Black Box 4/BlackBox.cdr/gamearca/airwar.arj/README

Text File | 1991-04-22 | 28KB | 622 lines

This is version 1.4 of the IBM PC air warrior.
Copyright (c) Kesmai Corporation 1989, 1990, 1991.
Written by Kelton Flinn and David Albrecht of the Kesmai Corporation.
Ported to the IBM by David Albrecht.

A manual is available for ordering online, type 'ORDER'.
Visit the kesmai round table, type 'MPGRT'.
There is no advantage to using 2400 baud, 1200 is sufficient.

Important notes to new users
----------------------------
The MOST important thing to remember as a new user in the on-line game is
that you have friends as well as enemies.  The players of the online game
are divided into three countries A, B, and C.  A different color is assigned
to each of the three countries (which varies according to the choice
of CGA or EGA resolutions).

If you inspect your dashboard the far left side has the three country
symbols outlined in their respective colors.  When on-line, below the three
country symbols is the symbol for your country of allegiance.

In the on-line game, planes that are 5000 yards or less distant from
yours will be tracked by a symbol in the row between the picture and the
dashboard.  This symbol will be a surrounded by a square colored appropriately
for their country of allegiance.

If you shoot down planes of the same country as yourself, you will be rendered
PNG (persona non grata) and will not receive any further ammo on takeoff.
To clear the condition you will have to change to a different country
(which you can only do once in 24 hours).  Not unsurprisingly, your team-mates
also tend to get miffed if you shoot them.

Each country in the on-line game has a unique set of airfields.  Ergo, if a
plane is taking off in front of you it is virtually guaranteed that it is the
same country as you.  Typically, all the planes around the airfield will also
be 'friendlies' though occasionally enemy planes brave ack-ack fire to make
excursions to enemy airfields and harass pilots taking off or make bomb runs.

General Info
============

The menu bar is activated by F1.
The mouse can now be used in the menus.  Hold down the right mouse button
to get the menu bar.  Letting go of the right button will select the item
the mouse cursor is currently over.  To select multiple items on one menu
click the left mouse button while keeping the right button depressed.

Don't invoke air warrior program by escaping from ANY terminal program.
Air Warrior is too big to reside with a terminal emulator and it also
wants sole control over the serial port.  Exit from the terminal
program you are using and then invoke Air Warrior.

If you have problems getting Air Warrior to come up initially, trying
giving the video adapter you are using on the command line after Air Warrior.
If you you have a CGA card then use 'airwar c', EGA use 'airwar e',
VGA use 'airwar v'.

Be sure to enable the sound, hit, and stall fields.  Audible feedback for
these items is very handy.

The most popular plane artwork files for the Amiga
are compatible with the pc's EGA 320x200 mode.  The palette might be somewhat
strange but otherwise it should be reasonable looking.  You can go to
the Amiga user contributions area and download any 'E' style file.
You might have to shorten the file name slightly after un-arcing, however,
for the spitfire, parachute, and skydiver.

New Features
============

Bug fixes.

I have written a utility that will convert samples recorded by the Covox
sampling system (available in the upload pcartsnd.arc).  In this process I
also determined that the current code was playing samples back at half speed.
Linking with the latest library fixed the problem.  I also uncovered another
problem that may not be quite so fixable.  I found that running at the full
25Mhz of our DTK development system the samples played by the Covox sound
master board would not play to completion.  Running at 10Mhz it worked
flawlessly and sounded quite nice.  In inspecting the code, it appears this
may be a hardware problem.  I don't know if the problem is specific to our
system or true in general with systems that use a 10Mhz bus rate.
While it still sounds better than the built-in sounds I can't in all
conscience unreservedly recommend the Covox boards for fast systems.

