baffmeister

I've managed to fit airfield's around trees and buildings in the strike fighters desert terrain. It is very much trial and error. Also, if FE has a high tree and building density it might not be possible. And you need perfectly flat terrain as well, or the runway BitMaps will disappear into the ground or hang in the air. Most likly place to find a bit of flat terrain is around cities. Otherwise, terrain editor time. Regards.

If you extract the mission control.ini and scroll down to the bottom you will see this section: [Map] MapIconSize=32 FriendlyIcon=//MapFriendlyIcon.tga...........insert a double slash as shown and the icons won't be there. EnemyIcon=//MapEnemyIcon.tga FriendlyRunwayIcon=MapFriendlyRunwayIcon.tga EnemyRunwayIcon=MapEnemyRunwayIcon.tga RadarIcon=MapRadarIcon.tga WaypointIconSize=16 WaypointIcon=MapWaypointIcon.tga IPIcon=MapIPIcon.tga TargetIcon=MapTargetIcon.tga WaypointLineColor=0.914,0.777,0.230 GridLineColor=0.0,0.0,0.0 GridTextColor=0.0,0.0,0.0 MinorGridLineColor=0.0,0.0,0.0,0.8 MinorGridTextColor=0.0,0.0,0.0,0.4 TextFontName=Arial TextSize=12 The MissionControl.ini can be found in the Flight Folder, MissionData.cat file. After the mod, just put the new MissionControl.ini in the flight folder, leaving it outside of any other folders. Regards.

Might actually be easier to model a large plane set for an on-line only sim as opposed to a single player or combination sim. [assuming a so called 'hard core approach'] With a good flight engine and good data I suppose the aerodynamics could be modelled OK. I expect meeting the requirements of a hard core enthusiast with regard to the engine management aspect would be a big challange, however, though maybe not impossible. Would probably be more difficult in a single player or combination sim. As well as the aerodynamics and engine management, you would have to address the historical combat tactics used by the airforce involved, as well as for the missions being carried out. All this kind of development requires a lot of cash if you want to get a sim on the market in a reasonable length of time. [say 2 years] Didn't explain my earlier comments very well but for a niche developer of an expensive 'hard core' sim, licencing someone elses flight engine [possibly with some tweaks] would save a lot of time and money. Dismissing TK's 'sim lite' approach doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. After a horrible start he 'soldiered on grimly' and as near as I can tell, has succeeded commercially with his project. Also, Third Wire has been very good about passing along updates and many people enjoy their sims. After some large scale failures of flight sim companies, it's good to see some gaining traction again. If the IL-2 people and Thirdwire can stay in business, there will be evolutionary improvements in these sims, I'm sure. My issues with trimming and control imputs stem from my frustration with 'Mig Alley.'[i would have really liked to like that game.] Why not have as many options as possible to appeal to as many players as possible. Driving sims have had speed sensitivity for years. For players without force feed back, this makes the games much more enjoyable. Rowans approach with Mig Alley struck me as totally dumb. It seems to me they thought being 'Hard Core' meant modeling the control response of a Sabre as realisticly as possible and this would somehow be realistic for a guy using a 6inch tall 'swizzle stick' with no force feedback. Same goes for trimming, with out the feel,[and you would need force feed back rudders as well] the 'hard core approach' is UNREALISTIC. I have a force feed back steering wheel for driving games and really like it. I tried a force feed back stick for flight sims once and thought it sucked. [can anyone recommend a cheap one that makes trimming in IL-2 less of a chore?] Some differences here as well with regards to on-line and single player sims. An on-line sim requires the players to be on a level playing field. So, either you go with autotrim or not. [disregarding some newer fly by wire designs that have auto trim.] Probably some potential issues here as well with regards to control response, but if everyones got a realistic flight model, why not let them adjust the response however they like. Regards.

I recall a previous post explaining how to reduce the size of the icons to make them less intrusive but didn't try it myself. I find visual tracking in thirdwire games quite difficult as well, IL-2 seems better in that regard. Maybe a very small target box coloured grey might give a decent effect. Kind of curious if there is a simple tweak to extend the range of visual acquisition. [or maybe a generic, dark grey, airplane shaped lod.] Also, I think a lot depends on the lighting angle and background as well. The silver MiGs have a tendency to blend into the sky, but can be spotted at longer ranges when they are between the player and the ground. Regards.

