Helmut_AUT

Dave, does your edit also kill the center text box which announces stuff like "MiG-23 targeted" and "sparrow selected"? Works for SF2E? So far I removed the left and right bottom info boxes, map aircraft icons, the rest is gone on HARD anyway. I'm not sure if killing the center display will work, since I haven't looked yet if all default cockpits have the necessary indicators for weapons, flaps and so on.

Per the Naturalpoint, all the Series 1 TW games are listed by name as 5DOF (Head Roll isn't used). So up/down should also work, and will be much appreciated in the WW1 aircraft. For what it's worth, I broke down and ordered a TIR yesterday, so it sure will be nice to have these features in TW games. It also reinforces my decision to replace IL-2 and LOMAC with Thirdwire stuff, since these two only have yaw and pitch.

Just wondering... the aircraft is flyable, but all the squadrons in the '79 campaigns either use Thunderbolt or Eagle. Looks like a nice enough ride, shouldn't it be there?

Thanks for the pointers. I don't want to add new units to a campaign, or rewrite decals, and both the 23rd TFW as well as the ANGs listed would have to be added as far as I can make out. I think the 357th TFS "Licking Dragons" as part of the 355th TFW will suit the idea, starting with '75 Corsairs and then going directly to '78 Thunderbolts as an upgrade in the campaign. They seem to have been a training unit since the '70, but as they are flying combat in the fictional default campaign, we're not gonna get any closer to realism anyway. I quite like the idea of switching from the Corsair to the Thunderbolt mid-campaign. It could symbolize a speed-up of an already "in progress" transition to the new airframe caused by the war. Edit: Here are the files if someone wants to save the work. Campaigne2.zip

Outsch. That puts a serious dent in my defense against spending the money. Right now the local amazon charges 140EUR for TIR4 with Vector, which is a rip off, and ordering from the US drives the price with import duty. Is there any mod or way to map the left/right/up/down lateral head movements to a key? Lord knows I wanted that for a while.

I've been holding back on TIR since only FS2004 would fully support all axis (6DOF) and that would disable the "cockpit bobbing" which I like (standard FS9 aircraft have totally static 3d pits, no sense of movement in that one unless you install an addon which uses the TrackIR API). First Eagles and SF2 do only three axis either I guess (pan view and zoom view). Or is there 6DOF somewhere hidden?

Sorry, I'm not getting it to work. Jomni, I looked into the KB, but it mostly relates to SF1 style of folders and files. The SF2 KB is pretty slim still and didn't give me any pointers. --okay, I got it: Thirdwire SF2E Folder in my Documents/Campaigns/CAMPAIGNE2/ So I had to create a Campaigns directory and then a correctly named subdirectory for C2. Thanks for all help.

hgbn, please see my edit above: Swapping the AC was no problem, but where do I put the two extracted inis? Since MissionData003.cat has CAMPAIGNS2_DATA.INI and CAMPAIGNS/CAMPAIGNE2.ini and sits itself in the FLIGHT folder, I put these extracted and edited files in my User Documents/Thirdwire/Flight Folder. Doesn't work.

Thanks for reporting it to TK and pointing out the right cat file, I might try to change this, but have never edited Third Wire stuff before. I guess CAMPAIGN.INI descripes the squadrons with their bases and starting aircraft, and CAMPAIGN_DATA.INI has more concrete info on the squadrons including a possible aircraft upgrade. Seems doable to swap a Corsair II in there instead of an A-10 Unit. EDIT: Okay, I swapped the 509th TFS Pirates Aircraft in both Campaign2.inis (which is the 79 Red Lightning Campaign) for an A-7D_75 with an upgrade for an A-7D_78 later. They had A-10 before, so it seemed to fit, even if it might not be historical. I put the CAMPAIGNE2_DATA.INI into my UserFiles/Thirdwire/Flight Folder (which I created first), and in a subfolder CAMPAIGNS there I put the CAMPAIGNE2.INI This mirrors the structure of the unpacked MissionData003.cat file. But it doesn't work. The game still loads the pirates with the A-10. I think I haven't fully understood how the new folder structure is supposed to be used? Flight.zip

Shame, it would be nice to have one or two TFS (there are maaaaany in the 79 campaign anyway) switched from Thunderbolts to A-7. I can't find the campaign files anywhere, and don't want to extract all the dats right now. Besides I'd likely screw up the edit.

