Gunrunner

Warsaw Pact seems unlikely... In a WW3 scenario, IF WP forces decided to extend their forces toward the iberic peninsula, it would mean that a) Germany and France fell, b) Norway fell, c) Iceland, Ireland and the United Kingdom fell, thus leaving very few possibilities of counter-attack on the North Atlantic front and allowing ground forces to move forward, only leaving reserve and garrison troups behind as occupation forces. In such a scenario Spain and Portugal would already have had forces fighting in Germany and France once the severity of the situation was realised. Meaning that once you'll start your campaign, you'd be facing a formidable opponent (far more than historically, otherwise it wouldn't have been able to meet the requirements), with your already crippled forces (the losses in defense of Germany/France) and little support from anyone else (The US would have suffered tremendous losses in defense of the GIUK gap, Norway, Germany, France and England, the North Atlantic would be mostly in Soviet hands, and help from the Mediterranean would be sparse (maybe from Italy/Greece/Turkey/Israel if they're still in the game, but with the Atlantic lost, the only "safe" ressuply route would be through a long detour and the quite vulnerable Suez Canal)). It would be a fight for a glorious death, as if it comes to that, you'd have no chance to win. You could also envision an invasion from the Mediterranean rather than through the Pyrenees, which would mean a complete domination over the Mediterranean by the Soviets, meaning the partial downfall of at least Italy, Greece, France and Turkey. The Black Sea Fleet never was in a position to accomplish such a feat, and never had enough transport and assault capacity to mount an invasion of the iberic peninsula. The Soviet goal in such a scenario would be to deny complete control of the Mediterranean to NATO forces, "secure" the Suez route and protect the Black Sea. Now, let's say they didn't disable Italy etc... Their fleet would be too vulnerable to mount any serious invasion. Then let's consider that the invasion is mostly a diversion, an attempt to mobilize NATO forces far away from Germany and buy time by opening a new front, even though the chances of succes are slim. In that case it makes much more sense to try that in Turkey or better Italy, as it ends up being easier to secure and offer better strategic advantages in case of success, prompting a more serious reaction from NATO and thus acting as a better diversion. Nope, sorry, as interesting as it might be, without a large dose of suspension of disbelief I can't see it working with the Soviets...

I'd be more interested in earlier marks (-A, -B, -C), or even better, an E-1B/WF-2 but yes, a true E-2 (as opposed to a deformed C-2, wich served valiantly for years) would be nice.

I think the thorny issue with refueling is that TK would want to do it right, meaning that it will not only be there for the player, but the AI and that the AI would be able to use it by itself. In most other sims this is either absent, or partly scripted (meaning that once reaching a certain position, the AI will follow a script rather than really react to outside events). Also, originally, the SF series was more about tactical operations, skirmishes, and there was no real need for refueling as the size of the theater made it unnecessary (except that since WoV it had an historical justification), meaning that the whole campaign engine would have to be changed, since the change in scope would mean really dealing with long flights with refueling, multiple operations, etc...

True, I'm a parasite... (well, mostly) The person below me is a sycophant.

Probably because the USN did test the Mirage G around 1968 and Dassault did offer the swing technology and consultancy on it to some competitors including LTV, IIRC LTV did take the offer (hence the proximity of design), but no other did.

Errr, there never was any G3... What would be interesting would be a G4 (the G8 looks unbalanced with its single seat so far forward) and a F3 (the F2 second seat being far enough that the single seat version looks right). The original Mirage G demonstrator might be of interest too (Mirage F2 fuselage, dual seat, single engine, swing wings : Link). And of course a 4000.

The whole range of "high-end" options in the Mirage family would be nice. But there's so much to do already... Mirage F2 (cancelled in 67) Dual seat, 1 engine, a little bigger than a Mirage III, with a high mounted swept wing, for strike, reconnaisance etc... Started in paralell with the original Mirage G, the AdA lost interest in it once the Mirage G proved successful, concentrating instead on the G4. Mirage G4 (cancelled 68) Dual seat, 2 engines, for strike, reconnaissance, nuclear strike and electronic warfare. Replacing the F2 as the next main strike aircraft, the F2 development continuing for a while in paralell as a backup plan. Mirage F3 (cancelled in 67) Single seat, 1 engine, smaller than the F2, for interception. Mostly a F2 cut for interception duty after a shift in priorities. Mirage G8 (cancelled 73) Single seat, 2 engines, for interception. Once the G4 collapsed and realising that what the AdA really needed was interceptors, the G8 was to the G4 what the F3 was to the F2, an interceptor version, the program continued until 1973 even though the AdA chose the F1 in 1967, perhaps hoping to get enough credits in the meantime to procure the G8 later on. And last but not least... The Mirage 4000 ! PS : Ah ! I knew I already did a whole rant on these birds ^^ A little over a year ago...

