baffmeister

There has been quite a few crashes reported to ThirdWire but I don't recall any similar to your issues. Regarding crashes out of 3D, I've had quite a few, but they were not as predictable as yours, and I could usually get a decent amount of game time out of it. My graphics card is an ATI 9800 Pro so the issues I've had might not have much to do with your issues. I have windows 98SE sound settings at Standard Acceleration [second highest setting] and the sample rate conversion quality at "Good". [lowest setting] I'm not running ATI's most recent drivers for win98, getting better results with older drivers, so a different Nvidia driver may help. The fact that your getting some 3D time prior to crash may indicate a graphics driver issue, but I'm no expert. The biggest improvement I got was reducing ATI quality settings from "High Quality" to just "Quality." Got way better frame rates and better stability, and I think it still looks good. Thats with object textures and object detail settings on high for the in game settings. As a temporary work around, you might want to try patching to 3.2 standard on a separate install so you can at least play the game, then just keep experimenting with drivers etc. on the fully patched install. I'm sure there's lot's of people running the game on 6600GT cards and you will solve the issue eventually. Also, a post at ThirdWires tech support site will probably generate lots of ideas. Regards :)

I'm Baff [From New Scotland], not Buff [From Old Scotland]. :yes:

Adding buildings etc. is relatively easy but quite tedious. The information regarding type and position of ground objects is contained in the target.ini. Here is an example from Strike Fighters Project 1. [TargetArea054] Name=D3 Airfield Position=229000.00,743000.00 Radius=6000 ActiveYear=0 Location=1 Alignment=FRIENDLY AirfieldDataFile=desert_airfield6.ini NumSquadrons=3 Target[001].Type=Runway6 Target[001].Offset=0.00,0.00 Target[001].Heading=0 Target[002].Type=Tower1 Target[002].Offset=-66.16,0.09 Target[002].Heading=0 Target[003].Type=windsock Target[003].Offset=50.00,-1200.00 Target[003].Heading=180 Target[004].Type=windsock Target[004].Offset=-50.00,-1200.00 The Target.ini for the stock WOV targets will be found in the Cat file within the WOV terrain folder. To modify the Target.ini, you will have to first extract a copy of it using the SFP1 extractor utility [available here at combat ace] After modifying the file, place it in the WOV terrain folder and the game will use the new file instead of the one contained in the Cat file. This is just a general overview of the procedure, for more details about modding the game, you will have to do some research. I would suggest looking through some of the help guides available at this site. Regards.

Had my share of various types of crashes but none that quickly. If you havn't tried it yet, reducing graphic settings and sound settings may help. Probably worth posting the problem at ThirdWire as well. Be prepared for lots of questions. Heres a link. ThirdWire forums.

File Name: Dhimar-1963Ver2 [an AI experiment] File Submitter: baffmeister File Submitted: 26 Jun 2006 File Category: SF Missions/Campaigns This campaign was made to test some A.I. changes in a controlled environment. You can play the campaign "as is" or try out the experiment. The main objective was to raise dogfight speeds. Second objective was to make it more difficult to shoot down A.I. aircraft when they are in "Navigation Mode". To raise dogfight speeds there is a revised A.I. that uses reduced pitch inputs/rates, as well as revised aircraft data ini's that have higher stall speeds. The A.I. in this version is quite a bit different from the one in version 1. [Hunter vs. MiG-17] To make it a bit more difficult to chase down aircraft in "Navigation Mode", the aircraft cruise speeds have been increased significantly. [550 knots for F-100D and MiG-19S.] The higher cruise speeds raise some issues that are covered in the read me. The campaign is just a rework of the stock desert campaign and uses the same strategic nodes. Dhimar/USAF get the F-100D and A-4B. Paran gets the MiG-19S and IL-28. The only flyable aircraft are 2 USAF F-100D squadrons. One is all air to air missions, the other is a combination of air to air and ground attack missions. I run this A.I. with high cruise speeds all the time. The project is designed as a simple way for players to check out the concept and see if they like it. The campaign uses stock weapons/aircraft so no other downloads required. Regards. Note: Tried to update the ver. 1 campaign but it seems to have disappeared during the process so I'm uploading as new. Click here to download this file

