Air Warrior - Atari ST Version ** Version 1.2e ** - The elevator-to-heaven stall bug has been fixed. - The terrain map has been changed slightly, new airfields and aircraft carriers have been added. - A new menu entry has been added to allow you to specify the drive and folder names for the data files. Current Folder: (cannot be re-mapped) air.prg airlow.rsc airmed.rsc config.air Data Folder: airwarm.dat airwarl.dat stsound.dat terrain.dat Low Resolution Folder: low res plane art files Med Resolution Folder medium res plane art files ** Version 1.2d ** - An error in the stall code and the rudder code has been corrected. - The improved mouse handler has been improved again. It is a little slower but it will clip the stick position to the mouse box. ** Version 1.2c ** - The terrain has been re-arranged to make the cities in theater 1 equidistant and to make the airfields more *interesting*. - The rudder behavior was changed to be more in line with reality. At high speeds the rudder has less effect. The low speed response was not significantly changed. An additional rudder stop was added to increase effectiveness. - Yaw effects due to engine failures, in multi-engine planes, have been significantly improved. - Stalling has been modified so as to be more realistic. Someday we may model spins also. :-) - The method that we use to "blow-up" bridges and carriers has been modified to reduce the chance of seeing something which is supposed to be destroyed. - A problem that prevented certain oil leaks from stalling the engine has been fixed. - An error in the engine thrust equation which could cause an integer overflow has been corrected. In addition some plane stats were adjusted to reflect a more accurate model of the plane's performance. - This version has a new autopilot. It is a very simple control loop that will *try* to keep the plane at the specified bank and attitude. We did not reduce the range of the controls so you can still bank +-85 degrees and climb +-45 degrees. The autopilot has a hard time holding an 85 degree bank but it more or less does it. If you keep to a reasonable range (for a real autopilot) it is quite steady. - A P-38 with one engine out will now fly substantially different from the previous version. The plane will now skid from the asymetric thrust, which you need to counteract with the rudder. The velocity dependence of the rudder has been changed so that the faster the the plane goes the more effective the rudder, up to a certain optimal speed. After that point the rudder effectiveness falls off in the same fashion as aileron effectiveness. ** Version 1.2 ** - This is the production release of the new Air Warrior. I would like to thank all the playtesters for their invaluable help in getting this version ready. - The altitude restriction on the FW190 nitrous injection has DEFINATELY be removed. - A few minor tweeks were made in the planes, the major effect was on the Me262. - An abridged picture mode ( 5 ) has been added. This mode will only display water when you are over it. This will speed your frame rate up considerably but makes it difficult to figure out where you are. The Mac has had this mode for a while so we figured that we ought to add it to the rest of the machines. ** Program Change Summary ** Many program bugs have been corrected in the process of creating this new version. For the sake of brevity I will not list the bugs that were fixed. MISCELLANEOUS: -- The protocol has been modified to allow the host to explicitly control the display of plane numbers, types and icons. The current plan is that you will see the id numbers of planes on your country and the plane type of your enemies. This is controlled by the host so we can change it at will. In addition we can control the display of plane icons on radar from the host. -- You can now set your practice mode airfield via a menu option. -- The End command (escape E) will ALWAYS work when you are in local mode, so you can terminate a mission at any time. -- Some of the G limits and roll rates, especially of the WW1 planes, have been adjusted. -- Gun bursts are now 1 second long rather than 2 seconds. -- A bug in the art checking code that caused it to screw up in low res and not correctly check in med res has been fixed. THIS HAS CAUSED A FEW MEDIUM RESOLUTION ARTFILES TO FAIL. LOW RESOLUTION SCREEN SUPPORT: Yes, Air Warrior now works in 16 color low res mode. I had to re-order the menus and remove the setup item to handle the low res screen size. Eventhough the low res mode uses a different GEM resource file the order of the menus and items had to be consistant. The execution speed is the same as med res but it looks alot more attractive. The low res art code allows you to have a different palette for each view. Only the colors that are reserved for the plane art can be changed. The in-flight snapshot camera will generate .PI1 files in low resolution mode. AUTO PILOT: Dweeb mode has been converted