Menrva

Crashes to desktop happen with Intercept if the enemy side doesn't spawn with any aircraft either because it doesn't have a proper runway size to spawn on (heavy bombers require at least one LARGE_AIRBASE defined on the terrain), or it simply does not have any aircraft to spawn with. On SF2 Complete Edition I have no such issues with the Italy terrain I released, all runway types exist in it and I get stock MiGs to intercept. Modded nations.ini or userlist.ini files are the main causes of such unwanted behavior. Nothing's wrong with the terrain data. If the enemy nations have no aircraft to spawn with, it's no wonder you get a CTD. In that case, Allen's solution is correct, you'd have to add AllowedMissionTypes and remove Intercept from it. @EricJ That airbase issue was fixed the day after. I'm not aware of additional heightmap bugs with airfields, but those would never cause a crash to desktop.

@Dysko Non hai idea del piacere che ho provato a leggere questo tuo post, da commuoversi quasi. Ti ringrazio tantissimo! Sono orgoglioso di aver rilasciato finalmente un terreno dell'Italia/Balcani degno di questo nome. Pensa che sono iscritto a CombatACE dal 2011. Al tempo mai avrei immaginato che sarei diventato un modder di terreni per Strike Fighters, per di più che avrei prodotto questo scenario alquanto complesso! È un vero peccato che la community si sia ristretta così tanto ma non biasimo coloro che sono passati ad altro. Strike Fighters è stato abbandonato da anni da TK in questo stato, un gioco che anche per sue colpe non ha la visibilità che merita. Tuttavia, la mancanza di una community attiva (oltre alle noie che sto avendo con la salute) mi demotiva dall'intraprendere la creazione di nuovi terreni, essendo una attività molto molto lunga e tediosa. Ad ogni modo, post come il tuo mi dicono che in fondo lavorare tanto su un tale terreno non è stato uno spreco. Posso solo augurarmi che in futuro Strike Fighters torni un poco in auge in qualche modo, e che più fan della serie tornino per apprezzare le nuove mod su cui noi pochi modder rimasti lavoriamo.

Something else must have happened because the ODS installer does not overwrite nor touch anything (no other mod folders, no settings nor registry keys) by any means. The issue you're having with NF5 is definitely unrelated. I suppose it's more related with Win11 or any system updates. What the ODS installer does is installing a clean, brand new mod folder and adding related link and a renamed executable for it to work soon after installation. It shouldn't CTD as soon as you run it, if that happens something else must have gone wrong. I wish I could help more but I'm on Win10 and I cannot get a clear picture of what went wrong on your end.

Allen, as I previously said in the terrain's support topic, I'm not going to work on the terrain anymore at this stage. It burned me out badly. I have no motivation. For simplicity and gameplay purposes all of Bosnia is Red Side. If and when a campaign will be made, front line changes can all be controlled in the campaign data. If you prefer to have Sarajevo on Blue Side, you can change it yourself.

@madvad You're a sniper in catching bugs, I should hire you. Jokes aside, it's your lucky day, it was a rather quick fix. I've re-uploaded the two terrain packages. You'll have to wait until they are re-approved. I won't be available for other bug fixing though. Anything else you people wish to see fixed or improved, send me a PM and I'll care to read it when I feel the time is right. Don't expect immediate support, I need some rest.

Mod package has been updated to Version 1.7; read the change log for further details.

