Monster Media 1993 #2

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Text File | 1992-09-05 | 23KB | 437 lines

╔═════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ FALCON MAPPER ║ ║ ║ ║ A UTILITY PROGRAM FOR FALCON 3.0 ║ ║ Operation : Fighting Tiger ║ ║ (Version 3.01) ║ ║ ║ ║ Notes for Release 4.0 ║ ║ September 1992 ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════╝ If you're reading these release notes, then you should have already extracted the following program files into your Falcon 3.0 directory by running F3MAPR.EXE: o README.F3M (This file) o F3MAPS.DOC (Documentation file for F3MAPS software) o F3MAPS.EXE (Executable file for F3MAPS software) If you don't have the above files after running the self-extracting archive "F3MAPR.EXE", chances are you received an incomplete, corrupted or otherwise unlawfully altered copy of FALCON MAPPER. Of course, if you don't have the README.F3M file, then you aren't reading this right now!! In any case, if you think your version of FALCON MAPPER is not the latest or you did not receive the documentation file F3MAPS.DOC, please drop into the Compuserve Flight Simulation Forum (GO FSFORUM), Section 8 - "Modern Air Combat" and download F3MAPR.EXE. WHO SHOULD READ THIS FILE? -------------------------- Well, YOU should! If you are familiar with previous versions of the F3MAPS software, you will find that these release notes contain valuable information concerning what's new and improved about version 4.0! If you are a first- time user, you might still find the information here interesting, but the F3MAPS.DOC file contains complete information on all program features, as well as detailed explanations of how to use them. Most of the contents of this README file are repeated in F3MAPS.DOC. Since many of the new features in F3MAPS 4.0 are a little complicated and difficult to explain, I would encourage users to at least print out this README.F3M file and follow along from within the program as the features are explained. (Better yet, to save the trees you can use Microsoft Windows, open up two DOS boxes, and run F3MAPS together with a text editor/viewer). Running F3MAPS from within the Windows environment is perfectly safe, as long as you do not open up more than one copy! If you want to be daring and try it anyway, don't blame me for what might happen! F3MAPS IS NOW SHAREWARE ----------------------- F3MAPS is now a shareware program. Please see F3MAPS.DOC for complete information on fees and licensing. If all you're interested in is the bottom line, the good news is F3MAPS won't break the bank. The shareware fee is a measly $4.00, payable in U.S. funds to: ┌──────────────────────────┐ │ Greg Prete │ │ 1927 Commonwealth Avenue │ │ Merrick, New York 11566 │ └──────────────────────────┘ Registering F3MAPS not only gives you the legal right to retain possession of the software and documentation and use them on your computer, it also gives you the right to download (or to let a friend download, and give you) all future editions of the software and documentation at no extra charge. It was never my intention to make a profit from this program. I originally wrote it for my own use soon after reading messages on Compuserve's FSFORUM about how some inventive people had found a way to change the Red Flag theater in Falcon 3.0. They physically copied all of the NELLIS files to a temporary area and then copied the theater-of-interest's files on top of the old NELLIS ones. I figured there had to be an easier way, and thus, F3MAPS was born. F3MAPS accomplishes the same feat by patching the FALCON3.EXE program itself. In the process of writing F3MAPS I discovered some very interesting things about the inner workings of the Falcon 3.0 simulation, many of which which evolved into features you see in the program today. I also owe a debt to my co-workers Steve and Rich who set up the ultimate, basement Falcon debugging station. WHY SHAREWARE? The reason I decided to go the shareware route is simply due to the large CIS bills racked up in the development of F3MAPS! I never thought either Falcon 3.0 or F3MAPS would take off the way they did, but when I saw Spectrum Holobyte's commitment to further refining the simulation through an ongoing series of patches, I realized both programs were here to stay, and my work was cut out for me. The shareware fee is strictly to defer the CIS connect costs accumulated during the development and support of FALCON MAPPER, and to allow me to continue keeping the program up to date. But enough with the boring mumbo-jumbo. ENHANCEMENTS FOR FALCON 3.01 : OPERATION FIGHTING TIGER ------------------------------------------------------- o Owners of Falcon 3.01 : Operation Fighting Tiger may now select any one of the three new theaters for Instant Action or Red Flag mode. When selecting the Red Flag theater, the default file extension Falcon will use when it looks for Red Flag missions will be: KUWAIT -> KFM ISRAEL -> IFM PANAMA -> PFM NELLIS -> RFM KOREA -> OFM INDIA -> NFM JAPAN -> JFM Unfortunately, neither the Harpoon missile or the SEA radar mode is available in JAPAN Red Flag. o All new allied and enemy aircraft, as well as new SEAD and ANTISHIP waypoint actions are now supported by the