to purely an autopilot, with limited range of motion. When you go from bombsight mode to normal flight, the bank angle and attitude are checked before autpilot is reengaged. Expert mode has now been made the default and no longer is saved in the configuration file. PLANE DAMAGE: All damage is now controlled by the Host so everyone has the same random number generator. This also gives us more flexability in generating the damage to a particular section of a plane. COMPRESSABILITY: The new version treats this more accurately for all the planes than the previous ones, it'll print out "buffeting" if a plane exceeds its critical speed. A rapid pullout is in order if you see this. WATER SPORTS: Several folks have commented on planes *sitting* on the water. At this point we do not model floation... According to the P51 pilot's manual the plane will float for about 2 SECONDS. In fact it recommends that you hit the water with one wing low so that the plane will spin on the surface of the water and therefore give you a little more time. The Corsair floats fairly well. So at the moment everyone floats. DIVE BRAKES: Planes that have dive brakes (P-38 and Corsair) can now activate them by holding down the ALTERNATE key while in flight. When the dive brake is activated, not only is the drag increased to slow the plane, but the airflow is changed to put off the compressibility effects for another 20 miles an hour or so. What this means is that if you hit the dive brake IMMEDIATELY at the onset of buffeting, you'll be able to pull out. P38 LIGHTNING: This version has the Hurricane replaced with the Lockheed P-38J Lightning. Neat Features of the P-38: -- It has 2 engines. This makes it a lot more robust than the single-engine planes. -- It has dive brakes. It needs them, too, the P-38 is uncontrollable if it exceeds Mach .67. NOTE: A P-38 heading straight down at 35,000 feet that hits Mach 0.67 will have a very tough time pulling out in time, even WITH the dive brakes. Vertical high altitude dives are not recommended for this plane. The Lightning is armed with 4 0.50 caliber machine guns (500 rounds each) and a Hispano 20mm cannon with 150 rounds (this is the same cannon as the Spitfire has.) It is able to carry 2 bombs, and has very long range (as if that makes much difference in Air Warrior.) Work still needs to be done with the single-engine handling characteristics. SPITFIRE: The Spitfire Mark IX has been modified to very accurately model a Spitfire L.F. Mark IXe, i.e. the Merlin 66 powered model with the E wing. The E wing carried 2 20 mm cannons and 2 0.50 caliber machine guns. BOMBERS: -- We have made several improvements for the BUF drivers. -- Cities are now built on a plate of asphalt that is visible from long distances. (Yes, you do get a FEW points for bombing the parking lot) -- The visibibility range of ground objects has been expanded. The tops of buildings should be visible (without telescope) from about 14,000. -- The bombsight telescope has been significantly improved. I took out a building from 30,000 feet, dead center. -- The Host algorithm for bomb flight control has been reworked to remove possible network and host delay problems. PARACHUTES: A major new feature in this version is PARACHUTES. When you bail out of a plane now, you'll actually descend to the ground under a parachute. This means you'll be vulnerable to a vengeance attack if you bail out from in front of someone. From a scoring standpoint, parachutes won't change much, the kill will still be awarded to the victor upon the bailout, but the points will not be recorded for your flight until you land. If you make it down safely in friendly territory you score under the "bailed out" category, if not then you score under the crashed category. Bailing out works pretty simply. When you hit escape P you'll leave the plane and enter free fall. This is a very rapid descent, between about 120 and 180 knots depending on whether you fall head first or spread eagle. There is a very simple control system similar to autopilot mode for controlling the direction of your fall and your attitude. Note that at 0 attitude you'll be looking straight forward (as humans do), so when spread eagled you'll be looking at the ground. If you press escape p a second time, you'll pull the rip cord. After 2 seconds or so your rate of descent will be slowed to about 600 to 800 feet per minute, at which you will be reckoned to be capable of surviving the impact. Pulling the ripcord below about 1000 feet can be very hazardous! You can still control the direction of your drift by rotating, you drift straight ahead. While parachuting, your motion will be computed in REAL TIME, rather than the half speed Air Warrior normally uses. This will result in a much faster descent than you might expect from the performance of a stalling airplane, for instance, but will minimize the financial impact of this change. By free falling to withing a thousand feet