MKSheppard

This was a real project. 

Twin Grand Slams; object was to use it to destroy certain targets on the Japanese mainland that could not be destroyed by conventional bombing.

TK's big mistakes over the years in my humble opinion:

1.) Pedestrian DLC.

I...really am not rushing out to buy the following:

A-7H Corsair II (Greek)

F-4N Phantom (USN/USMC)

F-4K Phantom FG.1 Royal Navy

etc because they're all reskins of existing aircraft with maybe some minor 3D model work done if necessary to make them more accurate (maybe an antenna deleted or what).

If he had however done some unusual aircraft, such as the AJ Savage or F2H Banshee; I'd be screaming "TAKE MY MONEY NOW!".

Additionally, I kind of haven't played SF in a long time, because I'd just rather buy officially supported stuff, rather than go "hey, a new patch just came out; time to spend several hours correcting things in mods the new patch broke."

HINT: Red Fighter Packs containing about three models (MiG-15/17/19) per pack would sell like hotcakes.

YES, TAKE MY MONEY TK, SO I CAN PLAY OFFICIAL MiGs!

Wait, you're not doing that? Bah.

2.) Lack of Continued Innovation.

There's a reason I didn't buy SF:NA.

Sure, it had the F-14 and a bunch of 'modern' USN ships in it; but there wasn't any extension of the game engine into areas people had been screaming for since 2003, such as:

No radar bombing mode that could be used to simulate optical bombsights or stuff like the A-6's DIANE or the F-105's bombing system.

Air to Air missiles, strafing, and guided bombs kind of get boring after a while.

No actual terrain following radar, making it impossible to simulate a F-111 strike in North Vietnam.

Now, we don't need 100% accuracy, because we just need a 'generic' model for them that can be applied across different aircraft across different eras.

A simplified design would also be cheaper to code.

3.) Leaving Money On the Table.

This is a subset of 1; but TK kept on saying "no WW2", "no WW2", when WW2 is the biggest selling era for flight sims, ever.

WW2 is also big enough to support several games alone, meaning even more monetization, but he left all that on the table.

I just noticed and fixed another issue, this one pertaining to the Hunter57: if you want to have just 100 liter drop tanks on both the inboard and outboard pylons; you will have to use the hunter6 LOD. the Hunter9 LOD has nodes for 100 and 230, which means that it will always load 230 L even if 100L is specified.

The Hunter6 LOD has nodes for four 100L tanks, so that works.

Thanks for uploading your latest hunters! I've merged them into my superpack, and they've been an invaluable help in figuring out how to do the new drop tank system.

I have not only fixed old ones (tanks)

Speaking of tanks; I've been having problems trying to get specific fuel tanks to show up, like the FAA dark grey tanks for the GA.11 or the brown ones for Saudi Arabia's F.60s.

So I've gotten to play around with the hunters; and I'm finding a bug -- basically the FuelTankNodeName= is not defined in many of the ini files; causing the game to load up fuel tanks in addition to whatever you selected in loadout -- leading to occasional hard lockups of Windows 7

So, I was bored today, and decided to merge all the various Hawker Hunter conversions for SF2 into a single easy to install superpack (note, this is for SF2 merged install with WOI, etc; to take advantage of any loadout changes or cockpit changes TK has made for the stock Hunters).

Anyway, after several hours of work, I have a workable beta; and I've installed it once or twice to my merged addon folder; but I need some people to help check it over before I officially upload it to Combat Ace.

You can get it here

LINK

It's a 65~ MB 7-zip that unzips to about 1 GB installed.

Hangar Screen for Hunter60

Loading Screen for Hunter60

Rough readme is below

---------------------------------

Superpack put together by Ryan Crierie (Aka MKSheppard) for Combined Install of SF2 Games.