Bugs and cheating
=================

Kesmai's policy on cheating.  Due to the distributed nature of this program
it is more susceptable to 'hacking' to gain an unfair advantage.  The whole
concept of Air Warrior is that it will reward a 'skilled' pilot.  No one is
particularly interested in a players ability to 'hack' code.  At the present
time the host has a fairly extensive amount of checking for 'cheating'.
If the program reports to us that you are cheating we will 'blacklist' you
from the game.  Just so there is no confusion, not only will hacking the
program get you blacklisted, so will running someone else's hacked version.

Deliberately hunting for and exploiting aspects of the game that allow
anti-social behavior (like shooting down teammates) under the guise of
looking for 'bugs' isn't doing us any favors.  The time spent fixing these
'bugs' is really better spent improving the game especially since such 'bugs'
aren't a problem if no one exploits them.

There are limits to how far we can go in programmatically limiting
anti-social behavior without spoiling the game for everyone.  Human
intervention is the only way to fill that gap between where the
program limitation leaves off and acceptable behavior begins.

Generally, we won't step in unless someone is abusing the game in a
way that is spoiling the game for other people, but we certainly
reserve the right to do so.

Artwork file checking simply rejects a view it doesn't like we won't
ever consider it 'cheating'.

We are grateful for any bug reports you can give us even though we won't
always be able to recreate and fix the problem.

-------

Menus
=====

The mouse can now be used in the menus.  Hold down the right mouse button
to get the menu bar.  Letting go of the right button will select the item
the mouse cursor is currently over.  To select multiple items on one menu
click the left mouse button while keeping the right button depressed.

Most of the menu entries I won't try and explain in this short guide.
I will comment on some of the ones that seem to cause the most confusion.

Data location - This is the DIRECTORY (and/or disk) where you have placed your
plane art and sound files.  If you put the plane art files in the same
directory with the EXE file then leave the data location field blank.  Do not
put the name of a plane file in the data location field.

Hangup - Air Warrior will not drop DTR if hangup = NO is selected.  You should
be able to switch to Air Warrior from another comm program given that the comm
program will also not drop DTR.

Dial string - If you have a problem with the dial string, be sure you enter
the ATDT before the number.  The requested dial string must include the ENTIRE
string needed to make your modem dial out.  You can, of course, just type
the commands to the modem since once you enter terminal mode you are
directly connected to the modem.

Joystick menu - The joystick menu contains three entries: enable, calibrate
center, and calibrate corner.  The first is self explanatory.  When you first
put a joystick on the machine (or change joysticks) you need to select both
calibrate options, center first (with the joystick centered) and then
corner (with the joystick in any corner).  Note that occasionally a new
release of the Air Warrior software will change the format of your config
file and remove your old one requiring you to set up your various configuration
options anew.  When this happens you will also have to recalibrate your
joystick.

Resolution -  Air Warrior has the capability for using different resolution
picture screens as supported by your video card and monitor.

In-mem views - Air Warrior can use artwork files to replace the computer
generated views.  As loading an artwork file from the disk can be quite slow
this option allows you to specify how many views to hold in memory in expanded
format.  '0' will always load the view from the artwork file while '1-10' will
hold that number of views in memory.  Be judicious in choosing this number
because too large a number can exhaust the available memory and cause a program
crash.  Given the very limited amount of directly accessable memory in the PC,
it is probably better (if you have expanded memory) to use 0 in-mem views and
load the art from a RAM disk using the data location option.

Holdown keys - The hold-down key option uses the keyboard intercept
feature of the BIOS (given your BIOS has it) to make the view keys operate
only while they are held down instead of a sticky key sequence.  Releasing
the keys will revert to the front view.  In this mode, the space bar doubles
as a brake in addition to the alt key.

Disk Sounds - Normally when using digital sound files all the samples will be
loaded in at start-up.  You can use this option to load the sounds as
they are queueing to be played.  The engine and machine gun sounds will
always be loaded start-up.  This option should use less memory and seems
to work pretty well when sounds are located in the RAM disk.

Sound Volume - This controls the sound volume for the Covox board.  Note that
it has no effect on the built-in PC speaker's volume.

