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Richard: No reason you should. Part of it is a learning process that everyone goes through. Also, you have encountered some bugs and less than friendly features along the way. I am going to address the missing MiGs skin bug in the Gold release version. I'm simply going to include all the default NVN skins in the download. If ThirdWire's installer can't be relied upon to supply skins that should be there, then I'll ship 'em myself in the Expansion Pack. Eric Howes

Richard: It depends on where and with what you hit them. Hit them with an AIM-7 head-on from 5 miles out and you'll tend to see more flames. Take off a wing or the tail with a gun shot and you won't see much if any flame at all. AIM-9 kills are a mixed bag. Eric L. Howes

DrArrow: Thanks for those. I'll check them out later tonight. ELH

Gerwin: I finally got around to trying your campaign patch on WoV 2008. I've got bad news and good news. Bad news: after patching the Campaign.DLL with your tool, I got a CTD on that DLL within the first minute of the first mission in RT campaign flown with VF-21 F-4Bs. Good news: after restoring the original DLL, I took a few hours and ported over the SF2V Expansion Pack NVN terrain, plus all the new ground objects (including air defenses), effects, environment mods, and a few other things -- basically everything but the aircraft from the Expansion Pack. Then I tried the same campaign as before. Result: I'm ten missions into the campaign and have yet to be tasked with hitting Noi Bai. I'm doing strikes every mission now, but I'm hitting everything but Noi Bai. In fact, I haven't even hit anything at an airfield yet. There are still some glitches, though: 1) The VPAF's MiG force got wiped out in the first 3-4 missions, so every mission now is mud moving. I think we can work on that with some tricks from the SF2V campaigns. 2) The game completely disregards the ExportStartYear dates for all ground objects except stock ones. So, I've got SA-3s showing up in 1965 (they shouldn't start until 1973) and so forth. the solution is simple enough: change the Nation on those items to NVIETNAM, set Exported=FALSE, and then set the Service dates as you want. Still very annoying. I'll keep on with the campaign to see what happens, but things look good so far. The upshot of this is that after finally uploading the Gold version of the SF2V Expansion Pack (hopefully within the next day or so) I could put together a WoV Terrain Upgrade pack for WoV 2006 and WoV 2008 for those who still don't have SF2V for whatever reason. Eric L. Howes

Richard: That's definitely a ThirdWire installer bug -- others have had the same problem with different MiGs. Here's an easy fix: 1. Download this package: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=1451 2. Unpack it to a temporary folder. 3. Find the \Objects\Aircraft\MiG-21PF\SovietSilver directory in that temporary folder. 4. Grab the five .BMP files from \SovietSilver and copy them to the \Objects\Aircraft\MiG-21PFV\VPAFSilver1 directory in your SF2V Mod Dir. That should take care of it. Eric L. Howes

Richard: The service end year for that model is 1972. The game shouldn't have allowed that aircraft to fly in 1973. Try flying an earlier year and see if that particular model is still missing a skin. If it is, then that's a problem with the ThirdWire installer -- let us know. Eric L. Howes

Snapper 21: Yep, that's the way they're supposed to look. Glad to hear you like it. Eric Howes

Richard: I'm not sure there is an easy way to prevent that from happening. When selecting AI aircraft to use in single missions, the game should automatically select aircraft only from nations specified in the terrains limited nations list. But paring down the list of aircraft presented to the user is another matter. If there is a way, one of the resident SF experts here at CA should know. Eric L. Howes

DrArrow: Glad to hear that you're enjoying the Expansion Pack. Regarding the A-6 LODs: yes, they are missing in the Expansion Pack. As stated in the ReadMe, you have to download the FOTI A-6A Intruder from here: http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?autocom=downloads&showfile=5014 Then grab the Cockpit folder from that mod and drop it in the folders for the A-6 and EA-6 variants. I haven't seen the brown triangles you've seen with the SAM airburst effects, so I don't know that there's much I can do about that. As for your other suggestions, we might be able to include an alternate set of flak effects. If you could ZIP up your alternate flak effects and attack them to a post here, I'll take a look. Same with your Green Hell 2 mods. I'm reluctant to go much beyond that, though, as we've already got so much optional this-that-and-the-other that users are becoming confused during installation (take a look at earlier posts in this thread). Best, Eric L. Howes

