malibu43

Yup. That's what I'm thinking. Mine is really similar to that right, except I still have my aircraft's info and I have a small box instead of a dot. I had a dot for a while, but actually found in a lot of cases that it obscured what was behind it. So i go with a smaller box instead. Another reason I forgot to mention that I keep my aircraft's info in the bottom left is that SF2 doesn't/can't use a detent to set after burner. I found that without the extra visual cue to indicate when i was in burner or not, I was spending way to much time trying to find 100% mil power without going into burner. On some aircraft its obvious due to noise, etc..., but on some it was hard to tell. That is a good point. It's another fall-back for when you can't seem to find whatever it is you're looking for. So are you flying with the HUD "turned off" via alt-D? Or HUD set to "hard"? Another thing I've found fun is using the "target nearest center of view" key. When flying CAS in an A-10, I actually try to visually identify the tanks, look at them, and then target what I'm looking at instead of just pressing E and looking for the red dot/box. The same could be done for A/A combat.

I'm sure in real life, I'd want the RWR loud! I'd want know if someone was (or was ready to) shoot something at me! But when I'm at home at the kitchen table and my wife is 20 feet away in the living room, loud probably isn't such a great idea. (DEE-DOO DEE-DOO DEE-DOO DEE-DOO DEE-DOO DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE...) "What the hell is that annoying noise!?!? Turn it the f#&k down!?!?!"

Cessna 172 and P-51 mustang. Both have wings with control surfaces. Both have a propeller in front. Both have a place for someone to sit with glass in front and on the sides. Both have a vertical control surface at the rear of the plane. Both have smaller horizontal control surfaces at the rear of the plane. They both use wheels to move along the ground. It's all relative.

Wow. Great job on these. Really improves immersion over the stock "beeps". They remind me of the RWR audio from the Iron Hand mission in FOTI (the movie, of course). They end up being a little too loud for me, though. When you're being tracked by a FireCan for 10 minutes, it can get a little annoying! I'm going to try adjusting the volume of the files down just a little. IIRC correctly from "When Thunder Rolled," the author commented that they'd turn the RWR audio down because listening to s generic search radar for hours could get a little annoying...

Free Flight? Just start any mission and fly away from the action. Then do whatever you want. It's that simple.

Hi balasch0 - I just tried to send you a PM, but I got a message that you don't have access to the PM system.... I have been wanting to add carrier battle groups to my modded desert campaigns that already have carriers added: http://combatace.com/files/file/11366-carriers-in-stock-sf2-campaigns/ I just haven't had the time to work on it yet. Since you are already adding carrier battle groups to the '75 campaign, would you be interested in helping me update the '75 campaign included in my mod, as well as the other 5 campaigns? It should be a very simple task, mostly just copy and pasting the changes from the '75 campaign over to the others and making sure the numbering is all correct. Let me know! Thanks!

That sounds like winzip isn't maintaining the folder structures when it extracts. You should see a few folders when you open the archives. Inside those folders should should be other folders and files, etc... If you're seeing just a list of thousands of files, you need to change a setting in your extraction utility. There is a setting in winzip (I think, I only use winrar) that you need to set to maintain folder structures during extraction. Try that. And then make sure to install everything in order. Parts 1-4, then the last update.

