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This is version 1.6a of 'Air Warrior' for the Amiga.
Copyright (c) Kesmai Corporation 1987, 1988.
Written by Kelton Flinn and David Albrecht of the Kesmai Corporation.
Ported to the amiga by David Albrecht.
1.6a is a fixup revision of 1.6 with some bug fixes etc.
Major Features
--------------
a) Revised control system allowing more 'delicate' control especially
at high frame rates.
b) All new auto-pilot system which rather than directly directly driving
flight parameters now controls the expert mode control system to get
the same effect. Ergo, there is no longer any possible advantage
of any sort to be gained from using the auto-pilot.
***
A report on the CMI accelerator board using the 'AIRstone' :-)
benchmark. For Air Warrior the CMI board seems to net about a 10%
improvement. Its up to you whether its modest cost is worth it.
***
------
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. Certainly,
a player that 'hacks' the program won't gain the respect of his/her peers.
Skilled pilots get admiration, 'hackers' just get abuse and derision.
In any case, the host has some rudimentary checks for 'cheating', more
stringent checks will follow as we feel necessary. If the program reports
to us that you are cheating we will simply 'blacklist' you from the game.
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.
I do want to lay to rest the argument, however, that deliberately
hunting for and exploiting aspects of the game that allow anti-social
behavior (like shooting down large numbers of your teammates) under the
guise of looking for 'bugs' is doing us any favors. The time spent
fixing these so called 'bugs' is really better spent improving the
game especially since they aren't a problem if no one uses them.
There are limits to how far we can go in programmatically
limiting anti-socal 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.
Anyone harboring the misapprehension that just because the game allows it
that makes it 'fair' might as well discard it because we don't believe it.
We won't step in unless someone is abusing the game in a
large way that is spoiling the game for other people and we get multiple
complaints of their behavior but we certainly reserve the right to do so.
Nuff said.
-------
Short command guide
===================
There are four different types of commands: mouse controlled, touch keys,
hold down keys, and command line keys.
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
--------
True analog joystick support is available in Air Warrior
(note: analog, not one of those crappy switchy things which are worse
than useless). It should work with an honest to god Amiga proportional
joystick if such a beast exists (not something that emulates a mouse).
I adapted an IBM style joystick and while it is functional the
resistance of the joystick makes a poor match to the Amiga and thus
has limited resolution. The resolution it offers seems quite
acceptable for flight uses but poor for use in turret mode. For the
hardware types, I have been told that adding a .1 uf capacitor between
pot wipers and ground will give more appropriate resolutions from an
IBM joystick (I haven't tried this yet, however). I have added a 3%
deadband so these higher resolution joysticks can be 'trimmed'.
When in joystick mode, 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.
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.
Touch keys
----------
Touch keys are keys that you simply touch while in flight and they
perform a command.
b Drop bombs.
f Fire guns.
x Toggle expert/autopilot mode.
; Raise gear.
1 Full picture range.
2 Medium picture range.
3 Short picture range.
4 Combat picture range.
5 Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper range.
7 Toggle war emergency power.
\ Shift mouse control toggle.
] Increase bombsight magnification.
[ Decrease bombsight 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.
d, keypad .
Rudder right.
s, keypad 3
Rudder center.
Hold Keys
---------
Hold keys only perform their function while they are held down.
View keys:
h, keypad 7
look left
l, keypad 6
look right
m, keypad 2
look back
j, keypad 5
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.
Radar display:
=, keypad ENTER
Will replace the picture screen with the radar display.
Brakes:
Holding the space bar will apply the brakes. This is true also of
dive brakes for planes so equipped.
Text buffer:
p
Will replace the dashboard with back text.
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 7
Rotate turret left.
keypad 9
Rotate turret right.
keypad 3
Incline turret down.
keypad 1
Incline turret up.
Command line keys
-----------------
The command line supports a number of commands. Hit return to terminate
entry on the command line CTRL X will clear the line, BACKSPACE will delete
a character.
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.
ob Toggle bombsight.
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 Gunsight toggle.
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.
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 (a - blue, b - yellow, c - red), the number inside
it is irrelevant except to match the same number in the lower right on the
screen. When you find the matching symbol it is followed by the unique
plane number assigned to that person and their range from you in yards.
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) (-235) (235)
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 darker green blocks just beneath them.
The light green blocks indicate the number of enemy planes in that
sector the dark green blocks indicate the number of friendly planes
likewise in that sector.
=============
Digital sound
-------------
Air Warrior supports digital sound. There is a different sound file for
the prop planes, the jet, the bombers, the WWI planes, and vehicles. At
the present time only the prop planes and the jet have a file in the library
but you can copy the prop plane file to the bomber name to get digital sound
in the bombers and or WWI planes. If you have a sound digitizer you can
also roll your own sound files, see 'sndcreat.arc' in the software library
for details.
