Air Warrior Instructions 1. Read Manual 2. Version Notes Air Warrior Version 1.4 November 1988 Copyright 1987 Kesmai Corporation 1. Preface Air Warrior is a multiplayer aerial combat simulation. Using sophisticated software on both the user's microproces- Press , or CROLL?S sor and the GEnie system, Air Warrior provides the level of graphical detail and responsiveness expected from a video game, yet at the same time the scope and large number of participants of an online game. Players of Air Warrior belong to one of three national- ities. These three small countries are continually at war, primarily waged in the air (though it is rumored they are building armies as well). Each country has several primary airfields and a number of secondary fields, including air- craft carriers in nearby bodies of water. Because these countries are so poor, the best they can afford is surplus World War II planes, which their highly skilled mechanics keep in excellent working order despite difficult condi- tions. They take whatever they can get, be it used Ameri- can, British, German, or even Soviet planes, stealing them from each other whenever possible. Thus a wide variety of planes are available to pilots of each country. Sometimes even World War I vintage planes show up. In addition to aircraft, Air Warrior also models ground support vehicles and ships. Players can drive around in a jeep with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the back to fend off low flying attackers. A half-track with a large anti-aircraft gun is in the planning stages. Players will also be able to control small ships such as PT boats. Air Warrior is currently supported for several popular microcomputers. Each version of Air Warrior is customized specifically for the hardware it is running on, to take full advantage of each machine's capabilities. For this reason, there are some minor differences in the user interface between the versions. Likewise, differences in the graphics hardware of the various machines mean that some versions of Air Warrior render the 3-D graphical images faster than oth- ers. Despite these differences in hardware capabilities, the aerodynamic and combat performance of the different ver- sions is identical. 2. Obtaining the Air Warrior Software To play Air Warrior, you will need to download several files that are specific to your particular brand of com- puter. The supported machines are limited currently to the Apple Macintosh (512KE and up, including the Macintosh II), the Commodore Amiga (with at least 512K of memory), and the Atari ST (Color Systems only). Your first step will be to obtain some sort of Xmodem file transfer program, so that you can download the Air War- rior software from GEnie. Most commercial communications packages have Xmodem capability, and many excellent free and shareware programs are also available. Macintosh users will need to have a program that supports the MacBinary transfer protocol, which is a superset of Xmodem used to transfer icon information as well as the data in the file. In addi- tion the StuffIt program, available as shareware, will enable you to download the compressed version, which will save somewhat on download charges. Amiga and Atari ST users will need the Arc program, which does compression and bun- dling of binary data. Once you are online on GEnie with your file transfer program, type AIR (or M 870) to go to the Air Warrior page. Select option 4, Download Software, to see the download menu. The first entry on this page will contain detailed up to date information on downloading the various versions of software available. You should read this information online before proceeding further. You should make sure you under- stand the licensing agreement under which you are download- ing the game software, which is also available online. The Air Warrior package consists of two or more files: the program, terrain data base, and possibly some additional aircraft customization files. You will have several down- loads to do, a long one to obtain the program (roughly half an hour at 1200 baud) and a relatively short one to obtain the terrain file. If the version for your computer has additional data files, they may need to be downloaded separately. Also, if your computer supports directories or folders, you should place both the Air Warrior program, the terrain file, and any data files into the same one. In the current versions, the terrain data base must be called terrain.dat, so if your file transfer method does not set the name properly, you will need to rename it. The reason you need to download a separate file for the terrain is that we are thus able to alter the map of the world periodically, and all that is required is a relatively short download to obtain the latest version of the data file. You should keep an eye on the banner going into the game for information on when you will need to do a download, although the program itself will inform you if you enter the game on GEnie without the latest file. If you encounter difficulties downloading the software, or getting the program to work after downloading it, you can get help by sending GE mail to KESMAI, using the Feedback option there on the main Air Warrior menu page. Also, if you encounter what you think is a bug in the program or one of the data files, do NOT just re-download it without check- ing with us first. If StuffIt or Arc do not give an error unpacking the file, the download was OK and the problem lies elsewhere. Before wasting money on another download, ask a question and we may be able to solve the problem. For further details on the downloading process see the Appendix for your machine. 