Gunrunner

Shouldn't be too hard, MiG-21PF/PFM with SovietSilver1 + "invasion" bands and a touch of "soviet green"... Do you have any pics of the bottom ?

Caesar, it's a choice between emotive and anecdotal truth (a way to tell the truth appealing to personal experience and building up a narrative) or cold and rationnalised truth (more concerned with numbers and their relationships, often offering counter-intuitive truth but no real clue on why things happen). None it better than the other, they offer two different facets of truth, one on how people see and live truth, the other on what's really going on, but without clue on why... I'd rather rely on data, you'd rather on experience, fine by me, both are as good and as true as long as we know of which we speak.

The gateway drug argument is a falacious one not backed by any statistical data (at least I have yet to see an independent study with precise methodology and raw data whose conclusions actually correlates with the data), in fact, data I browsed until now tend to show the contrary... However, it is true that for those seeking to escape reality through drugs, marijuana is often a first step, but the decision was already taken, it's the will to destroy yourself that pushed them to marijuana in the first place (because it's the easiest and cheapest to get, and it's the one inducing the least fear), not the other way round. One could also make the argument that all those pot-smokers that went into heavier stuff were coffee drinker... and coffee is a psycho-active and addictive substance, you might as well blame coffee as a gateway drug then... The gateway drug argument is indeed a cognitive bias inherited from decades of anti-drugs campaign (unfortunately, while they managed to plant this idea in the public debate, they didn't reach their goal or reducing drug consumption). There has always been, and always will be people ready and willing to destroy their lives, and they'll do it with whatever they can find, no one product is to blame, it's like blaming the gun for the murder...

It's in human nature to be "addicted" to things, that's how we learn... The trouble is addiction to psycho-active substances, but some, as all good things, are only a matter of degree and control, just like alcohol is not necessarily dangerous and doesn't necessarily destroy lives, it's the abuse that creates trouble (just like eating too much is not such a good idea... exercising too much isn't either... some drugs in the right quantity can save you, abused they can kill or get you addicted for life...) Unfortunately in our societies the notions of personal responsability, self-control and mesure are becoming relics of the past... Why fight a war against a "mostly harmless" product, when the war's already lost and the insistance of criminalizing it is only lining the pockets of delinquants and criminals ? It might as well help finance health, education, anti-tobacco/alcohol/marijuana campains etc...

I'd rather criminalize tobacco and alcohol... but as long as these two are legal and generating revenues for both the industry and governments, then why not do the same with marijuana indeed. It's not nearly as addictive and dangerous as alcohol, legalizing will mean more revenues, tribunals less crowded by annoying but mostly harmless potheads, police and narcs free to deal with the more serious stuff, the part of occasional users that started because it was illegal and to stick it to the man would not have a reason to indulge PLUS it will severely undercut the profits and livelihood of certain criminal organisations and delinguant gangs (on the downside, it might push them toward more violent or dangerous activities). It's also one of the oldest (with ergot) and safest psycho-active substance used by humanity and has been part of society for centuries in various forms. In fact, in most of occidental society, the recreative and medicinal use of marijuana is a de facto more. It makes sense as lons as you don't factor "moral panic". I don't condone it, but wouldn't condemn it either, the usual official attitude toward marijuana is an incoherent one, more concerned with morals than public safety.

Who would doubt that ? All good things for WoX are at CA... Well, except MarcFighter's (but his site is hosted by CA IIRC), Nazca Studio's (the quite nice Wyvern S.4), YAP (due to their payware status), Razbam (same, but they have a forum here) and He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named (or is it She ? The updated profile confused me; Anyway, I shouldn't joke if I end up applying for an access)... Oh, and Kreelin's updated FM. Hope I forgot no one...

Here, in two weeks, when it will be ready... Or, translated : It's still a work in progress, no publicly known time to release.

Simple, create a directory with the plane's name under Objects/Aicraft, put the [name of the aircraft].ini file inside, add a skin directory with skin files (they are missing, but by taking some downloadable one, it will work fine) and there you go... Or, if you have $20 to spare, you can just buy the downloadable version of WoV/SFPG with the plane you want to import...

Then call it F-112, except that, IIRC, the YF-112 (and following) were used for soviet aircrafts used for evaluation. Nevertheless, whatever its designation and how cool it looks, it doesn't seem aerodynamically sound, or a practical configuration... but that's just my amateurish 2 cents.

Nope, nothing like a CL-1200, neither like a XF8U-3, it's a combination of a F8U and a F-104 three view plans. And it seems like a horrible intake design, the flow being perturbed by both the cones AND the wings leading edge ? You can't put loads on chins like in the F8U, but you don't have the whole span of the wings either because of the bulge of intakes and the folding (and variable incidence...) wings ? You can't put centerline loads either because of the low ground clearance and landing gear inherited from the F8U... Folding wings, naval design ? But no hook and a rather limited forward view due to the long nose ? Transonic area rule ? Never heard of it, with this intake position, the fuselage cross-section is near it's highest exactly where it should be at its lowest... That thing is a heresy ^^

Except this is not a F-108... That (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XF-108_Rapier) is a F-108 ! What you have is more like the bastard child of a F-104 and a F8U, giving something remarkably similar to a Mirage F1, just a little less gracious.