This seems to be a very interesting comment. Following through on this concept, you could , remarkably, buy a copy of Strike Fighters for about $5.00US, spend a couple of evenings learning how the game works, then gut the game of the things you don't like, download StreakEagles F4-B data ini and Fubars MiG-21MF data ini, then partake of [i suspect] quite an accurate version of F4-B and MiG-21MF dogfights. I don't play online but I think this would work. All for $5.00US......AMAZING! Regarding "Hard Core" flight sims, it might be worth remembering Rowan's Mig Alley. To address the desires of "Hard Core Enthusiasts" they didn't include a simple autopilot, [ Great graphics at the time, don't you think I might want to sit back and enjoy the view once in awhile?] no auto-trim option, [i hate that] and no way to adjust control imputs. [i REALLY hate that] What the cr#p where they thinking. They where basicallly saying, "THIS IS THE WAY IT WAS AND YOU CAN"T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!" Apparantly, people in large quantities could do something about it, NOT BUY IT! I suspect Rowan spent a huge amount of money developing this game and it was very good in many respect's. This leads to my third observation. If you want a hard core sim, it will have to be built off a current sim. Thats not all that crazy. Third Wire's flight engine gets good reviews from many pilots. I suspect other ones would be OK as well. [maybe rowans or IL-2's] In this case, a developer may be able to licence the flight engine, develope their own game engine, and develope HiFi FM's for individual aircraft. I'm not into modern weapons that much but I could see some potential for this approach, but would probably be easier for a developer to start in an earlier era. A sim that trys to model many aircraft will always be "lite" but the idea of an expensive flight sim that models 2 aircraft in high fidelity is quite appealing. Think Spitfire vs. ME-109, Zero vs. Wildcat, Sabre vs. MiG-15 etc. Just my $00.02 on an interesting topic. Regards.

Maybe try putting it in the Campaign Folder? [just a guess]

Game probably assigned a low cruise altitude and your alt N'ing into rising or higher terrain. [ if its happening all the time I have no idea]

I wish it was real. A couple of squadrons of used Tomcats would probably make for an effective interceptor screen around Canada. In the intercept role they could operate in a low "G" environment, extending their service life. Would also free up some CF-18's for other duties. [ maybe Afganistan?] Regards.

Really interesting things happening with YAP.

File Name: Desert Target Zone Beta 0.80 File Submitter: baffmeister File Submitted: 3 Sep 2006 File Updated: 14 Dec 2006 File Category: SF Maps/Terrain Mods For Strike Fighters Project 1 and Strike Fighters Gold. Beta 0.80 because it's about 80% complete. I wanted a terrain to fly real time low level strike missions that wouldn't take too long. Dhimar and Paran are reduced to 3 Airfields aside and the frontline is relocated to an area in central Dhimar that has some nice rolling hills. There are some frontline positions as well as strategic targets further from the new border. It should only take about 30 minutes to fly a strike mission including a bit of air to air on the way home. Main Features: 1. 134 target areas. [some quite small, some just for scenery] 2. 10 SAM sites for Paran, starting in 1967. 3. 3X zoom planning map from an earlier version of Strike Fighters. [ shows desert and green spaces better] 4. My Quicker Take Offs mod is pre-installed for the airfields being used. [easy to remove if you have issues.] 5. Some Third Wire objects are being used for more than one purpose. Example: Building 2 could be a Government Building, a Police station, a Residential Building, or an Elementry School. [Mega Minus Points!] 6. Some Factory Place objects being used, with more to come. 7. Install technique will create a new Desert Terrain called DesertTZ. Your stock Desert terrain and target areas will remain unchanged. 8. Some Ground Attack, Truck and Shipping routes [with more to come] so you can fly CAS, ARMED RECON and ANTI SHIP missions. NOTE: I'm using specific AAA objects for Paran, so the useable date range is 1955 to 1980. More info in the Read Me. This project has been very slow and updates will arrive about every 3 months. It's been more fun blowing up target areas than building them. Future plans are for about 160 target areas. When all the target areas are complete I will probably try and make a few " mini-campaigns" using stock aircraft. CREDITS: 1. This project uses some Factory Place objects that were made by " Mitch". Thanks Mitch, whoever and whereever you are. 2. Some of the Factory Place objects I lifted from Gepards excellent DRV terrain and have been somewhat modified by him. Thanks Gepard. 3. Thanks to "Wrench" for hosting the Factory Place objects at his websight. Any problems or ideas for this project, please PM me here at Combat Ace. Cheers! Updates: 04sept2006-beta 0.41 Install technique simplified. Thanks again, Crusader. One factory object repositioned. Slight change to the types.ini. If you downloaded the beta 0.40 you might want to wait for a bigger update. 14Dec2006-beta 0.80 MAJOR UPDATE. Only up to 134 target areas but many have been extensively revised. 3 new Airfields added. Moving water enabled. Paran gets the SA-13L Mobile SAM for point defence, available HERE. Some new factory place objects added.Next and final update in about 2 months. Click here to download this file

Thats a great piece of information, thanks Crusader. Works fine. Looks like the first update [beta 0.41] will be arriving sooner than I expected. I found a misplaced factory building today so I will fix that as well. Probably do the update this evening. Regards.

Barnes Wallace. [ He might be a "Sir" as well.] I think he was involved in the development of the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs as well. Might have been Michael Redgrave who played the role in the original movie. Good performance for sure. Edit: Sir Barnes Wallis. Michael Redgrave is a "Sir" as well.