Well, don't forget the airforce operated Skyraiders up through pretty much the end of the war. While their main focus was SAR, they did fly CAS, armed recon, and strikes in Laos, Cambodia, and S Vietnam (maybe even some of the lower packs in N Vietnam also). There are other aircraft in the AGXP that utilize the low threat environment of S. Vietnam as well. I think that is really one of the core features of the AGXP, and for that reason, it needs to maintain that capability. Also, even if A-1's have only CAS, anti-ship, and armed recon allowed in the campaign file, the campaign engine might assign them a strike or recon mission over Hanoi if there aren't any of the other missions available at the time. Another thing to consider is that having the two terrains broken out by N and S Vietnam allows the player to better control what kind of mission they get from the single mission screen. The idea is that if I feel like white-knuckle, scared out of my mind, flak happy strike missions, I select N Vietnam. If I want something more low key, I can select S. Vietnam. This is another thing that I think is important for the AGXP and needs to be maintained. So we just need to make sure we don’t add any/many S. Vietnamese strike or SEAD targets to the N. Vietnam map. Otherwise we could screw things up. Armed Recon, anti-ship, and CAS I’m not as worried about, since the player knows what kind of mission he’s going to get if he selects one of those. Here is one possible approach that might bring both your ideas and the AGXP together: S. Vietnam, Steel Tiger, and Easter Offensive 1. Keep the separate campaigns and terrains for S. Vietnam. These are needed for aircraft like the B-57G, A-1, and F-100. There really isn’t any way around this. 2. Add some of the new armed recon and anit-ship routes to S. Vietnam. That way they can be utilized in the campaigns and from the single mission screen. 3. We can also try your new campaign nodes in the South Vietnam campaigns. If it works and brings more variation to the ground war, it’s a big plus. I think the caveat here is that we need to make sure the front line doesn’t get all out of whack and that things like airbases don’t fall into NVA hands (unless the player grossly fails to provide CAS, which should never happen in such a low threat environment). N. Vietnam, Rolling Thunder, and LBI 4. Add the armed-recon and anti ship routes to the N. Vietnam map as well, so that they can be utilized in the campaigns. 5. Add the ground war to the campaigns, assuming it works correctly as I stated in #3 above and assuming we can get a good 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of tough missions up North to easy missions down South (it sounds like you may have this figured out already). This also assumes we can keep MiG’s out of S. Vietnam. Anything I missed? Thoughts?

Interesting... So you're getting a good balance of hairy missions up north and "easy" ones down south? If indeed it does work, that would be a nice addition to the RT and LBI campaigns. I think we'll still need the separate Steel Tiger and Easter Offensive campaigns, though, for aircraft like A-1's, F-100's, etc... to keep them from getting slaughtered up North. Unless you find a way to limit an air unit to only operate within a certain area (which I don't believe you can). That was one of the issues with it all in one campaign - you'd end up getting tasked with hitting a target in Hanoi in 1971 with a flight of A-1's. Yikes! Never eneded well. Or, your flight of A-1's will be working CAS in S. Vietnam and get jumped by Migs! Also never ended well. I did experiement with shortening ranges, but, as you pointed out, it leads to other issues and still doesn't 100% fix the problem. Although, along that line of thought, while the PIRAZ group might help to mitigate MiG's down south (but probably won't eliminate it all together), an unintended consequence of having the PIRAZ group shooting down MiG's is that RT, LBI, and LBII will be even shorter on MiG's. The campaigns can be boring enough with MiG's being so scarce, but now if we have ships blasting them out of the sky as well, there will be nothing for Crusaders and F-4's to do on escort missions. I think that is one area where gameplay should win in the "gameplay vs accuracy" battle. Keep us posted.

Eburger already touched on this, but you missed a key point from my last post above. You can't combine the Rolling Thunder campaign in N. Vietnam with a ground war in S. Vietnam. Trust me, I've tried. The TW campaign engine doesn't work well with it. That is why the SF2V AGXP has separate campaigns for N. and S. Vietnam. I would advise that you use the Steel Tiger campaign as a base to start with. Regarding the strategic nodes in the campaigns - the nodes for Steel Tiger and Easter Offensive were carefully chosen and placed to allow the ground war to work. As you pointed out yourself, adding in other locations as campaign nodes without careful forethought and testing will hose the ground war and turn the front line into a mess. The result is that you'll see friendly airbases and locations being captured and held as enemy postions, which is not accurate. Additionally, flights will start being tasked with striking these locations as well. Imagine the confusion when the briefing reads "Strike and destroy the runway at Da Nang Airbase." I'll reiterate that you should take a look at the Steel Tiger and Easter Offensive campaigns, since they already have a lot of what you're looking for. This would be a much more effective and efficient approach than starting from scratch with Rolling Thunder, which problably won't work anyway. You are, of course, free to try whatever you want to see what works and what doesn't. But if we want your changes to be compatible with the SF2V AGXP, we need to try to keep them consistent with what we have already.

