quack74

I'm trying to make a few more balloon schemes. They will appear at random along with the stock ones. So at one time there will be multiple balloons for each side with different color schemes. So far it's working. Need to work on it some more. And yes I've seen pics with lozenged balloons BTW, this will be a new GroundObject. It's not just a repaint of the original.

Here is one new Pup I did with that skin. I shouldnt take any credit for it. I just put some red and white paint on it and made it look more dirty. Not a whole lot of skill involved with that. The original skin is a beauty.

The template is really hard to figure out. I dont know what's what. Thats why it's taking me so long to get to it. But since there are so many early aircraft now with new flight models and campaigns, I guess I should have a crack at it huh? After all it was a staple early on. BTW Bucky who was that last response too?

Give me a day or two and I'll post the 56 squadron SE5 skins that were involved in the Voss mission. I just need to get the lettering down.

Muchos Gracias For any of you who have tried out these balloons, can you confirm for me if they work out ok. Do they appear at the right dates and such?

The Balloons are now in the download section. There are to many different variants to post pictures of. You have to use them to really understand why I did them the way I did. There is a long read me inside. They work great with seasonal terrains for Balloon Busting missions. Grey's and lozenged (Allied and Central forces) for late fall to early spring and tan, green, and two tone for the rest of the seasons. They look great with the add-on seasonal tiles and terrains like Stary's and Jan Tumas new ones. The service dates would have to be adjusted to your liking or according to when your seasons change. It's all in the readme file included in the download. Also included is MY Cambrai terrain which I used to create the Balloon service dates. It's tweaked a bit. There are Summer, Fall, LightSnow(late fall), Snow, LightSnow(early Spring), and Spring seasonal tiles. when the first snow falls in late fall (LightSnow) all the grey and Lozenged balloons appear. When the snow clears, at begining of Spring, the tan and green balloons appear. You get the picture. Hope you like it. I think it's a nice touch. This was all created for First Eagles Gold. I dont know the compatability with First Eagles 2.

I like flying around and looking at all the new little ground objects. Fenced in cows, monuments, cemeteries, and wagons in the fields. Great stuff!

I just finished doing all new balloon skins that would appear for different seasons, and months for the stock Cambria and Verdun seasonal tiles (plus one more LightSnow tile set). But NOW I'm redoing them all to work with these new seasonal tiles and dates for sure. Holy crap these are going to be awsome! I have about 20 new balloon file dates to change. Arg! But looks like it will be well worth it

Why tell people with FEG they dont have to buy FE2 for the upgrade???? FEG is history already. No more patches, no more Expansion Packs etc, etc. If FE2 is the new standard for TW's FE series, then you have to have FE2 if you want to continue moving forward. The biggest problem for new comers to FEG is there are sooo many mods and aircraft to be installed. It's not really a problem but people do scratch their heads trying to figure out what to install, where to get it, and how to install or mod it. If people wait too long to get into FE2 they will all have the same problems, a whole lot of time consuming mod installs. There's already a whole lot of things that need to be done to FE2 to bring it even close to a fully modded FEG. Which in my opinion is already a beautiful sim. I dont really want to do it all over agiain. But I'm sure I will because that's what we all do, right? Cant wait to see what's next.

Ok sooooo, FEG is done? No more upgrades to a game that seemed to be pretty hot. So now there is a whole new platform that seems to be starting out just like FE1, from the beginning. Most of the things that were improved for FEG by modders to make it look better, sound better, and even fly much better never made it to FE2. From what I can tell already FE2 needs a "Nov'08" patch already and an "Expansion Pack I" and all of Peter01's flight models. I dont really understand the progress here. Why call it FE2 if it's the same game with some different shading. Why not save the revamping for an ExPack 2 for FEG? How much of the stuff we all have in our FEG setup can be transfered over to FE2? Terrains, aircraft, clouds, sounds, flight models. Or does it all have to be done over for the next couple of years by use AGAIN. You all know what I'm saying. And the minimum system requirements are pretty much our PC's maximum. The only way I can even play FE2 is if it looks like Combat Flight sim 1 . That's no way to sell a product. It should be running a lot smoother on medium or even high settings. If you really need the DX10 and bump shading stuff (which is very cool I must say) then thats what "unlimited" is for. But thats not the case. You need a great PC to enjoy FE2 at its basics. Thats not right. Not what I was expecting for sure. I've already uninstalled it. Why bother. Anything added to it will only make it slower. The whole worl doesnt have high end PC's with awsome graphics cards. TK said awhile back they needed to cater to more customers that use Vista and Windows7. How is this going to help. Most of these "new" people will not enjoy what FE2 has to offer. LIKE ME!!! BTW I have Windows 7 and didnt have one problem installing FEG into it

I understand TK and TW had to make a version compatable with Vista And 7. But now will FE2 be the new standard? If TW releases ExPacks for FE1 (Gold) they would also need to create an ExPack for FE2 and so on. So things would have to get messy I would asume. If they didnt have the funds or time before, They sure wont now with two versions to upgrade. Thank God for the free modders and all their time. And it's not just like FEG. There is a hand ful of different things.