Minimal mem - On machines which have problems with the machine locking up,
screen screwing up, etc. when you crash the plane I can best conjecture that
there is some problem with memory limitations.  Minimal mem will substitute
a short text message replacing the picture oriented crash screen that uses more
memory.

Quick Screen - This option enables a screen optimization.  It is only
available in the 'Fast' screen resolution modes.  This optimization is a
heuristic and can cause occasional screen flakes so it was made disableable.

Gun camera - There are four menu options for controlling the gun camera and
two new touch keys which are active in gun camera record/playback.  The first
of the two touch keys is the '9' key.  Touching '9' while in flight will
start the gun camera filming, touching it again will disable recording.  The
gun camera can be enabled and disabled any number of times in a given flight
and will produce a concatenated film of all the recordings.  The film is
written to a temporary file called 'awcamera.tmp'.  Three options on the gun
camera menu will manipulate this temporary file.  The max film size option
limits the maximum size to which this file will grow and is entered in K
bytes.  The temporary file directory option allows you to specify the
directory where the file will be created.  For maximum perfomance if you
have the memory put the file in a ram disk.  If you want to put the file in a
directory be sure to enter a trailing back slash i.e. e:films\.  The Save
option allows you to put the temporary file created from a flight into a more
permanent name/location.  If you do not save the film between flights it will
be overwritten by the next flight.
The remaining menu option, playback, will either playback the contents of
the temporary film file or a film previously recorded or downloaded.  The
one remaining key to remember is the second touch key which is 'n'.  Touching
'n' while in playback will put your viewpoint outside the plane.  You can
use the zoom keys '[', ']' to alter your distance from the plane and the
view keys to change your viewing location.

Flight control
==============

Mouse controlled
----------------
The mouse controls most of the important controls: ailerons, elevators,
throttle, and guns.

In the normal state of the mouse it controls as follows.
    Rolling the mouse left and right banks the plane left and right.
    Pushing the mouse forward and back pitches the plane up and down.
    Holding the left mouse button down and pushing the mouse forward
        and back adjusts the throttle.
    Double clicking the left button centers the stick.
    Clicking the right button fires the guns.

You can 'shift' the mouse by hitting key '9' on the keypad.  In this
state the mouse will no longer control the throttle and holding the
left mouse button down locks the pitch of the plane while you can
still adjust the bank.

Joystick
--------
When the joystick is enabled, the joystick controls the bank and pitch in
a similar function to the mouse and the buttons on the joystick fire the
guns.  The mouse still controls the throttle but not the bank and pitch.
Moving the mouse left to right adjusts the rudder and double clicking
centers it.

Autopilot
---------
Air Warrior supports two control systems 'expert' and 'autopilot'.
The 'expert' control system is the standard emulation of a control stick
in a real plane.  The box in the center of the dashboard indicates the
current location of the head of the stick.  The 'autopilot' control system
translates any deviation from center into a nose attitude change or bank
and holds that position.  'autopilot' is easier to fly and less touchy but
doesn't allow many of the maneuvers absolutely necessary for dogfights.
Entry into 'autopilot' mode is now restricted to near level flight
conditions.

Short command guide
===================

Augmenting the controls available from the mouse or joystick are commands
available from the keyboard.  Keyboard commands come in two flavors: touch
keys and command line keys.

Touch keys
----------
Touch keys are keys that you simply touch while in flight and they
perform a command.

