Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 18:03:29 GMT
Lines: 198
Fighter Duel Pro, the successor to Fighter Duel, Corsair vs Zero. FDPro retains
all the breakthrough features of its predeccessor and combines a full selection
of aircraft and performance enhancements to deliver a professional package for
the serious aviator.
Included among the 16 Allied and Axis aircraft are the Mustang, Spitfire and
ME109, and some interesting lesser types-such as the futuristic Japanese J7W
Shinden. An exciting and exclusive new feature of FDPro is the ability to
connect a second computer through the main flight computer's parallel port that
continually displays the view to the rear of the aircraft. Now you can duel
an opponent computer through the serial port while watching your six on the
slave. All at 28 frames-per-second on a high resolution, interlaced display.
Rounding out the FDPro package are unrestricted panorama viewing, multiple
bogeys, catapult launches, new land based scenery, rudder-pedal support, and
several minor, but cool, features.
Here are some specifics...
Fighter Duel Pro comes on 4 disks!
Sixteen aircraft
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ALLIED:
(USA)
F4U Corsair
F6F Hellcat
P47 Thunderbolt
P38 Lightning
P51 Mustang
(British)
Spitfire Mk1
Spitfire Mk9
Seafire Mk2
Hurricane
Tempest IV
AXIS:
(Japanese)
A6M Zero
N1K Shiden "George"
J7W Shinden
(German)
BF109 E
BF109 G
FW190
PANORAMA VIEW UNLEASHED:
The mouse controlled panorama view in FD was always a unique feature. It was
disabled in some flight attitudes and you couldn't maneuver while looking.
Those restrictions are gone! It is amazing, you can now look anywhere anytime
Due to the fast response time of FDPro you can easily get real mixed up as to
where you are looking. If for example, you do a hammer head stall and start
twirling the view around and down to look at your enemy, you may inadvertantly
not maintain control in the stall and fall into a spin. Luckily you can still
let go of the mouse button and the view will return to straight ahead.
LAND THEATER:
There is now an alternative to water operations, a land area with a landing
strip.
MULTI-BOGEY:
FDPro now supports 2 enemies at one time in 1 player mode. You select them as
Foe1 and Foe2. You may select any 2 aircraft as long as your Amiga as 1.5
megs, or more, of RAM. The two aircraft will be flying in a wingman formation,
or separately
This feature takes a lot of CPU power. A 68000 with true fast RAM is
recommended. WIth an 020, 030, 040, or possibly an ADSpeed it shows no slowdown
If you shoot one enemy, the enemy hit counter will show the hits on that plane,
if yoiu break off and shoot at the other plane the counter will switch and
begin to keep track of the hits on the new target. You may select to have only
1 enemy.
NEW START OPTIONS:
You may now select two new starting options in 1 player mode. You can select
Catapult, Deck (like in 1.0) or Airborn. Catapult will place your aircraft on
a catapult on the aircraft carrier. Airborn places you at 1000 feet, engines
at full, flaps up, gear up, and flying. This makes getting to locales much
faster. Catapult is not available in the land theater.
PLANES COME BACK:
If FD1.0, if you killed an aircraft it would not regenerate until you carrier
landed or paused and hit reset. Now new planes keep coming a little while after
you down one. Assuming you live that long.
AIRCRAFT/THEATER/START CHANGING:
In FDPro you can pause in 1 player mode and switch to any of the 16 aircraft,
to either theater, or any start position. A great way to get used to flying
all the aircraft.
ROUND WIN COUNTER:
In two player mode, two numbers will display showing your computer's best
understanding of who has won how many rounds while you are currently connected.
Your wins are the top number. This should help scoring on tournaments. To win
a round you must survive until the round ends.
WHY DID I DIE?
If you die in FDPro you will see the screen flash and go dark, and then you willbe presented with your last view alive. A sign on the dash will say whether
or not you crashed into something or exploded and how many hits you had at the
time. If you are in 1 player mode, you can then use the replay feature to
see your last minute of flight. You must hit the reset button to go on. In 2
player mode, just wait until the round resets--as ususal.
