mue

Maybe just to preselect the campaign in the "create campaign menu"?

Never noticed this before. After some tests, it seems it depends on the flight model setting (normal or hard). If set to normal, the user gets the same weight reduction as the AI. The question is, what defines the amount of weight reduction?

After running the renamed exe (StrikeFighters2 Formosa.exe) for the first time and selecting the create create campaign menu, then exited the game without changing anything, the campaign section in options.ini is as follows: [Campaign] CampaignName=561029 Operation Kadesh PlayerService=Israel PlayerUnit=No. 117 First Jet Squadron AircraftType=Meteor8 Difficulty=NORMAL Length=NORMAL AircraftSupply=NORMAL WeaponSupply=NORMAL LoadCampaign=FALSE CampaignSavename= As said already, those entries are just the saved settings from the campaign->create campaign menu. In my case it's the first stock campaign from my fully merged install. After restarting the game and selecting the create campaign menu, selecting the campaign "590721 Operation Formosa Freedom", choosing a service and aircraft the campaign section in options.ini now reflect the last selections, e.g: [Campaign] CampaignName=590721 Operation Formosa Freedom PlayerService=USN PlayerUnit=VA-106 Gladiators AircraftType=A-4B Difficulty=NORMAL Length=NORMAL AircraftSupply=NORMAL WeaponSupply=NORMAL LoadCampaign=FALSE CampaignSavename=formosa freedom a-1j.SAV You don't have to change this entries manually. All can be changed / choosen from within the game create campaign menu.

Ok, I installed and tested the "Operation Formosa Freedom" Campaign (the first example you mentioned above, that supposedly missed required options.ini edit instructions): And ...surprise... I could start the campaign without problems (and without editing anything in the options.ini manually). So maybe there are no instructions to edit the options.ini because it's simply not required for this campaign.

IMHO the entries under [Campaign] are just the saved settings from the campaign->create campaign menu in the game ui. So I doubt this entries have to be edited manually.

There is a document for sf1, but I think most also applies to sf2: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/92182-requested-strike-fighter-editing-info-document/

I think the aliasing is defined in ALIAS.LST contained in ObjectData001.CAT. The TW cat extractor does not extract this file, but my cat extractor does. e.g. ALIAS.LST contains the following lines, that maps insignia003 and insignia004 to insignia002: Insignia003.tga Insignia002.tga Insignia004.tga Insignia002.tga

It should be possible to change texture filenames inside a LOD file with a HEX editor, but I haven't done it myself yet. If you send me the lod file and tell me what texture file name should be changed, I can try it.

Finish my todo lists from 2016, 2017 and 2018

Is it possible to create a "caged" HUD in the game?

Since I mostly fly older jets I never noticed the following hud behavior: If I yaw the aircraft, the pitch ladder in huds from "modern" jets (e.g F-14, F-15, F-16) in game moves horizontally. Is this a bug or engine limitation? Edit: uups, after watching some youtube videos of real life huds, this behavior seems correct...

A lot of information from the thirdwire forums are preserved: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/92272-third-wire-forums-no-longer-linked-on-website/?do=findComment&comment=745634

Why are there textureset definitions in two places: one in the <aircraft>.ini file and the other in the textureset.ini file (within the texture sub folder). It seems both contain the same information. And if the content differ, which one has priority?

What I've learned so far about the decals system: Position=a,b defines the position of the center of the decal texture at the aircraft in meters. a,b are either the x,y-, y,z- or y,z- coordinates depending on DecalFacing. If DecalFacing is TOP or BOTTOM then its the x,y coordinates, if LEFT or RIGHT its y,z and if FRONT(?) or BACK(?) its x,z. In the lod viewer you can move the mouse pointer over the aircraft and the x,y,z coordinates are shown in the status bar at the bottom. Scale defines the size of the decal in meters. E.g. a Scale of 1.0 means that the decal has the size of 1x1m on the aircraft, a Scale of 0.5 means a size of 0.5x0.5m...

So, the game ONLY looks in Objects/Decals (and maybe subfolders here) and not in Objects/Aircraft/ or other folders?

I'm trying to understand the decals system. In which directories does the game look for decal texture files (referenced by decals.ini)?

The font texture is internally generated by the game accordingly to the given font type and size. An example you can see here: https://learnopengl.com/In-Practice/Text-Rendering If your defined texture area (uvMin, uvMax) cuts some characters then only fragments of those characters are drawn .

None that I know of. I think I used some kind of binary search: 1.) split the texture in two halfs: rectangle1 with uvMin / uvMax = (0.0,0.0) / (0.5,1.0); rectangle2 with (0.5,0.0) / (1.0, 1.0) 2.) try both rectangles and check with which the dot (besides other characters) is drawn. 3.) split this rectangle further on (step 1.)): e.g. if the dot is in rectangle 2, then the next two (smaller) rectangle areas to check are (0.5,0.0) / (1.0,0.5) and (0.5,0.5) / (1.0,1.0)

The relevant parameters are uvMin and uvMax in lines 93 and 94. These parameters define the rectangular area (which should contain the "dot") on the font texture. Only fragments (pixels) with texture coordinates within that rectangular area are drawn visibly.

In the huddata.ini the following must be set: [SmallLabelFont] TextFontName=Courier TextSize=10 The color numbers for grey are x,x,x. For dark-grey x is small, e.g EnemyTargetColor=0.1, 0.1, 0.1

My (partial) understanding of the tfd file format. Maybe Gerwin can fill the gaps since he wrote a tfd/hfd editor. number variable type description of bytes 4 integer number of tiles in x (W-E) direction 4 integer number of tiles in y (S-N) direction 8 double tile size in meters two dimensional array of tiles in row (W-E) major order, beginning in the south-west of the map: for each tile 2 short texture id, references the texture tiles as follows: texture id = NNN - 1, with NNN the number from the [textureNNN] entries in terrain_data.ini file 2 short tile rotation: 0 = 0 degree, 1 = 90 degree, 2 = 180 degree, 3 = 270 degree (I forgot if clockwise or counterclockwise) 8 ? ?

I fixed problems with the uv mapping.

"Sachsen ist wie das Internet. Nur in echt."

Do335 has already done it. He (manually!) downloaded all threads with posts from TK from the thirdwire forums: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/85815-preserving-the-tw-official-forum/ His download link is dead now, but fortunately I found a copy of this package on my HD : Third Wire.7z

Regarding view/head position changes: With Track IR you can change your view/head position also in the lateral direction (up/down and left/right). Add/configure the following entries in the [CockpitSeat001] section in the <aircraft>_cockpit.ini to allow larger lateral head movements: MinMovementX=-0.1 MaxMovementX=0.1 MinMovementZ=-0.1 MaxMovementZ=0.1