I need your input and I am including some background about the Guadalcanal missions

[bobhegf]

I have completed the Cactus missions.I have tried to stick to as much stock infrastructure as possible.If this computer doesn`t blow up first,I have lost the sound on it twice this week.I am going to try to upload them shortly,I hope within the next two weeks or so if possible.The missions were built on my old pc running win98se so I was not able to put in one of the most importent parts of why we were so effective in winning the real campain, which was weather.You also have to consider the fact that we were flying an aircraft that couldn`t out climb or out turn,out run and in many cases out dive the zero and the fact we were using pilots just out of flight school it is a wonder we were able to take controll of the air around Guadalcanal at all.Infact most of our Marine pilots had no carrier training and less than 10 hours in an F4F if that.VMF-223,VMSB 232 along with VMF-224,part of VF-212, VMSB-233 and VF-5 a Navy fighter squadron that also flew durring this time period lived a life filled with enemy snipers, being shot at when they tookoff ,landed while they were on the ground as well air comba and being shelled at night ,along with all that there were insects such as mosquitoes,leeches,chiggers snakes and flesh eating ants.They also had to deal with dieseases such as typhus,dyesentery,malaria and festering cuts.This dosen`t include the rain dust and dirt and not having the repare crews,parts needed to work on the planes and the food was a huge problem as well.The enemy came over durring the day almost every day about noon.The air defence of Henderson Field was assigned to the Marines of VMF-223, VMF-224 part of VMF-212 and VF-5.Taking out the enemy ships bring in supplies was up to VMSB 232 flight-300 and VMSB-233.Out of the 19 VMF-223 pilots that landed only 10 walked off the field of battle.Of the 12 SBD crews that landed in VMSB 232 only one man walked of the field of battle, the CO.I have tried to put you there and give you some idea about what it was like through thies missions.Under the conditions I was working with it was hard to do.

NOW, that you have some back ground about what it was really like for thies and other pilots I need your input on how to set things up.This is what I have done inorder to make it as esay as I can for the setup.

1.I stuck to the stock infrastructure objects as much as possible.Getting othe objects is easy because they are here at SOH.
2. The problem is this and that is installing the scenery and runways.Durring the the process you are going to have to remove the stock Infrastructure objects and and the stock runways.You are also going to have to use my airbase.dat file in place of the stock airbase.dat file.
3.Inorder to do this the 1st thing you will need to do is to go to you main CFS2 folder and locate the CFS2 config file.In it you will need to go to the bottem of the [PREF] part and type in UseGSL=empty.gsl This takes out all the stock infrstructure objects.
4.Inorder to takeout all the stock runways you will need to make a folder called all runways.You will then need to go to the scenedb folder open it and locate the runway folder. Open that folder and in it you will see a scenery folder and texture folder.Open the scenery folder only and there you will see a file labled allrunways.Take this file only and put it into folder you made and put that folder in this folder.That way you can save the file so if you want to put the stock runways back later you can.
5.The last part of this is replacing the airbase.dat file with mine inorder to get the missions to work.Don`t delete the orginal just put it into a folder anb save it . you nay want to use it later for other missions .

NOW, this is where I need your input. Are thies instructions to complicated for the new people and if so how can I make it so that they to can fly the missions?

[bearcat241]

Bob, as you well know, these complex changes will affect all other installed missions and camps. Reading your overview, this is way too much work for playing one campaign, then having to reverse all of this in order to go back to playing other camps and single missions. Advanced users may be willing and able, but you're gonna get a lot of negative feedback and ongoing installation questions from noobs which will affect the popularity of your work, so you'll have to count the cost before you commit.

It might be easier for some to just create a new permanent, stand-alone CFS2 installation -- like a Solomons campaign add-on -- incorporating your changes. This will eliminate the need to constantly switch and edit files between your mods and the stock setup.

[bobhegf]

I can see that up to this point there is not much interest in thies missions. I had expected a few more comments than I have received up to now.I do want to thank Bearcat241 for his.

[Pips]

Luv the idea of another Pacific campaign, they are after all the only ones I'm interested in. And I've been watching and reading your progress reports with great interest Bob. The work you are putting in is excellent. :)

However I have to say that what you are suggesting for playing the campaign leaves me cold. I'm not a great lover of modifying my .cgf file, or anything else for that matter. Partly because I often screw things up, and partly because doing mods just isn't my cup of tea. In fact I hate having to do anything other than simply load the campaign and fly. I do d/load planes if required, but that's about it for me. And even that I'm very choosy of, as too many new aircraft puts me over the 100 limit.

I don't know if I'm typical or not, it's just how I feel.