3. Software Updates Every once in a while, we may find it necessary to make a change in the software, either to fix a bug or to add a new feature. Generally we will be able make sure that existing versions of the software will continue to work, but this is not always possible or desirable. If you are told your software is out of date when you try to enter the game on GEnie, this means a major change has been made that requires another download. When this happens there will always be an explanation of what has happened in the Version Notes, which can be found under the Instructions menu on page 870. In addition, changes will often be made to the GEnie end of the program to enhance performance or add new features. The date that the program displays on the banner when you enter page 870 can tell you whether the GEnie software has been changed recently. Again, details of any changes will be placed in the Version Notes. You should make it a practice to watch for changes in the host version date, and to read the version notes whenever it changes. Quite often important changes to the game will be explained there, and you will be at a significant disadvantage if you do not read about them. It is the nature of online games to evolve over time, continually improving in response to new ideas. 4. Operation in Single-Player Mode (Local) The microprocessor program starts up in practice mode. In this mode the Control, Planes and Options menus are enabled. You can practice flying a plane by selecting the one you want from the Planes menu. Everything works in practice mode except the guns, but there is nothing to shoot at anyway. You'll always start out at Airfield 1 of Country A (generally denoted as A:1), but the other airfields are all present if you want to fly to them (some versions may let you change your starting point with a menu option.). The practice mode is primarily designed for you to learn to fly the plane well, and hopefully to land it safely. Once you have the hang of flying, its time to get on GEnie and test your mettle against other pilots. Practice is the most important thing you can do to learn to fly and fight well. Use the Practice Mode of the program to master landing, as getting a landing or ditch is vastly superior to bailing out at the end of the mission. Aerobatic skills can also come in handy in eluding a plane on your tail, or making a fancy maneuver to get on someone else's. 5. The Display The graphical display on the computer screen contains all the information you need to fly your plane. The largest part of the display is taken up by the graphical picture, which shows what you can see from your plane. You will see runways, roads, buildings, mountains, other planes, and sometimes guns or vehicles on the ground. Part of the pic- ture will be obscured by your own plane, which may be represented by a silhouette, or may be drawn in detail depending on the plane and the version you have. If you do see another plane or ground target which is within 5000 yards (less for some small targets), the program will textu- ally display the id number or plane type of the target, the range to the target in yards, and a small unique icon used to identify the target. This small icon will also appear below the picture, directly below the corresponding target. The different icons can be used to distinguish small images of other planes on the screen, compensating for the small size of the computer screen. The country of the indicated aircraft is represented by the shape of the icon on the Macintosh and by the color of the icon on the Amiga and the Atari ST. Below the picture on the screen is a representation of the aircraft's instrument panel. The major instruments are the altimeter, rate-of-climb gauge, accelerometer, compass, fuel, oil, and ammo indicators, and the airspeed indicator. The altimeter has three needles, representing tens, hun- dreds, and thousands of feet, and a small knob that travels around the inside rim of the gauge to show tens of thousands. The following description applies to the stan- dard Macintosh instrument panel arrangement. Amiga and Atari ST control panels differ slightly, and it is possible to customize the arrangement for each plane, in some cases radically altering the appearance. The digital compass reads in degrees, with zero as north and ninety due east. Fuel, oil, and ammo indicate in percentages. The accelerometer measures how much force the airframe is being subjected to by the current maneuver. In straight and level flight the accelerometer will read 1 "g", meaning the wings are exactly supporting the weight of the plane. If the plane executes a level or climbing turn, the wings will have to provide more lift, and the accelerometer is used to monitor how much more is being produced. The velocity gauge displays airspeed, usually in knots, or nautical miles per hour.1 By default, the gauge indi- cates true airspeed (TAS). By selecting the appropriate option from the Options menu, Indicated Airspeed (IAS) can be displayed instead. Indicated airspeed is what the pilot of a real aircraft generally sees; it is measured by sam- pling the air pressure outside the plane with a Pitot tube. IAS will go down as the the plane climbs to higher altitude, because of decreasing air density. A plane that does 300 knots at sea level (where IAS and TAS are the same) may only do 250 knots IAS at 20,000 feet, whereas it's TAS may have in fact increased substantially with altitude. IAS is an accurate indication of how close the plane is to stalling, and how close it is to exceeding one of its maximum safe speeds, because IAS is a direct measure of the force being exerted on the plane by the air. Other indicators on the control panel are aircraft con- trol indicators. The large box in the center of the panel is the "stick box", or stick position indicator. Below it is the rudder position indicator (The rudder on an Amiga or Atari ST is located inside the stick box at its top.) The throttle indicator shows the current throttle setting. Small icons indicate whether the landing gear are up, down, or in motion, and the position of the flaps. A stall indi- cator shows whether the airflow over the wings is stalled or not. If this light comes on during