Richard: Version 1.0 of the Expansion Pack was built months before SF2I was released and, thus, is not supported. I don't know of any plans to update version 1.0. Version 2.0 (which is still in beta) should work better with with SF2I, but I can't guarantee even version 2.0 will be problem free. It will probably be some time before we fully understand all the changes introduced in SF2I. Eric L. Howes

Hey Folks: I need your opinion on something -- the more feedback the better. In an earlier post in this thread I complained about the air base areas and how much real estate they were taking up, esp. around Hanoi. I finally got fed up enough that I decided to do something about it. My skills with graphics editing are extremely limited, so I was reduced to finding potential substitute tiles and making minor edits to them. I think I have some that work pretty darn well: https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/sf2v/New_AB_Tiles.rar To install these two new tiles, unpack the RAR, then drop the two new BMPs in the \Terrains\VietnamSEA directory in your SF2V Mod Folder, overwriting the existing files. (If you don't like them, you can alway re-copy the originals back over from the \SouthVietnam directory.) Once the new tiles are installed, take a few recon flights over airbases (using the North Vietnam terrain), esp. the ones around Hanoi (but check out the several "jungle" air bases like Dien Bien Phu as well). What do you think? I like the fact that the air bases don't stick out like sore thumbs on the landscape anymore. The air base areas are definitely rougher and messier, but every photo I've ever seen of friendly or enemy bases in 'Nam from that era shows rough, messy air base areas, not those nicely manicured squares of green. In any case, please let me know what you think. Eric Howes

Jarhead1: You wrote: I started looking into this reported bug and quickly realized that there are no player-flyable Skyraider squadrons in the Rolling Thunder campaign. There are a few player-flyable Skyraider squadron in the Steel Tiger campaign, but they all look good to me. Could you shed any more light on how you were flying with a Skyraider squadron in the Rolling Thunder campaign? Eric L. Howes

topcat II: Yes, it is still coming. I spent most of the weekend adding in new terrain items, tweaking some target areas, fixing minor things in the TYPES.INI for each terrain, and performing other minor fixes. I'm hoping to release in the next week. Eric L. Howes

ravenclaw_007: Actually, you do not need to build two new CAT files for the split North/South Vietnam terrains -- only one. See my two posts on page 5 of this thread: http://forum.combatace.com/topic/48557-strike-fighters-2-israel-release/page__st__80__p__349884entry349884 http://forum.combatace.com/topic/48557-strike-fighters-2-israel-release/page__st__80__p__349907entry349907 TK has acknowleged that there is a bug that is preventing third-party terrains from being properly picked up and used. I would expect him to release a fix for this at some point. Eric L. Howes

Gerwin: Interesting. How many missions have you played in your test campaign? Are there any airbase strikes at all, or have they been completely removed? Eric L. Howes

Luca: You have the ThirdWire MiG-17PF, so you'll need to install the MiG-17PF from the \Optional directory. You also have the M60A1, os you'll have to install the M60A1 from the \Optional folder. You already have the MiG-17A, so you don't need to install the one from the \Optional directory. Follow the instructions for installing the main Expansion Pack items, then follow the instructions for installing the optional items I specified above. Eric L. Howes

Luca: You asked: NF4+ and the Expansion Pack need to be in separate mod folders -- they cannot be both active in the same mod folder because of overlap and conflicts between the two different mods. In your case, SF2E is using a different mod folder than SF2V, so you could install SF2E to your SF2E mod folder and the Expansion Pack to your SF2V mod folder. Eric Howes

Malibu43: TK provided an explanation over at the ThirdWire forums: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6952 Eric Howes

gerwin: You wrote: That's not a change that we introduced. I fiddled with some of the dates and specified different textures for some units, but the basic difference was there in the stock campaigns. I suspect that TK's historical research led him to do this. While I'm no expert on the VPAF, my understanding is that VPAF fighter regiments were occasionally disbanded and new ones formed, probably as a result of attrition of older aircraft and the acquisition of new aircraft from the USSR and PRC. One potential benefit for game play is that even if a particular VPAF unit suffers devastating losses early on in the campaign, a fresh unit will be stood up within a matter of time, guaranteeing a fresh supply of MiGs to tangle with. Please let us know how the campaign continues. I have given some thought to porting back the Expansion Pack NVN terrain, with all its changes and new goodies, to WoV. It wouldn't be that difficult a task at all, given that the SF2V and WoV terrains are pretty much the same to begin with and the fact that the Expansion Pack terrain uses Brain32's and CA_Stary's terrain mods, which were originally developed for WoV. Using a vastly expanded TARGETS.INI would definitely inject more flavor and variation into the WoV 2008 campaigns. Eric L. Howes