or so of the ground, you'll be able to get down pretty quickly. Once you start floating, you'll be vulnerable to strafing planes! I bet you are wondering what happens to your plane. In on-line mode the host will take over the controls and ballistically fly it into the ground. You can get a neat view of it if you look quickly when you punch out. You exit the plane to right to avoid the prop wash except on the P-38 which has a door to the left. WAR EMERGENCY POWER: This version has drastically revised aircraft flight stats. Most of the planes are more powerful. There is a new command, triggered by the control c key that invokes War Emergency Power (WEP) from the engine. Generally this is limited to 5 minutes in reality, so its limited to 10 minutes of Air Warrior time. You can turn WEP off by pressing control c again or throttling back from 100%. The Fw 190 A-8 uses nitrous oxide injection, the F4U-1D Corsair uses water injection and the Me 109 G-6 uses water/methanol injection. For the other planes WEP is just pushing the engine to its limits. The throttle handle will change color while WEP is engaged. FUEL CONSUMPTION: Fuel consumption is modeled more carefully now. Planes running on War Emergency power or above 90% power (100% power is often called Military power) will use about 3 times as much fuel as planes at lower power settings. (This does not apply to the Me 262, the Jeep, or World War I planes.) BOMBSIGHT: The bombsight has been changed to a monocular telescopic sight. The magnification of the bombsight is controlled by the [ and ] keys. Pressing [ will raise the magnification by one, and ] lower it by one. The maximum magnification is eight. The current magnification is visible in the bombsight. G LIMITS: A bug was found in the G limiting code; the planes are now TRULY limited to the appropriate G's. No attempt has yet been made to limit G's to the pilot's tolerance, but we can now be assured the G's are limited to 7 or 8, whatever is appropriate for the plane. The World War I planes are limited to +3.5 and -2.0 gs. ROLL RATES: An initial stab was made at modeling roll rates more accurately. The first step was to remove the fudge factor our modern fighter jocks talked us into a while back, reducing the roll rates to about half what there old value. Secondly, a roll rate dependency on altitude and airspeed has been added, based on the diagram and explanation in the Appendix to Shaw. Basically, the maximum roll rate increases linearly with indicated airspeed up to the speed at which the pilot is pulling the stick as hard as he can. Above that speed the roll rate drops inversely proportional to airspeed. For the Zero and Spitfire, that speed is relatively low, but the peak roll rate high. For the P-51, Corsair, and Fw 190, which have well designed ailerons, the peak speed is much higher (around 300 mph) but the peak roll rate is a bit lower in the case of the P-51 and Corsair. The P-38 Lightning has hydraulic boost on the ailerons (as do the bombers,) so its peak speed is quite high; the Lightning has a very high roll rate at high speed. ACK ACKs: Jeep and ack acks now have different profiles; the ack ack has gone back to the little box with 2 guns sticking out. Ack acks no longer have tracking icons or range indications associated with them., although jeeps still do. This will aid in the proliferation of ack acks. Also the gun ranges of the acks are not all the same ;-) NEW VIEWS: Pressing the keypad ( key will give you a view 45 degrees to the left and pressing keypad / will give you a view 45 degrees to the right. TERRAIN DATA BASE: This version supports the new enhanced terrain data, the world will look tremendously different. The new terrain has a LOT of new things such as bridges, aircraft carriers, low hills and jeep only starting locations. At the three narrow spots in the water in the central area, there are bridges connecting the countries. Drive a jeep or plane over one. You can fly under (or drive under) the span, but not the ramps. A jeep with engine off will roll down the ramp from gravity. (Anyone for a bobsled run???). You can get to a bridge by heading 210 degrees from A:7. Also, I *know* there is a building in the water in WW1, its a boat house! Landing on the carrier: in this release, all the planes are equipped with arrestor hooks. The carrier has two white stripes on one end of the deck. Thats where the wires are, if the plane touches down there the wires will engage. The Zero can fly slowly enough, it will be able to come to a stop with brakes only if you miss the wires; the Corsair is too fast for this. Once the plane has been stopped by the wires, the wires release, and you can take off again. Avoid rolling into the superstructure, this is unpopular with the crew. ** On the Horizon ** -- I will be revising the Makedat information to include the new views, files (like the parachuter), and sounds. In addition you can now re-map the gauge locations, sizes, and