HomeFries

When the RAAF was evaluating the replacement aircraft for the Canberra, they eventually settled on the F-111. It is well known that the initial F-111 airframes for Australia had issues off the line, which is why the RAAF used the F-4 Phantom as a stop-gap measure. Along with the F-4, one of the aircraft evaluated in competition with the F-111 was the A-6 Intruder. What if the RAAF decided to forego the troubled (at the time) F-111 and augment its force of F-4 phantoms with the A-6 as its all-weather, deep strike patform? Here are some thoughts: The A-6A with Second Squadron, as it would have replaced the Canberra in Vietnam. This is the Southeast Asia pattern favored by the USAF (matching the RAAF Phantoms), though with the RAAF Sky Grey belly. And the nightfighter variant (I have had this in the works for a while, but TK's recent F-4 skin pack has stolen some of my thunder). Here's the standard RAAF Sky blue/light green pattern: Here's a pattern based on a color scheme I saw for a RAAF F-111C. I'm calling this the Tropical Camo; if anybody can provide me with the proper nomenclature, I would greatly appreciate it. And a nightfighter skin based on the same pattern. Finally, a TRAM with the Sky Blue/Sea Blue pattern of the mid 1980s. I also have 1st and 6th squadron decals in the works, as these are the squadrons that flew the F-111. I have also used the serial numbers of the F-111s exported to Australia. And now, my questions (in order to make this what-if as accurate as possible): You'll notice in the TRAM that the roundel is on the rear fuselage, as opposed to the front fuselage by the intake. I have seen both, and I am wondering if there is any rationale for where the roundel is located. I have been unable to find any information, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. Also, does anybody know when the RAAF switched over to the low visibility pattern they use today? Finally, when did the RAAF stop using the Aussie Flag and fin flash on the tail of their aircraft?

DA, I'm all for leaving as much as we can blank up to 1000. My thoughts were to add squadrons starting at 1000 that we know won't need decals (e.g. squadrons already represented by mods that have skin-specific decals, or Army Aviation and non-tactical squadrons like transport and AEW). Do the placeholder thing again from 8xx-999 and start the entries at 1000. Also, I would like to add a couple of RAAF Squadrons: 1st Squadron and 6th Squadron. Both flew the F-111, and I'm doing a what-if A-6 that uses both squadrons (the A-6 was considered by the RAAF when they opted for the F-111). From what I understand 6th Sqn is more of a RAG type squadron (as opposed to operational). We could at least put one of the squadrons in one of the 809 dup entries, and the other where it makes sense to do so.

I've uploaded a hotfix for version 1.51 that brings the campaigns and Squadronlist.ini in line with the latest DLC. You can still install this even if you don't have DLC 18 and 21, but it will utilize them if installed. A-6 Superpack 1.51a Hotfix.7z (mediafire)

There are some good A-6 cockpits in the SFP1 section, or you can extract the A-6 Cockpit from WoV. Likewise, you can purchase the RAZBAM A-6 pack for SF1 and use that cockpit with this pack, which is the most immersive option.

@DA, Another observation: Royal Navy 809NAS is duplicated in entries 580 and 591. Probably my own entries combined with your culling of other files. Frees up another spot. Also, are you planning to add transport, AEW, and Army Aviation units to 1000+, or is that for a follow-up version?

No problem, DA. With 716-728, I at least know which numbers correspond to which squadron for decals. I just installed the new DLC last night, but haven't had a chance to look at the skins in game yet. That will be today. Thinking of your post-Vietnam squadron decals, approximately what year or range of years are those? My thinking is that if we can put the SQNAME and number files in a consolidated folder (I use Num_LVG, Num_White, et al) and assign the tail decals to a timeframe (e.g. 1975) then we set a foundation for ourselves or others to build on. The concept is similar to the suggestion I made on the 3W forum, in which we assign decals to years, though without the engine doing it automatically per my suggestion in that post, we can assign it manually via different variants. This is actually what I do with the A-6 Superpack. For example, if you have phantom specific decals for 1965 and decals for 1978, you would put them in folders like F4_1965 and F4_1978. Then have your skins for the F-4C_65 pull F-4 specific decals from F4_1965 and the F-4E_78 pull decals from F4_1978. This way you could have era-specific decals for different variants, or even skins within the same variant if you want to go into that detail. While you may have one set of decals now, if you're putting them in a separate folder anyway, this offers you the flexibility for future expansion by yourself or others. Don't worry about the grunt work: I have a concept of how to do this that I have implemented in the A-6 Superpack and have refined for version 2.0 (though that's still at least "three weeks" out). I can take care of it from my end, but since it is your mod I would like permission to do so (along with a year that you recommend as a placeholder if nothing else).

