JDUK

It's 2023 and despite VR ruling my life since 2016 I've reinstalled SF2m and all those mods - and XP Gold is the first! Thanks so much for years of combat flying pleasure!

A bit of a delay, due to not liking the restrictions Joomla imposes, and having also tried Kompozer, I finally decided to stick with the new cpanel and good old HTML. Latest report is up - how a cosy nav tutorial mission in the A-10C turned into a glider/crash landing lesson: LINKY

Thanks to those who read my AARs - my visit figures were well up for the DCS campaigns. I had to close the website due to BT working on the line and slowing my connection to a crawl, but I've since got FTTC at 80mbps and moved to a much better hosting service, so my website is now back up. So far the only new content is the scale models, as I'm learning to use Joomla, but I will be flying further campaigns very soon and this time the videos will be much better quality, too. I hope some of you will pop along for a read/look and I apologise for the lack of action since December.

Don't see it mentioned elsewhere here, but Gunship! has been put up on Steam - for a mere £4.99 in the UK (that's around $7.50 I think). Also - the old mod sites are still up, so you can still get the stuff if you didn't already have it. I've had the CD since release - and really liked it back then. I tried it on Win7 H64 and it installed and started okay, but there were some problems that are probably fixed in the Steam version. About to give it another outing now - hopefully will get TrackIR working okay with the mouselook option, as POV viewing from a cockpit sends me squint...

Okay - thanks.

Thanks for the terrain. Excuse my ignorance - I have all 5 SF2 parts. but haven't flown the desert based ones yet - does this replace default desert terrain for SF2:I or is it an independant terrain to be used with custom campaigns/missions?

Sim Voice Checklists, also known as Voice Activated Checklists - I posted this on the BMS forum - download links are given on the YouTube page, along with more info. It's mostly a demo of what can be done with Paul's little freeware program - but anyone can use my checklist however they like. http://youtu.be/TSq0xTwa10c Also, see Paul Endersby's videos on YT: http://www.youtube.com/user/JiltedMonkey?feature=watch

Hmmm, don't understand a thing on there - and when I click on the download link, I get a lot of stuff in italian and don't have time to copy it so I can use Google translate. Oh well.

I've had it since release - but I can't remember the last time I used it. I did like it to start with and it seemed quite a lot of fun, but when I installed it at a later date it just seemed different, somehow, and I didn't like it so much. The guns shoot differently - I think it's a bug that others have complained about, but I didn't have on my first install. They seem to shoot well above where I'm aiming and above the centreline. Never used the AA mode and radar - though I keep promising myself I'll try it, along with the scenarios Capt Sim provides, and their OpFor AI. Now P3D v2 is out, I may never get around to it. btw - if you do buy it, make sure you go and look in the relevant forum at Capt Sim, as many people have made custom ordnance and HUDs for it, along with posting config settings.

Hmm, just noticed this. Tomahawk - ZX Spectrum. Still got it - and yup, I still play it, when I'm in the mood! Think it was the first one to be considered a 'simulator' for the home computer? First fixed wing was Tornado - also for Speccy.

I'll try that - thank you. EDIT: Yes, that did it (removing the options and version ini files) thanks!

Some time ago I installed a number of mods into SF2. I use the full 5 merged and the only DLC I have is the custom campaign one that allows you to change the aircraft you can fly. I always used whichever part of the SF2 series was required as a base for the separate mods (e.g. for Vietnam AG-XP I used the SF2:V executable and mod folders and so on). I didn't test all the mods, but the SF2V AG XP and Mescalaro range mods were flown and worked well, as did all the add-on aircraft that I had got from CombatAce - I put them in the standard SF2 mod folders and they showed up in the game, no probs. However, after taking a break of nearly a year, I am finding that the mods aren't working any more. I haven't updated since July 2012 and as everything has been left exactly as it was, I'm stumped as to why it won't play along. I get the same list of aircraft appearing, regardless of which SF2 'theatre' I start up, and none of the added aircraft are on it. Mescalaro is not showing as a theatre - only the default ones. The mods I have installed also include the full Nato Fighters 5 (and a separate NF4), which also doesn't seem to be adding anything extra. It's weird! I thought I'd ask here before doing a complete reinstall, as it's not something I ever had issues with before. Could it be something to do with SF2:NA, which I bought and installed after the modding had been done, and have never flown as yet? Two pics are the SF2 root folder and the mods folder in Saved Games: Ta for any ideas.

Okay, I've finished the campaign now and all the AARs are up. It's quite a fun campaign - the biggest problem being having no targeting systems, so you can only really aim as far as you can see. That's okay for CAS, but when you are continually tasked to destroy SAM systems, it can get a bit critical - but then again, if you can't stand the heat... The only other thing is how nothing that you do in any mission affects any future missions. So, for example, if you have fulfilled your mission and have some ordnance left over, taking out some extra enemy hardware isn't going to help your future war effort one iota. The missions do follow a story, though - but my point is that you lose absolutely nothing in terms of gameplay by flying the missions as a series of singles instead of as a campaign. What I learned the most during the campaign is "if in doubt - send your wingman instead". So, if you can't find something (an enemy convoy, for example) just tell your wingie to attack ground targets or targets of opportunity and he will show you where the bad boys are. Similarly if you are not keen on attacking a SAM vehicle - usually Strelas in this campaign - just send him in, he usually pulls it off, but if he gets launched at he's likely to drop all his stores and you have to do everything yourself. Another thing is remembering that they only have four missiles before they have to rearm - I got lucky several times by attacking a SAM vehicle after it had launched a couple of missiles at my wingie and a couple at another flight. In some missions, for some reason they don't launch at you at all (such as mission 10). I tried to start The Valley this evening in the A-10A, but my heart really wasn't in it - looks like Cold War Warrior is up next, instead!

Mission 6 is up

Oh blow! Mission 7 is bugged! Can't complete it. It's only a practice range mission, but it can't be done (you have to bomb a target at night, but it somehow gets blown up before you get there, so you can't do it and get a 'miss' even if your bomb is dead centre), so you can't continue with the campaign. Going to have to do the rest of the campaign missions as singles.

I am concerned that the 'new terrain' we were assured would come once EDGE was done are going to turn out to be Nevada (sorry - no interest) or WWII/Normandy. So it may be quite some time yet (possibly a year or two) before any other terrain is released for us to fly our modern kit around Of course, I would hope we would get something relatively soon (i.e. within a year) but with what has been said, it doesn't really sound like it. Now, if we had the ability to fly our nice jets and helicopters around Normandy, I would definitely not complain! Though that is a year or more away, too. Oh well...

I agree - that's a main reason for sending him home (though on this occasion he was useless anyway) - but what I do like using the AI wingmen for is spotting the enemy. Their "eyes" are much keener than mine!

Yeah, I got that on the first flight - problem is that the troops that get put in by the Chinooks are very well guarded by air defences, too. As soon as they start shooting, your wingie drops all his hardware leaving you to carry the can. What I didn't know was that you can get a mission success without firing a shot. As it turned out, I switched the load from rockets to a couple of tanks and 6 S-25s and just blasted the rockets into the general landing area from a safe distance. After the convoy had arrived on the scene and destroyed the two Strela SAM vehicles and the manpad-toting grunts, I went in again and hosed them down with the cannon. The convoy only lost one vehicle, fighting through on their ownsome. Was one really weird thing, though - when I told my wingman to RTB he started heading off over the mountains! Dunno where he was going (the scenic route, perhaps...) but it wasn't to either of our bases! Thankfully a "complete mission and RTB" call brought him back.