Menrva

Yeah, unfortunately I cannot run it as well on my laptop, the integrated GPU by Intel does not suffice. Hope you can get it to run on another system in the future. I dislike laptops for gaming, I'd always aim for purposely built desktop PCs.

You're welcome. I feel sorry when people are unable to run the mod; despite all the optimizations we have done, it's still pretty heavy on resources.

This is simply a design choice. We cannot create thousands of different custom hangar graphics for all aircraft and skins, it would be a waste of time, resources and space. A generic hangar screen is used instead. Unfortunately, no. The issues you described are mostly due to your system going out of memory or your system does not meet some of the minimum requirements (including owning the mentioned SF2 titles by TW). The terrain and campaign data (which usually are a source of crashes) have no visible bugs in the mod, they were checked with third-party tools to ensure their integrity. The ODS mod is not stock SF2; it features tons of higher quality 3d models, 2k textures and so on. You need a more powerful PC to experience it. Nothing we can do about crashes on low-end systems, the game engine is really dated and performs worse when objects differ in quality detail and size.

Weird. When you can, feel free to send me a PM with details about this, I'd like to check and improve the installer if possible, to take into account rare instances such as yours.

I don't know what to tell you, nobody has ever reported such an issue. I'd say something went wrong with installation on your end; the installer is simple, it installs the OperationDesertStorm executable and custom initialization screen in your SF2 game folder, and the relative mod folder in the usual "Saved Games/ThirdWire" directory.

You simply cannot do what you mentioned. Stock aircraft skins are read as long as you use the same folder name, because in the .cat archive such skin is inside a folder with such name. The only thing you can try is to place .bmp skins in the main aircraft folder, but that is advisable when a skin is used by multiple skin folders with just different decals. Otherwise, you can convert stock bmp files to jpg and add them to your custom skin folder. It's one or the other.

@strahi please, write with normal font, there's no need to shout and write all in big letters! I am the author of the campaign files, among other things. The infantry models were made by guuruu.

@crisisloaner None of the above replies applies in this case. I had this issue while working for ODS, and it was never mentioned so far. For some reason, the game stopped reading some of the custom aircraft even if the entire files are there! It was crazy. The only solution was to copy them over from a backup folder I had. I suggest to recreate the mod folder, by simply renaming it and fixing the path in the Options.ini file, as well as renaming the executable that is used accordingly. It's a real mess IMHO. I have a huge install spanning from 1948 to 2018, I probably gathered all possible aircraft (no fictional ones, but many prototypes are in it). I count slightly more than 1,500 aircraft folders. I did a lot of work to unify many aircraft folders and remove any duplicates (there's no need to feature both stock aircraft and their third-party replacements, as well as there is no need for many different aircraft folders if the only thing that is different in them is the skin).

That was fixed a while ago in my huge overhaul project (WIP), but with the 60% size it sucks anyway: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/94432-myth-of-north-vietnam-abs-info-needed/

@whiteknight06604 I am afraid this won't be coming soon, as I have to finalize much of the tiling manually, and it's a very time consuming job. Not to mention that we're still busy working on ODS, so much to improve upon. Also, I don't want to release a half assed terrain. Target area wise, it's filled with all possible bases and real SAM site locations. All river courses and lakes have been reproduced very accurately! This would be the perfect companion to the stock GermanyCE terrain. A specific version for the 90s and beyond will be made afterwards.

Such pods would only make sense for very black operations. Only a mentally strong operative can keep his/her cool in it. To use them for carrying wounded is plainly stupid. Med evac helicopters are meant to be flying ambulances, where the wounded can still be treated on the way to a hospital. With the pods, that wouldn't be possible. Civilian hostages, I doubt they would like this experience after the traumatic one they have experienced before. Thanks to @GKABS for posting this, nonetheless. It's an interesting concept I've never heard of, something to remember in the history of military aviation, with the likes of circular runways and other such ideas.

The crashes at 80% are a well known issue of the game engine. When there are many different third-party objects, the game is overloaded. Try reducing graphics settings (due to the highly detailed aircraft and textures, avoid Unlimited for all options as a safe approach), it should help. The campaign is pretty heavy since it contains hundreds of different aircraft and ground units, and the terrain is filled with target objects. The cockpit of the MiG-25 actually is an unfinished 3d model, hence it may have issues. Until something better comes, live with it. The other issues have been noted. Thanks for reporting them!

