gerwin

Was lurking this topic already, good luck with EAW in any case. (I hardly played it myself.) I like your attitude quoted above. I keep my Strike Fighters install pretty lightweight for similar reasons. Gameplay above graphics any day, and I can't stand loading times either, especially when testing mods. Videocards don't display any specific image formats as identified with their file extension, with the exception of support for NVidia .DDS compression variants DXT1 to DXT5. Video cards display bitmaps in the general sense, like a map of bits. Bitmaps are extracted from their disk-format at the time of reading them from the disk. Like one can read a 8-bit indexed color compressed .png image from disk, and right after reading it and decompressing it, use the attached palette to translate it to true color: You then have true color bitmap data to do whatever, just have to remember width and height and can forget the rest of the original file header. When I do a internet search, I read that EAW uses Direct3D with 8-bit paletted textures internally. I figure 8-bit paletted textures made some sense then, to use less memory, like just 1/3 compared to true color textures. In all other ways it just sucks. Hardware support for it was brief and long gone, but the Direct3D API + Video Drivers probably have emulated support for it. AFAIK the way to go for an improved EAW is to ditch all palettes as soon as the textures have been loaded from disk, and use true color internally. Easier said then done though. Edit: As for the topic name, you don't need a hardware programmer really, but a Direct3D API programmer. It is like this: Game -> Direct3D API -> Windows Video Driver -> Video Hardware. (I never programmed Direct3D API myself, I am not a real programmer anyways)

Good point! I had not really noticed before, but just flew some SEAD mission with an AV-8B and one wingman. If my wingman has a Rockeye+AGM-65 loadout, he at some point keeps making dives to targets without releasing the remaining stores, neither will he use guns. Make it a rockeye only loadout and he behaves properly + uses his guns when out of stores... This is not even a pure AI flight as mentioned above. Edit: Tried a similar setup but with the A-10: Wingman has no problems using different types of weapons.

There was the above topic, but it does not hold much info. It is hard to consider doing without the SF2NA Naval warfare goodies, These are great fun! ( Even considering SF2NA was never 100% Finished + never 100% Functionally Integrated with the other games. IIRC TK once advised not to merge SF2NA like the other games. Unfinished I mean: There are hardly distance lods for the new objects, so framerate can suffer. That would be most noticable with parked planes, but SF2NA itself does not have a problem with this, since the big RED airbases are off-map. Then there are 'Jammer' plane types that do nothing, and the criticised new terrain... ) Maybe older game versions can be interesting for optimal gameplay on terrains without Naval warfare... I don't know the particulars.

Anyways, here are two bugs I would wish to be gone: 1) A terrain with navalmap=true where nation 001 can access an Aircraft Carrier. The enemies of this nation 001 have only one Strike objective in single missions: The carrier. Nothing else. 2) In June 2012 player missiles were made more damaging compared to the same missiles laucnhed by AI craft: There should be some line in the options.ini to get rid of this 'cheat'.

I don't think dumped is the right word here. My take is that Third Wire either supports a game or not. There is no in between. And it is primarily because customers do not understand and do not accept half-support, but they surely understand unsupported. As soon as TW openly shows a limited support for the SF2 games, like a Windows 10 update, there will be customers complaining he does not support it enough. Also I have some things I could write down here as bug-fix wishes, but I just get cought up in my memories of the last years of SF2 development, where TK wrote how things should be simpler instead of realistic. Game and not Sim. IIRC he at some point suggested automatic landing gear up instead of manual. Then there were many complaints about missile effectiveness in SF2NA which was addressed by making player missiles stronger then AI missiles in June 2012 level. I am on May 2012 level because of that. I do not blame TW to have priorities that differ from my wishes. I think TW priorities were at that point not personal anyways, but about customers and sales. Or maybe they were personal a little, because the original course was just to hard for Devs. Modders and bolt and nut counters make very annoying customers already, but when beyond that there are not enough sales with increased costs , then one has to change course. With that in mind I can only imagine some small patch for SF when it is totally clear that it does not imply much, and it is just for fun. But wheter or not it is fun for TK, no idea. It is not my business either.

