Menrva

5 hours ago, 3bbod_4 said:

I didn’t mean to come off as arrogant at all. I’m just new to the site and was genuinely asking how the download access works now, since the rules seem to have changed.

My sincere apologies for the wording of my post. We've already dealt with many users complaining about subscriptions or who had the wrong impression that downloads are a granted privilege after a few posts are done, and that made me wrongly compare this situation with those.

5 hours ago, Krabat42 said:

I remember reading posts where it was recommended to put the "no donloads without paid subscribtion" in a more prominent place. This may be a good idea.

I had suggested the same long ago. Sadly the owner of the website is nowhere to be seen, it's been a rather long time since he last appeared, and that is pretty worrying. I think only he has the function of posting and pinning stuff in more prominent places like the front page.

1 hour ago, SayethWhaaaa said:

There's laying down the law and there's beating someone over the head with the book it's written in. Dude's only been a member for 48 hours. I don't know anyone here who's completely grasped this community's behavioural conventions in that time. People come for info, so we point them in the right direction. No need to jump down their throat. This isn't bootcamp. How's anyone gonna learn anything if they're afraid to ask? 

You're right, I messed up. Lesson learned.

Downloads are only available to subscribers, those that buy site subscriptions. Sorry, but posting "several useful threads and replies" does not suffice, and it's pretty arrogant of you to consider those few posts as useful and that they should grant you anything. There are people here who contributed hundreds of mods over several years. Joining in and saying hi is of no real use to the website's hosting costs.

I fear the servers need some serious upgrading that is not exactly affordable. And more worryingly, Erik hasn't shown up in a long while. I hope he is okay.

Simply add an exception to the executable of TFDtool in the settings of your AV. This is not an issue of TFDtool, it is AV software that is cancer these days, anything triggers them if it's not a signed executable by paying third-party.

4 hours ago, Malloy said:

Getting a bad crc on these files after multiple downloads and using 7-zip and Zipware.

Make sure you have downloaded all parts fully (first three parts are 999MB, last part is 685MB) and that 7-Zip or WinRAR are updated to the latest version. Usually older versions of those software cannot unpack something that was packed with newer versions.

EDIT: I downloaded all parts on my end and unpacked them with 7-Zip v24.09 with no issues. The problem is on your end:

@GKABS We're all with you, mate. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. Keep the fight up, you're great.

I found this posted in a Discord server, it's another preview of the J-36's weapons bay, more plausible if you like:

7-Zip or WinRAR, both can unpack multi-part zipped archives.

2 hours ago, Dels said:

The RAH-66 package has been uploaded here.

I just approved it. Nice present for the community, Happy Easter to you as well!

4 hours ago, Dels said:

I'm not making a dedicated cockpit, so it will use my AH-64D cockpit.

I was hoping for one but cockpits are some of the most complex and/or time-consuming things to model, so totally understandable. The helo looks gorgeous, fantastic work! 

Keeping you in my thoughts, my friend. Health comes first, best of luck!

It's so heartwarming to see members of the CombatACE community show their support, it's a nice family.

20 hours ago, Nightshade/PR said:

It's the newest ODS Terrain, and I'm not sure what the island name is...but every time I fly over it, it's a fantastic view. There are other islands out there before you go feet dry as well, and the view is fascinating

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.

4 hours ago, daddyairplanes said:

biggest thing is are you interested?

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!

39 minutes ago, Wrench said:

Rob: so, I should halt work then???

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.

5 hours ago, MAF1247 said:

Hello! The mod for me does not work. I put the folders inside my modded one, i check the nation.ini and the Speech File corresponds to the same name of the ones i put in the Sounds folder. But when i tried different airforces (Italian, Egyptian and vietnamese) they still speak english. What did i miss?

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 

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.

5 hours ago, MachByron said:

Having an issue when I try to download it, The archives read as corrupt and I cannot extract the ISO from file one and cannot even open the others in 7zip or winrar.

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.

12 hours ago, Wrench said:

And actually, it in how the terrain's _water bmp is read by the engine, and if said water bmp is formated correctly with the proper CV stations (in the right colors*), and the terrain has the proper statements for CV usage. 

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.