Don't worry, I did not take it that way. I really want to portray the helicopters in the campaigns at least for the AI, but the AI does have trouble with them as well, not to mention that you need fake runways from which they can take-off. As long as they are treated like normal aircraft, they'll remain as additional objects for mission creators. If you wish to make them flyable, you can. Most helos and cargo aircraft already contain proper cockpit files. Just keep in mind that I don't offer any support for them at this time. I hope TW gets back into the game and unlocks the hidden potential of the SF2 series, but until then we're limited to what the game can do. @Viggen The issue you mentioned has been fixed, it will be included in a future re-release. Hopefully only a handful of bugs remain. The massive amount of content implies that more bugs can happen. Despite that, the team has done its best to reduce them to a minimum. With time we can only polish the product even further.

Nations are restricted to Desert Storm participants and to ones proper for the theater of operation; I don't see a reason to be able to fly for a wrong nation in the Iraqi theater, not to mention that each of the visible nations in the mod use custom made national counters for the planning map. It would have been a waste of time and resources to create 200 different national counters which would be mostly unused. Cargo aircraft are not flyable because they are not supported with proper user-playable missions, they are meant for the AI. Heavy bombers have issues when are used by the player, there are instances where they would crash the game to desktop, and overall they are never meant to be used by the player in stock SF2. Other aircraft missing proper cockpits have been left out for quality consistency. Helicopters currently exist as additional AI-only aircraft for custom made missions, they are not properly supported by the SF2 game engine (too many issues and limitations in regards to missions, flight models, usage of weaponry etc., for proper helo behaviour).

Just lower your graphics settings. This mod has a much higher quality fidelity than the stock SF2 games, with many high-res skins and high-poly 3d models, so you need a more powerful PC for it. Unlimited graphics settings are not recommended. Also, the Persian Gulf War campaign is much more complex than any other campaign ever made for SF2. It contains hundreds of different aircraft and ground units, so the game engine will have trouble to deal with so many of them at the highest graphics settings.

@mono27 It was a mistake on my part. A 6 month plan is the minimum. By mistake I referred to it as the 1 month plan. The description at the announcement page has been fixed. My apologies for the misunderstanding I caused. I was told by Erik that the download is meant to work also with 1 month subscription plans, as originally established. So I must correct myself again. The issue should have been fixed; should anyone encounter problems, let us know.

@DoctorQuest We agreed on a 1 month minimum. I was told the download requests 6 by mistake. I will notify the admins about it.

