Menrva

That's understandable, the number of tiles and the size of the Korea terrain is already mind-blowing. The later we see Allied Force's Balkans terrain, the better for me. Otherwise it'd probably make my Balkans terrain the least preferable choice, and it took me years to develop it. For sure I'm not going to do something like that anymore, it got few downloads, it wasn't worth all the trouble of manually tiling all rivers and lakes; even in a scaled 60% terrain it was a crazy amount of time and work for details that pretty much no-one cares about.

@gerwin Outstanding work! I can't thank you enough for all the improvements made to TFDtool over the years and for the conversion of NovaLogic's terrains. This is another fantastic addition! I wonder if the same conversion process could be applied to Falcon 4 Allied Force's Balkans terrain. Given that F4 terrains are pretty much in Real World size and that SF2 does not support in-flight refueling, the 60% or so sized terrains we made can co-exist just fine.

Amidst the blue skies, a link from past to future. The sheltering wings of the protector...

No. Maybe one day it'll be available at ModDB, but at the moment it has to remain at CombatACE.com since it contains the works of many other modders from this site. I do not have the permissions to host it somewhere else. I cannot provide a torrent either, it means I'd have to seed it 24/7 for it to work and it'd become a cost on my end in terms of energy consumption, can't keep my PC on for just that. The mod has always been free, you actually paid for CombatACE's subscription to the site which also granted access to a work in progress version of the mod as a plus. I understand you feel like you paid for it, but we developers have not made any money out of it; we simply cannot monetize upon it for our own gains, out of respect of the works of previous modders of this site. I also bought a subscription last year, I'm trying to do my part in helping to cover the website's hosting costs. This is a place for us modders and players to gather, help each other and keep the old game alive with new creations. I wish I could help but I am not involved with DXVK in any way. If it crashes with the Nvidia RTX 2070 even with the stock game (you can change which GPU to use in the options screen), then I suggest you open an issue on the GitHub page of DXVK; there the DXVK developers can help you with troubleshooting. Besides, I suggest to use DXVK if you only have the weak Intel UHD integrated graphics card, because otherwise you couldn't play the mod. If you have an Nvidia RTX, you don't need it at all, the mod should run just as fine without it.

This bit of info might be of interest for all aircraft modders out there. I was testing the upcoming F-22 Raptor addon placed in my custom mod folder, and its custom aircraft sounds were played correctly. However, after placing the complete addon package inside a clean SF2 mod folder, the F-22's sounds ceased to be played accordingly (I mean, you hear some sounds, but they are nothing like they should be). After much investigation, it turns out this is due to the fact that my custom mod folder contained higher quality sound replacements for the stock SF2 sounds, such as JetBurner.wav, JetEngine.wav, Flaps.wav, Gear.wav, etc. It seems the game requires that a plane's custom sounds, such as F22Engine.wav and F22Gear.wav, match the same quality of the stock ones, JetEngine.wav and Gear.wav, for them to be played correctly. That is, if JetBurner.wav is 22050 Hz Mono (it is so in stock SF2, but a custom mod available here provides 44100 Hz replacements for all stock sounds: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/72280-strike-fighters-2-sounds/?tab=comments#comment-569500), F22Burner.wav must be 22050 Hz Mono as well, otherwise it won't be played as it is. Since I am using the mod linked above, my F-22 sounds with a frequency of 44100 Hz are played correctly. Without the higher quality replacement of stock sounds, as provided by that mod, I would have to degrade the quality of my sounds to the lower frequency of stock SF2 sounds. All of this info applies regardless if you're using a custom soundlist.ini, so take this into consideration when releasing aircraft mods. I don't want to degrade my F-22 sounds to 22050 Hz or even 11025 Hz in some cases, so I will provide the few needed replacements of stock sounds from that mod.

@ShrikeHawk is offline since May 2022. Before necro-posting, it's good norm to check if the user you're asking to is still active in the site.

