malibu43

OK. Wow. This is totally in my price range and looks to be more powerful than the M11X. It's from HP. http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=High+performance&series_name=dv7tqe_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/High_performance/dv7tqe_series It's ATI instead of NVIDIA. Any thoughts there?

This is probably pushing my budget, but it looks quite a bit more powerful than the M11X: http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/pdet.to?poid=488794

Looks like I mis-typed above. It comes with a 335M, not a 330M. Looks pretty good to me. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.notebookcheck.net%2FNVIDIA-GeForce-GT-335M.24060.0.html&ei=qNFrTcGWO4OC8gb4wuiJCw&usg=AFQjCNH3lKZ2fBHHzwUHkxDfdfR8RpvbIg But then again, I coming from a laptop with an intel integrated chip. So everything looks good!!!

Hey guys, It looks like I'll be able to get a new laptop for gaming once our tax return shows up. Here is my "criteria": ~ $1000 Run SF2 with all the bells and whistles Run DCS A-10 at reasonably high settings Nice to have: be able to run IL-2:CoD, Jet Thunder, and Combat Helo when they come out. Right now I'm looking at an Alienware M11X. I know Dave has one and he's said some positive stuff about it. Here is the specific configuration I've selected: https://ecomm2.dell.com/dellstore/basket.aspx?cart_id=1009523302412&toEmail=ecomm@dell.com (for those to lazy to click on the link: i5 processor, 4GB RAM, 1GB GT330M, 320 GB HD, Win7, external optical drive) Any thoughts or suggestions? Will this meet the needs I listed above? Can I get more bang for my buck with something else? The only things I'm questioning are the HD size (but i already have external drives I can use if I need to) and RAM. Upgrading to 8GB RAM is about $170... Thanks! Gregg

There could be a variety of things wrong with the campaign you created. ie - mission rates, supply levels, placement of ground forces, strategic node placement, etc... At least one of these aren't set up correctly and as a result the enemy is ending the campaign after one mission. If you post your campaign files, we may be able to help... But, my real suggestion, since you're very new to the series, is to start by making adjustments to existing campaigns and seeing the effects the changes have. Campaign creation from scratch is difficult, takes a lot of time, and can be challenging even for those very experienced with this series. It may be a bit advance for someone who is newer.

You are patched to the '08 patch level, right? I think with that weapons pack you may need to run the weapons data throught the weapons editor once to get the weapons to work in game. That should be covered in either the readme for the weapons pack or in the knowledge base.

The French MirageIIIC isn't flyable with the stock games (the Israeli version is). You need to install NF4+ to get flyable MirageIIIC. And then in NF4+, the MirageIIIC is already added to the campagin!

Try: CAMPAIGNS/campaigne1

Again - what exactly were the changes you made and where did you put the files afterward? Campaign edits work just fine in SF2. I have done several.

SF2 has better graphics, a mission editor, a different file/folder structure for mods, and other stuff. SF2 will continue to be patched and supported by Thirdwire, where SF1 will not. Also 99.9% of new mods that made are by modders and available here at CA will be for SF2 only as we move forward. SF2 is definitely the way to go. If it isn't too late, I would cancel your WoV order and order SF2V. In either series, you can merge all the titles together, but you can't merged titles from one series with the other. ie - SF2, SF2V, SF2E, SF2I can all be merged. SF1, WoV, WoE, WoI can all be merged. But you can't merge SF2 with WoV. Also it's much easier to merge the games with the SF2 series. Hopefully this information isn't coming too late!

Well, that depends on what plane you're flying and you're radar settings (again, I'm not sure if easy settings change the shape and appearance of the radar, I think it might). But in most aircraft after the late '60s or early '70s, there is an RWR wich is the round "radar looking thingy" that has lines or symbols on it representing other radars that are looking at your plane. If a radar is tracking you they flash and beep. If they have a lock on you, they flash more quickly and beep more quickly. Your wingman is saying "I've got a spike". "Spike" means that his RWR is indicating that he is being tracked by another radar. Could be friendly (yours) or enemy.