Auto Red Flag Mission-Generator o Although the ILS view-shift can be enabled or disbled in Operation Fighting Tiger during flight by using the shift-scroll-lock key combination, the default is STILL "view shift enabled". If you NEVER EVER want to see that view shift again, you can still disable it completely with F3MAPS. This means that even shift-scroll-lock will not bring the view shift back during game-play. SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW? -------------------- In a nutshell, there are a LOT of improvements to the Red Flag Auto Mission Generator in F3MAPS 4.0. One or two minor bugs have been fixed, and the user now has the option of configuring the randomized missions by "seeding" some of the mission parameters. All of this is explained in detail below. o The most obvious change is the new desktop palette colors. Nothing special, it's just that we old-timers need a change every once in a while! OK, I tried to match the palette colors from Falconer, the other "must have" utility from Rob 'Orinoco' Heittman, also in FSFORUM (FALCNR.ZIP). In the cosmetic department, the dialog boxes are now un-moveable. o The menu bar contains a new option called "Configure". This option is where 90% of the changes for F3MAPS 4.0 are located. o The first choice under the Configure menu is "Red Flag Armament". When you select this option, you will be presented with a very intimidating- looking screen, but don't despair! It's not as bad as it looks. This option will allow you to change the default _types_ of armament that Falcon 3.0 allows you to select for allied and enemy aircraft in a Red Flag mission. You _are_ following this along in F3MAPS, aren't you? By highlighting an aircraft in the list box, you can see what types of armament your CURRENT version of Falcon 3.01 will allow you to select for that aircraft in a Red Flag mission. If you remember, Falcon 3.0 will only display "radio buttons" next to certain types of armament for any given aircraft in the Waypoint Setup section of Red Flag. For instance, C-130s do not normally carry ANY armament. Kind of annoying! Well, just select C-130 in the list box, and check each box in the "allowable armament" cluster. Next, click on the "Write Changes" button, and F3MAPS will patch your NELLIS.MSC file with the new defaults. The next time you run Falcon 3.0, if you create any Red Flag Missions with C-130s and go to the Allied Waypoint Setup menu, you will notice that the C-130s may now be armed with whatever types of armament you selected from within F3MAPS! This actually works!! If your C-130s are engaged by fighters they will now *fire missiles* to defend themselves, if you selected that type of armament from the Red Flag Armament Configuration dialog box in F3MAPS, AND you armed the C-130 from within Falcon 3.0. To create some really *unfair* Red Flag missions... 1. Press "Select All" underneath "Allied Aircraft" 2. Select "Clear All" underneath "Enemy Aircraft" 3. Select "Write Changes", then "Exit" 4. Go back to the Configure menu, Allied Flights 5. Select "Maximum" for Non F-16 Armament Loading 6. Select "Commit changes" then Exit 7. Now hit F4 a few times to generate some missions If you run Falcon 3.0 now, go to Red Flag and load up these missions, then go to "Allied Setup" you will notice that EVERY aircraft in EVERY flight has EACH type of Falcon 3.0 armament already loaded! Not only that, if you do the same thing for the Enemy flights, you'll notice that NONE of the enemies are armed at all, and CANNOT be armed from within Falcon 3.0! <He he he. Time to wax those bums>. You could have stopped the above procedure after step 6, then gone into Falcon 3.0 to create your own Red Flag missions. You would have had the capability of selecting ANY type of armament to be loaded on ANY type of Allied aircraft, but you would have been _incapable_ of arming the enemies, since you nuked all of their "default" armament from within F3MAPS. To quickly restore the default armament allowances that came with Falcon 3.0, simply click on the "F3 Defaults" button underneath "All Aircraft" and select "Write changes" again. The other intimidating buttons on the F3MAPS armament configuration screen are provided so that you can globally select or deselect armament allowances without having to manually go through each aircraft and click the check-boxes. Of course, you can still manually check any boxes you want to. Go ahead and play around with the buttons, then cycle through the "Falcon 3.0 Aircraft" list box to see what the changes might look like. To exit without updating NELLIS.MSC, simply click on the "Exit" button. * VERY IMPORTANT NOTES * The selections you make with this option have NO EFFECT on Red Flag missions that have ALREADY been created, nor do they affect the Campaign or Instant Action modes of Falcon 3.0 - ONLY RED FLAG. If you play around with different settings, then want to run an old Red Flag mission, the ONLY way you are going to be able to tell how the aircraft in that mission are REALLY armed is to "Decode" the mission from within F3MAPS, using the "Decode Red Flag Mission" option from the main menu. Keep this in mind, or you will get into a confusing situation where the Falcon 3.0 mission editor