Menrva

I tried to upscale using ESRGAN, but it doesn't seem to work well with these kinds of textures. I wish I could afford AI Gigapixel, which is not freeware as ESRGAN but it's said to be better. Nonetheless, I tried to do a very quick repaint of the deck, to better portray the Kutzetsov in its operational years. The original one should have been used until 1995, I have read somewhere. It was done in a rush, so it certainly could be done better.

You'd better join forces with Gepard, since he's adding skin decals as well. If I have time, I might try to use the ESRGAN AI to better increase resolution of the deck's texture as I have found the original, smaller texture, not the blurry one included in the uploaded package. Also, don't forget the Clemenceau we've been working on ;)

The number should be changed, I think. 113 was used before it was fully operational with aircraft onboard ready to be launched. When it became fully operational, it received the 063 number.

Glad to be of help! There was no need to fiddle with the old terrain, that one was utterly broken under various aspects.

Can anyone highlight/make sticky 1 of the 237 threads that have been opened about the issue?

@Richo No offense, but have you read my posts? You do not need to flatten anything, if you download the latest version of the terrain the HFD and TFD files have been fixed already for that airfield and various others.

Ditto that. I've said this countless times, by putting the effects to Unlimited, the game uses what appears to be some badly made DirectX 10 shaders. Putting them to high, most of the game uses DirectX 9 libraries.

In addition to what Erik said; when you're looking at a file uploaded by one modder, you can also click on "Find their other files".

Most likely those 568 are mostly subvariants with different skins and armaments. As I have seen in some videos of Modern Combat, there were for instance separate Eurofighters for Germany, Italy, UK etc. Same plane with a different skin shown as a new one in the menu screen, so to speak. Those mobile games use the Unity engine, which is perfect when it comes to small, quick games for mobile and PC. The models lack a transparent canopy glass and the number of polys (which is fine for a mobile game) seems low when compared to that of stock SF2 planes. It isn't worth to port those into SF2 anyway, unless they could be easily reworked, IMHO. The clouds' rendering instead, I could use some of that! But it's a totally different engine...

AFAIK that YAP add-on is for WOV, hence why it's worse than usual, they did not use your re-release for SF2, but an older version of the terrain, I guess. Still, this does not make them less guilty. As you said, for users it's better to download and use what CombatACE has to offer. It's greater quality stuff, for free! About the _HM bitmaps, I am of the opinion that it's way better not to use them at all, given that the heightmap is properly done that is. In my 250m resolution heightmaps, I am extra careful about flattening sea areas, coastlines and airbases. Without _HM bitmaps, the terrain is all in its HFD glory, so to speak.

I repeat it once again: that is NOT Wrench's terrain, it was made by me from scratch! And it's a very old version, please download this one: https://combatace.com/files/file/16395-iraq-western-asia-1980-2003/ It's the same terrain, a much bug fixed version, all airbases are properly flattened, and it's overall better (more target areas, greater quality of the heightmap, etc.). In it Iran and other countries (but Iraq) are Friendly. You won't have to touch it as it's fine on its own. You can always set Neutral countries for campaigns, without touching the terrain files.

Yeah, I noticed it. What a shame on their part, much despicable. At least they could have bothered to ask for permission, nada instead.

I just noticed from your attached image, you are using an outdated version of my terrain, included in an old mod by Spudknocker. You'd better re-download the terrain package I linked above, that one has a lot of issues fixed. It can be changed in campaigns by setting the terrain's coordinates (those can be read from TFDtool) of the fleet, inside the campaign _data.ini file. For single missions, it's mostly random, it depends mostly on a _water bitmap file. I set NavalMap=FALSE because my terrain is not Real World size but is 60% or so just like stock SF2 terrains, and you always get fleets spawn over land as there is not enough room for water. You have better chances to have fleets spawn in water during single missions in Gepard's terrain, by editing the water bitmap (just have a look at the stock IcelandNA _water bitmap). My suggestion; do not touch terrain files at all, leave those as they are (there's a reason if we terrain modders disable certain features, like Naval Map statements). You can obtain what you want by creating a Naval Campaign instead, just like the one of SF2NA. Inside the campaign _data.ini there's a parameter you can change for the position of the fleet, IIRC. If you will use the latest terrain package I released, beware that Spudknocker's campaigns won't work with it. Most target areas have different names, and there's a lot of other changes here and there for the better. You're on your own as for editing such campaigns. https://combatace.com/forums/topic/68667-alternate-tfd-terrain-tilemap-editorviewer/