Boresight mode will automatically lock on to any aircraft directly off the nose of your plane, within a certain range ( ~ 10mi I think...?). If it locks onto someone you don't want to be locked onto, you need use the "unlock radar target" key, point your plane at the bad guy you're trying to lock onto, and try again. It's best for use during dogfights when you don't have time to mess with the radar and you know where your oponent is. The air-to-ground radar in ground map mode, will show you anything on the ground that radar waves reflect off of (tanks, building, bridges, etc...) and surface-to-air radars may show up as well, but they won't be distinguishable from anything else. In real life, you could lock onto these to aid you in dropping dumb bombs, laser guided bombs, and firing mavericks, but that isn't simulated in this game. A/G radar is mostly just there for show. In this game, you lock onto ground objects by simply pressing the 'E' key. Whether or not that helps you get your weapons on target depends on the weapon your using and how you deliver the weapon. In real life there are other systems that can be used to detect radars, but those systems aren't modeled in this game. Some newer ARM's (AGM-88) use these systems to fire at locked targets. The AGM-45 and AGM-78 modeled in Strike Fighters can't be locked onto targets by the pilot (in real life and in the game). They automatically home in on any radar emitting source they see and go after that. In game, your best bet is to point the nose of your plane at a surface-to-air radar, fire, and hope the missile goes after the target you want it to. If you're flying an aircraft equipped with a RWR (Radar warning receiver), it may give you some idication of the direction that the radar is in so you know you're pointed in the right direction before you fire.

Just keep practicing and refering the manual as much as you can. You'll get there eventually. Most people here play with settings on radar settings on Hard, and that's why it's hard for us to walk you through some of this. You might want to give hard settings a try - at least it will make it easier for us to help you out.

Wrong. Angles means "thousands of feet above sea level". So, "bogies/contacts/friendlies/whatever at angels 10" means "bogies/contacts/friendlies/whatever at 10,000' MSL"

Not sure about not having been shot down by a SAM. They're out there... What time period are you flying in? ARM (anit-radiation missile) are air-to-ground only and will only lock against a ground target that is emitting some sort of radar signal. So, no, they can't be used against other aircraft. The radar on your aircraft is for finding other aircraft. In real life, there are some additional sensors that can be used to find surface-to-air radars, but those are not modeled in this game. Also in real life, air-to-ground radar modes would allow you to find things such as tanks using the radar on your aircraft. However, that feature is not modeled in this game either. Some aircraft in game do have a ground mapping radar mode or terrain avoidance mode, but you can't identify or lock any targets. So, in short, the radar in this game is used pretty much for only finding other aircraft.

All Stary's new tiles are looking SWEET!

Yes, it will install into the SF2 folder by default, and you will have the content for both. You can install SF2E into a separate folder, and then they *should* behave as two separate games, needed to patched and updated separately. No content will be shared between the two.

It looks like groundoffensiveallowed= is set to TRUE for the friendly forces in both the Steel Tiger and Easter Offensive campaigns, where it should be set to FALSE. This was an oversight/error on our part. ... [Force001] Alignment=FRIENDLY Nation=USAF BaseArea=Saigon AirOffensive[001].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[001].Secondary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[002].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[002].Secondary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[003].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[003].Secondary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[004].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[004].Secondary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[005].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[005].Secondary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[006].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[006].Secondary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[007].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[007].Secondary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[008].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[008].Secondary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[009].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[009].Secondary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[010].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[010].Secondary=WAREHOUSE GroundOffensiveAllowed=TRUE <------- should be FALSE StartGroundOffensive=0 StartInterdiction=100 ... Try these updated files (make sure to put them in the corresponding folders). Back up the existing ones just in case: SF2V Ground Offensive Fix 2-23-11.zip Just a word of caution - the enemy will still go on the offensive and capture target areas if you fail to perform your missions. So, it is historically accurate in the sense that the US will not advance or try to "capture" Hanoi, but it is not historically accurate in the sense that if you perform poorly, South Vietnam will be overrun. It's a limitation of the campaign engine.

? Taking a look right now...

