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...

I've had that, too. Listen to Gunrunner, and go back and do it again.

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.

Brilliant - thanks, Spinners! Keep at it!

Grief, Kreelin, if I tried that I wouldn't get very far! Thanks, anyway, for confirming what I'd already guessed. Why is it that other than CFS2 and IL-2, which both have good editors, does no sim designer think of what is after all a primordial piece of kit? Come on, TK!

The only way I've found the write one for SF2 is to write it using Le Missionneur and my install of SFG, checking the aircraft names, etc, and then running it with SF2. But it's a pretty pointless effort having a full install of SFG just to write missions with. There must be a better way...

I guess if the names are the same... But I've been having some weird issues with the new Phantoms. Sometimes they just won't accept the old skins even if the names are right. And I can't mind the line in the LOD files which determines the texture names. The old ones you just hacked with a hex editor. Easy, The new ones I have no idea...

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! 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

Got it! Thanks. I'd forgotten there were default things that might be left out of data.ini.

Can anyone tell me where the pilot figure to be used for any one aircraft is defined? I've poked round here and there, but can't find it. It's probably going to be so obvious I've missed it...

Note "Stock"... Though I do admit I like the idea of replacing the all-USAF content with our own lot!

Hello to all the other CFS3 refugees! I haven't run away, I'm just doing my rounds! I haven't really been looking at the SF series as a support for WW2 - the existing WW2 add-ons are (apologies to those concerned) closer to CFS1 or 2 than CFS3. Therefore I've been using each for what it was designed to do. I would very much like to see a CFS3 first-rate aircraft, such as some of those in MAW, in SF. We would effectively be looking at Mirage Factory quality, or even beyond. Having said that, SF does lag behind CFS3 in a number of ways which will affect my view of it as a WW2 sim. One thing is that it does not (yet?) allow you to take control of other positions in the aircraft. This is one point where CFS3 and IL-2 score seriously. Another problem is propellor visuals. You can't really see the blades, even when the engine is just ticking over. This may be something which can be easily fixed. A further point is the CFS3 "spawns" system. While this does get in the way if you're designing serious historical missions where precise events need to be scripted, I love the "Go flying and see what you get" feel in CFS3. It also allows such things as enemy aircraft taking off when you arrive over their field, and so on. I haven't discovered a way to do this in "Le Missionneur" as yet. It may not be possible. In CFS3, you can design a round flight to have a series of random spawns (which also can be set to spawn aircraft or other objects only so frequently) which make missions utterly unpredictable. SF missions are on a par with CFS1, where only scripted aircraft will appear. CFS2 had a system of alternative scripting, which depended on certain criteria being fulfilled before a further event was generated. This system of "trigger" events was unfortunately not carried over into CFS3. In its way, it is as useful as CFS3's spawning system. Looking then at the main failings of SF as it stands, I would pick on the inability to swop positions, and the absence of an official mission builder. Ideally, this mission builder would incorporate features from other flight sims, such as the ones I've mentioned, and that could make it an incredibly powerful tool. Of course, developing powerful tools costs money, and I for one would be happy to see such a thing released as a payware add-on. One of the things which weighs heavily in favour of SF as an eventual platform for the following generation of WW2 simming is that where MS basically take your money and tell you to stuff off, TK shows an ongoing commitment to working with the community to improve and perfect his sims. And they are very good to start with. As far as FMs are concerned, I do not think for a moment that AvH see it as coming to give anybody a hand. I think they simply want to do their thing, and if the people want to go for it, they'll be happy. I have no idea whether they'll branch out into post-1950 aircraft, but I hope that they will do so albeit without losing their specificities. What I do know is that when they do release an aircraft, for whatever sim they may be concentrating on, it will be an instant "must-have!"

As far as I have heard, they have already been in contact with TK, and as a result, a number of CFS3 modders who don't want to move to FSX as some have done, are looking seriously at SF. I was already here, even though my main thing remains CFS3.

