IL2 Expansion packs

[Flakfan]

As a newbie to this forum and the flight sim genre (from strategy), I need some help from the experts. So I am here on your forum. I have IL2 1946 which has FB, Aces, Pacific Fighters in one package. I have purchased some expansion packs which are made for FB. They show to be installed on my hard drive, but I cannot find evidence of them when I start the IL2 1946 game. How can I access these expansions? I hope you will forgive my rather simple question, but I am new to this. Thank you in advance for your replies.

[Flakfan]

As a newbie to this forum and the flight sim genre (from strategy), I need some help from the experts. So I am here on your forum. I have IL2 1946 which has FB, Aces, Pacific Fighters in one package. I have purchased some expansion packs which are made for FB. They show to be installed on my hard drive, but I cannot find evidence of them when I start the IL2 1946 game. How can I access these expansions? I hope you will forgive my rather simple question, but I am new to this. Thank you in advance for your replies.

[FoolTrottel]

Welcome here! http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/clap.gif

The expansion packs are mostly 'visible' when starting a campaign.
Depending on the pack you got, it is visible in the Campaign's name, on the right part of the (new) Pilot Career menu.

[KUR] stands for Kurland, comes with Ostfront
[BOE] stands for Battle Over Europe
[...] there's more of 'm, can't think of any right now...

The packs may also have added single missions, or skins...

Good Luck, and Have Fun!

[Flakfan]

FoolTrottel, I guess something is wrong as I can find no items in any part of the Career, Single Missions or Mission Builder sections. If you have any ideas, please let me know. Thank you again.

[FoolTrottel]

Try this:
Press Pilot Career, New.
Select Germany as Country.

Then, select the Career, should look like this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v668/fooltrottel/NewPilotCareer.jpg

What expansions did you buy?

(Well, that should've been my first question... http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/35.gif)

[Flakfan]

Well, I sort of went overboard actually, imagine that with IL2 stuff! LOL. They are:
Operation Overlord (X1 Software)
Normandy 1944 (X1 Software)
Case Blue (Matrix)
Combat over Europe (GMX)
Battle Over Europe (Just Flight)
Last Days (Matrix)
Ostfront (X1 GMX)
Rebirth of Honor (Plus Wave)
Wings Over Citadel (Plus Wave)
Wings Over Jungles (Plus Wave)
The Fires Above (Plus Wave)
Banzai (Matrix)
Operation Barbarossa (Matrix)
I am now trying to find WWII: Der Luftkreig (X1)
and Luftkreig uber Europa 1940-1945 (X1) and Pacific Fighters combined with Operation Overlord on a CD Rom. Having a hard time in the USA, they are available in Europe on Amazon, but Amazon will not ship to me in the US.
Call me an idiot, but I LIKE the game.
Only BOE (Battle of Europe) shows up when I use your instructions.

[Skycat_2]

Most of those titles are 'scripted' instead of dynamic campaigns. Regardless, they should appear in the Pilot Career menu under the nations represented by the expansion pack. Since those titles are written by different authors and published independently of 1C and UbiSoft, there is no rule as to how the campaigns must be titled. You may have a campaign that is titled like a novel (ie, like "Burning Streak" or "Blinding Sun" in 1946) or to represent a particular unit.

Sorry I can't be of more help. I only have BoE and OstFront. I have tried various free missions, campaigns and demo versions over the years however.

[FoolTrottel]

What Skycat said...

On the Ostfront CD, there's two 'Manuals' in PDF format.

My BoE pack came with a booklet...

Maybe google the web for each title, reviews might help on retreiving the contents...

Good Luck!

(If they're still not showing up anywhere, the only other thing I can think of is that they went into a different folder, but that could only have happened should have installed FB/AEP ever before...)

[Flakfan]

Yes I have BOE and some other titles like The Rebel, Burning Fires, etc. But their descriptions don't match the full descriptions of the expansion packs, so I am emailing the developers or sellers of the software. A minor issue no doubt, but annoying. Thank you again for your help. It has gotten me started.