Good points. The power thing I forgot to mention. Light aircraft you can generally go to max power during the stall recovery. WW 2 aircraft had a lot of torque and slip stream effect so gentle power application probably required. The torque effect does seem to be modeled quite well in IL-2. I recall torque rolling and crashing a Hellcat in that game during a botched go around from a messed up carrier approach. Great Fun! :)

Hi Gents, Havn't made any changes to Quicker Take-offs for SP-4. Latest update was only for the runway light improvements. With regards to aircraft jerking forward and backwards, I don't recall seeing that particular behavior, but I don't have a lot of different types installed. Adjusting the SpringFactor and DampingFactor in the AircraftData.Ini has work best for me when trying to address odd behavior. Generally, I increase the DampingFactor so the number is closer to the Springfactor. For difficult ones, I sometimes make the DampingFactor higher than the spring factor. This has work in some situations.[see example below for F-86 Sabre] Aircraft with swing arm type landing gear seem to have the most issues, you might want to try using softer SpringFactor and a near equal DampingFactor. [i recall some success using that approach.] I suspect the Mod isn't for everyone, but if you don't mind doing some tweaking I think it's possible to get most aircraft working with it. Cheers. :) [RightMainGear] SystemType=LANDING_GEAR Retractable=TRUE DeployTime=7.0 RetractTime=7.0 AnimationID=2 DragArea=0.35 HideGearNode=TRUE ModelNodeName=RightMainGearStrut ShockNodeName=R_gear_piston ShockAnimationID=6 ShockStroke=0.40 SpringFactor=1.5---------------------- DampingFactor=2.0---------------------- Tweak Items WheelNodeName=Right_Tire

Generally, just push the stick all the way forward and old it there until the plane is flying again. If your in a spin, which can happen after the aircraft stalls, hold the stick forward while applying rudder in the opposite direction of the spin. Hold the control imputs until the spin stops, then neutralize the rudder and pull out of the dive. Don't pull out to fast or you may get into a secondary stall/spin. If it's happening alot you might want to try adjusting the in game slider control for the pitch imputs. I find setting it at about 80% reduces the chances of stall/spins while still allowing enough pitch control for landings, take-offs and dogfights. Realistic settings are probably the way to go with IL-2/PF, the easy settings seem really strange. Regards :)

Found this really interesting web site that explains a lot of the items that can get put on windows start up list. If you have an ATI card have a look under the 'A' at this site. So far, I have disabled 9 items [2 ATI things] and my computer starts up quicker and games are running better. Task List Cheers. :)

PCSing to Mississippi. ETA July. Peeeeace. That front on view of the F-4 Phantom looks rather frightening. I don't think I would want to see that in my rearview mirror............Peace indeed. Regards.

Put this mini-guide together to address some of the most likely A.I. issues. Cheers. :) A.I._troubleshooter.doc

If you downloaded the new weapons pack and want to use the included weapons editor here's what I had to do to get it to work with windows 98SE. Go to programs and bring up the MS DOS Prompt. At the Dos Prompt type C:\Program Files\Strategy First\Strike Fighters\Weapon and Gun Editors\WeaponEditor.exe and hit enter. This will open the weapon editor from the location the weapons pack installed it. I installed one weapon and it works OK. Cheers. :)

Because Bill Gates might mess up my computer? As is usually the case, I'm not quite sure what's going on here. Tried it. It Works! So....WTF is system 32? Thanks.

