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ndicki

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Posts posted by ndicki

  4. Posted · Edited by ndicki

    OK, this is it, the definitive, at least for XP Home.

     

    The folder "C:\Documents and Settings\USER\My Documents\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2" must stay in place. If you move it, it will be regenerated.

    None of the subfolders are necessary and can be deleted at will. the options.ini file however MUST be in this folder or the Sim will assume it is running for the first time and regenerate ALL the base files which you would expect here in a new install.

     

    Meanwhile, your base install and mods folder can be anywhere you like. Mine now have this structure:

     

    Core files: E:\Program Files\ThirdWire\Strike Fighters 2

     

    Mod files: E:\Program Files\ThirdWire\Mods\StrikeFighters2

     

    The only thing you need to do is open the options.ini file which is in "E:\Program Files\ThirdWire\Mods\StrikeFighters2" (ie, your modded folders folder) and change the final line to reflect the whereabouts of the modded folder. You then copy this into the folder in My Documents, allowing it to overwrite the one there. Also change the line in Unlimited Options.ini, but you can leave it where it is. No need to copy it into My Documents.

     

    Fire it up and check it works. It will run without access to the mods folder, so if you find that you can't find your addons in the UI screen, then you've typed the path in wrongly. You'll also find that the base aircraft, etc, files have regenerated into "C:\Documents and Settings\USER\My Documents\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2"

     

    Check the paths in both options.ini and Unlimited Options.ini in your mods folder, and copy the correctly-pathed options.ini back into "C:\Documents and Settings\USER\My Documents\ThirdWire\StrikeFighters2"

     

    Should work.

     

    Note that now you can do multiple installs but have to change the path each time in options.ini before starting to load the sim. There will probably be a way round this, but it'll take someone a bit cleverer who knows how to make a simple name-changing batch file.

  5. Posted · Edited by ndicki

    (interestering to note, no one has commented on the 'nationality' of the 21MF in my screenie!!)

     

    Er..... Yes.... I give up?

     

    But the Sovs have always used stars as kill marks.

     

    The Germans though used often to paint tiny roundels/stars along with the type, date and place on the "bars" they painted on the tailfin or rudder.You can just about make them out in the photo here. Most model kit decal manufacturers don't bother, because they'd be pretty well invisible, at least in small scales.

  6. Posted · Edited by ndicki

    I would take the Jack the ripper tour, follow the murder trail, that looks fun, or go to the Maddame tudauds wax works, when i went there, i thought it was amazing, or well if your more into your history, head towards the Tower of London. But, i would honestly suggest going to the RAF museum, i think if the traffic was alright, you could get there in around 1 hour from the airport, but that is just a guess. Or if you want just a quick tour, then just stick with the open tour busses.

     

    I confirm - the RAF Museum is on the Underground at Colindale (Northern Line). Dead easy to get to.

     

    http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/london/planavisit/index.cfm

     

    Failing that, the Imperial War Museum or the National Army Museum are worth a visit - first rate stuff which the Poms do very well. I'd write off Mme Tussaud's if I were you - the queue can go for hours. You'd probably get fed up of waiting - we did. We didn't bother with it in the end.

     

    If the weather's OK, I'd just stroll around one of the parks for a while, too, just to get the flavour of it.

     

    Or spend a while looking at photos from the War - VE-Day and so on - and visit some of the places. Also quite fun if that sort of thing keeps you out of trouble!

     

    Or you could always go and stand outside Zimbabwe House (429 The Strand) and pelt any ZANU bas-tard you see with rotten eggs or tomatoes. Try tinned tomatoes, they're more effective, pollute less and can be recycled several times and eaten after use.

  7. Posted

    Nice looking aircraft there!

     

    I have SAAF Springbok castles and Springbok roundels and Harvard-type trainer decals available, if anyone's interested.

     

    I actually did a 2 Sqn SAAF skin for the Sabre - it's here among the Sabre skins, but it's for Korea. I meant to get around to doing an SA-based one, but never got around to it.

     

    Actually, RhAF Sabres might be a bit of a backward step. In most respects, they were not as good as the Hunter (just to start with) and I would imagine that spares, after X years in SAAF service, would have been a problem, despite the RhAF's reputation for excellence in innovation and maintenance - often 100% availability. Something which peeved the RAF...

     

    The Hunter was perfectly good at it's job, and easily available. Ex-Jordan, Belgium, or any number of users who might sell them on if offered the usual dodgy end-user certificate. So I'd keep them. Anyway, Rhodesia was fast approaching bankruptcy, so replacing ALL the aircraft is too much. Just the Ginas to replace Vampires, and that shoulkd be OK... My view, anyway.

     

    I want to test the skinning techniques I use in CFS3 for SF, so bear with me - that Hunter has a LONG way to go. Don't even mention the Spit! In both cases, I'd need permission from the makers, anyway.

     

    If I get inspired, I'll fiddle round with the Gina, too. :smile:

  10. Posted

    We had the same trouble in CFS3. The equivalent of the options and controls files go into a folder in Application Data and are hidden files. And if you come out on an aircraft which has a problem with its sound alias or weapons, say, the sim won't reload without your going into the options folders and deleting the last aircraft used file. Every single newbie's got caught in uninstalling and reinstalling tens of times until he learns the trick. It's a pain in the arse, even if once you know how it works, it only takes seconds. SF does better from that point of view.

     

    And there's the multiple install problem, too. A genius called Martin Wright (he really does some brilliant ©FS imaging programs which many of you will already know) came up with a little tool which creates a second set of folders in the application data folder, and changes the names. Brilliant. So you can have as many installs as you like. I have six or seven... We need that sort of thing here too, but where the CFS folder is just a tiny options folder, in SF3 you're looking at several GB. That's too much. Good idea to begin with, but not practical. Now imagine three installs at 10GB each, just sitting in your My Documents folder... My C drive is only 30GB anyway - it's a partitioned-off bit of a bigger drive.

