ODS SP2 internal beta

[Snake Man]

This is the area of information for Desert Storm SP2 compatible internal betas.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Snake Man]

Install instructions

1) install SP2 (final or latest SP2a build)
2) unzip this ODS_SP2-03.zip into falcon4 dir (and let it ovewrite). If you have other theaters installed then don't let it overwrite the theaters.lst file. Just manually edit it and add desstorm.tdf
3) run eF4Ptinstall to rebuild the terrdata\DesStorm

Additional install steps

SP2 FINAL users
- none

SP2a beta build users
- copy theater.map from terrdata\desstorm into terrdata\desstorm\terrain

Be noted that the eF4PTinstall terrain rebuilder will take a long, long time to finish as the theater size is 128x128 segments. My desstorm\texture dir takes 257mb and desstorm\terrain dir 655mb

Here are the known bugs:
- autotiling on the terrain except, old ODS 64 + F4ME area.
- IA starting location around kuwait gives CTD
- baghdad two segments are old and have different fog value
- tehran city tiling is not completed
- enter TE -> Saved -> NEW, exit, enter campaign == CTD.
- enter TE -> Saved -> NEW, create mission, exit, load mission == CTD.
+ something we missed...

SP2 final bugs (these are fixed in latest SP2a beta)
- Kneemap view CTD
- IA whole map not selectable
- Campaign selection not showing all squadrons (theater.map flag)

SP2a latest beta "bugs"
- Campaign ATO is broken, where we have great war activity on SP2 final, we have jack on SP2a. This is under work but most likely its the new realistic fuel flow Ranges of aircrafts.

Download size 51mb

So if you are interested of this bug written piece of... falcon theater, then send email to nospam and we send you detailed info on download.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Ender Wiggin]

SP2a latest beta "bugs"
- Campaign ATO is broken, where we have great war activity on SP2 final, we have jack on SP2a. This is under work but most likely its the new realistic fuel flow Ranges of aircrafts.

Do you know if any of these bugs were fixed with our new build 20306? i havent finished downloading ODS yet.

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Ender Wiggin:
Do you know if any of these bugs were fixed with our new build 20306? i havent finished downloading ODS yet.

Yes SP2a build 0306 + edited campaign file will create much activity in the campaign.

But if you use the ODS install and 0306 directly it will crash most often on campaign -> commit. This will be fixed with new Tacedit map editor updated campaign file which I'll add for downloads soon.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Ender Wiggin]

got that btw 20307 just got released a lil while ago, maybe this will help the CTDs though, when are we gonna begin on SE or SW terrain? no rush just curious

[Snake Man]

Two campaign action screenshots from SP2a 0307 build (let me know if these are too large)

Firestorm over Kuwait




PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Ender Wiggin:
got that btw 20307 just got released a lil while ago, maybe this will help the CTDs though

No, there was no mention in the changelog or from coders on any of those CTD fixes I posted earlier.

quote:when are we gonna begin on SE or SW terrain? no rush just curious

I have some new information for that. As you may have noticed the huge terrain->readl2 util msg area... we have extremely cool autotiling util available now and it is progressing each day - I'm scared to think what it might be in week or two. Also when we proceed to ODS SW or SE tiling (or NW for that matter) its going to be happen in the 128x128 segment map and not like F4ME/ODS "NE" tiling in 64. This is because there are some smallish distortion in the spherical conversion in the outer edges of the map in 64 vs 128, we dont need that.

When?

Uhm, dunno... I guess there is nothing to hold us back even at right now, yet I want to wait a bit until we get the CATE utility some more cool features. I want more tiling to be handled by auto util so we humans can concentrate on flying the terrain, not tiling it

Hey if you really really want to get working here, search some specific terrain type data on the Saudi Arabia for example. Now we can place certain types where ever we want, so we need as detailed info on the real world terrain as possible.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[icebrain]

Waaaaait a minute... I see Israel... does this mean we can do Golan Heights/other Israel theater missions in this theater? And where do we get the beta?

Thanks

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by icebrain:
I see Israel... does this mean we can do Golan Heights/other Israel theater missions in this theater?

I believe those screenshots show the whole map in west-east range, bit more terrain can be found in north-south. So yes you can fly in Israel terrain.

Isn't 128 theaters cool

quote:And where do we get the beta?

If you are ready to accept the bugs and issues I listed against the 51mb download, then you can be a inside beta tester. email me at nospam

All I ask is some feedback - good or bad.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Zaggy]

And to all u beta testers, go and fly over bagdad and tell us what you think!!!!

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Zaggy:
go and fly over bagdad and tell us what you think!!!!

