchased an additional 25 A-4C Skyhawks for the FAA. In 1994, Argentina contracted to purchase 36 surplus A-4M Skyhawks, to include engine refurbishments, rewiring, and avionics upgrades. Delivery of the refurbished aircraft, redesignated A-4AR Fightinghawks, began 1997. Argentina Navy A-4Q (All previous owned) CANA (Commando Aviacion Naval Argentina) purchased A-4B Skyhawks in 1971. These A-4B were reworked at Tulsa, Oklahoma. Argentina designated these reworked airframes A-4Q. CANA assigned numbers 0654 through 0669 to its 16 A-4Q aircraft, the numbers being painted on the vertical stabilizer. In addition radio call signs of 3-A-301 through 3-A-314 were painted on both sides of the mid-fuselage.

This is a great mod. I have used it down through the years, mainly for the excellent skins. But, I never really set up the camera. So, I was wondering does anyone know what the camera does during game?

Hi guys, I love WOV/WOE, and I have stuck with the standard tile sets, for all this time. Sure I have downloaded plenty of the re-paints, and messed with them for a while, but only for a while. The main problem, I have is a uniformity issue. For some reason that I can't explain, I just cant toggle from the WOV/WOE terrain set to the older (but very nice) Desert terrain set. And that poses, some real issues for Israel terrain. I want to share a solution, I came up with years ago, but I want to try again at improving this arrangement. Most of you won't like what I have done, and I understand its art, and I am not really an expert at terrain tiles. The terrain I am using, is Israel 2 (from Gephard), which uses only 3 farming tiles (5 in Israel), and I retiled this terrain using an expanded WOV set. I set up the terrain folder, so I could try out various farm tiles, to see the effect on the game. There are only 5 tiles that can be replaced, kinda like seasonal tiles.

This summer has been a blast messing with Strike Fighters. I have been making changes to all the campaigns trying to improve them, changing out the art, re-doing some of the story-lines, etc. All this just reminds me how fun this game is. Here is the Cuba start screen, so it threads into Red Thunder. If you give the Soviets the initiative, and if you try to use Near Target when you fly, their bombers totally waste Miami, and Homestead. Maybe you guys can stop the bombers using the Near Target option, but I cant!

Well said!

Thank goodness WOE/WOV has an excellent campaign system that is easy to modify. I have had more fun with these than any other part of the game. The Cuba and Iceland campaigns are really just add-ons to the RED series of campaigns for WOE. Of course it is the Cuban missle crisis that starts Red Hammer. So the Cuba campaign gets the ball rolling. Then, after Red Hammer comes Iceland. I am sure SF2NA is much better than my lowly Iceland campaign. But the 57th squadron gets plenty of action, intercepting bombers, and any other Soviet air units that attempt to fly over.

Here is Hawaii. It is 500km square, and I have added 6 air bases, which includes 3 off map enemy airbases. I will probably add some more targets, and I am just painting the harbors and Honolulu in by hand. (i.e. not autotexture). Over time, I will add a few more shipping routes, etc...

OK, so I am done messing with the Falkland campaigns. There is one for 1982 and one for 1985. In 1985 the Mount Pleasant Air Base comes on-line. The Royal Navy is gone, but there is a sqaud of Phantoms there, and a squad of GR.3s (with AIM-9L) at Port Stanely, so the shooting gallery returns with this campaign. But, with the 1982 campaign, if you give the Argies the initiative, then they win in about 2-4 missions. Last year I finally replaced Major Lee's older DBS terrain (I called it Bering Strait), with one of my own making. Major Lee's terrain was my first add-on, and my rendition was somewhat sub-standard. Now, I have a newer Bering Straight terrain that features St. Lawrence Island. There are no off map air bases, and although the map has 25% of the area of the original, there is still lots of room. There is a single USAF air base on St. Lawrence where the historical DEW site was located. So my map collection is as follows. Germany and Vietnam (Thirdwire) Israel and Persian Gulf (Gepard) Cuba and Iceland (Tonix & Baltika) St. Lawrence Island (Bering Strait), Hawaiin Islands, Solomon Islands, Falkland Islands, Korea (Stwa, Korea and Hawaii not finished) I really want to do Hawaii. The Japanese return, but this time with Phantom IIs.