@DA, Are you planning on adding your Phantom mods and decals? I would love to get an integrated pack.

I'm thinking that with weapons, we should triage them into the following categories: 1) Which weapons should be included with the Realism Pack? My thoughts: Stock weapons that can be improved Non-stock weapons that will be utilized Weapons that fit our timeframe (exception: modern weapons that are part of a pack that overlaps timeframe, in which case we may want to include the entire pack. Example: AIM-54 variants). 2) Which weapons should be included in the Community Pack? Again, my thoughts: Cool to have weapons (Mk77 fire bomb, which is part of realistic loadouts, but not all that useful as far as the game goes per malibu's comments) Useful weapons that are more modern than the stock period (i.e. 1981+) like the AGM-65 or AGM-88 Weapons that are used in multiple mods (again, AGM-65, modern AA missiles, JDAM/JSOW/modern PGMs) 3) Weapons that we should pass on completely. A particular weapon made obsolete by a better weapon mod A weapon whose improvements are obsolesced by a 3W patch Weapons that are more exotic than useful (e.g. original daisy cutters), or only serve to clutter the menu (e.g. inert loads). These can be added by individual mods if required.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any broken stock weapons, though I'm not the guy to ask. I was thinking more in terms of adding weapons that aren't included in the stock layout, but that would be good for realistic loadouts (e.g. AGM-123 Skipper II for the A-6E_79, Mk77 Fire bomb for the Marines, nukes). I think the updated AIM-54 series are worth adding as well, but I'm open to suggestions beyond that. My thoughts are that the RP should include the "must have" mods and tweaks to make SF2 enjoyable without further tweaking, which also means that if we're going to tweak the original campaigns we should include the mods used by the tweaked campaigns as well. From there, people can decide in which direction they want to mod their install, and the CP can help fill that niche.

DL, Just so you know, malibu43 has included instructions on how to make the campaigns non-NA compatible as well. The campaigns will also be available in the upcoming SF2 Realism Pack, though there's no release timeframe yet.

Rgr that. Follow-up question: If I allow export of the B-61, but just have USAF and USN attachments, does this open it up for any nation with US exported aircraft to also be able to use the B-61? If that is the case, I'll just make a B-61N. Speaking of weps, I just downloaded a bunch of packs, including KillerBee's Ordnance Pack II. I'm honestly overwhelmed and can't sort through it all. Since you've been through this before with AGXP, could you send some pointers my way about what to include, avoid, et al?

Any ideas?

They'll be the only WAV files directly in the common\Speech folder (the Hawkeye speech files will be in SF2NA\Speech). You can just choose to omit them.

Malibu, I'll have to respectfully disagree with your second bullet. I think the Renegade/Retrograde speech pack is incredible, and I find that when I test with an otherwise vanilla install, the bubba pilot comms are like nails on a chalkboard in comparison. I don't mind bubba so much for approach/departure, especially since these will be a separate set of voices anyway. Hopefully more people will chime in, but from the traffic I've seen it appears that I'm not the only one who feels this way. And you're right about CV-59. It's not bad, but it's no CVA-63 either. Removed. I'll be going through some weapons packs to determine what should be put in. The way I see it, there are two easy ways we can go about this: Cherry pick the weapons we want/need and don't make any modifications to the weapons themselves. If people want the whole pack, they can install it separately without overwriting any improvements. If any weapons are tweaked (e.g. allowing B61 for export for USN use), then include the entire pack from which the weapon originated. This way people who want the whole pack have it without having to worry about overwriting any improvements. EDIT: There is a third way of cherry picking and improving weapons for the RP, then including the balance of the weapons in the CP, so people who want the whole package can get the CP. Of course, the fourth way of cherry picking and improving means that we will need to document the changes so people who want everything know what not to overwrite. Or we can just provide instructions to install the entire weapons pack prior to installing the RP (a solution I dislike). Speaking of weapons, is there any way to control which countries weapons are exported to (again, thinking of the B61)? It seems the only control I have is by limiting the attachment type. BTW, I think you'll like some of the changes I made to the A-6 loadouts. Nukes, Skippers, and ASR loadouts, oh my!