Stingray77: Interesting suggestion, but if we were going to include some additional aircraft (esp. large aircraft), we'd probably go with one or more of the following: - KC-135 - KC-130F - EKA-3B - EB-66C/E - RB-66B/C - KA-6D - E-2 - S-1 - P-3 - U-2 - RC-135 - EC-121 Eric L. Howes

Dave: In fact, it does work. I created a new VietnamSEA.cat just as described in my previous post. I left the custom terrain INIs in each terrain folder. I then flew a strike mission with the North Vietnam terrain against the Bac Long radar station (island off Haiphong). I then switched to the South Vietnam terrain and flew a strike against a PAVN base along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The one bit of weirdness that I did note was rendering of clouds and mountains when they collide. I got not only the familiar clipping glitches with SF2V/SF2E, but also that curious snow-on-the-ground effect that happens if you play around with some of the RenderInOrder settings in the terrain DATA.INI. In some instances I saw clouds switch from one glitch to the other -- first being clipped by the side of a mountain only to morph into snow-on-the-ground once I got closer. Aside from that, no problems. Eric L. Howes

Dave: You wrote: One thing that I noticed yesterday when testing was that SF2I was picking up the different terrain INI files. It recognized two separate terrains, picked up the new terrain items (buildings, bridges, etc.) from the TYPES.INIs, and also picked up the new target areas from the TARGETS.INIs. I could bomb the Ai Mo Warehouse Facility (a new target area), for example, and all the buildings were there. It's just that they were sitting on top of the default terrain tiles, not the Brain32/CA_Stary tiles. What that suggests is that you could add all the new terrain stuff except for the modded INIs to the VietnamSEA.cat, then keep the separate sets of INIs for each terrain (North and South). So, try packing everything but the following from the VietnamSEA terrain into the VietnamSEA.cat: VietnamSEA.INI VIETNAMSEA_TYPES.INI VIETNAMSEA_TARGETS.ini VIETNAMSEA_MOVEMENT.INI VIETNAMSEA_data.INI Don't bother packing anything from the SouthVietnam terrain, as it has all the same items (save for the INIs) as the VietnamSEA terrain. Then replace the default VietnamSEA.cat with your modded version. Note that I have not tried this myself yet, but it just might work, giving you both terrains. Eric L. Howes

Folks: I've spent the better part of last night and today looking into SF2I and its impact on the SF2V Air & Ground Expansion Pack. I've installed SF2I to a merged install of SF2, SF2V, and SF2E (on a WinXP DX9 system). I've also unpacked all the CATs and sorted the resulting files, comparing key files with earlier SF2 releases. Finally, I applied the Expansion Pack with all the Fixpacks. Here are the issues I've encountered so far (there are likely plenty more I haven't spotted yet): - aircraft now use *_HOLES.DDS damage files - Loading & Hangar images are now .JPGs - default Loading image now a .JPG - some Environment shader .FX files have changed in EnvironmentSystem.ini - terrains not using Brain32/GH2 TOD/TGA/BMP files (defaults to TW terrain with missing tiles) I also notice that TK has released a new GunEditor and WeaponEditor specifically for SF2I and later, so presumably we would have to run all the new guns and weapons through those for SF2I users. Most of these issues are easily addressed. The last one -- the terrain problem -- is a killer, though. The game simply will not use the TODs and graphic files from Brain32 and CA_Stary. It defaults to the ThirdWire terrain files, and even then there are huge white patches all over the place -- presumably missing tiles. I'm no terrain expert, but it looks to me like the core terrain files from Brain32 and CA_Stary that we're using in the Expansion Pack will have to be re-done, which is not a task that I or Malibu43 can do. So, barring some miracle fix for the terrain problem, we're going to proceed with a final release of the Expansion Pack that will support SF2V merged with SF2 and/or SF2E only, but not SF2I. Before that final release I still have some new goodies to incorporate, plus I need to look into the bug that Jarhead1 reported with the A-1H in the RT campaign. We'll look into doing a compatibility update pack for SF2I users down the road, should the terrain problems get resolved. Eric L. Howes

Jarhead1: OK, thanks for the info. I'll look into it and see what I can find. Eric L. Howes

Jarhead1: Are playing a campaign? If so, which one? Which squadron? If you're playing Single Missions (Create a Mission), what type of mission are you trying? Which map? North Vietnam or South Vietnam? Eric L. Howes