Can I point out the following. 1) There may be a tiny chance that the developer FEELS like patching up a few little things. But a developer needs to be wary of his audience, as they can behave like they are entitled to more then they actually are. . (Example: IF I would even accept donations for TFDtool, chances are someone gives a donation then asks for a feature to be added in. Thus, he does not give the donation for what was already done, but for what he wants to be done. That is a big difference ) If you ever contact a Developer with requests, he will immediately be wary of what other expectations follow: Will patching one little bug start an avalance of similar requests and expectations. I figure that is why the Strike Fighters PC series are kinda buried on the website (with warnings), as advertising and selling them results in expectations from the buyers. 2) A reply to Stratos in particular. I understand your feeling regarding the fact that Strike Fighters is out of active development for 5 years now, and closed source as well. I dislike that as well. But this situation is actually the norm for commercial software. So if you find it unacceptable then I could say: use linux and GNU software instead. In addition, in the previous topic there were some misunderstandings about what is possible without the source code. Which is similar to your request+answer form a few years ago. These are just two examples of what I would call misunderstandings, and it would not help communication with a developer with such misunderstandings on the table. I don't know what to suggest, I don't mean to insult, but: Learn about it first and/or Let somebody else edit any communication with a developer first and/or Let someone with a better understanding of that matter handle such.

Another download is available. This is an M4A3E8 Sherman obviously. It was made from a Payware Royalty Free 3D model. It was a nice model with a polycount suitable for this game, but there were lots of things that could use some adjustment. Capun''s site has some other conversions from the same source, which is probably what triggered my project here. The stock Israel game has the M-50 and M-51 upgunned sherman variants, but the game was still lacking an unmodified 76mm sherman of similar quality. This should be it. Earlier I was thinking of adding one or two 75mm shermans as well, but in a post WW2 scenario these may not fit in. The weakest Red tank being the T-34-85 with a much better gun...

Sorry, I do not have the knowledge now to add much to what has been said like here. I imagine that, once you manage to get the player aircraft starting point inside a hardened shelter, you will get AI wingmen acting crazy instead of taking off.

Just uploaded a new version, but it is still called v1.03. - 50% chance option for the target successor batch script. - Targets.ini outputfile linebreaks now compatible with Windows' Notepad. - New main menu appears when hitting the ESC key. This one links to the other four menus. - Supports the SF2NA iceland "RotateToRunwayHeading" option for airfield targetareas. - Now shows a generic airfield runway graphic in case the runway does not match a known type.

Looking forward to that! I am considering adding a 50% option to this function. Where there is only a 50% chance that a vehicle will get a successor. As I want to keep some M35 Trucks together with newer models. PS. In an ideal world this upgrade at a certain year thing would have been supported by the Types.ini. That would have been the proper way. But it does not work, so this is AFAIK the easiest way to do such a thing.

The stock objects have low detail distance lods which make all the difference. Compare having an entire airfield in view with parked aircraft and groundobjects all in full detail LODs, or in low detail LODs because they are too far to see details anyways. Edit: This guy does a great job with Il-2 1946 distance Lods, as seen in the illustrations: http://patrulla-azul.com/FreeIL2modding/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1682 But it sure is tedious, I know....

No such ambitions really. TK's auto-tiling function and the TOD object generator are way too much work. The user interface part of the programming library that I use, also crashes on modern systems. That is one reason for the minimal user interface in TFDtool. But I will just keep on adding to TFDtool whatever seems fun at the time. Version 1.03 is up now. Changes are: - Target Successor procedure, to automate the process of groundobject changeovers after a certain date: Like USJeep becomes USJeep2 (Humvee) in 1983. See also the topic linked below. This means that TFDtool got the functionality to write a complete targets.ini file. It was tested to recreate all stock targets ini files with complete accuracy, From SFP1 Desert up to SF2NA Iceland. It does not overwrite the original targets-file. It is advised to keep backups and check the results yourself. - Shows ground targets with a successor, with the changeover year. As pointed out by the red arrow in the screenshot. - A new F2 options dialog, with buttons for functions that were formerly only accesable by hotkeys. (I started to lose track of all these functions and buttons.) - Tweaked target file reading so it does not crap out on all the trees in SF2NA iceland. - Improved the tile info dialog with a bigger preview picture and TOD statistics. Moved the texture reload function to this dialog. - Clip-paste of tiles with the N-key: the keys [ and ] can now be used to adjust the size of the painting area. (Requested by Menrva)

I don't think I even had a signature before, But it is a good idea so I added it just now. Adding these things to the terrains is tedious: InActiveYear does not work as such in the terrain types.ini. Fortunately ActiveYear=1983 does work there. The rest is to be done in the Targets file: Edit existing targets by adding an InActiveYear=1982 to them, Then copy them over to the end of the targetarea and change them to the new type, with a new sequential target number of course. TFDtool will need an update to do such a thing automatically for a loaded Targets file, for any specified old Type + new Type + InActiveYear. For example: Type 'BRDM' becomes 'BRDM2' after 1982. Type 'USTruck' becomes 'USTruck2' (M977_HEMTT) after 1982. Type 'USFuelTruck' becomes 'USFuelTruck2' (M978_HEMTT) after 1982. Type 'USJeep' becomes 'USJeep2' (M1025 HMMWV) after 1982. Or any such groundobject mod from this site.