I want to explain that this terrain work of mine is not fully complete as usual. It features all possible airports, air bases, SAM sites and radar sites, alongside extremely accurate topography with Real World river courses and lakes. However, cities are missing targets entirely, things like bridges, warehouses, factories, etc. To develop this terrain has been all but a pleasant journey, it burnt me out numerous times to the point of hating it. Moreover, I've been suffering from an health issue for a year with no clear solution in sight. It has drained most of my energy. If and when I feel better, I'll consider completing the terrain with the addition of targets in cities. I think it's best that I release it as is rather than keeping it wasted on my hard disk. For personal use only, you can modify it as much as you want. I just don't want to see the terrain being modified and/or redistributed here or elsewhere without my prior explicit consent. That's all I ask. The community has dwindled so much in recent years and this terrain comes too late, only very few fans of Strike Fighters will be enjoying it and this sort of demotivates me from doing any further terrain modding. This may well be my last terrain work, it really exhausted me to this point. If you encounter any bugs or oddities, please do not bother me about those. I know well the terrain is not perfect nor complete, but right now I have other priorities alongside my health concerns. Take care, everyone.

I want to explain that this terrain work of mine is not fully complete as usual. It features all possible airports, air bases, SAM sites and radar sites, alongside extremely accurate topography with Real World river courses and lakes. However, cities are missing targets entirely, things like bridges, warehouses, factories, etc. To develop this terrain has been all but a pleasant journey, it burnt me out numerous times to the point of hating it. Moreover, I've been suffering from an health issue for a year with no clear solution in sight. It has drained most of my energy. If and when I feel better, I'll consider completing the terrain with the addition of targets in cities. I think it's best that I release it as is rather than keeping it wasted on my hard disk. For personal use only, you can modify it as much as you want. I just don't want to see the terrain being modified and/or redistributed here or elsewhere without my prior explicit consent. That's all I ask. The community has dwindled so much in recent years and this terrain comes too late, only very few fans of Strike Fighters will be enjoying it and this sort of demotivates me from doing any further terrain modding. This may well be my last terrain work, it really exhausted me to this point. If you encounter any bugs or oddities, please do not bother me about those. I know well the terrain is not perfect nor complete, but right now I have other priorities alongside my health concerns. Take care, everyone.

View File NovaLogic Skin Pack NovaLogic Skin Pack September 13th, 2022 (1st Release) by Menrva >For Strike Fighters 2 games This package includes high quality skins representing the player's aircraft from three lite flight simulators released by NovaLogic, namely F-22 Raptor in 1997, F-16 Multirole Fighter and MiG-29 Fulcrum both released in 1998. Below, a summary of the details of each skins: -NL_357CW, for the F-22A Raptor aircraft I released. This skin represents the fictive Raptor Squadron of the 58th TFS, 357th CW (Composite Wing), which took part in military operations in Angola, Jordan, Russia, Colombia and Iran. Serial numbers are realistic, the first being 001 as portrayed on the player's aircraft from NovaLogic's game. -NL_16AESOG, for the F-16C Block 42 aircraft released by The Viper Team. It depicts the fictive Viper Squadron of the 32nd TFS, 16th AESOG (Air Expeditionary Special Operations Group), which took part in military operations in Serbia, Liberia, Congo, Burma and Somalia. I made the skin for the Block 42, since it's closer to the one that NovaLogic modelled. Serial numbers are semi-realistic, the first being 112 as portrayed on the player's aircraft from NovaLogic's game. -NL_11EW, for the MiG-29S Fulcrum-C aircraft released by The Mirage Factory. It depicts the fictive 300 Squadron of the 7th Red Banner Guards Regiment, 11th Expeditionary Wing, which took part in military operations in the Kurile Islands, Uganda, Somalia, Burma and Tajikistan. Serial numbers are generic, the aircraft does not have any in NovaLogic's game. >Credits (in no particular order): -The Viper Team, for its detailed F-16 3d models and relative templates. -The Mirage Factory, for its good old MiG-29 3d model. -Sundowner, for the MiG-29 templates he made available. -yakarov79, for his reworked F-22 3d model and relative templates. >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 09/12/2022 Category What If Skins