Had a quick look at the stock Desert campaign. Ground force equipment updates appear to be supported. [GroundUnit002] GroundObjectType=T-55 UnitName=2nd Paran Tank Div ForceID=2 Nation=Paran BaseArea=Maqazad RandomChance=100 StartObjects=100 MaxObjects=100 Experience=75 Morale=80 Supply=100 Intelligence=20 UpgradeType=ANY ------- look here. Cheers.

The idea of building "Mini Campaigns" within a frontline area is very interesting!

Took awhile on my slow dial up but saw enough. A formation take-off! Totally amazing and not a clue as to how it was done!

More speculation, but I think any Strategic Node can be used as a base area and you can call it what ever you want. I don't think the last strategic node listed has to be the Base Area, I suspect any of them could be used. As far as I know, ground units are assigned their start positions in the campaign data.ini. Example: [GroundUnit004] GroundObjectType=T-54 UnitName=4th Paran Tank Div ForceID=2 Nation=Paran BaseArea=Jarimin ---Start point for this unit is the Strategic Node named Jarimin. RandomChance=100 StartObjects=100 MaxObjects=100 Experience=60 Morale=60 Supply=100 Intelligence=60 UpgradeType=NEVER CAS missions probably won't be generated until the actual start of ground attacks, which is based on start dates, supply levels, and other data fields that are contained at the start of the campaign data.ini. A lot of speculation here, no guarantees. Since SP-4, the movement of ground units in a campaign seems much more interesting. Stronger units moving to the frontline to replace units weakened from battle, interesting encirclement maneuvers, and probably more effective Soviet equipment. I think you will be doing a lot of experimenting and testing! Regards.

It doesn't appear to be possible to get the game to do formation take-offs. If you taxi ahead far enough your wing will start his take-off roll but thats not really a formation take-off. I made a mod that generates 'Quicker Take-Offs' by moving two aircraft onto the runway behind the player. If you want to try it you can download it Here. Regards.

After playing around a liitle bit with the stock SFP1 campaign I got the impression [no guarantees] that the base area for each side is the campaign objective. Lose the base area, lose the campaign. As for strategic nodes, I think they are just interconnecting paths for ground forces to move along. The base point is the grid position of the node, I think the "Target" is just a target area near the node and is used for the brief and debrief. A bit of a guess, but I think you could put what ever you want in that field and it will show up in the Brief/Debrief screens. For your project, an example might be Target=Viet Cong squad, or something like that. Havn't built a campaign from scratch yet, so these are just semi-educated guesses. [strategicNode006] Area=Al'Samir ConnectTo[001].Target=Al'Megnah ConnectTo[001].BasePoint=297000,592000 ConnectTo[002].Target=Mosak ConnectTo[002].BasePoint=447000,489000 ConnectTo[003].Target=Najahafi ConnectTo[003].BasePoint=358000,491000

The huge amount of work you have done to make this game more fun and interesting is greatly appreciated by myself and many others. It's probably worth noting that you and other "Early Modders" recognized the potential of the game and " hung in there" during the bad old days. Hopefully, the game [and ThirdWire] are on more solid ground now and we can look forward to new releases and a continuation of improvements. Interests change, but hopefully you will find time for a project of interest now and again. Semi retirement might be the most enjoyable approach! Regards

I tried increasing the explosive charge on a 3.2 install but it didn't seem to have any effect. [ read that in a thread at ThirdWires forum.] Possible I did something wrong. Time to try again, and will try decreasing muzzle velocity as well. Good to hear some people are getting tagged by flak. [ exploding timed fuse variety] I was starting to wonder if it was just there for decoration!

Don't take this the wrong way, but thats good news. I recall a post by TK quite awhile ago, he doesn't consider flak very effective in real life. Getting shot down by it might be a bit of a random event. Another post I recall someone mentioned the approach used in IL2 / Pacific Fighters, in that game apparantly the flak is more effective than real life. The developers used that approach so they wouldn't have to put large numbers of flak guns around target areas, which would really kill frame rates. Might be time to fiddle with the KS-19 again. Regards.

I havn't had any damage from flak since about the 2.0 service pack. Tried making the flak more effective with the 3.2 version but was unsuccessful. Havn't tried with SP 4.0. I think theres a radar guided KS-19 available somewhere that might work better. I think this is an interesting question, especially for players who like to fly in the "Pre Sam" eras. Any ideas?

I've seen anisotropic filtering reduce shimmer in some games, might be worth a try if your not running it already.

Definite fan of "Stiff Upper Lip" british war movies. Dam Busters, a favorite. Sink the Bismark and Cruel Sea were good also. The Longest Day had some great moments, [para drop sequence was great and the Free French Harbour Assault was one of the best long scenes ever filmed. About 90 sec. I think.] Also, a "Bridge too Far" had some great moments. [Para Drop sequences were awsome.] Still, hard to beat "Patton" with George C. Scott. Regards.

Great News! [ Sometimes, computers are beyond reason, and really annoying!] :)