Oudy

Tartari Just wanted to let you know I created a quick mission on your blank map and it worked perfectly. Oudy

Thank you very much. I've been thinking of trying my hand at making a new map. Oudy

Thanks Moon I used the "report this listing" button earlier and now it is up and working. Thanks for the quick response and I hope that we won't have to go through this every time. Oudy

Dr. Jones I think the repository is broken at the moment. I'm having the same problem uploading the new filelist.txt. I've uploaded it twice with the same result as you. Oudy edit. The file is now up and working as intended. Thanks Moon.

ok, I reupped it. Hope it worked this time. Oudy

I'm uploading a new filelist.txt dated May 17 2009. It includes a lot more entries. Oudy

By the way, I'm uploading a new filelist.txt Oudy

Knokke That was the one file that I didn't have either. It doesn't extract from the SFS files. Oudy

ReichElite Files on the way. Oudy

Prattboy You need to put the SFSExtractor with all the accompanying files and the filelist.txt into the "Theatre of War 2\MissionEditor\" directory, not into the root directory. Hope that helps. Oudy

I generated an initial filelist for TOW2. It is posted in the Battlefront Repository. I'm sure it is preliminary and incomplete but there are already over 19,000 entries and I'll continue to add to it as I find more files. But it's a beginning. The directory structure is quite similar to TOW1 but the models are a bit more complicated. It certainly should be possible to add new units. It would be nice if 1C and/or Sneaksie would provide us with a breakdown of the model structure like he did for TOW1. It would save a lot of guesswork and help jump start the modding community. What becomes clear when you look at the SFS files is that 1C has put in a tremendous amount of work on this game. Virtually every aspect of he game can be modified. Props to everyone who worked on it. Oudy

General Solomon Just ordered mine as well. Oudy

Prattboy Dr. Jones mentioned something about working on an updated SFS extractor so we can generate a new filelist. I would imagine that we'll have something in a reasonably short period of time. Oudy

While waiting to purchase TOW2 I'm preparing with a little "light" reading. At the moment I'm 2/3 of the way through Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa 1942-43. This is not a book about small arms and battlefield tactics but one that take a grand strategic view of the campaign. It examines how the US commanders, including Eisenhower, and US troops began the transformation from rank green amateurs to the beginning of a professional disciplined army. Atkinson has a wonderful way of incorporating personal anecdotes from diaries and letter that really make the campaign come alive. I am enjoying the book tremendously and would recommend it to anyone interested in the North African campaign. The next book on my list is Douglas Porch's, The Path of Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II. This book has been on my reading list for a couple of years and now is the time to finally get around to reading it. Porch also takes the long view of the Mediterranean theater. One of his main arguments that the invasions of North Africa and Sicily were necessary learning experiences for success in the Normandy invasion. I'll let you know what I think of this book when I finish it. Both of these books would be valuable reads for anyone interested in a deeper understanding, not just of battles and tactics, but of how North Africa helped contribute to the Allied victory in WWII. Oudy By the way Atkinson's book won a Pulitzer Prize.

Looks nice. I'm looking forward to getting the game when I get back home. Until then I'll live vicariously through other people's vids and descriptions. Oudiy

Batsting It appears that a number of people have had similar issues and running the game as administrator has solved a bunch of them. hope that helps Oudy

Dr. Jones I'm very pleased to see that you are getting involved in TOW2. Hopefully your work will stimulate a thriving modding community. Without your work there would have been no modding of TOW1. I wish you well, Oudy

Dr. Jones This is definitely exciting news. You've come a long way since we started looking at the .msh files. SlapHappy, the mods I worked on like the Firefly had modified .msh files, but I didn't change the shape of the 3d objects just swapped one gun barrel for another. But in order to do that I had to modify the .msh. What is exciting is the thought that you could make a whole new 3d turret for the Firefly and import it. Thanks for all of the work you've done for the modding of the game Dr. Jones. Hopefully my workload will ease up so I can get back to the game. Oudy

Boog2006 I figured out the animation tables and have an excel file that shows what most of the tables do. It has not been updated for the patch but it should give you an idea of how they work. I'll upload the file to Cmods and write up a little primer on how the animation tables work later when I get home from work. Oudy

Boog2006 I'll help if I can. Oudy

Thanks for the update Dr. Jones. Without your extractor there would be no modding of TOW. We owe you a debt of gratitude. Oudy

Oragus That may be a file that is in your game directory from when you installed the game and not from the the extractor. If it isn't in your game directory then download the TOW Updated Filelist.txt and use it to extract the additional files. It's been a while and I don't recall off the top of my head where that files comes from. Hope that helps, Oudy

Madmatt Thanks for the info on the patch. I'm excited that Battlefront is committed enough to the game to include additional content. I realize some people are impatient, but it will be done when it's done. I would much rather wait a little longer for a bug-free, or nearly bug-free patch than have it rushed and buggy. Kudos to Battlefront for taking their time. In the meantime, I'll listen to Shostakovich's 7th Symphony to get myself into the mood. Happy Holidays to all. Oudy

Oragus Head over to http://www.cmmods.com/ and look at the TOW faq I put up a while ago. It is a primer on modding TOW and should have the information you want. Oudy

SlapHappy I like the idea of randomly generated mission.xml files but you would have to set up templates for each map to know where to place troops. You don't want to randomly put units on a map. This is what the official campaign generator (DGen) and Lowengrin (DCG) do in Il-2. The problem is that you have to create another program to generate the files and that takes a person with programming skills. I did my scenario the way I did because I didn't want to have to write a whole new program. The main difference in scenario generation between Theatre of War and Il-2 is the importance of terrain. Each scenario author has to really look at the terrain and ask, "where would you defend on this map?" or "where would you attack?" I think you can make a scenario interesting with 2 or three different randomized events, but the game doesn't lend itself easily to full randomization because of the importance of terrain. I think it is more important to have an interesting story and make the scenario fit the map rather than have a fully randomized "kill all the enemy troops" scenario. The burden falls on the scenario creator to do a lot of work and with certain missing scripting features like a way to cycle through individual units, it is a big challenge. There have been several "proofs of concept" scenarios that have demonstrated the flexibility and power of the game but it is a lot of work for the scenario creator. Hopefully, after the patch, we will see more individual scenarios and even campaigns written. It would certainly be nice to see some tools to help authors create their own scenarios. All the best Oudy