Marine Fighting Squadron VMF-121, 2023 part 1

[Captain Kurt]

A new entry has been added to Add-Ons Library, category CFS 2 Campaigns Add-Ons

Description:

Marine Fighting Squadron VMF-121, 2023
A historical campaign for Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2

This campaign is Version 2 which is updated to use UncleTgt’s Solomons scenery and the aircraft and ships with the best, most recent models. It recreates VMF-121’s war time experience as close to the historical record as possible within CFS2 limitations. It is also compatible with the 87 Days of Cactus Campaign and the two can be loaded together. The missions are recreations of the actual missions VMF-121 flew. Because of the file size, it is uploaded in two parts. This is part 1.

To check it out, rate it or add comments, visit Marine Fighting Squadron VMF-121, 2023 part 1
The comments you make there will appear in the posts below.

[Captain Kurt]

A new entry has been added to Add-Ons Library, category CFS 2 Campaigns Add-Ons

Description:

Marine Fighting Squadron VMF-121, 2023
A historical campaign for Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2

This campaign is Version 2 which is updated to use UncleTgt’s Solomons scenery and the aircraft and ships with the best, most recent models. It recreates VMF-121’s war time experience as close to the historical record as possible within CFS2 limitations. It is also compatible with the 87 Days of Cactus Campaign and the two can be loaded together. The missions are recreations of the actual missions VMF-121 flew. Because of the file size, it is uploaded in two parts. This is part 2.

To check it out, rate it or add comments, visit Marine Fighting Squadron VMF-121, 2023 part 2
The comments you make there will appear in the posts below.

[Hiede]

Captain Kurt,

I downloaded and set it up for him while he is at school.

I tried a random missions and it didn't work,the cause is the IJN_Hatsuharu_1941_LOD.I downloaded this ship and it now works fine.Thinking that it was just a glitch and I set up everything a second time and it still didn't work.The problem was the ship didn't have all the folders it needed,missing 2.

Just thought I'd bring it to your attention so you can check it out.It could be I just got a faulty download as that happens sometimes.Plus if someone in the " Silent Majority " has this problem they can't or won't speak up to have it fixed.

Hiede

[Ludo]

Thank you for this campaign Captain

[Captain Kurt]

Hiede

Thank you. It seems that the Install Creator deletes any empty folder while compiling. The ship in questions turned out to have an empty panel and sound folder so they were deleted. I found one other ship with the same issue. Corrected now and the upload has been fixed.

[highpockets]

Thanks Captain. I have the version 1 and been a while since flying in it. Look forward to this one.

[UncleTgt]

Kurt, thanks very much for this update.

Your readme mentions a change made to the Solomons gsl & base appearance (timeline issue).

It would be good to know which base it is, as this might affect other Campaigns (Talon-Hiede)/Mission Packs (Skylane) already released.
I'm thinking more about users that might try to put all the Solomons missions into a single Solomons install... you know they're out there!!!

[UncleTgt]

As an aside, I had just started collecting info for Emirau & Palau, was thinking of adding it to the scenery "to do" list

Guess I can park them now for (much) later

[stuart277]

Hi Captain and Hiede
Thanks for all your efforts with these campaigns.
I think you will find that many of my older ships have empty Sound and Panel folders, so there could be similar problems.
Cheers
Stuart

Hiede

Thank you. It seems that the Install Creator deletes any empty folder while compiling. The ship in questions turned out to have an empty panel and sound folder so they were deleted. I found one other ship with the same issue. Corrected now and the upload has been fixed.

[Captain Kurt]

Hi UncleTgT

I could not get the Fighter II base flatten to work and most of the field would not show up. I removed it and a made a separate fix. VMF-121 started operating from Kukum December 10, 1942. The same month the Japanese got their airfield at Munda into operation. Bomber 2 (carney) was little more than single short dirt strip in December and all I can find on it suggests it wasn't fully finished to allow heavy bomber operations until late February 1943. Bomber 3 wasn't completed until the middle of 1943. So I elected to only show Fighter II and Munda for December42 to June 1943. Correct for December, less so for May/June

Sunlight and Renard weren't operational until June 1943 so flights over Banika Island between December 42 and May/June 43 shouldn't show airfields there. So there is a separate later activation for those fields.

Remember this is a separate autoloader, but the above airfields have manual activations announced by 2 mission's directions at appropriate dates in the campaign. If these are not activated, they will not interfere with the Solomons Scenery loads. Other campaigns like those of (Talon-Hiede) and (Skylane) can be used with the full UncleTgT Solomons scenery with no problem.