View File Italy, Southern Europe (1963-1991) Italy, Southern Europe (1963-1991) Terrain September 13th, 2022 (1st Release) by Menrva and tiopilotos >For Strike Fighters 2, Recommended Full-5 Merged I am very proud to release a long awaited, brand new terrain made from scratch! The result of many years of dedication and sweat starting in 2017, it features thousands of manually placed tiles reproducing Real World river courses and lakes, not to mention tons of cities all accurately placed in their correct locations. This terrain portrays a pretty complex area, no wonder it never got made properly in two decades of Strike Fighters modding. It is my hope you realize the amount of time and hard effort that I have put to reproduce it with much care and detail. The terrain completely covers Italy (with the exception of Sicily, which is included in my Libya terrain), Yugoslavia, Albania, Corsica (France), Liechtenstein and nice portions of Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Greece and even a bit of Romania. The tileset, based on one of Stary's GermanyCE tilesets, has been recoloured and expanded with needed transition tiles and features beautiful, unique tiles by tiopilotos which reproduce real islands. Expect long and very accurate river courses, all major and some minor lakes, and tons of islands in the Adriatic Sea. Numerous target areas have been added in order to expand playability, targets of opportunity and year range; those include more than 140 airports, more than 100 SAM sites and more than 70 EW-GCI sites, all placed accurately in their correct locations as shown by well-made SAM site datasets for Google Earth. 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 April 7, 1963 (the day the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was introduced) to June 24, 1991 (the day before Slovenia and Croatia declared independence). This terrain is adapt for Cold War scenarios pitting NATO forces against the combined Red Side forces of Yugoslavia, Albania, Hungary and Romania. Airfields in Austria and Switzerland have been set to Neutral, so the AI and the player will never spawn on those by default. Targets reflect Real World events as accurately as possible. Having SF2NA is a must, as I have enabled naval ops; if your mod folder contains American, French and Italian aircraft carriers, sometimes you'll see fleets being generated in single missions. NOTE: The terrain is not fully finished. It currently misses targets for cities, such as bridges, warehouses, factories etc. If time will allow, maybe someday it will be completed properly. >Credits (in no particular order): -tiopilotos, for working on very well done island tiles which offer more unique sights in the Adriatic Sea. -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. -JSF_Aggie, for his Hi-Res Runway Textures package which I have included and slightly reworked. -Coupi, for his Soviet style repaint of the stock Runway3 airfield. -luk1978, for the waternormal bitmap he shared at the SF2 screenshots thread. Your mods are very interesting! -Stary, for an old version of his GermanyCE tileset included in the Anatolia v1 terrain by PureBlue. -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. >Trivia: Some statistics of the amount of work that went into it, gathered thanks to gerwin's TFDtool. I placed manually one by one: more than 8600 rivers tiles, more than 1100 road tiles, more than 2000 city related tiles! This is just the tip of the iceberg, not counting other thousands of tiles that have been placed manually on the tilemap to better reproduce coastlines, islands and lakes, and not counting the endless hours of research since 2017 into adding all possible airports with much accuracy. >Disclaimer: This is a freeware; you are NOT allowed to redistribute it without my prior explicit consent. 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 09/12/2022 Category Full Terrains