Here is the buglist:
"- baghdad two segments are old and have different fog value"

Sorry about that, but I decided its better to have the full baghdad and not pieces.

Hmm so when can you complete rest of it?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[KBMIL]

hey !

i want in too please !!??
Any work left to be done?
object placement maybe ?

greets Joeri

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by KBMIL:
i want in too please !!??

Email me at nospam

quote:Any work left to be done?
object placement maybe ?

We have completed the North East tiling and now I'm just waiting for CATE to develop (read more in terrain -> readl2 util) and then we proceed with ODS tiling. But at that time hopefully the human work required is minimal.

Object placement is done now with the Village util to create basic villages, cities and airbases. The old ODS 64 theater's objectives are also imported using cutcsv into this 128 theater.

We definitely need some help on object placement in future

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Spyder]

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:


We definitely need some help on object placement in future

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Count me in.

Cheers
T. "Spyder" Handel

[Ender Wiggin]

Can i post screen shots? the haze has a blusih look and i didnt know if this was right or not. At first i thought i was near water then realized there was nothing but desert, so i dunno, lemme know ifi can or not.

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Ender Wiggin:
Can i post screen shots?

Yes you can. Like this

(img)http://www.yourlink.com/image.jpg(/img)

Just replace ( ) with [ ] characters.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Ender Wiggin]

ok i wasnt sure if u would let me post ODS beta shots or not, this is what i meant by blue

[prelude]

How can i download the SP2 version if it is possible to download yet? I would be interested in testing it if you need that.

[Zaggy]

What what?? No Bagdad tiles...

The remaining 7 segments (but i am working on ways to reduce that) are progressing slowly... got lots of stuff happening here, including applications and stuff for airforce...

[Snake Man]

Ender: F4Files is not public egroups so we cannot see the image.

Prelude: If you "accept" the buglist etc what I poster above, then you can be a internal beta tester. Just email me to nospam and I'll get you going. All I ask is feedback.

Zaggy: Ok, I cannot wait for them to complete. btw where is the tilemeister apprentice tutorial, I want to learn?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Ender Wiggin]

F4Files i made so i can store screen shots and file. it should now be fixed for the public, lemme know if you see it now. also if you need some storage space let me know i got 20mb on there.

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Ender Wiggin:
ok i wasnt sure if u would let me post ODS beta shots or not, this is what i meant by blue

Its ok to post them. Hmm that blue, it looks like its ocean fartiles coming into the view.

Hmm I suggest you run the eF4PTinstaller again. Let me know if that helps.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Snake Man]

Hotfix #1 has been compiled, 940kb.

New:
- Instant Action around Kuwait CTD, fixed.
- TE -> Saved -> New -> save -> click it == CTD, fixed.
- Jumping between IA/TE/Camp, fixed.
- More activity in the campaign.

You beta guys can download it and unzip it to the campaign\DesStorm directory, letting it overwrite.

http://www.pmctactical.org/f4/ODS_SP2-03_hotfix_1.zip

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Ender Wiggin]

Ok i will, also thats in south of ODS where we havent worked yet, also ive seen the unleveled airbases too. the te joo is a good example, though it could be that i might need to run the eF4PTinstaller again.

[Ender Wiggin]

nope heres some more screens at different areas, 2 blue and one black, maybe its me i dont know, also whats with the trees in the desert, and kneemap?

[brewskie]

I had to run the eF4PTinstaller twice, but it is running good now. Terrain looks good, so far but i haven't flew near syria, jordan and israel, campaign seems to be running as well too.

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Ender Wiggin:
also whats with the trees in the desert,

Trees come from SP2 and are not theater related in that sense, disable them from the Falcon Setup.

quote:and kneemap?

I confuse the guys, but Red Dog or... someone is working on that, thats my understanding somebody please correct me

The basic setting for untiled areas are: untiled terrain (wow), unleveled airbases (stairs effect), roads 99% ok, rivers a total mess, cities more or less looking horrible and terrain type transitions missing.

Tiled area in this beta are the old ODS 64 region and north east part, the F4ME region. I'm sorry for not having you guys a clear image to show it, maybe I'll arrange one soon.

We will work on the untiled area as soon as we get CATE going strong, also Baghdad will get tiled with Zaggy's new tiles when he finishes the full set (tons of tiles). More objectives will be placed for us to shoot at, lots of stuff.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[prelude]

I noticed I am getting alot of crashes when i am in the campaign area. Also i hardly get any action when in that screen. Just wondering what is being done about this or if it is maybe something i have installed wrong.