Yes, but that announcement applied to 2021. These standalone aircraft are much outdated now. ODS 30AE received many updated since the first release in 2021, with aircraft getting much reworked data over time. Moreover, the F-15C and F-15D now got proper Compass Grey Ghost skins by @daddyairplanes instead of using the Mod Eagle scheme colors of this package which are anachronistic for the Gulf War. The F-15E also got reworked skins by daddyairplanes. The new skins are by daddyairplanes, so I guess this standalone package will be updated if Viper63a asks daddyairplanes permission to include his work in place of the old skins of the package. Given that ODS 30AE is still updated to this day, these standalone packages by Viper63a are currently two (almost three) years of updates behind.

@daddyairplanes yeah I'm aware of him, he's got his own website with reviews to flight sim games and a YT channel. I'm glad he enjoys the mod, indeed it's not from 2008 so I'm glad you corrected him.

You can't. Unlike with aircraft, it's not possible to hide nodes of the 3d model for ground objects. Only a 3d model edit could fix that, but those are stock LODs. Unless someone makes new ones from scratch, we're stuck with the SH-3 on them.

View File Iraq, Western Asia (1980-2003) Iraq, Western Asia (1980-2003) Terrain February 13th, 2017 (1st Release) by Menrva >For Strike Fighters 2, Recommended Full-5 Merged This is a complete remake of the DS/IR terrain released long time ago by Wrench. The entire map has been retargetized and retiled using a whole new tileset, combining tiles from JSF_Aggie, Stary, Centurion-1 and my bad transition tiles. All major water bodies, lakes and some minor rivers have been hand-tiled. The Caspian Sea coast had to be hand-tiled as well. Numerous target areas have been added in order to expand playability, targets of opportunity and year range. This terrain features a fresh new 250m resolution heightmap (instead of the stock 500m resolution), allowing for greater details and precision in elevation changes; overall it provides the whole terrain with a better look. The terrain spans from September 22, 1980 (the beginning of the Iran/Iraq War) to May 1, 2003 (the end of major combat operations of Operation Iraqi Freedom); it is designed for the Iran/Iraq War, Operation Desert Shield, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Desert Fox and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Iraq is Enemy, Iran is Friendly, other countries are Friendly as well. Due to limitations in the terrain engine, and not wanting to make three different terrains, I opted to set Iran as Friendly together with other countries such as Saudi Arabia. While you might see US planes spawn in Iran during Single Missions even if the 1979 Iranian Revolution already happened, it's up to the users to play with missions in the editor to fix any historical oddities. Targets reflect Real World events as accurately as possible; for instance, after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, Kuwaiti airfields are set as Neutral, enemy targets appear inside Kuwait, etc. Some airfields won't be available after a certain date and/or will change name according to historic changes. Various Operation Desert Storm expeditionary bases and FOBs have been added, and will appear only during Operation Desert Storm dates. All main targets are in their Real World locations (I tried to be as accurate as possible, to such a level that even surpasses ThirdWire's stock terrains). Shiraz Int'l Airport and Prince Sultan Airbase are beyond the Wall. However, if you have SF2NA, long range AI flights can be generated from such airbases. Ground Objects are not included. You can obtain most of them from Wrench's original Iran-Iraq terrains, or from other mod packages. >Credits (in no particular order): -Wrench, who reworked the original terrain and provided the CombatACE community with plenty of mods and scenarios to play with. He gave me invaluable advise, the tools I needed and introduced me to the beautiful, exhausting world of terrain modding/making. Thank you, sir! -swambast, who offered to build two high quality 3D models (Mosul Dam and Mosul Grand Mosque), featured for the first time in this terrain, it's an honor! He also provided major help in tracking and fixing common and uncommon bugs. If the terrain is stable (no CTDs), it's his merit! -Nyghtfall, for creating 3d models of the Kuwait Water Towers and Kuwait Freedom Towers. -tiopilotos, for providing reworked .tga tiles with new alpha channels. Much appreciated! -Spudknocker, who helped me complete the 1980-2003 beta version of the terrain, providing additional target areas. -gerwin, whose TFDtool has proved to be essential in today's terrain making. If the terrain is pretty accurate to RL it's also because of him. I included his very nice Airfield 7+8 Addon Pack, too. -MigBuster, I have included some of his great hi-res textures for runways. -mue, for the improved shaders he made, which I have included and reworked for the terrain, and for the tools he made for SF2 modding. -luk1978, for the waternormal bitmap he shared at the SF2 screenshots thread. Your mods are very interesting! -Crusader, who provided me with the info I needed about ODS and other stuff related to targets. -JSF_Aggie, for his high quality DS tileset, which I have expanded with my horrible transition tiles. -7eleven, who directed me to a website filled with Desert Storm related info. -Centurion-1, since I used some tiles from his Desert 4 Mountain Regions+ Addon. I tried to contact you for permission, but it seems RL got in your way. Your WIP mod about the Iran/Iraq war gave me the motivation to complete this terrain. The least I can say is thank you. Best of luck, mate! -Stary, because his tilesets are pure art. I borrowed a few TODs and tiles from his excellent IsraelME tileset. -Gepard, for his great tutorials about terrain making, in the SF1 Knowledge Base at CombatACE. It's a gold mine! -Stratos, who supported me support during the terrain's development. -krfrge, who has produced a tutorial for recreating SF2-like planning maps, which prompted me to work on templates and my own high quality planning maps. Thank you very much! -comrpnt, for his Approach and Airfield Lighting Pack mod packages for SF1 series, which I reworked and included. I am totally sure I missed someone, especially because the terrain was born from Wrench's original ones. So I also included Wrench's original readme files from his IR and IR2003 terrains 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. Any changes to the terrain package's files and/or any copy-and-paste attempts of their contents are NOT authorized if you plan to release them in other mods. But permission might be granted to those who request it to me at CombatACE. This terrain may NOT in any way, shape or form be used in any payware additions. Submitter Menrva Submitted 02/13/2017 Category Full Terrains  

