UnknownPilot

Having seen some of the screen shots in the DiD thread, the WOV debrief screens look cooler (IMO) than the SF2:V screens. Is it possible to change them? If so, can anyone point me to a source location? I did a search in the downloads section, but came up empty.

Gotcha. At first when I was reading I thought "well, I'm comfortable with p-shop, so I can give it a shot", but your second post with the attachment really drove home the point ("hotspots"). It's something that might be fun to play with, but I can see it being a LOT of work. I never thought to change the background for the various menu screens though - I had messed with the hangar and loading screens though, thanks for that heads up. Sounds like you have some good stuff brewing though. Look forward to it.

March, '65 They don't waste any time throwing you into the thick of it. As soon as we got here, we just about had time for the nickel tour, then rack, then we were off to take out a warehouse. Seems like an odd target. 1 warehouse, surrounded by a whole complex? Why not the whole complex? I found out why they call the Skyhawk "Heinemann's Hot Rod", on the first mission, without using much throttle at all, we nearly outran our TARCAP to the target area. Red Crown was calling out bandits in the area, and one of our flight spotted them, fortunately they were going the other way, but that was close! Up ahead I could see a field of flak outlining the river banks, and we were expected to fly straight though it! Who designs these flight plans anyway?! I took the flight west and approached the target from dead south, routing around the flak nest. Once we got in, it got hot! I dispached 3 and 4 to hunt for AAA to try to split their fire and reduce their numbers, while #2 and I went in on the target. I missed with my first toss, called 2 in to do the job, but he missed too. 1 pass and haul ass..... but dammit, we had a job to do. I circled back, took out the warehouse on my second pass, and sic'ed 2 on a gun emplacement nearby, he hit that, and then I called in 3 and 4 and we took off. Eventually things got mixed up, the flight was nowhere to be found, and it looked like they had to cross a lot of flak to get to me, so I just sent them home, we'd rendezvous back at the barn. And we did. I had to skip west again and retrace my steps, but got out of the heat nice and quiet-like. Caught a hard 4 wire on my return and got razzed for it a bit. 3 and 4 were shot up bad. Kinda scary. Next up was another short hop. We were assigned to take out the Dragon's Jaw Bridge. What a cool name. Weather was nicer, and it was a short run, so I outfitted 3 and 4 with rockets, while 2 and I took 6 500s and a rocket pack for good measure. This time I used less throttle and didn't beat the TARCAP, and they got into a tangle right away. Lots of buzzing about up above us. The bridge was just inland of the shore, and our flight path took us right down the throat. About 4 miles out I loosed 3 and 4 again and lined up for my run. Unfortunately my first 2 went wide. I called in 2 for backup and reset incase he missed - he did. But I got it on the second pass with 2 bombs to spare. I dropped them on a nearby AAA emplacement, but am not sure if I hit it or not. I called in 2 on another AAA on the way out, he hit that, and I dumped my rockets on another one but missed, at that point I called for everyone to bug out. Unfortunately 3, Lt. Greer, didn't make it. He called out that he was taking damage, and that was the last we heard or saw of him. 2 and 4 beat me back, so I orbited while they landed, and set up for my run. Everything was going well until the last second, I bounced off the deck, the hook missed and the LSO was screeming for me to hit it. But I was able to collect myself and put down nicely on the next shot. The CAG talked to me, but didn't give me an official repremand, given that it was me second mission and first loss in a mission. Thankfully it was a successful one. If I had just made one pass and hauled ass, Lt. Greer would likely have died in vain. (though some might say we could have gotten out of there sooner, but, who says that would be so? No, that target had to be taken out, and I'm glad we did it) **** I hit print screen at the debrief, it froze momentarily like it took a pic, but there is nothing there in the folder. Do I need to run fraps for this? I'd hate to run something else in the background. I'm literally down to 10fps when things get thick as it is.

Neat idea. I personally don't ever see a refusal like that taking place, but it's still a neat backdrop. The problem though, is that I don't think SAC would ever stand a chance. Unescorted bombers are toast, and A2G planes outfitted with AIM-120s and AIM-9s just won't be able to get the job done. (also, '92 is quite late) But that's just my .02¢ - that doesn't mean it wouldn't be a fun thing to play. :)

Ah. Maybe hack it as though you pulled some strings on the sly with some other crews or something? lol

Would it help to have one of your number loaded with ECM pods (if available)? (sorry if it's a stupid question )

That's because you are on the wrong side. ;) To borrow a phrase from Parker and Stone (and an image from Gustav in the screenshots thread) F*#% Yeah!

