Hi and a couple of questions.

[uubeerdude]

Hi all,

I would like to know, please, if the Mission Mate program works with AEP. Also, the Johnny Red Campaign is set in Europe in 1940-'43.Is it compatlble with AEP?

Thanks

[MaXMhZ]

Hi uubeerdude, Welcome to Airwarfare!

I'm not sure, but Johnny Red Campaigns 1 and 2 have a "compatibility" note of 4.04m,
JR 3 has PF+FB 4.04 (probably means 4.04m again)

while JR Grand Campaign has a PF+FB 4.05m+

Meaning they are not compatible with FB+AEP (allways V2.xx)

For JR 1-3 This means you would need PF+AEP (Or Gold-pack) and
Pacific Fighters (merged install) and some (free) patches.
For the "Grand" Campaign you would also need the Pe-2 4.05(m) Add-On (pay-for available from http://shop.ubi.com/default.asp through Boonty.
Take care the Pe-2 Add-on is a bit tricky to install the right way.
Save your il2.exe and l2fb.exe to a safe place before downloading/installing it! copy them back after you installed/activated Pe-2 and uninstalled the Boontybox downloader and you should be fine.
The current version of FB is 4.05(m) as you know. This is also the version that's played online by 99% of the players.

Mission Mate has it's own feedback forum on Airwarfare, I'm unsure if it will work with AEP, though an educated guess will be it is compatible - Version 2.6 says compatibility : "all"Because Mission Mate is a mission editor, and the files making up the missions were never changed from FB 1.0

All of these are free downloads from Mission4Today, so I would just try them - If they don't work, bummer, but you didn't loose anything. If they do work, well great. None of them will crash your system or do harm to it if they don't work.

I would advice to add PF to AEP+FB and add the free patches (at least) This would bring you up to 4.04m adding a lot of maps, planes carriers and a new dynamic Campaign system and other goodies:)

It seems a pity to me to stop halfway into the series while there are still two (pay-for) add-ons on the way (IL-2 over Manchuria - hopefully any day now, and the '46 Add-on; both from http://www.rrgstudios.com and also available (once released) through the shop at http://shop.ubi.com/default.asp and Boonty.
There are also rumours of one last free add-on coming after '46 and the people at http://www.gennadich.com/lang/en/ are working on a WW I game based on the IL-2 engine
If you still have money left after that there will be SoW:BoB, the new game which probably will need a new state-of-the art computer by then too

[uubeerdude]

Thank you very much. I will try mission mate. I went thru the trouble to download uberdemon's mission generator with a dial up connection only to find it is not compatible with windows ME.

I guess I will have to wait on the rest. My machine is not fast enough for anything beyond AEP. As soon as I can though...

[MaXMhZ]

I had WinME on my system a very long time because of special hardware that never supported WinXP (Korg Oasys PCI synthesizer). I must say the WinXP OS runs very much better (including IL2 flightsims. It's worth keeping in mind when buying hard and software that support for WinME is rapidly becoming a rare thing. e.g. my Creative Soundblaster Audigy2 ZS does not support WinME nor do many of the programs I have installed. I think even ?M$ itself doesn't support WinME anymore, making it become a safety risk too now and in the future.
UberQuick Mission Generator has supported WinME in the past, maybe Uberdemon still has an old version lying around somewhere. It wouldn't hurt to ask for a link or an upload through http://www.yousendit.com in the UQMG forum here. IIRC I did have it running when I still had WinME.
I don't have a fast machine either - I'm running FB 4.05m on perfect settings quite ok though on my (I know, just laugh) P4 1.7GHz 1GB DDR (pc2100) 133 mHZ fsb with a (just new) AGP 4X ATI Radeon 9600. On perfect setting fps is 20-40 if not too much is going on Through Quick Mission it mostly runs 30-40 fps when I'm just flying around.

[uubeerdude]

You are absolutely right. I recently installed SUSE Linux 10.1 because of the superior security it reportedly has over the stuff from Redmond. That can be problematic though. I have found, for instance, problems with graphics drivers, modems, and printers. WINE is the Linux program necessary to run windows programs and I have not worked with it yet. I'll be looking around. I don't know that I want to try Windows Vista until I hear some good news about it, and there has not been much to date. If I go to another os I don't know that I will want xp, thinking that Microsoft will jerk support for it like they have with 95, 98, and ME. They have stopped or are about to stop supporting NT too and 2000 is on the block. The cost of Vista and extra licences are gonna be kinda steep too. Otherwise I need more power and memory. My system is stone age compared with yours, Max. That is where cost really becomes an issue. But to play a game? I probably will and justify it by telling myself over and over it's for the grandkids. And thanks for the helpful response.