is telling you a certain aircraft is unarmed with a particular weapon, when in fact the aircraft *is* armed. TECHNICAL NOTE FALCON 3.0 displays its Red Flag armament radio buttons based on bit masks stored within the NELLIS.MSC configuration file. It decides whether or not to *shade* those buttons by looking at the Red Flag mission file. If NELLIS.MSC says, "Don't display the radio button," all that means to you is that you cannot arm an aircraft with that weapon from within Falcon 3.0. It DOESN'T mean that that particular armament is not _already loaded_ on the aircraft, as far as the Red Flag mission file is concerned. When you *run* the mission, the only thing that matters is the mission file - not the bit masks in NELLIS.MSC! The Auto-Generate Red Flag Mission option in F3MAPS *WILL* use the "allowable armament" settings from the CURRENT copy of NELLIS.MSC when it arms aircraft. Basically, what this means is you can affect the POSSIBLE armament generated for an aircraft in a randomly-generated mission by using this new Config option. When the mission-generator creates a mission and arms an aircraft, it does not allow any armament to be selected for that aircraft that Falcon 3.0 would not allow. By using this new configure option to change the armament that Falcon 3.0 would allow, you are also changing the values that the F3MAPS mission generator will allow. The armament settings for F-16s are irrelevant, since you arm your F-16s in a totally different way than you arm other aircraft in Falcon 3.0. It is not enough to select the armament types you want from within F3MAPS - you must ARM the respective aircraft when you create a mission. All that this menu option does is let you select a certain type of armament for an aircraft. ══════════════════════════ VERY IMPORTANT ════════════════════════════ This option will only effect the visibility of armament radio buttons in the NELLIS Red Flag theater. When you change the Red Flag theater to a non-Nellis location, the armament radio buttons WILL NOT match the settings you made in F3MAPS. In addition, the aircraft list boxes will behave a little differently in Non-Nellis theaters, and certain aircraft text descriptions will appear as "EMPTY25" or "EMPTY26". The good new is, all of this weirdness has NO EFFECT on the missions that can be *run* in any theater, and the auto mission-generator will have no problems generating missions for any theater. The little bit of weirdness is the result of doing something that the designers and pro- grammers of Falcon 3.0 never intended to be done! If all you're interested in is generating missions with F3MAPS, or you simply want to "fly around" unhindered in any Falcon theater, you can safely ignore all of these boring technical notes and just use the program normally! These explanations are for you technoids out there who want to actually understand how and why things work the way they do. (Like me). ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ * MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL * THIS OPTION ALTERS THE FALCON 3.0 EXECUTABLE IMAGE! ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR SYSTEM OR FILES, EITHER DIRECT, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL, WILL NOT BE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE AUTHOR OF "F3MAPS." IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO ACCEPT INCIDENTAL RISKS TO YOUR DATA AND CANNOT ENSURE ITS SAFETY VIA BACKUPS, DO NOT USE THIS PROGRAM! Next... o Underneath the "Red Flag Armament" option beneath the Configure menu is a new option called "Auto Mission Generator". This will let you change the way the Auto-Mission Generator in F3MAPS generates Red Flag Missions. No longer do you have to be satisfied with the TOTALLY random nature of the auto-generated Red Flag missions. Now you can specify whether you want a particular mission parameter to be random (as before) or user-selected. You can now "seed" the mission generator for Allied and Enemy flight parameters, and Ground Forces. For instance, you can specify that you want a random mission, but you want X number of flights, Y aircraft in each flight, Z waypoints, etc. Almost every parameter can be chosen to be either random or user- selected. For the armament-loading, selecting "Random" will make the mission-generator select any types of armament for an aircraft that have been "allowed" by Falcon 3.0, either by default or by use of the "Red Flag Armament" configuration option from within F3MAPS. Selecting "Maximum" will arm all aircraft (except F-16s) with the maximum allowable armament. To obtain a printout of your settings so far, make sure your printer is powered on and configured as LPT1, then select the "Print" button. This will spell out exactly what the Auto-Mission Generator settings are for either your Allied or Enemy flights. In order to make these settings take effect for your current F3MAPS session, you must select "Commit Changes" or all will be lost. * VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT * I'm sure the first thing you're all going to try to do is select four allied flights and 4 enemy flights, each with 8 aircraft a piece. If you do this, you'll notice that EVERY time you generate a mission