     

    2nd install in SF2 case is merely another copy of core game files. It's the options file in user folder that determines where the mods are.

     

    I did look... But I'll look again. I hope you're right! :yes:

  11. Posted

    That's right. That's the Lynx. They had a couple of rocket pods under the wings, and twin Browning .303s in a pod mounted above the wing, on either side of the cabin.

     

    Meanwhile - this is one I did with the SF2 Hunter FGA9 as modded by Spinners, using a template I downloaded here. If I'm going to release it, I'll go from scratch, as I prefer to use my own templates. It still needs the ejection seat markings and the serial numbers, but that's all. Very few operational aircraft carried any markings other than the s/n.

  12. Posted

    The SRAF ditched the Harvard in 1954 in favour of the Percival Prentice. It'd be pretty unlikely that they'd then acquire a new delivery - also, where from? The SAAF had no intention of getting rid of theirs, so they'd have to be bought on the open market. No, good idea, but not historically viable. T-28s were ordered via a thoroughly circuitous route, but never arrived. That probably explains why the RhAF ended up calling the Aermacchi AL60-B2Ls Trojans.

     

    Early French stuff wouldn't necessarily be that much more use than the existing Vampires, although Super Mysteres (from Israel? Why not?) sounds good. And they already exist.

     

    Meanwhile, I'm having fun with the Spit Mk22 - not for release, 'cos I haven't asked yet. I want to redo the entire skin, in fact. When it's done, I will ask. SRAF had 18 of them in the early '50s.

  13. Posted

    This looks like a brilliant idea! You have my full support.

     

    Not sure about the A-4s, though. The Aussies don't go in for that sort of shady deal. I'd suggest something French, which would have been supplied through one or other of their client states in Africa, say Senegal or Chad, for example. early Mirage IIIs or Etendards, maybe. Or ex-Portuguese G-91s. Both ideas work better for me than A-4s, and there was a great deal of sympathy between the Rhodies and the Portuguese before Portugal collapsed. The OV-10 doesn't really fit either, although I do like your cover story.

     

    What will fit in for Trojans, Genets and Lynxes? Any ideas? They'd still have been in service. Some still are, in a manner of speaking, with the AFZ.

     

    The SF2 Hunter is first rate, by the way. If you do this for SF2, it should also work in earlier versions, I hope.

     

    Going to do a jungle dustbin for me to shoot!?

  14. Posted

    At the moment, my install of SF2 is in the standard place, base files in C Program Files, and mods in My Documents - also on the C drive. The problem is that I configured my C drive really for the OS only, and it's getting a bit tight in there. Most of my other flight sim stuff is on D or E, the way I'd set out to do it.

     

    Is there a way to move the modded files (about 10GB!) from My Docs to somewhere else? Obviously, in order to put the base files somewhere else, it's a simple question of uninstalling and reinstalling.

     

    Also, with SFG, I had a number of separate "theatre-specific" installs; Israel, Europe, etc, so as to avoid inappropriate aircraft appearing in Quick Combat, for example. Is there a way to get a second install of SF2 to look for a different mods folder? Otherwise, there's not much point in thinking of separate installs...

  15. Posted · Edited by ndicki

    OK, chaps, have a gander at this one, then:

     

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...Action-Man.html

     

    In short, the MoD is reissuing Action Man to encourage reticent children, polluted by tree-hugging lefty beardy-weirdy anti-war wasters, to consider joining HM Forces. It's a long term plan, but it may just work... I'm going to buy one or two for my children (i.e. for me, but they can play with them!) just to see if it works. But then, my eldest already has designs on the Typhoon for herself. A real one.

     

    Sh!t. I have to wait till 8th May. May just have saved enough by then...

  17. Posted

    Obese, in military terms, doesn't mean the same thing as obese in civilian terms. By military standards, I would be considered obese, but as a 6 foot well-built type who weighs in at a shade below 100 KG, I'm not obese as a civvie, just a bit well rounded. Before we start imagining jelly-bean clad Diggers with 50-inch girths and ten double chins tabbing it round the local Tarzan Course, it might be an idea to see what criteria the Oz Mob is actually applying.

     

    Admittedly, the British Army's been "Fighting the Flab" for years, too, and you do see some rather heavily-built lads here and there. But they are generally Administrative SNCOs, not as SayWhat correctly points out, riflemen.

  22. Posted · Edited by ndicki

    Don't know about G.I. Joe - He was marketed as Action Man in the UK. Same figure. I had one of the very first in about 1966-7 or so, and went from there. Every variant! The Officer was first - if you pulled on a dog-tag he had threaded through a hole in his upper chest, he'd talk. The different distance you pulled the tag would change what he said. "Mortar attack, dig in!" was one of my favourites, even though I didn't know what a mortar was, and Mummy wasn't able to tell me.

     

    And the Red Devil - complete with red overalls, white bone-dome and parachute. I used to bung him over the bannisters in the hall, to watch him parachute down.

     

    They had every kind of uniform you could think of - Para Regt, with red beret, SLR and Denison Smock, Infantry Officer, with his SD cap, German soldiers and officers, French resistance, fantastic stuff. And a Scorpion tank, a jeep, and goodness knows what else. I had a whole colony of them, from the original one to the final "true" version, with flocked hair and flexible hands. My favourite toys for years and years. One thing I really regret about growing up was that I couldn't play with Action Man any more.

     

    So I had to do it myself instead! :lol:

     

    Take a look - it brings back nostalgic memories. Oh, to be small again... In a world that was so simple...

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Man

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