Greetings, fellow CFS enthusiast, and thank you for downloading this mission.
This is a CFS1 stock mission originally titled Ships of Opportunity. It has been converted and modified to play in CFS2.
You will be flying from the American side, so the mission will be found under the American section in the mission setup screen.
Your mission goal is to destroy 2 merchantman vessels. You may find it terribly easy, or if you're like me and can't place a bomb on target if your life depended on it, you may find it challenging. You have 3 wingmen available to help, and they seem to do a decent job of it. Just tell em which merchantman to attack and let em at it. I loaded up the bombers with a medium bomb load,(I used the stock dp for simplicity's sake), so you'll have 4 passes if you need em. I usually do.
Just extract the contents of the zip file into a temp folder and then cut and paste or drop and drag the .mis and the .dyn files into your CFS2 mission folder.
You will also need to copy a few sound files from your Cfs2 Sound folder into your Cfs2 Sound/Action folder, if you'd like to have some status messages while flying. Specific files listed in the sound install.txt file included in this package. I also included a few sound files from CFS1 that need to be added as well, just drop em in your CFS2 sound\action folder.
You also need Akemi's Bf109e-7.
And most importantly you need to make your B25 flyable, if you haven't already. Plenty of options available, just check around.
The baydoors update includes an airfile to enable player operated flight, and can be found at the Sim-Outhouse. The file is called surprisingly enough "Baydoors Update".
***If these links are dead or inaccurate, try getting help on one of the CFS forums out there for updated locations.***
In this mission I changed the players airplane from a P-47 to the B25D Mitchell that came with CFS2. You will need to make yours flyable if you haven't done so already. There are plenty of options available to you. The airfile I'm using came with the baydoors update zip file available on the net, that also lets your bomb bay doors open. It is at the Sim-Outhouse. You will also probably want to get decent panel and\or sound packs for your B25.
The ai bombers perform as well as can be expected, I suppose. Shame MS didn't use more of their resources on better ai characteristics, what we got is pretty ho-hum. If you look at your wingmen just so, and hold your breath and cross your fingers, and (most important of all) think positive, then just maybe they will attack the targets with their bombs.
I did have to move the starting base closer to the target as the Mitchell was guzzling more gas than I could carry. No big deal, it makes it a shorter flight home, if you so choose to fly instead of warp. Even still, the possibility of running out of gas is present.
There is heavy flak (naturally, what else would you expect from FvB?), and there is one flight of defending aircraft (2 planes) set up on a 20% random spawn trigger. I didn't think they were necessary at all, but what the hey, at only 20% you usually don't even see em, but in the case that you play missions over and over (like me), it adds a bit of variety.
This mission really surprised me, as changing to a bomber made it come alive. I have come to enjoy flying the Mitchell, and am slowly improving my bombing skills. I think for those like me who aren't terribly good at bombing, the mission goal is pretty well balanced. I tried it at sinking all 4 merchantmen at first, but it was too difficult for me to pull off.
It seems as if the ai drop 2 bombs at a time, so they have in effect 2 passes to help you. And with the medium bombs (500 pounders I think) you really must put the bombs on target. Close misses don't seem to get the job done.
The flak makes it difficult to hang around very long, so if you are lucky enough to take out 2 merchantmen on the first pass, I'd head on home and call it a day. There are plenty of other targets available to you if you choose to stay though.
Here are a few tips, but you'll have your most fun experimenting for yourself.
As always it was designed to be played at 100%. It should play fine on other settings as well, but it was not tested on any.
This mission was designed and tested using warping, I make no guarantees it will work correctly in real time.
I used Akemi's Bf109e7 for the defending aircraft, they work well as ai defenders, and his planes look fantastic
without eating up your frame rates, which with a pc like mine means a whole lot.
You can find it at his site, Here.
If you decide to change planes, be advised that I hand-edited parts of the mission and dynamic files.
****Make a backup copy first, or you will most likely lose some tweaks, and you will definitely lose the
(or get back actually) "you must survive" automatic goal, which I eliminated by hand editing, when you run it through the mission
builder.***
I would suggest either editing by hand or using Keith Bedford's mission editor to swap planes.
Keith's mission editor can be found at Netwings. It is called CfsMe2 Beta.
I included several of the sound files from CFS1. They aren't absolutely required, but they do make it more interesting.
I'd also recommend installing some form of European CFS1 runways. During testing I just used an old set of bare runways that have NDB's included. I got them at the Sim-Outhouse. The zip file name is called European Runways for CFS2 ~ MK. II. These match up to the european runways listed in the airbases.dat file, so there is none of that annoying adding runways to the airbases.dat file. It is fine to check your advanced info screen in other words.
I deleted all objects from the mission files that were at or around the runways. Mainly because it takes longer to load when they're all there, and secondly because some of you are probably using other scenery packs anyway, and this would just cause a bunch of overlapping and altogether sloppy looking scenery. If you don't have any of the CFS1 runways installed, you'll just be taking off from bare land (no runways). If you don't mind that, then neither do I.
I have included ditching (like C. Burgess uses in his missions) in these missions, as I like it, and find it helpful in the cases where you just can't make it home. You just need to be outside the base area (about 1 mile from base or less) and come to a stop, then cut off your engine. I have found that doing this inside enemy territory miraculously let's you evade capture. At least it has every time I've done it so far.
There are several more of these CFS1 stock converted missions also available, and possibly more on the way. It just depends on the potential of each one. If I discover some aspect of them I like, then I will invest the time necessary to complete some more.
I also have other "experiments" sitting on my hard drive if I can get around to completing them, stay tuned...
Well, good luck, I hope you enjoy this mission. Go help out our navy friends.
This package is freeware and cannot be sold for any reason. You may post it where you like, just so long as all original documentation (this HTML file!) is included as well.
I claim no responsibility for your pc's behavior prior to or after installing FvB missions.
Use at your own risk, no warranty implied or offered. It plays brilliantly on mine own system.
I can be reached at the address below.
Designed and tested on a PIII 600, windows 98 SE, 128 RAM, Voodoo 3 2000 system. (You can stop laughing now, I can hear you!!!) The same system I was playing the original versions of these CFS1 converted missions on. As the saying goes, "She ain't much, but she's mine".
All HTML on this page was done by hand using wordpad and tested on Internet Explorer 6.0. Not sure what it'll look like on anything else, but it looks ok with IE 6.0.
All grammatical errors are solely the fault of the author and cannot be blamed on anyone or thing excepting himself.
FvB missions are made under the influence of rock and roll (mostly the classic type). Play it loud!
LONG LIVE ROCK!!!
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