Just wanted to let everyone know that a user active on FB posted news of his "mod" on ModDB with a link to it. He goes by the nickname "Strike Fighters 2" (how original) and has a following of over 500 users. The package is a mix of mods from CombatACE without any permission from the original authors, including yours truly; he made use of the NL terrains package that gerwin and I produced. I also saw one of the terrains by Wrench in the screenshots, and I'm sure he got a lot more in the package I don't dare downloading. The guy apparently made his own skins for aircraft and cockpits, nothing wrong with that, but he's also sharing tons of aircraft and terrains which he definitely not produced, and doesn't even credit the authors at all. If you're among his 500+ followers, consider yourself on par with him, shame on you. We produce tons of mods in free time for free, but that doesn't mean that our work can be shared elsewhere and others can take credit for it without shame. I don't have the power of closing his FB page. I have an account on ModDB though and I reported both his page: Strike Fighters 2 - Lightning 2 - Falcon Edition mod - ModDB and his profile: StrikeFighters2 - ModDB. Due to how ModDB works, multiple reports are needed until the admins consider them. You don't need an account to report it, so I'd appreciate if you click on the " ! " in the Profile box. Thanks in advance.

@toro The campaign is like this by design, just like the campaigns of Strike Fighters 2 Vietnam. Naval fleets ala SF2NA only work in so called naval campaigns, but naval campaigns remove night-time missions and force the enemy aircraft to find and attack the opposing naval fleet, which is not proper for the Gulf War scenario. We cannot have the best of both worlds, so the campaign won't feature fleets. One possible workaround I'm planning for a future update is to add other ships as terrain objects, they'd be static but at least would populate the Gulf during the campaign.

