Recievied another email from FabioCape; who sent in two tips below, about 'hidden' maps in FA. It appears that you can REMOVE permanent map objects when building a mission. It works like this:
1) Build mission normally; adding the items YOU want (airfields, city blocks, etc). Save and exit.
2) Open the M file in your favorite text editor.
3) Look for the map T2 identity line (see below)
textFormat
brief
briefmap
armplane
map egy.T2 <---This line!
layer cloud1.LAY 1
wind 65 7
view 1211 1424353 956806
sides3
4) Add the letter "v" after the map name:
map egyv.T2 <--It should now look like this
5) Save the M file. Go back into the game, and ALL the usual, permanent objects will be gone!. Note: in testing this, I also noticed that several 'ground textures' were missing as well--like rivers, some mountains and other textures.! But it DOES work! So you can clean out all the unecessary items, and have a clean map to do with as you see fit: call it Maryland, or Norway or whatever you want! "If you name it, people WILL believe..."
Also, be advised that it does NOT work in the Vietnam map in FA...if you try it, you will get a "fatal error" and crash out. I'm still testing the other maps as of 9/1...more to come!
Thanks again FabioCap! This is another good one!
What's this on the ground?--Looks like snow!
Yes, Virginia, you CAN change some of the weather effects in ATFG and FA! Below you'll see a copy of a 'm' files opening lines:
textFormat
brief
briefmap
armplane
map egy.T2
layer cloud1f.LAY 1 --#1 --something extra!!!
clouds 1 --#2
wind 65 7 --#3
view 1211 1424353 956806
sides3
(---I snipped out all the middle stuff---)
time 10 0 ----#4
usGroundSkill 1
usAirSkill 1
themGroundSkill 1
themAirSkill 1
historicalera 4
obj
#1:You can see here that I've used the 'cloudy day', which would normally give you a low ceiling of about 5000 feet, and an upper deck of about 10,000 feet.
#2: Here is the cloud layer setting. If you use 0 (zero), you'll get a foggy day. We don't want that, so I set the level to '1'.This give a nice, patchy cloud layer RIGHT AT GROUND LEVEL. sort of like patches of snow on the ground. In the line marked 'something extra' you'll notice the 'f' in the middle. This allows you to change the texture overlay of the map. You can see this is 'egy.t2', the Egyptian desert map. By changing that 'e' to an 'f' or 'v' you can get the France or Vladivostok green overlay. It also works the other way, as well. Turn that nice lush green French countryside into a wasted desert. Just change the f to e. And it IS case sensitive...lower case letters ONLY (thanks to the Vark for that tip!!!)
#3: This is wind direction and speed. You can see we have a 7 knot wind from 065 degrees. You can change these values to almost anything -- how about 200 knot headwind, from due north? '0 200' is what that would read like.
#4: Time of day. You can change this as well. Using the 24 hour, military clock. Want to make twilight last longer, change the default to an earlier time: such as 18 to 19; the sun will be up, low on the western horizon. Or dawn break later. The usual time is 6; change that to 4 or 5 -- this gives you a longer night time before the sun rises...it works VERY well if you have long flying times to the target area, and want to get 'upsun' of the Bad Guys! (thanks to P.Mok for the 2 above tips!)