What it contains:

An integrated Install For:

Hunter F.1 by Spinners

Hunter F.2 by Spinners

Hunter F.4 by Spinners

Hunter F.5 by Spinners

Hunter F.6 by Spinners (integrated with Stock Third Wire)

Hunter F.9 (Stock TK with new hangar screens etc)

Hunter GA.11 by Nigel "ndicki" Dickinson

Hunter F.50 (Swedish J-34) for 1955 conversion by Paul

Hunter F.50 (Swedish J-34) for 1960 conversion by Paul

Hunter F.51 by Paulopanz (integrated with Stock Third Wire)

Hunter F.52 by Paolo

Hunter F.57 by Paolo

Hunter F.59 by Paolo (integrated with Stock Third Wire)

Hunter F.60 by Paolo

Hunter F.70 (Stock TK with new hangar screens etc and made flyable)

Hunter F.71 by Paolo

Hunter F.73 (Stock TK with new hangar screens etc and made flyable)

Hunter F.74 by Paolo

Total size is about 1 GB unzipped.

I've done hangar and loading screens for all of them, and I've made some edits to bring them into compliance with TK folder naming conventions; e.g. instead of Hunter_F1, the folder and files are Hunter1.

The J-34 installation instead of being two folders labelled:

J-34 Hunter

and

J-34HUNTER

is now

Hunter50_55

and

Hunter50_60

After their dates of introduction.

I also made the decals for Spinners' hunter mods fit in better, by having them go into folders labelled Hunter1, Hunter2, etc in the Decal folder; rather than just being dumped into the main Decal Folder.

This is a very awesome little utility; so awesome indeed, I'm going to mirror it on my website, to provide a second d/l site for it, for those who can't wait until the next day to download it (you hit your download limit fast on CA, with so much awesome stuff).

From the foreword for “ABM: An Evaluation of the Decision to Deploy an Antiballistic Missile Systemâ€, printed by Signet in 1969, written by Ted Kennady, who led the effort to defund SAFEGUARD after it was operational for one day.

Let us, therefore, choose $20 billion as a likely (if low) figure for the completed Safeguard system, taking $19.5 billion as the median between $18 to $21 billion, and adding only $500 million for the other costs. What could this $20 billion mean for the advancement of security and justice here in the United States? How many young people could be saved who now go into the streets to commit violence? How many health centers could be built for those who now suffer from disease? Could we not, with this sum, clean up all our rivers and the air above all our cities? Could we not raise an entire generation of children with the advantages of a Headstart program?

 

Could we not, in sum, use the savings to offer new hope to those who have lost hope in the America of our dreams?

 

When our country is under attack, all of these expenditures give way to the protection of the national security. But when, as today, the debate is over a weapons system whose addition to our security is questionable, this money should be used for programs of security and progress here at home.

 

We in the Congress have a number of obligations as we vote on the Administration’s request for funds to deploy Safeguard. We have obligations to our national security and safety; to world peace and stability; and to the shape of the world we pass to the next generation. We must also seek to avoid the horror of nuclear war; to reduce waste in the use of federal funds; and to establish a sound set of priorities for available federal funds. It is against all these standards that we must place the request for funds to deploy the Safeguard ABM system. It is our responsibility to see that the people we represent are not deprived of their tax money and of the opportunity to meet their own pressing problems, in order to purchase a defense capability they do not need.

Speaking of A-Bombs; we can put in FAT MAN and LITTLE BOY; though they only become available for OLYMPIC landings. Because if the initial two A-Bombings didn't cause the japanese to fold; we'd have held them in reserve for OLYMPIC landings; to hit airfields, etc in the vinicity of landing beaches.

In Two Weeks

I can do the basic 3d modelling, but I'll need someone to help me with the texturing and layout of the data ini for SFP; since I'm not very good at those.

Also, I just aquired Tlai Enterprise's WWII Deck Lettering:

; so we don't have to make 40 individual skins for all the CVEs in the theater -- it will however require a separate WWII/Korea Install, because I don't think you can have two types of CV Deck Numbers (WWII style and Modern) in one install.