flight, a audible stall horn will sound also. 5.1. Mouse Controls The basic controls of the plane are on the mouse. Pushing the mouse forward or backward lowers and raises the nose, respectively. Moving the mouse from side to side will bank the plane, which will turn it in that direction. The Amiga version will also support an analog joystick, and the Macintosh version has an option to configure the program for use with a joystick that can emulate a mouse. There are two basic modes of mouse control, expert mode and autopilot mode. Expert mode is designed to give realis- tic responses to mouse or joystick motions, whereas autopi- lot mode is designed to provide a simple and stable control system at the cost of some realism. In autopilot mode, the mouse controls the actual position of the plane rather than the positions of its control surfaces. Moving the mouse to the right banks the plane to the right, the farther to the right it goes the steeper the bank. To make a right turn, move the mouse to the right to bank the plane. When it reaches the desired course, move the mouse back to center to straighten the plane out. Unlike the expert mode, the mouse motions here bear little resemblance to the actual motions of the stick in a plane, but they are easy to understand and easy to fly with. The variety of maneuvers the plane can perform in this mode is basically limited to level flight, climbs, dives, and turns. Autopilot mode can only be engaged when the plane is in basically stable flight. Loops, rolls and more complex maneuvers require the use of expert mode. We do not recommend using the autopilot mode in combat, because of the serious limitations it imposes on aircraft tactics and maneuver. In expert mode, a mouse motion to the right causes the plane to bank to the right, the more the mouse is moved the faster the plane rolls to the right. If you move the mouse to the right and keep it there, the plane will execute a full roll, and keep rolling till you move the mouse back to center. Likewise pulling the mouse back and keeping it there will put the plane through a full vertical loop. To execute a controlled turn to the right, you would move the mouse to the right, causing the plane to roll to the right. Once it reaches an acceptable angle of bank, such as 45{ or so, move the mouse back to center to stop the roll. A plane can make a slow shallow turn merely by being banked in this manner, but if it attempts to make a steep bank, it will sideslip, that is slip in towards the center of the turn and lose altitude. In order to make a fast turn, a large force is needed to bend the flight path of the plane into a curve. This force is provided by increasing the angle at which the airflow is striking the wings (known as the angle of attack), causing them to generate additional lift. Thus, to make a fast turn in Air Warrior without losing altitude, you pull back on the stick (mouse) just the amount needed to balance the force of gravity pulling the plane down with the lift of the wings pulling the plane up along the angle at which the plane is banked. A glance at the accelerometer and rate-of-climb gauges can help you to judge the force required. Air Warrior always performs what is known as a coordinated turn, meaning that the program automatically provides the rudder force necessary to compensate for the stick deflection you make, so that the plane remains prop- erly aligned with the flight path. The rudder control in Air Warrior is used only for deflecting the plane away from this condition. On the Atari ST and Amiga (with appropriate option selected) the left mouse button activates a feature called roll lock, where the stick is constrained to move only for- ward and backward along its centerline, making it easy to push the stick forward or pull it back without introducing an inadvertent roll. This feature can be quite handy when executing a hard turn or a loop. Roll lock is activated from the keyboard on the Macintosh. On the Macintosh and Amiga (if the roll lock option is not activated), with the mouse button held down, moving the mouse forward or backward will adjust the throttle up and down (note the throttle gauge on the screen that tracks the motion of the mouse.) The throttle on the Atari ST is con- trolled by the keyboard. You'll want to use full throttle for take off and steep climbs, with maybe 70% throttle for level cruising, and will usually shut the engine down to 40% or so for a descent for landing. Double-clicking the mouse button will center the stick, extremely useful for trimming the plane to fly straight in expert mode, or leveling the plane out in autopilot mode. On the Amiga and Atari ST, the right mouse button can be used to fire the guns. 5.2. Keyboard Commands There are a number of keyboard commands. They fall into three categories, those that are pressed once to ini- tiate an action (immediate commands), those that are line- oriented commands (command-line commands), and those that you hold down to perform an action (hold-down commands). The following keys of the first type are the ones used by the Macintosh version. The Amiga and Atari ST versions uses some different keys on the keypad to achieve a more logical arrangement (since these machines have a standard keypad), although the Amiga version supports many of the Macintosh keys as well. In addition the Macintosh and Atari ST versions allow re-mapping of the immediate style keys. 5.2.1. Immediate Commands Starting the Engines The * key is used to start the engine(s). Hit the * once for each engine the plane has. With all the engines running, hitting * again will shut them off. On the Atari ST, F10 (function key 10) performs this operation. Braking On the Macintosh and Amiga, holding down the space bar will push down on the brake pedal, in order to stop a plane on the ground. On the Atari ST, the same function is accomplished by holding down the Alt key. On planes so equipped, the air brakes or dive brakes