Looks great Sounds a tad high... For reference, TMF's A-7 are around 22k polys, MiG-29's 14/15k polys, F-4s are between 10k and 12k... You should keep the 25k LOD, but a lighter one simplifying the little details (ie. replace the blades of the lift engines by a flat surface with a texture simulating the blades) while not taking away too much might be a good thing for those with older PCs... I know FastCargo did a huge optimisation job with the F/A-18E/F series, starting from a high poly model and building simpler models, his second level model being almost as detailled while shaving the poly count significantly, you may ask his opinion if you need advices or ideas on what works best. Anyway, that's a wonderful job, if I were a woman, I'd want to have your children

Not necessarily, the wings are small and the whole thing is a steep delta, but the body is providing some additional lift which would help thing a little.

The date at which you play is probably set AFTER the date at which the last enemy aircraft retires, which is bound to happen with the F-16 as it entered service "long" after the end of the Vietnam War. If you add modern "red" aircrafts with compatible service dates, you will fly against them...

CA_Stary> Let's see, you're playing with the building's texture alpha channel, which is the way you get the illumination effect (and the fact you see the light of buildings in the background through those in the foreground is my clue)... now... how do you get the actual lighting... a light source below the horizon and a "feature" of the z-buffer ? Close, or completely out ? Fougamagister> his next version of the european terrain with trees, seasonnality and night life apparently...

Convert your files from BMP to JPG; simplest way, open with Paint, select "Save as..." and choose JPG, then post like you did for your first try, the picture should show up. CA_Stary, that's impressive... I just love it however, in case of war, wouldn't there be some kind of curfew ?

Are you sure you didn't use an old weapons editor and an up-to-date SFG, or vice-versa ? Until the latest patch, you must use the old weapons editor, with the latest patch, you must use the new weapons editor.

Have played with Harpoon when it was still only a rule for miniatures, then with the Classic series, the II, and the early III... I spent countless week-ends with them... Unfortunately I discovered that I can't play either the II or my early III anymore (the II can't find the DRM, and the III apparently can't find its registration), still not sure whether taking the plunge for the new III, with multiplayer, is worth it...

Errr, that's usually normal, as DX7/8, DX9 and DX10 are rather different beasts with rather different code path, most GPU are optimised for the latest and greatest DX at the time of conception, and legacy functions are, in a way, emulated, often leading to "decreased" performances in older games. But that's not all, as for all games, even with brute numbers down, it still is more than enough to play at full resolution. Benchmarks are NOT a way to measure graphic performances, they are a way to show off your brand new hardware, you should NOT take the numbers generated by these useless piece of crap as any indication of performance and rather play the games you want to play and compare the real case figures...

That's what I was saying, let me recap things so far : In SF1 : a- /SFP1/Objects/Aicraft/MirageF1/MirageF1.LOD calls for miragecanopy.tga b- SF1 engine searches for /SFP1/Objects/Aicraft/MirageF1/miragecanopy.tga If it is found, then he uses it... Else... c- SF1 engine searches for miragecanopy.tga inside OBJECTDATA.CAT If it is found, then he uses it... Else... d- It either crashes or uses a perfectly transparent canopy... In SF2 : a- /SF2/Objects/Aicraft/MirageF1/MirageF1.LOD calls for miragecanopy.tga c- SF2 engine searches for miragecanopy.tga inside OBJECTDATA.CAT If it is found, then he uses it... Else... d- It uses a perfectly transparent canopy... It seems like either the b- step is missing completely from the SF2 engine OR the b- step is searching in another directory. BTW, do any of you understand pseudo-code, it may be somewhat easier to use than trying something more verbose versions...

IIRC, yes it is, but it would be even better to find out where the SF2 engine expects the TGA to be. Or maybe asking TK might be fruitful, as it might also be a bug in the new engine that he can't know about (as he has little reason to expect TGAs outside of CATs).

It might be that the TGA is missing; Either because the LOD calls for a TGA missing in the SF2 OBJECTDATA.CAT, or because instead of searching the TGA at the root of the airplane directory the engine now searches for it elsewhere. I can't offer more without a list of which addons work and which doesn't. One simple way to know which file the LOD calls, simply open the LOD in any good text editor or hex editor, and search for TGA, usually the first occurence of the string is the call made for the canopy.

IIRC, it's a TGA called from the LOD, at least it's the way I remember from the TMF F-16s.

GreyCap> Well, usually it depends on the year you're playing, the campaign, and learning it the hard way through previous missions... once you know enough, you see where the mission will lead you and the potential SAM opposition.

Well, there will be one when Marco's satisfied with it... (unless he dropped the project ?)