malibu43

No need to uninstall!!! It is a compatibility issue with the RedTop and FireStreak that are included with NF4+, and it should be corrected in the upcoming patch to make NF4+ compatible with the Exp pack. Until the patch comes out, you can do one of three things: 1) Like Wrench said, compare the NF4+ _data.ini for those weapons with the stock and make the necessary changes 2) Just delete the NF4+ versions of the weapons and let the game revert to the stock 3) Run NF4+ through the StrikeFighters2 Europe.exe and use the StrikeFighters2 Exp2.exe to access the new content in a stock environment (how to do this is covered in the Knowledge Base). Again, just temporary options until the new NF4+ patch comes out.

OK. Where to start... Read through this forum: http://combatace.com/forum/268-thirdwire-sf2-series-knowledge-base/ Pay close attention to this thread: http://combatace.com/topic/40588-sf2sf2v-knowledge-base/ This specific post helps explain how to create multiple intalls: http://combatace.com/topic/40588-sf2sf2v-knowledge-base/page__view__findpost__p__306141 You may still have questions after reading through this, but at least reading these first will hopefully make things easier to help with. In short: 1) yes you can have NF4+ with the exp pack (although it will be a little buggy until the NF4+ patch comes out), 2) You don't need Exp Pack 1, 3) You should be able to have multiple installs. It's very easy and is covered in the threads I linked to. So read up and then let us know what you're still having problems with!

Which SA-3 do you have installed? Which Hawk do have installed? What weapons pack do you have installed? When you say ActiveYear, what file is that entry showing up in? Lastly are you flying blue or red? Because Hawks are blue and SA-3's are red, so depending on what aircraft you're flying, one them is never going to lock or fire at you. In general, you need to include more specific information when you post questions, so people can help you. Also, I would suggest (as others already have) just reading through and following these forums for a while (especially the knowledge base!!!), as well as just extracting files from the .cat files and looking through them to understand how the game works. Maybe download something like Nato Fighters 4 (don't necessarily install it - just unpack it somewhere and have a look at it) and look through the files there to see what people have done to implement different things in game. The Strike Fighters series requires baby steps and patience to learn how to mod. Good luck!

In case anyone wants some guidance removing unwanted aircraft from terrain/era specific mod folder created with a full merged install, here are the stock aircraft and ground objects for non-merged titles: SF2 SF2V SF2E SF2I *edit* - I had the "stock" expansion packs over their respective titles as well (SF2I+Exp1, SF2E+Exp2), but I don't know what happened to the images. I'll see if I can find them later, or if someone has them, they can post them instead.

Ooh! Pick me! Pick me! J/K It was not too hard. Only took a few minutes, although it was hard to determine for some aircraft (like all the MiG-21's and -23's) which ones belonged in which title. I may try and put together a list to help with that. Or just run each stock .exe (non merged) to get the aircraft folder and then snap a screenshot. With my last question about userlist and limited nations, I was just trying to make sure I understood how it all worked.

Just a quick question, again, related to unwanted stock items: Does the user list.ini only limit what AI aircraft/objects are used in a mission, or does it also limit what aircraft the player can select based on the selected terrain? I hoped it would do the later, but some initial attemps seem to show that the user can select any aircraft for any terrain...

Please bring a box of cigars back for me!!!

Thanks Boostjunky! I thought I had tried that already, but now it seems to work! I created a file named desert.ini with NOTHING in it, and dropped that in my Desert folder. That removed the desert terrain from SF2E (but then I deleted the file, cuz I do want that terrain!). Same thing for the stock campaigns. Merged it is!!!

OK. I'll give the merged install a try next time the opportunity presents itself. If I don't like it I can easily revert back to separate installs (something not possible back in the WoX days!). And I answered my own original question about additional Exp Pack 2 features in a merged install by... wait for it... READING THE PRODUCT DESCRIPTION AT THE TW WEBSITE!

I know I can go through and remove the unwanted aircraft from the mod folder, but I have been unsuccessful at getting unwanted stock campaigns to not show up. The same I think for terrains. These folders aren't created by the game in the mods folder (so I can't just delete them), and I've tried putting dummy folders in their place with no .ini files, but it hasn't worked. And even just to get rid of unwanted aircraft, it can be a lot of work. Although , if I can get the unwanted stock terrains to not show up, that coupled with userlist.ini should take care of the unwanted aircraft. I need to give this another try... or maybe someone's got it figured out and I just need to be "enlightened". But my original question was what does Exp Pack 2 add to a merged install that it doesn't add to a SF2E-only install? I'm assuming it's some additional flyable aircraft...?

OK. So reducing textures may reduce initial mission load times, but not necessarily improve FPS in game. Think I'll wait until I have a few hours with absolutely nothing else to do, then, before I tackle that.

The only SF2 titles I have merged are SF2 and SF2E (just for the desert terrain). SF2V and SF2I are stand alone installs. TK mentioned that installing Exp Pack 2 in merged installs would result in some additional goodies, but I never saw what those were exactly. I'm trying to figure out if it makes sense to go with a fully merged install with all the appropriate renamed .exe's for NF4+, SF2V, and any others comming down the road (KAW, etc...), or keep my separate installs. Pro for merged install - I get the mystery goodies from Exp Pack 2 (what are they?) - less hd space (is this even true?) Con for merged install - Stock stuff available in modded installs. For example - stock SF2V aircraft, campaigns, and terrain (stock VietnamSEA, yuck!) can be selected and might be confusing. Too many selections in all the drop down menus. Thoughts?

