New theaters

[derStef]

there are several old theaters out. are they in a flyable status? i mean Nordic, Iceland, Panama, Hawaii, and others....

i have also some ideas for nice theaters...
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc25 ... 6/kuba.jpg

or
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc25 ... 986/AK.jpg


whats YOUR ideas?

[ccc]

The upper one is centered on Cuba.. ask T-Rex, he could have the files, unfinished.

the lower one seems to be Alaska-Berling strait.. ask Zaggy, he could have the files. another test sample.

the cuba one, similar to island mods like Taiwan or Kurile, needs a pre-occuipied area on the island for opposite side- such as US navy base, then the ground war can start there.

the Alaska mod, well, WW3 style, russia invades US..winter tiles best fit the sceneerio.

[Snake Man]

there are several old theaters out. are they in a flyable status? i mean Nordic, Iceland, Panama, Hawaii, and others....

Also to add into that list is Atlantic and Dogfight theaters. Dogfight I actually have already ingame in RV.

If there is interest, even little as good covering beta testing team, I would be perhaps interested of putting an 2009 updated theater files & installer together.

[derStef]

there are several old theaters out. are they in a flyable status? i mean Nordic, Iceland, Panama, Hawaii, and others....

Also to add into that list is Atlantic and Dogfight theaters. Dogfight I actually have already ingame in RV.

If there is interest, even little as good covering beta testing team, I would be perhaps interested of putting an 2009 updated theater files & installer together.

sounds good Snake Man!
could you maybe get Panama, Hawaii, and Iceland also running for RV?

cheers Man!


Stef

[Snake Man]

Panama is Malc's theater and he is still active in the community. Can you point out to me the latest Iceland and Hawaii theater files?

I believe I have Iceland here, but for Hawaii I have no files.

[molnibalage]

I prefer the Nordic. It is an excellent theater for European AC! I have never flew with them because works only with SP3. I started playing Falcon with SP4 (in 2001 I play only a very few with original F4.0 because I didn't have the patch and the lack of HW).

[derStef]

Panama is Malc's theater and he is still active in the community. Can you point out to me the latest Iceland and Hawaii theater files?

I believe I have Iceland here, but for Hawaii I have no files.

good.

i don't know if it is the latest stuff but here is a nice libary hosted by "Fafa". http://fafa.griffons.free.fr/Falcon4/Theatres/

for iceland it's important that also the Faroe Islands and a small part of Greenland and northern Scottland to have the whole "upper Atlantic gap" in the theater. see my pic.


that would be great! think about it






that

[Polak]

What would be perhaps great and innovative about mainly "ocean" terrain is to attempt to simulate different states of the sea (visibility, environmental settings, look of waves) in conjunction with the weather fronts. I really do not know if the mechanisms of such a representation are built into the Falcon4 terrain and weather engine, but here is just an wishful idea .

[Snake Man]

That's like the GIUK GAP from Harpoon

Apparently the Nordic and Quebec theater installers look much like the ones I made them for loong long time ago. I should even have those files somewhere. I'll look into it.

[derStef]

That's like the GIUK GAP from Harpoon

exactly! just look what you have!

cheers
Stef

[toonces]

I have plenty of ideas for new theaters/campaigns. On the one hand, I'd love to have some new areas to tinker with. On the other hand, I'd like to see one full, complete, working, kick-ass theater that is of such quality that it can displace Korea as THE campaign folks want to boot up when they start playing Falcon.

(Carefully treading here to keep out of hot water...)

FF5 is going to have a ton of new content. So, my primary focus as a part-time, wanna-be theater tweaker, is to create scenarios that a) enable folks to fly their shiny new aircraft in Falcon 4, and b) give them a reason to want to boot up my campaign rather than Korea.