Hi all, I enjoyed a nice weekend in Tahoe over the last 3 days, so as I was sitting on the couch last night letting my body recover, I fired up FS9 to explore the area "from the air". The first flight I set up out of Lake Tahoe airport was set to noon, winter, and fair weather. As I took off, I noticed that the color of Lake Tahoe in game is a nasty "lake green", not a brilliant blue like the real-life lake. Because I was playing using my keyboard, I promptly crashed and had to restart the flight. Same settings, but this time the lake was blue. After I crashed again (why didn't I get my joystick out?), I restarted and the lake was green again. On a couple following the flights, the lake remained green. There is a resivour right near my house (Crystal Springs) that is always a nice dark blue, and I remember it appearing blue in FS9 before. However, last night, I set up a flight and it was that nasty lake-green. Now that I think about it, since I've had FS9 over the last year, I think I've seen lakes show up as both blue and green. Over that time, I've also experiemented with different addons. Does anyone know what determines weather a lake shows up as blue or green? Is it dictated by landclass? Weather? Season? Here are the addons I have installed: Ground Environment Pro Real Environment Pro Active Sky 6 Ultimate Terrain USA FS Genesis USA Landclass (above UT in my scenery library) Megascenery San Francisco (does cover Crystal Springs, but haven't had an issue in the past) Megascenery Nor Cal (does not cover lake tahoe) Thanks!

You're the man. Thanks!

Thanks. Looks like I've been lucky with FAT32 so far and I probably want to chang my strategy moving forward. I'll probably just split the hard drive into HFS and NTFS and write to those partitions from their respective OS's. I know Mac's can read (but not write) NTFS and it looks like there are free drivers to allow winXP to read HFS, so I can still transfer stuff from one OS to the other easily using those two partitions. Plus I can look around for programs that allow the OS's to write the other format if I really need to. Thanks!

Folks, I got a new 320 GB hard drive for my MacBook for x-mas, so I saved the old 160gb hard drive, bought an enclosure for it on ebay and it's now a 160GB external drive. I did this the last time I upgraded with an old 80GB. Since I use both Mac and PC, and prefer to 1) be able to share the files between the two if I need to and 2) not have to determine how much space I need for each OS ahead of time, I formatted the 80gb hard drive as FAT32 (vs an OSX partition and NTFS partition). As of last night, I've done the same thing with the new hard 160gb drive (FAT32), but in reading on the internet, I see things about FAT32 having problems with larger capacity drives and potentially "inefficent" use of space. I didn't have any issues over the last few years with my 80GB hard drive. Is there any reason (other than a 4GB file size limit) that I should steer clear of FAT32 for backing up my files? Like I said, given that I use two OS's frequently, it's really the easiest format for me to use. If for some reason I should not be backing up on FAT32, I could alway have the 160GB hard drive be formatted for 110GB OSX and 50GB FAT32 (the FAT32 would just be for temporarily storing files that I want to move from the Mac to PC, for example, my ~40GB of music files), and then I could format the 80GB hard drive for NTFS for backing up gaming stuff from my windows install. So, like I said, FAT32 is a lot easier. So, given my intended use, any reason to steer away from FAT32?

Looks like the blocky effects are related to an issue that was already brought up with effects and atmospheric fog. TK said he's working on a fix for the next patch. Also, I realized that the flare smoke trail issue is a problem in my stock install as well as my modded install after all, so I let TK know about it.

After a little more playing around, I found that the flare issue is only in my NF4+, SF2V Exp Pack, and '48 SF2I Modded installs. The flares in my stock install are working correctly. I tried simply removing the countermeasureeffect.ini file in the effects folder, but that didn't fix the problem. So I'm assuming it's with a TGA or modded emitter somewhere. As far as the explosions go, I can confirm now that this is in both my stock installs and modded installs. So I guess it may be something I have to live with. When viewed from far away, explosions are big and blocky, but when you zoom in, they look normal. It's not really a show stopper, more of an annoyance. I've started a thread for this issue at the TW forums. I encourage those with the same issue to let TK know. http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=8259