KiwiBiggles

I'd been thinking about this a bit too. I'm still playing thru the F-100C NF4+ Red Tide (1956) campaign - I like it a lot! - and I was wondering how adding Blue AirUnits would affect the campaign 'balance'. I could add some interesting Red AirUnits to balance things up - although Red info is much harder to come by(?) - but that might still unbalance the campaign as AirUnits would really start to out-number GroundUnits(?). Maybe It would be better to remove existing AirUnits as I add in new ones - maybe a few from each service, the USAF is already very well represented for example? Or would adding some new ground units be a better idea - maybe to represent reinforcements coming in with a later start date like hgbn suggestes for AirUnits? Should I make the campaign duration longer to fit the increase in the size of the forces? I'm thinking that I shouldn't change the overall 'size' of the campaign too much, because regardless the player has only one unit to fly with. I'm not sure yet how the player's losses are reinforced. My F-100C squadron is down to eight or nine active pilots at the moment and although the campaign is going well, my squadron isn't going to last forever?

Thinking of you and your Dad, best wishes Dave. Kiwi

I've started editing the NF4+ campaigne4.ini (Red Tide) into Red Tide 2, and the original author(s) has set the StartDates for the units over 11/17/1956 to 11/20/1956. Why not all start on the same day, has it been deliberately done for campaign balance or is there another reason? My campaign starts 05/16/1960, the day Nikita Khrushchev stormed out of Paris (and Soviet armor started rolling over the frontier) - should I vary the start dates for my air units too, like the original campaign???

Yes, since NF4+ RED THUNDER 1962 already has the camo CL-13Bs (for example) it would be nice to have an earlier campaign with the metal paintschemes. I've decided against including the allied veterans to a: keep things simple and b: keep things historic, so I'm going to include only actual operational units and serving aces. I think 1960 is a good setting. According to Modern Luftwaffe Unit History No. 04 (AirDoc): "In 1960, twelve flying units were operational, JaboG 34 (Norvenich), JaboG 32 (Lechfeld), JaboG 33 (Buchel), JaboG34 (Memmingen), JaboG 35 (Husum), JG 71 (Ahlhorn), JG 72 (Leck), JG 73 (Oldenburg/Ahlhorn), AG 51 (Manching), AG 52 (Eggebek), LTG 61 (Neubiberg), LTG 62 (Wahn) and a SAM unit." Gary Power's U-2 was shot down May 1 1960, and in Real LifeTM the Paris Summit to settle the Berlin question was cancelled in the fallout. In my version of RED TIDE 2, in May 1960 the cold war goes hot! So, a few more pieces of the puzzle have come together...

Now that I'm a bit more educated on what to look for, I've noticed a few interesting things in the NF4+ Red Thunder campaign. It is modified from the stock campaign, including several West German AirUnits and KnownAces, including Erich Hartmann (with his WWII tally!) as HGBN said. Here's Jagdgeschwader 71: [WGermanyUnit002] UnitName=1/JG 71 'Richthofen' ForceID=1 UnitID=77 StartDate=10/26/1962 DescFile=woe1Start.txt StartText=woe1Start1.txt AircraftType=CL-13B_62 [AirUnit077] AircraftType=CL-13B_62 Squadron=JG71 UnitName=1/JG 71 'Richthofen' ForceID=1 Nation=WGermany DefaultTexture=1stJG71 Startnumber=1 BaseArea=Ahlhorn Airbase BaseMoveChance=0 RandomChance=100 StartNumber=JA-101 SN-1647 MaxAircraft=16 StartAircraft=16 MaxPilots=16 StartPilots=16 Experience=100 Morale=100 Supply=50 MissionChance[sWEEP]=40 MissionChance[CAP]=50 MissionChance[iNTERCEPT]=10 MissionChance[ESCORT]=0 MissionChance=0 MissionChance[CAS]=0 MissionChance[sEAD]=0 MissionChance[ARMED_RECON]=0 MissionChance[ANTI_SHIP]=0 MissionChance[RECON]=0 UpgradeType=NEVER KnownAce[01].LastName=Hartmann KnownAce[01].FirstName=Erich KnownAce[01].RankID=5 KnownAce[01].NumMissions=500 KnownAce[01].AirKills=352 KnownAce[01].AircraftNumber=JA-101 SN-1647 I'm pretty excited about that ( ok - I don't get out much ) but I can see an opportunity there since the CL-13B_62 is employed and I think I could use Ravenclaw's early CL-13B in a 1959 Red Tide 2 scenario. I need to do some more research, but I suspect some of the Luftwaffe units I'm interested in wouldn't have been operational in '59, so I need to make a decision whether or not to move the date out. On one hand, I could posit Red Tide 2 along the lines "Following the events of Red Tide in 1956..." in which case it would be reasonable to assume the readiness of the Luftwaffe would have been brought forward somewhat? On the other hand, that might cause problems with the userlist.ini(?) and paintscheme(?) and suchlike service dates - in which case I should work with them and adjust the date of the Red Tide 2 campaign to suit? Thoughts? The other thing I'd like to do is include all the AirUnits and KnownAces from NF4+ Red Thunder and Arthur's Red Thunder 2, so that there's some continuity for the player? I'm also thinking there's some WWII aces from the allied side (who served post-war) that might be cool to include, guys like Al Deere, Johnnie Johnson, and Stanford Tuck - although a bit of fiction might be needed to get 'em in: in 1959 Tuck was famously great mates with Adolf Galland, but retired, Deere was flying a desk at Staff College, and Johnson was commanding bombers at Cottesmore. Roland Beamont was a test pilot. Pierre Clostermann flew on active service for the Armee de l'Air over Algiers '56-7 before retiring for good. Still, hard to imagine keeping these guys out of a good scrap, especially if it was round two! Interestingly, Sailor Malan was back in South Africa by this time, and was active in the fight against apartheid, which just goes to show the character of these men from both sides of the battle lines in WWII: http://www.scielo.or...ipt=sci_arttext http://www.bnap.tv/R...is_11_11_11.pdf Cheers Kiwi