That was a big hang up with me for the FC2 mission editor. How freakin' hard is it to have multiplayer aircrat assigned to the same flight? ADF and TAW were doing that back in the mid '90s; the only thing I had to do to make a single player ADF mission multiplayer compatible was to add a player number to an aircraft ID, which was a simple text edit. Also one of the reasons I love Falcon for multiplayer; you can just hop into a campaign or TE without any drama, and without unbalancing everything.

Thanks, malibu. I was planning on looking at CV-59 to see for myself before making the final decision. I may pull the approach/departure pack as well; I like it better than Bubba, but it can be distracting so this may be a case of less is more. Spectre's Hawkeye voice, however, is a huge improvement over the default Hawkeye voice. I actually prefer it to Skatezilla's speech pack (which itself is excellent and a major improvement). I don't know of any Red Crown speech packs, though.

DL, malibu43 has also done some very nice updates to the original SF2 campaigns that will use carriers if you have SF2NA installed. Those campaigns are a blast, and are a great improvement over the originals.

I have a question about DCS of late: I know that with FC2, I couldn't create a multiplayer mission with both players in the same flight. In order to make a co-op mission multiplayer, I had to make a separate flight of the same aircraft, plug in separate waypoints, et al, which also meant that not only was it a serious pain to convert SP missions to co-op, but in order for it to work you really needed the exact amount of players (since the AI being in a different flight wouldn't follow your lead or orders). Has this been fixed with newer versions of the mission editor?

I've since incorporated my A-6 and EA-6B datafies (standard, EXCAP, ICAP I), though I left the avionics files out since those are better served with their respective superpacks. I also incorporated a mod I started a while back, but had abandoned since I couldn't properly test it at the time. It's a graphic and INI file to award the Naval version of the Medal of Honor to USN/USMC pilots, and I just added the proper shading and edge work to make it match up with the shadow box. It has now been tested, so it works and is included. Finally, I added the E-2C upgrade pack and Dave's VAQ-134 skin for the EA-6B ICAP I. I know that skins are normally out of scope for the RP, but I made exceptions for these because they were made specifically to enhance the SF2NA campaign, and there this is the best way to get the properly marked aircraft into the campaign. Next up is to add the EA-6B to the Linebacker II campaign (which should be easy enough since I did it for the A-6 superpack) and add my tweaks to the stock campaigns (e.g. adding Ramat David as the default base graphic in the SF2I campaigns, replacing the A-6E with the A-6E_79 in SF2NA, which was historically accurate as far as the VA-35 deployment goes, etc.). @DA, did you add any Belgian or Danish squadrons to the squadronlist.ini? If so, do you know which ones flew the F-104? I would like to be able to add them to the appropriate textureset.ini files if possible.

That works too. Here's what I've added to Malibu's pack thus far: Realistic Promotion Rate (missioncontrol.ini) Nations.ini with entries for speech packs and national anthems TMF F-14 sounds (added to soundlist.ini as well) My Semi-Transparent planning icons Crusader's F-15A Eagle avionics enhancement v1c CV-59 Forrestal class carrier (will test with tweaking the SF2V campaigns) Flyable F-104G using the SFG free version modified for SF2 Mirage 3C, Mirage 5D, Mirage 5F updated to Shahak/Nesher avionics Fubar's FanSong RWR sounds (will put these in avionics.ini files for 1960s aircraft) Various national anthems for menu/campaign selection Various other enhancements of default sounds I've also added the following speech packs: Renegade/Retrograde's speech pack RomFlyer's Approach/Departure voices Spectre8750's Hawkeye speech pack VPAF Speech Pack Gramps' Russian Speech Pack Gepard's German Speech Pack Baltika's British Speech Pack I added the following pilots/seats/fakepilots: The A-6 Peanut lights (I'll be adding the proper lights to the A-6/EA-6B models) K-36D (Russian ejection seat) MB Mk7 (should be used with the F-8 Crusader) MODUsaf/MODUsn2 pilots (even though they're post-1980 because they're widely used) NavyNM2 Pilot (will replace all PilotNx pilots in USN/USMC aircraft with this) Seat_F-4 (retextured by TMF; don't need to modify the data.ini files) Seat_F-14 Seat_Mk5 (for the A-6A) Still to do: Insert the latest A-6A/A-6E/A-6E_79 data and avionics ini files Insert updated EA-6B data.ini file and add EA-6B standard and EXCAP variants based on original LOD (for Linebacker II campaign) Sort through weapons I'll post all of my weapons in another post, at which point we can determine which should stay, which should be moved to the CP, and which should go. We should also think about our UI. Do we want photos, do we want to use an existing UI, or do we want to leave the stock UI in place? Do we want to mess with the music?