Here are a few ideas I've been toying with:

Nevada: Nevada remains a favorite with me for a few reasons. First, it's a nice tight area, flight times are short, and the action is fast and furious. This is a campaign where a fellow like me, with sometimes very limited play time in "real life", can boot up and get in a sortie or two fast...it doesn't require the brain burn that a proper sortie in Korea may require.
Second, because it is fictional, virtually anything can be done within it. Dreamlandresort has some very nice OOBs that I've been examining; and of course we can make our own OOBs. In this manner, along with all the beautiful aggressor skins available, we can make campaigns that allow folks to fly a great variety of planes on BOTH sides- a campaign with US, NATO, Euro, and Soviet planes as both good guys and bad guys- a campaign where you can fly a Tornado, Hornet, Falcon, and Rafale on the same side! Basically the possibilities are endless.
Ultimately, Nevada is well-suited to an "air only" campaign where ground pounding is related to breaking the IADS to allow one side to get air superiority. We've discussed how victory conditions can be created to accomplish this.

Europe: Alot of the grunt work for Europe has already been done. This is a great theater because, like Nevada, it provides a plethora of aircraft for the player to fly. No more US-only campaigns; we can integrate US planes with Euro planes to allow players to choose between their beloved F-16, F-18, or Rafale, EF-2000, Mirage, Viggen, Tornado, etc. Additionally, because the timeframe is open-ended, we can create a variety of different campaigns- a late 70's/early 80's campaign, a late '80's campaign, or a modern campaign...they all work well! Image RAF and German Phantoms facing off against Soviet MiG-21s, -23s and -25s...oooh yeah!
Furthermore, this theater can be broken into manageable chunks. Someone brought up Harpoon. Imagine this: We create a 1983 Europe campaign. Campaign 1 is the opening of the war: overwhelming aircraft and the Warsaw Pact spearhead. NATO goal: halt the advance! Campaign 2: the mid-point. The WP advance has been stopped at the foot of the Rhein and NATO goes back on the offensive. Campaign 3: The northern campaign. The Soviet advance into Norway and the Nordic area. Campaign 4: The battle for Iceland.
The point is that it doesn't have to be one big long campaign. We break the campaign up into 4 or 5 (or more) 1-week or 2-week phases. It's very much like Red Storm Rising and the way Harpoon campaigns are presented. We beef all this up with a really well-written scenario book...oooh yeah!

Cuba/Key West: I brought up Key West a while ago. Looking at Derstef's map, this could be integrated easily into a Cuba map. This idea was more a test-bed of some ideas I had while working on the Nevada theater. The idea would be to create a "Advanced ACM Training Range" type scenario. It would simulate the advanced Navy/USMC jet students and the Replacement Air Group pilots going to Key West for their advanced training. The timeframe would determine the aircraft that fly: a 70's/80's scenario might have students flying A-4s, F-4s, F-14s, and such with the aggressors flying A-4s, F-5s, F-4s, and Kfirs. A later scenario would yield later jets with F-18s, F-16s, and so on. If ccc could generate a T-45 model, this would rock as well. A Harrier cockpit would work fine for this jet. This could be increased to include strike aircraft (A-6s and such) as well maybe. Place a CV offshore and you have a very nice, fun, immersive scenario. There are training documents available on the web that we can use to beef up the documentation for this, and, well, I think it would be a very fun scenario.
I recently finished a book called "One Minute to Midnight" about the Cuba missile crisis. A scenario based upon that would be awesome. We already have the US base on Guantanamo to provide the necessary "blue base" as ccc mentioned. Derstef seems to have cracked the code on how to simulate amphibious assaults in his Taiwan theater. A '62 theater like this would allow us to use F-8s, A-4s, F-102s, and many of the older jets, again flying against MiG-17/21 and Il-28s. Throw some CVs in there and you can fly you A-4 off it! oooh yeah!

Iran: We've all been watching the news. And, the Desert Storm terrain is beautiful. This just needs someone to put in the time to create it.

Taiwain: Derstef's Taiwan theater is very, very nice. I crashed my install before I had a chance to finish it, but it seemed very exciting while it worked, and there were a huge variety of planes to fly. And, the CVN and land-bases allowed for some very interesting naval strikes along with interdiction and BARCAP scenarios. The biggest downside to me is that I have no real interest in this theater of operations (sorry Derstef!), but as a working campaign, there's alot of meat already on those bones.