OK, so the storyline for the Solomons terrain is a little lame. It is still a great terrain and a very fun campaign. But, campaigns can be whacky sometimes, and it REALLY pays to proofread them over and over again. For instance, on the Falkland campaign, I am updating, I just noticed that I forgot (or accidentally deleted), the command that disables the ground offensive. Be sure to do that for BOTH forces. I also gave the initiative to the Argies. And, the campaign kicks butt now. Of course, as the RAF player you are knee deep with A-4s, and I noticed that the AI still assigns SWEEP missions to some of the Argie squads, no matter what I have tried to script to prevent it. Anyway, without AIM-9L for the land based Harriers, RAF bases get pounded day after day. Carrier based Harriers still have them, but just like in the movies, they always show up after the battle is over. It looks like they are firing rockets into the ammo dump.

Once I had thoroughly debugged a campaign, then I would add another variation with a different start year, replacing out the birds with newer versions. And of course, changing out the screen art that goes with the campaign. This ability to change out the artwork in the game became almost more important to me than aquiring new birds or weapons.

Hi again, I spent a few hours this weekend making some practical changes to my Falkland campaign. I have always loved that campaign, but I guess it was just a beeg shooting gallery. Fun for the Brits, but not so for the Argentines. So, I decided to even things up abit, and I learned some stuff that I never knew before or I had just forgotten about altogether. 1. As before, I decided to NOT add Mirages, Daggers, or Entendards. What I did was take the total number of ready A-4s, Mirage IIIs, Daggers, Entendards, etc. rounded up slighlty and divided them as so. 16 A-4C, stationed at San Julian. 16 A-4Q, stationed at Rio Grande. If I add the 25 de Mayo, I may take 8 planes from this group and assign them to the carrier. 90 A-4P, stationed at Santa Cruz and Gallegos in 5 (16 plane) squadrons. 2. I removed all SWEEP missions from all aircraft on both sides. I had used this before for the Argentine birds, but they were getting wasted too fast. 3. Here is the best part. On the Wiki I discovered that the GR.3 didn't really get the ability to use AIM-9L (or any AIM) until 1982 or Falklands, when 10 or so of them were rushed up to FR.1 standard for the impending campaign. They were asssigned to Hermes (not Invinceible). Ok, at least that is the way I interpreted the reading. Soooo, I made another instance of GR.3 on my system with a service start date of 1982, where these birds get the sidewinders. I also let this GR.3 get the wrap-around camo, since I have never been 100% sure when this was introduced for the 1st gen Harriers. For the original GR.3 with start date of 1969, it no longer has ability to use IRM. And for some reason, it can only use the normal camo, not the wrap-around. 4. So with all that in mind, in the campaign, I stationed the later batch of GR.3 (IRM capable), on Hermes, and the other batch of GR.3 (no IRM), at the FOB near San Carlos. This alone makes the campaign much for balanced than it was before. Also, since the Argentine air bases are off map, it would be kinda hard taking a screenshot of their base. So, I just used generic air pics for their bases.

But, the real driving force behind all these attempts a uniformity, is me trying to make everthing appear as if it were in fact one game, and that nothing was in fact and add-on. For some reason that I can't really explain, appeals to me. If you don't really like the games graphical art, then you would not like this approach at all. It is not the professional approach either. Many people like photoreal material. (screens, terrain tiles, etc.). In the Solomon Island Terrain I wanted to include the MERC faction (or service/nation), since it was a part of Strike Fighters, but you don't see it too often anymore. In the campaigns, I keep the storylines amazingly short.

But, the best place to go wild with screen art is in the campaign section. When I first got the game, I liked it so much, I spent several weeks snapping shots if all the bases used by the flyable squadrons in WOE/WOV. Of course, as I have added campaigns, I have kept up with it all. I wanted to keep the game stock, but sometimes that works against me. I dont have any add-on ships, so I used the same carrier that came with WOE. CVE-63? Well, I never could find a Sea Harrier skin for the Thirdwire model of the Harrier. You can find Sea Harrier skins for other models of the Harrier. I haven't checked in a while. But the next pic is just a base screen in the Falkland Islands. I had to use GR3s for the carrier aircraft, and of course this carrier doesn't come close to the Invincible.

