TK_ThirdWire

Interesting idea, but I just wanted to be clear that this does NOT involve Third Wire in any way. First, 250K really isn't all that much, there is no way we (Third Wire) can do a detailed study sim with that little amount. If you want to develop a game on budget, you probably want to be shopping for a studio outside US, in places like Russia, Eastern Europe, India and China where things are cheaper. Or a studio that out-sources to those places (which we don't). Or a studio that uses all volunteer force. Second, normal game development takes around 2 years. And ambitious design (as most community designs tend to be) can take longer, easily taking 4 years or more. Add to that the time it takes to gather the 5,000 pre-orders just to get started, I think you're looking at 2010 release at earliest, more likely 2011 or 2012. We really don't want to be tied up to this single game for the next 4 years, as we do have other plans :) Third, since you're taking money from the eventual customer, it seems to me that all you're doing is shifting when you get paid - you're essentially charging people more and asking them to pay up 2+ years in advance. And I can't really see as being good thing in the long run, because I think you'll just have less people buy the game that way. I know there are other studios that do their business that way (taking pre-orders first to fund development), and I wish them all the success, but that’s not the way we want to do our business. Anyway, so those are the reasons why Third Wire will not be involved in this. This doesn't mean community can't do this without our involvement tho, don't let me stop you from producing your own game! Good luck! TK --

Hi Deuces, Er, where is Skunkworks Area 51 Forum? :? I must missed something somewhere... TK --

Hey Dagger! Yeah, what Deuces said ;) The cloud layers are tiled, that means the texture have to be repeatable. TK --

Hi everyone! No need to panic! We're still here, still working away on patch 2... :) We have been busy doing much needed upgrades and maintenance here and getting ready for the next round of beta testing, and that should get started in the next two weeks or so... But actually, we're not sure why our website is down, its hosted by someone else.. . We'll look into it, probably some screwup at our web host. Hopefully, that should get squared out shortly.. Thanks, TK --

I'll download that particular skin (which looks phabulous btw ;)) tomorrow and see if I can figure out anything wrong with it... I do like the way you guys are organizing your skin specific decals into the skin folder, and I'd like to make that the 'standard' way in the future... ;) Thanks, TK --

00 scrub, Which version of the game do you have? and where do you have the game installed to? That message means the files its looking for is either wrong version or missing from the directory it thinks it should be in. So you might have a wrong version of the game, or it might not be looking at the right directoy. TK --

column5, Hm, I don't thinlk the patch changed the way decals are loaded, so I'm not sure why that wouldn't work... except maybe the name might be too long or something... :? TK --

wiegehts, Sorry to hear that, that means you do have WalMart version for some reason... I'll have to ask some quesitons tomorrow to find out how it ended up in Circuit City :evil: In any event, if you send e-mail to Strategy First, with a photocopy of your CD, they'll send you a replacement CD. TK --

Hey column5, what "non-standard" way were you storing the decals? TK --

wiegehts, sorry to hear you're still having problem, not sure what it could be... as for checking version, when you run Strike Fighters, on the main screen at the bottom right corner should be the version number.... and it should say v10-11-02. Let me know if you have this number. TK --

Rogue, I'd make a back up copy of all the mods, and do a patch on a clean and fresh install. Skins should be no problem, but any mods that adds data files (*.ini files) will get in the way of patches. And the patch intaller, if you select "Yes" on the first screen, will delete your Strike Fighters folder completely just to make sure... :shock: TK --

galanti, glad you got it worked out ;) TK --

wiegehts, Looks like one of the files is either corrupted or missing, or its not looking at the right directoy. Where do you have the game installed to? One thing that might be causing the problem, if you select "Yes" on the first screen (which will uninstall the game), but don't follow through with the installer program (by cancelling out), it'll leave the game uninstalled. Go check to see if the Strike Fighters is still installed. If not, reinstall, and make sure to select "No" on that first screen. TK --

Man, you guys are quick! galanti, What problem are you running into? Did you select Yes on the first screen? (if so, it'll do a complete uninstall of your game) Thanks, TK --

Sundancer, Great to hear you got the problem solved! :) TK --

Well, unfortunately no, you can't have different tanks for different skins... drop tanks are treated as separate objects and don't know anything about the skin selection of their carrier.. :( If you really want, I suppose we can have different drop tank types (ie, instead of just one "370gal tank", have two, like "grey 370" and "camo 370"... TK --

CrazyAggie05, The CCIP was not available on any of the aircraft modeled in the game, and neither was any air-to-ground radar. They had ground mapping radar at most, not precise enough to "lock on" to any specific ground target. Bombing is generally done the same way it was done in WWII, just do a dive bomb and take a note of alt and speed. The only difference is that you get to carry a lot more bombs on your F-4 than you do on your P-51 ;) (F-4 can carry 16,000 lbs of bombs, or three times the normal bombload of WWII B-17) TK --

CrazyAggie05, Yellow diamond will only come up if you have HUD option on Normal or Easy (I think). Once you have a radar lock, you have to maneuever to get within Sparrow range. On the radar display, there should be two tick marks to the right of the dithered sweep (the bar that goes through the target). That's the min and max range of the Sparrow you're carrying, just make sure the target is between the two. TK --

Hi MadJeff, Well most everything not aircraft related just go into the Objects folder, I think... :) If there are any other textures you guys need, just let us know, and we can provide them for you. Thanks, TK --

Hi pcpilot, thanks for the suggestion! When we made decision on Instant Action, we wanted it to be one mouse click away from the main screen. If we had a setup screen in between, that would be two mouse clicks at least ;) Its a trade-off between flexibility and simplicity, and unfortunately, everyone has his own preferences as to where it should be :) Since this was more casual sim, we tended to lean more toward simplicity, our thoughts being that we can always add flexibilty via external editors. We hope that our single mission generator fills your need to setup mission quickly without building full mission (of course, you still can't select opponents, but...) TK --

195th_Vang, Wow, great job figureing this out so quickly! ;) That -gamespy is supposed to turn off the gamespy heartbeat, if its not, then that would be a bug :) There is also additional swich not being passed in by the GameSpy (due to their interface limitation), and that is -c:n where n is 0-15 for the player color (if not specified, the last color you used is used) Also, in theory, the host should just be able to launch LAN session normally and not through command line, and others can still join in using command line. Anyway, all this is documented a little in the readme.txt for the upcoming patch. :) TK --

Well, we don't have current plan to add Direct TCP/IP, we recommend that you go through match making service (such as GameSpy) instead. If there are enough request, we can consider adding it in, but it'll probably be after other serious bugs are fixed :) Thanks, TK --

Thanks MadJeff, We'll take a look at them for the upcoming patches :) btw, could you guys try to pinpoint exactly when the CTD happens in multiplayer? TK --

Hey guys, could you please refrain from doing this? This is the area used for testing games not yet released, and you may be interfering testing process. Please be patient and wait a couple of days until it is officially active on GameSpy Arcade. I have to check and confirm this tomorrow, but I believe the Strike Fighters is scheduled to be available on GameSpy Arcade upon the game's release date (Oct. 29). The GameSpy program should automatically detect the game after that without going through all these hoops. Thanks, TK --

Hi BirdDogg, The game doesn't have a mission editor just yet, it instead has a mission generator that randomly generates missions. We're planning to put a full editor together and release it later on the web, though. (if anyone's really impatient and must create missions now, we might release the file format - its all in text - so you can create your mission on your notepad...;) Thanks, TK --