ndicki

Not that I can think of. Start with the fact that all the infrastructure is in different places. And as far as I know, WOE doesn't even have trains. If you wrote the WOE mission by hand, moving the co-ordinates for waypoints, etc, over from the CFS mission, you might get close, but it'll take you days. Easier to go and pick up Le Missionneur and write a whole new mission based on the same idea.

This is looking brilliant! That map is bang on, really! I think I need to put my paintbrush down and start reading up on how campaigns work... Incidentally, the Celtic Nations are all "ENEMY" in my Nations.ini, so well spotted! Are we having a Revolutionary Cornish Air Wing flying out of St Mawgan? (!!!) Also, I wondered about the Bretons - but that would enlarge the scenario too much, and France would not agree to a break-up the way Britain might. They'd send troops straight in, and that would be that. So no. But for a book, it'd be an interesting side-scenario!

Cheers, Spinners!

I've been getting horrifying FPS freezes when the new MF MiG-29 appears - I mean, real freeze-frame stuff. It's the only aircraft that does that on my admittedly not that recent but still perfectly adequate rig. Is anybody else getting the same thing? And can anyone suggest a fix? Even at long ranges - several miles - I get this problem, so it doesn't seem to be just a problem of LODs.

P4 2.8C on Asrock Er... with 1.5GB DDR and 7600GS card. Can't remember the rest, but it's good enough for the job. The problem isn't there. I usually cut many of the background progs before starting the sim, as well.

File Name: Hunter FGA.9 Royal Rhodesian Air Force File Submitter: ndicki File Submitted: 22 Mar 2009 File Category: British Aircraft HAWKER HUNTER FGA.9, No.1 Squadron Royal Rhodesian Air Force, Thornhill AFB, Rhodesia, late 1960s The Hawker Hunter FGA.9 was delivered the (then) Royal Rhodesian Air Force in 1962/3 to replace the DH Vampires then in service with No.1 Squadron. The aircraft wore a number of different camouflage schemes during its twenty-plus years in service with the Royal Rhodesian Air Force, the UDI-period Rhodesian Air Force and finally, the post-Independence Air Force of Zimbabwe. Twelve aircraft were delivered, and all are represented in this pack, although three crashed during the 1970s. All twelve are represented here. The Royal Rhodesian Air Force lasted until the establishment of Rhodesia as a Republic in 1970, when the Lion-and-Tusk roundel was introduced. Credits: Spinners modified the Thirdwire stock Hunter FGA.9 to make it flyable, and fitted the cockpit. Modifications to ini files, stock weapons, screens and skin by Nigel "ndicki" Dickinson. Ideas and support from Josh "Jeremiah Weed" For SF2 only, although it can be converted to SF1 if you know how! Issued according to the CombatAce Freeware Agreement. Click here to download this file

Two new ones today - a Royal Rhodesian Air Force (Pre-1970) Hunter, and a Cessna 180 What-if. There were two C.185s shared between RHODAF, BSAP and INTAF, but nobody seems to know who they actually belonged to, or what they used them for!

I'm trying to make a small Frantan napalm bomb and a WP marker rocket, with no success. They do work - shoot or drop - but don't explode or anything when they hit the ground. I've edited the _data.inis (EffectClassName=) to reflect the names of the effects.inis which I think look useful, Deuce's and CA_Stary's. No luck at all... What might I be doing wrong? This is for SF2, by the way.

Ok, that explains everything - thanks! I was going round and round...

Somebody...?

I'm back to wondering if it's not some effect or other... There are hardly any decals on the 29; the markings are only for serial numbers. That won't slow it down here, not in this case at least. Worth looking at on some, though.

File Name: Cessna 180 Rhodesian Air Force File Submitter: ndicki File Submitted: 22 Mar 2009 File Category: Trainers CESSNA 180, No.3 Squadron, Rhodesian Air Force, New Sarum AFB, Rhodesia, late 1970s The RHODAF did not actually use the Cessna 180 (O-1), but did have two similar Cessna 185s, originally used by the BSAP, but later taken on by the Air Force. Nothing very much is known of what happened to them. This is a "What-if" aircraft which could have been obtained from a variety of sources. Credits: Thirdwire stock C.180 modified to make it flyable. The cockpit is by Kesselbrut, originally for the Hurricane - thanks! Modifications to ini files, screens and skin by Nigel "ndicki" Dickinson. Ideas and support from Josh "Jeremiah Weed." Click here to download this file

