Gunrunner

1) Yes, it is always like that, especially the first week, if you survive, you quickly love to learn the trees. My first mission usually ends up as a giant ten to one furball over the objective with 2 to 4 named soviet aces thrown in the mix and maybe a USAF one. 2) The campaign is winnable, in theory, but you have to work fairly hard to get a chance. 3) Yes, by default their use is a little harder I think, even though I haven't looked at the files it certainly felt so. 4) With the new method it only requires the additional step of making a copy of the .exe file for each new install, rather than the whole thing, saves up a lot a space. 5) Your wingman is meant to be less autonomous so he can be available to (badly) obey your orders, he can be quite deadly with enough rank and experience though.

No, that's (probably) related to you setting it in your decals.ini as a DecalLevel other than 2. Quick refresher : DecalLevel 0 is for Nation specific decals (or static decal) DecalLevel 1 is for Squadron specific decals DecalLevel 2 is for Plane specific decals

If we still have some time, I'll probably have a revision of the RF-84F skin between tomorrow and next week (depending on real life and how fast I solve/give up my decal weathering/noising tests), as I've got new photographic sources, finally . Scratch that, it's a complete number changes and scheme revision... Most of the photos are dated and planes without wing bands were shot after the operation, back in France, when the wing bands were already removed but not the fuselage ones yet. Likewise, the plane listed by most sources as 33-CO/52-7395 is actually 33-CQ/52-7335... and the list goes on, niarf Even the text of my new reference is wrong, giving numbers contradicted by the accompanying photo, I've never seen such a mess for post-WW2 operations. Once again, nothing beats photos precisely dated and localised. I would offer to scan photographic references (almost none in color unfortunately) for any one needing/missing them, but I won't have access to a scanner and a serious net connection next week, so eventual requests are today, eventual deliveries tomorrow. BTW Dave, I'm contemplating a stand-in Meteor FR.9 from the Meteor F.8 (will still lack the faired over guns ports and distinctive nose but better than nothing) to give the RAF recon assets, even though they historically were based on Malta, would that interest you ?

Can you find any trace of a problem in the logs/journals ? Is Aero running while you play ? If it does, disable Aero at game start (either manually or by changing the properties of the exe), it might be a crash when the game switches from one video mode to another, however it should give an error message, but I've had a similar silent crash with another game, it's worth a try.

CombatAce : come for the downloads, stay (or continuously come back) for the people. Dave, don't go soft on us like that, we might get scared.

Paul, from experience with the RF-84F, most model kits are dead wrong... In the case of the RF-84F most used the theoretical scheme of solid Yellow/Black/Yellow/Black/Yellow for both fuselage and wings when I found no photographic evidence for this scheme (the closest I got is for fuselage only, wings apparently "clean", on a plane I couldn't identify by number), especially for the planes depicted (they usually had a Yellow/Grey/White/Black/Yellow or Null/Black/Null/Black/Yellow scheme). In the end I did all three schemes, applied those backed up by photography or several sources to the right planes and randomly assigned a scheme to the other planes. The situation was complicated by the fact that depending on where (on Akrotiri or in France before shipping) and when the bands where applied the scheme was different (depending on available paint at the time). In the end only 3 of my planes have a paint scheme I'm sure is right, the rest is mostly extrapolation for verisimilitude. I have ordered a new source for Mousquetaire which should help clear things a bit (at least I hope so) but I still have no sure delay, I'll scan and post whatever we can use once I get my hands on it (if it's not too late). It's actually funny that the more sources you get on the topic, the more confusing and contradictory the informations are.

C5, you're our own Boyd (not sure you'll take that as a compliment though). And it's no surprise to see the F-15 there, it was a large part of its definition, and the late-game "gold-plating" couldn't overcome it. The F-102 though sure is a surprise, I never realised it had such a low wing loading.

Talking of the F4U-7 FM, it also has a small problem in that the AI can't seem to land it without crashing in SF2, at least in the version I have (taken from CheckSix, quite dated now).

Wait, is it Christmas yet ? Only 3 wishes, damn... Well, let's mix the genres : A 60's aircraft : CF-100 Mk 5 Canuck (for use by both the RCAF and the Belgian Air Force) A modern aircraft : Yak-38(M) Forger (my aborted project, especially when Krizis made a way better work in an order of magnitude or two less time) A what-if aircraft : Dassault Mirage G4 Oh wait, no, a Jaguar A, oh wait no... damn, that's hard to think of only 3

Not much was done/released for the F.1 as it was an early TMF release they apparently weren't particularly happy with and a replacement was on its way... Besides, what is released is a F1 C, only flying in air defense blue and two variants of two-tone brown camo (Djibouti-style) and we've got those camos. The green/blue camo scheme was only applied to F1 CR and F1 CT for which we have no model.

BTW, is there any way to have the engine to populate airfields with static aircrafts from more than one squadron ? That would make the situation at Akrotiri far more "interesting" and colorful. I tried to pile "virtual" airfields over one another for SF2:E with squadrons attributed to only one copy and each copy assigned a few parking spots but with no success for some reason.

Sony, thanks, but the hardest part was done by Soulfreak as I'm still using his template as a basis. They served in silver for a very short time, between '55 and the second quarter of '56 after which they adopted the NATO camouflage, early on attrition rate was fairly high and some planes never even made it till then (FR-7). Derk, thanks, I used those for the latest version (I had "finished" with it before I found those, then completely redid the wings and part of the fuselage because they showed parts I "badly" extrapolated from B&W offline sources, that's the trouble with stashes of 60's aeronautics magazine, it's mostly B&W). In the end my colors seem way off compared to some of these photographs, blame it on laziness and a crappy uncalibrated laptop screen. Still not satisfied but I still have a lot on my plate and some things can't be fixed with the current mapping; next up, KLu's 306 Squadron, then complete panel and markings revisions, and release, in "two weeks".

A fixed RF-84F would be great, and I'm resisting the impulse to publish my wishlist should the model be revised... I'm getting to positively love that plane, if you can get it to take off...

Thanks a lot for the offer Sony, but I've got those covered, they are well documented, I was working on the earlier "NATO" camouflage scheme, the "Vietnam" theme being out of my current project's scope. But now it's mostly font work left for those (the tail codes are way too bold). It's a pity the late 50's/early 60's are so badly covered.

Dave, RF-84Fs sent to your gmail account. Not 100% satisfied but well, it's better than "two weeks" after the pack.

Dave, was I that transparent. ^^ Well, I'm done with my Belgian Thunderflashes and reworked the aluminium skin for them so I'll be working on Musketeers 'flashes starting tomorrow, don't expect perfection, but that should be nice enough until someone with more talent and patience takes it further. Actually I was planning all Thunderflashes involved, but my free time is apparently running out, so I'll try to get at least 4/33 done quickly.

Dave, unfortunately that's the whole point of this war, you can't win it if by focusing on troops safety and killing/alienating the civilian population (we have neither the manpower, popular support nor moral ground to do so). Soldiers are supposed to be expendable tools; you sign knowing your life will be used to achieved a goal, even if that means dying when this could have been avoided by sacrificing the core mission. Once upon a time the general idea was that no soldier's life is worth losing the war... after the 60's and decolonisation wars (and Vietnam) and the meaningless losses they represented, we have shifted to a logic where protecting soldiers life comes before reaching the goals of war... that's nice for soldiers and their families, yet it is utterly ridiculous in this particular context. If your goal is to avoid soldiers losses, then don't go to war...

Dave, are you planning to add French R/F-84Fs anyway ? *innocent look*