Wrench

I take you have the complete listing for TF16/17s CAs and DDs??? If not, I do. BTW, we ARE missing the Sims Class DDs (in their proper from). I just renamed the destroyer as used in the US formations to 'Sims Class DD' ... it really isn't even close to the proper size/shape/armaments/etc. Also, IIRC, the CAs are incorrect -- have to re-look that one up. Probably Portland Class, as opposed to the Brooklyns (it's just a simple matter of not having enough ship types ....) (also, anyone notice that the IJN DDs are called "Akakaze Class DD"??? Bonus points to ID it's origination) wrench kevin stein

Wellllll......don't most Hunters have "Sabrina" bulges!!! That is some SERIOUS detail!!! The wiring looms look almost real. The RWR trick looks vaguely familiar... wrench kevin stein

WOOT WOOT!!! Have a great day Ken!!! wrench kevin stein

Sure, you'd just need individual OBJECTS for each and every ship, add each and every one to the types ini, then add each and every one to their locations in the ship formations. OTC did/does something similiar for the USN blockade destroyers, and Soviet freighters. wrench kevin stein

DRA_IRM maybe??? I know that'll mount 2 'winders don't recall a dual AHM rack, but I remember creating a dual ARM rack for the F-105G using the BRU-57, but that was like 5 years ago... wrench kevin stein

PLEASE ALWAYS try to state WHICH version of the game(s) your talking about, in the first sentence if possible. It'll help narrow down the answer. Instead of having it at the end of the post, making it a bit more confusing. Have you checked the SF2 Knowledge Base? Some kind person addressed this very same problem just over a week ago (as there were like 2 or 3 threads on the subject in 3 day period..), and thoughtfully posted a tutorial on HOW to adjust start/end years for SF2 series games..... http://forum.combatace.com/topic/55030-adjusting-beginning-ending-years-for-sf2-series-terrains/ and it's not the 3/10 patch that's causing it (although it's screwed up s**tloads of other things..) ... it's how NextGens work now. wrench kevin stein

Baby, that is SOME detailing!!! NICE!! wrench kevin stein

No, all the Thud's used in Nam had the bombbay filled with a fuel tank. In fact, NONE of the 3rd Party Thuds (in particular AD's D/F/G) have the bombbay. It's an internal fool tank ...if you extract BOTH data inis for the stock 105s (this is SF2V), you'll their's are fool tanks too and no, you can't convert it to a working bay, as there's no doors cut in the fueselage meshes and no animations. wrench kevin stein

The typo definatly exists ... I just checked mine. Don't know if it was there before or was "Wrench Induced". You must have been using it in an 08 patched version, cause it never manifested for me. Oh, well, happens sometimes! Wouldn't it be easier, than tossing out an ENTIRE install, to simply EXTRACT the needed airfiled inis, and drop them into the Okinawa terrain folder? Probably be a LOT less work, but if you are on an 08 level, rebuilding a new one at 06 would most likely wind up as best wrench kevin stein

Nice to see the surprise Spits .... EAF should have Mk.V trops, IDF had both standard and LF model Mk.IXs. I just wonder if the EAF Meteor and Spits will have the correct serial numbers, as opposed to just reusing the stock ArabNum decals. (btw, accruate decals for both already exists ....) wrench kevin stein

Let you in on a little secret ... so far -now, I havent tested ALL the new aircraft (well, 3 of them), but ONE important Navy Jet and it's pit works just fine in Gen1 series (discoverd this recently, while cross testing it due to a strange 'freeze' in SF2KAW). Dels AD pit also works just fine in in Gen1 The terrain itself, and all the ground objects work just fine, thank you. In fact, the terrain ONLY needs commenting of 5 lines in the data ini to work with NO issues (since all the tiles are Gen1) So for those of us still working with Gen1s, you'll only miss out on 1 or 2 airplanes. IF two of these don't work correctly in, say WoE at 08 level, there STILL exists perfectly usable alternates made for Gen1. And even if this new 'important Navy jets' DIDN'T wrok in Gen1, it's a VERY simnple matter to use pre-existing skins for, and just reuse the decals created for it (albeit, on a later version of said jet), but easily re-done by folks that can 'think outside the box' wrench kevin stein

