Helmut_AUT

Boy is this a pretty sim now. I'm kind of glad Rise of Flight uses that strict DRM, I might not have gotten FE2 instead. Now it seems FE2 can be as good looking with some mods (Jan's Terrain and Cloud changes...)

thanks. I used the TGA from "IL-2 Clouds" mod and Tailspins settings, looks much better now.

I'm curious - I assume a few here are playing "DiD" (meaning, if your pilot gets killed, you restart the campaign). My best run until today was 5 missions, then I got sniped out of the cockpit by a Camel. It is pretty brutal to think of the reality, how it must have been in a real war. Okay, they didn't get a guaranteed fight every time they took off, but they didn't have half our practice in aerial combat and had brutal physical conditions to deal with as well. I'm playing everything on hard, TIR and no padlock. How far have you guys gotten in consecutive campaign missions without being killed?

As the title says - I'm not sure on specs, speed at low attitude and so on. I don't want to say what happend either, but I want to verify yesterday's FE2 events with real data. So, which if these two birds should be faster? later

Well, bugging out was what saved me on that recon mission. My Wingman didn't help me when the initial two Camels showed up, and was later shot down far away from where he should have been. I would agree with you that it is more realistic to abort and get home alive than try for a mission success and die. Pilots weren't expected to die against the odds back then, either.

Okay, so maybe the fact that low down the SPAD was running away from me is correct. Didn't get to try at altitude, but was (mistakenly?) thinking the F Variant of the Fokker had one of the fastest engines in WW1...

For FE2 and the entire Third Wire Series 2 games, the mods do not go in the game directory. They go into your User directory, for WinXP under "My Documents" and for Vista/Seven there's a "Saved Games" where you can find Thirdwire/FirstEagles. So for Terrains on Vista, it's C:\Username\My Documents\My Saved Games\Thirdwire\FirstEagles2\Terrains if I'm correct. Some mods will work, some won't. I'm not a modder so can't be more specific.

Might make sense, not sure how historical it was to simple have everyone in the air... I got a recon mission yesterday just on the opposite side of the trenches where suddenly the sky was swarming with SE5a and Camels - we had two Fokker Triplanes, and no friendlies nearby either. I swear sometimes it seems as if enemy AC spawn out of thin air, but as far as I know that is not the case? In this mission, our friendly Arty was not firing at anything, the entire sky was blank - and 30 seconds later, more than 10 enemy AC around. So yeah, the game isn't always even handed in the numbers.

I'm fairly sure FEG simple has no code in place to "spawn" a crashed LOD at the point of impact. Certainly you can import/create LOD files and textures, but you will not get them to show up. IMHO, I'm not a modder, at least. Does FEG produce a "crater" for impacted aircraft? Maybe you can hook the appearing of crashed_lod to that.

Hi all A quick look at the campaign data.inis reveals (at least to my untrained eye) no instance of the Strutter actually being positioned at any squadron. Anyone cares to change that - personally I'm not clear on time frame and squadrons where it should be used. Also - in the Aircraft Directory there is a "Sop A1" and "Sop B1" or such. It's not the Camel and not the Strutter. What is it, anyone has an idea?

Pretty Aircraft. Oh BTW, they are in one campaign - I think the 1917 one - as French AC. Just one Squadron.

Looks sweet in these new shots. Thanks for the effort!

Could you post a short info what these effects do? I see more black smoke, some engine fire and you mention less normal exhaust smoke. Anything else that will be changed?

Still looking for a way to have longer visibility distance for trees...

In the Flight Folder, HUDDATA.INI should have all these info boxes listed. You might have to extract the file from a CAT archive. You can then try commenting out (adding // ) the lines that are for the info boxes. I don't use PL so I can't really be more specific...

