shoresroad

Hello, I have installed the Air and Ground Counters Mod by Capitaine Vengeur but I can't get it to work correctly on all maps. I have his Alternative Medals Mod working just fine in Armchair Aces Redux. They are working on the Vogesen map but not on the Verdun, Cambrai or Flanders maps. I have sent Capitaine a PM but wasn't sure how often he visits this forum so also looking for help from anyone else who might know what I've done wrong. The installation seems straight forward and not map specific, but for some reason I'm only seeing them on the Vogesen map. I also tried to install Stephen's Planning Map Icons with the exact same results, so I'm stumped and can't figure out what I've done wrong. I'm running FE2. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hi Everyone, Is there a way to change the viewing angle for the F10 "Fly By" mode in First Eagles 2. Right now my plane passes just above me by about 15 degrees, so I'm looking at the bottom of my plane as it flies by. Is there a parm I can change to move my view to just above my plane on fly by. I've been looking for one, but an awful lot of files to become familiar with and haven't found anything yet. Thanks!

Well, the mystery continues... After finishing my install of Redux I started a career on the Flanders map with a Nieuport 10 and the F10 "flyby" view had changed to an angle above the plane. Then I started another career on the Verdun map with a Fokker E.I and the flyby view was again looking at the plane at an angle from above it as it went past. Started my third career tonight on the Vogesen map with a Morane Type N and the flyby view is from underneath the plane looking at the landing gear as it goes by. So the flyby angle is either set through a parameter with each individual plane or the map. I have looked at the plane.ini and plane_data.ini files but can't find anything obvious yet. I'm going to test the planes on the different maps to find out if it could be a map parameter. Also still hoping someone will read this who knows :o)

Thanks! Just finished installing Armchair Aces Redux last night and it is fantastic. Thank you for the excellent instructions, your mods, and to every other modder on the list of what it took to get Redux up and running. It's an amazing transformation that I watched happen as I went through the process, and quite the education :o)

Problem solved! I have been working on installing Armchair Aces Redux and in the final stages last night I finally installed Peter's 108 FM Essential folder and then Ojcar's Redux folders and low and behold, my view angle changed from below my plane to above my plane on the F10 Flyby view! I have no idea how it was done, but it had to be one of those two pieces as that was all I had left to get Redux running (which is an amazing upgrade of FE2)! I'll poke around to see if I understand how it was done out of curiosity, but in any case it is now working :o) Cheers!

This is just fantastic work, Quack!

Well, I surrender on this one. The Extended Flyby mod is great and I appreciate you pointing it out to me. It enhances both the F6 and F10 view options. And it uses the ViewList.ini to do so. But after a couple of hours of moving every value in the Flyby section I can't find any value that changes your fixed position in relation to your plane as it flies by. Then I extracted the ViewList.ini to look at the original version and the mod has about twice as many lines in the Flyby section, so I'm thinking since the original modder didn't change your position in relation to your plane that there is another line needed to affect that parm. So, if any of you modders get bored on a rainy day it sure would be great to know how to modify that angle. First from the left and then from the right on each pass your plane flies past you at a 45 degree angle above you. I was hoping to change it to where my view was about 30 degrees above my plane as it flies by. Thanks in advance to anyone who ever decides to add this line to an already great mod :o) To anybody new to FE2 like me this is a great mod already that you would probably like: http://combatace.com/files/file/4922-longer-flyby-view/

Ok, thanks guys! Will have a look at both.

Hi Ojcar, Yeah, I'm going to go slow. Right now I'm working on your Armchair Redux and adding yours or Peters FM's to start. Then once I'm more familiar with FE2 I will consider other changes, but for now a lot to get my mind around and become familiar with :o) One question for you: I am downloading aircraft models from the A Team and following your Redux instructions and when I got to the Bristol Scout C the A Team has two versions but you don't specify which version in your instructions. They have the Top Lewis version (mounted on the top wing) and the Side Fire Lewis version (mounted on the fuselage at an angle that shoots just past the prop arc). Which one should I use for Redux? Thanks! P.S. If the A Team now has two versions when at one time just one I'm assuming they will have two different folder names, so also please let me know the name of your folder for the Bristol C version you are using with Redux.

Hi Quack, I didn't forget your post and I've got the code saved to a text file. Just thought I might be doing something wrong at a basic level when I saw 33Lima's screen shot. I've started with the Armchair Aces Redux project so learning a bunch of stuff as I go along adding everything in the list to get it going. Will tackle AI changes at the individual plane level next and start with your code above. Also having a lot of fun flying planes I never have had the chance to fly in a sim before as I work at adding the planes for Redux. Having a great time in a Fokker D.IIIL at the moment in Single Missions :o) Finding FE2 is like finding IL-2 1946 now if you didn't know about it. With a huge body of 3rd party mods it is the most comprehensive WW1 flight sim ever. In my Fokker D.IIIL I'm running into Spad A2's and Voisins and who knows what out there...amazing! Great flak in the air and the ground flashes from the flak guns. The enemy AI is great...but I don't need to tell you guys about it...lol Thanks!