Vietnam: A great campaign that "could be" but it needs alot of work to be fleshed out. I still think this theater is suited to short chunk scenarios- battle for Khe San, Linebacker 1 and 2, and maybe a fictional '75 scenario where the US tries to oppose the North's push into the South with CVN groups and a massive airlift...think Korean Freedom campaign in Vietnam.
I can't believe we're going to have all these Vietnam-era aircraft in FF5 and not have a Vietnam theater to fly them in!

I could go on all day...the thing is, in order to really get this going, somebody or some group needs to sit down, agree on a scenario, and then put in the time to get something playable and FUN. I don't think the lack of a ground war should be a show-stopper. The player needs to be presented the scenario in such a way that the ground war is simply there for things to bomb; the victory in the campaign is tied to something else.

In a worse case scenario, ground forces can be assigned "attack/capture" in Tacedit and the units will try to capture their objective. Of course, this overrides the campaign engine somewhat, so it becomes more TE like, but then again, so what? Honestly, who are we competing with? Even the best "dynamic campaign" in any of the recent sims is nothing more than a glorified TE...so hell, almost anything we do will compete with the current crop of sims.

Alright, I have to get to work fellas.
See ya,
Toonces

[87th_striker]

This is the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission coverage. Without it your terrain model looks very rough and good free data are near impossible to find. The coverage should be taken into account when planning new theaters.

[derStef]

This is the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission coverage. Without it your terrain model looks very rough and godd free dataare near impossible to find. The coverage should be taken into account when planning new theaters.

...and here we come to the major problem for "arctic/northern" theaters...
but on wich data is the current Island theater based?

[Snake Man]

So, my primary focus as a part-time, wanna-be theater tweaker,

Who says you need to be wannabe part timer, just get involved in some serious note to beef up & organize the PMC Theater campaigns and all the data changes you provide (being it forum post or actual TCL edit) I'll implement to the theaters.

[derStef]

yes, SM is right, you aren't that rookie as you think, man. for sure, you on the right track!
keep it up. and your post is more or less talking out of my soul, except that i like the Taiwan theater mod.

my favourites of existing/working theaters that i want to modify with you guys are:
- finish Taiwan
1. Europe
2. Vietnam
3. ODS
4. Iran or Nevada
5. Libya
6. Afghanistan (but maybe also a Pakistan/India szenario


my wishlist for future/or not working theaters:
1. Iceland (GIUK GAP) or Cuba
2. Nordic
3. Panama

[molnibalage]

Europe is maybe the best theater. Why? You can put in campaign almost every AC and SAM from DB and will be real. You can make very colourful campaigns. The map is huge, flying is very different than in a relativley small Korea map.

This is also true for ODS and Nordic.

[toonces]

I agree Molni.

The only problem I see with tackling Europe is the scope of it. It might be best to tackle it in chunks, like I said before. I had some stuttering in that theater on FF4, and I can only assume it's due to the huge amount of "stuff" going on.

But, the potential is overwhelming. All of the cool stuff in Falcon can be put in there and with your access to the Pact OOB info, a great theater could be generated for sure.

And, I think it's ripe for a multi-era theater; 70's, 80's, and current era scenarios.

[Snake Man]

Concerning stutter in PMC Europe Theater, good tip is not to run time acceleration on x64 as that causes hiccups on the 2d war. I have never experienced 3d stutter.

[ccc]

i totally agree with this..

The only problem I see with tackling Europe is the scope of it. It might be best to tackle it in chunks

campaigns can be divided into.. the battle over center europe, west europe, north, or south erupe, to minmize the ground unit count.

[87th_striker]

We need:
- a "Terrain" group responsible for tiles, terrain data features and elevation data.
- a Campaign group resposible for Order of Battle, database for th different planes, vehicles etc
- a 3D groups for models and skinning
- an installer group makeing installers for all F4 variants.

But most of all we need priority and focus. Snake Man,say the magic words, and I think all operating in the nekromantix sphere will come together and contribute to structured production.