View File Italy, Southern Europe (1993-2006) Italy, Southern Europe (1993-2006) Terrain September 13th, 2022 (1st Release) by Menrva and tiopilotos >For Strike Fighters 2, Recommended Full-5 Merged I am very proud to release a long awaited, brand new terrain made from scratch! The result of many years of dedication and sweat starting in 2017, it features thousands of manually placed tiles reproducing Real World river courses and lakes, not to mention tons of cities all accurately placed in their correct locations. This terrain portrays a pretty complex area, no wonder it never got made properly in two decades of Strike Fighters modding. It is my hope you realize the amount of time and hard effort that I have put to reproduce it with much care and detail. The terrain completely covers Italy (with the exception of Sicily, which is included in my Libya terrain), Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Corsica (France), Liechtenstein and nice portions of Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Macedonia, Greece and even a bit of Romania. The tileset, based on one of Stary's GermanyCE tilesets, has been recoloured and expanded with needed transition tiles and features beautiful, unique tiles by tiopilotos which reproduce real islands. Expect long and very accurate river courses, all major and some minor lakes, and tons of islands in the Adriatic Sea. Numerous target areas have been added in order to expand playability, targets of opportunity and year range; those include more than 140 airports, more than 100 SAM sites and more than 70 EW-GCI sites, all placed accurately in their correct locations as shown by well-made SAM site datasets for Google Earth. 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 April 12, 1993 (the beginning of Operation Deny Flight) to June 2, 2006 (the day before Montenegro declared its independence). This terrain is adapt for the Yugoslav Wars and for what-if scenarios pitting Serbia against NATO. For gameplay purposes, Bosnia is set to Red Side alongside Serbia and Montenegro. Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia are set to Blue Side. Airfields in Austria, Switzerland and Romania have been set to Neutral, so the AI and the player will never spawn on those by default. Targets reflect Real World events as accurately as possible. Having SF2NA is a must, as I have enabled naval ops; if your mod folder contains American, French and Italian aircraft carriers, sometimes you'll see fleets being generated in single missions. NOTE: The terrain is not fully finished. It currently misses targets for cities, such as bridges, warehouses, factories etc. If time will allow, maybe someday it will be completed properly. >Credits (in no particular order): -tiopilotos, for working on very well done island tiles which offer more unique sights in the Adriatic Sea. -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. -JSF_Aggie, for his Hi-Res Runway Textures package which I have included and slightly reworked. -Coupi, for his Soviet style repaint of the stock Runway3 airfield. -luk1978, for the waternormal bitmap he shared at the SF2 screenshots thread. Your mods are very interesting! -Stary, for an old version of his GermanyCE tileset included in the Anatolia v1 terrain by PureBlue. -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. >Trivia: Some statistics of the amount of work that went into it, gathered thanks to gerwin's TFDtool. I placed manually one by one: more than 8600 rivers tiles, more than 1100 road tiles, more than 2000 city related tiles! This is just the tip of the iceberg, not counting other thousands of tiles that have been placed manually on the tilemap to better reproduce coastlines, islands and lakes, and not counting the endless hours of research since 2017 into adding all possible airports with much accuracy. >Disclaimer: This is a freeware; you are NOT allowed to redistribute it without my prior explicit consent. 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 09/12/2022 Category Full Terrains

