Menrva

LOL! It reminded me of this show by Trevor Noah. The difference between European and American sports commentators...

Mod package has been updated to Version 1.5; read the change log for further details.

View File NovaLogic Terrains NovaLogic Terrains July 13th, 2021 (1st Release) by Menrva and gerwin >For Strike Fighters 2, Recommended Full-5 Merged This package was born after the discovery of similarities between the terrain engine of Strike Fighters and that of NovaLogic's flight sims from the late nineties. Upon my initial idea, gerwin helped make it true with his incredible programming skills; without him, these terrains wouldn't even exist for use on Strike Fighters. This package features not one, not two, but all thirteen terrains converted from all NovaLogic's flight sims. Due to differences between game engines, these terrains are smaller in scale in Strike Fighters compared to how they are in NovaLogic's games. Here below a summary of what's included: NL01_IslandGreen (Region: Meadow) from F-22 Lightning II NL02_IslandSnowy (Region: Tundra) from F-22 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor NL03_Desert1 (Region: Arid) from F-22 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor NL04_Jungle1 (Region: Forest) from F-22 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor NL04_Jungle2 (Region: Jungle) from F-16 Multirole Fighter and MiG-29 Fulcrum NL05_Savannah1 (Region: Woodland) from F-22 Raptor NL05_Savannah2 (Region: Savanna) from F-16 Multirole Fighter, MiG-29 Fulcrum and F-22 Lightning 3 NL06_Desert2A (Region: Brush) from F-22 Raptor NL06_Desert2B (Region: Desert) from F-16 Multirole Fighter and MiG-29 Fulcrum NL07_Steppe (Region: Steppe) from F-16 Multirole Fighter and MiG-29 Fulcrum NL08_Scrub (Region: Scrub) from F-16 Multirole Fighter, MiG-29 Fulcrum and F-22 Lightning 3 NL09_Glacial (Region: Glacial) from F-16 Multirole Fighter, MiG-29 Fulcrum and F-22 Lightning 3 NL10_IslandJungle (Region: Tropical) from F-22 Lightning 3 These terrains feature 500m resolution heightmaps and original low-res tilesets (tweaked for the Strike Fighters engine). Each terrain is meant to represent a generic region of the world. Nations are properly limited to ones coherent with each setting, and island terrains enable the use of naval fleets and aircraft carriers. As such, these terrains are meant to be used in a full-5 merged mod folder of all SF2 titles. At this stage very few target areas have been added to each terrain, providing basic support for all mission types, so just enjoy quick missions against the enemy; hopefully these terrains will be completed with more details one day. About development, gerwin took care of reverse engineering NovaLogic's files and converting them to SF2 format, plus writing the tools for that. Me and him manually fixed most water alpha channels and adjusted colors in few tiles. Design choices such as target areas, routes, terrain height and surroundings, are mine; if you have any suggestions about this package, contact me. >Credits (in no particular order): -gerwin, for converting these terrains to the Strike Fighters game engine and for expanding his awesome tools with new features. I included his very nice Airfield 7+8 Addon Pack, too. -Wrench, for permission to upload this package which is based on outdated assets from old games. >Disclaimer: This is a freeware; yet it can be redistributed ONLY in other CombatACE mods/mod packages. Any changes to the 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 mod may NOT in any way, shape or form be used in any payware additions. Submitter Menrva Submitted 07/13/2021 Category Full Terrains

