Menrva

Alaska, Bering Strait (1955-2018) Terrain
April 13th, 2017 (1st Release)
by Menrva

>For Strike Fighters 2: Europe, Recommended Full-5 Merged
This is a complete remake of the DBS terrain made by Major Lee and further tweaked by Wrench.
Wrench kindly allowed me to improve upon his work; the entire map has been retargetized and retiled using a whole new tileset, combining tiles from Brain32 and Stary. Some water bodies, lakes and rivers have been hand-tiled. Most of the terrain has been hand-tiled to a great extent. 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 June 22, 1955 (the date of the first known Cold War incident in the Bering Straits between the U.S. and the Soviets) to December 31, 2018.
I didn't bother to add all of the possible RL airports. However, when compared to the original DBS terrain, this one has a lot more to offer, especially on the Blue Side. The Soviets (Red Side) only have two flyable airfields. Don't even try to fly Red Side long-range bombers from said small airfields. Reason for this is that the original DBS terrain was rather fictional and included airbases which in reality didn't and don't exist. I made major researches and what I am providing here is a realistic representation of the area, given the terrain engine limitations. Anyway, I added some Off Map Airbases for both Blue Side and Red Side; if you have SF2NA, you can benefit from this addition, as long range AI flights can be generated from such airbases.
The area in reality is pretty barren, so don't expect a terrain with much targets. Still, you can enjoy CAS missions at St. Lawrence Island and Lopp Lagoon being invaded by Soviet forces, and the usual dogfights over the Bering Straits.
Ground Objects are not included. You can obtain them from Wrench's original DBS terrain release. Only very few of them should be needed anyway.

>Credits (in no particular order):
-Major Lee, who came up with the idea of recreating such an interesting scenario in the Strike Fighters world.
-Wrench, who kindly allowed me to improve upon his work by giving me a blank cheque and trusting my capabilities. Thank you, sir!
-swambast, who provided me with invaluable help in tracking and fixing common and uncommon bugs.
-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.
-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 snowy runway textures he made for his Korean terrain repaint (unofficially released) and the waternormal bitmap he shared at the SF2 screenshots thread. Your mods are very interesting!
-MigBuster, I have included some of his great hi-res textures for runways.
-Brain32, for the original hi-res DBS tileset he made and which I have expanded with my bad transition tiles.
-Stary, because his tilesets are pure art. I borrowed a TOD and few tiles from his excellent Kamchatka tileset repaint.
-Gepard, for his great tutorials about terrain making, in the SF1 Knowledge Base at CombatACE. It's a gold mine!
-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.
Because the original terrain was born from Major Lee and was later tweaked a number of times by Wrench, I included the ReadMe files from the original packages, 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.

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.