Whenever I make a new pilot for a new campaign, I always like to "train" that pilot. Sometimes I'll go to the bomb range for practice for myself if I'm coming off of a fighter campaign, but for all USN (and if I ever make a USMC pilot/campaign) I like to "carrier qualify". Basically load the Carrier Take Off mission with the intended starting plane, take off, fly the way points, come back, trap, then stand on the brakes, gun it, take off again, orbit, trap, and repeat a 3rd time. (somewhere a long time ago I heard the USN requires 3 successful traps aboard a carrier to qualify, but that was while when PF came out, so it might be something WWII? dunno) Ensign James Ó Dúnabhra had graduated from flight school, with intent to fly attack for the US Navy. On his first trip to the Bomb Range, all went well, until... he tried to do an "over the shoulder" bomb delivery. A bigger whiff had not been seen by the instructors in quite some time, fortunately, it was such a wild stunt with such loony results that he didn't get in much trouble. Flying, landing, even the field carrier landing all came naturally. So next up was the real deal. Out on a cruise on gentle seas and a nice day, he strapped in for his first ever cat shot. The flight was routine, and the first return was nothing much to talk about. The second trap was a little left, a little hard, an a little late, but still successful. On the third attempt, focus was momentarily lost, and the A-4 Skyhawk was screaming through the skies at 540kias as the fan tail was coming up on the left fast. Fortunately the alt had also climbed a bit more than anticipated. Using the altitude, the Ensign hit the brakes, chopped throttle and went into a high AoA barrell roll that bled speed down enough to drop flaps and gear, and then dove on the ILS path. The LSO was momentarily stunned, and that pause was enough for the ensign to avoid the dreaded wave off and reel it back in. After that little stunt, he was given his wings.... and a stern talking to by the Air Boss. And that night, he gained his callsign - Daredevil. Now off to 'Nam..... (first campaign mission tonight)

Is it too late to join in on this?

Testy..... Yeah, like I said "sorry for lamenting". I didn't think you would be taking it as a personal insult (as it is neither personal, nor an insult). I am WELL aware that it's a small 1 to few person shop. And I am well aware of the time it takes to code, and also what a workload is like for one person (I have done some meager coding for myself, and I am an IT shop of 1 and among my users are a small coding shop of 2). That doesn't change anything I've said, nor necessitate or justify a response like those. It's also not "inconsequential" either. If it were, then the same could be said of clouds, weather effects, and sounds (just to name a few). But I suppose that comment will bring more agument and vitriol too eh? (make me a dreaded "rivet counter" or something...? lol)

If you can make it, you can change it. That's all. However, time, desire, priorities, etc all get in the way of that. Clearly it's not something he has the time or desire to do - but that's not the same as it being impossible. Sorry for lamenting. "Little" details like that are important (not vital, and less important than some others, but still important none-the-less). It's just a shame the owners, generally speaking, don't agree, that's all.

Yeah, it makes sense too, it's just doing the science for you. Technically it would be possible to do it without any help, but you'd have to have an intuitive feel for it, or a million charts and a solid, repeatable approach. Near vert diving works well, but that requires so much atlitude that you become a big target for flak and SAMs here which is not fun (or feasable) - "fun" in the sense that you want to make it home intact. lol

That sounds.... strange. I can understand it being something hard-coded, but to be an all or none? Surely the dev could fix it, if you have access to the source and are the creater, nothing is impossible. It's also a BIG shame too. Yeah, it can be worked around (as mentioned above, keep A2G off, change your approach, etc, to keep it high and inside), but that is a disappointing "solution". (and I'm just venting here, I know full well this post won't actually change anything ) If only I could manage to hit stuff with intent rather than pure luck while not using a CCIP I'd be ok. lol!

Your greying out sounds like a very slow steam train. Couldn't understand the comments (non-Red Crown) either, but I have to keep the volume down (at work). Sounds like some sort of rap song intro though. lol Nice map though. That's the clearest clear day I've ever seen in this sim.

SUNNUVA.......!!!!! Friggan Comcast doesn't let me get the Military Channel. I so need to switch to FIOS.