Note that I could not use Rhumba's mesh for the campaign because it would displace the airbases for the 1944/45 portion of the campaign which only uses the stock mesh and MR airfields. Is not using Rhumba's mesh why I could not get Fighter II to show up ?

[UncleTgt]

Kurt,

Thanks very much for the detailed explanation.

I understand & agree with your design choices.

I think it would be useful to add this to your download - that way its clear to the user, & should avoid some of the (inevitable?) " I installed & this doesn't work..." posts at some point in the future...

For clarity, my own rationale was:

I tried 4 mth timeline points, but discarded as I thought most users would get fed up changing gsl too frequently. So, having decided on 6 monthly timelines, I just extrapolated forwards from the end of 87 Days (NOV '42).

So, '43 Early is circa March/April, & '43 Late is circa September/October.

I agree the Renard fields really don't fit this pattern, but seeing as they were the first step up the Solomons chain, I thought leaving them until Late '43 was just too late.

I recall Maskrider also having issues with airbase backgrounds partly disappearing in Mission Builder. It seems to be how Mission Builder uses mesh.
Kevin Driver indicated it might be Mission Builder defaulting to a lower level of scenery detail.

I have Rhumbas mesh (& most add-on scenery) installed in a folder structure that sits outside of CFS2. I now believe that Mission Builder only seems to read mesh from within the CFS2 folder structure. In "most" cases, placing a copy of the offending airbase A16N flattens in the CFS2/SCENEDB/RUNWAYS/SCENERY folder allows the base to display correctly in Mission Builder, allowing you to place objects etc.
I don't recommend leaving the A16N there afterwards. The A16N flatten mesh blending logic is rather coarse, & forcing the sim to load this flatten last can ruin how the surrounding terrain looks in the Sim proper.
I haven't looked at the scenery in an OOB install, but suspect the CFS2 LOD5 mesh has pinpoint artifacts (I found a similar issue on Tarawa) that create these display anomalies.

[skylane]

Thanks for the update to this great campaign, Kurt!

[highpockets]

Captain Kurt

I d/l and installed this into my 87 days and got a CTD when I tried VMF mission 1 and 11 as a try. All the other missions,USMC, FG 44 and 87 days worked.
I installed a clean version of CFS 2 this morning and installed VMF -121 to it and still get a CTD. Am I missing something?

[Captain Kurt]

highpockets

I can't reproduce this. I even did what you did and used the autoloader on a fresh CFS2 install. It all opens fine for me so evidently you are missing something, but I can't tell you what.

Anyone else have this issue?

[highpockets]

Captain
Thats OK. I am going back to re read your instructions. You would think an engineer by education who spent half his career using that discipline could follow instructions. Ill let you know my boo boo. Just wanted to see if it was me and apparently so.

[highpockets]

I am going to do the clean install again later today. Maybe a glitch in the first time for some reason. The stock missions in the original still work, just the VMF missions CTD.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Thank you very much for this Kurt! Your hard work is greatly appreciated. I just d/l both parts and plan to install tomorrow into an 87 Days installation and give it a try.

Cheers:

Shadow

[highpockets]

Captain Kurt
After reinstalling, I found issues in the VMF-121 aircraft in Free flight. Did some searching and found issues with the panels in the F4F-4 Wildcats 121 and 121-2.
I made my own changes by copying and pasting from F4F-4 VMF-223 panel. They now fly fine in free flight and in missions.
The Corsairs do now too. Not sure why the F4F-4 panels were wonkey. Had some strange stuff.

[Captain Kurt]

Highpockets,

Well that makes sense. The panels of those aircraft don't have Win7 ++ optimized panels and I've heard that can cause CTDs. So I assume you are running 7 or 10?

Anyway I'm addressing that now incase someone else has a similar problem. See next post.

[Captain Kurt]

A new entry has been added to Add-Ons Library, category CFS 2 Campaigns Add-Ons

Description: The Wildcat and Corsair instrument panels are not optimized for Windows 7 and later versions, which may cause CTDs when trying to run the campaign.


To correct this, install this fix:


Copy this AIRCRAFT folder into your Marine Fighting Squadron CFS2 installation folder and let it overwrite the AIRCRAFT folder when it asks to. This will only update the Wildcat and Corsair panels, and will not change anything else. This should eliminate the CTDs.

To check it out, rate it or add comments, visit Marine Fighting Squadron 121 Win7++ panels fix.zip
The comments you make there will appear in the posts below.

[highpockets]

Captain, yes.
Running Windows 10 pro 64bit

[Roxane-21]

Thank you!!!