alexis99

No it's not that. I think it's in the file that decides how many lines of text you get. MESSAGESYSTEMS.INI Which you extract from the Flight Cat, and place in the Flight Folder. Let me know if you figure out a nice colour scheme.

Golly gosh, I've already adjusted the CVN-68. Maybe I adjusted the wrong cat. I thought I was always on Cat 1, starboard forward. Must re-check now. Thanks guys.

I'm trying to find out where the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) is hiding in the users/saved games/etc/etc/North Atlantic/Objects/Ground objects folder. I can only find the CVA-63 and the CVN-68. I'd just like to adjust Cat one so it doesn't hurl me out at 195 Kts on the way to the moon. I like around 4.0 units for comfort. I've got the CVA-63 and CVN-68 adjusted, but I can't find "The Ike".

I worked on the F-8E 66 Crusader. Look what it's got. Three entries for AOA INDEXER [AoAIndexerSlow] Type=ANGLE_OF_ATTACK_INDEXER NodeName=indexer_slow MovementType=LIGHT //Slow (13.75 - 30.00) Set[01].Value=7.48 Set[02].Value=35.25 [AoAIndexerOnSpeed] Type=ANGLE_OF_ATTACK_INDEXER NodeName=indexer_on_speed MovementType=LIGHT //OnSpeed (12.25 - 14.25) Set[01].Value=6.33 Set[02].Value=7.86 [AoAIndexerFast] Type=ANGLE_OF_ATTACK_INDEXER NodeName=indexer_fast MovementType=LIGHT //Fast (0.0 - 12.75) Set[01].Value=-5.00 Set[02].Value=6.71 In each section there's a struck out entry of the AOA that is being emulated, and some other figures whose units are unknown. Those unknown units are therefore the ones I should adjust. The F-8E has an approach speed of around 134-145 kts. The AOA prefers me to be at the lower end, but that's where I'm buffeting. Main tank is still full, only transfers used, so I should be at the higher end. To fix this, I needed to change the values of the OnSpeed and Fast Indexers. I experimented and adjusted the red values as follows [AoAIndexerOnSpeed] Set[01].Value=5.00 Set[02].Value=7.86 [AoAIndexerFast] Set[01].Value=-5.00 Set[02].Value=5.30 This gets me an approach speed of around 142 Kts, with the fpm on the tarmac, but still within the HUD glass, and the Indexer showing the yellow circle. No buffeting, nice smooth touchdown.

Does anyone know how to adjust the figures for the AOA indexer in the data.ini? I have a feeling that for some aircraft, the expected AOA is too high. So when you slow down enough to get the AOA on centre circle, the aircraft is buffeting rather strongly. It seems like you are ready to stall. Consequently, you land faster than the AOA would like and get the red down arrow. I've been ignoring the AOA since year dot, but I'm thinking that it just needs adjusting. So how do you aircraft builders work out your AOA figures?

Me and an Ensign were flying F-14s the other day. I locked a target and ordered him to fire. He launched 4 Phoenix, hit 3, and killed 2. He then fired a Sparrow and missed. The enemy were getting close, so I Sparrowed one and got a kill and I told him to take the other MiG , which he Sidewindered twice to get the kill. So not all Ensigns are dumb. But in another F-14 mission, I locked a target and told my wingman to attack it. And he said "No joy on your target. I ploughed on a little further to make sure his Phoenix was easily in range, and again ordered him to attack. Again he said "No joy". So (you'll like this), I ordered him to "Break". Now, I've been watching an outside view of what the wingman does when you tell him to break, and what he does is peel off left and upwards, creating separation from you. As he drifted higher, I told him "Attack my Target" and got an immediate "Roger that. Got you target". And he fired. I think the wingmen are clever enough to know that if they're in close formation, they shouldn't be firing off missiles just behind your left ear. I'm just offering this as more food for thought. I fly quite a bit in the F-8 Crusader in Vietnam carrying AIM-9Cs. Normal practise is to lock a target for the wingman, tell him to attack; lock one for me and fire; and tell the flight to Attack Air. Usually gets good first pass kills. On this particular mission everyone's missile went stupid. So I ordered break and tried to mop up. What had happened was that we were too high above the MiGs, and the AIM-9C has no lookdown capability; the terrain just confuses it. Coincidence, or good game modelling? PS: I got DID's TAW working on Win XP thanks to some fan mods. But the graphics were terribly prehistoric. Once you've done SF2 on 1920x1080 HD, it's hard to go back.