Hi 33Lima, I missed this comment the first time and what I'm seeing right now with my FE2 wingmen is not even close to the nice formations I see in RoF and WOFF. I was looking for some other information and found this thread where you posted an image of SE5's in formation in FE2: http://combatace.com/topic/78299-another-new-user-add-on-planefm-question/ and my wingmen look nothing like that at all. They're just zig-zagging all over the sky behind me from the moment I take off. If it is "just wait until you install Peter's FM's" then no problem, but just wanted to make sure I haven't got a parm wrong or something as right now I'm getting no formation flying from my wingmen at all and nothing that looks like the image you posted above. Thanks!

Hi 33Lima, Following your thought process here, should I also remove any planes from the FE2 defalut plane set that show up after running my FE2Italy.exe to create my separate Italian "mod" folder that are not on gterl's required aircraft list in his readme file. For example, the Spad XIII is one of the default planes that is now in my FE2Italy "mods" folder. Would it start showing up in the wrong places or wrong time period when I start playing the Italian campaign if I don't remove it. Most, if not all of the FE2 default plane set are not on the list of required aircraft in gterl's readme instructions. Thanks!

Thanks guys, I'll try Quack's mod but won't get my pants in a wad over this as I'm still using just the stock plane set with stock AI. Once i download the planes I'm after and update their AI with the Peter FM's it may change their behavior as Panama suggested. Stephen nailed what I'm seeing right now "evasive maneuvers, flying in zig zags" that starts right after take-off and all the way in route to the action with no sign of a formation at all. Either that, or they all just downed a bottle of Schnapps prior to take off :o) So I'll just hang tight until I get further along in updating plane FM's. I'll start a new thread for any new questions :o) Cheers!

Ok, all mods attempted are working so far, so I think I've got the basics down. New question, and if I should be posting these somewhere else or start a new thread please let me know: My AI wingman are buzzing around behind me like bees. Any way to get them to settle down and fly in formation. I see different formation types in the Formation.ini file, but don't see any keyboard commands or mission commands in my campaign to set a formation for my flight. Thanks!

"...though I had to edit the setting DetailMeshSize - increasing it to 22, it's in FirstEagles2/Flight/Flightengine.ini - to avoid objects like the buildings in towns having somewhat too close a draw distance, now they are drawn far away." Thanks, 33Lima...got it. This was a test, right? Had to download the Third Wire cat extractor, then had to find FlightEngine.ini hiding in FlightData.cat :o) I'm sure I'll have more questions but didn't want you guys to think you were wasting your time on me...lol All the input from everyone has been appreciated!

Hi Panama Red, I just installed your Realistic Sky Mod for First Eagles 2 and what a wonderful improvement! Thanks, Sky High, for the recomendations, as with my first two mods being Jan Tuma's terrains and Panama Red's Realistic Sky it is a quantum leap in appearance! 33Lima, now I understand your second install instructions for when I add Italy...it makes sense to me how it works and why to do it. Thank you! Cheers!

Ok, moved the Tuma terrains and now they are working. Had to add the Alternative Solid Objects Alpha files to get the structures to display correctly but now the Tuma terrains look great and I've got a mod working so hopefully will be easier from here out. Thanks for your patience in explaining this...I was starting to feel thick as a brick...lol

Thank you Panama Red and 33Lima, After reading the link and subsequent links above a light finally came on...I hope! I kept looking at that long path for the "mods" folder you kept talking about and kept thinking "No, I installed the game at the root of C:\" so therefore anything added by FE2 will be based off the root of C:\...WRONG!...lol So I finally looked where you kept telling me wondering why you guys were using such a deep path under the Users directory and then when I found it I realized it is hardwired into FE2...that's where it's going to be whether I like it or not...lol So that's where everything goes "mods" wise I assume. My Tuma terrains didn't work as I had installed them in the main game install C:\First Eagles 2\Terrains so off to move them now and hopefully get things moving. Thanks guys! P.S. I also saw the post that explains how to change the mods path in Options.ini but I think I'll leave it alone until I understand FE2 modding a little better :o)

OK, Jan Tuma's Seasonal Tiles installed. I stopped and installed the Vogesen terrain first, as it has two folders common to Jan's mod and I assumed Jan's mod might overwrite some Vogesen files which it did. So what I've got so far are the two folders from the Vogesen mod (Vogesen and wwiCambrai) placed in my Terrains folder, plus the Jan Tuma mod installed following that allowing Jan's mod to overwrite 3 files in the Vogesen folder. And I'll stop there until I know where to place the "Burgen am Rhein.msn" file from the Vogesen mod, and also the answer to this from the Vogesen readme: 1. Vogesen Terrain is now compatible with the Expansion Pack of First Eagles. You will enjoy now the terrain in all 4 seasons. You will face snow in the winter and green in the summer. If you dont have the expansion pack you should open file vogesen.ini and exchange line CatFile=..\wwiCambrai\wwiCambrai.cat with CatFile=..\wwiVerdun\wwiVerdun.cat Having FE2 how should I interpret the instructions above? Thanks everyone!

