Q. How do I change the map overlays? A. A great feature not often used in missions is the fact that one can change the texture given to any map. In the beginning of the .M file is this: textFormat brief briefmap armplane map fra.T2 layer cloud1f.LAY 1 Line 6 has the overlayer given to the map by the mission. That little "f" after "cloud1" signifies the French map texture is applied to the French map ("map fra.T2). Replacing that "f" with another letter would apply a different layer. "e" corresponds with Egypt (desert), "v" with Vladivostok (blueish), "t" with Vietnam, and "b" with The Baltics. Vietnam texture overlays on other maps look especially nice, they give a good jungle appearance. Any overlay given to the Vietnam map also creates an interesting effect. Q. How do I make a new background screen for Fighters Anthology? A. The background files are named CHOOSE_X_.PIC, with the opening screen always named CHOOSEV.PIC. These files can be found in the Graphics-Other Art menu of the toolkit. I recommend saving CHOOSEV.PIC outside of the toolkit, editing it, and then importing. For importing, you must follow a special procedure for the pic to work. Select to import it as an "Other", then select "Save Palette". Then, it is neccessary to delete and retype the filename. Convert it, and save it by clicking OK. It should then show up in correct colors when viewed in the toolkit. Q. How do I make driveable vehicles? A. The way to make driveable vehicles is to base them on a PT (aircraft) file. I recommend starting with the Basegun (filename ~basegun.pt) and modifying it to suit your vehicle. My lib also has some driveable vehicles which you could use as a base, as my lib is importable. The trick is to keep the flight envelope (editable in the toolkit's Envelope menu for each aircraft) small enough so the speed is limited to whatever the vehicle's top speed is, and the max altitude is low too (usually it is 1000 ft for vehicles). Then your aircraft-based-vehicle in effect taxies around the map. Q. In some of my custom missions, aircraft do not take off from their airbase, but merely taxi across the ground. What causes this? A. This problem is caused by the nationality alignment assignment of the runway and can affect AI flights and your wingmen. Each FA map has default friendly and enemy national assignments. The problem is caused by changing these assignments. If one changes the friendly/enemy status of a runway that by default was enemy, and then place on that runway aircraft of a nationality that was by default friendly, the aircraft will not take off. This also works in reverse. For example, on the Baltics map, Estonia is by default friendly (blue). If Estonia is changed to enemy, then Russian (default enemy, and still enemy in this scenario) aircraft are placed on the runway, they will not take off. Estonian aircraft (now enemy) may take off (I'm not sure), so that could be a potential work-around. Q. When I add alot of weapons to Fighters Anthology in a custom library, fuel tanks and ECM devices disappear from the Load Ordnance screen. How do I prevent this? A. Fighters Anthology has a limited number of edited and addon weapons that can be added, before fuel tanks and ECM disappear from the Load Ordnance screen. The fuel tanks and ECM will be loaded on an aircraft if a mission skips the Load Ordnance screen. If you have added alot of weapons into FA using a custom library, the only way to get the fuel tanks and ECM devices to return to the Load Ordnance screen is to remove weapons from your lib until the fuel and ECM devices return. They will return one at a time. There are a few ways to maximize how many weapons your lib can have before fuel and ECM disappear. One way is to edit every default FA weapon, and then add any add-on weapons you need. It seems that FA has a limit only on add-on weapons, that is, weapons with new filenames. Therefore, if you can replace default weapons you feel are unneccessary or redundant with new weapons, you may not need to add as many weapons with new filenames. A second way to add a capacity for about a dozen new weapons is to split up your weapons into two custom libraries. Then, after building both, place both into your Fighters Anthology directory. The procedure is to move about half of your total edited (edited default and new addon) weapons into a second library project. Q. How do I get ships/vehicles to engage air and ground targets at ranges greater than visual range? A. The method I have found to work the best is to create a long range visual seeker. Edit one of the VisXXX.See files, renaming it and giving it a range of whatever is neccessary for your ships/vehicles to fully use their weaponry. I recommend a generic long range seeker that can be given to several (or all) of your vehicles. Give this seeker to your ships/vehicles in their hardpoints menu. Then, load up your ship/vehicle with whatever weaponry you want. Notes on weapons: 1. Make sure that ships can slew the weapons, and that all the weapons given to an object are secondary except for one. Secondary indicates that the vehicle doesn't need to "think" about targeting and firing it, and therefore will not turn toward the target. 2. Ships will fire all Air-to-Ground weaponry, and purposely-built radar-guided SAMs (designated as "Air-to-Ground"). Ships will fire air-to-air missiles with all guidance methods except radar. For a ship to fire an air-to-air missile, either semi-active guidance or active radar, they must be provided with a radar seeker. This can be in addition to an extended-range visual seeker. Q. I created a custom map using the FA Toolkit, but now it doesn't show up in the project in the Toolkit. What is wrong? A.The FA Toolkit has a bug wherein it looks for custom maps in the cache folder, instead of in the correct project folder. Also, after you create a custom map, it will leave dummy .T2 and .MM files in the cache folder. To get around this bug, create your custom map as usual, and then use Windows Explorer or a similar program to browse to your \Fighters Anthology\TOOLKIT\PROJECT\Project_Name_Here folder. Copy the custom .T2 and .MM files which correspond to your map, and paste them in your \Fighters Anthology\TOOLKIT\CACHE folder. The map should now be editable again in the FA Toolkit. Q. A custom library doesn't affect Fighters Anthology. What do I do? A.Fighters Anthology always looks for the newest lib files to use, and if your FA installation (and, therefore, default FA lib files) are newer, a custom lib won't be recognized. To remedy this, download Libstamp from my FA files and utilities page , and use Windows Explorer to check the date of the custom lib's .LIB file(s). Run Libstamp, and set the date of the two default FA libs to be older than the custom lib is. This will work for any custom lib that doesn't "register" with Fighters Anthology. Q. What does the carpet bomb check box do? A. The carpet bombing check for aircraft causes that aircraft to fire any weapon (with a specific carpet burst specified) differently from how that weapon would be normally fired. It will fire the number of weapons that have been specified in a weapon's "Game rounds in carpet burst" box, accessable via that weapon's Firing menu. "Delay between game rounds" specifies the time interval (in 1/4 seconds) between each projectile in a carpet burst. For example, if a B-52 has carpet bombing checked and carries Mk-82s, and the Mk-82 has 20 as the number of game rounds in a carpet burst, fired at an interval of eight 1/4 seconds, the B-52 will drop 20 Mk-82s over a period of 40 seconds on any target it attacks. Q. How do I import shapes and textures into the toolkit? A. To bring shapes into a Toolkit Project, copy the .SH and it's corresponding .PIC files into the /Projectname folder. Then, open ITEM.DAT with a text editor, and add two lines, one for the .SH and one for the .PIC. Preferrably, copy an existing .PIC line, and an existing .SH line (if you have already saved a .SH into the project; if not, a line referring to some other file type should work. Change the two new lines so that they refer to the new .SH and .PIC files. Copy the new lines at the top of ITEM.DAT, as an extra formatted line at the bottom of the file can cause a toolkit error. This is assuming that the texture for the shape is already in .PIC format. If it is .BMP format, simply import it via the toolkit graphics menu.