Grinseed

Very nice work Stephen. Great to see yet another new addition. Thank you for your tremendous contribution, here and in the past. Much appreciated. And thanks to Ojcar for his suggestions too. Have a happy Christmas.

I have two installations of FE2. One for Flanders and one for Palestine based on Stephen1918's terrain. My preferred crate is the R.E.8...the revised version with the S.E.5 cockpit. Yes i am a masochist :). I dont use the toggle cockpit option much as you might have guessed. I prefer to concentrate on the bombing and let the gunner do his business. Recently I have discovered that beyond that enormous air scoop on top of the engine, the Flanders R.E.8 has no target sight with the cockpit toggle option, BUT the Palestine R.E.8 has. The Turks are really in for it now. I have transferred the Palestine R.E.8 to the Flanders installation and the target sight does not show up. Something in that set up must prevent the sight from showing but I don't have any idea what. Can anyone enlighten me how the Flanders version deletes the toggle cockpit gunsight, and what I would need to do to get it back, so that I can give the Huns some curry too? Thanks for your time.

I didn't mention I am flying the BE2C in Palestine did I? I really am a sick little bunny, but I do have a great deal of respect for the airmen of AFC 1 and 3. On the bright side, in Palestine I only got to wait til October 1917 for the R.E.8 and then December for the Bristol F2 Fighter and its only March now. Hope they send enough for me to have one. Happy days. In Flanders, my word, we can expect exchanging the ol' Harry Tates for the Bristol F2 somewhere around November 1918, that's only next year. Yes, old chum, its all looking up on both fronts.

As others have said before, there's as much interest, and satisfaction, in getting under the hood with the Thirdwire series as flying and dying in it. "That you can't see for looking" is a very apt expression for the search for those "little hidden lines". Further 'looking under the hood" reveals that the AircraftObject.ini that maintains the gun sight was Pete01's weapons fix which does not seem to affect the Flanders install. Further, the Armchair Aces Redux has nothing at all to do with the issue. Intrigue drives me to look for the relevant differences between the two differing inis. And finally, I am happy to report that in my latest R.E.8 sortie, after a reasonable bomb run, I managed to do more than just dodge a particularly persistent Pfalz, who followed me home over the lines, I managed to put a few rounds up him and drove him off. Smoke me a kipper, I will be home in time for breakfast!

Well...that only took three hours to work out. The difference lay in the different AircraftObject.inis in each installation. I am not sure why they are different. They are both fairly recent builds. But the Flanders version did host the full Armchair Aces for a time, so its possible the longer, different AircraftObject.ini was modified from there. I removed it to clear up space to concentrate on modifying the Bloody April and Cambrai campaigns made by Charles. The Palestine install is a dedicated installation and its AircraftObject.ini allows for the gunsight to appear. So for the moment I have copied the gunsight-allowing ini to Flanders. Time will tell if it has any adverse effects. In the meantime I will prod and poke with both to see what I come up with. Sorry for the interuption, it appears to have been a purely local problem. Cheers.

In a SF2 WW2 PTO version using SF2 New Guinea terrain, when I select a Japanese plane, it appears as an allied aircraft with missions to destroy Japanese targets. I can nominate them for Soviet service but its a poor work around. The service list choice is still for Vietnam, full of modern nations. IJN and Japanese Empire do not appear.They are included in the LimitedNationsList in the NG terrain folder. So what did I miss and what do I need to do to get them on the service list? Thanks for your time.

Many thanks Gatling20. I've been tinkering on this PTO setup for a few weeks and your assistance has the Japanese as rivals once more. I am more familiar with FE2. I knew from what I had read it would all came down to the Nations.ini but like a dope couldn't find it. I have set aside a copy in a safe place.