The touch key commands are: (Note that the ',' separates multiple keys that
                             perform the same function i.e. you don't type it)
b   Drop bombs.
c   Increase throttle 10%
C   Full throttle
f   Fire guns.
n   Toggle gun camera playback location (inside plane/outside plane).
p, F2
    Text back buffer
v   Decrease throttle 10%
V   Zero throttle
x   Toggle expert/autopilot mode.
;   Raise gear.
1   Full picture range.
2   Medium picture range.
3   Short picture range.
4   Combat picture range.
5   Abrided range.
6   Line Draw mode.
7   Toggle war emergency power.
9   Start/Stop gun camera recording/playback.
\   Shift mouse control toggle.
]   Increase view magnification.
[   Decrease view magnification.
'   Enter command mode with intercom communication.
/   Enter command mode with radio communication.
ESC Enter command mode.
<, ,, w, keypad 7
    Raise flaps.
>, ., e, keypad 1
    Lower flaps.
*, 8
    Start engine
a, keypad 0
    Rudder left.
    Down shift. (vehicles only)
d, keypad .
    Rudder right.
    Neutral or Reverse (when stopped and in Neutral). (vehicles only)
s, keypad 3
    Rudder center.
    Up Shift. (vehicles only)
F1
    Will toggle between the radar and the picture display.

View keys:
    h, keypad 4
        look left
    l, keypad 6
        look right
    m, keypad 2
        look back
    k, keypad 8
        look up
    j, keypad +
        look down
    g, keypad -
        look front
    View keys can be combined to give intermediate views.
    A lean direction is available combining left or right and back.
    Intermediate forward views that give no new information but
    provide a different perspective are available through combining
    the left or right and the front keys.
    Left, right, front, or the leans can be combined with up or down.

    The view is activated after selecting the direction via hitting
    the keypad Enter key.  Hitting the Enter key again will resume front
    view.

    The view keys will also work in camera film playback.  In the out of
    plane mode, your viewpoint location will be outside the plane in the
    direction of the view key looking back towards the plane.

Brakes:
    Holding the alt key will apply the brakes.  This is true also of
    dive brakes for planes so equipped.
Turret keys:
    When flying as a turret on a bomber, depending on the type of turret
    (remote or gunner controlled), the turret will either automatically
    track the mouse or it will require to be controlled by the turret
    keys.
    keypad 0
        Rotate turret left.
    keypad .
        Rotate turret right.
    keypad 9
        Incline turret down.
    keypad 3
        Incline turret up.
    keypad 1
        Stop turret movement.

Command line keys
-----------------
The command line supports a number of commands.  Hitting ESC, / or ' enters
command line mode.  In the case of / or ' it also adds the / or ' character
to the beginning of the command line.  Hitting return terminates entry on the
command line, CTRL X clears the line, and BACKSPACE deletes a single character.

The command line commands are:

a   Arm the bombs.
e   Exit the plane (must be on the ground and stopped).
j   Move to a new position on the plane (follow by the characters of the
    position) i.e. j u (for upper).
m   Set radar map range.  Adjusts the sector size of the radar.  2 gives
    maximum range, 0 gives minimum range but largest image.
o   The 'o' command prefixes a number of two-letter commands which toggle
    values that were selected from the menus.
        oj  Toggle analog joystick.
        ot  Toggle visible tracers.
p   Parachute from the plane.  Now a 2-3 stage key.  In either local or
    on-line the first parachute will exit the plane as a skydiver.  The
    next time the parachute command is entered you will open the chute.
    In off-line mode a third time will go to the bail-out requester.
r   Request a roster.
s   Enable/Disable sight toggle.
sb  Lead gunsight indicator set for bombers at 400 yards.
sd  Set to dive bombing sight mode.
sf  Lead gunsight indicator set for fighters at 400 yards.
sg  Set to gunnery sight mode.
sr  Enable/Disable sight rectangle.
t   Tune the radio channel (follow by the channel number).
w   Where am I?  Reports the sector number and country allegiance.
z   Switch to bombsight mode.
/   Send a radio message on the tuned channel.
'   Send a radio message on the intercom.