Hi I use the very same stick - better suited for WW1 and WW2 arguable - but one of my thumb buttons is front view, since the hat and padlock toggle do not allow for a quick "return to front" command. Never did install the software, yeah that should do the trick. Or I could just switch to the Thrustmaster Cougar I have around ;) later

Okay, I tried "Target Closest Center" and Padlock on the same joystick key - no dice. Doesn't seem to work. the button remained in control of padlock but no targeting took place.

I looked into the Knowledgebase but couldn't find this covered: I tried a few quick CAS single missions yesterday to get an easy entry into SF2:Europe. What I found is that three or four times - every single time - the mission would create a ground battle between a handful of Centurions in tan desert camo, and a horde of Russian T-72 and T-62. Now, maybe I need to play the campaign - but shouldn't there be more variety in friendly ground units, I see from the directory that there are the expected M60, M48, Leo1 all present. Also, I looked for tank skins here in the download section, but didn't find specific information - would be nice to get the Centurions into green camo, as well as some of the AAA units present which are also desert camo. Right now, it's a bit disappointing that all I have for a war in Central Europe are British desert tanks. I'm surprised the paint hasn't been updated before release.

Could this be the reason I'm seeing so much worse performance in outside view for SF2E compared to First Eagles? Maybe on my "larger" game rig with a 9600GT (64 Shading Units) it will be faster, the 7600GT in this one only has 12 Shading Units. On the other rig, First Eagles seems to be CPU bound mostly, but here in SF2E it seems both gfx and cpu are important. I re-tested two CAS missions tonight - Single Missions - one in '69 with a Harrier, the other in '80 with a Thunderbolt - and both times tan Centurions as friendlies. I guess the single mission CAS template is limited, can anyone confirm the other allied tanks (green ones) show up in the campaign?

Ah okay, it's a feature of the terrain then. I still think it's clever enough to do it such, instead of having a hard-coded "texturename" entry somewhere. I also like how First Eagles uses color change (shaders?) to simulate time of year. Does SF2 use this as well?

The gun example isn't the best for multiple uses, but for example Padlock and Target Closest To Center could be good as a "point and track-one click" solution. I'll try that at home, as well as maybe adding multiple bindings for the same command (mouse view...) Also there's the option to reverse axis which I had been looking for. Thanks for pointing me into the right direction, I'll experiment and report back if I find something worthy.

I'm constantly surprised how clever the game engine is. So it knows "green" and "tan" camo by name - makes a lot of sense. I'm surprised the ton of skinners out there haven't dug more into the tanks. Good point about trying different years, maybe in Single Missions that will also provide some variety. I think I just switched aircraft around (A-10 and Harrier), not the years.

Well, that promises hope. Shouldn't it be easy to just overwrite the default skin with a green one? I hope the campaign generates different ground engagements for CAS, with M60, Leo1 and stuff? They would be green at least. Thanks for answering.

Hi all again I'm a bit surprised - it's early in my testing, but so far this one runs quite a bit slower on my "temporary game PC" than First Eagles. This temp system has an old AMD Sempron 3000+ with 1.8 GHz and a 7600GT Nvidia, my normal game system is a 2.6Ghz AMD 5000+ Dualcore with a 9600GT. I suppose moving to my normal gaming rig will make a difference, but First Eagles on that one (with higher details) doesn't go above 30 frames either (at high details) so I hope this one will get at least 25. It seems a bit low on performance either way - I can run IL-2 with max details on this temporary box at 40 frames avg, SF2:Europe gets 15 at High settings and doesn't look THAT much better. Are there some good tweaks to apply? I can't help but think the Strike Fighters engine isn't utilizing the graphic card fully, instead being stuck on CPU. Not much I can do then, I suppose, it reminds me a bit of FS2004 which is also heavily CPU bound.

Thanks, for WVR and Ground attack medium horizon seems plenty.

