COMBATSIM.COM: Playing with Fire: Patching the 'New' Falcon 4.0 --- Part II: Realism Patch 5.0

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Page 1

Playing with Fire: Patching the 'New' Falcon 4.0
Part II: Realism Patch 5.0

by Jennifer & Robert Mitchell

Article Type: How-To
Article Date: August 22, 2001

Product Info

Product Name: Falcon 4
Category: Jet Simulation
Developer: MicroProse
Publisher: Infogrames
Release Date: December 15, 1998
Req'd. Spec: PII 266MHz (PIII 450 Rec'd.), 64 MB RAM (128 MB Rec'd.), 3D Video Accel., 400 MB HDisk Space
Articles / Links / Files: Click Here

Back To Part I

Realism Patch 5.0

From the Foreword of the Realism Patch 5.0 User’s Manual:

With the release of version 5 of the Realism Patch, we have finally completed the process of modeling the full effects of electronic warfare on (a) modern air campaign. With an integrated air defense system, stand-off jammers, and other electronic support and countermeasures, Falcon 4 with the Realism Patch is now the most complete simulation of a modern air war ever made available in the PC flight simulation industry. The physics and engineering behind every change in the Realism Patch have been thoroughly and painstakingly researched and put together as an integrated whole.

Sound good?

Installing

If you choose to go with an iFalcon setup on your rig, the first thing you’ll need, post-1.08 patch, is the Realism Patch v. 5.0 Installer. This little gem will install 108i2, renamed Falcon4_RP5.exe in your root directory, and some of the basic realism patches. It’s based on Joel Bierling’s excellent program “F4Patch”.

Realism Patch 5.0

Simply double click the F4_RP_v50_Installer.exe, let it run, click on Apply Patch when you’re prompted by the installer program, and let it patch to it’s heart’s content.

Click on Apply Patch

What you’ll see after it’s done patching is a pop up box that will tell you which patches were installed by default.

Default RP 5.0 installed patches

Rather than go into a long dissertation on what each patch is and what it does, I’ll leave that for you, dear reader, to read the “F4_RP5_User_Manual.” It comes in .pdf format and weighing in at a whopping 12.3MB, zipped, it’s a serious read. These guys aren’t kidding around about their realism.

One thing of note: To ease patching and un-patching Falcon, after running the RP5 installer initially, in the above written manner, go back to the F4_RP_v50_Installer.exe, run it again, and when prompted to Unapply Patch, Advanced or Exit, click on Advanced. Make sure that it’s pointing to the Falcon4_RP5.exe in the Executable window.

You DON’T have to do this, but I highly recommend it as it will really ease installing addons later such as F4Patch Skins, F4Patch Cockpits, F4Patch Sounds, additional campaigns and terrains, and so forth. If you don’t want to expand F4Patch now you can just double click on F4_RP_v50_Installer.exe and Advanced to access the patch files.

Click on Advanced

This will start up F4Patch and take you back to the patch screen. From there, go to File and click on Expand Package You’ll then see a pop-up that looks like this:

Click Yes to expand

When prompted to overwrite your existing F4Patch folder click Yes. (This time only!! When adding additional F4Patch features, such as F4PatchCockpits, F4PatchSkins, or F4PatchSounds, you will NOT click Yes to overwrite…but that’s for another time.)

Click Yes to replace the directory

This will create a new F4Patch folder in your …\Falcon4 directory and create a shortcut to F4Patch on your desktop if you’d like one. If you’d rather not clutter your desktop with anymore shortcuts you can run F4Patch from the F4Patch.exe in the Falcon4 folder.

Create a shortcut on your desktop

You can now delete the F4_RP_v50_Installer.exe that’s in your …\Falcon4 folder. From now on when you wish to add or remove a patch from your install, click on the F4Patch.exe.

Now that you’ve got Realism Patch 5.0 installed and F4Patch expanded in your folder you may be wondering what ones to use. As I said, for a complete description of them you really should read the F4_RP5_User_Manual.pdf doc. For a quick briefing on a patch you can highlight it in the F4Patch interface and a description of it will magically appear in the window on the right side.

Highlight a particular patch to see a brief description of it in the description box on the right.

Click on the More Information button, if it’s highlighted, to view a readme file

Click on the More Information button, if it’s highlighted, to view a readme file

You may, or may not, be wondering what I use for patches in RP 5.0. I use the default patches and also:

Airbase relocation, Interactive:

This puts a small checkbox to apply or un-apply this feature in the Simulation tab of the setup screen in Falcon. What this will do is relocate squadrons to a different airbase if/when they are either put out of commission by an enemy airstrike, or are in imminent danger of being overrun. Notice the “Patch 2” in the description? There are now three sub-patches, these include (This is a very brief description) a patch for what used to be a very rapid relocation now takes 8 hours to perform, Squadrons that start out far from the FLOT will be moved closer, and relocating squadrons will be forced to reuse their own airbases rather than also using friendly or allied bases. (For instance, no USAF squadrons operating from an ROK airbase…I think…this patch is new to me too!)

Airbase relocation, Interactive extension after applying the patch.

CAT III Fix v1b and v2b:

This allows you to change from CAT III (Aircraft carrying drop tanks and/or A/G weapons) to CAT I (Carrying A/A weapons). v1b performs this task automatically when dropping tanks, unless there is a weapon(s) loadout that prevents it. (Such as a rack of bombs). v2b enables the CAT I/III switch in the cockpit so that you can manually engage the switch. The cockpit has to support this feature though, so you’ll need a 3rd party cockpit that supports that feature. Offhand, I don’t know of any now that don’t, but don’t quote me on that because there quite possibly is.

Location of the CATI/III Switch in the cockpit

Memory Leak Sealed:

I don’t really know any details of this other than eRazor found the memory leak and Sylvain Gagnon wrote the patch to apply it to an i2 based installation of F4. Since F4 uses tons of memory I always use this patch.

devCreateSurface/CTD fix:

Sometimes when using Mavericks or LGB F4 would crash to the desktop when exiting a mission. This patch fixes that. I personally never had this happen either before using this patch, or after. But a lot of people did.

If you decide to use the new 3D models patch ((3D-Mod) 3D models Parent Patch) be aware that it takes a long time to apply the new 3D models. They look very nice however and they’re worth the time in my opinion. Make sure that you read and follow the directions very closely when applying or they won't be applied!

Lastly, RP5 places a new keystrokes file in the config folder of your …\Falcon4 directory. Go to the Controllers tab of the setup screen, click on Load to bring up the keystrokes files you can choose from.