Let's finish ODS, then pick the next one, and the next one.... etc

[Polak]

Let's finish ODS, then pick the next one, and the next one.... etc

I definitely second that.

And my 2c ....
ODS tile remake is quite advanced at this point. Approx >30 %. Here you need not worry, but I would love to be part of the larger team working and cooperating together towards common goal of finishing ODS 100% and more. As far as future is concerned my interest is in Vietnam, or Arctic places. Europe can use standard tile set.

Judging from the past and current content of this forum this group has the utmost ability to pull out really good and fully finished terrain mod for F4. No competition out there whatsoever, but perhaps for LP.

What is the prognosis of longevity of Falcon4 at this point?

[toonces]

@ 87th Striker: One group/thing I'd add to that list is a scenario/campaign director (or something of that sort). I suppose that because that's my interest, I tend to notice it is missing the most.
We (or, rather, the PMC crew) have the methods down to create a theater, populate it with air and ground forces, tile everything, create skins, etc. But, what separates a theater full of planes and tanks from a true "campaign" is the story it is supposed to convey. How did this campaign start? What are the objectives of each side? How did I get here, why am I fighting, and what am I trying to accomplish?
With historical conflicts, like ODS and Vietnam for example, this job is much easier. We know who was there and what happened, all that remains is to script it via triggers and write everything down for the player. With hypothetical scenarios like Europe, it's harder because the conflict didn't occur- but even here we have plenty of literature from which to draw to design a scenario: wargames, books like The Third World War by Hackett and Red Storm Rising by Clancy, and so on.
When we get a group together to put an OOB together, somebody needs to direct the effort towards a cohesive storyline.

@ Polak: With respect to the longetivity of Falcon, I can give you my opinions for myself, and for the public at large.
1. For myself: I don't see Falcon coming off my hard drive until somebody builds a better F-4 Phantom sim. Frankly, I don't see that happening anytime soon. Between all of the neato stuff the FF5 guys are putting together, and my new-found ability to tweak theaters based on the excellent tutorials on this site, what I have now is a wargame/flight sim "toolbox" where my imagination is the limit. I can honestly say that Falcon is rapidly moving towards the sim I have dreamed of my entire life.

2. For everyone else: Unfortunately, the life of Falcon as a sim for the masses, I feel, is limited. If I had to put a number on it, I'd say 5 years or so, give or take. Here's why I say that.
I'd guess that most of the people playing Falcon now are a bit older. I doubt alot of "younger" guys (I don't know what younger means exactly, maybe 18 or less?) are playing Falcon. Lets face it, it's starting to look dated compared to some of the modern sims coming out...well, ok, it looks dated compared to LOMAC and Blackshark. As new folks look to get into simming, are they going to pick up the 10 year old 'dated' sim, or are they going to pick up the shiny new sim with the flashy graphics?
Next, the group developing Falcon (the core FF group), I think (and I definately have no idea if this is true or not) will burn out. I don't know how long one person can look at the same bunch of code, working on it in their spare time year after year, before finally deciding they've had enough. And, unfortunately, everytime the Falcon mod groups fracture (OF, FF, RV...), the group gets that much smaller. As long as someone is still alive to keep building the sim, it will be "alive", but once the core group inevitably disolves, Falcon will start to fade as a sim to the masses.
Also, exacerbating the demise of Falcon will be the "next big sim". There are at least 3 sims in the work now that I'm aware of: That Falkands sim, Fighter Ops, and Lead Pursuit's new sim. And, of course, Blackshark will have an A-10 and F-16 in the next 2 years supposedly. If any and/or all of these sims deliver, eventually there will be a migration of simmers to those new sims, new modders will work on them rather than Falcon, and so on...

Consider this for a minute: PMC is probably the premier place to get add-on campaigns for Falcon 4. I posted how many AARs on this website? I have 3 in Nevada I think...how many folks have asked for my mod? One- fafa, who doesn't even play FreeFalcon, so the mod won't even work for him. How about Derstef's Taiwan campaign? All that work...how many people have you heard discussing it? Or DoctorX's campaigns, which are, imo, revolutionary? My point is that even with all this stuff floating out there, there are (probably) only a few people in the whole simming universe that are actually downloading and playing these things.