Well, I've tried the trick... In your "Mods" folder (by default in My Docs\Strikefighters 2) you'll have an aircraft folder, with at the very least, a number of folders with the ini files for the stock aircraft. If you're anything like me, it's now full to the brim of just about every aeroplane that's ever been released, which can lead to some interesting fights. For example, in "Quick Combat", you end up with Syrian MiG-17s against South African Mirage F1CZs... Unlikely. Especially when the Syrians are supported by Nicaraguans in MiG-23s. You know the thing. So... I renamed my "aircraft" folder to "xaircraft", and created a new "aircraft" folder. I copied only a few aircraft over, and went to see what would happen. It worked - the stock aircraft did not appear, and my choice was limited to those I had put into the new folder. Bingo! So the next step. Is there anybody clever enough to put together a little batch file which will switch over the aircraft folders and then fire up the game? I imagine that if we say we'd all like the following scenarios - Cold War Europe, Modern Europe, Vietnam, Israel, Korea, WW2 for example - and agreed on the aircraft folder names, it wouldn't be too difficult, would it? And if you want to change the names, you can edit batch files by hand quite easily. I just don't know how to make one... Anyone interested? Could be useful...

331Killerbee, I fully understand what you mean to say. I can use notepad as well as the next guy, and do. The point is though, that it'd be nice to have a little prog to do it for you. Even hard-case US Marines must appreciate a little Gucci kit (as we say in the Brit Army) from time to time!

Which is pretty much what I meant to say. SF2 is hard coded to look for Options.ini in My Documents\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2, and making new copies of the core files won't go anywhere, because they'll all refer back to the single copy of Options.ini. So there needs to be a tool which can swop over the options.inis to point at different sets of mods folders - not my idea - or to swop over different aircraft-only folders, which was my initial idea. The fact remains that as things stand, the only way to do this is by hand, either renaming folders or by editing the Options.ini file.

This is what I was sending: Hi Richard, I'm in the middle of putting together a Rhodesian skin for the Cessna you did, and was wondering if you'd agree to my releasing it as a full stand-alone rather than as a skin; the data.ini, loadouts.ini, screens and weapons have all been modified one way or another, which make it more than a simple skin pack. You may have seen my other Rhodesian stuff - a couple of Hunters and a Gina - to give you some idea of what I do. Obviously, I'd keep your original read-me in the package, and give all due credit. Please let me know if that would be OK! Thanks, Nigel Dickinson

Well, I enjoy the unpredictability of the computer-generated Single Missions - so it would be useful, as I equally don't want to fiddle about with the terrains and limit my options that way. Actually, one of the things I enjoy most about CFS3 - my other sim - is that the "Spawns" function makes life utterly unpredictable, even in missions. You can find yourself face-to-face with just about anything! As in real life. TK, if you're listening...!

Gerwin, that's the thing. As they have reduced poly LODs, then they shouldn't be doing this sort of thing at all. Someone said weapons... That is something they may have in common...

Or some other factor which comes into play only with thses two models - an effect or something. Like I said, I need to fiddle around. I was just wondering if I was the only one - all the other MF aircraft I have run perfectly, so it came as a surprise.

Thanks for all the advice - I'm going to have to work this through bit by bit using a proper mission. So far it's been something which has cropped up from time to time in "Quick Combat" mode, so I haven't had all the options under control. But it is only with the MiG-29 and Su-27 as far as I can tell. In any case, resizing to 1024 will help whether that is the trouble or not. I'll let you know if I find something. I though it might be the damage/explosion effects, but that would be for all aircraft. Keeping trying...

In order... From the "historical" point of view, it's pretty clear that the borders aren't as hermetic as all that, and you'd end up with all sorts of trouble - as they have done in the USSR and Yugoslavia - where people aren't happy with the lines on the map. If this was CFS3, you could do a dynamic campaign with a moving front line (admittedly a bit unrealistic, where shooting a couple of fighters down means you can invade Normandy, but still) which you can place initially with co-ordinates. Coming back to SF, I'm not entirely sure how SF campaigns work; I tried a few Dhimar/Paran missions, and it seemed like the CFS2 "string of missions" style, where the outcome of one mission had no effect on the next one. I'll have to try and look at how all this works - I'm quite new to SF, and still have things to learn! In any case, it might be amusing to involve "rebel" ground forces, but again, I'm not quite sure how that would work. The idea is a bit more complex than the usual blue side - red side conflicts we get! I wonder if the Scousers wouldn't be more pro-Republican Irish (within this context)...? Which does effectively put them on the same side as the Welsh. That map looks good! I was hoping there'd be one in the works somewhere! I'm already working on NATIONS.INI entries, so no trouble there. The trouble will probably be trying to define territory on the map! We'll have England and Ulster versus Wales, Scotland, Eire and IRA. And Cornwall. And anybody else we can think of who might get involved! Revolutionary Islamic Republic of Bradford....???

These look nicer still... Thanks for the link, by the way!

It isn't CTD-ing - it's that FPS drops to serious single-frame rates. As when you have about 40 aircraft in the air in front of you. The moment the MiG or Su passes out of the screen view, FPS are back where they should be.