USAF Add-On

USAF Add-On

This is a fantastic add-on to this realistic flight combat sim adding some bug fixes and new features you can read about on the more info page.

New files for Jane's USAF Developed by:

The USAF Development Team

Compiled by: Jupiter

With very special thanks to:

Mitch, Maverick, Arnold, Aggressiveskate, Top Gun, McFly, Kawasaki, daab, Troff and all the faithful friends and fans of USAF who have given input for the development of these files. Jane's USAF is a game developed by Pixel Multimedia and distributed by Electronic Arts. All their rights have been preserved in the distribution of this package, or so my lawyer tells me!

Introduction.

These new files for USAF are specifically for the development of mission design and building. The admin file has been heavily modified to accommodate many new features that will help to build new and exciting missions for personal use and to share with the USAF community. I hope you like the changes. But before going any further, make sure you read below. Have a lot of fun and don't forget to design a mission, I am getting bored playing my own and the canned ones that came with USAF!! This is one of the big reasons I have done this file.

Why did I do this file?

I thought that there were not enough mission designers and thus in my humble way decided to create a file enabling as many options as possible (and including newly created ones) to help people in this task. At the end of the day USAF is there to be played and we all need missions to do that !!! - That was my rationale behind these files.

Why is the file not self extracting?

Because the file contains some stuff that has already been around for a while and available for download at various sites both on local servers in the UK and on the Internet, plus the fact that you may not want it all put into your game automatically, for instance music files are a personal choice and take up a lot of space and time to download, you may not want these files! I recommend you try them as it adds a bit of atmosphere to playing missions and is programmed for use using the UME at your discretion.

Known bugs:

The file will generate a DME message stored in the main directory of USAF when used to generate missions. The message shows that the code has been unable to read correctly certain DME tables but does not mean that the admin file will not operate normally with missions that were generated using the altered code held in the new admin file.

This seems to be caused by certain modified parameters not being recognised by the DME program, I will try and find a solution to where the message is being generated and remove this if possible. One message concerns the polygon counts for certain oversized objects. The engine was not designed to accommodate certain changes to 3D objects but it looks perfectly ok and there is no detriment to game play. Also, some of the artificial Intelligence parameters are out of its normal limits, but on a good day, it sure is one hell of a furball. In other words don't worry about it. Do not use any exe fixes that you may have. The game may be slower to start but its stable when initializing, The crack fix generates too many errors and will make the new files unstable!

Please note this file may not be compatible with other UME mission files generated by other admin files, this will result in a crash to desktop. To play other UMEs that are not compatible with this admin file, simply replace this file with the original one, or the one that the mission was created with. The Campaign and single missions that came with USAF are compatible with this admin file but will give extra options for weapon loadouts that may not be accurate within the campaign setting. You will have to decide how you load up your aircraft's weapons, either by the book or just fun, its your call! Please report any bugs to the above email address.

If any of you have used my mission pack uploaded to SimHQ, please note that the mission contained in this pack is not compatible with the new admin file and will crash to desktop. You will have to use the old file to play this short mission. There is however a new version of that mission coming in the 2021 mission pack which features 10 missions all generated with the new admin file!

New features:

There are literally too many to list hear, so only the main ones will be dealt with.

1. new aircraft options

You now have a choice of four Mig29s including the Mig29K, each aircraft has its own loadout capabilities and separate Artificial Intelligence, for instance the Mig29K has been designed as a multi role fighter with a loadout of both AA and AG weaponry. There is also an extra F4e called the F-2000 available with its own skin (supplied by daab), you are able to now fly 3 F4 Phantoms all with separate skins and loadouts! I will add new aircraft at a later date probably another A10 and a F15 strike eagle etc.

There are now three types of cruise missiles available including the Tomahawk, SS21 and the fictitious Ultrasonic Cruise Missile (USCM). A Jolly Green has been added under helicopters and a few other things too.

2 Formation options

I have added different formation options to the fighter aircraft option in the UME, for instance you can now have a fighter wing made up of two F16s and two F15c within the same flight. This looks good and more interesting to see different aircraft within the same formation. Also there is the new 'escort' option with a C17 flying in formation with 2 F16s and 2 F15e and this will be featured in a mission called "The Defectors" !! check it out when its complete. This feature is available under 'support aircraft' option

Formations can now start at 50,000ft right down to 300ft, the fighter aircraft can now be set at speeds of 1000kts with a default of 500. There are also the cruise missiles that are available under support option. The Helicopter formation pattern has been altered for speed and height.

3, Artificial intelligence

The brain patterns of the two main fighter brains have been modified for a more realistic and challenging mission experience, The opposing force will now detect your presence and wing earlier and respond with long range weapons quicker! Also the speed of which the dogfights take place are quicker (400kts as opposed to the default 200. This makes for more realistic dogfight patterns. The take off speed has been altered from 200kts to 300 so that the 'short takeoff' unrealistic pattern appears better, also this has been altered due to the takeoff weight being increased in the new flight models.

Different aircraft have now got the best brain pattern to suit its real life counterpart and random factors have been built into certain brain operations. There is now a difference to the main fighter brains, one will shandel when the other may split-s or (using the logical operator) Himelman. Your opposing aircraft may fly low and cut underneath you to get the advantages, this is random so you cant tell what your opposing pilot will do next!! He has been known to bug out when the odds are against him!!!! Only once did this occure, so I am not sure how it happened but he was on full afterburn and escaped out of the map travelling around Mach 1.5 at 15,000ft! - it was a Mig29 and a critical aircraft to complete the mission, it fired 2 AA10s shot down my wingman and then it decided to turn and burn. If this happens to you, please let me know.