View File Outer Space Terrains Outer Space Terrains July 13th, 2021 (1st Release) by Menrva and nuni >For Strike Fighters 2, Recommended Full-5 Merged This package was born out of fun while working on the realSKY Environment enhancement mod. It features two experimental terrains, Moon and Mars, each with own environment data files which allow different gravity acceleration values and custom skies. Due to various hardcoded factors of the stock game, the Moon terrain shows contrail effects at very high altitude like any other terrain, as well as overcast/inclement weather layers which cannot be disabled in any way; enjoy these custom environments by taking such and other game engine limitations into account. It is suggested to install the realSKY Environment mod, since the custom environment data references extra details from that package. Both terrains feature fresh new 250m resolution heightmaps (instead of the stock 500m resolution), allowing for greater details and precision in elevation changes; overall they provide each terrain with a better look. Given that these are extraterrestrial terrains, different types of source data had to be used in their creation; for this and other limitations, altitudes of geographical features are inaccurate. The Moon terrain spans from 2040 to 2070, while Mars is available from 2060 to 2090; both are designed for fictional clashes between Red forces (Russian Space Forces and People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force) and Blue forces (United States Space Force and French Space Force). Both terrains contain only two bases, one for Friendly forces and one for Enemy forces, fully populated with custom objects created by nuni. Few target areas have been added so that users can easily discover features such as craters, plateaus and valleys. At this stage, only the Recon mission type is available, so just have fun by flying over these barren terrains. Off Map bases have been added to both terrains and long range AI flights could be generated from them. An Orion MPCV created by nuni in three different variants has been added as a flyable aircraft as well as a terrain object in points of interest. In addition, custom skins have been created for it so that all AI-only space forces spawn with at least one terrain-specific aircraft; I would have liked to include other feasible and realistic spacecraft, but none are available at this stage. If you wish to contribute to this end, just contact me. The idea is to create plausible space warfare and exploration scenarios, so alien and sci-fi stuff should not be involved. Of course, you're free to alter the original scenario for your own personal use. >Credits (in no particular order): -nuni, for creating the Orion MPCV and all featured space terrain objects. -gerwin, whose TFDtool has proved to be essential in today's terrain making. -mue, for the improved shaders he made and for the tools he made for SF2 modding. >Disclaimer: This is a freeware; yet it can be redistributed ONLY in other CombatACE mods/mod packages. Any changes to the 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 mod may NOT in any way, shape or form be used in any payware additions. Submitter Menrva Submitted 07/13/2021 Category Full Terrains

Never been a huge fan of what ifs, but this plane is so unique and rare, it would be a great addition to the amazing roster of aircraft in Strike Fighters. The Wiki page says that 7 such aircraft were built; I'm not sure if that's reliable info, but it wouldn't even be a big what if in that case.

Thanks to you for the feedback! We're glad you like it. The January release was kind of rushed, so that version is filled with bugs here and there. If all goes as planned, this August a much better package will be released!

Yeah, I already saw that video when it was posted, I follow that channel. It makes sense to have such a multirole platform, maximizing firepower while sacrificing stealth. As much as I love the F-22A Raptor, they never fully explored the potential of that aircraft, it's only capable of carrying small GPS-guided bombs, otherwise it's just a stealth air superiority aircraft with no HMD capability. It would be weird to see those F-15EX aircraft being manned by a single pilot, even though the airframe is dual-seat. Maybe they've played Ace Combat too much...

Air refueling does not exist in SF2; by design the game features scaled terrains which are roughly 60% of their Real World size. Modders had fun creating animations of refueling probes etc. for addon aircraft including tankers, but tankers are treated just like any other transport aircraft of the game, meaning that they never spawn flying in game generated missions, aside from campaigns where that may happen. Beating a dead horse here, air refueling is not a thing in this game and never will.

It's a known issue with custom 3d models, decal bleeding has been a thing since the early days of SF. We cannot modify LODs, that means we cannot solve all such issues on all custom models we have. Sometimes it cannot be solved, like on the new F-22 Raptor I was working on with few others, which is in hiatus unfortunately.

Let's be honest here, MS knew well that wasn't going to be true. New advancements in technology dictate new operating systems. Besides, Win11 is a free update, so consider it an extension of Win10. They have a lot of reasons to name it Win11, both for marketing and security issues. The number of changes is massive, and to have it named Win10 would only confuse the market. You can install Win11 only on newer processors, not on old crappy hardware which is affected by severe security vulnerabilities. Windows is not just for home computers, and MS does not need companies complaining about any breaches which could be unrelated to the OS. Seriously, I complained about MS a lot of times in the past, but so far they're doing common sense moves. I'm actually intrigued by what Win11 brings to the table, both as a consumer and as a programmer.

A new Instant Action mission will be included with the next release of the ODS 30AE total conversion, complete with bonuses! Shot down a MiG-25 coming head to head, and then I shook off a pursuing MiG-29 which ultimately crashed into the terrain, trying to follow my crazy evasive maneuvers (shown in the last pic).