I'd like to see an undistorted pic of her (looks like they widened and warped it for added effect). I like curves though, and a little extra poundage isn't bad at all.

It's meaningful and helpful to ME, and it's something I would really like to have set up if at all possible.

Does this mean that it can be modified for every planes? One of the reasons I fly with the "speedbar" on, is because I need to know my throttle setting. I haven't gotten the numbers for fuel flow or whathaveyou, I go by throttle percentage. It would be nice if it could pop on screen momentarily when you change throttle setting, and thereby allow me to edit huddata.ini to make the rest of it go away.

Hi all. I am a relative new-commer to Third Wire stuff, but not to simming. Right now, I am having a hell of a time in A2A combat. From looking around here, it seems you all have it aced, and I have no idea how you do it, or what I'm doing wrong. (it's ok though, a learning curve is a GOOD thing [complexity/difficulty is also a GOOD thing]) I come from IL2. I played CFS and Janes WWII Fighters, and CFS2 before that. In general, I'm a prophead. I do like jets though, and was talked into buying LOMAC and I got really into that for a while. Later IL2 '46 came out and I was in heaven ('46 jets! and late war hot-rods as well, all kinds of unusual and wonderful toys). I also picked up SDOE when I heard about the FS-WWI conversion for it (never heard of SDOE prior though). Recently Hist. Int. had an episode of Dogfights on, and it was about F-4 stuff in Vietnam, and I got an itch to re-load SFP1, which I bought new, but never really did much with. And in looking for what was available for it these days, I saw that SF2:V was out, did some reading, and talked myself into buying it. That was just a few days ago. Since then I've been reading this forum and Third Wire's own, and working on tweaking the game and coding a new profile for my Cougar for it. Ok, so.... I have found the F-100 to be utterly useless at doing anything but running away from MiG17s. I tried single mission after single mission. In doing some reading, I gathered that the F-8 was leaps and bounds ahead of the F-100, reluctant at moving away from such a cool (looking) plane, and at thinking I was going for a high powered plane (what IL2 guys call "über planes"), I tried it anyway, just to see. It felt much better and was much faster, that's for sure.... but it was still hopeless and helpless. Now, let me add this - in IL2, I gradually learned E-fighting, and spent(/spend) nearly all my time in energy fighters - FW-190, P-47, Do-335, Me-262, even the P-40 which is a good turner, but not against the Japanese in Burma, so it's an energy fighter there. I'm not a top online ace, but I hold my own, and have no fear of the AI. Even in LOMAC, whether F-15, or MiG29, hell, even with the A-10 I was downing enemy planes. Offline I was able to complete campaigns, online I was running about .500 or so. Here, in SF2:V, I have not managed to get one kill yet, despite many, many, many, many attempts. I'm having 2 problems, 1 is the AI behavior, but the other, and BIG one, is visibility. "Lose sight, lose the fight" - I'm lucky if I can ever GET sight to lose it. They love to turn. And they love to turn in a spiral climb like they were damned 109s. And with both the F-100 and the F-8, the minute you try to turn even a little, your speed drops to 0, even with burners on, and meanwhile, the MiG is turning and climbing away from you until you have to point your nose down and run away. And missiles or guns, it doesn't matter, in both you need a good 6 o clock position (Sidewinders), and I just can't get it. Now, I know, that sounds like n00b turn fighting, and I really do know better, but the problem is, I can never find nor track enemy planes, so once I do see one, I'm forced to latch on and try to get angles on it, and well, you see how that turns out. In every other sim I mentioned, visibility is seemingly MUCH better. Whether it is dot size, contrast and distance, or icons (if turned on), it's just so much easier to locate and track your targets so that you can actually manage to fight in the vertical. Here's what I have and have done - P4 3.2GHz, 2GB RAM, GeForce 6600 (AGP), Win XP Pro SP3, latest nvidia drivers, that ENB Series thing which made frame rates playable, running at 1024x768, with many settings (horizon, textures, object, etc) set to medium, and a few like water set to low and shadows turned off. (searching for frame rates - even at that I was in the low to mid 20s until I applied that ENB thing, that got me up into the mid 30s) Install is stock SF2:V, bought and downloaded from 3rd Wire. Difficulty was set to max hard, but I have since set AI to Easy (even after trying normal), and target visibility to Easy (tried normal here too). Is there any way to enable icons for other planes? Or to increase "dot" visibility distance or contrast? Anything to make targets easier to spot and track (preferably adjustable if possible). Padlock views aren't helping really, I still can't see the plane it's locked on to, and when in a gaggle, I don't know which one it is, and the zoom is awkward, and it 'seeks' and looses sight at extremes far worse than IL2s, which, combined with the inability to manually pick the PL'd target (in IL2, I could zoom in on a plane and hit PL and it would lock THAT plane, then, depending on icon settings it might show a triangle around them, and around the gunsight it would auto center the view to the front, only leaving that when the target strayed too far). That's not a question so much as a comment, though any advice there is always welcome. Oh, before I forget, in LOMAC there is a mod to put markers on the canopy. Is there such a mod here? I haven't found it. In IL2 it's easy to keep track of where you are looking, in a pure bubble canopy, it isn't. Especially when the AI loves to play hard to get and you can't really bring in a canopy reference to know which way your head is pointed and which way the plane is headed. lol Thanks.