An hot-fix has been uploaded and it requires admins to approve it again. Wait until the mod gets approved again. If you downloaded all four split parts of the ISO of the mod before January 19th/20th, after installation you're advised to manually install the hotfix. If you did not download all parts before the latest reupload, I'm afraid all parts need to be downloaded again, old ones cannot match the checksum of the new split ISO. Apologies for the mix-up and thank you for your patience and understanding.

An hot-fix has been uploaded and it requires admins to approve it again. Wait until the mod gets approved again. If you downloaded all four split parts of the ISO of the mod before January 19th/20th, after installation you're advised to manually install the hotfix. If you did not download all parts before the latest reupload, I'm afraid all parts need to be downloaded again, old ones cannot match the checksum of the new split ISO. Apologies for the mix-up and thank you for your patience and understanding.

@Muesli Disregard what EricJ said, please refer to this post for the issue you're having: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/95630-operation-desert-storm-30th-anniversary-edition/?page=8&tab=comments#comment-810329 I'll be updating the mod's page to include the following more complete info about the installer: The installer will automatically detect your installation of the required Strike Fighters 2 games by reading through the registry keys. Pirated copies and/or game folders that are 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 their original installers by ThirdWire, 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. I have to hope users read all that I write, though.

@MurmanskPrPr I'm sorry to see you posted a 4-star review for something you couldn't even play. If you need assistance, this is the right place to ask. The installer of the mod looks for where your games are installed by reading through the registry keys. You need all three Strike Fighters 2 games I mention and those must be installed with their original installers, not manually copied nor moved elsewhere to other folders or drives. If you own all required games and you install them with the official installers by ThirdWire, the installation of the mod should then proceed correctly as intended. Game folders that are manually copied from or moved from where they are originally installed are not supported.

That's weird, I'll have to double check. EDIT: @mono27 It pains me to see that there is a mistake, the cockpit.ini file has the position that's used on the A-6E. I focused on fixing so many bugs and this slipped through, argh! Here's the fixed file: EA-6B_ICAP_COCKPIT.INI

Yes, but that's something I feel most users wouldn't like to hear. So my main suggestion is to find a balance between the graphics settings of the game and what your hardware allows, so that you can run consecutive missions without major issues. My second suggestion is to give the DXVK wrapper a try, apparently it makes the mod playable on weak integrated GPUs (given that they are Vulkan-compatible) whereas without it the mod wouldn't work on such hardware.

No.

I think Easy equals unlimited fuel. I never play with Easy settings, but they literally turn it into an arcade flight combat game.

It has been discussed already in the past, the start from ramp is an incomplete feature from SF1, it never got implemented properly. It can be made to work for the player only by manually editing mission files, but it won't work for the AI aircraft:

Transport missions are generated for any campaign since SF1. We have them working also on ODS.

I once saved a campaign generated mission of the ODS 30AE mod and discovered that it somehow assigned a Transfer (not Transport) mission to a cargo plane. After further investigations, it seems it's a valid mission type that can be assigned to AI-only aircraft in ThirdWire's Mission Editor. Just add Transfer to the roles of the aircraft in its data.ini file, and it'll appear in the Mission Editor. I don't know the exact differences between Transport and Transfer, but on the campaign generated mission it seemed to make the aircraft take-off from one airport and land on another. I want to reiterate that this is an AI-only mission type, so it won't appear for the player, regardless of the aircraft type.

I was surprised to find this out, I've been modding the game for so long and noticed about it only now. The secret was all about saving a campaign mission. I think that without saving, most of us would have thought a cargo plane was doing a mere Transport mission. I don't think there are any other hidden features, mission type wise. Also, I don't think it's related to SF2NA, I think it existed before it. In DLL files, the extra mission types of SF2NA are called after disabled ones from First Eagles 2 (balloon busting and the likes), while Transfer is before those. Moreover, my ODS campaign is not a Naval one ala SF2NA, thus SF2NA's extra mission types don't work in it.