Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Staged Missions => Topic started by: bbosen on August 19, 2009, 04:40:50 PM

Title: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: bbosen on August 19, 2009, 04:40:50 PM
I have started a series of new missions based on the New Guinea campaign over Hollandia of March and April 1944. The first mission can be found here:

http://www.techvideoreview.com/FlightSimMovies/index.htm

(Sorry, no direct shortcut is available. You'll have to click on "Aces High", -> "Offline Missions", -> "The 1944 Hollandia Campaign over New Guinea).

There are some movie files showing the mission there, too.


Regards,



-Peabody-
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: Stalwart on August 19, 2009, 07:41:06 PM
Just finished the downloads.... Getting Psyched for this one.  :rock
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: bbosen on August 19, 2009, 08:45:00 PM
Stalwart:

Sorry.... the zip file was broken before you got to it. I've fixed it now, so if you're willing to download it again, you'll have much better luck this time!


Go to:

http://www.techvideoreview.com/FlightSimMovies/index.htm

Then, as before, Navigate thru "Aces High", "Offline Missions", "The 1944 Hollandia Campaign over New Guinea".



The zipped download should be about 3Megabytes. If you get only the 544 byte version, you've found the old one (which might still be cached by your ISP for a few hours).

When you unzip it, it will create a new folder named "440430" in your "offmiss" folder, with a lot of images and wav sound files in it, along with the new "res" mission file. That's what you want to see.

Of course, you'll need Aces High II Version 2.13 patch 1 to fly this mission. Anything earlier than that version won't support all of the mission complexity, and none of the later AH2 versions are yet working with offline stuff  :(





-Peabody-
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: Stalwart on August 19, 2009, 08:50:31 PM
Rgr   :aok

TY   :salute
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: Hawk55 on August 20, 2009, 08:01:16 AM
Bos, I'm having an issue with the terrain code.  I copied & saved it into notepad...what encoding do I name & save it as?
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: bbosen on August 20, 2009, 01:19:05 PM
Hawk55:

You should end up with a file named "nguinea6.res", which you should save in your "ahiiterr" folder. This is the same as for any other terrain.

I suspect that notepad is not the right tool for transporting the file, because it probably contains binary data (not just text). You'll want to right-click on the link to that file from the "Aces High" -> "Terrain Maps" -> "Terrains for Aces High II" -> "New Guinea" section of http://TechVideoReview.com/FlightSimMovies.

Most browsers will then offer an option to "save as", with a dialog box through which you can browse into your Aces High II filesystem.  In most cases, that means you'll be storing this file at c:\Program Files\HTC\Aces High II\terrains\nguinea6.res

Regards,



-Peabody-
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: Motherland on August 20, 2009, 04:32:37 PM
Offline missions can now be made for V.2.14-
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,272145.0.html
Of course, you'll need Aces High II Version 2.13 patch 1 to fly this mission. Anything earlier than that version won't support all of the mission complexity, and none of the later AH2 versions are yet working with offline stuff  :(
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: HellFire on August 20, 2009, 09:42:38 PM
Hello Peabody:
Downloaded Hollandia mission per ur instructions, ditto for the terrain, changed C:\Program Files to C:\Games (I'm on Vista) replacing all Program Files, dblechkd the Notebook to chk the program itself.  All necessary changes made!

Ran Aces High II, terrain, practice offline & selected "440430WewaktoHollandia
Strike", clicked on p38 group1.  The pilots' ready room appeared & as the curtain  was opening my system crashed.....the entire screen turned black.

Tried running mission several times w/similar results, btw when the "nguinea6"
map appeared there was also an error msg : Missing Shape  SAFLD1 (listed thrice)

Tried placing the 440430 file in missres w/Hollandia in offmis, effort failed.
Tried leaving the two (2) files 440430 & Hollandia in offmis, system still crash-
ing.

Your assistance in making this mission work is appreciated.  Thx.
P.S.  This mission is run on AH2131.
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: Hawk55 on August 21, 2009, 07:28:29 AM
Thank you Bos!   :salute  You're absolutely correct about the binary & text using notepad.  Followed instructions and it worked.  Thanks much for the help and for the mission.   :aok
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: bbosen on August 21, 2009, 09:00:51 AM
Hellfire:

Sorry to hear of your struggles. It sounds like you've done everything correctly. This mission makes big demands on your system because it has well over 100 aircraft. It works on all 6 of my systems (under Linux, and WinXP.  I can't remember if I've tested it on my one lonely Vista machine), and it appears that it works for others (Hawk55 reports success) but there can be no guarantee it will work for everybody. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that some machines aren't configured with enough memory, etc.

As I was developing the mission, I had even larger versions. I had problems like those that you describe, and I had to delete some additional flights to get it working reliably on all 6 of my systems. If you're handy with the mission editor, you might try deleting some of the Knight flights that are just taxiing around at Hollandia.

I have a severely trimmed-down version that even works on earlier versions of Aces High II (good for LAN battles) that I could publish if there's enough interest, but I can't get to that for a few days. The trimmed-down version doesn't have any voice banter and only about half of the aircraft. Let me know if you want it.

As for the error message reported by the NGuinea6 terrain: I know about it, and the message itself is harmless. Please ignore that one for the time being.



Regards,



-Peabody-

Hello Peabody:
Downloaded Hollandia mission per ur instructions, ditto for the terrain, changed C:\Program Files to C:\Games (I'm on Vista) replacing all Program Files, dblechkd the Notebook to chk the program itself.  All necessary changes made!