Thank you gentlemen for your time and info. I made the mistake of thinking peter01's data.ini was for the Skunkworks D3 instead of the stock AlbatrosD3_160 because he had not made a version for the stock AlabatrosD3_170. I suppose I might start comparing the stock D3_160 to peter01's 170 to see if there is more differences than just the SLPowerDry between the two. All is good. Rather than flying and dying in FE I find I spend most of my scarce spare time tinkering with the aircraft and their mods which I find very satisfying. Aa I lack a joystick (and the reaction times of my youth), I content myself with bombing missions. BSU still makes a challenging pastime. Just about finished tidying up older versions of the game I have saved along with peter01's mods and now about to start on yours VonS in a separate game version. I'll probably be back to pester you some more.

The skunkworks Albatros D3 works fine in my FE2, Jan Tuma, Flanders setup. When I add peter01's data.ini for that aircraft, with bombs selected or not, the aircraft of the entire squadron blow up. What in peter01's data.ini could be causing that to happen?

alexis99, try this link: https://combatace.com/files/file/11290-unicode-ansi-file-batch-converter/?tab=comments If you are prepared to learn how this works you can convert FE2 files for use in FE1. Its a matter of changing the .ini files from Unicode to Ansi. A long time ago I used Canadair's batch converter to alter the Campaign files and some FE2 aircraft and ground objects In Ojcar's Armchair Aces series for use in FE1, which you can still find in the Missions and Campaign download sections, You will find a few aircraft conversions in my Armchair Aces adaptions that you might make use of for each specified aircraft. Real Life forced me away from CA and I am just now getting back into fiddling with bits and pieces...I wish I had more free time. I cant fly FE1 on my windows 10 so I cant work with those files anymore, but read Canadair's notes. The conversions are simple enough but time consuming.

Caporetto is my Christmas present and gterl is my Santa. Works beautifully on my laptop FE2. My holiday break will be spent sightseeing. Thanks for you time and effort.

Thanks for that info Von S and my apologies for not mentioning your realism files. I have downloaded but not installed them as yet because I am working on setting up Ojcars WW1 Redux (whole lotta downloading goin' on) and my memory about peter01 was jogged reading an old post of mine. I want to get all the aircraft loaded first before I apply your work. I also need a new joystick...keyboard flying is hard enough without adding more realism! Good luck Javigato.

Hi Javigato. Welcome back. I too have recently returned to FE after a few years away. I am surprised at how much I have forgotten. It will all come back. I found re-reading my own posts and thread contributions helped a lot. I found myself asking "did I write that?". Imagine what your kids will feel when their kids see what primitive graphics they use today. Perhaps peter01's weapons and fms pack is what you're after?

The above download looks to be corrupted. I have tried twice over two nights but I get a error message from the Zip7 and only get half of one bmp pic showing a flight of Zeppelin bombers. The Pfalz markings and the Staaken formation files do not appear. I am trying to make sense of the ww1airfield.ini myself but like most things in life it ain't all that straightforward to say the least. Thanks in advance. ...brother....isn't that typical? I just tried again 10 minutes after posting the above and it works...either I was doing it wrong (not really likely) or you guys are really really good (yeah that's probably it)

In Gepard's "how to make a terrain" tutes in the SF1 Knowledge Base he offers the url http://edc.usgs.gov/products/elevation/gtopo30/gtopo30.html. The link is dead, at least from this computer. Is there a new link?

Many thanks, ignacioc91.

Roger, got them both. Prodding and poking now. Thanks too to Stephen for that info. The Lebed 7 looks great. Will give it a whirl when the TE wears me out.

