Menrva

@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.

Thanks, mate. His transplant went alright, so hopefully he'll be back home soon. Likewise, stay safe and strong, my friend. We often forget there are great people in hospitals, doing sacrifices every day for the health of others, especially now that there's an invisible and terrible enemy.

I'm sorry to hear this. At least I hope you get to enjoy Christmas with your family soon. Things are not that bright on my end as well. I'm spending Christmas alone, my dad's been in hospital for more than 30 days, to cure a terrible blood disease he had to live with this entire year. I guess we're not the only ones hoping that 2021 be a better year...

I agree with you. But you miss the point. You branded what I said as totally wrong, and in all honesty I fail to realize why it is so. It's not a matter of opinions. That being said, peace to you all. Enjoy the holidays with your loved ones as much as possible during these difficult times.

Alright. Next time, I'll shut up and let you guys do the talking. I didn't know that informing about risks and legal aspects in general was something wrong. Also, I fail to understand that TK does not care when at the same time he made things much harder for us modders throughout the years. But I'm wrong, so I'm outta here.

If that's the case, then TK might as well hand us out the source code, for free or on sale at a given price. It would make things easier for a thing he does not care about. This entire discussion was pointless IMHO. I just pointed out that there are legal aspects to consider about reverse engineering, in general, not just related to SF2.

I'm not wrong. First, you're talking about doing whatever we want with a code, code which we do not have for obvious reasons. Second, EULAs generally exist for this reason; to have a code totally reverse engineered, it means that you can even rebuild a product from zero. With that, anyone who gets their hands on such a code may well create a derivative product, rebrand it and make it look like as it were a different thing totally unrelated to SF2. This is not a risk developers like to take, EULAs generally restrict users from using their products and IPs in improper manner. You buy a game for what it is, to play it and not to outsource stuff from it. You cannot make up the rules as you'd like them to be, I'm afraid. TK said something in an e-mail long ago, but he was talking about what you said, about smaller patches/tweaks to hardcoded bits of the .DLLs and of the .EXE, which is not the same as reverse engineering the code and share it with the public. To create certain tweaks, some knowledge of how the game works under the hood is needed, but you do not necessarily need to reverse engineer the entire code. I'd rather stick to the EULAs than to some long gone email which TK may always disavow. He is the same guy who locked harmless shader files from modding (though LODs had a reason to be locked). If I were you, I wouldn't swim in such murky waters. Live with what SF currently is. The dead horse has been beaten too much on this matter. EDIT: a quick search will explain you why it's legally risky: https://www.eff.org/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq#faq2 TK can say anything in an email, it's the EULA shown in his SF2 installers that counts. Frankly, I never read what his EULA says and I couldn't care less since I like to stay well within what's legal.

Jokes aside, reverse engineering is not the same as writing code, and it may well be against the EULA, if not done for personal use only. We're not allowed to reverse engineer SF2 and make something out of that code. To answer the question above, nobody knows exactly which languages were used to create SF2, we would need the source code for this (not happening, so forget about it). For sure, we know that shaders (and those can be tweaked) have been written in HLSL, but the rest of the game and its engine are using proprietary technology, most likely written in C++. Other bits might have required different libraries and languages as well. Sure, to decompile the .exe and .dll might give some answers, but I do not see the point since we cannot modify SF2 this deep.

Last night, an earthquake hit my region. Nothing serious fortunately, but I woke up much frightened, since I still have bad memories of the devastating earthquakes of 2017 that happened here. Oh, and even Milan was hit by an earthquake recently, and it's very unusual over there. Let's be vigilant, this year is not over yet.

It is a well known fact that the model in question was originally a conversion from a game, namely HAWX. This one in particular was allowed so much time ago in the past and apparently missed your radars. Let me say that both bazillius and denissoliveira are innocent, they did not know the origins of this particular 3d model when uploading it with further tweaks, so they are not responsible for this, I'm sure they are in good faith. I was able to tell it's from HAWX because the mapping is the same, but not everybody can know this. I do not know if it's possible to trace the one who converted it from that game, but it's not them and they shouldn't take the blame. AFAIK there's a guy who used to upload such converted aircraft, but time ago you admins blocked an upload from him. I am not making names, you can easily find out.

Guys, just have a careful look at the package. In order to "fix" the mapping issue, bazillius used giant decals to paint the entire left wing. So just paint what you want as a decal, take his skins as an example. It's a workaround, not a proper fix of the 3d model's UV mapping which is impossible without the source .max file. This 3d model is not by bazillius, it's a rough conversion from the same guy who rips stuff from other games. I appreciate having certain modern aircraft, but I'd like them to be more original and legal.

