Two new JG54 Campaigns - completing the History

[dflion]

I have just submitted two new JG54 offline campaigns on M4T.
They are:

1. JG54 Russia 1941 -1943 (60 missions)
2. JG54 Normandy 1944 (15 missions)

To complete the history of JG54 'Grunherz' during WWII, you can fly my 'Greenhearts - Dora9' next (shortly to be updated to IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 ver. 4.10m) and then I recommend 'Icefires' excellent 'Greenhearts Kurland' semi-historical campaign.

All missions have been upgraded with the new navaids, variable weather and new aircraft. As I began upgrading these campaigns, I fully realised what a fantastic job Team Daidalos have done. The new navaids and variable weather add a whole new parameter to the sim and it looks like aerial radar won't be very far away.

The 60 mission campaign took me 6 months to complete and is historically thoroughly researched. I included a heavily modified 'Poymando' Bf109 G-2 campaign into my campaign. His G2 campaign was one of my favourites and should be fondly remembered by some of the older members.

It looks as though Oleg is about to release his new masterpiece, so I recommend re-living IL-2 Sturmovik, which just keeps getting better under the stewardship of Team Daidalos.

DFLion

[KG26_Alpha]

Thanks

Could you provide a link please :)

[dflion]

Apologies,

1. JG54 Russia 1941-1943

http://mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=4017

2. JG54 Normandy 1944

http://mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=4018

DFLion

[Charger]

Downloading now!

[Tempest123]

Awesome work! DL'ing now

[House M.D.]

Sounds like a fantastic work!

[Feathered_IV]

Downloading now also. Thanks very much for the hard work. Looking forward to it!

[Juri_JS]

Thank you for your work dflion. The campaigns look very interesting.

Do you know this new JG 54 skin pack by RDDR?
http://www.axis-and-allies-paintworks.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=839

The skins in the pack are some of the best I have seen for the Bf-109 and FW-190. I think they would be perfect for your campaign.

[csThor]

Not to put a too fine point to it but I think you should really avoid using real installation files for a campaign. Not that it unnecessarily clogs up the registry - it's simply not necessary since even the main program doesn't require a registry entry to run properly. A simple ZIP or an auto-extracting file (also an exe but it doesn't leave data trash) is a lot better IMO.

[House M.D.]

Have flown 3 missions already and all I can say is WOW!
Lion has made an excellent work in all aspects. Distances are right, balance is excellent and all in all you get what you need in an offline campaign: fun without getting bored.

[KG26_Alpha]

Not to put a too fine point to it but I think you should really avoid using real installation files for a campaign. Not that it unnecessarily clogs up the registry - it's simply not necessary since even the main program doesn't require a registry entry to run properly. A simple ZIP or an auto-extracting file (also an exe but it doesn't leave data trash) is a lot better IMO.

I think the opposite for these offline campains as unless you are an IL2 veteran and know the file structure this helps a lot of the newer pilots get up and running without having to cut n paste files everywhere , perhaps an option for Instal exe and a zipped/rar'd package for us die hard file pluckers :)

Great looking package btw lots of skins !!

[IceFire]

I don't like the EXE installs because I never know what it's going to do. One EXE install I had downloaded and installed overwrote some of the default backgrounds to the games and left no backups either. I forget what campaign that was (it was a long time ago) but needless to say I do appreciate the ZIP versions better.

If you structure your ZIP files correctly then the person just needs to extra to the one correct location and it's nice and easy. A self extractor can do the same job I suppose... but then it's harder to tell what it will be changing.

Also... glad to hear about more JG54 campaigns. I had an immense amount of fun making the Kurland campaign and it's good to see some other efforts on the other areas that this group was involved in. Very interesting history!

[nearmiss]

1+

Using installers is nothing but trouble

[dflion]

Not to put a too fine point to it but I think you should really avoid using real installation files for a campaign. Not that it unnecessarily clogs up the registry - it's simply not necessary since even the main program doesn't require a registry entry to run properly. A simple ZIP or an auto-extracting file (also an exe but it doesn't leave data trash) is a lot better IMO.

Thanks csThor, technically you have lost me a bit here regarding the registry being clogged up? My campaign files (Missions, Pilots and Skins folders) are collected into a 'Click' self-extracting .exe program then zipped up with a readme file and screen shot jpeg. All you have to do is extract the zip to a temporary folder and then follow carefully the 'Click' extraction' details on the .exe file. If you can give me some more details on the registry being clogged up with real installation files, I would appreciate your thoughts on this. Could the 'Click' program be causing the problem?

DFLion

[dflion]

Thank you for your work dflion. The campaigns look very interesting.

Do you know this new JG 54 skin pack by RDDR?
http://www.axis-and-allies-paintworks.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=839

The skins in the pack are some of the best I have seen for the Bf-109 and FW-190. I think they would be perfect for your campaign.

Thanks for this link Juri_JS. The JG54 skins look excellent and you are right, they are some of the best I have seen for the Bf-109 and Fw-190.

When the campaign requires updating I will incorporate some of them into the missions.
Many thanks,

DFLion

[dflion]

I don't like the EXE installs because I never know what it's going to do. One EXE install I had downloaded and installed overwrote some of the default backgrounds to the games and left no backups either. I forget what campaign that was (it was a long time ago) but needless to say I do appreciate the ZIP versions better.

If you structure your ZIP files correctly then the person just needs to extra to the one correct location and it's nice and easy. A self extractor can do the same job I suppose... but then it's harder to tell what it will be changing.

Also... glad to hear about more JG54 campaigns. I had an immense amount of fun making the Kurland campaign and it's good to see some other efforts on the other areas that this group was involved in. Very interesting history!

Thanks Icefire, I am starting to get 'the drift' of csThor's post. With self extracting 'Click' files, the biggest problem is getting the the path address to IL-2 exactly right. I have noticed over the years that this path address has changed slightly and this causes big problems. Obviously the 'Click' .exe is dumping unecessary stuff into the registry. I have to carefully' clean-up my registry from time to time to get rid of this stuff.

As KG26_Alpha says, there is another side of the coin when using self-extractors, they help our newer members get the files correctly into position.

I enjoyed flying your excellent JG54 Kurland campaign and hopefully my new JG54 campaigns will complete the very interesting JG54 story.

DFLion