Menrva

That's Farsi Island, Iranian territorial waters. I added it back in late 2023 following a request by fellow Crusader. It was quite a strategic place during the Tanker War of the 1980s between Iran and Iraq. The ODS 30AE mod also offers to fly over nice recreations of Failaka Island in Kuwait and of famous Kharg Island in Iran, both reproduced by fellow @tiopilotos.

TBH I lost interest, because we'd need more accurate F-35 models and cockpits. Especially the cockpit, me and my friend have reworked the textures entirely, but I cannot improve upon its functionalities and overall look even after several .ini tricks to most of the cockpit's 3d model nodes. At the same time this is what we have, so it would be a pity to leave in the dust what we've done so far. If I get enough help in making such an "F-35 complete collection" package with accurate skins and decals for all countries, count me in! Absolutely not! If you and @daddyairplanes are already working on F-35s, I'd say let's join forces and make this thing happen. I'll be sending a PM.

As others have already noted, this is the first time Boeing has won a contract for a clean-sheet jet fighter design. I have quite a lot of skepticism, such a multi-billion contract for a company which has had some serious debacles in past years, from poor quality standards of commercial airliners and related hundreds of deaths, to the Starliner failure. Its military wing being mostly inherited from McDonnell Douglas, let's hope the F-47 will have reasons to be remembered for successes rather than failures.