So, the short answer is that I think the shelf-life of Falcon is about 2/3 over for "most" people. Some people, like me, will probably be flying this sim forever. Honestly, with the stuff in Falcon now, and the stuff forthcoming, I can amuse myself for a lifetime. But, I just think all the factors above will start to displace Falcon as the mainstream sim in the future, and everything we're discussing depends on fans to do the grunt work to build Falcon into what it is and what it can become.

Wow, long-winded answer to that one!

[edit]: What I meant to say as a pro- for Falcon is that, with the cost and complexity involved in developing a modern study sim that takes advantage of modern computing power, the odds of a sim that truly competes with everything Falcon has to offer coming out anytime soon is low. I know there are other groups as rabidly faithful to their "old" sims...I just bought Comanche vs. Hokum the other day- another 10 year old sim, to fly the new Hind mod someone did. These sims (Falcon, Comanche, etc) last because they do what they do so well and like no other sim. Building a prettier sim might not be too hard in the future, but building a better sim may prove impossible given the costs and limitations involved.

Oh, and Falcon doesn't have any pesky DRM

[derStef]

We need:
- a "Terrain" group responsible for tiles, terrain data features and elevation data.
- a Campaign group responsible for Order of Battle, database for the different planes, vehicles etc
- a 3D groups for models and skinning
- an installer group making installers for all F4 variants.

But most of all we need priority and focus. Snake Man,say the magic words, and I think all operating in the nekromantix sphere will come together and contribute to structured production.

i agree with you striker, if we all work together, we can reach an finished mod much faster than a single one. it's use full if everybody mods form its own.

you can count on me.
i can help with : FF/RV Campaign and DB edits and easy skinning.

to form a team would be the BEST IDEA!


@ toonces: yes it's right we need somekind of coordinator. but still the team should do the desicions, not one person.

You are completly right with saying that a "story" is very improtant, espezially for immersion.
as you said, historical ones are easier, yes.
For Europe: well somekind of Red Storm Rising would be my idea, great!
for Taiwan: all out invasion by China to Taiwan isle. 3 campaigns: one with US and Japanese support(easy). one with only US support(medium), one without support(hard). i really want to set up real life OOB as good as possible.

about longetivity of Falcon: well yes, maybe the players are a bit older, (but i started facon4 when i was 12!), but if you get caught by the F4 virus, you can't leave it easily, thats my experience. Falcon is very uniqe.

about the issues that "nobody" tries the new mods: WE NEED MORE ADVERTISING on them i think and somekind of oneclickinstallers.

also a complete overhaul of ODS tiles is a huge project for the beginning, man!

the reason, why Taiwan is still the first on my priority list is that it is (with my mod) the "most" finished of all PMC theaters. so, we can reach an finish it pretty fast i think. we could use it as our first try theater mod, then swap over to the real big projects like Europe or ODS.
well, Taiwan is not the most interesting szenario for many here, also not for me, but it would be a good first try scenario, just my opinion. maybe Polak is interested to retile the Taiwan isle!
we can reach an end in maybe ~3 months and it fits perfectly in FF5 Database, so not that many edits have to be done! also i already organized/made nearly all relevant skins for this theater.
just think about that!
but i think we should vote on this.

So, we really should form a team, here are many good ppl out there, if we all unite to somekind of "PMC theater mod group" we really can reach good Theater mods! great idea! i'm in!

cheers
Stef

[Sherlock]

Nice discussion. Now let me throw a "wrench" into the works!

What about Allied Force theater support? The guys I fly with in MP for the most part only fly AF. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only AF modder that hangs out here and who had/is contributing to this and other discussions.

The other issue I see with this is in the terrain area since OF and RV use dds terrain tiles while AF still uses PCX terrain tiles. Is it asking too much to make theaters to still serve OF/RV AND Allied Force? (I know, this is the stinky turd in the punchbowl but I think we should address it up front and get some type of consensis from all active modders here at PMC).