Unfornuately for me, I didn't see a lot of uniformity in the UI either. Of course, this was a combined install of WOE/WOV. The WOE screen art was very different that WOV screen art. And so it was with music too. So, I basically started with the WOV screens and added to them to make 1360 x 768 set. Here is the main menu. I eliminated Instant Action and Multiplayer, by just not including these choices in the menu system. All this stuff, I did back in 2006. With a game like Strike Fighters, its worth every minute. I have never encountered a sim quite like this one, and I will be very sad when it won't run on the next generation of operating systems. I like being able to included screenshots of the game into the game's UI. This create's uniformity that is very pleasing to me. I know its just art, but the colors in this game are outstanding in my opinion. Each of my terrains has a theme that is used by the UI. I can change the theme by running a cmd file (one for each theme) before I start the game. Here is the main screen for the South Atlantic game.

I must admit over time, I raided the MarcFighter site for skins for the Israeli A-4s and F-4E. I also got all the skins for the Argentine A-4s at that site as well. He is an incredible skinner, but the main reason for getting the skins there, was uniformity. You can tell, all the skins were by the same skinner. The Insignia had been painted on the skin, so for each skin I had to remove them, so I could apply decals. But I like his choice of colors. The Falkland campaign is the only campaign in my collection where you can play both sides. It is also the only campaign where all birds are ATTACK aricraft. But to make the campaign work properly, I had to add SWEEP and CAP (as secondary priorites) to each Argentine A-4. So in essence their role became fighter. Mostly I had to do this because I have yet to include a Mirage or Dagger. I have been tinkering a bit with the campaign, making it smaller actually, with less components. I renamed the off map bases after the Argentine bases (Rio Grande, Santa Cruz, etc.) Funny though, the A-4C was not flyable. I cant remember why I did that. Anway its flyable now. And really, its too easy playing as the Brits. As I mentioned the AIM-9L makes it just a hilarious sport. So flying the Argentine birds is more challenging.

But, the most simple way to properly set up Argentina birds is to just make a small air-air campaign. And in the end, its this method I use for my game. So, with created missions the FAA is FRIENDLY and fights against the Soviets like everyone else. In the campaign, they are defined as ENEMY and fight against the RAF. I did not have to make any changes to FAA birds for this method, other than make the attachment type for bombs = NATO,ARGENTINA. So the weapon dat has to be changed with the Weapons Editor. I only modified Mk83 and LAU-3A by indicating Argentina as a valid attachment type and then saved the newer version of the dat file. Also, I did not have to make any change to the Nations ini file. Here, Argentina (and their Navy) remain as FRIENDLY. I use a very simple air-air campaign format for these small island terrains. (Falklands, Solomons, Iceland). And it is very important that they are UNIFORM in every respect, because I have to maintain them. After all, the main goal (for me) is to have a single installation with all the terrains and campaigns within a single game folder. Mine is called Strike Fighters 2006. I did not use actual FAA squadron names, but I suppose I could look them up on the net. Same way for the Brits. The campaigns do not require that you use data from the squadron list.

But what is really fun about the terrain, is when you play as Argentina, and of course you want STRIKE missions. Note the planning map in the pic. Because the "Enemy Airbase" is off map, you only see the way points near the target (a cargo ship near Goose Green). So, just use the near target option, and just end the mission, don't really RTB. On some of the early Falkland Island terrains, they would include Argentina. The near target option functioned just like it does now, but the actual size of the island was very small. This way I get a more accurate scale, and lots of room.

I never got around to the beeg Weapons Pak because I just don't have alot of add-on birds. But I digress, I wanted to post once or twice more about the Falkland Island terrain. It takes only a few minutes to add Argentine specific bombs (Mk83, etc.) and rocket launchers into the weapons data file. Its just new type entries into the weapons.dat file, since the models for the bombs, etc. already exist. All I did was just check the Argentina check box to add a valid "Argentina" attachment type. Me thinks this must be done, so that the non-player birds in the campaign can be armed with these weapons. In the pic, I am flying as enemy A-4 near Port Williams, where we just took out a cargo ship. Port Stanely (and docks) are in the background west of the Airport. In real life this Airport was on the peninsula that juts out to the north toward Port Williams, but the stock airfields were too long so I had to move it south some. Of course, this was the problem during the real Falkland campaign. The runway was not large enough for the Mirages, and they had to remain based in Argentina. Too bad the Argentines could not have moved the runway a little south like I did.