I believe strikes have to be against targets in the targets.ini file for the terrain. Therefore, your options are to: 1. Make it a SEAD mission with the target area being whatever target area is closest to your SAM site. However, depending on the proximity of the SAM site to the target area and the game engine, the specific SAM site may or may not end up being a "primary target" 2. Make it an Armed Recon or CAS mission. Then you should be able to designate your custom placed SAM site as the primary target. *edit* - DW beat me to it!

Blasphemy!!! But seriously, it'll all get upgraded to the new standards in no time (well, maybe "two weeks"). This happens every time there's a major update (or any update) and it's all gravy once all the mods are brought up to date. If not, we'd all still be play and modding at the pre '06 SFP1 level!

Is there any program that will allow me to specify a directory and it will find and resize all of a certain file type in the directory, or do I have to do this one by one? Going through NF4+ and SF2V Exp Pack is gonna be a hassle!

OK. What's the deal with resizing textures? I see people often recommending that those with slower computers (ie - me) resize 2048 x 2048 textures down to improve performance. Does this still matter if you have texture quality set to medium or low? I believe that a "low" texture setting limits the texture sizes to 128 or 256, so does it matter if the original texture was 2048 x 2048? Does it still take the game longer to load the larger texture or something? So, if I should be resizing textures, what free program will make this simple (I have lot's of 3rd party aircraft hanging around!). FWIW - I don't have MS Picture Viewer on my system. Thanks!

One more update. Even more nodes added to slow the NVA advance toward Saigon, and movement.ini adjusted so Pleiku isn't instantly overrun at the start of the campaign. EasterOffensive_DATA.INI.txt SteelTiger_DATA.INI.txt SouthVietnam_MOVEMENT.INI.txt

Here are the updated files for Steel Tiger and Easter Offensive. I've added additional nodes to hopefully slow the NVA advance down the country. I've also made it so the US can't go on offensive. The result is that the US won't ever "accidentally" capture Hanoi or go north of the DMZ. The flip side of that is that if the NVA captures any S. Vietnamese nodes, it impossible to get them back. This should really put pressure on the player to complete CAS missions successfully! Please try these and let me know how they play out! The more people that try them, the better! EasterOffensive_DATA.INI.txt SteelTiger_DATA.INI.txt

So what was it?

Yep! I know how I'll spend my lunch breaks this week!

Sounds good. I'll work on that tonight. *edit* - I just took a look at the differences, and there are more than I thought there would be. MissionChance entries have been changed, squadron naming convention is different in some cases, etc... So this won't be nearly as quick as I thought it would. I will plug away at it if I have time, but may take a while. If someone else is going to work on additional NF4+ campaign updates, it may not make sense to work on both of these in parallel, and instead just focus on the final update.

Yeah, I think that was the issue. It's always supposed to have worked that way, but for some reason I was able to get it to work without connecting to Hanoi and Saigon with the previous patches. Some sort of lucky work around that must have exploited a bug. But yeah, I got them working again by connecting all the nodes to Hanoi and Saigon (directly or indirectly).

Dave, As soon as TK releases the hot fix, I was going to take a stab at merging the new campaign entries in with NF4+ (I already started a little). I could share those as a "NF4+ quick fix" sort of thing just so people can continue using NF4+ with the new exp pack. I'd leave the major update up to the NF4+ team. Or if you prefer I can just wait for the NF4+ team to do something official.

OK. That didn't take nearly as long as I thought. It's working again. I looked more closely at the nodes for RollingThunder and finally understood how the nodes actually work. I don't know how I got away without knowing that before! It will take some time to adjust the supply levels so Hanoi/Saigon aren't captured too quickly and the campaign doesn't end. My time to sit and play through an entire campaign is pretty much non-existent, though. Boostjunky (or anyone else that wants to test this) - can you try this new campaign_data.ini file (delete the .txt suffix after you download it)? Back up your existing EasterOffensive_data.ini first. EasterOffensive_DATA.INI.txt If you can play through a campaign and take note of how often enemy and friendly ground offensives take place and just let me know how the campaign plays out that would be helpful. Once I know I have the right fix, I'll make the same changes to Steel Tiger and release an update. Thanks for pointing this issue out! -Gregg

After some quick testing, it looks like the game does not like the strategic nodes I had in there. I copied the strategic nodes from the stock Rolling Thunder campaign and placed them in Easter Offensive and changed the location of some of the ground units to match those nodes. When I started the campaign the ground war was working. So I need to mess around with the nodes a little and see what I need to change. I set the nodes up really weird to get a "Static" ground war, so weird in fact, it never really made sense why it worked. I'll probably have to change that up now. The good thing is that since the Steel Tiger and Easter Offensive campaigns are separate from the stock 3 (originally I was incorporating the ground war into the stock campaign), we don't really need the static frontline any more. I can set the campaigns up so they play out somewhat fictitiously where the NVA can overtack S. Vietnam if the player doesn't do a good job, and it won't impact the historical RT, LBI, and LBII campaigns. This may take a while though...