DoctorQuest

Wow. That could have been tragic. Good job to those with cooler heads.....

Thanks for keeping me honest. :)

In theory you could install them to the "stock" folders in the root SF2 program directory. I think the risk there is the same with mods to ANY stock item in SF2: You risk losing it if you patch the sim. The other option might be to pick a SF2 version and use it for all mods. In a proper stock merged install you should be able to do this.

From what I've been able to tell if you are running a completely stock merged install all objects from all sims should be available regardless of the exe you use. It is when you start populating a specific mods folder that you tie yourself to a specific exe. I.E. if you make the A-6A flyable in SF2V you will only be able to fly it by using the SF2V exe. The mods folder used is tied to the name of the exe file. This actually is kind of nice in that you can build multiple mod folders and access them by copying a stock SF2 exe and renaming it to the name of the mods folder. It's a hassle when you patch the sim because the patch will only know about the stock exes. You need to re-copy the exes after a patch.

You might need to be more specific and call out what aircraft is giving you grief. You may have a missmatch between what effects are in your folder and what are being referenced in the aircraft's INI files. SF1 aircraft will probably need modifications to look right in SF2, for instance. Just a thought....

Try this..... You will need to be running a merged install with the SF2NA executable. Assumes Windows 7 folder structure. 1. Extract the main terrain.ini from the appropriate terrain CAT file. (I've only done VietnamSEA so far so I extracted VietnamSEA.ini) 2. Open with notepad. 3. Add the line NavalMap=TRUE to the [Terrain] section. Save. 4. In your /user/saved games/Thirdwire/Strike Fighters2 North Atlantic folder create a Terrains folder (if you don't have one already). 5. Create a VietnamSEA folder. 5. Drop the edit VietnamSEA.ini into this folder. I'm still testing but it's a start.

Thanks! I had never done anything like this before and it was MUCH more difficult than you might think. And as you well know Tolwyn knows what he wants and how to get it!

I actually still have my old PAPER Fleet Defender manuals sitting on my desk right now. Still a lot of very good information there and very relevent to SF2NA.

Been a long time coming which you might expect for an all volunteer work. Starring yours truly as Captain Michael Moran. (And fighter pilot "White Trash"....) Let me know what you guys think. (Assuming you can get it downloaded sometime this year )

Is the ability to generate carrier based missions a terrain attribute? It would be nice to propagate that to, say, SF2V....

That's good to know. I was probably making the thing more complicated than it really is. Sorry.

One other thought. I don't really know the effect of the Mar 2012 patch on the other sims. (I did a fresh install for SF2NA rather than muck with my merged install.) It would be interesting to see what patching the merged install would do.

I'm not surprised. Think about it. NA adds significant functionality to avionics to support the Tomcat. You don't want to be giving those enhancements away for free. I can certainly understand why the older sims are not patched with the new functionality. (Which is what would need to be done for you to run ANY EXE and expect SF2NA results.) That all being said. Why not try backing up one of your older EXEs and copy/rename the SFNA exe to the name of the older exe? (Similar with what needs to be done with patches and custom mod folders and exes.) LATER: This works.

Slightly off topic. Is the in-flight map SUPPOSED to be black (no terrain features)? On topic. This looks like a blast!

Works great so far. Thanks!

I'm in. System reqs be damned. Full spead ahead, me hearties.

There are a LOT of problems to be solved if you could just generate enough electricity. The story reminds me of a quote by Albert Einstein. "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?" Sometimes research seems silly and frivolous but you never know where it will go. See my sig quote.

Fantastic idea! Thanks.

A fully loaded Harrier may not be able to do a true vertical take off. In practice a short take-off is done with nozzles at around 60%. Once the fuel load is reduced and weapons are expended the aircraft weight should be reduced to the point where a vertical landing can be done. If you build a custom mission with a "low weight" Harrier (no weapons, low fuel load) you should be able to do a true vertical take off.

I just ordered OFF myself so I'm curious.... Did you install the OFF patches?

Just wondering.... Over the last year or so I have been SLOWLY plugging away at converting ODS to SF2 with reasonably decent results. This has been basically an exercise for myself but I would be willing to share if folks are interested. It's all in a new mods folder, of course, so packaging it would not be hard. The worst part is I need to review who contributed NEW items (like updated aircraft) and make sure everyone gets credit. Oh the other hand if there is a major effort already by other folks........

My favorite sims include F-22 Total Air War, EF2000, RB3D and F-15 Strike Eagle TWO. I still play Silent Hunter ONE. I play Age of Rifles. With the advent of DoxBox and rigs that can really exploit it the world of classic games has a new lease on life. And then, of course, there is gog.com.... Good blog. Thanks for sharing.

Are all the aircraft in the soviet campaign ini in the aircraft folder? That's one place to start...... I'm trying to remember what I ran into trying to convert some campaigns to SF2...

Sorry. Did the Soviet campaign EVER work?

Are you using the SF2E or WOE Germanyce.cat and would that matter? (there's that learning curve again.......)