[Polak]

OF and RV use dds terrain tiles while AF still uses PCX terrain tiles. Is it asking too much to make theaters to still serve OF/RV AND Allied Force?

As a total newbie here , I should perhaps sit quiet and just listen, but what is the problem with dds format vs. pcx?

[derStef]

Hello Sherklock,
good to have you here!

no it's not too much to ask for OF/AF support, but i'm just takling about my abilities, toonces and me are FF guys. so we need others which will overtake the AF/OF support as you mentioned.
BTW your thoughts about AF and online: hehehe when FF5 is out, no one will fly AF anymore, believe me, only freaks behind the moon. just a joke

i know that AF uses PCX format, but has it also another tile structure or any other major difference? if not, we can save it one time in .dds and one time in .pcx format. not the problem... or what?

the best would be if you "join our upcoming group"... and take the AF part! hey, if we get all that stuff working, all our dreams come true! think about that!

cheers
Stef

Nice discussion. Now let me throw a "wrench" into the works!


What about Allied Force theater support? The guys I fly with in MP for the most part only fly AF. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only AF modder that hangs out here and who had/is contributing to this and other discussions.

The other issue I see with this is in the terrain area since OF and RV use dds terrain tiles while AF still uses PCX terrain tiles. Is it asking too much to make theaters to still serve OF/RV AND Allied Force? (I know, this is the stinky turd in the punchbowl but I think we should address it up front and get some type of consensis from all active modders here at PMC).

[Polak]

I just only mention that all my work originates from psd format which is 24 bit. Converting it to dds or pcx is just as well simple procedure. In fact pcx requires one more step of making the median palette for the group. Is there anything else? I also fly AF, but I have original F4 from the day one.

[derStef]

I just only mention that all my work originates from psd format which is 24 bit. Converting it to dds or pcx is just as well simple procedure. In fact pcx requires one more step of making the median palette for the group. Is there anything else? I also fly AF, but I have original F4 from the day one.

sorry i don't mod AF, we have to wait for SMs or sherlocks answer here. but i hope it is as easy as you described!


cheers
Stef

[Snake Man]

I have posted my replies to 2009 Theater development organized topic. Please check there.

Keep this topic strictly discussing suggested New Theaters, not anything else.

[derStef]

- Everybody can vote 3 theaters in the poll! -

TO ALL, PLEASE VOTE AGAIN! i've updated the list!
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=21729&start=0&st=0 ... w=viewpoll

[Malc]

I have heard rumours Panama Theater may well get some attention from the FF/RV dev team - which would be bloody awesome.

Unfortunately, trying to distribute my time between work/family/study means I don't have a lot of spare time to contribute to what is an extremely time-consuming activity.

[derStef]

I have heard rumours Panama Theater may well get some attention from the FF/RV dev team - which would be bloody awesome.

Unfortunately, trying to distribute my time between work/family/study means I don't have a lot of spare time to contribute to what is an extremely time-consuming activity.

where have you heard this?





no problem that you'll have much time, just do what you can!

cheers
Stef

[Snake Man]

I don't have a lot of spare time to contribute to what is an extremely time-consuming activity.

Could you be more specific what does this mean regarding Panama Theater?

BTW are the Panama Theater forums download etc links still up to date?

[ccc]

I don't have a lot of spare time to contribute to what is an extremely time-consuming activity.

Could you be more specific what does this mean regarding Panama Theater?

BTW are the Panama Theater forums download etc links still up to date?

SM implies he can help converting Panama theater for other falcon versions

[Snake Man]

Actually I don't. Panama is Malc's theater and I don't want to interfere. Of course if Malc would request help to make installer for all theaters, I'd be happy to help. But that's was not what I was asking here

[Malc]

I have heard rumours Panama Theater may well get some attention from the FF/RV dev team - which would be bloody awesome.

