Menrva

This mod is by no means complete. It was sitting on my HD for quite a while, so I have decided to upload it now rather than never. Future updates are to be expected, as I have plans to improve and expand it even more.

View File Nations & Medals Expansion Nations & Medals Expansion April 13th, 2019 (1st Release) by Menrva >For Strike Fighters 2 games This mod is an extension of the stock ThirdWire _nations.ini file. It adds new nations and respective national decals, missing from the stock game, and it adds numerous medals (made by Capitaine Vengeur and Charles) for the stock countries. Here below a summary of the changes: -Added a number of new service markings decals, for the added nations. -Remade decals for the fictive countries of SF2 to match the default 256x256 resolution of other national decals. -The Mercenary decal no longer shows Dhimari colours; now it's generic and adapt for various scenarios involving mercenaries. -The Soviet Air Force becomes the Russian Air Force since 1992, with proper new decals showing up since 2010. -The Soviet Naval Aviation (Russian Naval Aviation since 1992) has been added as a separate service. -The (Free) Libyan Air Force has been added and becomes active in 2012, in place of the Libyan Arab Republic Air Force. -Biafra and Katanga have been added and are active for a short number of years, as historically accurate. -The Rwandan Air Force has been added, active since 1962, with later finflash showing up since 2002. -The Niger Air Force has been added, active since 1961, with alternative insignia in use since 1980. -The Djibouti Air Force has been added, active since 1977, as historically accurate. -The missing post-Yugoslavia nations, namely Montenegro and Republika Srpska, have been added. -The missing ex-Soviet Union nations of Belarus, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have been added. -The Irish Air Corps has been added, with alternative decals in use since 1955. -The People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force has been added as a separate service, active since 1953. -The Somali Air Force is known as the Somali Aeronautical Corps before 1960, as historically correct. -The Burkina Faso Air Force is no longer active since 1964, now it's active since 1985; it shows up as the Upper Volta Air Force before 1985. -The Bahrain Amiri Air Force becomes the Royal Bahraini Air Force in 2002, as historically accurate. -Created and added low-vis insignia and finflash textures for the Pakistan Air Force. -Fixed a stock bug in SF2 with the Sultan of Oman's Air Force not being selectable since 1959, as it should be. -Fixed a stock bug in SF2 with the Republic of China (Taiwan) Air Force not using the old roundel as it should be before 1992. -Activated unused low-vis finflash included in stock SF2 for the Canadian Armed Forces. -Other very small changes here and there to other stock nations. -Added new medals for the following nations and respective services: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, East Germany, West Germany, France, Finland, Greece, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Korea, South Korea, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Soviet Union, Spain, Sweden, Syria, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States. Modders and users are advised to tweak their _userlist.ini files and _data.ini files for aircraft and ships, to make use of the new naval aviation services added by this mod. >Credits (in no particular order): -Capitaine Vengeur, for his Modern Russian Federation Medals and Modern Ukrainian Medals packs. -Charles, for his Medals Pack v2.0 addon for SF1, which I have improved and updated to SF2 standards. -mue, for sharing info about the functionality of the alias.lst file. -paulopanz, for creating decals for Rwanda and Niger, which I have further tweaked. -eburger68, for few decals I borrowed from his huge campaign mods. I included the original readme files from the mentioned mods, where available, to the end of giving proper credit to everyone involved directly or not. >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 04/13/2019 Category ini File Edits

Exactly. Also to remember the NavalMap=TRUE statement inside a terrain's .ini file, which affects the behaviour of single missions, particularly those involving strikes and bombings. IMHO there is no advantage in not merging SF2NA with the other titles. It's actually a loss. To merge SF2NA with the older titles gives more features at your disposal, which can be used or not.

That's what I wanted to hear! Thank you for sharing the info. It what Pensy says it's confirmed to be true, I think there are a number of stock aircraft and weapons that need fixes.

Wow, that's very informative, actually. What I do not understand is that it happens on stock SF2 with stock planes and weapons! It's an annoying bug TK never fixed. Actually, I doubt it existed in SF1. I don't recall it happening to me in my WOE days. But, I don't think it has to do with FIGHTER or ATTACK profiles; planes assigned to the strike mission sometimes do not engage, they just fly over the given target area and keep flying forward, not even following waypoints.

It's a bug that happens on stock SF2. Replaying the same mission works most of the time, they engage their targets instead of flying on. What Major Bloodnock mentions is another problem that exists with third-party weapons. But in that case you'd see planes diving to attack the ground targets, yet they simply won't drop modern bombs unless they are dumb, unguided versions.

As Happy308 said; in particular the Unlimited Effects setting uses the TWPOSTPROCESS.FX file which adds a horrible bloom effect in the stock game. Some mods (by Stary or even my realSKY mod) provide an alternative TWPOSTPROCESS.FX file, but I think the latest drivers simply hate those DX10 shaders used by SF2. I strongly suggest to set Effects to High. The Unlimited setting just eats FPS without adding anything that is worth. I am lucky as my low-end PC is stuck with older NVIDIA drivers. I am not able to play with effects set to Unlimited in any case.

Great, they were really needed for the Ecuador scenario! @paulopanz FYI, decals are missing.

