Wrench

float/seaplanes CAN be used, but you have to use Gepard's "Invisible Airfield" (patpending) as he used in his WW2 Midway terrain, and I shamelessly borrowed for my WW2 "Central Pacific" terrain (and a few others). The major side-effect is, the game engine "sees" (or maybe seas?) it as a normal airfield, so in single missions, you can expect land-planes to operate off it as well. However, campaign builders can force their use ONLY to seaplanes/amphibs, in their squadron basing statement. wrench kevin stein

yes, but what of Flora's sister, Fauna???? (sorry, I sooooo couldn't resist that ... it's an old 3 Stooges joke -I think from their trip to Venus) wrench kevin stein

close enough! wrench kevin stein

he did a story in this months "Air & Space Magazine", that I just got the other day, about one of his X-15 flights, that I just read yesturday. RIP. http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/An-Extra-Two-Seconds.html wrench kevin stein

Somebody wanna tell me just WHAT the hell is going on???? via PM, if necessary. wrench kevin stein

Beauty, Greg!!! wrench kevin stein

yes, there is. so, one would need the squadronlist.ini from WoV, and EDIT the SF squadronlist.ini, adding the necessary navy/marine Crud squadrons at the bottom of the list (changing the number sequence goes without saying) btw, merging the cats, imho, is NOT a real good idea. just extract/use the necessary files for the particular aircraft. wrench kevin stein

In theory, if you have the original SFP1 desert terrain, it should be a matter of a VERY few minutes to move it over into SF2. 1) extract Desert_Data.ini (as you'll be making some small edits to use the new terrain effects) 2) create /Desert subfolder in you /***/**/ThirdWire/-nameofgame/Terrains 3) copy/paste the contents of the Desert terrain folder out of SFP1 into the above named /Terrains folder -make sure the desert.cat is there!!!!! (or just copy/paste the whole damn thing into the /Terrains folder 4) open Desert_Data.ini, and where the terrain effect callouts are, change to: [NormalTextureMaterial] EffectShaderName=terTerrainEffect.fx [WaterTextureMaterial] EffectShaderName=terWaterEffect.fx [backgroundMaterial] EffectShaderName=terFarTerrainEffect.fx [solidObjectTextureMaterial] EffectShaderName=terSolidObject.fx [AlphaObjectTextureMaterial] EffectShaderName=terAlphaObject.fx save and close. that should it bring it, at least partway, up to SF2 spec. BTW, it'll work even without the new shader lines, just won't look as nice for you lucky people with DX10. 5) download, unzip, install the Desert3 mod. 6) go fly at worst, since the tileset is already included, you can edit the catpointer line (as I always show in my terrain mods), in the Desert3.ini to read something like this: CatFile=..\Desert\Desert.cat //CatFile=..\GermanyCE\GermanyCE.cat //CatFile=..\VietnamSEA\VietnamSEA.cat now, you can select any other terrain cats. NOT advised to try and use the IsrealME cat, as it's different. wrench kevin stein

They find them in WOV, cause that's what it's built for...it's looking into the object cat, that has them all. SFP1 don't have them so, you've extracted ALL the relevant decals for the various 'sader skins? well, it' looks like it's the same issue we had in way back when, when importing the 104G into WoV from SFP1. you'll have to place ALL the relevant decals IN a /D sub-folder for each skin (unless its something like the USNFighterNum, which should be SF object cat. if not ....) so, after extraction/moving,etc, you're new path would be something like this: [Decal001] MeshName=winglet_left DecalLevel=1 DecalFacing=LEFT FilenameFormat=F-8E/USNGray1/D/F8Fin Position=-4.57,-0.65 Rotation=0.0 Scale=3.95 DecalMaxLOD=3 and so on for all the others. The only way to be sure, and get it right wrench kevin stein EDIT: an alternative, would be to create a /D subfolder of the MAIN F-8E folder, dump all the decals in there, and change the path to F-8E/D/decalname excepting for level 0, like the insigina or nationname. all you level 1 and level 2 (excpting the UNSFighterNum) would also be there.

did you edit the decal ini for each skin with the new, proper path??? wrench kevin stein

this is what happen when we have a power outage in LA ... I miss Dave's Birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUDE!!!!! wrench kevin stein

like (nearly) all the other skins from 1st to 2nd Gens, the mapping has been slightly changed; you'll probably have to extract the skin bmps and compare them side-by-side to get a feel for what got moved to where also, the "panel finder" bmp ... should be in templates d/l section somewhere ... is a HUGE help wrench kevin stein

moving this to the "PropHeads" Forum, where all us WW2 types hang out.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- screenshot, please?? It's been working fine for lo, these least 5 years.... wrench kevin stein

happy birthday paulo!!! and many, many, many more!!! wrench kevin stein

isn't there a check box someplace on the Options Screen (MainMenuScreen -> Options ->) that allows you to turn off all message text? I seem to remember seeing that someplace!! wrench kevin stein