There has been other changes but these are the main ones.

Please note The performance of flight models and artificial intelligence are directly dependent on your systems speed and ability!! There are certain rules which will help to get more out of your missions which I will explain in another article, but this is the basic rule, the more you add to your missions, the more the artificial intelligence and FMs will degrade in quality. If you have 20 Su27s and 16 Mig 29s opposing 20 F16s, do not expect the AI to be any good and your opposing AI pilot to act intelligently unless you have at least a Pentium 4 class processor running at over 1.5ghz and internal bus speeds of 150mhz plus!!!! Keep your missions and aircraft fairly simple and to the point, This is just a thought. USAF is a very complicated game with many calculations needed to run the game , NOT just graphics.

4. Object resizing

Many objects have been resized to look more realistic including tanks, certain buildings and helicopters to give a much more real look to the ground objects. Just take a look at the ships and you will see what I mean! Also I have kept the ground units and training objects which were designed by Mitch, Thank s a lot for the great work.

5. Weapons

Some new weapons have been added such as the AGM154 and the USDMk1 and 2, Most aircraft have full options to all weaponry, it is up to the player in how real he wants the loadouts to be on each aircraft, I have just unlocked your option choices!!!

Loadout screens (The screens are the work of Daniel 'daab' Abrahams and Victor 'Maverick' Amaya and my thanks to them for letting me use them for this file.)

New loadout screens are available for the following aircraft:

Courtesy of daab

F16 Aggressor- (courtesy of daab)

B2

F4g

Su27

F16D

Courtesy of Maverick

Mig17

Mig23

Mig25

B52

Aircraft that use either a default loadout or one of the above:

Su35- (using Su27 until we have a loadout screen!)

F16a Thunderbird Uses Mavericks F16a

F-2000 uses the default F4e loadout screen.

Very important note:

Certain controllable aircraft (non controllable by default) are only available for loadout and controllable if you choose only one of these aircraft as 'Austin' as the aircraft does not appear to be available at the opening screen before you enter the mission.

Example:

A. Make a mission where the Mig17 is the ONLY controllable aircraft available to fly in the mission.

B. Try the mission and when it comes to the start of the mission screen, you will notice that it appears that there are no aircraft available as Austin or any other name you set in the UME,

C. Click the loadout screen and you will see the Mig17 loadout screen (if you have downloaded the loadout screen for this aircraft) and its available weapons as normal. Load up your Mig17, click fly and your in the mission flying a Mig17 with the loadout you chose.

This is a bug that affects the Mig23, Su27, Su35, Mig17, B52. You will have to fly these missions and use the Loadouts in the above way to make them work, I am working on a solution to this bug!

New Flight Models folder

There are new FMs for most aircraft but the ones that still have trouble are the F4e (suprise suprise) F22 although the F22 has been greatly improved and is a real gut turner when flying low!!. The best FMs are for F105D, F16, Mig 29, F15E and C. Try the new F-105D Flight model, its an absolute joy to take off, fly and land and you see why this aircraft is my favourite one to make missions with!!

Please be warned that the new Flight models are a lot harder to land and need much more preparation before landing. This is for realism and to make the flying of the aircraft more of a challenge. Do not try these flight models if you play your game on medium of easy mode, they are not for the beginner :)

Graphic enhancements.

I have reworked slightly the afterburn pal file and the clouds and have included these in the files. I have has to drop the new engine glow, the code was causing problems with the games stability, but I will include this when I have a better code for this feature. The new missile and countermeasure flare has also been included.

Well thats about it so I hope you all enjoy the new file and lets see some new missions for the great fun game of USAF.

My regards

Jupiter

How to Install the files:

I recommend that you do a fresh instalation of USAF before applying the new admin file, the artificial intelligence may not work correctly otherwise!

1.Admin file:

You will have to manually install this file by doing the following:

Using winzip or any other achive file utility, extract the admin file to the following default path:

C:\Program Files\ Jane's Combat Simulations\USAF\Resource\Missions\

Just type this command when you are propted to where you want to unzip the file!

or unzip the file to a separate folder, cut the file and paste it in the missions folder. Which ever way you do it, the admin file must go in your missions folder. You will find the missions folder by going into your main USAF directory whereever you installed the game Usually in your C:\, then look for the folder named "resource", click on that and you will find the missions folder there! just drop the file in there and overwrite the old one after you have made a backup of the original. Thats it.

2. Loadout screens

Extract the folder called "Jet" to the following path:

C:\Program Files\ Jane's Combat Simulations \USAF\Resource\Menu\Bmp\Loadout\Jet

Again, go into your USAF main folder, go into the folder called resource, look for the "menu" folder, click on that and you will see another folder called "Bmp" . Click on this folder and you will see a folder called "Loadouts, click on this, then lastly, you will see the "Jet" folder, that is where your new loadouts must go. Its named "Jets" already so just replace the folder with the new one.

3. Graphic enhancements

Extract the file to the following path:

C:\Program Files\ Jane's Combat Simulations \USAF\Resource\3Dobjects

Just replace the folder "3Dobjects" with this one and your good to go.

4. Sound files.

Extract the file to the following path:

C:\Program Files\ Jane's Combat Simulations \USAF\Resource\SoundFiles

5. Flight Models

Extract the file to the following path:

C:\Program Files\ Jane's Combat Simulations \USAF\Resource\MD

There is no need to acknowledge me if you use the files for further modification, just please send me any new missions you create using the new admin file. I am going to start playing USAF again LOL.

End.