View File Operation Desert Storm: 30th Anniversary Edition Welcome To Duty Built with the extraordinary expertise and dedication of modders from CombatACE.com, Operation Desert Storm – 30th Anniversary Edition promises to be the most complete total conversion ever made for Strike Fighters 2 by ThirdWire. Fly with more than 50 aircraft ranging from Cold War relics to the most advanced platforms. Gain air superiority in the mighty F-15C Eagle or challenge the Coalition with the agile Fulcrum. Support troops with the A-10A Thunderbolt II, bomb strategic targets with the stealthy F-117A Nighthawk, lead airfield denial operations in the iconic Tornado. Enjoy a beautifully rendered scenario on a scaled and accurate terrain. Fly over the lakes and rivers of Mesopotamia, the oil-rich fields of Kuwait, the mountains of Iran and Turkey. Take-off from aircraft carriers stationed in the Persian Gulf to watch over Kuwaiti oil rigs. Perform landings and patrols in more than 90 airports and air bases in the Middle East. Take part in different campaigns including the Iraqi blitzkrieg on Kuwait and the US-led liberation of the Kuwaiti Emirate. Discover how the Iraqi Army was one of the biggest in the world, through the eyes of American, British, Canadian, French, Italian and Arab pilots. Test your skills and abilities flying for the Iraqi Air Force during all stages of the conflict. Thirty years after, Operation Desert Storm still remains the largest air operation of modern warfare to date. Modders and flight sim enthusiasts at CombatACE teamed up to bring you a unique product in the lite flight sim world. Exquisitely detailed aircraft and paint schemes are delivered in a well-researched and thorough order of battle. The ODS 30th AE Development team would like to thank CombatACE.com, its admins, moderators and contributors. We are sure you will enjoy and appreciate this high-quality freeware product. From the aviation enthusiasts, to the aviation enthusiasts... and for the pilots of tomorrow. Minimum Requirements Required products from ThirdWire: Strike Fighters 2, July 2013 patch Strike Fighters 2: Israel, July 2013 patch Strike Fighters 2: North Atlantic, July 2013 patch Full support for: Mission Editor DLC Campaign Customizer DLC System specs: OS: Windows 7 x86 Processor: Dual Core 2.7 GHz Memory: 4.0 GB RAM Hard Drive: 17.0 GB Free Space Video Card: 1024 MB DirectX 10 Sneak Peek Disclaimer CombatACE.com shall at all times retain ownership of the Software as originally downloaded by you and all subsequent downloads of the Software by you. The Software (and the copyright, and other intellectual property rights of whatever nature in the Software, including any modifications made thereto) are and shall remain the property of CombatACE.com and of the respective developers/modders. In no event, unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, shall CombatACE.com, or any person be liable for any loss, expense or damage, of any type or nature arising out of the use of, or inability to use this installer or program, including, but not limited to, claims, suits or causes of action involving alleged infringement of copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, or unfair competition. The Operation Desert Storm: 30th Anniversary Edition modification does NOT comply with CombatACE's Freeware Licensing. Various contents of this modification are exclusive, as such you are NOT allowed to share, redistribute and/or make use of the mod and/or its contents for other purposes, without the consent of the mod's developers. Contents of the modification are the copyright of their respective authors. Notes about the installer Beware, the mod is available only in the ISO format. You can either mount it on a virtual drive, burn it on a DVD like in the good old days, or unzip it with 7-Zip or equivalent software. The installer will automatically detect your installation of the required Strike Fighters 2 games by reading through the registry keys. Game folders that are copied from or 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 ThirdWire's original installers, 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. If you have a previous version of the mod installed, please use the uninstaller to remove it completely. Clean installation is mandatory. You might want to make a backup of the Controls folder, so that you can easily restore your controller settings afterwards. Suggestions on common issues Make sure that you are using your dedicated GPU. By default, Strike Fighters 2 usually selects the integrated GPU you may have on your CPU, which is much weaker in terms of VRAM. In case you have frequent crashes or black/missing textures, I highly suggest you download and install the DXVK graphics wrapper (x86 DLLs) into your Strike Fighters 2 game folder: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk. You need a Vulkan-compatible GPU. The wrapper can greatly improve the experience with the mod. With DXVK I can play the mod on a mere Intel UHD 710, whereas without it the mod would always crash to desktop. Go to Sound and set Sound Channels to 32. We got reports that 16 is not enough and will cause crashes on some systems, due to the higher quality sounds included within the mod. The mod is pretty heavy for the game engine despite huge optimizations. Strike Fighters 2's engine is 32bit only and apparently does not manage VRAM properly; consecutive campaign missions might show black/missing textures on objects or cause crashes to desktop because the game does not release the occupied VRAM from the previous mission you played, thus the more missions are loaded consecutively, the more easily you may run out of memory. Set Ground Objects to Medium or Low, Horizon Distance to Near, and Shadows to Medium or Low. These are the most troubling settings. Avoid Unlimited settings as much as possible. If the mod used to work and suddenly crashes to desktop, updating or reinstalling video drivers should help. Make sure that DirectX June 2010 Redistributables are also installed, they are included inside the ISO disk image of the mod. Inside the mod folder, you'll find some extra text files. "(Coalition Order of Battle)" should be of your interest; the mod's terrain covers the entirety of Iraq, at the cost of not having all of Saudi Arabia; this means that a number of important units are based on airbases that are beyond the in-game playable area. With those units you always spawn near the target area, you'll never get to start from a runway nor to land on the assigned runway beyond the invisible wall. You have an entire list of the affected units in the aforementioned text file. By pressing ALT+N, the plane returns to base automatically. The mod is fully compatible with the Campaign Customizer and Mission Editor DLCs by ThirdWire. The Campaign Customizer might be an alternative way to experience those off map units I mentioned previously, since it assigns you to a random airbase of the in-game flyable area. Escort missions are often broken, this is not an issue of the mod, but a bug of the stock game; sometimes the AI flight you escort does not engage its target and keeps flying in a straight line instead of following waypoints, thus the trigger for mission success will never happen. Abandon the mission or retry it if the issue happens, sometimes it works. Pray for ThirdWire AKA Tsuyoshi Kawahito to work on a 64bit version of Strike Fighters 2, maybe even with support for DirectX 12. With that done, any out of memory issues should become an old memory. Submitter Menrva Submitted 01/16/2021 Category User Made Campaigns

It should be premiering now.

