ndicki

Since we're on the subject, there is a further Korean War Sabre I'd have liked to see - No.2 Sqn South African Air Force, the Flying Cheetahs, who formed a part of 18 Fighter-Bomber Wing. Initially on F-51Ds, later on F-86s. Bit of exoticism. If anyone is interested in the idea, either I can scan a few photos - got lots - or I learn how to make up decals and nationalities correctly! Although the huge fin flash - the entire height of the fin - would ideally be done on the photoshop layered file before exporting. Much easier than fooling round with a decal. The present SAAF markings are incorrect for the period, as they used an RAF-style blue and white circle, but with a leaping orange springbok replacing the inner red circle, ek se, ek se. Any interest? Edit - The fin stripe is similar to the one in the 67FBS skin - a quick once over in photoshop to adjust the colours and it's bang on. Getting closer!

I paid about 5 pounds - say eight US Dollars - for SF Gold just a couple of months ago, and with all the patches and add-ons, which so far all seem to be compatible (though sometimes need basic tweaking), it's brilliant value. The entire series seem essentially compatible, so all in all, you pay for the basic engine, and go from there. SF Gold has the desert terrain as default, BTW. Recommended!

Anybody know where I can find a blue/sand IDF/AF cam skin for the Ouragan? Well, I've looked and looked, and haven't found one. At the moment, I'm using the issue French skin, edited for Israel...

OK, I win the idiot of the week award. I must have deleted them in a moment of absent-mindedness - they are all there in the zip in my file library. Thanks, everyone!

Well, as a newbie who's starting to get the hang of modding things and generally messing about, I'd like to start by thanking everybody who has put together any of the mods and addons I'm enjoying so much at the moment! Then, a question - does anybody know of an Su-25? There was one in the works, I saw from a thread from December last year, but there is nothing more recent. And two more I couldn't find anything any more recent about - the Su-24 and the Blackburn Buccaneer. The Buck was greatly appreciated during the Gulf War (v1) as the target designator aircraft for the Tornado.

If he was an Aussie in Rhodesia, he was a volunteer. There were a great many people from a great many places. No "foreign" troops operated in Rhodesia.

I'm trying to put together a fictional African air force (=ENEMY), flying MiG-21MFs, but using Sidewinders and selected NATO weps rather than just Soviet. The nationality functions, with full decalling, etc, so that is not the problem. I've created nationality-specific versions of the NATO weapons I want to use, and changed the attachment type to WP to correspond to the aircraft. I've edited the loadout.ini to use these weapons. Dates of service correspond. And it doesn't work. The loadout menu does its own thing, and loads them up with the Soviet junk I'm trying to avoid. And my versions don't even show up as selectable. Of course, while I can control my own aircraft and at least choose from what is on offer, my wingmen still get what they're given, so I'd like to see my selected weapons working the way I want! I'm using the latest weapons editor, and my modified weapons show up in WEAPONDATA.dat. I promise I've read the tutorials! Obviously I'm missing something, but...what? The game does seem to do its own thing sometimes...

Just reassure me before I click OK - the best way to set up a second install is simply to copy the contents of SFG root into another folder, and go from there? There aren't any CFS3 style "application data" style hidden traps for the unwary, are there? I want to separate the NATO/Warpac stuff from the IDF/Arabs.

Thanks! It is nice when things are simple!

Oh, do I know the problem! And I've just looked - my SF install is 18GB! My (multiple) CFS3 installs are between 5 - 8 GB each, and I thought that was bad; I'm one of the Desert Rats team, developing the Mediterranean Air War add-on, and the Battle of France team too, so it all piles up and up... 18 GB, though, grief, it goes quickly! I only got the game at Christmas time! I think I need another hard-drive...

I've tried the ones which came with the weapons packs - both Bunyap's and the Mirage Factory's are dated 24/04/2006, and one I found here from 11/08/2004. Neither worked correctly, and left me with semi-functioning data.dat files. The latest version does the same thing. The screen comes up, it all looks like it should (set to W98 environment under XP Home SP2), and an apparently correct WEAPONDATA.dat is generated. Go and see, and half the weapons are missing. Now the WEAPONDATA.dat which came ready-made with Bunyap's package functions perfectly well, so there must be a way to get it working; can anybody please point me at the solution?

Well, I did have two weapondata.dat files, but I found them; that was one of the first things I looked for. And when I tried to use the new one, in the weapons folder, as you said - nothing good. Yet AFAIK my patches are up to date. Mystery. With the newly generated one, half the loadouts are missing - including basics on stock aircraft, such as the Sidewinders on Phantoms! No dll errors yet despite trying a number of aircraft, but occasional CTDs, probably caused by the game trying to spawn a plane which is not correctly installed. With Bunyap's weapondata.dat, things seem to work correctly, so I supsect an install problem in one or more aircraft files.

And the fun's begun again in Kenya, too... There won't be a single white farmer left in Africa before long, the way things are going - so where the food'll come from, don't ask me (Probably get in trouble for saying things like that...!)

No joy. I tried the one which came with the weapons packs - both Bunyap's and the Mirage Factory's are dated 24/04/2006, and one I found here from 11/08/2004. Neither worked correctly, and left me with semi-functioning data.dat files. Back to the one which came with Bunyap's Weapons Pack. It may not be 100% up to date by now, but at least it works the way it should! Thank goodness I'd backed it up... BTW, I'm fully patched up to date - if that means things should work. And they say CFS3 is complicated!

Cheers - off to look. I think you've got the answer there.