I happen to see various users post questions and ask for troubleshooting in the comments section of a mod download, instead of properly using the associated thread aka Get Support. Just a suggestion for future site updates; wouldn't it be better to remove the comments section so that users ask questions where they should? It seems there's this sort of ambiguity as to what purpose both the comments section and the thread have; to me it's actually clear, but for newcomers it isn't.

After the recent St. Patrick's Day, I added the Irish Air Corps to the nations.ini. New decals have been created, with the former roundel being used in-game before 1955, as historically accurate.

Nice! This is what I converted so long ago...

Not meant to hijack the thread, but can you also confirm that SF buildings are real scale, too? The GermanyCE terrain has got some landmarks, for instance. I would like to know, because I have heard somewhere that buildings were sort of 60% of real life scale.

Careful, I think you guys are talking about TOD trees, which simply are 2D tree graphics using .tga files. LOD trees are another matter, and are very rarely used; the stock IcelandNA terrain uses 3D LOD trees, it's the only one of stock terrains. Not only countless LOD trees may cause low FPS, they simply are not easy to add in huge numbers over a relatively big terrain. TOD trees and buildings are the way to go. We would need a TOD editor in order to easily create and edit those. But we still don't have one.

Mod package has been updated to Version 1.2; two new lens flare effects have been added and some issues with fog colours have been addressed, now everything is how it should have been.

Actually, AFAIK, it should suffice to place the canopy tga file inside the plane's folder, not inside each skin folder of that plane folder; at least I remember this works on my end on several other planes. Then again, what's inside the skin folder takes priority over what is inside the plane's folder. But if anything is missing in the skin folder, the game will look for the missing file inside the plane's folder. This method is also very effective for space conservation, when a plane uses the same bitmap or other file format for numerous, multiple skins.

Sorry for the off-topic, but what is that "Arsenal" folder about? Generic weapons or a "bird"?

Bump. Just wondering, any chance to see Marcfighters' Kuznetsov released? If not, no problem; I totally understand modders being protective of their own works.

Ah, looks like I'm late to the party. This is what I've done: Early_v2.5.zip I wanted to be more accurate so I reproduced texture patterns. This way, even without TW decals, the textures seem very fine. Feel free to use those in a future update, @Wrench EDIT: I redid the fuselage, package above has been updated.

Thank you for the answer. It's a pity we are not able to do this.

Is it possible to hide nodes for ground objects? I attempted to remove some nodes from the released Clemeceau, but the following method doesn't seem to work. [GroundObjectData] ... Component[001]=Hull Component[002]=Superstructure Component[003]=Hide1 Component[004]=Hide2 Component[005]=Hide3 Component[006]=Hide4 Component[007]=Hide5 Component[008]=Hide6 Component[009]=Hide7 Component[010]=Hide8 Component[011]=Hide9 Component[012]=Hide10 Component[013]=Hide11 Component[014]=Hide12 Component[015]=Hide13 Component[016]=Hide14 Component[017]=Hide15 Component[018]=Hide16 Component[019]=Hide17 Component[020]=Hide18 Component[021]=Hide19 Component[022]=Hide20 [Hide1] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre01 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre01 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide2] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre02 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre02 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide3] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre03 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre03 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide4] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre04 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre04 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide5] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre05 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre05 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide6] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre06 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre06 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide7] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre07 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre07 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide8] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre08 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre08 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide9] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre10 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre10 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide10] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre11 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre11 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide11] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre14 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre14 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide12] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre09 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre09 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide13] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre12 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre12 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide14] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre13 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre13 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide15] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre15 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre15 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide16] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Objet12 DestroyedNodeName=Objet12 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide17] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=mat_antennes01 DestroyedNodeName=mat_antennes01 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide18] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Cylindre16 DestroyedNodeName=Cylindre16 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide19] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=Objet13 DestroyedNodeName=Objet13 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE [Hide20] ParentComponentName=Hull ModelNodeName=mat_antennes02 DestroyedNodeName=mat_antennes02 DetachWhenDestroyed=FALSE HasAeroCoefficient=FALSE

For another update, we might create decals for the numbers and letters, so that we can have the ship class working as in SF2NA (a generic texture which works alongside the _names.ini file) , as paulopanz suggested. Also, the addition of the Brazilian aircraft carrier São Paulo comes almost for free, by simply being the sold Foch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_aircraft_carrier_São_Paulo So it might be worth adding such carrier/skin as well. That being said, much thanks for this update to SF2NA standards, KJakker!

The stock NATIONS.ini has a bug; // Oman 70-77 [Nation211] Name=Oman_OLD70 ActiveDate=1970 AlternateDecal=Oman_OLD63 // Oman 65-70 [Nation212] Name=Oman_OLD65 Now it's fixed, so the Sultan of Oman's Air Force is selectable since 1959, as it should have been. Also, the Bahrain Amiri Air Force now becomes the Royal Bahraini Air Force in 2002, as historically correct. I wonder how many of such small changes are still needed. Proceeding slowly, but in the end it will be worth it, I think.

Then what I said above applies; I once tried to find a way, but it seems that this small aspect is not moddable, colours for subtitles are hardcoded, they can't be changed by editing some .ini files, so to speak.