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Compatible with Strike Fighters 2 Series of games.
 
One thing that has bugged me about the Strike Fighters series is the object icons are both large and opaque. Compound this with the fact that they cannot be filtered, and it makes for difficult mission planning over areas of dense activity. This mod reduces the icon size by 25% and makes the icons semi-transparent, which allows you to easily see the enemy and friendly forces while still seeing the map underneath the forces. This is especially useful for runway strikes, where you will want to know the orientation of the runway prior to setting up your Initial Point.
 
Specifically, his mod converts the BMP object icons to TGA and adds an alpha channel that ranges from 50% to 75% opacity. Likewise, this mod updates the PLANNINGMAPSCREEN.INI in order to call the new TGA files as well as reduce the Object Icon Size from 32 pixels to 24 pixels.
 
 
Easy Installation (if you are not running any other menu mod)
Copy the included Menu folder into your SF2 mods folder
 
 
Manual Installation (if you have an existing menu mod)
As long as your menu mod doesn't change the PLANNINGMAPSCREEN.INI file, you should just be able to copy these files to your SF2 Mods folder. If you do use a custom PLANNINGMAPSCREEN.INI, then in addition to copying the TGA files to your [sF2 Mods]\Menu folder, you will need to make the following changes to PLANNINGMAPSCREEN.INI:

[MapData] <...> FriendlyAircraftIcon=FriendlyAircraftIcon.tga <-------change these from BMP to TGA FriendlyGroundForceIcon=FriendlyGroundForceIcon.tga FriendlyNavalUnitIcon=FriendlyNavalUnitIcon.tga FriendlyRadarIcon=FriendlyRadarIcon.tga EnemyAircraftIcon=EnemyAircraftIcon.tga EnemyGroundForceIcon=EnemyGroundForceIcon.tga EnemyNavalUnitIcon=EnemyNavalUnitIcon.tga EnemyRadarIcon=EnemyRadarIcon.tga <...> ObjectIconSize=24 <---- change this from 32 <...>
 
You can resize the ObjectIconSize to whatever you like, but the included HighlightIcon.tga is set for a 24 pixel Object Icon. If you wish to keep the ObjectIconSize at 32, you can do so; just remove the HighlightIcon.tga from your [sF2 Mods]\Menu folder and the default icon from the CAT file will be used. If you wish to use any other size icon, you will need to make changes to HighlightIcon.tga yourself. If you know of a way to change this in the INI file, please let me know so that I can put it in my next update.
 
 
Future Compatibility Issues
In order to ensure compatibility with future official SF2 patches, you may need to extract PLANNINGMAPSCREEN.INI from the MenuData.CAT file and compare the files to ensure compatibility. You can quickly find my changes in the sections bracketed by //.
 
 
 
 
 
For support, please post in the corresponding File Announcement thread at CombatAce.

Tested with Strike Fighters 2 series; should work with SF1 series via manual install.
 
This music theme was originally designed for Falcon BMS 4.32, but arguably better fits SF2 North Atlantic from a thematic standpoint.
 
This mod takes Harold Faltermeyer's music from the 1986 Paramount film "Top Gun" and applies it thematically to the different UI screens. The music was ripped from the film and processed by CamelBlue, but in some cases the removal of dialog resulted in muted music or inconsistent volume. In these cases, I mixed in the audio track of the F-14s shooting down the Libyan MiG-23's over the Gulf of Sidra. This mix worked better than I had hoped possible.
 
Now all we need is for somebody to mod the MiG-28...or perhaps an F-5 skin ;).
 
 
 
Easy Installation (no other existing menu mod)
Copy the included Menu folder into your SF2 mods folder
 
 
Manual Installation (existing menu mod)
In most cases, I used the same name of the existing theme, so you can just insert the WAV files into your [sF2 Mods]\Menu folder. There are some exceptions noted below:
 
Replace the BackgroundMusic line with "BackgroundMusic=CreditsScreen.wav" (sans quotes) in the following files:

AWARDSCREEN.INI MEDALLISTSCREEN.INI VIEWMEDALSCREEN.INI
 
Replace the BackgroundMusic line with "BackgroundMusic=Planning.wav" (sans quotes) in the following files:

HANGARSCREEN.INI LOADOUTSCREEN.INI PLANNINGMAPSCREEN.INI ROSTERSCREEN.INI
 
Replace the BackgroundMusic line with "BackgroundMusic=CampaignScreen.wav" (sans quotes) in the following files:

SINGLEMISSIONSCREEN.INI
 
 
[4. Optional Enhancements]
I have another mod that reduces the size of the object icons on the planning map and makes them semi-transparent in order to see the map beneath the units. Since this mod also makes changes to the PLANNINGMAPSCREEN.INI, I have included this mod as an optional installation. If you copy these files to your [sF2 Mods]\Menu folder, then you will have both the Top Gun Music Theme and the new map icons working together.
 
 
[5. Future Compatibility Issues]
In the effort to minimize the size of this mod, I used the some of the same files across multiple menus. This means that in order to ensure compatibility with future official SF2 patches, you may need to extract the ini files listed in the previous section from the MenuData.CAT file and compare the files to ensure compatibility. You can quickly find my changes in the sections bracketed by //.
 
Likewise, you can always copy and rename the WAV files to match the default WAV filenames in order to ensure compatibility for future patches.
 
 
[6. Additional Information]
The debrief sound files are not listed in an INI from the Menu folder, but rather are listed by nation in the NATIONS.INI file. This means that even if you decide to remove this mod, you could If you wish rename the existing debrief music files and allow them to be played for the U.S. Navy. The updated section in your NATIONS.INI should read:

[Nation003] <...> DebriefSuccessMusic=[RenamedDebriefSuccess].wav DebriefFailMusic=[RenamedDebriefFail].wav DebriefKilledMusic=[RenamedDebriefKilled].wav <...>
 
 
 
 
For support, please post in this File Announcement thread at CombatAce.