Simple campaign edit you could try to "shake up" the campaigns a bit. In the campaign data ini you will find these entries near the top. [example is from Strike Fighters Project 1] Notice at the AirOffensive [010] entry the primary and secondary targets are listed as "ANY". You could try using ANY in all the fields to get more variety. I tried that on a simple campaign I was working on and it seemed to work. WARNING: don't try making the change on your current campaign as I'm quite sure you will get a CTD. Finish or delete your current campaign before making any changes to it. Also, make sure you put the stock campaigns in a safe place in case you don't like the results of this tweak. Cheers. :) [Force001] Alignment=FRIENDLY Nation=Dhimar BaseArea=Muthala AirOffensive[001].Primary=WAREHOUSE AirOffensive[001].Secondary=FUEL_STORAGE AirOffensive[002].Primary=OIL_REFINERY,FUEL_STORAGE AirOffensive[002].Secondary=COMM_BUILDING AirOffensive[003].Primary=SMALL_RUNWAY AirOffensive[003].Secondary=WAREHOUSE,POWER_PLANT AirOffensive[004].Primary=COMM_BUILDING,POWER_PLANT AirOffensive[004].Secondary=OIL_REFINERY,FUEL_STORAGE AirOffensive[005].Primary=MEDIUM_RUNWAY AirOffensive[005].Secondary=HANGAR,AMMO_STORAGE AirOffensive[006].Primary=OIL_REFINERY,POWER_PLANT AirOffensive[006].Secondary=COMM_BUILDING AirOffensive[007].Primary=LARGE_RUNWAY AirOffensive[007].Secondary=MEDIUM_RUNWAY,SMALL_RUNWAY AirOffensive[008].Primary=CHEMICAL_WEAPONS_PLANT AirOffensive[008].Secondary=OIL_REFINERY,COMM_BUILDING,POWER_PLANT AirOffensive[009].Primary=COMMAND_BUILDING AirOffensive[009].Secondary=LARGE_RUNWAY,MEDIUM_RUNWAY,CHEMICAL_WEAPONS_PLANT AirOffensive[010].Primary=ANY AirOffensive[010].Secondary=ANY

Caesar, the old weapon and gun editors don't work anymore. I havn't seen new ones available separatly yet, but if you download and install the new weapons pack, the new weapon and gun editors will be installed as well. They show up in their own folder called "Weapon and Gun Editors." Regards.

Following Caesar's lead, I havn't had any luck adding weapons manually. I get the same type CTD. I also have a slow dial up that took 8 hours to download the patch. Will try downloading the new weapons pack overnight which might contain an explanation.

The wheels are nice! Just needs a cheap commie paint job!

Do you have DirectX 9.0C installed on your new [old] computer?

There is a file you can tweak to reduce the cockpit noise. In the soundlist ini. you will find these entries. [JetEngine] Priority=NORMAL 3DSound=TRUE DopplerEffect=TRUE Looped=TRUE FrequencyControl=TRUE NumBuffers=4 MaxDist=1500.000000 MinDist=100.000000 InsideConeAngle=60 OutsideConeAngle=180 ConeOutsideVolume=90 Try reducing this to 20. [JetBurner] Priority=NORMAL 3DSound=TRUE DopplerEffect=TRUE Looped=TRUE NumBuffers=4 MaxDist=2000.000000 MinDist=100.000000 InsideConeAngle=60 OutsideConeAngle=90 ConeOutsideVolume=40 Try 20 here as well. Any adjustments made to these entries will effect any add on engine sounds as well. The cone angles seem to define the loud and quiet areas. After editing the soundlist Ini. put it in the flight folder. Hope this helps. Cheers.

Have you installed all the patches? That problem sounds similar to the "campaign attrition bug" which has been fixed in recent patches.

20 years from now, Canada may still be flying Hornets. [all 50 of them] USN? Something newer probably, and lot's of them. But if you add some Canadian troops on Ski-Doos, you have a great campaign idea!

Glad it's working out! If you get it tweaked better please pass along the new numbers. Cheers :)

The increased cruise speed I'm using is to make it more difficult to chase down enemy aircraft that are in " Navigation Mode". I think it helps the initial stages of the dog fight as the aircraft have decent speed at the start. All my Third Wire aircraft have the stall speed raised 20%. I raise the stall speed for add-on aircraft on a case by case basis. Streakeagles F4-B stall speed remains unchanged. Havn't done anything to the corner speeds yet. I have edited the A.I. data section of the aircraftobject.ini [ got some inspiration from your Uber-A.I. mod but the current one is built from scratch.] Ran three quick air to air missions last night against Mig-19s and Mig-21s and the F4-B was doing quite well with a better than 2 to 1 kill ratio [including 2 F4B crashes] but then on the fourth mission there were 5 F4-B crashes out of 16 aircraft. They may have been chasing Migs that were in the landing pattern but not sure. Made a few tweaks to the A.I. and will try again.

I had a modified A.I. that worked quite well with your F4B. [flight setting on hard] The A.I. mod has reduced pitch imputs/rates as well as a higher safe altitude. Also, all the aircraft have their cruise speeds set at 550kts which might help them carry more energy into the dogfights. It hasn't been tested much yet but I'm back at it and will be keeping track of kill ratios and crashes to see how it works out. Lot's of fun testing this stuff. Regards.