View File F-19 Stealth Fighter F-19 Stealth Fighter September 13th, 2022 (1st Release) by Julhelm, Dels and Menrva >For Strike Fighters 2 games This is a rework of Julhelm's fantastic F-19 stealth fighter 3d model, now featuring a centre strut canopy structure (thanks to a cheap trick of repainting the bubble canopy glass) and a new cockpit, a purposely modified F-117A cockpit by Dels. Among the improvements, it now features proper hit boxes and collision points, proper location for position lights and landing gear lights, reworked skins, aircraft characteristics and loadouts meant to resemble the ones of Microprose's F-19 Stealth Fighter game. It still features two internal weapon bays (unlike Microprose's exaggerated four bays), but with properly reworked limits; you can have 4x Sidewinders or 3x AMRAAMs per bay, 2x bombs or AGMs depending on their overall weight and size. A 20mm cannon is on the nose with 680 rounds, and an extra 1,900 lbs fuel cell has been added for a total of 11,800 lbs of fuel; non-afterburning engines are used for stealth reasons. An (invisible) arrester hook has been added as well, since Microprose's version could also operate from aircraft carriers. Skins feature the 83-019 serial number and an F letter on the vertical tails; these two details come from a picture of a menu screen in one of the releases of Microprose's F-19 Stealth Fighter game, where you could choose between an F-19 or an F-117A. More serial numbers couldn't be featured as the 3d model of the aircraft does not support decals without decal bleeding issues. Just imagine piloting the only example of F-19 in very black operations! Three new skins were created: a Prototype Black skin created from the specular texture Julhelm had made, and Desert and Arctic camo skins made by modifying the USAF Euro camo skin created by kblomkvist. NOTE: Strike Fighters 2 has no proper IRST functionality, so for the purpose of launching AMRAAMs a very basic ACM radar mode has been added to the avionics file of the aircraft. Moreover, the default cockpit features an obtrusive front strut which makes the cannon difficult to use. You can activate an alternative cockpit LOD in the relative INI file. >What-if Backstory During the development of the Have Blue demonstrators, Lockheed's Skunk Works division also conceived a third experimental stealth aircraft featuring an entirely different shape, rounded fuselage and wings, and meant to have air combat capabilities. The CIA got wind of it, classifying it at the highest possible level and using it as a cover-up story for the stealth aircraft that came to be the F-117A Nighthawk. In 1986, the Testor Corporation released a plastic model aircraft kit, calling it the "F-19 Stealth Fighter". Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1987-88 book listed an RF-19 as a Lockheed development project. The conceptual drawings of it were generally similar to Testor's design. In 1988 a combat flight simulator game, F-19 Stealth Fighter by Microprose, was released just moments before the public unveiling of the F-117A Nighthawk attack aircraft, which is said to be what it sought to represent. The reality is that a single F-19 existed and, during secret flights over Groom Lake, this experimental aircraft showed unique strength and was deemed a super-aircraft. Due to its funding and maintenance costs, the project was officially abandoned in 1983. Unofficially, this single example of F-19 took part in black operations all over the world until 1997. It is named F-19A Nightowl, internally nicknamed "Flying Frisbee" for its rounded shape and also referred to as "Ghostrider" for allegedly being affiliated with the 416th TFS Ghost Riders flying the F-117A Nighthawk. "The view would have been frightening to most men, there were solid clouds overhead at 4000 feet. He flew through the showers, he more heard than saw on this black night and the dark outlines of the trees appeared to reach up and snatch at his speeding fighter. Only a madman would be so low on such a night. 'So much the better' he smiled in his oxygen mask" - Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising >Credits (in no particular order): -Julhelm, for creating this well-made 3d model of the F-19. -Dels, for his kindness in reworking the F-117 cockpit following my request. -kblomkvist, for his USAF Euro camo inspired by Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising book. -guuruu, for sharing his RWR symbols improvement mod and for his improved sound files. -simonmiller416, for his smokeless rocket effects mod. -Crusader, for the more realistic weapons data for AIM missiles. -TaktischesGenie, for his suggestions and chats we've had about the F-19 concept. -My girlfriend, for supporting me in all of my endeavors. Submitter Menrva Submitted 09/12/2022 Category What If Hangar

As long as it is for your own use, feel free to do so. Actually, I originally set the year span to 1993-2030, but various Real World changes happened after 2006 (Montenegro got independent, grew closer to the West and later joined NATO; Macedonia got renamed to North Macedonia; Kosovo self-declared its independence, etc.) and those would require a third version of the terrain. To keep things simple and scenarios realistic, I limited the year span to 1993-2006. If you increase it to 2030, you'll see that a couple of airports disappear at given years, because they were either destroyed or abandoned, so I also took into account such events well beyond 2006.