Ran Aces High II, terrain, practice offline & selected "440430WewaktoHollandia
Strike", clicked on p38 group1.  The pilots' ready room appeared & as the curtain  was opening my system crashed.....the entire screen turned black.

Tried running mission several times w/similar results, btw when the "nguinea6"
map appeared there was also an error msg : Missing Shape  SAFLD1 (listed thrice)

Tried placing the 440430 file in missres w/Hollandia in offmis, effort failed.
Tried leaving the two (2) files 440430 & Hollandia in offmis, system still crash-
ing.

Your assistance in making this mission work is appreciated.  Thx.
P.S.  This mission is run on AH2131.
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: HellFire on August 21, 2009, 04:11:31 PM
Greetings Peabody:
Doubled checked my system, have 465GB total & only 87GB used, thereby I've free
378GB, plenty of space(room) for more games, thereby I'm surprised that ur Mission doesn't work on my system  :frown:

Unfortunately I'm not good with the Mission Editor thereby I'm unable to make re-
ductions in planes or anything else.  Thx much for ur kind offer of a trimmed down
version, I do gladly accept it.
Cheers,

Hellfire
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: bbosen on August 21, 2009, 04:57:46 PM
Hellfire:

Your statement about having "465GB" free implies that you are talking about disk space. I suspect that free RAM space is more important to this situation.  In any event, I will try to help within the next couple of weeks by:

-- Publishing the trimmed-down version, and
-- Recompiling it with the new Mission Editor for use with newer versions of Aces High 2.

No promises about when this will be done ("2 weeks"), but I hope to get to it fairly soon. When I finish each of these steps, I'll alert this forum.


-Peabody-

Greetings Peabody:
Doubled checked my system, have 465GB total & only 87GB used, thereby I've free
378GB, plenty of space(room) for more games, thereby I'm surprised that ur Mission doesn't work on my system  :frown:

Unfortunately I'm not good with the Mission Editor thereby I'm unable to make re-
ductions in planes or anything else.  Thx much for ur kind offer of a trimmed down
version, I do gladly accept it.
Cheers,

Hellfire
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: bbosen on August 21, 2009, 05:01:29 PM
I had a new thought that will be helpful to some of you exploring this mission: Make sure you've configured your NGuinea6 (New Guinea) terrain so that the relevant airfields are set up as:

-- Hollandia and Aitape should be owned by the Knights
-- Wewak should be owned by the Bishops

If you get these wrong, then ground gunners will be shooting at all of the aircraft on takeoff, which will seriously impede your efforts!


-Peabody-
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: HellFire on August 21, 2009, 05:07:03 PM
Thx Peabody for ur courtesies & help   :aok   :salute
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: HellFire on August 21, 2009, 11:35:54 PM
Hello Peabody:

Just got done playing ur New Guinea mission.  The terrain is fantastic, the dogfights versus the 38s are great, however, the game was launched from the Japanese side; bombers, fighters all were flown successfully.  Hooray!  The graphics are wonderful.

Tried the game from the U.S. side & upon opening of the curtain in the ready room my computer blacked out ... crashed!

Does this info help u in correcting the problem, hopefully it does.   Thx for ur time.

Cheers,

Hellfire
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: bbosen on August 22, 2009, 07:34:16 AM
Hellfire:


Thanks for your report. The briefing for the American side is quite complex, but the briefing for the Japanese has none of that. This makes me believe that some resource of your computer is getting overloaded by the complex briefing.

I have one idea: you might try deleting some of the large "WAV" sound files that are played during the mission briefing. The first one is named "AttentionMissionForTodayHolla ndiaAB.wav", and you'll find it (along with the others) in the "440430" folder somewhere beneath your AH2 "offmiss" folder. Try deleting that file so the briefing just skips that set of associated resources, and then let me know if it goes any farther before crashing. If so, you might also want to just delete "HollandiaIntroAA.wav" and "Hollandia440430Intro.wav". You'll miss out on the narrative portion of the briefing, but you can hear it anyway in the movie that you can download from the web site (Look for the image that says "Hollandia 30Mar1944 Full Mission Recording".

I hope this helps. I'll try to published the trimmed-down version sometime in the next couple of weeks.


Regards,



-Peabody-
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: bbosen on August 22, 2009, 10:47:36 AM
I just updated the TechVideoReview.com/FlightSimMovies website with a trimmed-down version of Hollandia 30Mar1944. This version doesn't include any of the pre-recorded voice banter, and it has only about 60 aircraft. In my experience, it runs OK even on the older version 2.12.x of AH2 (which supports LAN play). It should be compatible with most folks that can't run the full version. You'll still need the nguinea6 terrain. You'll find everything you need at:

http://www.TechVideoReview.com/FlightSimMovies

Follow the links thru "Aces High", -> "Offline Missions", -> "The 1944 Hollandia Campaign over New Guinea".

The trimmed-down mission version is described at the bottom of the page. You can download and watch a wmv movie recording of the full mission if you still want to approach the "full" experience.


Regards,


-Peabody-
Title: Re: New Mission: Hollandia 30Mar1944
Post by: HellFire on August 22, 2009, 05:36:25 PM
Peabody:

Doubly grateful to u for  (1) the advice given me to delete the three (3) .wav files &
two (2) for the trimmed down version posted on this bbs.

I removed the three (3) files BUT from the .MIS program, & enjoyed the entire game
w/o interruption, congratulations on a job well done  :aok   Hope to see more of ur
missions in the near future. TY.

Hellfire

Bravo, Peabody, just flew the trimmed-down version, it's as much fun as the full version but the action takes place sooner and it's just as challenging!   :salute