Unfortunately, trying to distribute my time between work/family/study means I don't have a lot of spare time to contribute to what is an extremely time-consuming activity.

where have you heard this?

cheers
Stef

Some fella called Aragorn has mentioned it several times in the past... T-Rex also sent some examples of the Cuba tile-sets to me in the past, they would look perfect in Panama also. <nudge nudge>

My comment regarding time-consuming activity is theater-building in general can consume many many hours of free time, which I haven't lot of currently. Even terrain tiling, although CATE does an extremely good job initially, it is not perfect by a long shot and QA tiling needs to be done afterwards to clean every segment up. IMHO, tiling is one of the most important aspects of creating a good enjoyable theater. Nothing is more frsutrating than flying over terrain and finding a river which just disappears, or a road which just stops, or a coastline that has perfectly straight edges to it (if you see what I mean).

I'd like to see Panama in FF4/RV, I've tried to do it myself a couple times but always get crashes on the pie-screen and was never able to solve the issues - so I gave up trying in the end.

SM - I'll make the most current available and post links to them once uploaded. If you could make it work in FF4 then I would be very grateful indeed. http://www.green-flight.co.uk/panama/Panama.7z

[derStef]

hmmm, whatever.

well, would it be a problem if we may try also to get Panama running for FF and all others in a good way with the support of the guys here? or do you want to keep it as your own project?

[Snake Man]

SM - I'll make the most current available and post links to them once uploaded. If you could make it work in FF4 then I would be very grateful indeed. http://www.green-flight.co.uk/panama/Panama.7z

OK so if I understood you correctly, with these words you authorize me to make FF/OF version out of these Panama.7z source files?

Anyways, perhaps you should reply back to me in the Panama forum as we are moving offtopic in this New Theaters topic already. If you don't find suitable topic in Panama area, just open a new one for the new installer

[toonces]

I've been doing some more research into that Desert Storm mod I was talking about in the ODS forum, and then I got some more ideas.

We've been discussing the Europe theater, which seems to be getting close to being the #1 theater after ODS. The theme that keeps coming up is a Red Storm Rising type scenario.

What if we thought even bigger? How about a full-on PMC Red Storm Rising multi-theater campaign?

The idea would be that we narrow down our focus to a single era, a single month or two of time. I would propose, off the top of my head, 1984: a nice era with a ton of cool jets to fly including the beloved F-16, but also the F-15, F-14, A-6, Tornado, all the cool MiGs, Mirages, etc.

Once we settle on a timeframe, we could develop a campaign for each theater, one at a time, based upon this timeframe. The idea would be to game a World War 3 scenario across the globe. The European Front, the Persian Front, the Asian Front (in the Vietnam theater), the Pacific Front (Taiwan)...

Ultimately it would provide a focus for development. A way to tie all the theaters together into a comprehensive gaming experience...

If we can settle on a timeframe, generate the database of planes, vehicles, munitions, etc that were available, it would streamline creating hypothetical scenarios. For example, each theater has a hypothetical scenario: ODS, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Europe...so this wouldn't be anything new, just generating these campaigns in a linear manner.

Again, just thinking out loud about how we could proceed...

The PMC Red Storm Rising Project...I like it!

[molnibalage]

The idea would be that we narrow down our focus to a single era, a single month or two of time. I would propose, off the top of my head, 1984: a nice era with a ton of cool jets to fly including the beloved F-16, but also the F-15, F-14, A-6, Tornado, all the cool MiGs, Mirages, etc.

1987-89 would be better. IRL in 1984 F-15s didn't have NCTR. This unique feature can make more colorful the campaign. In 1984 MiG-29A and Su-27 didn't have their full capability. Su-27 didn't have R-73 (AA-11), MiG-29 didn't have R-27R (AA-10). Only a very few Mirage-2000C were in service. The modern SAM systems weren't so spreaded, ect..

Also need DB upgrade the Europe theater. Only a few countries get AIM-9M missiles. Most of the NATO had only AIM-9L (less flare resistant) or AIM-9P or any other export variant of AIM-9 or AIM-7. For ex. W-Germany get AIM-9M only in 1988 as I can remember.