Stephen1918

I installed this in FE1 and was flying a mission in less than five minutes. This utility is extremely easy to install and use. Thanks for making such a great addition to First Eagles!

Congratulations on your birthday, Geezer! The models you have made for First Eagles have been great. I'll miss not having the Spanish Civil War. Best of luck in your new endeavor.

I have contacted Gepard, and he gave me permission to make a revision of his Vogesen Terrain. Gepard did a beautiful job on the Alsace Valley and the Rhine Valley in the north. I will keep all his targets as they are. I will also keep all the targets Ojcar added - so Armchair Aces will still work. I am adding targets to the Lorraine plateau and the north-west part of the map. I will make some changes to the tiles, but not many. Mostly I will add a lot of the ground and terrain objects that have become available since Gepard first made the terrain eight years ago.

My real world obligations have been keeping me busy, and I haven't had a lot of time to work on Vogesen lately, but I have made some progress. The basic terrain and height map are finished, there may be some tweaking, but it's basically finished. Now I'm populating the terrain with objects, mostly eye candy stuff. All of Gepard's castles are still there. I've brought over the trains and bridges I made for Palestine, and some of the vehicles and buildings I made for Galicia. I also brought in the infantry lines and cavalry patrols I made for Palestine and Galicia. I've just started to think about the Movement.ini, and at some point I'll need to sort out all the elements necessary for the upload. Still a lot to do.

A few years ago, several people were making new effects for FE. Stary posted some nice effects back in 2009 (under WWI and Early Years - Object Mods) I learned a lot about making effects by studying those.

Thanks for the feedback, gentlemen. I will wait until it's completely done before I upload it.

I tracked down the Target Area Editor that Wrench recommended (It's part of Mues Toolbox - http://combatace.com/topic/87780-mues-toolbox/ ) but I haven't got it running yet. Meanwhile, I'm still placing targets using Notepad. Currently, I'm working on the trench line through the mountains. I'm trying to get the trenches to follow the terrain, with most of the devastation in the valleys, and with bunkers and AA guns on the ridges. I'm adjusting the tiles, adjusting the height map, and placing the targets simultaneously. It's slow work, but I'm making progress. I'm using some of Geezer's bunkers, and I made some new bunkers and AA guns for the mountains. From a game-play standpoint, the terrain is playable - all the airfields and military targets are placed. I need to do a lot of eye candy work - putting more buildings in the cities, adding ground objects to the airfields and bases, and making sure all the mountain targets are reasonably level (there are still some AA guns sitting at a 45 degrees angle.) And I need to make the seasonal tiles for the 5 new tiles I made. I'm expecting my real world workload to pick up next week, so I may not get this polished off until May. Shall I upload what I have so far? (It's use-able, but not perfect.)

The tugboat and barge are all one piece, centered on the boat's funnel. I'm placing the targets the old fashioned way, using Notepad. In the cities it's the only way I can see how things fit between the TOD buildings.

I know what you mean about how a project gets bigger and bigger. And it seems like every good idea leads to a lot more work. Right now I'm putting buildings into the cities - which for me is very tedious, a lot of trial and error. I'm starting to prioritize - some things will have to wait for a future version, or I will never get done. Maybe you could get Verdun good enough for now and plan on an upgrade later? I noticed in the stock Verdun Terrain, there are some target locations without any actual targets in them. I wonder if they ran into the same problem you have - trying to lower the frame rate without having to renumber everything in the target ini. Send me what you have for the IAF Campaign. If you made it for the Verdun Terrain, it may not fit Vogesen very well, but I'm sure it will be helpful. I'm am not going to fill the parts of Vogesen that overlap Verdun (not in this version anyway) so your campaign probably has a lot of places that are not on my map. I'm trying hard not to break Ojcar's Armchair Aces Campaigns. Adding new locations to the target.ini shouldn't be a problem, but I'm trying not to rename or re-position any of Gepard's or Ojcar's targets. My biggest problem at the moment is that I keep getting ideas for new ground objects, which are fun to make and become a welcome distraction. But then I have to add them to the targets in the target ini and the amount of work grows. I did make some new boats for the Rhine River, because it seemed like a good idea, but I have to limit that or I will never finish. (Thanks for the offer Geezer.)