Of course it is correct now. You must not have any INSIGNIAXXX.tga in the decals folder from numbers 002 to 212, because those are already provided by the stock game and should not be replaced. Numbers 000, 256 and 257 are for the Merc faction, the fictive Dhimar and Paran, and so their decals can be customized without realism issues. I suggest that you try my nations expansion mod for SF2, which also fixes some wrong data and inaccuracies within the stock game: https://combatace.com/files/file/16986-nations-medals-expansion/

LOL! I think I prefer working alone, or even better, with great people I meet and trust. TK has long abandoned the true fan base of SF, us modders. When dialogue is missing, bridges can only burn and fall apart. From what little we know, Vietnam and other stock scenarios and aircraft would follow as separate DLCs rather than as part of standalone products. I imagine this elusive Win10 Edition to be a single app/executable which can be customized with in-app DLC purchases, unlike how the SF2 standalone games are made. Will it ever happen? That's another story...

The idea is that he will release the additional terrains/campaigns/aircraft as DLC afterwards; those who own the Complete Edition will get all for free. But, I totally agree with what you say. He could have handled this in a much better way, I think.

View File Ace Combat Nations Ace Combat Nations December 13th, 2020 (1st Release) by Menrva >For Strike Fighters 2 games This mod is a fork of my nations expansion mod of the stock ThirdWire _nations.ini file. It includes only the nations and respective aviation services of the Ace Combat universe, AKA Strangereal. All roundels are based on official sources and references from all Ace Combat games. Here below a summary of the included services: -Generic Mercenary faction, using the logo of Ace Combat's developer, Project ACES, as insignia. -Osean Air Defense Force and Osean Maritime Defense Force (as seen in Ace Combat 5, Ace Combat Zero and Ace Combat 7). -Yuktobanian Air Force and Yuktobanian Navy (as seen in Ace Combat 5). -Erusean Air Force and Erusean Navy (as seen in Ace Combat 04 and Ace Combat 7). -Free Erusea Air Force (available since 2006, as seen in Ace Combat 04, Ace Combat 5 and Ace Combat 7). -Independent State Allied Forces Air Force and Independent State Allied Forces Navy (available since 2003 until 2006, as seen in Ace Combat 04 and Ace Combat 5). -International Union Peacekeeping Force (available since 2007, as seen in Ace Combat 7). -Belkan Air Force and Belkan Naval Aviation (as seen in Ace Combat 5 and Ace Combat Zero). -Ustio Air Force (available since 1989, as seen in Ace Combat Zero). -Sapin Air Force (as seen in Ace Combat Zero). -Republic of Emmeria Air Force and Republic of Emmeria Navy (as seen in Ace Combat 6). -Estovakian Air Force and Estovakian Naval Aviation (as seen in Ace Combat 6). -Aurelian Air Force and Aurelian Naval Aviation (as seen in Ace Combat X). -Leasath Air Force and Leasath Naval Aviation (as seen in Ace Combat X). -USEA Unified Air Force and USEA Unified Navy (available since 1996 until 2002, as seen in the remake of Ace Combat 2, that is Ace Combat 3D). -Voslage Air Force (as seen in Ace Combat 7). -Nordennavic Royal Air Force (from Ace Combat: Northern Wings). -Federation of Central Usea Air Force and Federation of Central Usea Navy (as seen in Ace Combat 8). -Sotoan Air Force and Sotoan Navy (as seen in Ace Combat 8). Other aviation services are known to exist in Strangereal, such as the Rectan Air Force, FATO Air Force and Valka Royal Air Force. However, there are no info concerning such countries with no established flag and culture at the moment. Those are not included in the mod for the time being. This mod removes the Real World aviation services included in Strike Fighters 2, as such it is not compatible with any mod out of the box. Modders and users are advised to tweak _userlist.ini files and _data.ini files for aircraft and ground objects, to make use of the new services added by this mod. >Credits (in no particular order): -nuni, for his suggestions and other Ace Combat themed mods. -Astore, for his support and for being one of the few Italian Ace Combat fans like me. -RythusOmega, for providing all Ace Combat 7 emblems, reworked for use in this mod. -SuperOstrich, for providing hi-res remakes of the roundel of Nordennavic. -mue, for sharing info about the functionality of the alias.lst file. >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 12/13/2020 Category ini File Edits