Welcome To Duty Built with the extraordinary expertise and dedication of modders from CombatACE.com, Operation Desert Storm – 30th Anniversary Edition promises to be the most complete total conversion ever made for Strike Fighters 2 by ThirdWire. Fly with more than 50 aircraft ranging from Cold War relics to the most advanced platforms. Gain air superiority in the mighty F-15C Eagle or challenge the Coalition with the agile Fulcrum. Support troops with the A-10A Thunderbolt II, bomb strategic targets with the stealthy F-117A Nighthawk, lead airfield denial operations in the iconic Tornado. Enjoy a beautifully rendered scenario on a scaled and accurate terrain. Fly over the lakes and rivers of Mesopotamia, the oil-rich fields of Kuwait, the mountains of Iran and Turkey. Take-off from aircraft carriers stationed in the Persian Gulf to watch over Kuwaiti oil rigs. Perform landings and patrols in more than 90 airports and air bases in the Middle East. Take part in different campaigns including the Iraqi blitzkrieg on Kuwait and the US-led liberation of the Kuwaiti Emirate. Discover how the Iraqi Army was one of the biggest in the world, through the eyes of American, British, Canadian, French, Italian and Arab pilots. Test your skills and abilities flying for the Iraqi Air Force during all stages of the conflict. Thirty years after, Operation Desert Storm still remains the largest air operation of modern warfare to date. Modders and flight sim enthusiasts at CombatACE teamed up to bring you a unique product in the lite flight sim world. Exquisitely detailed aircraft and paint schemes are delivered in a well-researched and thorough order of battle. The ODS 30th AE Development team would like to thank CombatACE.com, its admins, moderators and contributors. We are sure you will enjoy and appreciate this high-quality freeware product. From the aviation enthusiasts, to the aviation enthusiasts... and for the pilots of tomorrow. Minimum Requirements Required products from ThirdWire: Strike Fighters 2 Strike Fighters 2: Israel Strike Fighters 2: North Atlantic Full support for: Mission Editor DLC Campaign Customizer DLC System specs: OS: Windows 7 x86 Processor: Dual Core 2.7 GHz Memory: 4.0 GB RAM Hard Drive: 17.0 GB Free Space Video Card: 1024 MB DirectX 10 Sneak Peek A Note from Menrva I started this project back in May of 2020. When I invited some of the most renowned modders to contribute to it, I would have never expected such an amazing support from many of them. After roughly 8 months of development, we have produced a high-quality total conversion for Strike Fighters 2, all for free. Driven by passion and teamwork, we managed to achieve new heights and set new standards; this modification is most likely the most complete ever anthology of the Gulf War in any flight sim to date. 2020 has been a difficult year for so many all over the world due to an unprecedented pandemic. It has been a very difficult year for me as well, unrelated to the pandemic. I am extremely proud of what I started, but without the support of the team I managed to form, I would have never accomplished this amazing modding project with success. I want to dedicate this to my beloved girlfriend, Alessandra. With her love and support, I have come to realize my potential and value as a human being. Così adesso lo sai... Download Rights In accordance with the owner and admins of CombatACE.com, the ODS 30th AE Development Team decided to offer the mod in Early Access to all contributors of the site (modders and subscribers alike). Revenue generated by the release in the form of download subscriptions will be used toward the regular monthly operating costs of CombatACE. Modders individually will not be profiting from their work released here. This is our thank you to the community who has supported us throughout the years and to the site for which we are greatly appreciative. A minimum of a 1 month subscription plan is required for download access. Available January 17th, 2021.

Thanks! Is the CK-2 coming anytime soon? It'd be needed...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-55286092 It's an interesting story! Have a look.