The names are:
prop planes airwarP.snd
jet plane airwarJ.snd
bombers airwarB.snd
wwI airwarW.snd
vehicles airwarV.snd
Resolution selection
--------------------
Air Warrior has the capability for using different resolution picture
screens and adding artwork views. At the same time it also makes it quite
possible to run out of memory even in expanded memory systems if you choose
an improper configuration.
Picture resolution selections:
There is a menu entitled
'Resolution' which allows you to select a different screen from the
default. The default mode has a dot density on the screen of 320hx128v.
It uses 3 bit planes for the scenery (which gives 8 colors) and 2 bit
planes for the plane outline (which allows 3 colors for the plane).
The other modes change the number of planes allocated to the scenery
and/or plane outline and are slower than the default. Some of the
higher resolution modes have fewer colors available than the default but
make up for it by using what is called 'dithering' where two colors are
placed next to each other and give the effect of a third 'intermediate'
color. Note that the resolution modes with fewer than 3 colors for the
plane outline will not allow the use of an artwork view.
Some of the higher res's will cause a 512 machine to run out of memory.
I would suggest either Low or Lace. Lace has all the colors of Low with
an almost 'high res' appearance, yet incurs less speed penalty than high res.
Lace varies from (31%-8%) slower than low res. The largest speed difference
is when very few objects being rendered. As more objects are rendered the
lace approaches the same speed as low res. The effect is that it is slower
than low res when the speed is fast enough to be unimportant and when speed
becomes important it is very close to low res speeds. Unfortunately, due to
the doubling in size of lace screens, the lace resolution mode is marginal
on a 512K amiga.
Artwork views
-------------
The views are basically standard IFF images glommed together into a single
file using a special utility called 'makedat' which is 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
spitfire
me109
fw190
p38
b17
b25
a26
dri
camel
spad
drvii
skydiver
parachut
Either a 'L', 'E', 'T', 'X', 'M', or an 'H' is tacked onto the end of the
artwork file indicating whether it is usable in Low, Lace, Med, or High
resolution. 'T' is for the Lace mode, 'X' is Lace with 7 color plane outline
'E' is Low resolution with a 7 color plane outline. The single playfield
modes use 'R' for Low res, 'D' for Lace, 'W' for Medium, 'F' for High.
Thus a Focke-Wulf 190 artwork file which is meant to be used in Low
Resolution Default mode should be named 'fw190L'.
In the single playfield modes, the plane art is merged with the terrain
display every update so all 32 (in low or lace) or 16 (med or high) colors
are available for your use. Only the last 24 or 8 can be altered, however.
For reference if you wish to use them, the first 8 colors in the pallet
are:
R G B Hex
9 12 15 0x9cf, /* sky */
8 9 4 0x894, /* ground */
11 11 11 0xbbb, /* buildings */
2 2 2 0x222, /* plane outlines , tower */
11 9 7 0xb97, /* mountains */
7 7 7 0x777, /* airfield */
3 6 4 0x364, /* forest */
0 3 11 0x03b, /* ocean */
Every time you switch
views the particular view from the artwork file that is needed will be
loaded from the artwork file. If no view for that direction is available
it will use the computer generated one. The restriction for swapping in
views from a hard disk or floppy has been lifted. Now the program will
first look in 'RAM:' and if it doesn't find the artwork file there it will
check in the directory with airwarrior. In high-res even uncompressing the
image from 'RAM:' is very slow. This is where a feature called
'in mem pictures' under the options memory comes in.
Basically, this feature allows you to specify how many views Air Warrior will
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. The
in-mem feature now uses any kind of memory so that expanded memory users can
fully utilize their ram. Be judicious in the choice of 'in mem pictures'
because it can cause you to run out of memory.
Memory usage per in-memory view.
Resolution:
Low(3 color) 10.7K
Low(7 color) 16K
Lace(3 color) 21.3K
Lace(7 color) 32K
Med(3 color) 21.3K
High(3 color) 42.7K
Low(32 color) 26.7K
Lace(32 color) 53.3K
Med(16 color) 42.7K
High(16 color) 85.4K
--------------
Timings in the various resolution modes (taken from the runway A:1).
Resolution Combat Full
Low (3/8) 96ms 255ms
Low (7/8) 101ms 257ms
Low 16 121ms 274ms
Low 32 136ms 298ms
Lace (3/8) 111ms 267ms
Lace (7/8) 113ms 271ms
Lace 16 152ms 312ms
Lace 32 177ms 340ms
Med 8 161ms 319ms
Med 16 196ms 381ms
High (1/4) 149ms 321ms
High (3/4) 165ms 347ms
High 8 224ms 374ms
High 16 279ms 440ms
Enjoy!
David Albrecht