Hi 33Lima, Your post above leads me to my first question. I am also reading the forum to learn, but modding FE2 strikes me like modding IL-2 1946...its not something you master in one night. I have two highly modded installations of IL-2 1946 and I'm happily playing RoF and WOFF, so I'm in no hurry and view learning how to mod FE2 as a fun new project. So some basics on the rules: I have a stock installation of FE2 at the moment. I installed it at the root of C: It looks like this: C:/First Eagles 2 with sub-folders -->Core -->DX_redist -->Flight -->manual -->Menu -->Objects -->Terrains In an earlier post you wrote this: "Second Generation' Third Wire sims like FE2 have a different install process than earlier ones like FEG, mainly as the former installs mods outside of the program files folder (they go into a sort of parallel file folder set - the so-called 'mods' folder, under your username instead)." Based on my installation above, is this parallel folder set (the so-called "mods" folder) placed at the root of C: (ie: the same level as my First Eagles 2 folder, or as a sub-folder under my First Eagles 2 folder? Is this "mods" folder name user defined or does it need a specific name? If this folder name is user defined then for discussion purposes I'll call it FE2ModsFolder. Second question. I decided to practice by downloading and installing the Vogesen terrain (by Gepard) and the instructions made sense except for this one "2.) the file "Burgen am Rhein.msn" put into your missions folder" My stock installation doesn't have a missions folder. Is this "missions" folder in the parallel folder set you mention above (FE2ModsFolder). And if so is Gepard talking about FE2ModsFolder itself, or a sub-folder under FE2ModsFolder called missions? C:/First Eagles 2 -->Core -->DX_redist -->Flight -->manual -->Menu -->Objects -->Terrains -->FE2ModsFolder ------>Missions --------->Burgen am Rhein.msn or C:/First Eagles 2 -->Core -->DX_redist -->Flight -->manual -->Menu -->Objects -->Terrains C:/FE2ModsFolder --->Missions ------>Burgen am Rhein.msn or C:/FE2ModsFolder --->Burgen am Rhein.msn or something else entirely different? Thanks for your help as I get my mind around the directory structures that need to be used!

Thanks for all the great information everyone! I just purchased FE2. Won't be able to start digging in with modding it up until this coming weekend but you have given me a lot of good information to get started. In particular I'm looking forward to flying the Italian and Russion maps I've seen mentioned, as that's something different from what you can find in RoF or WOFF. I've also found some other good threads of information on how to start modding FE2. Are there some core mods I should do first on the western front before I start heading towards the Russian and Italian terrains and planes? I would rather begin my gameplay there, but if there is some housekeeping I need to do first before going Russian or Italian I won't mind. Thanks again!

Just a quick tip for MrGoTime, and then a question for everyone: Since you have now purchased the ROF Channel Edition give Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator (PWCG) a try. It is a free 3rd party mod that can be found in the RoF forum. You can use all the planes from the RoF Channel Edition package with PWCG and you will see a completely different AI than what you will see from the RoF Career-B. Unfortunately, from the get-go, RoF Career=B has had a terrible AI. Pat Wilson did something starting with version 15 of PWCG that made the RoF AI competitive with the WOFF AI. Not quite as good, but almost, and the PWCG fix puts the RoF Career-B to shame. This would go for anyone...if you haven't tried PWCG 15.0+ then you are missing a quantum leap in the quality of the RoF AI. Now for my question: I've never owned FE and have decided to give it a try...hard to resist all these planes I'm seeing that are not available in RoF or WOFF. And from reading this thread, it sounds like I can trade "Seasonal Change" in FEG for a better FPS in FE2. I like the idea of seasonal changes as I tend to like to play through long time periods. But how bad is the FPS hit vs FE2 if I were to go with FEG. I've got a farily strong system and would be willing to trade a little loss in FPS to get the seasonal change in FEG. Are we talking something like 35 FPS vs 40 or 45 FPS or is it a huge leap like going from 25 to 50 etc. I know this is hard to quantify, but just looking for someone who maybe has had both and what their experience was between the two. Thanks!