View File Operation Desert Storm: 30th Anniversary Edition Welcome To Duty Built with the extraordinary expertise and dedication of modders from CombatACE.com, Operation Desert Storm – 30th Anniversary Edition promises to be the most complete total conversion ever made for Strike Fighters 2 by ThirdWire. Fly with more than 50 aircraft ranging from Cold War relics to the most advanced platforms. Gain air superiority in the mighty F-15C Eagle or challenge the Coalition with the agile Fulcrum. Support troops with the A-10A Thunderbolt II, bomb strategic targets with the stealthy F-117A Nighthawk, lead airfield denial operations in the iconic Tornado. Enjoy a beautifully rendered scenario on a scaled and accurate terrain. Fly over the lakes and rivers of Mesopotamia, the oil-rich fields of Kuwait, the mountains of Iran and Turkey. Take-off from aircraft carriers stationed in the Persian Gulf to watch over Kuwaiti oil rigs. Perform landings and patrols in more than 90 airports and air bases in the Middle East. Take part in different campaigns including the Iraqi blitzkrieg on Kuwait and the US-led liberation of the Kuwaiti Emirate. Discover how the Iraqi Army was one of the biggest in the world, through the eyes of American, British, Canadian, French, Italian and Arab pilots. Test your skills and abilities flying for the Iraqi Air Force during all stages of the conflict. Thirty years after, Operation Desert Storm still remains the largest air operation of modern warfare to date. Modders and flight sim enthusiasts at CombatACE teamed up to bring you a unique product in the lite flight sim world. Exquisitely detailed aircraft and paint schemes are delivered in a well-researched and thorough order of battle. The ODS 30th AE Development team would like to thank CombatACE.com, its admins, moderators and contributors. We are sure you will enjoy and appreciate this high-quality freeware product. From the aviation enthusiasts, to the aviation enthusiasts... and for the pilots of tomorrow. Minimum Requirements Required products from ThirdWire: Strike Fighters 2, July 2013 patch Strike Fighters 2: Israel, July 2013 patch Strike Fighters 2: North Atlantic, July 2013 patch Full support for: Mission Editor DLC Campaign Customizer DLC System specs: OS: Windows 7 x86 Processor: Dual Core 2.7 GHz Memory: 4.0 GB RAM Hard Drive: 17.0 GB Free Space Video Card: 1024 MB DirectX 10 Sneak Peek Disclaimer CombatACE.com shall at all times retain ownership of the Software as originally downloaded by you and all subsequent downloads of the Software by you. The Software (and the copyright, and other intellectual property rights of whatever nature in the Software, including any modifications made thereto) are and shall remain the property of CombatACE.com and of the respective developers/modders. In no event, unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, shall CombatACE.com, or any person be liable for any loss, expense or damage, of any type or nature arising out of the use of, or inability to use this installer or program, including, but not limited to, claims, suits or causes of action involving alleged infringement of copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, or unfair competition. The Operation Desert Storm: 30th Anniversary Edition modification does NOT comply with CombatACE's Freeware Licensing. Various contents of this modification are exclusive, as such you are NOT allowed to share, redistribute and/or make use of the mod and/or its contents for other purposes, without the consent of the mod's developers. Contents of the modification are the copyright of their respective authors. Notes about the installer Beware, the mod is available only in the ISO format. You can either mount it on a virtual drive, burn it on a DVD like in the good old days, or unzip it with 7-Zip or equivalent software. The installer will automatically detect your installation of the required Strike Fighters 2 games by reading through the registry keys. Game folders that are copied from or manually moved from where they were originally installed are not supported. You need all three aforementioned Strike Fighters 2 games and they must be installed with ThirdWire's original installers, not manually copied from other sources nor moved elsewhere after installation to other folders or drives. If you do not meet any of these requirements, installation cannot proceed and you are on your own. If you install all required games properly, the installation of the mod will proceed correctly as intended. The installer then lets you choose where to install the mod folder; you can even install the mod on a different drive or partition than the one where Strike Fighters 2 is installed. No further user input nor manual edits after installation are ever required; the installer takes care of creating all proper links to your desired path for the mod folder. After installation is over, simply run the mod by using the created Desktop and/or Start Menu links. If you have a previous version of the mod installed, please use the uninstaller to remove it completely. Clean installation is mandatory. You might want to make a backup of the Controls folder, so that you can easily restore your controller settings afterwards. Suggestions on common issues Make sure that you are using your dedicated GPU. By default, Strike Fighters 2 usually selects the integrated GPU you may have on your CPU, which is much weaker in terms of VRAM. In case you have frequent crashes or black/missing textures, I highly suggest you download and install the DXVK graphics wrapper (x86 DLLs) into your Strike Fighters 2 game folder: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk. You need a Vulkan-compatible GPU. The wrapper can greatly improve the experience with the mod. With DXVK I can play the mod on a mere Intel UHD 710, whereas without it the mod would always crash to desktop. Go to Sound and set Sound Channels to 32. We got reports that 16 is not enough and will cause crashes on some systems, due to the higher quality sounds included within the mod. The mod is pretty heavy for the game engine despite huge optimizations. Strike Fighters 2's engine is 32bit only and apparently does not manage VRAM properly; consecutive campaign missions might show black/missing textures on objects or cause crashes to desktop because the game does not release the occupied VRAM from the previous mission you played, thus the more missions are loaded consecutively, the more easily you may run out of memory. Set Ground Objects to Medium or Low, Horizon Distance to Near, and Shadows to Medium or Low. These are the most troubling settings. Avoid Unlimited settings as much as possible. If the mod used to work and suddenly crashes to desktop, updating or reinstalling video drivers should help. Make sure that DirectX June 2010 Redistributables are also installed, they are included inside the ISO disk image of the mod. Inside the mod folder, you'll find some extra text files. "(Coalition Order of Battle)" should be of your interest; the mod's terrain covers the entirety of Iraq, at the cost of not having all of Saudi Arabia; this means that a number of important units are based on airbases that are beyond the in-game playable area. With those units you always spawn near the target area, you'll never get to start from a runway nor to land on the assigned runway beyond the invisible wall. You have an entire list of the affected units in the aforementioned text file. By pressing ALT+N, the plane returns to base automatically. The mod is fully compatible with the Campaign Customizer and Mission Editor DLCs by ThirdWire. The Campaign Customizer might be an alternative way to experience those off map units I mentioned previously, since it assigns you to a random airbase of the in-game flyable area. Escort missions are often broken, this is not an issue of the mod, but a bug of the stock game; sometimes the AI flight you escort does not engage its target and keeps flying in a straight line instead of following waypoints, thus the trigger for mission success will never happen. Abandon the mission or retry it if the issue happens, sometimes it works. Pray for ThirdWire AKA Tsuyoshi Kawahito to work on a 64bit version of Strike Fighters 2, maybe even with support for DirectX 12. With that done, any out of memory issues should become an old memory. Submitter Menrva Submitted 01/16/2021 Category User Made Campaigns  