Thanks Quack, I'll check it out. Until now, I've been using some maps I found online. Most of them just deal with the first year of the war, when there were major campaigns being fought in the area. After that, activity on the Vogesen Front seems to have slowed down and I haven't found much, but I know the air war continued. Are you planning to upload the IAF campaign and the Verdun Terrain? You mentioned them some time ago, but I haven't seen anything recently. Are you still working on them?

Jan Tuma's tiles do work in it. Except, I did make one new tile, I can make one to match Jan Tuma's tiles and include it in the upload. I am also placing AA guns in some of the farms and forests, I don't know if they will be intersecting trees when Jan's tiles are used.

I've been placing targets and roads in the Vogesen terrain. It overlaps the Verdun Map quite a bit - I'm concentrating on areas along the front line that were missing before. I'm using the Cambrai tile set so we can have a more-or-less uniform look for the entire Western Front, from the North Sea all the way to the Swiss border. I have the military targets (airfields, supply depots, balloon and AA stations, and trench lines) pretty much done - but I still have a lot of work to do in the mountains. Next I want to add more civilian targets - villages, train stations, factories and warehouses in the towns, etc. I'm thinking it will be a few more weeks before it's ready.

Thank you for this Ojcar! I appreciate all the continued improvements you've made to Armchair Aces.

AS you can see, I'm incorporating some of your forts and airfield objects into the terrain.

To clarify - it was actually my third or fourth mission of the campaign. But it was the first time I ever earned a medal. I was very proud. Capitaine, I think your solution is a good one for the game; and thank you for doing the many hours of work to help extend First Eagles beyond the Western Front.

Nice looking plane Geezer!

I've uploaded an Austro-Hungarian version of the Albatros D.II. It was very similar to the German version, but had a bigger engine and carried only one machine gun. There were also minor differences in the tail, the wings, and the cockpit. Not many were produced but it was an excellent fighter at the time and used on both the Italian and Eastern Fronts. I have included one skin and decals appropriate for this plane. Mu thanks to Ojcar for another excellent FM! Thanks also to Nix who provided the sound file for the Austro-Daimler 185hp engine. (I have a hunch that we're going to need another Austro-Hungarian fighter soon.)

It may take a while, but I usually get it eventually. Thanks for your help.

Have you taken a look at Max188's 1024 hi-res tiles? They were posted in the download/terrain section a long time ago. I never downloaded them so I don't know how they look or if he did the whole set or just selected tiles. It might be worth a look.

I'll have to check that installed it correctly. Capitaine Vengeur made two versions, one for the Imperial government, and another for the provisional government in 1917. I may have gotten them mixed when I installed them. But I'm still having fun with it. I know what you mean by posthumous awards! I have gotten some of those too.

I know it may not be that impressive to some people here, but it was a first for me and I was very proud. I'll try flying the same campaign as an Austro-Hungarian Pilot and see how I do. It is impressive that we now have complete games for Eastern, Palestine, and Italian Fronts.

Thank you, Ojcar and Capitaine Vengeur! For the past few weeks, I've been actually playing First Eagles (instead of just making planes.) Ojcar's camapaigns and Capitaine Vengeur's pilots & recent medals pack have really brought the game to life for me. Tonight I earned my first medal - Flying a Spad A.2 with the Russian 19th AOI, I shot down two planes in the same mission - well, my gunner did after I kept him pointed him at the enemy long enough to take them down. :)

I think you're right Wrench. I did some experimenting, I tried to get Monty CZ's He-111b into FE1 and it just wouldn't work. This may be the same problem Crawford is having with the A-team plane. BUT, I do have the CR-42 flying in FE1. I had to change the ini file to only use LOD001 and it showed up in the game just fine. So bhaskar2789's problem can be solved.

The SVA5 is the Ansaldo SVA5 by Laton - in the "Other Entente Aircraft" section The SP3 is the Savoia Pomillio SP.3 by Laton - in the "Other Entente Aircraft" section The Ca3 is the Caproni Ca.3 by Monty CZ - in the "Other Entente Aircraft" section All of the oefD3 planes are the Albatros D.III Oeffag planes by Jan Tuma - in the "Other Central Powers Aircraft" section - there are five of them with different batch numbers ("Ba.253" and so on.) Hope this helps.