Menrva

It depends on what you wish to have. Several of my mods are already released separately (realSKY, Nations Expansion, SF1 Menu Screens, Speech Enhancement, etc.). Other improvements are very specific to the ODS 30AE mod and its contents and cannot be ported in a general way.

You're not meant to mix the Desert Storm mod with other maps and mods. The ODS 30AE mod only contains aircraft, ships, tanks, AAAs and SAMs for Iraq and the Coalition forces. Other countries are not supported. My other maps are meant for generic installations where you can choose from a broader number of countries.

This is pointless because SF2's exes are already Large Address Aware, they don't need any changes in this regard.

Yeah, it's common these days, sadly. I joined CombatACE back in 2011. Back then I was only 16 years old. It never dawned on me to create double accounts just to overcome the limitation of five free downloads per day. I downloaded hundreds of GBs worth of mods with patience and time, but I also began doing my part; to mod the game myself and share my new creations with the community that had already given so much. These days it seems folks want things for free but, if something is not exactly how they'd like, they shit on that free stuff and on the creators providing such content, at times by even verbally abusing them (and I say this because I experienced it, more than once). Make the same people pay their hard-earned money on a heartless AAA game (the industry created tons over time) and they soon run to defend their purchase of mid, badly designed, commercial products. I have no solution to this problem. Sometimes I despise humanity so much that I hope mass extinction happens at some point. Some other times I use that same anger and energy not to destroy or despise, but to create new content, in the hopes of entertaining and bringing smiles to people throughout the world, being through the hardships of life. The above user is sadly annoyed by the fact he spent mere minutes to register on a website for free and to have to wait before stuff could be downloaded. Now imagine a modder, spending months on creating a terrain or a brand new aircraft 3d model with unparalleled level of research and attention to detail, and then sharing that creation for free without asking anything in return. Compared to the above case, should I be annoyed to never ever see just a thank you in return, actually with the risk of being verbally abused by some users? What I say applies to all modders of course, not just me. I also reckon not all users are like that though, and fortunately. Sometimes the nasty ones make more noise than the good ones, a dense fog of noise that creates nothing and destroys everything. My apologies for the long post, I felt like venting though I rarely did in all these years in public.

The AI is not capable of starting from the hangars, so no, this is not achievable. Only what I linked in the post above is doable, but even that brings its own set of issues and limitations.

Not really, it's only possible through scripted/manually created missions, but the game doesn't really support this feature and it is not possible to add it otherwise. More details here:

Update your software first, you need the latest version of WinRAR or 7-Zip. Complete instructions on how to properly install the mod here: Next time, please use the mod's support topic for questions (the one linked above), to open a new topic for such matters is not the best way.

More accurate ones certainly improve realism and accuracy in gameplay. Yes, some stock aircraft don't have precise ones. For the ODS 30AE mod I personally fixed and improved collision points and hit boxes for over 100 aircraft, both stock and third-party. It is no walk in the park and it isn't funny, so I won't suggest others to do the same for such an amount of aircraft. Thanks to mue's LODViewer we can edit them much easily and very precisely, but it takes times.

Nope, as far as I know. I had the same issue with some airports on some of the terrains I made. You can only approximate to either 239 or 240.

Yes, everything seems how it should be. Thank you for fixing it! No idea. I dragged the files with the relative option, nothing out of the ordinary. What I did though was removing the attachment and reuploading it, since I improved the textures in the package minutes after the first upload.

Odd, it seems to work just fine, I downloaded it on my end. @Erik any ideas on what is going on with the above attachment?

Nope, the ODS 30AE mod doesn't use the F-14A from North Atlantic, it uses the TMF ones which are better and more period correct, so SF2 NA is required for the avionics' DLL but not for the INI data. It may be a bug, thanks for reporting, I'll look into it when possible. EDIT: it was a nasty one to figure out, the RWR textures for the cockpit apparently lost their alpha channels; just unpack the following inside Objects\Aircraft\F-14A\Cockpit and it'll work: F-14A_RWR_hotfix.zip

We'll see if I ever manage to finish it one day, too big of a terrain project by covering the entire continent of Usea from the Ace Combat universe (according to my calculations it should be in full scale). Grey areas are not part of Usean countries, hence they are grey in the planning map.

You must download all 4 zip files (.001, .002, .003, .004) and then unzip the .001 part while keeping the other three in the same directory. If all 4 zip parts have been downloaded correctly and fully and you still have errors, it means you have to update your unzipping software, I suggest using the latest available version of 7-Zip.

I bought the Premium Joker Flight Pack edition (with a little discount thanks to points accumulated at Bandai Namco's store), enough said! Project ACES is one of few development teams that deserve my money. Ace Combat 7 wasn't as good as previous main titles of the series, but it was plagued by development hell and the developers had to master using a new game engine. Now, after some six years of development, Ace Combat 8 has all the cards to become one of the best entries.

ThirdWire is only focused on the mobile game and its PC port, and it's been so for several years, so nothing to be expected about Strike Fighters 2 which hasn't been touched since 2013 (13 years ago).

@starfighter006 there's no use in editing or creating new STR files when adding new medals. Originally SF1 games featured multiple languages, hence STR files were useful in those cases when a different language was selected and loaded. SF2 is only in English so STR files for medals are no longer needed, they're just a remnant of SF1 using STRs for their strings. There's no utility to edit those as far as I know, hex-editing is the only way.

Alright then. Rarely there would be SF1 specific issues, SF2 is just an upgrade of the same thing, modding on both is rather interchangeable. If you have specific questions that haven't been answered already in the Knowledge Base (https://combatace.com/forums/forum/349-strike-fighters-knowledge-base/), then create a topic and those with SF modding knowledge will answer, regardless if it's SF1 or SF2. The games have been modded for 20+ years, and the forums are also filled with topics on how to do this or that. Use the search bar (https://combatace.com/search/) and you'll likely find that your question has already been answered in other past topics.

Very useful topic indeed, especially making a distinction between SF1 and SF2 modders, as if both games require entirely different skills while in reality they have most if not all features and modding tools in common (some folks have been modding the games for 20+ years, moved on to SF2 when it became the better modding platform). Thank you for taking the time of writing something this useful and for making me spend time reading it. PS: stop treating people like servants and maybe next time you'll get more help.

Autopilot works just fine, you're likely flying for one of the units based in airfields far from the game's playable world, as such you won't be able to land on such places. If you like to land, select a unit which is based in airfields closer to Iraq. You can only land in the airfields shown in the planning map screen, anything else outside of it only exists as AI-only off map airbases.

Yes. I want to point out that TK removed all references to the (vaporware) Win10 edition of Strike Fighters 2. I think it's a clear sign that an update or newer version of Strike Fighters 2 is never going to happen.

Strike Fighters 2 Win10 Edition has been vaporware for years, so many that Win10 already reached its end of life cycle and support. Even a Win11 Edition would be kind of late now, with Windows 12 apparently being not too far away. I doubt TK has the resources or the interest to update the PC games anymore. It is a huge pity, those games carry tremendous potential, and having them available for purchase at more affordable prices at a store like GOG or Steam would be better than what he's doing now. We've been beating this dead horse for so many years that, who knows, maybe a miracle happens and the horse wakes up.

@saisran that sucks. Try installing the game outside of Program Files, Windows is more and more restrictive when executing applications installed in there. Hopefully that is enough of a workaround, otherwise we have a problem.