Interesting find, ty! I have tried this, and I can't say it's really helped too much, but I've only tried it in actual use (combat missions), so the variables are far too great in number. One the one hand, a minpixelsize of 0 would seem to suggest that it will be allowed to disappear, but on the other hand, I guess it's saying once it's smaller than 1 pixel, the default setting (of 1) would cause it to just go away, whereas this change should still show it. I wonder what it does to frame rate.... (ugh - I wish I could buy a new system) Also interesting is the comment that a higher res should allow things to be visible longer. Is that some aspect peculiar to TW's sim/rendering engine? I ask because I am running at 1280x960. In IL2, I run at 1024x768. And as noted, that is my comparison, where I can see a WWII prop fighter at 5Km (or more, really) distance in IL2, but can't see a comparably sized object at a mere 1.5NM in SF2:V. Now, with that in mind - some of the hardcore _gamers_ in IL2 will run at 800x600, specifically so that they can see enemy planes more quickly and easily and at greater distances. This is especially true for the full difficulty users and servers (where icons are turned off completely). I think the idea there is, as long as the plane is supposed to be visible, it will be displayed at whatever the smallest dot is, and the lower the res, the larger the dot. It can screw with depth perception, but you spot the target more easily. If anyone has any further thoughts or ideas on increasing aircraft visibility distances, please step forward.

Just a general discussion. Generally I find myself preferring Navy, even though a large part of me feels a pull to USAF and so I sometimes feel a little conflicted. lol But carrier ops are just so enticing. Then there's squadrons.... good lord there is a lot of them. Trying to think of one to pick for the start of a Capmgain led to some Wiki-reading, and just got me wondering what other people's prefences were (side, force, unit, etc). Regarding Navy squadrons... I giggle every time I read "Flying Ubangis", unfortuantely the wiki doesn't show anything regarding the source of that name. I think in SF2:V+Expansion Pack 2.0 Gold it lists them as a VF, but wiki says they were VA starting in '58 or so. I was drawn to the Ghostriders because it's a really cool name, and far and away my FAVORITE comic book character (Volume 1 and 2 more than anything else, but most incarnations are cool). Unfortunately, they have ugly yellow and white tails and a so-so patch. The Tophatters are cool in being the oldest (and first) unit. But to me that also indicates a certain amount of formal style, which isn't me (I'm more goth/surfer (or skater) in terms of style than suit [i am not a goth, nor a surfer, though I did used to skate, it's just how others have descibed me visually. To me I think it's a rather cyberpunk 'slick' style, but most people don't know what the hell that is lol]). And I'm sure that's over-thinking it, but that's how I roll. lol The Sundowners have a great rep and are somewhat unknown (to the "lay" public I mean), but the whole rising sun on the tail... I dunno, that just feels weird to me. Then there is the Jolly Rogers. At once both one of my first choices, and yet, also the lame, 'obvious', movie choice. Generally I feel "dirty" when going with something to obvious and popular, unless I have a massive draw to it in it's own right. lol Red Rippers sounds cool, as do Diamonbacks, but they both seemed to start rather late. ANYway..... while I'm still mulling over possibilities, what about you guys? You have a favorite squadron (of any aerial combat force)? If so, why? Or do you just pick something at random and go?