There is another way to do it: Release a baseline which includes the data.ini files and the squadronlist.ini. Any edits we make to stock datafiles should be marked like such: //RP start edit 1 of x [ECM] Name=ALR-45 //was ALR-15 //end edit The we keep a log of edits from stock values that can be included with the Readme. Whenever a new patch comes out, we post in a sticky thread what files were changed, and people who want can extract the new file and make the changes manually. Every so often we can rebaseline or incrementally patch.

I love Gerwin's tiles and use them myself, but I think that they should be left out because they violate Stability Principles I and II. They are under constant tweaking/development, and TK is likely to make changes to his graphics engine for the NA terrain, which may obsolesce some of the tiles. Squadronlist.ini is another file that is regularly updated by TK, and is a likely candidate for the CP, or at least a separate download/update. I'm depending other contributions for weapons and loadouts. @Malibu, that's your strong area, and I'll cover down on what you say. I'll be happy to post which weapons I use for my mods, and we can either add or subtract from that list, but we also need to determine which version of what weapon should be included. I think this is the most important part of the RP, and it's also the part for which I am the most ill-equipped to judge. I'll look at the files when I'm off work, and I'll post a list of my additions. We can start hashing it out from there. EDIT: One additional thought. There are four of us who are enthusiastic about this project, and of those, all four of us have real life committments that limit the scope of what we can contribute. The RP is likely to wither if we don't put something out, but given the RL constraints it's unlikely we'll get everything we want in the first release. Therefore we need to add one more principle to our criteria already established, and that is the ability to easily overwrite or remove previous versions. This means that for things that may not make the first release (e.g. adding landing lights to all applicable stock aircraft), we should be able to implement them in a follow-on release by adding or overwriting a file. If a file needs to be removed in future editions, we should effort to ensure that the file/folder can be easily identified and removed without corrupting anything else. Things that violate this concept are INI files or TGA files in which the removal is required for a more desirable default file in the CAT.

I do have the weapons pack; it's actually those tables I was planning to use to get the depression value. The big thing is the entering arguments, which will be based on procedures and guidance at the time. I imagine that the A-4 normally had a different dive speed than the F-4 given the same dive angle, and the release altitude (while based on the tactical situation) would be standardized as well. I figure set the reticle up for Mk82 LDGP bombs to cover the most likely scenario (cluster munitions will likely be a lower altitude drop, but having a reticle for LDGP is still better than a 50 mil depression).

No problem, Malibu. I'll take it. Please upload everything you've integrated thus far. I'd like to get the RP out before A-6 Superpack 2.0, so that will be motivation to keep me on schedule. That said, I would prefer to limit my role to be an integrator and tester; the more stuff I start to tweak, the more I need to test my own stuff, and the more likelihood I introduce bugs I don't catch. As long as I am doing straight-up integration, I can test without preconceptions. Likewise, I can upload beta builds to this thread for others to test as well, but we can cross that bridge when we get to it. I would really like your help with realistic weapon loadouts for other aircraft; you did such a great job helping me with the A-6 that I appreciate your tome of knowledge. I can do the changes if you provide the sources. The other thing I previously alluded to is modifying the bomb depression reticle to something more useful than a 50 mil drop. If you know the standard altitude/airspeed/dive angle for major variants (A-4, F-4, et. al.) I can figure out the depression value and plug that into the INI files. In the absence of knowing the dive angle we can use 30 degrees as an entering argument.