[Captain Kurt]

Bob,

Instead of using a gsl replacement, have you considered using fssc to build new airbases and building exclude files to hide the existing ones that you are replacing? Then you only need to activate a folder with these files in it as new scenery and add or modify the airbases information in the airbases.dat file. which can be done with cut and paste.

That works and it only effects the area that your campaign takes place in.

[Cody Coyote]

I think you are asking an awful lot of the player, especially noobs who may not be comfortable making too many modifications. You're tampering with some pretty serious CFS2 files here and a mistake without an adequate backup will cause headaches.

Personally, I will do a separate install just to try the campaign rather then make these modification to my already heavily tweaked version of the sim. I doubt that I'll keep a dedicated install, but I'll try it once just to see what you've been working on all these years.

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi Bob.

The best way would be to tell the end-users to copy the original "Combat Flight Simulator 2" folder and rename it as "CFS2 Cactus",

Then you can make a zip file of all the needed changes ( including the right directories ), and just have them unzip it into "CFS2 Cactus". A Readme file that credits the authors of the freeware planes, etc... should be good enough to cover that problem, and maybe give links to those files so they're status can be verified. Then upload the zip to the Outhouse Library.

That way all users will have an exact setup of the campaign. And they can easily delete the whole works if they don't want it when they're done.

I don't see a problem with zipping the addons, if they are free and already available at the Outhouse, and you list the library links, and the zip is also at the Outhouse. That would fall under implicit permission to gather those files. If you are uncomfortable with that, then just get everyone's permission to include their works in your zipped campaign... but that seems unnecessary to me.

Dick

[bobhegf]

As far as the number of missions to be flown there are only 24.You are a Navy pilot with the rank of ens.attached to VMF-223.While you are with VMF-223 you will fly 24 combat missions.As for rank you are the same as a Marine 2LT.This means that you will be flying as a wingman to an AI or as the odd plane in a flight.You will have to fly formation as well as fight.The missions for the most part are about the same. You will takeoff join up in formation, climb to between 20 and 30000ft and dive on the enemy bombers while trying to get a hit and staying away as much as possible from the Zero escort.The rally point is Savo Island but that is also where alot of the air to air combat takes place so you need to watch out for you six.Going back to base is no fun eather because you can be jumped at anytime.Now thies missions are almost the same but that is the way it was for real durring this time period for VMF-223.To find out just how good you are don`t use any aids, such as the tac display lables or the cone or the flight map.If you are alone find your own way home.I checked the real weather at guadalcanal and founf the visability was about 6 miles up to around 10000ft with a cloude base of about 3500ft topping out at around 8 to 9000ft.The temp was around 90 to 95.This being said along with everything else do you want me to upload thies missions or should I start work on somthing else.

[bobhegf]

I think I have come up with a way to solve the problems.I like the missions the way they are.I will brake down the airbase data file to show what mods I made inorde to get the AI to takeoff and land in the same direction.Thies airbase data files are designed to roll 16 Ai aircraft out at one time.I am going to include all the SDKs so you can using FSSC go and if you like use the exclude switch or do it the way I did.When I have uploaded the missions D/l the program and study what I have done.You fellows are giving me alot of good ideas so keep it comming.

[Captain Kurt]

BOB,

By all means, upload the campaign. In the end, the individual player will decide to use it or not. In my case, I will probably use fssc to place the airfields so that I could add the campaign in with my existing Pacific - Navy and Marines CFS2 game which is already set up with favorites.

But I look forward to seeing it.:jump:

[P51FAN]

By all means, upload the campaign. In the end, the individual player will decide to use it or not. In my case, I will probably use fssc to place the airfields so that I could add the campaign in with my existing Pacific - Navy and Marines CFS2 game which is already set up with favorites.

But I look forward to seeing it.:jump:

I agree! I just tried your training missions, and I am enjoying them immensely.

[bobhegf]

Well I just flew the 1st mission flown on Aug 30 42 and I ended up SIM. KIA.I wanted to make thies missionsas close as possible to what really happened with in the context of CFS2 and the AI Zero hard to hit and I think I did it.I have been testing the missions and I haven`t been able to get past Sept 8 42 yet with out getting sim killed.I think I out did myself.

[Jagdflieger]

Bob,

Remember that the AI never seem to run out of ammo or gas.

[bobhegf]

Jag, that is true but people complained so much about how bad the CFS2 AI were that I had to fix them the best I could. I didn`t change the DP file just did alittle work on th airfile.Now the zero and the F4F when set at ace agressive will give the best here at the SOH a real run for there money.When I fly the missions using the no fun rules it can be real tough on a me.

[bobhegf]

Just thought I would through in a pic of a sunk ship.

[bobhegf]

Another pic of the missions. This one is just before a scramble.