No worries! I didn't mean to sound like my toes were be stepped on! As far as enemy troop movements - are you flying in the Steel Tiger or Easter Offensive Campaigns? Those are the only ones that have ground troops added. You may not see much actual movement on the map, but if you fly as a unit with !00% CAS, you should end up with lots of CAS missions. Actually, I had to restrict the actual ability of the ground units to move too quickly due to the way the campaign engine works. Otherwise, it's hard to keep one side from covering too much ground and end the war in an unrealistic fashion (limitation of the game engine unfortunately). Anti-ship missions still seem to be rare, but certainly adding more routes to the S. Vietnam map would help with that. As it is right now, I've only see a couple when flying A-1's in the Steel Tiger campaign. Again, these would probably be suited better to the two S Vietnam campaigns (Steel Tiger and Easter Offensive). There are a lot of armed recon routes already, but if there are areas that are missing routes, they could be added. One thing to keep in mind, is that the campaign engine assigns armed recon mission when there are armed recon routes near a ground or air offensive objective. It may be the same with anti ship missions. So, the best way to increase the frequency of those mission types in S Vietnam, would be to place the routes near large target areas and strategic nodes. PS - to give a little background, the initial version of the SF2V AGXP simply added the ground war to the Rolling Thunder and Line Backer campaigns instead of creating separate campaigns and terrains for the ground wars. However for numerous reasons (that I don't have time to get into right now) having both the ground war in S Vietnam and the large scale bombing campaign in N Vietnam with their associated aircraft in the same campaign and terrain doesn't work well due to the way the SF1/2 game/campaign engine works. Separate campaigns and terrains is the only way to get it to work.

The SF2V AGXP already has Sampans set as cargo ships that appear in anit-ship missions. The NVA Squad and VC Squad ground objects in the SF2V AGXP are already set up to target both air and ground targets. That way, you have one ground object that works in both CAS and as a static AAA. If you look at the targets.ini's for the AGXP, lots of AAA has been added around towns and villages. More could easily be added using the infantry as the type. The infantry is also already set up in the types.ini in the AGXP. Also, the AGXP already has anti ship added to the allowed mission types. I'm not trying to be pushy with the existing AGXP. I just don't want people to uneccessarily duplicate work that's already done and available. More importantly, it would be nice if we had one "all inclusive" mod for vietnam, instead of forcing users to download and install 2 separate mods that have overlapping content and purpose. Most of what you're trying to do would work very well with the AGXP and shouldn't be too difficult to integrate. The only big thing to remember is that the AGXP has separate terrains set up for North and South Vietnam as well as separate campaigns for the North and South. We would just have to make sure changes to targets and campaigns are made in the appropriate (North or South) version. eburger and I are busy with a lot of stuff, but I think between the 2 of us, we could find time to help integrate the changes. Or you can make it a separate mod. Your call!

As of the November 11 patch (haven't checked with the latest patches), anit-ship missions were working in campaigns. The SF2V AGXP has shipping routes defined near the coast (via movement.ini), and units with anit_Ship > 0 in the campaign_data.ini file will get assigned anit-ship missions to attack Sampans using the shipping routes. One could simply add more routes that follow rivers (as per Wrench's instructions), and you should get missions to attack sampans in the rivers. Also, you mentioned getting ground units to move in the campaigns - that is already implemented in the Steel Tiger and Easter Offensive campaigns in the SF2V AGXP. For the rest of the additions (carrier battle groups, etc...), PM eburger68 and myself and we could see what it would take to incorporate it into the mod, and if someone has time to do it.

Just a random shot - And then doing my best not to skid off the end of the runway...