No, he says "Unable" if I ask him to attack a target that either I or another aircraft in the flight is already attacking. He says "Unable" if he is facing the wrong way, or too far away to sight the target I want him to attack. He says "Unable" if I ask him to drop tanks that he's already dropped. He says "Unable" if he has no missiles, because he is unable to attack. You just confirmed that. I did learn something. I learnt that the "Break" command is not good to use. Because it results in low ranks doing nothing. However the targeting commands results in everyone firing something. Did you see that? I wrote NOTE THAT THEY ALL ENGAGED AND FIRED. That's because I told them to. No point in commanding a flight if you don't give them orders. That's something you "wanna learn". And yes, lower ranks are not as good as higher ranks. Obviously. And one other point, it depends on what aircraft you are flying. Since I put the AIRocketAttack data in the F-15A, I am regularly getting full involvement of aircraft in attacks.

This is what happened in the F-8E 66 mission. I had six aircraft for the first time ever! I have radio commands tied to single keys for wingman and flight, and had to go through the Tab menu for the 2nd flight. Nuisance factor when manouevring. I used my normal command pattern, designating a target for my wingman, then Attack Air Targets for flight 1 and flight 2. 4 out of 4 kills Me 2x AIM-9C 2 kills Ensign AIM-9C, AIM-9D 0 kills LtJg 20 cannon 0 kill; AIM-9D 1 kill; AIM-9C 1 kill. Ensign AIM-9C no kill Lt Cannon 16 no kill; 2x AIM-9C no kill Ensign AIM-9C, AIM-9D no kills. NOTE THAT THEY ALL ENGAGED AND FIRED I reflew the mission with the "Break" command only. 4 out of 4 kills Me 3x AIM-9C, 2 hits 1 kill (Because I ended up firing at aircraft that had already been targeted); AIM-9D 1 kill Ensign no weapon Lt Jg Cannon 20 1 kill (outstanding) Ensign no weapon Lt AIM-9C 1 kill Ensign no weapon. So using "Break" as you say is useless in SF2. Three pilots didn't engage and all were Ensigns which supports your rank theory. I also ended up wasting two missiles on aircraft that were already targeted, because I wasn't in control of who engaged who. Giving normal attack commands, all pilots engaged, but only myself and the LtJg got kills. There was no targeting of same aircraft by more than one pilot.

I always thought the break command was to get your team-mate to make a sudden turn to avoid an enemy on his tail. I need to check that. Normally I wouldn't expect any aircraft in my flight to start missiling enemy aircraft until I had commanded them to do so. If they just started firing sparrows will-nilly, we could all end up firing missiles at the same aircraft. An AMRAAM attack is a useful illustration. I lock a target on the radar and fire a a missile. Since the AMRAAM is F&F, I can then lock another target and order my wingman to attack that target. Sometimes I have inadvertantly locked the same target a second time. At that point my wingman says "Unable" or "Unable to comply". Just like he does if you tell him to drop his tanks and he already has. The wingman is telling me that there's already a missile streaking towards that target and it would be wasteful of him to fire another missile at that target. So I lock a different target, tell him to "Attack my Target", and he does. Then I tell the flight (3&4) to "Attack Air Targets" or I lock another target and command "Attack my Target", which is a new command for the flight in SF2. After the first missiles have hit, they usually go looking around for something else to shoot down. Unfortunately, I can't check with SF1, because my Win XP computer died, so I have had to migrate to Win 10 and SF2. I agree that there is some improvement in AI behaviour in a campaign. I've done F-8E escort missions in a Nam campaign where I've been lucky to get one kill, because the rest of my flight and the other sections up there have annihilated the enemy aircraft whilst I've been trying to lock up a second target. When your radar screen is full of blips, it's impossible to tell friend from enemy without locking, and if you lock a friendly, you then have to unlock, wait for the radar to repaint and then take a guess at another blip. So I'm going to take a flight of F-8Es up in Nam, carrying Radar-guided AIM-9Cs in a single mission and make a note of the rank of the pilots and their kill success. On locking a target, I will hand it to the wingman with the "Attack My" Target command, lock a second target for myself and then order the rest of the flight to "Attack Air Targets". And we'll see what occurs. And I'll see what the "Break" command does. Lots of interesting information that you have come up with. Thank you