types (on some of them) via the makedat file. I will put that info in there also. -- The High res B&W version is much closer now. The low res mode changes got us 90% there. -- The immediate mode key code are now stored in the config.air file. A program to allow you to re-map these commands to different keys is in the works. -- A gun camera. (with an offset view mode of some kind) -- Binoculars for the pilots and gunners. -- Left to Right scrolling on input line. -- I plan to re-work the sound code when I get a chance. I am thinking about using digitized sound for the *basic* sounds also. If I use a low sampling rate and short sample it should sound better than the synthisized sounds. -- Sooner or later I will support a joystick. (A mouse emulator one!) -- A some point we will add a reverse gear to the jeep and a few more vehicles. Happy Hunting, John ** Interesting notes from versions past ** -- The view direction keys are now disabled while in bombsight mode. -- Typing a Control U in command mode will erase the command line and return you to immediate mode. -- We now have jeeps! The control system and model is not perfect; we will be improving it when we add other vehicles. The jeep has a single .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the back. You can either carry along a gunner OR you can stop the jeep and gun yourself. To hop from the driver seat to the gun you must be on-line. The jeep must be stopped. Use the jump command, i.e. jg to jump to the gun and jd to get back in the driver's seat. If your gunner is shot you can man the gun yourself. A new airsnd.dat file has been created with vehicle tire skids and engine sounds. At the moment the jeep engine sounds ALOT like a 2300 Hp Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp aircraft engine :-) -- It is now possible to lock down turrets that use the mouse activated traverse control. The Keypad . key will toggle auto traverse on and off. The default is ON. -- A menu option to control the amount of fuel to be loaded on the plane has been added. This feature allows you to specify the percentage of a plane's maximum fuel capacity that is to be loaded. -- A split screen conference mode has been added. -- Visible tracers have been added. These tracers follow the trajectory of the shells. (after you see them you will see why we don't actually model the guns this way!) Do NOT use the tracers to aim your shots! F7 will turn them on and off in flight. -- The concept of propeller drag has been introduced. The planes (except the Me262!) will slow down very quickly when you reduce the throttle. When you shut off the engine(s) the program will automatically feather the prop. -- A new command n (for nationalities) has been added. This command will display the icon colors and state which countrys are the enemy. -- Plane artwork is now checked to make sure that it obscures 80% of the computer generated art. All of you folks with Wonder Woman style transparent planes will have to hanger them. -- Good news: We now support digitized sound (a la ST Replay). A sound data file has been included in this ARC for your enjoyment. Bad news: Digital sound requires at least 130K additional memory and gobbles up to 50% of the CPU. Your best bet is to use the F7 key to toggle the sound off when speed is of the essence. -- The program will now indicate the course of planes that are between 350 and 1300 yards away by drawing plane shapes instead of a horizontal line. Most of the shapes are obvious: * ***** **** plane heading right * plane flying same course as you * * **** plane heading left ***** plane heading toward you -- You can now have the Airspeed Indicator display Indicated Airspeed instead of True Airspeed. -- The throttle has been taken off of the mouse and made a keyboard command: C - 100% throttle c - add 10% throttle V - 0% throttle v - subtract 10% throttle Why was this done you ask? In order to make the plane easier to control in a turn we added the concept of a roll-lock. Basically what it does is that when you press the LEFT mouse button the stick will return to the vertical axis and only allow you to adjust the planes attitude. (it also compensates for the plane's tendency to flatten out a bank) -- The radar mode has been reworked to be more readable. The small planes are fighters the larger ones are bombers and the X is you. The small black boxes at the top of each sector represent the number of enemy planes (all types) in that sector; the diamonds are friends. -- A snapshot camera has been added to make constructing artwork files easier and to preserve pictures of kills. Pressing Control Clr Home will dump the screen in Degas uncompressed format to the file awpic?.pi2 where the ? is a sequence number. The first pic in a flight will be awpic0.pi2 the second awpic1.pi2 etc. I have the code to dump a compressed picture also but I have not had a chance to glue it in. This might be faster for floppy based systems.