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Wrench: Anyone who does that will end up breaking the '53 campaign -- or at least all the squadrons that use two of the three USAF Sabre models that appear in that campaign. I would not recommend doing that. Eric Howes

JonathanRL: Funny, I came up with slightly different numbers: [Cat1] SystemType=CATAPULT CatapultID=1 StartPosition=-9.515,33.179,17.111 EndPosition= -7.815,73.945,17.111 LaunchTime=1.18 LaunchEffect=CVNLaunchEffect CatapultEffect=CVNSteamEffect ReadyAnimationID=1 ReadyAnimationTime=5.0 [Cat2] SystemType=CATAPULT CatapultID=2 StartPosition=8.257,39.133,17.111 EndPosition= 7.657,73.945,17.111 LaunchTime=1.18 LaunchEffect=CVNLaunchEffect CatapultEffect=CVNSteamEffect ReadyAnimationID=1 ReadyAnimationTime=5.0 Eric Howes

Wrench: Yes,I tested the data, which works fine. Eric Howes

Wrench: Here's the data I'm now using for the arresting cables... [Cable1] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=1 StartPosition=-10.5,-80.353,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,-80.353,17.246 [Cable2] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=2 StartPosition=-10.5,-73.084,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,-73.084,17.246 [Cable3] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=3 StartPosition=-10.5,-65.816,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,-65.816,17.246 [Cable4] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=4 StartPosition=-10.5,-58.548,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,-58.548,17.246 [Cable5] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=5 StartPosition=-10.5,-51.388,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,-51.388,17.246 [Cable6] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=6 StartPosition=-10.5,-41.934,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,-41.934,17.246 [Cable7] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=7 StartPosition=-10.5,-32.48,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,-32.48,17.246 [Cable8] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=8 StartPosition=-10.5,-23.025,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,-23.025,17.246 [Cable9] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=9 StartPosition=-10.5,-13.571,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,-13.571,17.246 [Cable10] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=10 StartPosition=-10.5,0.474,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,0.474,17.246 [Cable11] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=11 StartPosition=-10.5,5.189,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,5.189,17.246 [Cable12] SystemType=ARRESTER_CABLE CableID=12 StartPosition=-10.5,9.141,17.246 EndPosition= 10.5,9.141,17.246 Also, the Deck section... [Deck] SystemType=FLIGHT_DECK FlightDeckHeight=17.106 FlightDeckLenght=173.212 FlightDeckWidth=38.777 LandDeckAngle=0.0 CollisionMesh=FLIGHT_DECK LandingAimPoint=0.0,-85.353,17.106 Eric Howes

Wrench: The arrestor cable spans have zero-width. X coordinates of the start and end positions are set to 0.0. Also, the Independence-CVL is missing the collision LOD. Eric Howes

slick cowboy: The mod works fine in NF5 in my tests. Eric Howes

KJakker: Be careful. What seems like a good set of values in testing may not prove to be as desirable in everyday game play. When testing this kind of thing, the object is to get aircraft shot down. So, when lots of aircraft get shot down, it may seem like the values that produced those results are the ideal values. Once you start playing the game -- flying single missions and campaigns -- your view very well might change. I know mine did. After hitting on some gun values that seemed ideal, I moved on to testing campaigns and so forth. It didn't take too long before I was thinking, "OK, yeah, I wanted these things to be more dangerous, but this is ridiculous. I'm getting shot down every other mission, and every flight I take with me loses half its aircraft" Result: I went back and adjusted the values downward. Eric Howes

KJakker: Two things to fiddle with: 1. the WarheadWt on the guns themselves: multiply the defaults by 100x-300x (or even higher) 2. these values for the gunners on the ship: RangeFinder= BallisticComputer= Bump those up to 10. As I said, I strongly suspect that TK has made even more adjustments to the way time-fused guns are handled so that what worked in the 2009-2010 patch levels are no longer effective. But that's a hunch or suspicion at best. Eric Howes

KJakker: The fused guns do model the shell burst, and you can indeed be shot down by them. The modeling may not be very sophisticated or accurate, but the time-fused guns can damage aircraft. When you (or an AI wing man) gets shot down by a contact-fused gun, you typically see this sequence of lines in the mission log: - Zsu-23 fired 23MM_AZP23 at Pilot. - Pilot was hit by 23MM_AZP23. - Pilot was shot down near Hanoi. With SAMs, a similar sequence occurs. With the timed-fused guns, however, you will see only this: - Pilot was shot down near Hanoi. TK has changed the modeling of time-fused guns over the years. This I know because when I initially tested the guns we customized for SF2 and WOV 2008 in WOV 2006 (for inclusion in the WOV Expansion Pack), I was shocked -- entire flights of B-57s and A-4s were getting blown out of the sky within a matter of seconds by time-fused S-60s and M1939s. The solution was to crank down the WarheadWt value on the time-fused guns. Since the release of the SF2V Expansion Pack in 2009, I've started to suspect that TK may have fiddled some more with the modeling of time-fused guns, as those guns are not as effective now as they were at earlier patch levels. Again, I don't claim that shell bursts are modeled in a very sophisticated or realistic fashion, but all the evidence I've seen tells me that they are modeled to some degree. Eric Howes

suhsjake: OTC has been in the works for a while. Still needs some more work. The most difficult part has been the ground war, which requires the front line to bend in two opposite directions -- a difficult feat on on narrow island. Eric Howes