I haven't been noting the rank. You might have something there. I've never left it to my wingman to initiate an attack. I always lock up a target and tell him to "Attack my Target". Otherwise, as you say, totally oblivious. I then lock up another target and tell the Flight, i.e 3&4 to attack my target, which is a new command in SF2. They do attack, with varying degrees of success. If in doubt I tell the Flight to attack Air targets. Number 4 usually expends no ammunition, as you have noticed. I have never left them to their own devices, I always give them an attack instruction. Since 4 is under the command of 3, that may be why he does nothing, because I can't directly command him. It might be the aircraft I've just flown the F-14A native. Told my wingman to attack a specified target. He salvoed the flight of four Migs with a Phoenix each and downed the lot. I had to tote back four Phoenix for a heavy landing. Then I took up an F-15A, downloaded from this site. Told my wingman to attack a target. He messed around until the MiGs were so close I had to use sidewinders. So I took a look at the F-14A data. It has an entry for AIRocketAttack, but F-14s don't carry rockets. Maybe it works for AA missiles, thought I. So I stole that entry and put it in the F-15A data file. Suddenly my wingman is Rambo. Coincidence? Don't know. Needs more testing.

The A-7E was AG. Today I did an AA with the F-14 82 Tomcat downloaded from this site. I had a flight of four in the Libya map. I had 6x Phoenix, 2 and 3 had 4x Phoenix; 4 just had Sparrows. I was directed to the Tupolev flight of six, and picked them up in trail between 130 and 160 miles. When I got them on the 100 range radar, I tagged the lead aircraft for number 3, and tagged the fourth aircraft for my wingman. That is I pressed the "Attack my Target" key for the flight and then the wingman. I counted them calling Fox 3 five times, then I turned away to deal with four MiGs heading for the Hawkeye aircraft. I fired four Phoenix at them using the salvo method and downed them. Then I turned back to the rest of the flight and saw one Tupolev still intact. So I downed him. I play everything through North Atlantic. Landed at 130 kts. AOA spot on.

I tell you what, 2, 3 and 4 always go for the enemy aircraft though and are often successful. Especially the modern aircraft with missiles. Nam era, not so successful with only a bullet load, but the F-8E sidewinder load gets some good kills for them. I've just done a runway strike in an A-7E Corsair in Nam. I gave my wingman two Shrikes and two Standard Arms. He fired all four and got four kills.

A-7E Corsair II. I'm giving it 75% fuel for the mission because it uses fuel sparingly, and I can carry 24x500 lb bombs. I'm returning with two sidewinders and Transfer tanks are nearly to zero, with Main full. That should be around 50% fuel, or less. Natops says I should be landing at 132 knots. I'm coming in at 144, with the pipper on deck ahead of the wires. If I slow to 140, the pipper is going to leave the HUD and I'm already buffeting a bit. So I stay around 144. AOA shows red arrow. I'm too fast So the flight model is not perfectly aligned with Natops, and I'm not going to get the AOA indexer liking what I'm doing. But I'm thinking that I should drop the AOA requirement so that I get a yellow circle at 144. Or maybe it's the early buffet that is wrong???

Sorry, but that's a very difficult question. I'm a flitter. I've been flitting between F/A-18, F-14, A-6A, A-7E, F-8E, F-15A all week. Even I can't remember where I might have noticed a problem. I've upped my game to make sure I fly all way points, no jumping, so that I burn fuel correctly and arrive at base with a correct weight for placing the fpm where it should be on deck or on the tarmac. A-7E was a bit of a problem because it carries lots of fuel and only sips at it, so I dropped to 50% fuel and am returning with a decent amount to land by the book. I was just thinking that if I noticed a buffet when all the other ducks were in a row, then maybe the AOA indexer needed a little help. I'll let you know which aircraft I adjust, if I do. Thanks

Are those units in the cockpit.ini for AOA lights actually degrees? Brilliant. Thank you.

Sorry to hear about your illness, Ully.

I was wondering about this too. See, in North Atlantic, they want you to attack the Russian fleet, and you are given a main target of a particular ship. Your AGM-84A Harpoon has a range of 49.7 miles, but your main target doesn't show up until about 10 miles away, by which time they are pounding you with their missiles. The AGM-84E SLAM has a range of 74 miles, which should be even better if you could only see the Russian ships at that range. I'll try guuruu's trick for the Russian ships and see if I can get them to show up at Harpoon range.

Thanks for explaining that.