[Spyder]

Hi,

After installing ODS-theater, I started F4Patch.
F4Patch shows FalconSP and Realism Data Patch unaplied. I then tried to reaply these patches, ande got the following error message:
Failed to apply patch (SP) FalconSP -- File mismatch. g:\microprose\development\f4sp\campaign\DesStorm\save0.cam does not match G:\MICROPROSE\DEVELOPMENT\F4SP\F4Patch\orig\campaign\save\save0.cam or G:\MICROPROSE\DEVELOPMENT\F4SP\F4Patch\FalconSP\campaign\save\save0.cam.
Failed to apply patch Realism Data Patch -- File mismatch. g:\microprose\development\f4sp\campaign\DesStorm\teplanes.lst does not match G:\MICROPROSE\DEVELOPMENT\F4SP\F4Patch\ or G:\MICROPROSE\DEVELOPMENT\F4SP\F4Patch\RealismPatch\campaign\save\teplanes.lst.

I wonder why F4Patch is looking for something in the Campaign\DesStorm folder.

Cheers
T. "Spyder" Handel

[FAngs32]

Hi Folks,

Anybody else CTDing in the ODS campaign UI when using right-click -> threat-circles -> radars-low/high ?

Is this a known issue <g>

Mike S.

[Spyder]

quote:Originally posted by FAngs-444th:
Hi Folks,

Anybody else CTDing in the ODS campaign UI when using right-click -> threat-circles -> radars-low/high ?

Is this a known issue <g>

Mike S.

Hi,

I have encountered the same. Build 30206.

Cheers
T. "Spyder" Handel

[Spyder]

Hi,

Is the theater-switcher working right for anyone? I switched from Korea to ODS, let Campaign run for about 2 hours.
Then switched back to Korea. Entered Campaign, and got on the map in the upper right corner the Airfields from ODS.

After ejecting from Falcon SP (Build 20306) I got the following error message from Window$:

FALCONSP verursachte einen Fehler durch eine ungültige Seite
in Modul <Unbekannt> bei e471:7b977260.
Register:
EAX=00000000 CS=017f EIP=7b977260 EFLGS=00010246
EBX=00000001 SS=0187 ESP=025afbe4 EBP=00000004
ECX=82ea4138 DS=0187 ESI=00000004 FS=129f
EDX=80006af8 ES=0187 EDI=7b970000 GS=0000
Bytes bei CS:EIP:

Stapelwerte:
bfdd30bb 00000001 00000004 00000004 00000000 00000000 025afc2c 00000000 00000004 82ea4180 7b977260 bfdd2e3a 00000004 00000004 00000000 00000000

Can anybody confirm?

After starting FalconSP again, I chose campaign, and clicked on the first mission. Got a CTD.

Crashlog:

FALCONSP.EXE caused a EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION in module FALCONSP.EXE at 017F:005C9479
Exception handler called in WinMain Thread.
Read from location 02d49000 caused an access violation.
Code: 8a 06 24 0f 88 01 8a 06 c0 e8 04 41 88 01 41 46
Stack dump:
Stack: 017F:005C9479 (0x0000007F 0x00000F68 0x007AE5C0 0x04757380) FALCONSP.EXE
Stack: 017F:005CC23F (0x00000091 0x00000000 0x04752AC0 0x00458CCA) FALCONSP.EXE
Stack: 017F:005CD0FC (0x00009FC6 0x00000034 0x00000000 0x00000202) FALCONSP.EXE
Stack: 017F:00446D23 (0x00000091 0x00000000 0x00000034 0x00910155) FALCONSP.EXE
Stack: 017F:00402D63 (0x000009D0 0x00000202 0x00000000 0x00910155) FALCONSP.EXE
Stack: 017F:70014D95 (0x000009D0 0x00000202 0x00000000 0x00910155) DINPUT.DLL
Stack: 017F:70015071 (0x008D9580 0x000009D0 0x00000202 0x00000000) DINPUT.DLL
Stack: 017F:700150DF (0x000009D0 0x00000202 0x00000000 0x00910155) DINPUT.DLL
Stack: 017F:70008B85 (0x000009D0 0x00000202 0x00000000 0x00910155) DINPUT.DLL
Stack: 017F:70015071 (0x008D9580 0x000009D0 0x00000202 0x00000000) DINPUT.DLL
Stack: 017F:70015151 (0x000009D0 0x00000202 0x00000000 0x00910155) DINPUT.DLL
Stack: 017F:BAABDFF6 (0x000009D0 0x00000202 0x00000000 0x00910155) DDRAW.DLL, DDHAL32_VidMemFree()+3644 byte(s)
Stack: 017F:BFF63613 (0x24EF88A8 0x000024EF 0x00000000 0xBFF619B8) KERNEL32.DLL, Ordinal121()+1879 byte(s)
Stack: 017F:BFF848F7 (0x00AEFD60 0xBFF6186D 0x88821B97 0x00000000) KERNEL32.DLL, UTUnRegister()+2523 byte(s)
Stack: 017F:00AE88A2 (0x8D000000 0x5F042464 0x3D896466 0x0000000E) <UNKNOWN>
Stack: 017F:00058F64 (0x01700170 0x01700170 0x01700170 0x01700170) <UNKNOWN>
Stack: 017F:01700170 (0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000) <UNKNOWN>
EAX=0000009C EBX=00000153 ECX=02D715C9 EDX=0000009C ESI=02D49000
EDI=00000155 EBP=00AEF60C ESP=00AEF5F8 EIP=005C9479 FLG=00210287
CS=017F DS=0187 SS=0187 ES=0187 FS=1B77 GS=0000
Error occurred at 3/9/2002 21:21:30.
E:\MICROPROSE\DEVELOPMENT\F4SP\FALCONSP.EXE, run by Spyder.
1 processor(s), type 586.
384 MBytes physical memory.
OS: 4.90 build 73010104 platform 1
Version: Falcon 4.0 - Version 1.12.1.20302
Card: DXContext::Init - DriverInfo - "3dfx32vs.dll" - "Voodoo5 5500 AGP", Vendor: 4634, Device: 9, SubSys: 135706, Rev: 1, Product: 4, Version: 12, SubVersion: 1, Build: 666
Not in game