Mostly because the Il-18 looked much like an Electra, and when both sides chose an airliner as a basis for a coastal patrol plane, they chose from the same class of airframe.

I'd just love to have inclement being light rain in summer, heavy rain in autumn, light snow in early winter, heavy snow in the heart of winter... Unfortunately those effects seems to depend on environmentsystem.ini with no way (at least none I found yet) in the [terrain].ini to set up effects for seasons, defeating the purpose of seasonnality a bit (unless you want heavy rain during a snowy winter, or heavy snow in summer...). The compromise I use at the moment is reserving inclement for snow and making sure inclement has a null or very low probability for anything except winter. On another (related) note, is there any summer/spring tree set compatible with CA_Stary excellent fall/winter sets ?

Nice, I'll just have to wait :) I just love your work, the PR tiles while stunning at the right altitude often look too repetitive from altitude and too strange once in the weeds. For the Lexx-style clouds I knew the limitation, but that would make sense in simulating a "semi-dynamic" weather system, as usually the weather is not uniform from France to Ukraine, as the system work yet.

Or maybe they're just placeholders until the actual code is done, making the transition easier because the entries and IOs are already there...

Doesn't seem like you can replace effects texture with seasons. But since you have to modify the rainemitter to make it work, it might also be that my method just doesn't work (the original RainEmitter is a particle system with no texture, so I had to write another crappy one as a replacement to test the idea).

I always wondered wether it was a full TW product or just a licenced engine as the screenshots for this one usually show 3D models below the usual TW standard (which, given the rather different purpose, is rather normal).

herman01, it's not "just a scene", a scene is a cooperative process involving dozens of people doing their job. Even worse, if done in natural environment, a scene is a tricky thing to do, as lighting changes with the time of the day, with weather, and you might not get to reshoot a scene properly for days if you miss the particular window of opportunity you were looking for (Just watch Lost in la Mancha for a nice exemple of really bad luck...). For some movies, reshooting a scene might mean spending YET another hour or two in freezing water, or mostly nude in the middle of winter, or under tons of makeup and heavy costumes under heavy (and hot) lighting. The more you shoot, the more fatigue creeps in (in actors and crews) and the greater the risk of screw-ups is. All delays cost money, as the dozens of people have to get paid for their time. All people on set are there since early morning and will usually leave only when the shooting schedule for the day is done, or when working conditions are not good enough (when everyone's too tired or the weather/lighting are not right anymore). All of these people have families and better thing to do than reshooting scene after scene just because some idiot likes to wander on set, especially if scenes were good until that point. Given, actors don't work that much, but when they do work, they work intensely, sometimes accepting things you would not accept (in Bale's case one might think of losing more than 60 pounds in preparation for The Machinist, allegedly he wanted to lose even more) (of course, most get paid handsomely for what they do). Professionalism is NOT letting people screw up hours of teamwork repeatedly and let it continue. Let's switch context for one where repeated absent-minded mistakes screwing the work of other has clearer consequences; A moron absent-mindedly walks in on an operation room, during an operation, without proper protection, threatening contamination for the patience and risking his life ? Twice ? Don't you think the moron wouln't be yelled at ? Would the surgeon delivering the yelling be unprofessional ? I'll guess you never worked in situations where your own work can be compromised by the incompetence of others and where you would have to start all over again because of it, if you did you would not see yelling as unprofessional, as it sometime is the only way, short of using lethal means, to deal with some idiots.

Now we need a Panama terrain...

Yep, you're right C5, IIRC only the FAW.9 ever received it in service, and even then, very few did and had a new designation in service, FAW.9® or something along these lines.

Then we'd be running out of carrier to land on ^^

I wouldn't want to be in a Tomcat trying to land on the old girl... AFAIR she was barely enough for Hornets... Yeah, I know, I'm no fun...