WHICH versions of the terrains??? Original versions, perhaps? ... since I've never gotten around to the Phillipines, and DEFINATLY would have caught that on the Okinawa Upgrade pak. Also REMEMBER to ONLY use 06 level airfield inis (you'll note that in MY upgrades for the WW2 terrain, that's stated in the readme, and the 6 airfiled inis are supplied....most of the time) wrench kevinstein

I would SOOOOO love to do that .... Warbirds is one of my all time favorite books!! Ther's the Amiens prison facilty on the WW2 map I could 'borrow'.... placing Rats As$ would be the hardest part ... airfields don't like being within 1 tile of the coast (causes water humping, but with Brain's and Baltika's 'height field' tuts, might be workable! Don't know if Turkey is there or is usable, due to "The Wall" for FoE ... but we got ALL the planes for both! hmmm....now you got me thinking ... use 2 river/sea ends for the small beach area between the mainland and the island,with the bridge over it, as described .... sea/desert 25/75s......hmm.... and I have an approximate idea as to 'where' on the Saudi coast it might go... runway1/5/6 are approx 1 tile in lenght....hmmmmmm.......some experimentation is in order, me thinks!!! (and be a hell of a lot better than flying the same 75 miles, like the ATF/FA versions... on the isreal/egypt map!!) wrench kevin stein

How about going an even easier route, and REMOVE the limited nations statement, completely? And remove those limited missions statement, too. (although, you'll have to rebuild the VietnamSEA movements ini to add new shipping routes) They're utter useless for anything other than the Vietnam War of the 60s & 70s. Your 'VietnamSEA.ini' should look something like this, for WW2: wrench kevin stein

it's the Langoliers!!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! wrench kevin stein

....and here, I thought he was talking about mother-in-laws.... wrench kevin stein

Oh, I LIKE those!!!! wrench kevin stein

File Name: Republic P-47D-25 Thunderbolt, 1 GAC, Força Aérea Brasileira, Italy 1944 File Submitter: Wrench File Submitted: 25 Apr 2010 File Category: P-47 Republic P-47D-25 Thunderbolt, 1 GAC, Força Aérea Brasileira, Italy 1944 = for SF/SFG/WoV/WoE WW2: MTO Installs = For Wolf257s "BubbleTop Jug", this skin and decal set represents the FAB squadron as seen when attached to the USAAF 350th FG, 12th Air Force in Italy during WW2. The skin accuratly represents the colors and marking of 1oGAVCA, with correct Flight call letter/numbers, and with the excpeting of 5 or 6 serial numbers, the acutal aircraft as flown by them at the time. The only departure from pure historicality, is that the Squadon Command and Squadron Executive Officer flew aircraft left in their natural metal finsh, which is here shown in the OD/Gray. Sorry about that, folks! So, historical ratting drops to about 94-95%, due to that fact, and the 'missing' serial numbers. Rest assured, however, the serial shown are for the proper sub-variant of the Jug. As always, it's reccomended you unzip this package to a temp folder or your desktop, or somewhere's else that's easy to find to gain access to the rest of this readme for full, detailed install instructions. As this is simply a add-on skin/decal set, you shouldn't have any problem installing it. Good Hunting! Wrench Kevin Stein Click here to download this file

What I'd do, is back up the Objects (aircraft, any ground objects, etc) DELETE the new mods folder, DELETE the new renaname exe, and start over. Something DEFINATELY went wrong... the addons should always show up in Single Missions as long as they fall withing the years specified by the terrain's ini -as that's been changed from 1st Gens- and are not mission type limited Also,when doing the new one, DON'T use SF2:I, use the SF2:E exe ... MUCH more flexibility there. so... copy/paste the sf2e.exe out somplace... then Rename to SOMETHING better than "whatever_you_like", as that was used ONLY as an example! If its for an era-specifc or region specific type install, NAME it match the install type (depending on what it 'goal' is), just like we used to do with the 1stGen WW2 installs ... call it WW2PTO for example or SF2 MidEast Wars -if that's what you're going for. For example, for the upcoming KAW, the exe got renamed to KAW -- AND I cheated on mine; I created a KAW folder, copied all the 'core' files, renamed the sf2e.exe, and ran it. Basically, the Old 1stGen way, so there's 2 complete SF2 installs. Long way around, as I don't trust how this new system. Yet. Don't forget to CREATE a NEW shortcut for the new exe ... that HAS to be done! wrench kevin stein

what's the FULL path of you mods folder??? example (mine, with XP; vist/7 will be slight different, /SavedGames/whateveritis) C:\Documents and Settings\Kevin J. Stein\My Documents\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2 cause, what you seem to be describing, is placing stuff in the Objects folder of the CORE install, not the mods C:\Documents and Settings\Kevin J. Stein\My Documents\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2\Objects\Aircraft path wrench kevin stein EDIT: did you start and RUN a mission from the new, renamed Exe?? That's what creates the mods folder