Cheers
T. "Spyder" Handel

[Ender Wiggin]

quote:Originally posted by Spyder:
Hi,

After installing ODS-theater, I started F4Patch.
F4Patch shows FalconSP and Realism Data Patch unaplied. I then tried to reaply these patches, ande got the following error message:
Failed to apply patch (SP) FalconSP -- File mismatch. g:\microprose\development\f4sp\campaign\DesStorm\save0.cam does not match G:\MICROPROSE\DEVELOPMENT\F4SP\F4Patch\orig\campaign\save\save0.cam or G:\MICROPROSE\DEVELOPMENT\F4SP\F4Patch\FalconSP\campaign\save\save0.cam.
Failed to apply patch Realism Data Patch -- File mismatch. g:\microprose\development\f4sp\campaign\DesStorm\teplanes.lst does not match G:\MICROPROSE\DEVELOPMENT\F4SP\F4Patch\ or G:\MICROPROSE\DEVELOPMENT\F4SP\F4Patch\RealismPatch\campaign\save\teplanes.lst.

I wonder why F4Patch is looking for something in the Campaign\DesStorm folder.

Cheers
T. "Spyder" Handel

i noticed that too.

[Spyder]

Hi,

I think i have a workaround for the theater switchter:

When changing from ODS to Korea, exit FalconSP after the Korea UI is shown. Then start FalconSP again, and Korea should be fine.

Has anyone noticed that HUD-symbology is a little porked in ODS? Will check first again, before I go into details.

Cheers
T. "Spyder" Handel

[Spyder]

quote:Originally posted by Spyder:
I think i have a workaround for the theater switchter:

When changing from ODS to Korea, exit FalconSP after the Korea UI is shown. Then start FalconSP again, and Korea should be fine.

Hi,

I have run another test. The workaround mentioned above is working. But I thinks this is not how it should work. Will inform our coders from F4UT.

Cheers
T. "Spyder" Handel

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Spyder:
I wonder why F4Patch is looking for something in the Campaign\DesStorm folder.

Me too, thats something the coders/Joel need to explain to us. I'm not familiar with SP2 + F4Patch so far.

Actually I rarely use F4Patch now with SP2/SP2a betas.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by FAngs-444th:
Anybody else CTDing in the ODS campaign UI when using right-click -> threat-circles -> radars-low/high ?

Does this work ok in Korea?

quote:Is this a known issue <g>

Not so far, I can try to do some checks to find out whats wrong with it.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Snake Man]

quote:Originally posted by Spyder:
Is the theater-switcher working right for anyone?

Theater switching is not complete in the latest build as far as I know. When you switch back to korea, it does not totally update/read the files... you need to exit falcon to get korea fully selected.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[KBMIL]

tested with build 20302...
install was flawless (well not really, had to remove a lot of files due to lack of HD space)
Whats with the shaking while taxiing ???
tried 3 times, all of them when taxiing, were shaking the aircraft around like going over rough ground or something..

BTW: my fps are way up with ODS !!!! even in campaign...

greets Mil

[prelude]

when i look at maps it shows alot of objects in the wrong part of the map and even alot of things like airports and such actually ON the red sea