Not to be a d@#k or anything but it seems like if you dont have a top of the line PC FE2 is not a whole lot different then FEG. I can only run FE2 on medium settings at best using DX9. Whats the point? to see crashed aircraft wreckage with bad smoke? Green grass in the winter? And that damn horizon Line! The flight models will all need some work(again). TW didnt seem to take much consideration into all the work modders have done for the last 5 years. If you ask me, FE2 needs another 5 years to be up to speed. So many things missing. All I visually see thats new ( that I can use) is some skins. FEG is what I'll be playing for a long time. I can do without the wing rib shadows. Why it's soo slow using DX9 with medium settings I dont know. But I'd rather spend my time with what I know. I spent so much time figuring out FE1. Now FE2 is configured totally different. New cat pack utilities, new folder locations, skin folders with no skins inside only TextureSets. ARG! Sorry guys. It kind of pisses me of. I waited a long time for nothing. Oh and hey! how about that Strutter! Oh thats right you cant fly it

I changed antialiasing to 0 and still unplayable. I though my PC was pretty good for FE2 even with DX9 running. This sucks big time! I'm not about to buy a $250.00 graphics card for a $20.00 game . Looks like I'll be sitting this one out for awhile fellas . At least a have a pretty good FE1 to fiddle with still.

So for the stock seasonal terrains and for Stary's new seasonal terrains for Cambria and Verdun, I got all the different balloons to appear at different stages of weather by date. So if it's winter time and there is snow on the ground, both sides will only have up their grey and lozenged balloons. If it's spring, summer, or fall the colored ( tan, green, or lozenged) will appear. All you'll have to do is drop these ground objects into your ground objects folder. I have to tell you though, there's a lot of balloons . That was the only way I could get the dates to work for the different balloons. ex: The grey ones would have to appear three times (through 3 winters) without appearing into the spring terrains. So I had to make three different grey balloons for Central and Allied and so on. But it works. I'll do some more testing and post these soon. Some pics show the stock balloons, but I just wanted to show they only will appear in the spring through fall months. There are a couple of other balloons that I didnt post pictures of. But you get the picture. I hope you guys are interested in this . Oh and BTW this is for FE1. I think we have to start saying that now

I found the lines in the doucuments/../../options.ini folder and changed the lines needed for DX9 to work. [GraphicsOptions] DisplayDeviceID=0 DisplayWidth=1280 DisplayHeight=1024 DisplayDepth=32 AspectRatio=1.250000 AntiAliasing=4 UseAdvancedShaders=0 <---------Changed to 0 ForceDX9=TRUE <------------ changed from FALSE to TRUE ForceVSyncOff=TRUE <-------------Changed from FALSE to TRUE LensFlare=2 DetailLevel=4 ObjectDetail=2 ObjectTexture=3 CockpitTexture=1 CockpitMirrors=1 CockpitReflection=1 EffectsDetail=2 TerrainDetail=2 TerrainTexture=3 HorizonDistance=2 GroundObjectDensity=1 WaterDetail=2 CloudsDetail=2 Shadow=1 Still the frame rates are rendering the game useless. WHAT GIVES??? Do I need a $3,000.00 gaming PC to play FE2?!?! Not a good start. And I'm sure others are going to have problems with their older PC's.

So far I pulled one Dr.1 skin out of my FE1 and dropped it into the FE2 Dr.1 folder. And it worked with no problem. I didnt add the flight model yet though.

Here's some good shots of the wing ribs and crash wreckage. Too bad the frame rates render the game useless to me. Kind of sucks big time. Even with DX9 running.

Thanks Heck. I didnt realize FE2 created a new folder in my Documents folder.

Sorry JediMaster, but I dont see those lines anywhere in my FE2 install's main folder. There isnt an options.ini like FE1 Could someone be more specific for me please on how to convert FE2 to use DirectX9 (if it can be done that is)

This might cause a whole lot of confusion for awhile having two First Eagles. Hopefully CombatAce will create a new section for First Eagles 2. Get ready for a tidalwave of threads.

Sounds good . Thanks

BTW, where can I change the DX settings for FE2? What folder has the DX .ini file?

No DX10. SH%T! That figures Thanks guys.

The little bits I could actually play I noticed burnt plane debri and smoke for crashes. Very cool