you'll have two allied flights with a total of 15 planes, and 1 enemy flight with 1 plane. This is because REGARDLESS of what you specified in the Misison Generator Config dialog boxes, the Auto Mission Generator has logic which prevents it from generating more than 16 aircraft in all allied and enemy flights combined. This is a change from previous versions of F3MAPS, due to BIG PROBLEMS with disappearing enemy forces. Falcon 3.0 DOES NOT LIKE missions that have more than 16 airplanes. Why? you ask. Must have something to do with memory, or throughput, or some other computer-related thing. Ask Spectrum Holobyte. It is for this reason that if you select a "non-random" number of flights (Allied or Enemy) you SHOULD also dictate how many planes will be in each flight, and NOT leave the "Number of Aircraft" settings on "Random". If you don't, nothing major BAD will happen. The Auto- Mission Generator will do its best to accomodate you, and then it will kindly DEVIATE from your "Number of Flights" or "Number of Aircraft" settings. It's not a bug!!! o The next choice in the Auto Mission Generator Configure menu is called "Aircraft Choices". This will let you select which types of aircraft you want in Auto-Generated Missions. Choose the types of aircraft you want by clicking on the appropriate check box, and selecting the Commit Changes button. Any missions generated in your current F3MAPS session will contain only those aircraft selected. The difference between "FSX JAPAN" and "FSX U.S." is the markings that will appear on the aircraft. One has Japanese markings, the other does not. ==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-== o What's different about Auto Red Flag missions with F3MAPS 4.0? - Unfortunately, the F3MAPS auto mission-generator will NO LONGER generate missions with more than 16 aircraft TOTAL. It WILL allow you to generate missions with more than 8 aircraft in an allied or enemy group of flights, which Falcon 3.0 DOES NOT let you do, but after hearing numerous complaints from people "not being able to find the enemy" with missions generated in previous versions of F3MAPS, I decided to look into the problem. What I found was disappointing. To make a long story short, you just plain cannot have missions with more than 16 aircraft, because Falcon 3.0 will IGNORE the extra planes. It won't crash, it just ignores the planes. All of you who "couldn't find the enemy" were actually auto- generating missions with 16 or more allied planes, so the enemy planes just _plane_ "disappeared". These missions looked perfectly OK when you browsed them from within Falcon 3.0, and when you "decoded" them with F3MAPS. It's just that when it came down to *running* them, they didn't quite work! Well, so much for experimentation! - Selecting a "random" number of aircraft in an allied flight using the "Configure" option will cause the mission generator to choose between 1 and 8 aircraft rather than 3 to 8. The first 3 aircraft (if that many are generated) in an allied flight will still always be F-16s. - The ONLY way to get a LOITER waypoint is to specifically select LOITER in the Mission Generator Config. Waypoint actions set on "Random" will NOT generate LOITER, TAKEOFF or LAND waypoints. - Same-numbered waypoints for allied flights other than your own will now be generated within 3 nautical miles of your flight, rather than 5 nautical miles. - F3MAPS now does a better job of matching speeds and altitudes among Allied flights, so your buddies don't toast the bogies before you get a chance to see them. Also, setting the waypoint speed on "Random" will now generate speeds between 350 and 800 knots, rather than 350-550 knots, as in previous versions of F3MAPS. - The "non-moveable-waypoint" problem for enemy flights has been fixed. (Say "I will not put code outside loops that belongs inside loops" a million times, Greg). - Anyone who was experiencing the SLIGHTEST problem finding the enemy is going to be in for a BIG surprise. - Enemy ground forces will be positioned "better." In older versions of F3MAPS it was sometimes difficult to find them. Any ground forces will now be within 2 miles of one of your waypoints. Also, the mission generator will default to ALWAYS giving you FOUR enemy ground force units to attack, rather than "randomizing" the troop concentrations, as before. You can change these settings for your current F3MAPS session by going to the Configure menu, and selecting "Ground Forces". - The problem with misison debriefings for theaters other than NELLIS has been fixed (I think). This was the problem where the Red Flag Mission debriefings would say "COL . got a BVR kill on a ." and so on. It should now give names, aircraft downed, and ground units destroyed, etc. All of the above improvements have been made to the generation of ENEMY FLIGHTS as well, where applicable - so BEWARE. You can override F3MAPS's attempts at "intelligence" by deselecting "Random" from the associated parameter in the Config menus, and substituting your own insane values. Have fun (it's only a game). Any comments, suggestions, or questions - feel free to drop me a line on Section 8 (Modern Air Combat) of FSFORUM. Keep flyin' high ! Greg Prete - September 1992 [70720,2566]