View File Speech Enhancement & Expansion Speech Enhancement & Expansion February 13th, 2019 (1st Release) by Menrva >For Strike Fighters 2 games This package is my personal enhancement meant to improve the consistency and quality of the in-game English speech. I tweaked the SpeechSystem.ini file to include the additional SF2NA voices ("call the ball" and "Vampire") separately from those of the TACC; the additional SF2NA voices are now meant to be those of a Navy Controller. By chance, I have found and fixed a stock bug in the original SF2 SpeechSystem.ini file. With some .wav editing, I created a generic Hawkeye TACC using the original, female Red Crown voice. Additional .wav files have been created so that in-game flights and Departure mention Hawkeye instead of Red Crown. I hex-edited the .str file so that subtitles properly display Hawkeye instead of Red Crown. Other little fixes were also made; for instance, you'll no longer see "Call the ball" (capital letter after a comma), now it correctly is "call the ball". You get Hawkeye as TACC when flying for naval aviation services, otherwise you get Red Crown. This enhancement is a mixture of Polak's beautiful speech pack for SF1 games, and of SkateZilla's and Rends' improved Hawkeye voices; my thanks for their work! As a bonus, correct and complete or mostly complete speech files have been added for other languages: Italian, Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, Persian. These languages have been added to the proper aviation services of countries where these languages are official: -Arabic is used for Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Somalia, Chad, Yemen, Oman, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Libya, Djibouti. -Spanish is used for Spain, Argentina, Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic. -Persian is used for Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan. -Vietnamese is used for North Vietnam only. -Italian is used for Italy only. It's highly suggested to install this mod on top of my Nations & Medals Expansion package; the included NATIONS.ini file is entirely based on the one from that mod (hence that mod is required), but with additional edits for enabling different speech packs and callsigns where proper. Mentioned countries feature correct callsigns as heard by the respective audio files (except for Persian, not possible for me to rework them without a transcription). The in-game subtitles have been fully reworked to feature such different callsigns. >Credits (in no particular order): -Polak, for his SF1 mod which enhances all of the original SFP1 speech sound files. -Rends and SkateZilla, for the improved SF2NA Hawkeye voices, which I have tweaked a bit. -GKABS, for producing the (still in progress) Arabic speech pack started for the development of ODS 30AE. -Nguyen Dang Hat and Rhugouvi, for creating the amazing Vietnamese speech pack. -FX Interactive, for producing the Italian and Spanish speech packs for their release of Strike Fighters: Project 1. -Gerwin, for his tips on properly hex-editing the header of .STR files. I included the original readme files from the mentioned mods, to the end of giving proper credit to everyone involved directly or not. >Disclaimer: This is a freeware; yet it can be redistributed ONLY in other CombatACE mods/mod packages. This mod may NOT in any way, shape or form be used in any payware additions. Submitter Menrva Submitted 02/13/2019 Category In Game Speech  

The Speech audio files and folders go into the Speech folder, not the Sounds one.

Just FYI, I was working on a rework of all F-35 variants with a friend. I still have the WIP folder on my HDD. Similarly to the recently released Eurofighter add-on, it features new cockpit textures, new skins for other countries like Italy, reworked sounds, data and more accurate loadouts. The FMs need a lot of work though. I may be able to look at it again over the weekend, if there's any interest.

@Gepard Looking better and better! Great work

View File EF2000 Typhoon Add-on EF2000 Typhoon Add-on February 13th, 2025 (1st Release) by GKABS, Bongodriver, ace888, compufat and Menrva >For Strike Fighters 2 games This is a complete add-on of the EF2000 Typhoon aircraft, featuring all of its Real World operators. The original model by Bongodriver has been overhauled by GKABS with additional details, including a proper PIRATE System built into the aircraft's 3d model. The package currently includes the following operators and relative skins produced by ace888, GKABS and compufat, with tweaks by yours truly where needed for quality consistency: -Royal Air Force, 15 skins -German Air Force, 14 skins -Italian Air Force, 9 skins -Spanish Air Force, 5 skins -Austrian Air Force, 2 skins -Royal Saudi Air Force, 2 skins -Kuwait Air Force, 2 skins -Qatar Emiri Air Force, 1 skin -Royal Air Force of Oman, 1 skin I further polished the package by adding historically accurate weapon loadouts for all operators throughout the years, my own selection of sounds, new cockpit and HUD textures and other smaller tweaks here and there. The incredibly detailed weapons included in the package are the courtesy of ravenclaw_07. Notes: -The aircraft folder is named "EF2000". In order to avoid mismatches and bugs of any sort, it's highly suggested to either remove or rename any pre-existing "EF2000" folder you might have. -You need to tweak the SoundList.ini file in order to fully experience any new sounds. Read "(Add to SoundList)" for further details, and remember to extract the SoundList.ini file from the FlightData.cat archive, if you do not have a custom one in your mod folder already. >Credits (in no particular order): -GKABS, for reworking the original aircraft 3d model by Bongodriver, for skins and decals for Kuwait and Qatar and for his reworked templates. -ravenclaw_07, for his fantastic high quality recreations of missiles, bombs and pods. -ace888, for reworking the original add-on by Bongodriver with several new skins and decals for all operators of the time. -compufat, for supporting this project with skins of special liveries. -Bongodriver, for his original EF2000 aircraft and cockpit 3d models and for the skin templates. -My girlfriend, for supporting me in all of my endeavors. Submitter Menrva Submitted 02/12/2025 Category Typhoon  

Who needs Skunk Works' Darkstar from Top Gun Maverick when you can just fly the [CLASSIFIED]? Looking forward to it!