They re-used the Persian Gulf terrain by Gepard (AFAIK, the re-release by Wrench is much better). The bug showed by Richo has nothing to do with the HFD, it's caused by wrong TFD tag values of the tiles; it can be fixed easily for all airfields by TFDtool, thanks to a feature I had requested to gerwin time ago. TW's Terrain Editor flattens airports horribly by creating huge circular flat shapes on the HFD. Nowadays, gerwin's TFDtool is much more accurate at doing the job, it would be a waste not to use it. It's also quicker to use than the TE. TW's Terrain Editor is only useful for creating the HFD and an autotiled TFD, nothing more. As said previously, the original terrain was made by Gepard, so credits go to him. If you're talking about this Iraq-Iran terrain instead (https://combatace.com/files/file/16395-iraq-western-asia-1980-2003/) I made this from scratch.

Those shaders are nothing new. Those are stock files extracted from the game's .CAT archives. You do not need to install anything.

Sad news: https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-africa-49226128

You can simply edit the INSIGNIA001.tga file in order to have your own Mercenary decal in place of the original. There's no need to add an additional nation, as that would require more work to get it properly working. I have released a mod package with new nations, some fixes to the countries' services and a new, generic Mercenary insignia. Feel free to edit the one included in it: https://combatace.com/files/file/16986-nations-medals-expansion/

There's none available. The one in the YouTube videos is an illegally converted 3d model asset from Ace Combat Assault Horizon, AFAIK. We do not allow such material to be posted in the downloads section. So, you'd better wait for russouk2004 model to be completed. He knows his stuff!

@warthog64 Thank you for the kind words. That terrain had been in development for years, after periods of hiatus due to RL issues and so on. It was built to be used in a future ODS update, with numerous features, realistic river, farm and city placement that were missing in the original terrain. As for the help, I am actually waiting for additional aircraft updates (some amazing Mirages are still in the works!) and eventually some new ground objects as well. Nothing prevents me to actually update the old ODS campaign to be used with my terrain, but we want to upgrade it with better aircraft and objects as well. Check your PM.

That's what I thought too. But it seems Nightshade is having problems even with stock aircraft. All services, stock and additional ones, should appear on the single missions drop down menu (except for Mercenary=TRUE services, those are hidden and show up in campaigns only).

You misunderstood my post. If he wants to test your nations.ini, he has to make sure to remove all my mod files or test it in another mod folder. I didn't tweak just the nations.ini file, but also the alias.lst file. Mixing that file with another nations.ini causes other kinds of issues, like the one I described above. Last but not least, with due respect, I too know what to look for. It's not like I have started modding SF2 yesterday. Since Nightshade is having issues with a tweaked version of my mod, I'd like to know if the original mod files work on his machine.

I appreciate the help from russouk2004, but please do not mix my mod with his nations.ini. It would create a lot of issues decal wise. As I explained earlier, as long as the mod is fully installed, nations' numbers match the numbers of the additional decals listed in the reworked alias.lst file (included with the mod). If Ireland is Nation219 instead of 230, the game will spawn planes with Russian decals instead! (or whatever 219 is). My mod does work. Please, first try it on a clean mod folder. Last but not least, are you on the latest patch level (Jul 2013)? This nations.ini is meant to work with the latest patch. Anything earlier, and some stock nations were even missing (some Oman decals and others were added at a later date, don't know exactly when). If even after such tests, it doesn't work, attach your own nations.ini. There's no magic to it. If something's wrong with the file, I would notice.

That's kind of strange. Make sure that whatever you add is Nation233 and later. Everything up to 232 is already used for something else, and the order is of absolute importance. Those numbers match the ones used for the decals listed in the alias.lst file, which is very sensitive to any _nations.ini changes. Irish Air Corps should be listed among the flyable services, if you use stock aircraft. Choose a stock aircraft of the SF2 game and see if the new services appear with stock aircraft. If it works, then the issue is on the custom plane and its skin decals.ini file. Little note: some new services from my mod only appear after certain years.

New blood in the SF2 series should trust Wrench. He's a veteran of this game series, among many others. There used to be a bug/exploit which allowed to press a key combination in order to refuel the plane. However, that bug existed on SF1 games. It was addressed in the SF2 series of games, and it no longer works. Other workarounds have been sought, but nothing worked. Strike Fighters is another kind of game (and I am a huge Ace Combat fan). We modders long for additional features and bug fixes, but without a source code you cannot change how the game works and its routines. So, we have to deal with it.