I assure you, it is not. The latest executable is dated 2013, but SF2 is from 2009 and 64 bit programs weren't the norm back then. There's only one executable and it's 32 bit. TK was not that crazy to provide just a 64-bit only executable when most people wouldn't even have 64 bit processors back then, let alone the OS. If TW ever produced a 64 bit executable, now I would have a choice between StrikeFighters2.exe and StrikeFighters2_x64.exe, which is not the case here. You're probably confusing the fact that SF2 fully supports DirectX 10 with proper shaders, while FE2 does not; it was left in such a state with a last patch dated 2010, IIRC.

Bitmap obviously would be best for quality, but with modern painting software you can save high quality JPGs with no noticeable loss in quality. Keep in mind that JPG textures do bring longer loading times especially on older hardware (despite the smaller size, the SF2 game engine has to decompress such textures), especially if all are saved at 100% quality, but they help save some serious disk space. All in all, always go with .JPG where possible, save with maximum quality. If things go awry, always keep a copy of templates at hand, so that you can re-export the same texture with different settings.

Definitely yes. Are you sure you're not running the game with Intel's integrated GPU? By default SF2 uses the first GPU it finds, and so users think to be playing SF2 on the dedicated GPU, while it currently uses the Intel one. You can change it at the graphics options in the menu. Also, avoid running the game with all options to Unlimited, use the Customize setting and only put Texture settings to Unlimited, everything else to High.

Don't get crazy over this. 2K and 4K textures do work in SF2. The reason you see them not loaded is due to your video card; it runs out of memory, and so it cannot load all the skins. Just reduce graphics settings in the options, that may help. Nothing to do with your custom skin nor with the game engine. When you have tons of third-party mods with high quality and high resolution textures, chances of this happening increase, especially on older GPUs. The game itself is incredibly stable, even when your video card runs out of memory, you expericence just missing textures, no crashes to desktop over some textures.

Not true, Windows 11 will support 32 bit applications for compatibility reasons (Microsoft isn't going to kill itself), it's just that Windows 11 is only made for 64 bit processors and so there won't be a 32 bit version of the OS. My old PC is from 2011 and it already had a 64 bit processor back then. I really see no point in creating a new 32 bit OS these days. If TK is really working on a Win10 update, the coming of Win11 changes nothing; that update was about bringing the game to DirectX 12 and surely to be 64bit; Win11 is not changing anything in this regard (surely there will be a DirectX 13 in the future, but the base of Win11 is DirectX 12). DirectStorage is a new addition worth having a look at, but I doubt TK has the resources and willingness to add that. I'm not concerned at all about the future of the series. I can still play games from the late 90s on Win10, with due graphics wrappers and tweaks. Some of those very old games even had 16 bit installers, and there are ways to circumvent this (you cannot run 16 bit executables on 64 bit OS). What I'm truly worried about is that my old desktop PC won't support all the new minimum requirements of Win11, so I'll have to stick with Win10. At least on my work laptop I'll be able to check how the new OS will be.

Working again on these terrains so they get in a releasable state. Orion MPCV courtesy of @nuni. Coming soon together with a new update for the realSKY Environment mod...

It is. Korea uses seasons, so each seasoned tileset uses its own folder. Stock terrain object textures, such as this one you're dealing with, must be copied inside each tileset subfolder as well.

A new update for realSKY is in the works; fixed night ambient colour being too dark, slightly tweaked cloud textures from Cellinsky's Widesky mod, brand new sun flare, different space sun flare, smoother rainbow ring flare and newly recoloured Stary's original lens flare drops. Last but not least, a new experimental shader providing a minor bloom at daytime with Effects set to Unlimited, in place of the original blinding effect at dawn/dusk by TW. New horizon glow, fog and ambient colours, with reworked bloom shader. New sun and reworked lens flares, bloom effect being visible only with exterior views (thank your cockpit glass for not blinding you). Extra shots at high altitude, with new space sun flare textures.

Yeah, that fighter jet scene is crazy. But I've read it's actually meant to be an homage to an amazing player feat achieved online in an older Battlefield game. That being said, I would never pay 70$ for a multiplayer-only game, it's just plain wrong. And of course, they'll be adding all that lovely MTX and loot boxes that EA craves about. I'm unimpressed by recent games. Battlefield used to be a decent series, but EA ruined it. Ubisoft has ruined Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six with childish games. I'd rather invest money on indie efforts in game development.