Can't remember having as much FUN as playing the F-100C campaign in a long time - is what I meant to type. Sometimes there's a disconnect between my brain and the keyboard...

@ Baltika - Thanks! That's just what I was looking for.

Sounds great! Keeping track of patch levels is something that worries me a bit. NF4+ seems to be working fine in my install... but I'm pretty sure it's not up to date patch-wise from what I've read (?) on the other hand if anything is broken I haven't noticed it yet. Hoping some one will point out any pitfalls...

okie dokie: namesgerman.lst is what I figure I'm looking for... echo... somewhere in here...

I'm having a good look at Arthur666's Red Thunder 2 files as well, since it's pretty similar to what I would like to do.

@ hgbn - thanks, great info! @ Soulfreak - cool! I'd be really interested in any new Bundesluftwaffe skins. I'll have to check out later eras too, like the Starfighter and Phantom eras, and the G.91 too. @ Brain - I'm a big fan of IL-2. Maybe we can get Oleg to sell TK the terrain engine and Full Mission Builder! I'm really liking SF2 though, can't remember having as much as my F-100C campaign in a long time! I always seem to be working on my IL-2 installs rather than playing them, but I love 'em all really. @ JRL - I know you're a bit of a wizard with campaigns, so I'm hoping to pick your brain a bit! Anyways, since I got home to my gaming rig I did a bit more poking around and I've found the 1956 Cold War campaign files (it's Red Tide btw) - both in NF4+ and the stock ones which I've extracted to compare. Hopefully I want to make a very modest contribution by coming up with a wee update. I'm proposing to work it forward to June 1959 (when Erich Hartmann became operational with JG71 "Richthofen" at Ahlhorn). Still looking for the pilot files though...

Also need to go looking for where the pilot names reside. It would be pretty cool to carry over the veteran's WWII scores... should make them appear in the campaign as aces???

OK. So far, I see that I need to check out the NATIONS.INI for the map first. Then I need to look at CAMPAIGNEXXX.INI and CAMPAIGNEXXX_DATA.INI - and clone a new campaign from these files, making sure to get any new squadrons/airunits in the correct blue and red numbered sequence. I've found a few threads with some good examples of what to do, so I should be ok with that. I think the next thing I'll look at is the structure of the mod plane files. I'm particularly interested in matching up any new squadrons/airunits with the decals and paintschemes in the mod... let's say the Canadair CL-13Bs by Ravenclaw. I've seen (at least I think so?) AI German Sabre's in NF4+ while playing the F-100C campaign, so at least some of Ravenclaw's mod is included already in NF4+?