Balitka, isn't that only supposed to fix Vista performance issues? I'm on XP. Somehow it's really weird how LOMAC and IL-2 run faster on my rigs than SF2:Europe. I mean, SF2 looks pretty good - First Eagles with the cockpit shadows looks better - but neither is such heads and shoulder above those other two sims. It seems to me what kills me are ground objects, taking off at the airfield is the worst. Oh well, suppose until I can try it on my main gaming rig, no point in worrying. I'm due for an upgrade in October anyway... Fubar, I run Horizon for First Eagles at Medium, and here too - does it actually make a different for radar range and BVR range? That's the only thing that would worry me about lowering it.

Hi Guys I've long ignored Thirdwire's sims (shame on me I guess) for what was supposed to be "simplified" Air/Air, Air/Ground radar and other jet avionics. Instead I flew LOMAC for my modern sim needs. Now I stumbled across First Eagles on the lookout for a WW1 sim, and obviously avionics are not a problem there. I like that game a lot (a steal at 20 bucks), in general I really like the underlying engine, it obviously has nice potential for generating quick single player missions as well as ground/air campaign with moving frontline and so on. I can now imagine this engine would be fun in a modern jet sim as well. Now I guess the main question is - what do I really have to expect in terms of system modeling and avionics from Thirdwire's modern sims (I'm particularly looking at SF2:Europe). Is there an all-seeing, all knowing radar on hard mode which simple gives me all targets and full situational awareness, or does it have range limit and jamming modeled? Is the handling of the Maverick seekers on the A-10 reasonable done? (i.e., you actually have to slew and look for ground targets instead of pressing magic "target next" button). Do the modern setting sims (like SF2:Europe) also simulate ground units, supply levels and stuff in the campaign, so you get what feels like a real ground war? I guess flying the Harrier or Hunter, lack of radar details won't be my main problem. Does the Harrier do proper V/STOL or is it like the Microsoft Flightsimulator hacks using "oversized" flaps? I really could love a Harrier full of dumb iron with a proper flight model - is there a CCIP bomb targeting mode? I've also seen addon helicopters - does that mean the engine can model helo flight? Also looking for a Tornado or Strike Eagle addon that works well - are there such things? The quality of user mods for FE varies a lot (as usual with these things). I guess if I can get my head around some of these questions, SF2:Europe looks like a really nice deal. Please help me understand better what I can expect from that sim so maybe I can join your ranks here flying this. Oh, and final point: I absolutely love the fact that there is no activation, logon or similar DRM/CP restrictions on these games. I want to "own" my bought games, and Thirdwire is excellent to it's customers it seems as they do not include any headache for legit buyers.

I'll need a few days to get sorted with the basic game first - that's the beauty of more content for later.

Aye, got it. Not quite my thing anyway, I think. The three SF2E campaigns seem decent enough for choices of aircraft and nations. I like what I'm seeing in the manual as far as Radar and Weapon settings are concerned. Not overly complicated switchology but enough to keep one busy. I suppose it IS after all possible to transition from LOMAC to this - while that one has a bit more detail, the lack of a dynamic campaign is a major show stopper for me. And in looks SF2 doesn't need to hide, which I admit I initially underestimated until seeing First Eagles running on a good system.

Yep Viper, that's what I meant. Standards vary between mods, they all are built by dedicated people but some have more time, others less, it's understandable. I just prefer to stay mostly stock so all parts work together and "look/feel the same" overall. I just installed it here at work (if my Boss knew ;) ) and jumped in some cockpits, I noticed CCIP in the A-10 works but goes "over" the cockpit instruments (outside of the HUD glass) I guess I'll live with that. I keep reading references to a Merc Campaign, but didn't see that in my campaign selection screen? Is that an User-Made mod? What I'm sadly missing are the "shadow inside cockpit view" effects from First Eagles, but I suppose the problem is the canopy as part of the cockpit model, which would need the shadows to only work with non-alpha texture parts - certainly a bit more complicated than the open cockpits from WW1. Otherwise I really like having a modern and an "old" aircraft sim on the same engine, makes things so much easier.