Most, if not all those jets are probably just outside the 'year range' for PTO:46.

Not really. Remember, that in September 1945, with VJ Day occuring, both the USN and USAF in addition to cancelling tens of thousands of planned aircraft, also put a hold on R&D spending and new aircraft procurement for the immediate post-war years -- remember that while the first XP-84 was ready in December 1945; it wasn't until the summer of 1947 that the first actual Thunderjets, P-84Bs began to be delivered.

This is a result of going from $556.9 Billion DoD Budget in 1946 to just $52 million in 1947. It wasn't until the Korean war that US military spending really began to revive.

Operational start year is STILL 1947, although if we get a Midway CVB, they MIGHT have flown some operational sorties against the Home Islands.

USS Midway commissioned 10 September 1945; so if we give three months to "shake down", she becomes available to the USN for offensive operations from very late December 1945/ Early January 1946.

I think I created a Kamikazi!

Okay, make a copy of what plane you want to turn into a kamikazi, like for example

D3A1 into D3A1_Kamikazi

and in the D3A1_Kamikazi_DATA.ini

add

[DiveBombAI]

RollInRange=6000.0

RollInAlt=4000.0

PullOutRange=1.0

PullOutAlt=1.0

ReleaseAlt=1.0

SecondPassRange=4000.0

SecondPassAlt=1600.0

ReleaseCount=12

ReleaseInterval=0.5

ChanceDefensiveTurn=0

ChanceBreakTurn=0

ChanceHardTurn=0

ChanceTurnDirection=0

ChanceContinue=100

 

[LevelBombAI]

PullOutRange=1.0

PullOutAlt=1.0

ReleaseAlt=1.0

SecondPassRange=4000.0

SecondPassAlt=1500.0

ReleaseCount=4

ReleaseInterval=0.5

So when I ordered my wingman in a test to attack a carrier, this is what occured:

Course, some tweeking is needed to get the AI right, but this approach has many benefits -- for one, you can get credit for destroying Kamikazis in the campaign, and you can program in some limited evasive manouvers for the Kamikazi.

Of course, when you're doing the ini tweeks; don't forget to remove the rear gunners. I'm not sure, but Kamikazis didn't have them, instead relying on Zero Escort.

By the way, a 1946 scenario is starting to look ever more interesting; we could have the following flying:

FD/FH Phantom

FJ-1 Fury

F6U-1 Pirate

P-80 Shooting Star

off carriers

Several P-80A Shooting Stars were transferred to the United States Navy beginning 29 June 1945, retaining their P-80 designations. At Naval Air Station Patuxent River, one Navy P-80 was modified (with required add-ons, such as a tail hook) and loaded aboard the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt at Norfolk, Virginia, on 31 October 1946. The following day the aircraft made four deck-run takeoffs and two catapult launches, with five arrested landings, flown by Marine Major Marion Carl. A second series of trials was held 11 November.

Try THREE:

2462 km map with the same relocation of the marianas to save room; deletion of taiwan and northern Hokkadio weighing in at

46 MB HFD

17 MB TFD

Get the 2.4 MB ZIP HERE

Okay, here's TRY TWO:

3,300 km map, weighing in at:

83 MB HFD

31 MB TFD

You can see how I saved space by relocating the Marianas to somewhere between Okiwana and Iwo Jima.

Link to 7 MB ZIP

1.) Will there be a random mission generator? In that you tell the game that you want an infantry or armor battle, and it goes through installed mods and creates one for you?

Okay, rebuilt it; and made sure everything was to scale. Guam is 49-50~ km long; good enough for our purposes.

The Bitmap Scale is 2 pixels per 1 km; so if you wanted to create a subsetted map 1,000 square km in size, you'd just crop it to 2,000 x 2,000 pixels.

Right now; this map is 5450 km from the Marianas to Sakhalin; the HFD is 226 MB, while the TFD is 85~ MB

Thank god these things zip up pretty well.