BLEND_SRC_ALPHA fixed my cows and barns, as suggested. Bandy, good question, since my disk space is also at a premium (small solid-state drive). If the backups aren't needed I would kick them, for a Thirdwire Mod folder it generates itself annew anyway if broken. One more improvement question: When I climb up (even at unlimited settings) eventually I get the "fishbowl" effect where trees are around me and below me, but suddenly no trees in medium to long distance, they are not displayed. So it looks a tad artificial. Since I have framerate to spare, can I increase the distance at which trees (and cities) are displayed? For the sprites it should be little to no framerate hit, for cities - I'll have to test.

Reaper, I was really good in FE Gold, but in a 1vs1 on FE2, I end up most often in a tie situation, unable to gain and it's an endless circle. An SE5a hit me yesterday in a campaign mission, although I had seen him first, I temporary lost him in the scenery clutter (camoflage works with TIR and no PL). If it's too easy, maybe cut down visual aids/Padlock? FE still has the honor of being the only flight sim where I regularly find myself bounced by unspotted enemy AI.

Ah. French Version of the Strutter - cool! Posted at TW boards, but I think the Strutter might have simple been out of frontline service by the time even of the earliest campaign. Maybe a target for the Alb.III instead.

Thanks Stary, gonna try that. You basically changed BLEND_DST_ALPHA to BLEND_SRC_ALPHA, right? This is really like a rebirth of First Eagles for me. I hope someone makes the same effort for Strike Fighters... while there are good replacement terrains I haven't seen someone do all the work on the objects.

Heck, he doesn't really have to create a separate MODS directory inside "My saved games/Thirdwire/FirstEagles2." That IS the mod directory. Reaper, to give you a basic idea how modding works and what Heck has just explained to you: In earlier days (Series 1 Games) you would just go to the game directory and drop the stuff in the correct sub folder, overwriting default files. That's how you would do it with First Eagles Gold. But since Vista didn't like modified files in install directories (it is very protective about program files), TK made it so that all default game files are in compressed .CAT archives, and modified files go in "My Saved Games" subdirectory for Thirdwire, using the same folder name as the CAT file. So basically, when you start the game, it looks first into the "My Saved Games" directory if it can find any modified files there, and if it finds any, it ignores the corresponding files from the CAT archieve. That's why it's important to name the Folder "Terrains" since the default cat in FE2 is named TerrainS. I'm still awed by the way this update revitalizes the game. I tried a few alternate terrain mods for FE Gold, but the changes here (especially the amount of objects) truly make this a "Second Gen" terrain.

Thanks, that sounds like an idea. I'm not good at modding - where is this data ini found? Thanks for a great improvement to First Eagles. Edit: I just checked ww1verdun_data.ini in the folder (this file is included in the download) and these values are correct. Maybe FE2/DX10 rendering really uses a different alpha format or method.

Okay, more detailed bug report: 1) The GFX Artifacts happen with "Effects=Unlimited". 2) Alpha-Textures don't seem to work. For Cows, Telegraph masts, barns and so on I see solid white where the texture should be transparent. Possibly a change with FE2's handling of alpha textures as culprit? It still is the single most awesome improvement I've ever seen happen to First Eagles.

Okay, as the file is now online again: Jan, this is a miracle! This is the terrain that FE2 should have shipped with, to finally match the great Aircraft models and textures with an fitting scenery. So many thanks! FE2 really improved the last little details on the planes, but with default (non-seasonal!) scenery it simple didn't look like a sim should in 2010. Now it does! I do get some weird GFX artifacts at unlimited, however (excessive HDR in some walls, white shimmering "spots" in the landscape) on my ATI 4890, Win7 64bit. Maybe some shaders don't work correctly with the new objects at unlimited? But it looks awesome on high, and load times are much better too. Framerate-wise - no penalty! It's quite unbelievable, actually.

Paul, with which pack have you tested this?

So this works for FE2 simple by dropping the texture folder in the mod folder? Download Link doesn't work for me, though. This combined with the new aircraft gfx in FE2 really closes the visual gap to RoF.