Note: this is an EXE installer that creates shared texture folders and adds paths to your autoexec.cfg.
A-4E: US Marine Corps Attack Squadron 331 (VMA-331) "Bumblebees" for DCS World with the A-4E Community Mod installed.
This skin pack has VMA-331 liveries circa 1964 deployed with Carrier Air Wing 8 on the USS Forrestal and a 1982 low visibility scheme.
VMA-331 was commissioned in 1943 as Marine Scout Bomber Squadron 331 (VMSB-331) and flew the SBD Dauntless in the World War II Pacific campaign. In 1959, the squadron was deactivated, only to be reactivated in the 1950s as VMA-331 flying the A-4 Skyhawk. The Bumblebees transitioned to the AV-8B Harrier in the early 1980s, and in 1985 became the first operational AV-8B squadron in the Marine Corps. VMA-331 flew the Harrier in Operation: Desert Storm, and continued to fly the Harrier until its disestablishment in 1992.
For Compact Installations - A Note About Autoexec.cfg:
Rather than copying texture files to their respective livery folders, I prefer to use a series of common texture folders along with unique filenames. This allows a single instance of many of my common textures, and keeps the hard drive footprint to a minimum (especially nice if you run a SSD for your system drive).
The installer will add a series of folders to the DCS Texture path; if you do not have these folders created, then it is no problem. The autoexec.cfg included will automatically point to the Texture folder in your Saved Games\DCS folder, and regardless of whether you run the Open Alpha, Open Beta, or Release version of DCS, the path will always point to your Saved Games\DCS\Texture folder. Again, this saves space on your hard drive.
If you use your own Autoexec.cfg, then when prompted to overwrite you can click "no". This will create a file called autoexec.new, and you can manually make the updates as you like. Just don't modify the top line with the file date; this is used by the installer for version control. However, feel free to include it in your existing autoexec.cfg, so you don't get prompted to overwrite until there's another update to the autoexec.cfg.
If you inadvertently overwrite your autoexec.cfg, it is actually backed up as autoexec.old. Just open it and copy the appropriate information to the new file.
For Traditional Installations or JSGME Compatible Extractions:
If you don't wish to use the shared texture folder and custom autoexec.cfg, you have a couple of other options available. Selecting the Traditional Install copies all textures to each livery folder, then copies each livery to each version of DCS detected (up to three versions, including release, open alpha and open beta). As a result, the listed hard disk space requirement assumes all three DCS versions are installled. Each skin is independent and portable.
If you wish to install to a location other than your Saved Games folder, you must select the Single JSGME Extraction, or else the installation will fail for not detecting existing Saved Games\DCS folders. Selecting this option will create a JSGME compatible install that can be dropped directly into your JSGME _MODS folder for installation. Each skin is independent and portable.
For either of these installation options, if there is an issue with textures not displaying, then it is likely a problem with the installer. Please let me know what textures are missing so that I can troubleshoot the issue.
Change Log:
1.00 Initial Release
1.10 Added 1985 skin
1.20 Updated for A-4E-C 2.0
Improved fuel tanks
Improved 1982 skin
If you have any squadron requests, please PM me. If possible, provide top and profile views of the aircraft, preferably line art (much easier to extract color), and for CAG/CO birds, a close up of the tail fin is greatly appreciated.
You are free to use any of these skins in other projects as long as proper credit is provided in the readme file.
Fly Navy!
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