Aircraft are built in 3dMAX ONLY; Gimp CAN be used for skinning, but only once the UVmap has been created. Never heard of inkscape wrench kevin stein

The Question: I see on the Terrain Editor that there is a way to import a .BMP as a height map. What I'd like to do is crop out a certain portion of that .bmp file and use it as a map instead of what the DEM files give me. Is there something special I need to do to it to get it to work? Because I can't seem to get it to. The Answer: You have to set up a new map in TE which matches the size of your cropped heightfield .bmp. So, open TE, File\New from the dropdown will give you "New Terrain Dialog" Box. Leave Texture Tile and Height Field resolution as stock, unless you are confident playing with those settings. Adjust the Terrain Map Size setting to suit the size of your cropped .bmp. Your new .bmp has to be square. Also, in paintshop or whatever, ensure the colour mode for the .bmp is set to Indexed, NOT RGB, or TE won't be able to read it. I think 1 pixel on the .bmp equals 2km in TE, so for 500x500 bmp image you would set terrain size to 1000km. Also, when exporting/importing heightfield bmp to/from TE, look in the TerrainEditor.INI file (in TE folder) and check these settings are correct for the maximum peak height on your terrain:- [bitmapExport] HeightScale=17 [bitmapImport] HeightScale=17 MinLandHeight=1 "HeightScale" is very important. TE has a pallette of 256 colours to cover the whole heightscale, with each colour representing a different height in the .HFD file. So, divide your max peak height (in meters) by 256 to get the correct heightscale setting for your particular terrain. Otherwise, when you import/export the bmp data to/from TE, you will get the peaks of your mountains chopped off. In the above example, the maximum peak height read by TE when exporting/importing heightfield as bmp is 17 x 256 = 4352 meters. Anything above that is chopped off and you will get tabletop mountains. Equally, if your max peak height is lower, you should adjust the heightscale setting for finer detail in terrain at lower altitude. EG, max peak height 1250meters. 1250/256=4.88 Set HeightScale=5, for both import and export. That way, you will see more detailed terrain contours for that map, without losing the tops of your mountains. The process is this:- In TE, select as big a map size to cover the terrain you want. Import the DEM data as normal. This will give you "raw" heightfield data in TE. In TE, float the cursor over the heightscale map over your highest peak to find the max peak height of the highest peak on your map. Divide that height in meters to get the correct figure to put in HeightScale= flag in TE (same number for both import and export, as above). Round up to nearest integer (whole number). Edit terrainEditor.ini file with new heightscale setting. Export bmp from TE. Edit bmp in photoshop, gimp, whatever. You can expand the whole map to get full-scale terrain, or cut a piece out, flatten awkward bits of shoreline by hand, paint new mountains, whatever. Save edited .bmp (make sure coloursetting is indexed, not RGB) Create new terrain in TE with correct size for your edited bmp. (1 pixel = 2km) Import edited .bmp to your new terrain. You will know it has worked when TE shows new heightfield view. (Wrench Note: this next paragraph is VERY Important!! It's also how I work Terrains, too!) I have separate TE folders for each WIP terrain, to keep heightfield import/export settings correct for each terrain, and also because TE remembers a save file path and this avoids the danger of over-writing one map with another. One more thing, I use a topographical colour pallette (in gimp) as that makes it much easier to see the different heights. The stock TE pallette shows very little variation between neighbouring height steps, which makes it difficult to do much else than edit coastlines using that pallette. I see in TerrainEditor.ini there is a section for [HeightMapColor], maybe those settings can be adjusted to help with this? Good luck, Baltika ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ With thanks to Pfunk, who asked the question, and Baltika, to who answered it!! wrench kevin stein

Because there isn't one. Yet wrench kevin stein

THANKS! I cannot believe I didn't check the LOD internally, and totally missed that!! wrench kevin stein