Information display
===================

As this is a quick guide I'm not going to explain the instrumentation.
If you have any knowledge of planes it's pretty straightforward anyway.
I shall, however, quickly review the plane tracking system.  When a plane
gets within 5000 yards on the current view (or approx 16000 yards on the
radar), their symbol on the screen will have an 'icon' tracking it on
the line underneath the picture.  The color of the icon indicates their
country of allegiance, the number inside it is irrelevant except to match
the same number in the lower left on the screen.  When you find the matching
symbol it is followed by either the unique plane number assigned to that
person or their plane type and their range from you in yards.  The far left
side of the dashboard has the color assignments of the three countries and
your current allegiance.  Be careful, EGA and CGA have different color schemes.

Very close planes have full polygonal rendering of their aircraft.
Distant planes render as a dot.  Rendering at the middle ranges is
based of the difference of the target planes course from your own.
     ___
      |  Going       |___ To right     ___| To left       |  Coming
         away                                            --- toward
                                                             you
diff     (180)            (+90)             (-90)            (0)

     .'  Away        `.   Away        . .'  Toward      `. . Toward
    ' '. Left       .' `  Right        `.   Left         .'  Right
diff     (-45)            (+45)             (-135)           (135)

Radar
-----
The radar renders all planes (at under 16000 yards) as lines of the
color appropriate for their country.  If the plane has a 'tail' that
indicates it is a bomber.

In addition to the range information for targets under 16000 yards,
the radar supports reports on more distant planes.  Each sector
on your screen may have a line or two of light green blocks at the top of
the grid and a line or two of brown blocks just beneath them.
The light green blocks indicate the number of enemy planes in that
sector the brown blocks indicate the number of friendly planes
likewise in that sector.

Artwork views
=============

The views are basically standard IFF images glommed together into a single
file using a special utility called 'makedat' which available for
download.  For more info on the artwork file production process download
the 'makedat' entry.

Artwork views have names linking them to the corresponding aircraft.
Specifically, the artwork file names which are recognized are:
    p51
    zero
    me262
    spitfir
    me109
    fw190
    p38
    b17
    b25
    a26
    dri
    camel
    spad
    drvii
    skydive
    parachu
A character is added to the end of the file name which indentifies the
resolution which it can be used in.  CGA mode files use a trailing 'C',
EGA 320x200 files use a trailing 's', EGA 640x200 use a trailing 'w',
and EGA 640x350 use a trailing 'f'.

You can also use Amiga 'E' files in EGA 320x200 though the colors won't
always map very well.

To create your own files you will need DeluxePaint for the PC, its
output files after 'makedat'ing import directly into Air Warrior.

The plane art is merged with the terrain
display every update so all 4 (in cga) or 16 (EGA VGA) colors
are available for your use.  In EGA/VGA the last 8 colors can be altered.
For reference if you wish to use them, the first 8 colors in the pallet
are:

EGA (320x200) (640x200)
 I  R  G  B Hex
 x     x  x 0x13,    /* sky */
 x     x    0x12,    /* ground */
 x  x  x  x 0x17,    /* buildings */
          x 0x01,    /* ocean */
    x  x    0x06,    /* mountains */
    x  x  x 0x07,    /* airfield */
       x    0x02,    /* forest */
            0x0,    /* plane outlines */

EGA (640x350)
 R  G  B Hex
 2  3  3 0x1f,    /* sky */
 2  3  1 0x1e,    /* ground */
 3  3  3 0x3f,    /* buildings */
 1  1  3 0x31,    /* ocean */
 2  1  0 0x14,    /* mountains */
 2  2  2 0x07,    /* airfield */
 1  2  1 0x29,    /* forest */
 0  0  0 0x0,    /* plane outlines */

Pacific Theater.  Implementation of the pacific theater required some
alteration of the dashboard art.  In EGA country B is now brown instead of
green.  For those who like to roll their own plane art the dashboard name is
now PCD0 and the gunner dash is PCG0.  The old dashboard names will not load.

Sound board support
===================
Covox sound board support.  This version of Air Warrior uses Amiga
Iff sound samples and uses the Covox sound board to output them.
Presently you can use sound files in the Amiga library.  I suggest
that you stick to the smaller files as memory on the PC is very tight.