As most of you would know in the early part of the war the Belgian engineers who operated the complex system of dykes, sluices, weirs, and canals, at Nieupoort, flooded the land down to Dixmude to prevent the German army from taking the coast. They had a little help from the British Navy who pounded the German positions until the floodwaters drove them back. In WW1 flight sims I have played I have tried to include that piece of history which nicely rounds off the geography of where the front line meets the sea. The other end in the far south had the Swiss mountains to clearly define the end of the front, in the north, a flooded land. What I have presented here is a very simplified version. The land was flooded in several areas. What I have depicted is the main body of inundation. The western side was straight, defined by an elevated railway line that ran from Nieupoort to Dixmude. (Not quite sure I actually reached the Dixmude on the map.) Its simple work with the TFD editor and I'd like to do a few more things including adding that artificial little round body of water at Ostend called the Spitum which served as a seaplane base during the war. I would also like to add some detail to the east coast of England, maybe create Gotha raids over Canterbury. I'd really love to make missions for the 1917 Gotha bombing raids against London, and the earlier Zeppelin raids, but that may be some time later, perhaps using Gepard's terrain. Anyway, when I have worked on graphics tiles for MS and RedBaron3d the tiles were all available for editing and modifying. However when I open the moddified terrain folders of Edward or even Gepard's Battle of Britain folders and even the wwiCambrai and wwiVerdun cats it seems not all the tiles are available for editing. Am I looking in the wrong places? I realise there is a lot to learn. I am reading the Knowledge bases for both SF series, but finding the tiles is my next step.

Thank you Wrench for your time and that info. Ok it looks like I need to learn more of tga files. RB3D was much simpler but not as satisfying graphically. I have collected all the mod tools here at CA but haven't used them all yet. I have all the cat files saved from Verdun and Cambrai. I have a lot to go over. Heading off to collect Cuba and I will certainly take up your offer when I know what question to ask next. I am assuming the 3W terrain editor is over at 3W, if not that will be my next question. Come, Toto, it looks like a big adventure ahead of us.

Thanks for the encouragement Geezer, but I haven't done any original artwork up to now, just using the existing tiles, copying, pasting and realigning with the TDF editor. I have made the flooded plain, using the existing coast/lake files but then that has freed up six coast/lake tiles that could be adapted for other uses with a minimum of fuss, I hope. However in the Flanders terrain folder, only two of those six coast/lake tiles show up, and these two tiles are used only once where the front line met the sea, which I have replaced with the flooded landscape. I will be looking to alter these and reinstall them in jpg format. The other four tiles I cant find anywhere. I suppose they might be 'hardwired' into the game and only available for use with the TDF ie copy paste and realign. That would severely limit my editing hopes.

Its been four or five years at least since I fired up FE. I had the good sense to save everything to disks I recently uncovered in sealed boxes and which I have been slowly sorting through the past couple of weeks and reading bits and pieces here and at Skunkworks and trying to recall how the whole game fits together. I realise I have forgotten more than I knew when I have to ask myself "how the hell did I convert Ojcar's campaign for FE1?"...I simply did not remember...but its coming back, bit by bit. I am actually chuffed that people are still using them. The first thing I did was get out Stehphen1918's DH5 for a fly, what a treat. Then lead a squadron of AEGs to bomb an airfield, superb. So, I have some questions, quite a lot actually. I have answered many myself reviewing stuff. I am staring wistfully at Jan Tuma's Seasonal files...I recall having that on FE1 at least, but cant recall if I had it on FE2. So far I have failed to get it to work in FE2. I have Panama Red's Realistic Weather mod running ok. So my first question is, does Jan's seasonal files work with FE2 on Windows 10? One question will do for now...so much more to explore..its sort of like finding FE for the first time again and like all things its actually fun to rediscover for yourself.

Well thanks for that info Geezer. Good to know my computer is in the clear. As much as I'd like to run Jan's program its no big problem because FE is greater than just changing seasons. Got to say Gterl's Italian Front is fantastic. Cheers and happy landings.

When I load up Jan's seasonal tiles a most curious and annoying thing happens. All the bmp files in his Flanders folder turn to tod files and this prevents any of his folders operating and the game freezes in the setup page. I have loaded the Italian Front (and it looks magnificent) which has Jan's tiles and they are fine. The seasonal tiles folder is fine, the bmps remain bmps. Its only the bmp files in Jan's Flanders folder that change to tod files. AND that's when I used either newly downloaded copies of Jan's Seasonal folder from CA or the ones I copied 6 years ago onto CD, so it might be something in his file that triggers a function in my computer, but just what I don't know. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks Gterl, the maps add a very pleasing tone to the game. Great work yet again. Cheers Grinseed