I finished the M978 HEMTT Fuel truck past weekend. At least up to Beta level, as the texturing of the fuel-trailer is still rather plain. This groundobject can now be downloaded from my website. It makes these airfields look so much more modern. In addition these three models were updated: The M977 HEMTT, BRDM-2 and BRDM-2-SA-9.

Waybackmachine can't retrieve all, but yes $29.99 it was in 2017. Wings over Vietnam used to be $14.99 (50% off!) years ago. Some DLCs used to be cheaper then others ones, at $2,99. Now the DLCs are all the same price. I bought another four DLCs this month anyways. https://web.archive.org/web/20170723220239/https://store.thirdwire.com/store_w7_all.htm

Thanks, Well no problem on the ETA of new aircraft, I am sure the existing ones will offer plenty of challenges already. Achievements unlocked so far: 1) Ka-50 manual startup completed. 2) A-10A Maverick fired. 3) Emptied all rounds in an M1A2 Abrams tank. Two other differences between DCS and Strike Fighters I forgot to mention: DCS has proper helicopters and a summer sale. Strike Fighters only has hacky support for helicopters and the games+DLCs just got more expensive.

This month I finally gave in and started messing around with flaming Cliffs 2 and then also DCS World. It seems like the opposite of Strike Fighters. Pro's: Modern Jets, Great packaging and documentation, Detailed systems. Cons: Not very Moddable /DRM / Limited flyables and planeset. What they share is the merging of all content in one game. My desktop computer is very lightweight and it seems best to stick to an older version of DCS world like 1.2.3. Which runs OK. So I was hoping for this summer sale to come up and immediately bought FC3, Ka-50, CA, P-51D yesterday. Besides A-10C these are already all supported modules in 1.2.3. Happy to say all these modules work very well. :) (In case someone got a backup of DCS 1.2.4 or 1.2.5 + Matching module installers, I would be interested in a copy)

Thanks for making this! The instructions are clear on how to make an specific nation for airliners, what I wonder about though; what is the reason (what are the benefits) of doing it this way. Because I really like all the possible varieties of these 707-300 skins, but wonder how to force the game to use as much variety as possible when generating missions. Either for parked planes or just random flights. Also the formations ini says something about 5 planes, but should they not fly solo? I guess I am not at all familiar with the formations ini...

This skin looks very nice. The panel lines are subtle and they do look realistic that way. Much detail there at the exhausts with the brakes. Hope you consider to add a distance lod as well.

TFDtool v1.01 is now available. Based on the constructive comments from Menrva and Krfrge it got these improvements: - New planning map airfield icons (and a slightly different icon inside the TFDtool view). Also changed color settings, so targets which are not 'ENEMY' will show in blue instead of red. - More planning map options. Comes with a dialog inside TFDtool (the settings there are not saved back to the ini.). - Hopefully fixed a bug where the keyboard input would no longer be read, and only the mouse would work. - Mouse scrollwheel zoom in / zoom out can now access all magnification levels, like keyboard zoom.

This is the topic that I maintained about the Classic IcelandNA Terrain. The download location is mentioned right at the top there. I host my own website with a humble Strike Fighters Downloads section. That may have confused you.

Nice Review! Early 2012 was an exciting time for fans of the series. I actually have to play around with the SF2NA campaign and such, since I was always too busy modding it instead. The Naval War features are really interesting and added welcome new gameplay to the game. PS. Stary's tileset you linked to requires and older version of my IcelandNA terrain mod. I don't think that version is available for download anywhere. The latest IcelandNA Classic terrain introduced brown rock transition tiles. A full tileset is included with the Terrain mod anyways, but it has a lower resolution compared to Stary's.

Yes, that is a nice idea. Please send me these airfield icons and I will try to get that working. The only difficulty is that I do have a bitmap rotation procedure in TFDtool, as to rotate the stock airport map overlays, but it gives a rather pixelated result. Instead of making some tricky weighed rotation, I want to paste these icons on a higher resolution internal planningmap (4096x4096) and then downscale that one weighed. That is actually how it works since this week already, so it should be a straightforward task.

You catched another bug there, thanks for pointing that out. I wont bore you with what caused it, but it is fixed in the new v1.00 of TFDtool. I made the planning map generation a little faster, and updated the manual a little.