I assume you mean the pdf? Attached... wrench kevin stein

notepad. it's just a simple text file. It lists the mesh 'tree', if you will, naming all the components. It's the same advice I gave Fox1313, and it worked well for him. "Think like an aircraft engineer" http://forum.combatace.com/topic/42553-fox1313/page__st__20 check out the last 3 or 4 posts .... wrench kevin stein

mesh names can be found the OUT file in the aircraft's main folder. wrench kevin stein

If you want a specific nation's insignia to appear on the skin, the ONLY thing that controls that IS the textureset ini's nation callout. Changing the NationName= in the data ini nationalizes that aircraft to ONLY that one specific nations (hence, the reason I've always reccomended creating nation-specific aircraft). But, if you wanted an American F-4F, you can still leave the NationName= to WGermany. You'll have to change the Exported= to TRUE, add the export start/end dates, and create a copy skin folder (call it USAF), with edited textureses and decal inis. You may not need the bmps, as the game engine ™ will still be looking for the BLW skin. It should be noted, however, that my recent experience with SF2, is showing that IF you create a nations specific aircraft; say ferinstance, a PLAAF IL-28, you'll STILL need to have the skin bmps extracted and placed in their own skin-subfolder of you new aircraft, otherwise you get the bare lod. (even with the userslist showing China, the skins didn't show with just the textureset and decals inis. It goes without saying, that a new userlist will need generating, and the data ini extracted and edited for PLAAF only useage. (note: what I didn't do was keep the same names, ie: SovietSilver with China as the nation. That might have worked without skin bmp extraction/moving to the new aircraft) So, no you can't have more than one nation listed in the data ini. You can reuse the existing skins, if you create new skin subfolders, with nationailzed texturesets. As long as the end user nations are 'allied' (meaning, you can't have RAF Fishbed that's "Friendly", without recreating the entire aircraft/folder and it's associated ini edits) and if THAT hasn't confused you, I haven't done my job right!!! wrench kevin stein

Yup, you need seperat skin folder for EACH nation involved. Just look at how the stock MiGs are set up. wrench kevin stein

for XP you path would be similiar to this: C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\My Documents\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2 but definatly, check the SF2 KB. Answers in there wrench kevin stein

amen, brother!! The TE really blows goats. WE can only hope that in the next iteration of the engine, and if/when TK releases a new TE for it, has MUCH more functionality. Jan Tuma's terrain WOULD be closer ... does FE use the WoV/WoE/WoI TE??? If one has the texturelist, it shouldn't be too hard (famous last words, eh??) wrench kevin stein

Dosne't seem to really matter .... for example, AmericaNorthWest in 'one' of my SF2 installs, NOTHING has been changed from ANSI and it works just fine. In fact, the glitch on 08 on the winter tile set seems to be gone completly. We're talking about the 'usual suspects'; factory place & it's buildings, other add-on structures. In another terrain (still building), I'm using a lot of the objects as seen in Polak's "Object Library 1", and haven't had issues with them either. ...other than screwed up shadows caused by the 2/10 patch, but ALL the objects (stock included) are equally messedup. The only thing I think it does, is increased loading time of the mission/terrain as it has to read both types. If all in Unicode, it's supposed to be faster (slightly -also depends on the target area density; how much 'stuff' has to get loaded) wrench kevin stein

File Name: GermanyCE Road Tiles for TE Usage File Submitter: Wrench File Submitted: 19 Mar 2010 File Category: Tilesets GermanyCE Road Tiles - for use with Terrain Editor =ONLY= This little mod, as stated above is for use with the WoE terrain editor ONLY. It will allow Terrain Engineers a MUCH easier time in trying to place and link the various road tiles, without going crosseyed and blind in the process. What's been done, is after extracting the stock road tiles, I've painted the actual 'road region' a bright yellow (as seen in the accompanying screen shot). Now, when you load you textureset, the roads will show up so' s you can see them. As always, unzip to a temp folder somewheres that easy to find, and READ the enclosed readme for full, easy to follow instructions for useage Have Fun -- this'll help keep you sanity (just a little bit!) Wrench Kevin Stein Click here to download this file