[Skycat_2]

"The Rebel" came with 1946. But it got me thinking...

All the scripted campaigns go to your "IL-2 Sturmovik 1946/Missions/Campaign folder." If you look there you might get a clue as to if the campaigns are getting installed and what their names are ...

For example, when I first opened that folder I was presented with all the nationalities:
DE
DU
FI
FR
GB
...and so on. Knowing that there are definately scripted campaigns for Germany and for Russia that came on the DVD, I next looked in the Germany (DE) folder. Inside was:

46 Bomber
46 Fighter
BF-109
(and in my case, two dgen folders.)

Obviously, the "46 Bomber" and "46 Fighter" are the new Luftwaffe campaigns for 1946. I opened the "46 Fighter" folder and looked at the Info.properties file with Notepad:

Name Burning Streak
Short \n
Description Static Campaign, Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot (FW-190, I-250, He-162C, Ta-183).\n\nJuly - August, 1943. Army Group South. Operation Citadel... (etc.)

Okay, now I know the campaign name is "Burning Streak." Just for fun, I opened the first mission's briefing in the file named 01Fighter46.properties :

Name The eve of Battle
Short The eve of Battle\n
Description The eve of Battle\n\nWar... How it changes. After a while under this stress, your brain switches off, and the events fly straight through it and disappear into the mist.\n\nWhat day is it today? Tuesday? The month must be July, and the year 1943... Or is it August? Verdammt! Hope I didn't miss my birthday...

That's a start at least.

Out of the box, your 1946 installation shouldn't have any scripted campaigns for any nations except DE and RU. Scripted campaigns will appear as subfolders; these aren't the same as the property folders for the DGen (dynamic) campaigns however. DGen campaign files are stored in the "IL-2 Sturmovik 1946/DGen" folder in your main game folder.

Since I listed the stock Luftwaffe scripted campaigns, I'll close by listing the stock Russian campaigns:

59Gshad
ColdWinter
DuklikPereval
IL-2
LaGG-3
Pe-2_front
Pe-2_navy
VVS_46

After you install your copies of Operation Barbarossa, Case Blue, Rebirth of Honor and The Fires Above your RU and DE folders should have many more campaign folders inside.

Operation Overlord, Normandy 1944, and Combat Over Europe are Western Allies vs. the Luftwaffe so I would expect these to add campaigns to DE, US, GB and possibly FR.

The Pacific themed packs will likely add to UM, UN and US for America (Marines, Navy, Army) and to JA and IN for Japan (Army and Navy). They may also add to GB, RA, RN, (RZ?) and DU as well.

Battle Over Europe, OstFront and The Last Days are all DGen campaign packs so all their files will be in the DGen folder.

[Flakfan]

Boy, What a great help you are my friend. I knew I came to the right place to find my answers. I also neglected to mention that I have a computer with Windows Vista Home Premium and I suppose there may be some issues with some of the games, but the BOE installed and works fine. I really do appreciate all you guys helping me figure this deal out. I am like a sponge on all this information.

[Skycat_2]

If you have Vista, did you install 1946 to the DVD's default location? (Program Files/Ubi Soft/IL-2 Sturmovik 1946.) We now advise people to install 1946 outside of their Program Files folder; it solves some issues and makes add-on utilities fully compatible.

If you followed the advice to install to a different location, make sure you are targeting the packs to that location when you install them. It sounds like you got it right with BoE though, so I probably didn't even need to mention this. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Bearcat99]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Flakfan:
Boy, What a great help you are my friend. I knew I came to the right place to find my answers. I also neglected to mention that I have a computer with Windows Vista Home Premium and I suppose there may be some issues with some of the games, but the BOE installed and works fine. I really do appreciate all you guys helping me figure this deal out. I am like a sponge on all this information. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You will find that this place is very helpful. This place like this sim will be inlike anything you are experienced with... and i dont even know what that is.. but I know these guys... and I know this sim. Welcome aboard.