Welcome back to another update of your favorite Gulf War modification. As promised on twitter, we now have two new maps that have not been announced yet. And here we go. First off, there are two new screenshots of our new map, called Weapon Facility, which was made by our fellow modder and lead Mapping Artist [EoD]Junglist. You have already seen this map, but here are two small teasers for your pleasure:

Now, let’s go to the new additions to the mod. The first new map we would like to show you, is the well-known Kashan Desert from the Project Reality Mod. We thought we would need a bigger map where you can take our big bad baby, the B52 Stratofortress, for a ride. Now, you finally can do so.

The second new map in our pool will be Ar Rawdatayn Oilfield. Besides Kashan Desert, this is our largest map so far, and it has been created by BSS Dev TrueSpirit. This also is his second map for USI, and even though it’s large and open, it has some nice spots to hang out and wait for the enemy. This is our first map to feature our very own F-117A Nighthawk and the BTR-50 APC from IDF.

That’s it for this week’s pictures, but that’s not all. Guedoe has been playing with the BF2 engine and came up with something we have had planned for a while now: Let the environment come alive with our brand new Aircraft that fly over your head while you fight. We think they add alot to the gameplay atmosphere and really make the static map come alive. But watch the videos Guedoe recorded while testing his code. Please note that those things are still WIP or Work in Progress, so they are subject to change until release.

We hope you like our new stuff, until next time!

Note: This News Post has been updated. Please read the new instructions on how to install the updated hotfix. Guedoe encountered some hard drive errors during the creation of the first hotfix released yesterday so it basically destroyed the USI.17 installation of those who have installed yesterday’s version. We are very sorry and embarassed for this incident and hereby give you the updated files. All you have to do is reinstall USI 0.17 and then apply the small 0.2 meg hotfix.

After DICE recently released the BF2 1.5 Patch, many mods lost their compatibility to this new version. Other mod teams such as Project Reality, Forgotten Hope 2 and Sandbox already have released a hotfix to make their versions compatible with 1.5, and now it’s our turn to do so. We don’t have included anything new or fancy, we only changed the things that made USI crash when played with BF2 1.5.

So here we are with our updated hotfix. What it does: It patches the objects_server.zip in your mods/usi.17/ folder and updates the mod description so it says 0.17d in the community tab.

Hotfix 0.17d – 0.2 MB
- download at FileFront.com
- download at RapidShare.com

How to install:
- download the small executable file
- install it following the description
- play the game!

Make sure you have USI 0.17 and BF2 Patch 1.5 installed!

In case you own a server, you will have to install it on your local PC and then just upload the new objects_server.zip and mod.desc to your server’s /mods/usi.17/ folder. Overwrite the existing files and you’re set. If you encounter any problems, feel free to let us know. As always, when you have bugs or feature requests, you can find the proper ways to report them on our homepage. Have fun playing USI 0.17 with BF2 1.5 compatibility, hope to see you soon.

- The USI Dev Team