Hehe. That's why I ended up going with the Red Rippers (VF-11) on my first foray into SF campaigns. Unfortunately, almost as soon as I did it, I tried looking for a VF-11 F-4 skin and found none. Then I looked for online images of the real things and found none, then saw the killer VF-84 F-4 skin here, and regretted my decision. lol But, the name is kinda cool, they survive to this day, and the patch (which personally I think is ugly) has a cool thinking/layout behind it - Yeah, I've always loved the Intruder. Really ever since I first saw Flight of the Intruder. And it's really odd too, becuase generally speaking, I don't like 2 crew planes. Yeah, I like the Phantom and the Tomcat, but those are recently gained appreciations, and it's really more a case of "in spite of the 2 place nature". Something about the look I guess. And the name is really cool too - Intruder; comin' into your space and having it's way with your things. hehe Since I've come to find Grumman to be my favorite manuafacturer, that's just added to my A-6 interest I think. (and I say "come to find" because when I saw FOTI, I never heard of Grumman, but liked the plane. When the Tomcat was all the rage (GI-Joe, Macross, Transformers, Top Gun, etc), ditto - it didn't totally suck me in, but I definitely thought it was really cool looking. Then I got heavily into WWII, and sims, and then the PTO, and the cool ugly and amazing toughness and hot performance of the F6F Hellcat (plus the cool name) lead to me liking that plane. It actually has ended up my favorite plane of that era. And then I kinda grew an affection for the F4F (and especially the FM-2). Then I learned about the F8F and was in awe and in love. lol Then the F7F comes along, and I don't care much for twins - the Lightning has a lot of fanbois, but I never "got" it, but the Tigercat.... damn is that pretty, and a beast too! Then I see pics of the F9F-6 Cougar, and again, lust at first sight. Later I see that the F11F is cool too, and well damned if I'm not just a Grumman fan!

I have found the flak to be QUITE deadly actually. Running SF2:V 12/09 with Expansion Pack 2.0 Gold, I've lost about 4 planes in one weekend (the ones actually being flown I mean, not AI). A friend was playing single missions with an A-7 and got blown out of the air twice, having lost large sections of his airframe. And I was flying an A2A F-4 campaign, made it through about 5 or 6 missions in, was the only ace in the unit, promoted to 1st Lieutenant, had 2 medals, and was chasing this MiG 21 who was being rather stubborn, and a burst went off, and I saw the fire light come on. I was down around 8 to 9 thousand feet at the time, I tried to press on, then the mirrors filled up with an unholy conflagration, and I was DEEP in enemy territory. Throttling back to about 38% I tried to keep my speed up and head for the water. I didn't make it - detonated long before I got there. Then I started an F-104 campaign and on the first mission, I was up against a MiG 17, around 14,000, had just pulled off a sweet guns kill (walked the rounds from his nose to tail and turned him into a fire ball, flak was going off all around, then an instant later, the plane was out of control. I look outside and I lost my V-Stab and both H-Stabs. I was not THAT close to the MiG at the time. So yeah, aside from being eerie and atmospheric, I now truly fear it. All I can do is ignore it, try to get the mission done and hope, but that stuff is brutal, all it takes is a proverbial throw of the dice..... and my number likes to come up it seems. lol

Me again. lol A friend of mine is over right now, flying an A-7 (his favorite plane), and I am surfing on my laptop, and I got to thinking... Is there any sort of external output in this sim-engine? For instance, some way to link in another screen, or maybe to pipe instrument output to another screen, so that I could act as his second seater (ok, the A-7 doesn't have one, but he doesn't have much stick time and it is really helpful to him, plus if he were to take an Intruder or Phantom there really is one there. lol). The ideal would be to have the second cockpit modeled, or to have a duplicate of the cockpit he's in but give me independent view control. I'm guessing that level is probably not possible (but damn would it be sweet). But I know IL2 can pipe out instrument data for cockpit builders, and I thought I saw some cockpit builders here, so I'm guessing that's a little more feasible? That way I could at least watch his instruments for him. (and involve the second person as more than just a passive spectator). Also, on a couple of missions targets have not shown up. On an anti-shipping mission there were no ships. Another time there were glorified paddle barges. And I've done a few fighter sweeps with no enemy air presence at all. (all "create mission" single missions) Any idea what might be going on there?