The game is SF Gold. That might explain it. Suggestions? I've got a fair bit of stuff to add. Zingaro is up and running in Nations.ini, with full decalling as for standard nations. Off to try Paki Sidewinders! - Good idea there... Kevin - It worked, so I now have a MiG with Sidewinders, except that I had to change the nationality in MiG-21MF_RZAF_DATA.INI to Pakistan... So now my decals don't work! But it shows the principle, and all I now need to do is sort out this thing with the Weapons Editor. Reassuring though - I now know I had correctly understood how it all dovetails, and it was only a problem with the tools (said the workman!)

Well, it's a weapons editor problem. When I use the 2006 WEAPONDATA.dat file that comes with the weapons pack, everything which is in it seems to work correctly. Well, more or less, anyway. However, when I use the newly regenerated WEAPONDATA.dat file created by the Editor, it does funny things. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, sometimes certain types of weapons are unavailable - at the moment, the stock F-4s have got no Sparrows! - and so on and so forth. Also, it doesn't save the .dat file to the same place; the working one was in objects\weapons, while the new one is in objects. It is the very latest editor, running in W98 mode on XP SP1, for what it's worth. AAAAARGH!

Thasnks - that is in fact what I've already done, to all intents and purposes. Take a look: [WeaponData2063] TypeName=RZAF AIM-9P-5 FullName=AIM-9P-5 Sidewinder ModelName=AIM9JNP Mass=74.500000 Diameter=0.127000 Length=3.050000 SubsonicDragCoeff=0.120000 SupersonicDragCoeff=0.222000 AttachmentType=WP,SOVIET SpecificStationCode= NationName=ZINGARO StartYear=1978 EndYear=2020 Availability=2 BaseQuantity=124 Exported=FALSE ExportStartYear=0 ExportEndYear=0 ExportAvailability=0 WeaponDataType=1 RailLaunched=TRUE RocketPod=FALSE Retarded=FALSE FinStabilized=TRUE SpinStabilized=FALSE HasGrowl=TRUE EffectClassName=SmallMissileEffects ReleaseDelay=0.000000 WarheadType=0 Explosives=4.500000 FusingDistance=1.000000 ClusterBomblets=0 ClusterDispersion=0.000000 GuidanceType=10 Accuracy=85 MaxTurnRate=24.000000 MaxLaunchG=7.000000 LockonChance=75 LaunchReliability=95 ArmingTime=0.500000 SeekerFOV=4.000000 SeekerGimbleLimit=25.000000 SeekerTrackRate=16.500000 SeekerRange=14000.000000 MinLaunchRange=0.000000 MaxLaunchRange=14000.000000 Duration=45.000000 CounterCountermeasure=95.000000 NoiseRejection=95.000000 CapabilityFlags=0x00000410 LoftAngle=0.000000 DescentAngle=0.000000 MaxLoftAltitude=0.000000 CLmax=14.000000 MinFreq=0.000000 MaxFreq=0.000000 BoosterStart=0.000000 BoosterDuration=2.200000 BoosterAccel=38.299999 BoosterEffectName=SmokelessMissileEffect BoosterSoundName=Missile BoosterNodeName= BoosterPosition=0.000000,-1.530000,0.000000 SustainerDuration=0.000000 SustainerAccel=0.000000 SustainerEffectName= SustainerSoundName= SustainerPosition=0.000000,-1.530000,0.000000 InFlightEffectName=MissileInFlightEffect InFlightSoundName= ReleaseAnimationID=-1 EODisplayFlags=0 CEP=0.000000 Zingaro is a fully functioning nationality, as I mentioned above, so IMHO, it should work... Odd game, this. I'm having similar trouble with Kfirs which won't do as they're told, either, and I didn't mess about with them!

This sounds just like - almost - a problem I'm having, too. While I don't know the answer either - it looks like you've done everything you should, IMHO - you have my sympathy!

Which unit? One of my best mates was a VR chopper pilot with 7 Sqn, got out to SA, then back to the UK. Having a braai in the middle of England? I've got the Green Leader recording somewhere, and (I'm afraid to say) the rather excessive John Edmond song about the Op, too! Your book sounds like it might be well worth reading. Well, I've got the Hunter F6 - I don't have WOE, so I haven't got the FGA9 - the Canberra, Dak and Vampire. No Lynx, Trojan or Alouette. And for pre-UDI days, there's a Harvard and a Spit 22 around, as well, although if you want my honest opinion, CFS2 and 3 are far better than SF for piston engines. I'm actually in the middle of dressing the Mirage Factory Kfir up as a Cheetah C; if it goes past quickly enough, nobody'll notice the difference! A Bucc would be useful for the SAAF, too. Back to work!

Nice piece of kit it is - and well done to whoever is clued up enough to have done the correct, up-to-date SAAF markings - they may not look as nice as the old Springbok-Castles, but they are dead on!

I seem to have heard the words "two weeks" somewhere before... Seems familiar, but I've forgotten where it was!

Just a sympathizer, I'm afraid! Place went down the plughole before I had the chance to get there. I have done a few SRAF-RRAF-RhAF and SAAF skins for CFS3, among other things, though! Where are you from?

I'd like to add (inauthentic) Sidewinder loadouts to a stand-alone Hunter I'm working on, but I can't find the trick - could somebody please help? I realize this has probably been treated in the knowledge base, but I can't find a post which outlines the procedure in clear, Haynes Manual, newbie terms! Thanks!

What are wingmen for? I go burning into a decent-sized slice of Blitz, bang off a few, run out of ammo and get out, mission accomplished or not. Meanwhile, my wingers are fannying around getting torn to bits, and when I've exited and gone to look at the report, not one has fired a shot despite being up to their necks in targets. Is there somethingI'm not doing? Shouyld I be giving them orders, as in CFS? If so, I couldn't find the button. Or are they there just to get in the way and give you one more thing to worry about? Any help appreciated!