I've just found this thread. I've been working for years as a skinner with AvH for CFS3; they do the very best flight modelling I have yet found. Their objective is to have the sim performing to within 1% of the actual performances of the aircraft. Often, many parameters are better than that. AvH do not make or paint the models; that is done by other people. They "commission" paint schemes for existing models, with the agreement of course of all concerned, and meanwhile put together the flight dynamics and damage files. The result is released through their website. They were essential to the building of the Mediterranean Air War add-on for CFS3, which is the only available full add-on with aircraft built to the very latest AvH 4.00 specifications. Previous aircraft are modelled to 2.XX specs. I'll leave it to the real experts to tell you what that means, but the result is that the aircraft flies far more closely to the real one. SF needs their input, I agree. Also there is a degree of experience of modelling WW2 aircraft in the CFS3 community which could well be very useful here. Those of you who have flown the recently released Bf109e series (MAW and ETO, not the old Aeroplane Heaven version) will appreciate what I'm talking about. One of the biggest problems in fact faced by CFS3 modellers is the modelling program. CFS3 requires GMAX, which is free but quite challenging, while SF needs 3DS MAX, if I've understood correctly - which is not free... One or two screenies of one of my skins - model by Craig Murray and FM/DM by Avhistory. The skin is hi-resolution 2048x2048, and has a specular sheet of the sort which enables different degrees of reflectivity for different areas - say the panel lines, which do not reflect, and the chips in the paint, which do. That's one thing which I'd like to see TK developing, because it is a very useful extra.

Ah, OK. Everything has become clear! No, the main thing is all these blasted drop-tanks and odd things. I'm not a get-every-weapon freak, there are just a few I'd like to add!

I've just found out the hard way. The .ini file is identical, but the editor won't open it. Rats. Back to fiddling round with loadouts, then. I wonder if there is one in the works - seems pretty primordial. It'd be nice if it were easier to use, and less cantankerous, too!

Has anybody tried using the Weapons Editor in SF2? Uncatting and re-catting the files is no big deal, but before I go to it and possibly mess up my install, I was wondering if anyone had actually succeeded. Looking at the uncatted backup files I've got, the structure looks the same. Doesn't mean it actually is, though, as I've found out...

You know what? If you call the folder "terrain", as in SFG, it won't work, at least on mine. It needs to be "terrains". You tell me! But it does work - thanks again.

Thanks, hgbn. I knew there was something, but I thought I'd already tried that. Clearly I hadn't!

I'd like to get rid of the on-screen nametags - telling you the type of aircraft and range, or for ground defences - as they just make things too cluttered. But when you try to turn them off, you lose the radar and the bottom of the screen lock-on/target details readout, which is a pain. Is there a way to get rid of the tags, but keep the rest? I remember doing this on SFG, but I can't remember how.

Ok, so I'm being too clever... Thanks, pcpilot, off to see!

Anybody tried? I attempted to add the New Guinea terrain, all duly cat filed using the new utility, but I got two "Desert"s in the menu, and both were the desert. No New Guinea. The inis all seemed the same, but I couldn't find the trick. Has anybody else had a go?

Thanks, Crab - my own conclusion, too. There must be the sort of incompatibility between them that we had with CFS1 and 2. You could get CFS1 models to work well in CFS2, but the inverse wasn't true. It does work with the original WOX LODs, so at least we have it running, even if it isn't quite as good as the new one. If you use the LOD 100 model at all distances, it'll do nasty things to your FPS, though - that's a cleaner version of the one I tried. My computer's not that fast any more...

OK, success. If you copy ALL the new SF2 cockpit files into the cockpit folder, and the LODs from the old WOX/SFG/SFP1 F-4E into the folder too, it'll work. So basically although cockpits from SF2 seem to fit models from SF2, there are some incompatibilities when it comes to mixing model types. Bloody hell, though, life can be complicated.

OK, so the SF2 F-4E uses LODS with a different name - F-4E_LOD2.LOD in place of the SFG F-4E_LOD002.LOD etc. BUT if you modify the entries in the ini file to reflect that, you get a shock - in cockpit view you're looking out over your left shoulder (with the gunsight), and from outside, your aircraft is invisible... I'm going to try the original SFG LODs. Maybe...