Folks: Sorry, but it sounds like an incredible PITA to me, even if the retirement dates issue worked out. In addition to creating multiple carrier battle groups for every carrier with multiple tours, you'd need to create multiple versions of each squadron, each differently named and with different start dates. Keep in mind that there are currently 70 USN squadrons is the version of Rolling Thunder currently used in the SF2V Expansion Pack plus a few misc USMC squadrons that did carrier tours. You're effectively talking about tripling that squadron count. And all that for what? Some moving ships that function as eye candy. I may add some static ships to carrier stations in an update, but I'm not very keen on bulking up the Rolling Thunder campaign with over 200 USN/USMC squadrons -- or maintaining such a campaign from one patch to another. Eric Howes

elephant: The Suez Mod will be updated to SF2NA standards. The SF2V Expansion Pack is more difficult, though -- the problems there were discussed earlier this year in a substantive thread. The real problem with SF2V is that the largest stock campaign (Rolling Thunder) is heavily dependent upon carrier tours -- that is, the same carriers making repeated appearances over the course of the three and a half years of Rolling Thunder. At present I know of no way do carrier tours with SF2NA-style naval campaigns. Carrier groups have a single start date, a single retire date, and that's it. We need carrier groups with multiple start dates and retire dates.The alternative is a dozen of so carriers all active at the same time, all churning up the Gulf of Tonkin for the duration of Rolling Thunder. The result looks ridiculous. There are also potential performance problems on some users' machines. It's an easier task to enable carrier groups for Single Missions --but that does involve duplicating both terrains in the Expansion Pack to create NavalMap-enabled versions of NorthVietnam and SouthVietnam. Eric Howes

Dedalus: It was as I suspected: the lack of shipping routes on the blue side. Attached is an updated MOVEMENT.INI that will allow you to fly anti-shipping missions for the Iraqi side. You'll need to get past the USN destroyers and cruisers to get a shot at the cargo ships, though. The new MOVEMENT.INI should be dropped in \Terrains\DS, overwriting the old MOVEMENT.INI. Eric Howes DS_MOVEMENT.zip

Dedalus: Quick followup: to answer my own question, it appears that all Iraqi aircraft that are configured for anti_ship missions suffer from this problem. From what I can tell, the game engine is simply not allowing Red side anti_shipping missions. If you select anti_shipping, it actually generates a recon mission. The loadout you're seeing is actually the recon loadout for whatever aircraft you've selected. This behavior happens on both the NavalMap enabled DS terrain and the older/standard version of the terrain. It happens even when I explicitly specify the Allowed Mission Types in the terrain's main INI file. I do notice that the terrain Movement.INI does not have any shipping routes that are in Blue side territory, so that may be playing a role here. I'll have to generate some new shipping routes and see if that changes the behavior. Eric Howes

Dedalus: Which aircraft? Eric Howes

fenbeiduo: Please don't post the same question in multiple threads. I already responded to your earlier post elsewhere. The modded carriers work fine. If they didn't, we'd be getting flooded with complaints about them. We aren't. I have tested the carriers again on my own system to verify that they work fine. Make sure that you're installing all the bits to the correct places properly -- including the SF2NA versions of the files, which are delivered in a separate folder. Eric Howes

fenbeiduo: The modded carriers work fine. If they didn't, we'd be getting flooded with complaints about them. We aren't. And i just tested the carriers again on my own system to verify that they work fine. Make sure that you're installing all the bits to the correct places properly -- including the SF2NA versions of the files, which are delivered in a separate folder. Eric Howes

Al: I have never seen that error. Perhaps someone else has. The best I can offer is that something in your SF2 install is porked (or the underlying OS config on which you're running), or something in your install of the mod was not done correctly. As to what specifically is causing that error, I have no idea. Someone else who has encountered that error might have some additional insight. Eric Howes

plug_nickel: I don't understand what "unavailable" means. Is that the text that you're actually seeing in the campaign screen? Also, do you have SF2I, Expansion Pack 1, and Expansion Pack 2 installed? Eric Howes

captainschwarz: None of the F-16s in NF4+ (which are the early blocks) can carry LGBs. That's why you're not seeing LGBs in the Loadout screen for those aircraft. If you want to change that, I would suggest that you consult the Knowledge Base here at CombatAce. Eric Howes

Spiff: Try bumping LandingSpeed value down -- say, by 0.5 increments. Eric Howes

Allen: Well, the last update for the Expansion Pack was in January of this year. As we discussed in a thread earlier this past Spring, a lot of the new SF2NA features (at least the ones pertaining to carrier battle groups) are of limited use in SF2V because of the nature of the carrier tours in the campaigns, esp. Rolling Thunder. Carrier battle groups and carrier-based naval aircraft could be implemented for Single Missions, but carrier battle groups are impractical for campaigns. The new aircraft probably will be enabled as optional installs for those that have SF2NA as part of their install base. As for Homefries' A-6 and EA-6 projects, those are fine mods. They are also large, and I'm not sure it's the job of the Expansion Pack to simply redistribute such mods when users can easily download and install them on their own. Remember: the Expansion Pack is already very large, and I am loath to turn it something even larger -- another comprehensive mod, heaven forbid, on the scale of NF5. I only need one of those in my life to maintain. So, yes, there will be an update. Can't say when, as I have several other things on my plate right now. Eric Howes

AleTB: The second file is configured for use with SF2NA. If it works, great. But I don't understand why it would work if you don't have SF2NA. Eric Howes

AleTB: Attached is a ZIP with two different versions of the CVN68_DATA.INI, which should be dropped in \Objects\GroundObject\CVN68 in your Mods folder. Try each of them in order, then tell me which one works. Also, what patch level are you on? Eric Howes cvn68_data.zip