You can download the map height BMP, the HFD, etc from HERE

15 MB... and unzips to 425 MB!!!

I suppose it's possible to kick up the screen a little; so that we can have Hokkadio; as you know, Stalin was planning to invade the place after he'd taken Sakhalin...

OOH OOOH OOH. Wrenchie! We could modify this terrain set for the Japan War, between North Japan (Communsit) and South Japan (US), as well as for the Real World Korean War; allowing B-29s etc to be based in Japan, etc.

And the bitmap used for importation

Japan_46_Bitmap.zip

Settings were:

N45

E116 (upper corner of map)

4100 km size map.

2000 m tile resolution

500m height resolution

100% Map Scale

110% Height Scale

Here are the campaign select screens for AOTP:1946

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USN

Prelude to Olympic

SEP. 1, '45

The fast carriers will attack Japan and spend the next two months pounding the invasion areas so the GIs don't get Massacred. Our main targets will be air-fields and fortifications on Kyushu. Enemy opposition will be intense.

Drive on the Sendai Line

Nov 1, '45

The ground troops will be going ashore November 1. Once they establish a beachhead, they will drive inland and capture Miyazaki and Sendai. The fighting will be over rough terrain and in bad weather, so it will not be a piece of cake. The GIs will depend on us for close air support.

Operation Coronet

Mar 1, '46

With Kyushu secured, the high command is proceeding with the invasion of Honshu. The losses will be heavy, so we must support the guys on the beach. After a beachhead has been captured, we're going to drive on Tokyo and Yokohama.

- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

USAAF

Olympic Warm-up

SEP. 1, '45

The USAAF squadrons on Okinawa will fly support far the troops about to go ashore on Kyushu. Our job is to bomb anything of military value approaching the beachheads. We will also be flying patrols in order to intercept and destroy whatever air resistance you encounter.

Bloody Kyushu

NOV. 2, '45

The invasion of Kyushu is scheduled for November 1. We're expecting heavy losses and fanatic resistance. Our job is to sweep the skies of enemy planes. We also must support the GIs whenever possible with ground attack sorties

The Last Invasion: Coronet

MAR. 1, '46

The invasion of Honshu has been delayed several weeks by weather. That will give us an extra few days to wear dawn the Japanese defenders. We will pound the beaches, the airfields, and the supply bases around Tokyo. Once the troops are ashore we will block aerial attacks on the beachhead.

- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

IJN

Carnage off Kyushu

OCT. 1, '45

In the ensuing weeks, a Yankee invasion of Kyushu is expected. The Air Forces will try and stop the attackers at the water's edge by destroying their carrier support, and their assault ships. Our Special Attack Corps will devastate the enemy invasion fleet, and we will achieve a decisive victory!

Containing the Beachhead

NOV. 2, '45

The Americans have established a beachhead on Kyushu. The next few weeks will be decisive. We must crush the invaders before they can gain more strength and push north towards Miyazaki. Our targets will be the transports and aircraft carriers lying off shore.

The Defense of the Kanto Plain

MAR 1, '46

The enemy will soon be landing near Tokyo Bay. We must stop their invasion at all costs. The capital of the Empire cannot be allowed to fall into American hands. As soon as the American fleet is spotted, we will throw our remaining aircraft at it in a massive kamikaze effort. Your job will be to make sure the special attack forces get through to their targets.

Wrench, have you thought about this kind of map? It's about 3,500 km each side; and gives you a fairly good stretch of area to fight in.

It allows many possible things; for example, US Army Missile sites in South Korea can launch JB-2 Loons (V-1s) at Japan; B-29s can take off from the Marianas, it covers all of Okiwana; and even the phillipines and taiwan, allowing for some additional missions, like for example; you could use this map and file to create a short 7-10 day campaign just for the USN dealing with the reduction of Formosa as a Japanese Air base, in preparation for OLYMPIC.