Shot #1 from me has absolutely no environmental addons. Just ORBX PNW and the stock FSX cub. The rest of the shots have some freebee stuff (enb mod, enhanced sky and cloud textures, water shaders). No REX, though. BTW - There is an FSX screenshot thread here at CA! http://combatace.com/topic/34419-ms-flight-simulator-screen-shot-of-the-day/

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Hey guys, I have been busy with RL lately and have casually followed most of the "post-SF2NA" threads but haven't been able to completely keep up with everything that's been discovered. I updated my installs to April 2012 this morning and want to start taking advantage of: 1. USN units start on carriers in single missions. 2. Task forces appearing in campaigns and single missions. 3. Aircraft parked on the decks of my stock carriers. For 1 - I need to install the water maps and add NavalMap=True to my terrains (I know where the DL is). Is there anything else I need to do? For 2 - For campaigns I need to add the task forces to my campaigns (I can look at the ODS campaigns to figure out how to do this). I also need to add a names file for the ships, right? I saw some of them in the DL section. Anything else I need to do for campaigns? What do I need to do to get task forces in single missions? For 3 - I think I saw some parking entries posted in a thread at one point, but can't find them now. I assume they need to be added to the data.ini for my stock carriers. Is there another entry that needs to be in the aircraft's data.ini to allow it to be parked on a carrier (I thought I saw that at one point)? Anything else I need to update? I know all this information is out there, but I'm hoping that someone who's kept up better will be able to help me pull it all together. Maybe all this could go in the KB...? Thanks!

In my case, I also had low expectations. So it's not an issue of expectations being met. Actually, SF2NA probably exceeded my expections in terms of new content. It's hard to explain why I'm holding off. Sort of like SF2NA seems a little disjointed from the rest of the series right now. And I'm not sure the direction the series is going in terms of mod-ability, which makes me hesitent to invest in it. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but that's the best way I can describe it.

Well, I'm not necessarily jumping ship on SF just yet, but I certainly haven't seen anything that has made me want to purchase SF2NA yet. I was thinking I'd be a "day 2" buyer, paying and downloading as soon as I confirmed (from the "day 1" buyers) that it wasn't a total mess. But... it was a bit of a mess. I know TK's cleaned up some stuff, but, other than the Tomcat Avionics and the new water effects, I haven't seen anything I like. And, with everything locked away, I can't even get those new water effects on my other 4 terrains. And, since this is a "sim-lite" after all, the tomcat avionics aren't really that big of a deal to me. I haven't given up yet. I'm just holding out. I need to know all the bugs have been fixed, and then I need some level of assurance that I can "harmonize" my SF2 titles. I want the good stuff from SF2NA in the other titles (water, anit-ship warefare, etc...) and the ability to mod SF2NA the way the other titles have been. The last one for me is a biggie. I want to know that SF2NA can be modded moving forward. That's what's made the TW titles worth the price for me in the past; knowing that it can be turned into something amazing and/or totally different thanks to the work of the modders here. If SF2NA can only be what it is right now, then it just doesn't appeal to me that much.

All those things in bold and italics I believe are from Stary's effects pack and not from the TW patch.

Missions 3 and 4 are up at SimHQ: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3494690/2/VA_25_A_1J_Southeast_Asia_1965.html

That is some really good marshalling.

The one thing that's always dissapointed me with Space games (for me - WCIV, XWing Alliance) is the feeling during gameplay that I'm in a turret just using left/right/up/down to engage targets rather than actually in something that is flying and moving through space. I think part of it comes from the fact that the player's craft can yaw around just as quickly (if not faster) as it would be to bank and yank, and also that you can simply "nose down" to get someone below you rather than going inverted and pulling a split-S. Does that make sense? If you watch the Star Wars movies the ships tend to dogfight like they are conventional aircraft flying in earths atmosphere. But all the video games had that "turret" feel to them. Not that real space ships would behave like P-51s and ME-109's, but that was part of the appeal to me. Is anything different with WCS?

If you followed that AGXP Gold instructions correctly, you should have those aircraft folders. Did you install all 4 parts plus the updates that are available in the download section?