GT Legends is my personal favourite, and GTR2 is also good. Cheap as chips too, and heaps of mods. There, are newer (and more expensive) versions from SimBin, but these two are classics! My first car was an RX-3 coupe. So, I have the RX-3 mod of course, and this is the racetrack - Manfield - where I grew up (pretty amazing when you think I grew up in a small New Zealand town and here's a sim of my local racetrack!) : For racers, not arcaders, but very scaleable for difficulty. I only get to race casually so offline/amateur level works really nice for me. Plays fine with a good joystick too, so you don't need to buy wheel and pedals unless you want to. http://www.simbin.se/games/ http://www.nogripracing.com/index.php Good Luck! KB

Grabbed SF2V in the Memorial Day sale and caught my first carrier trap this morning - yay me! Had to wave off the first approach and go around. Second approach was a bit wobbly too (I cheated and turned off the cockpit art) but I got that sucker down without breaking it - CAG will be proud! Hard FM and Landings too. Haven't installed Stary's atmo mods and effects yet, but tried Dave's OV-10A and MiGBuster/Raza's Tropic Moon III the other day - sweet! Love this game.

Hey Matt! Yeah it's nice when it works. I'm off the CAG's Xmas card list again after a couple of ah-hem... 'attempted' bolters... and the squabbies don't like wiping me off the ramp either. So, I've upped my approach speed to 190 knots so I can see the deck thru the windshied, nice and smooth over the ramp with the gun pipper just on the horizon, then slam 'er down on the wire. Anyhow, the chicks like it... How you doin' Mr. Naval Aviator? Who... me?

Yep, thanks J. I got 'em in my SF2E folder, love Stary's work. I just got all ADHD when my Vietnam download finished and couldn't help jumping in the 'pit first! On my to-do list for this arvo - gotta take my boy to his rugger match first though. Queen's Birthday weekend now here (Saturday Morning) so very Happy Birthday Your Majesty... and woo-hoo... holidays!!!

Good reading! Thanx Romflyer, heading out to the 'Nam myself since the sale!

Hiya Widowmaker Find your conf.ini in the game's root directory and edit this line: [game] Arcade=0 HighGore=1 mapPadX=-0.028125 mapPadY=0.4611111 viewSet=53 Intro=0 NoSubTitles=1 NoChatter=0 NoHudLog=0 NoLensFlare=0 iconTypes=1 eventlog=eventlog.lst eventlogkeep=0 3dgunners=1 ClearCache=0 Let me know if you have any probs. Cheers KB

Pollies everywhere are just hopeless aren't they? Like George Dubya jumping on to the deck of a carrier to declare a war is over... just forgot to tell the bad guys. Our PM once screwed the entire air force so that now all we have is a handful of Orions, Hercs and helos... and I liked her!

What a cock up. The operational types in the RAF and RN must be going bananas. We've got governments all over the place bailing out greedy b______ds in pin-stripe suits, meanwhile the men and women in uniform are getting shafted. Let's hope most of the world's various tin-pot generals and dictators are asleep at the wheel.

June 6 here in EnZed, but I'll probably catch it a week or so later on cheapie night. Gonna see this one on my own, no wife or kids, just me and the popcorn. Good year for flicks this. I took the kids to see The Avengers and really enjoyed it, and not long till Dark Knight too. Then there's Bond and Mr. Renner as Bourne... looking forward to those too, might not catch 'em all at the cinema though.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Company of Heroes? When I need a break from flight sims I load up a CoH skirmish against the computer, kick back, and have at it. CoH is R&R for me, I love how I can order those little guys around and they always do exactly what I say... that never happens in my real life! Or flight sims for that matter. Really dig GT Legends. I have GTR2 installed too, but almost always play Legends - love those fat rimmed seveties tin-tops. The Mazda RX-3 mod is my favourite since a souped up RX-3 coupe was my first car when I was eighteen (loved that car). Now I'm a responsible family man I have to ride the friggin' bus. I never seem to find the time but I like Mass Effect 2 on the kid's XBOX 360 - have to finish it soon 'cos Mass Effect 3 will be hitting the bargain bins soon. My youngest boy plays Assassin's Creed, I really like the architecture of all things - go figure. And I got Silent Hunter 3 installed and a bunch of mods downloaded - done the tutorial missions and like it a lot, but that sucker really soaks up the hours so I don't know if I'll ever find the time...

Good tip Wrench! Got myself a couple bargains, thanks bud. Happy Memorial Day!

Brennus, I was kinda getting used to TK's UI (it has a certain endearing 'cheese' factor) but your mod looks really nice and has convinced me to change. Thanks for making this, I'm going to download and install it tonite. Hard to believe TK has got away with it so long!