We picked this particular sound board because it can playback digital
samples from memory without processor intervention which means it
can reproduce realistic sound with minial processor load.

The Covox Sound Master board can be obtained directly from Covox for
$99.95 + $5 shipping. Product code: SMPC-P0-050.

   Covox Inc.
   Eugene, OR 97402
   Phone [phone]
   Fax   [phone]
   BBS   503-342-4135
   Credit Card Order Line 800-942-8765 Extension 6.

Performance testing
===================
    This version of Air Warrior has undergone very stringent testing
between the different computers (Macintosh, Atari ST, Amiga, and IBM PC)
to ensure that the flight performance of the different planes is the
same.

    The testing was performed by internally instrumenting the
program, to eliminate the errors that would occur by reading the
instruments or following a stop watch. Not only were the observable
variables instrumented, but also internal aerodynamic quantities such as
thrust, engine horsepower, drag, lift, angle of attack, lift
coefficient, air density, and so on. The magnitude of the differences
being sought was smaller than could readily be seen on the instruments,
since split second timing was often required to make valid comparisons.
Initial conditions for the various tests were established exactly by an
automated facility, so that no human error or influence would be
present.  The tests were performed on a number of different aircraft,
representing the various extremes of both performance and certain
critical properties.

    The following tests were performed:

    An instrumented take off roll, followed by an 11 minute climb,
a minute of level acceleration, then a 60 degree dive, usually into the
ground, or 3 minutes, whichever came first. Acceptance was based on the
point at which the plane reached full throttle, the point at which the
plane left the ground, the altitude, speed, angle of climb, and engine
horsepower at the peak of the climb, the speed reached by the end of the
acceleration, the time and speed at which buffeting began during the
dive (if it did), the peak Mach number in the dive (for the F-86), and
the time and speed of impact.

    A 2/3 aileron deflection roll in expert mode. Acceptance was based
on rate of roll, and loss of altitude and change of attitude during
one complete roll. A roll time varied from 1.5 seconds for the Sabre to
40 or so for the B-17 (the B-17 did not complete the roll before the
test ended.)

    A test of full rudder deflection at an exact speed and altitude.
Acceptance was based on the amount of course change, amount of roll,
and amount of altitude lost during a one minute deflection.

    A full elevator deflection loop starting at an exact speed and
altitude. Acceptance was based on the g's pulled at various points in
the loop, the altitude gained during the loop, the final altitude at
the end of the loop, the time at which various points in the loop
were reached, and the velocities at various points in the loop.

    A test of the top speed of the plane, at two or more different
altitudes representing different performance regimes. The plane was
placed at the correct speed, and acceptance was based on comparison
of internal values during a one minute run at that speed.

    A test of stall performance. The plane was placed in a known
climb attitude at a known speed, then throttle was reduced by the
program. Acceptance was based on the speed of the stall, altitude of
stall (a check on the climb), various internal values at the stall,
the time required for the nose to drop through horizontal, the time
required for recovery from the stall, and the altitude changes
associated with those points.

    In addition, tests were run at several different settings on the
Mac II, to quantify the effect of monochrome vs color, that is, the
frame rate, on aerodynamic performance (the Mac II was the easiest
machine to perform this test on, it was also done on the IBM PC with
its variable clock speed.) Several equations were changed to retain
better numerical accuracy in accounting for very fast update times and
better accuracy in handling unusual clock frequencies.

    Lastly, a drag race was run with a jeep and a tank, to measure
the acceleration, turning radius, and roll performance (grin) of the
vehicle under an automatically controlled test. A bug in the rollover
point in the jeep was found and corrected.

    In conclusion, we now feel that the machine to machine
performance is identical, to far greater than the accuracy at which a
user can read the instrument panel and control an airplane manually. One
thing that became apparent early on was how sensitive the planes are,
and how even a very small difference in control setting or initial
conditions can produce results different enough to mislead the observer.
Automated testing was essential.
------

Enjoy!

David Albrecht