I bought the games last year. Starting with North Atlantic, Vietnam, then SF2. My understanding was that they were fully patched out of the box. So I've not sought out any extra patches. North Atlantic is dated July 2013 on the main screen, and that's the one I fly all the others from

I’ve been thinking a lot about fuel usage and how remaining fuel affects your landing speed. What have I been doing wrong? I’ve been using normal fuel usage which reduces your fuel usage by half as much as it should. I should be using hard fuel usage. I’ve been jumping to the next encounter after the mission is complete, in order to get me back to the airfield/carrier quickly. Wrong. Fuel doesn’t burn during the jump. It remains the same after the jump as before. I should be flying waypoints, albeit at 8 times game speed and that way the fuel will burn. There is no fuel dump feature, so I’m also thinking it might be better to fill 50% internal tanks, but carry a drop tank. Then depending on fuel status, dumping the drop tank earlier than you need to. I did a close Air Support mission in the Canadian CF-18 last night. I blew up one tank with a maverick and was told mission complete. Now I’m lugging back a load of unused mavericks and anti-tank clusters with no other targets to use them on. So, much as it hurts, I have to Jettison them to get my weight down. To work out your landing speed on the CF- 18, you are supposed to start with a base of 120 kts and add 3 kts per 1,000 lb of fuel. (Source: Sting of the Hornet by David L Bashow). So that’s a 150 kts landing speed, which just about works, so the flight model is exceedingly accurate. Need to up my game and do some flight tests. Incidentally I noticed on the A-7E Corsair II that at hard fuel setting, on a normal Campaign hop, I don't even get to touch the main tank. The T needle winds down but never to zero, so I'm landing with full main tanks. That's where a fuel dump feature would be useful. So instead, I'm experimenting with 50% fuel in tanks.

Anyway back to the AI behaviour: I had a flight of four F/A-18s loaded with Maverick Fs on a Close Air support Mission. As we’re heading to the first target, I tell both Wingman and Flight One to Rejoin. They are now in formation and the first target is counting down to AGM-65F range. As soon as the range is correct I order the Wingman to attack my target. I then snap to a second target and tell Flight One to attack my target. As I continue cruising in, I watch and see two missiles cream in and hit the assigned targets. Excellent. I turn away from the tanks and go for a second pass. I mark a target and ask my Wingman to attack it. I then tell Flight One to attack ground, which should get both pilots involved. Then I select my own target, fire the AGM-65F at the correct range and get a kill. I then check the exterior views of all aircraft. Wingman has only fired the first Maverick; Pilot 3 has only fired the first Maverick.; Pilot 4 hasn’t fired anything. So I redesignate for the Wingman and ask 3 and 4 to attack ground. I then watch their behaviour. They fly off, turn round, head for the target, swoop down, don’t fire, get real close and then swoop up and fly off to turn round and fail again. I left them there and flew back to the carrier. Hoped they’d run out of fuel and crash. Am I lacking a patch or something? Back in Nam, my A-7E Corsair II wingman is an enigma. He has no idea how to use Mavericks or Walleyes, but by golly he’s a whiz with Shrikes and Standard Arms. I’ve sometimes noticed him veering off on his own because he’s sniffed out some pesky radar, and it’s hell’s own job to get him to rejoin. That's the kind of Wingman I like - one with initiative.

I always used to fly the A-6 in Nam, and completely ignored the A-7 Corsair and F-8E Crusader. Then, being a bit jaded, I took a look at the Corsair, and thought the cockpit looked cool. I then tried the Crusader, and that had a cool cockpit too. What solidified it for me was reading about the radar controlled Aim-9C and getting it to work. That was back in SF1. Now in SF2 the A-7 and F-8E are firm favourites.

TID shows what it's supposed to do. Nothing changed there. Subsequently I have repositioned the Cockpit OFFSET and VIEW ANGLE figures so that I have a slightly wider view that encompasses the HUD and the newly-positionedTID. This is also beneficial, because the fpm remains in the HUD when you are coming into land at the correct speed and correct AOA index. How anyone lands on a carrier without the fpm in view, I have no idea. Unless you're cheating AOA and crashing in at high speed

It's a longway lookdown to the radar in the F-14, and I really got bored with the way you plough grooves in the sky, target four Phoenix missiles, get four kills, plough back to the carrier and land. However, I solved both problems with a cool trick. By accident. I dumped the F14.dll and went back to 70.dll in the F-14A.ini. Now I can hand off targets to my wingman, and I can individually target with a Phoenix up the spout, whilst getting target info. Supercool bit of luck - now the radar is where the eye-candy VDI used to be. Never saw the point of the VDI if you have a HUD. So now I can shortway look down to the radar, and still see out the HUD. That's a bingo! I just had to extend the TrackRange to 100 from 90 in the Avionics file. Anyway, works for me.

The F-14A NATOPS manual quotes 16,200 lbs of internal fuel in the F-14A. That's fuselage and wing tanks. The data.ini of TK's SF2 F-14 has entries showing 7348.3 UNITS of internal fuel. Again fuselage and wing. If you convert 16,200 lbs into kilos, you get 7348.19, almost the exact figure that TK uses for his internal fuel entry. So TK uses kilos for fuel entries QED