Il terreno dell'Italia e dei Balcani sarà prossimamente disponibile, un modesto preview qui: All pilots, scramble! New terrains inbound! - Thirdwire: Strike Fighters 2 Series - General Discussion - CombatACE Saranno disponibili due versioni, una per la Guerra Fredda, l'altra per i terribili conflitti successivi alla dissoluzione della Jugoslavia. I terreni non sono completi come avrei voluto; sebbene la topografia sia molto accurata con moltissimi fiumi e laghi riprodotti manualmente con immensa pazienza, e nonostante la gran cura e ricerca nell'aggiungere tutti i possibili aeroporti, postazioni SAM e siti radar, i terreni mancano di obiettivi da distruggere nelle città. Non ci sono dunque edifici, fabbriche, ponti etc. che renderebbero completa l'esperienza. Il 2022 è stato finora per me un anno molto difficile. È passato un anno da quando ho iniziato a soffrire di un problema di salute che mi priva di energie nonostante la mia giovane età. Sviluppare questo scenario dei Balcani è stata una esperienza non piacevole, data la complessità dell'area e la mia ossessiva volontà di riprodurla con molta fedeltà con gli strumenti a disposizione. Seppur non completo al 100%, ho ritenuto sia il momento di rilasciare questo mio lavoro così come è. Se mai le mie condizioni dovessero migliorare, sarei più che felice di rimetterci mano in futuro per sistemare eventuali bug e aggiungere targets per le città. Dopo il rilascio, prevedo di prendermi una seria pausa dal modding. Ringrazio quel che è rimasto della community di Strike Fighters per il supporto e l'affetto mostratomi. Mi auguro che questo terreno, seppur incompleto, possa riaccendere una qualche fiamma negli appassionati della serie. A presto!

Pilots, we have a new assignment. You have long awaited to fly over these skies. You're finally being deployed to... Italy, Southern Europe (1963-1991) As war looms between NATO and the Warsaw Pact over Central Europe, Yugoslavia and Hungary are planning to bring the fight to Italian territories. Possible support to this war plan is expected from Albania and Romania. Italian forces and American units stationed on the beautiful peninsula and around its seas are on alert as Switzerland and Austria mantain their neutrality. Italy, Southern Europe (1993-2006) The breakup of Yugoslavia has happened and conflicts erupt in the heart of the Balkans. NATO is planning offensive operations against Serbia with the intent of supporting the independence of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bosnia is almost entirely under the control of Serbian factions. Serbia can count on the support of Montenegro against the upcoming NATO bombings.

Upcoming update to realSKY. Changed twilight colours once again, added custom cloud shaders to alter cloud shapes for each weather type, reworked some other little details. Following screenshots courtesy of @OrbitalPotato331

NovaLogic Legacy Raptor Squadron, 58th TFS, 357th Composite Wing Viper Squadron, 32nd TFS, 16th Air Expeditionary Special Operations Group 300 Squadron, 7th Red Banner Guards Regiment, 11th Expeditionary Wing

Thanks to the kindness and work of @Dels, the F-19 now features two different cockpits, the end-user can choose which one to use. Here below, screenshots showcasing the different skins for the aircraft. I didn't get any response from Julhelm yet to the PM I sent him. I would like to re-release it but I would also like to have his explicit permission. I'm not sure if he would be fine with it. EDIT: I managed to ask @Julhelm for permission on TW's Discord server. I got the green light. It'll be released when it's time. My thanks to him.

It is the Alaska, Bering Strait (1955-2018) remake I had made. You can also tell by the snowy runway textures made by luk1978. @Wrench Just FYI, I had released a scratch made version of the Hawaii terrain, which is in full Real World scale and with all possible airports and cities/towns of the archipelago. I think it's often overlooked.

I think the guy is confusing blur with bloom. I explicitly wrote in my realSKY Readme file that bloom postprocessing is used by the game when Effects settings are set to Unlimited. This is unrelated to the mod, although realSKY provides better postprocessing given engine limitations. I wonder why I waste time writing Readme files. About effects, the best currently available are from Stary's Unified Effects package. For the ODS mod, me and guuruu have been improving those and fixing any mistakes, typos, wrongly referenced shaders, etc. Maybe some day I'll think about re-releasing them as a standalone package. Much better looking effects are simply not possible, the graphics engine is not capable of features like proper heat waves, volumetric clouds, etc. The game is old, live with it. Besides, to be asking for even better freeware mods than the ones already available is a bit insulting and annoying. I almost lost my sanity while working with obsessive care and precision on some add-ons (which are free). There are people spending their free time to make others happier, with absolutely nothing in return. So let's be grateful for what the community already offers. Rant over.