Thanks Wrench, I already find that out from ANW ^^ From my experiments, trying all known or possible positions for both declarations and alternate files, you can't seem to get per-season environmentsystem.ini, and if you can include them into the terrain specific environmentsystem.ini I haven't found how either. I haven't tested getting effects in a seasonal folder though, that's worth a try...

How could you get Best Sci-Fi and Pluto Nash in the same sentence without a negation ? It's got Eddy Murphy ! It's got to be the absolut worst SF movie ever made... even Jar-Jar Binks seems a good idea if watching SW1 just after Pluto Nash... Flash Gordon is another thing entirely, it's so kitsh it's brilliant and it's got a Queen soundtrack... You, sir, have rather strange tastes...

Amen, it's time some people realize they're not children anymore and that "mommy, the angry guy yelled and said naughty words" doesn't/shouldn't work in real life. You screw up, you pay the price... being yelled at and being at the wrong end of empty threats is a small price to pay for mistakes costing hours of work for dozens of people...

SkippyBing> Because it's no better in France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Greece (and I guess the rest of Europe)... That the US, Japan, Korea may be better on some issues but have ones we don't even have in Europe. Iceland (well, if you like a dying economy dependant on Russia's good will), Switzerland, Luxembourg might do better, but they are special cases... The real trouble is that while, once upon a time, justice was concerned above all with protecting the public/victims/innocents from criminals, now they are more concerned with respecting the criminals rights, and protecting them from the public/victims/innocents right[eous|ful] anger, too often forgetting its first and foremost duty in the process. That's what you get for living in compassionate societies...

Let's see, 12hrs community service, that's fair... £850 fine, that is not under the circumstances... Now for the real culprits... Electronic tag for 9 months ? That is not fair, unfortunately you have to think of the alternatives... Prison ? If british prisons are even twice better as french ones, it will only make those little morons even more dangerous... Fine ? How does that do justice to anyone ? Putting their parents in prison (for default of education), and the idiots in foster care in the meantime, and maybe fining the school for not properly securing the children on school grounds ? While it may be a way to solve a larger problem it wouldn't represent justice in that particular case either. Beating the idiots senseless ? While it may feel quite good and is rightly deserved, it wouldn't help your niece either, and probably wouldn't teach anything to the little punks. I also guess the judge chose this lenient verdict because of the "young" age of the culprits, not taking into account the fact that if they are old enough to rape in such a way, they are old enough to face the consequences of their acts. Oh, and the school's spokeperson needs a shovel experty applied on the cranium to get their ideas back in place... what ? The same events outside of the school ground would have been perfectly alright ? What disturbs them is that it happened on school grounds ? Idiots -_- Justice is a difficult equilibrium to find, especially in cases where no verdict would really help the victim and redeem the culprits...

From my little experimentations (but CA_Stary, Deuces, Lexx_Luthor and a few others are the only one outside TK who really know about these things), the clouds are random, but they can be fixed (including rain/snow emitters) or moving using the target method Lexx_Luthor uses for his cirrus clouds etc... I didn't find anything allowing to link a precipitation emitter to randomly generated clouds. In the stock game, in inclement weather, as long as you're under the cloud layer, you'll get rain/snow (in fact, it seems that the engine only generates rain/snow around the player's aircraft and/or the focus of the camera).

Thanks Wrench but I know seasons are there, I'm using them. ^^ It's just that so far it seems that weather and lighting (environmentsystem.ini) settings are game-wide (applies to the whole game installation, regardless of the terrain used or the season), not terrain-wide (applied only to a particular terrain, regardless of season) or season-wide (applied only to a particular season, either for all terrains, or for one terrain in particular). PS : It seems from your ANW4 that it can be terrain-wide at least, thanks. ^^ Unless I misread you and it IS there... Well, off to reinstall FE and ANW4 just in case I missed something... Code-side it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt the engine to override the game-wide environmentsystem.ini if it finds one inside the terrain it is loading. HHF> Sorry but in Europe in the 60's with very few really AW fighters, flying conditions were a pretty important factor. Remember that it is weather (and lower altitudes) which accounted for a great part of the accident rate of the F-104 in Europe. And while in peace-time most aircraft wouldn't fly with crap weather, in a state of war, if there's bomber out there, rain or snow, you've got to intercept them... and conversely, if the weather means you're less likely to be intercepted, it might be an opportunity to strike. Also, take into account that having "hard" ground object means more computing and thus a little less performance, seasonnal weather only costs a little tweak in the way settings are loaded.