VISIBLE ENEMY TRACERS:
Enemy tracers are now visible, even coming over your head if the angle is right.
REPLAY:
Depending on available memory, a replay mode is available. If you pause, you
will see what looks like a VCR control panel. YOu can review up to the last 60
seconds of flight. The replay will also show on your rearview! See the
next feature.
REARVIEW:
A really unique and extremely new feature is rearview. When one selects this,
the machine is now set as a slave to another Amiga running FDPro in Master mode.
With the two computers hooked up by a special parallel adaptor, the slave unit
will always show the rearview! This is really usefull in 2 player dogfights.
It really expands your view and awareness. Both machines must be running
FDPro.
SKILL LEVEL:
Enemy skill level is now user seletable. You can select 1-4 or random. Bill
has done an incredible job on their flying ability, they are in my opinion
as good as most human pilots. Two at once makes them more interesting too.
If they are too tough for you, when you are paused, you can adjust their level.
If you give them better aircraft than you, your are in trouble at higher levels.
JOYSTICK TYPE:
Digital or Analog stick type must now be set in the interface. This actually
was done in the last version of FD1.0 for PAL compatibility. There is a new
default stick setting, Digital EZ. This was done to make it easier to get used
to FD flight. You can't stall, AOA is limited, there is no rudder induced roll,
when you let off the stick the elevator decreases automatically. This setting
is obviously very limiting an not at all useful to people who can already use
the regular Digital stick.
ANALOG SENSITIVITY:
Many users have mentioned that they would like to be able to desensitize the
Analog stick response--for general, non-combat flying. It is now setable
as low, medium, or high (FD1.0 setting). FDPro takes a reading on the
Analog ports only when first run, you don't have to retrim after every crash
or explosion (as you have to do in FD1.0).
HARDDISK USAGE:
The harddisk installer has been updated for FDPro. It uses the C= installer
program. We got good reviews about the old install program, but this will
make FDPro more standard.
TOURNEY:
The Tourney mode is now part of FDPro. You select it or standard 2 player
start in the START menu, along with North or South. Tourney now starts the
planes out simutaineously, and realy close to each other, headed North and South
You are by each other in an instant at coaltitude.
MODEM CHANGES:
The 2 player system of FDPro is almost entirely autoconfiguring. Make the call
by voice, as usual. You must still select North or South, but the modem
reseting and progress of the connection will be reported in the screen's title
bar. Your computer and the other will talk to each other and set up the duel.
You select only your aircraft, and the theater and locale if you are the NORTH
computer. The SOUTH machine will set itself up off of the NORTH computer's
settings. In all instances of conflict, the NORTH computer's settings rule.
You can abort most modem operations by hitting the ESC key. Errors and/or
connection problems will be reported on the title bar.
FDPro now supports tool types on the icon to send commands to a modem to
disable hardware based error correction and/or data compression. These features
will actually slow FDPro down.
SURFACE DOTS:
You can now select to have dim or bright surface dots on the ocean or land to
help you judge the distance to the ground. They appear between the carrier/
landing strip and the locale. Again, they are selectable in the interface.
Again, they are a CPU power hog, not recommended unless your machine is
accelerated.
TURBO BOOST:
A new option can be turned on in 1 player mode, while paused---
TURBO MODE!
Once engaged, you are in Turbo BOOST mode anytime your glidescope/gunsight is
disengaged. It will not work on the carrier or on the ground. With the
glidescope/gunsight disengaged, hitting the firebutton will insantly change
your velocity to 16 times what it really is. Your instruments will not reflect
this. Your view certainly will. When you let off of the button, you will
resume whatever velocity you had before going into Turbo BOOST mode. It is
a lot like warp jumping. When you are weary of flying out to the locales, you
can use this to jump out there and check out the features. You can really get
to places fast if you start Airborn, and use the the Turbo BOOST.
That is all of the major enhancements/changes to FDPro.
Available Mid-September.
(this posting is a reprint of a posting that appeared on the GEnie network)