I guess the more hardcore flight sim fans remember the RAH-66 from Enemy Engaged. For me, my love for this helicopter comes from one of NovaLogic's finest games, Comanche Gold: What a coincidence, in my little spare time these days I've been revisiting a mod I made for Comanche Gold. Looking forward to it, @Dels! I'd be happy to contribute by making woodland, desert and snow skins based on the ones from Comanche Gold.

Make sure to have downloaded all parts fully, and update 7-Zip and WinRAR since old versions fail to unpack what was packed with newer versions. You must unpack it from the first file, the others are required parts that must be in the same folder.

I don't blame Orsin for what he said. The complete pack is overcostly for 2025, the games look pretty dated, have their own set of small issues, and TK aka ThirdWire seems to have entirely forgot about them. So yeah, I'd advise users to either buy one of the games (SF2 Europe would be my main pick for what it offers compared to the others) instead of the complete pack, unless they want to download and play all possible mods created by the community over time without any compromise.

That's true, Kevin. However, the terrain included in the ODS mod already features a proper water bitmap. This is not an issue of the mod, it's a known game limitation. Fleets have no issues in spawning in terrains with an ocean of water. The Persian Gulf in ODS is much smaller (also due to the 67% of Real World scale) so the game has issues on spawning fleets inside very limited water areas. There's no real solution to this, it's one of many issues of Strike Fighters 2 we have to live with.

Wow, upon further investigation, this turns out to be a bug of the stock game in regards to the scaling of the VDI Font in the avionics.ini. In fact, it also happens on the stock F-14 cockpit by ThirdWire. See comparison below, the bigger font happens on a 2k resolution, while it is displayed in correct size when using a 1k resolution. So, we can add this to the list of issues of Strike Fighters 2 we have to live with. Thanks again to SUDNAVY for noticing this.

@SUDNAVY thank you for figuring out the cause of the issue. I'll investigate it further when time allows. Cheers!

@SUDNAVY Just to be sure, are you using the latest 0.9.8.3 version of ODS 30AE ? It was uploaded last week and it also contains a fix for the cockpits of the F-14s. The previous 0.9.8.1 version had them with broken VDI and other issues.

@SUDNAVY I'm confused, what have you done exactly? I just checked ODS 30AE quickly and it all works properly on my end. The cockpit in ODS30AE is the same of TMF but it was edited to work just like any other stock cockpit, so you don't have to use the "[" and "]" keys to switch between radar modes. You shouldn't mix your mods or other mods with ODS 30AE, I cannot provide support for this instance.

I thought I had fixed it long ago, I'm so sorry to hear about this. I'm afraid I'm pretty busy so I cannot provide a fix anytime soon. If someone else can look into it, I'd appreciate it.

For anyone who already downloaded the package, this is the missing text file with instructions on what to add to the soundlist.ini file: (Add to SoundList).txt As usual, the soundlist.ini file is not included, your mod folder may already have a custom one so it's up to the end-user to update it, or to unpack the original from the game's CAT archive and edit it. Main package has been updated. Apologies for the inconvenience.

View File EF2000 Typhoon Skin Pack EF2000 Typhoon Skin Pack February 13th, 2025 (1st Release) by Menrva and compufat >For Strike Fighters 2 games This is an extra skin pack for the high quality EF2000 Typhoon aircraft add-on. Skins are based on ideas and depictions from other sources. Here below a list of the included ones: -NATO Euro Consortium (inspired by Digital Image Design's EF2000 game and relative artworks) -NATO Euro Consortium, Alt. (inspired by Digital Image Design's EF2000 game and relative artworks) -USAF Livery (as depicted in Digital Image Design's EF2000 v2.0) -RSAF Camouflage (inspired by some pictures and model kits available online) As a bonus, the package includes weapons depicted in Digital Image Design's EF2000 game such as the Sea Eagle, the BLU-107/B Durandal and the BL-755, as well as the prototype S225XR LRAAM (a reskinned Meteor, whose 3d model is the work of ravenclaw_07, featuring its own stats). >Credits (in no particular order): -GKABS, for reworking the original aircraft 3d model by Bongodriver. -ravenclaw_07, for his fantastic high quality recreations of missiles, bombs and pods. -compufat, for supporting this project with skins of special liveries. -Bongodriver, for his original EF2000 aircraft and cockpit 3d models and for the skin templates. -My girlfriend, for supporting me in all of my endeavors. >Disclaimer: This is a freeware; yet it can be redistributed ONLY in other CombatACE mods/mod packages. This mod may NOT in any way, shape or form be used in any payware additions. Submitter Menrva Submitted 02/12/2025 Category Typhoon