are also activated with this key. The Rudder The a, s, and d keys are used to control the plane's rudder. The rudder control is not needed for ordinary turns, because the program always assumes competence on the part of the pilot and adjusts the rudder automatically for properly coordinated flight. The rudder control is used in expert mode to push the plane away from the normal steady flight condition. Hitting the a key will move the rudder one position to the left, causing the plane to turn to the left. Hitting the d key will move the rudder to the right one position. Hitting the s key will immediately center the rudder. The rudder will move up to five positions to either side. On the Amiga, the rudder can also be controlled by the 0, 3, and keys on the keypad, preforming equivalent functions to the a, s, and d keys mentioned above. Emergency Power Pressing e on the Macintosh, 7 on the Amiga, or control c (c with the control key held down) on the Atari ST, will turn emergency power on and off. Generally This is limited to a total of 10 minutes in Air Warrior. You can turn Emergency Power off by hitting the key again or throttling back from 100%. The F4U-1D Corsair and Me 109 G-6 use water or water/methanol injection, the Fw 190 A-8 has nitrous oxide injection. For the other planes Emergency Power is just pushing the engine to its limits. Landing Gear Pressing ; (or F9 on the Atari) will raise or lower the landing gear. Make sure your gear are down before you try to land. Landing with the gear up can be dangerous. Note that leaving the landing gear down will generate excess drag, which may be good or bad depending on whether you want to slow down or speed up. On the F4U-1D Corsair, the landing gear key may be used for dive brakes by lowering them before a dive (the doors open and trail in the airflow, generating drag, but the gear themselves will not come down if the airspeed is too high.) Be sure to close the doors as soon as the dive is completed, or the gear themselves may come down and lock into place, where they can be damaged by the high speed. Flaps Pressing > will lower the flaps one notch. Lowering the flaps is used to increase the lift and the drag of the airplane, especially for landing or maneuvering in combat. Pressing the < will raise the flaps a notch. The w and e keys on the Atari ST and Keypad 7 and 1 on the Amiga perform the same functions. The flaps will often not operate above a certain plane specific airspeed. Guns Pressing the f key will fire the machine guns in a 1 second burst. If you are within 500 yards or so of the target you may see debris coming off as you hit. On the Amiga and Atari ST the right mouse button will also fire the guns. Dropping Bombs Hitting a b will drop a bomb or cluster of bombs. You should not do this while you are sitting on the ground! Multiple keypresses will release successive bombs for planes that can carry more than one. The bomb release must be armed prior to this command. Expert Mode Pressing x will toggle expert mode on and off. You can go into expert mode freely, as the situation war- rants, but can only go back to autopilot mode if the plane is close to level Picture Range The distance at which terrain items are displayed can be controlled to allow the user to get rid of distant objects during combat thereby reducing screen clutter and increasing frame rate. The keys 1 through 5 specifty the range with 1 being full picture display and 4 being combat display. Display mode 5 is an extreme mode which eliminates almost all terrain, requiring the pilot to keep a sharo lookout for dangerous objects! Text Buffer Pressing - on the Macintosh or F4 on the Atari ST will replace the graphics display on the screen with a text buffer, where radio messages and other text that has scrolled off the small in-flight text window can be reexamined. On the Macintosh, hit the - key again to return to the graphics display, on the Atari ST hit any of the other view function keys. On the Amiga, holding the p key will replace the control panel with an expanded text buffer. Releasing the key will put the control panel back. 5.2.2. Looking Around The keyboard commands that control the direction of view are hold-down style commands on the Macintosh and Amiga and immediate-style commands on the Atari ST. This largely due to a lack of vision on the part of the Atari OS designers. The Macintosh allows the user to select immediate-style view keys as an option (the Sticky Keys option). On the Macintosh and Amiga, holding down the h key will cause you to look out over the left wing of the plane. As long as the key is held down, you'll look to the left. The l key does the same thing, to the right. The m key is used to look directly behind you. The k key looks straight up, and the j key looks straight down.The g key is used as a forward key, although you do not need to hold that key down, as forward is the normal default view. Holding down the h and m or l,and m keys in combination will give you an over the shoulder and leaning to the side view, which can be use- ful in a plane with a high fuselage behind the pilot. There are a number of combination views, accessed by holding more than one key down at once. On the Amiga, a series of keys on the keypad will perform the same actions. On the Atari ST, pressing the desired view direction key will change the display until another view key is pressed. To use the com- bination views the keys are pressed in sequence instead of simultaneously. All the default view key definitions are summarized in the table below. Table of View Directions View Direction Macintosh Amiga Atari ST Left h 4 7 Right l 6 9 Rear m 2 5 Up k 8 * Down j 5 + Left Rear h and m 2 and 4 4 Right Rear l and m 2 and 6 6 Up and Rear k and m 2 and 8 * and 5 Down and Rear j and m 2 and 5 + and 5 Up and Forward g and k 7 and 8 * and ) Down and Forward g and j 7 and 5 + and ) Up and Left h and k 4 and 8 * and 7 Up and Right l and k 6 and 8 * and 9 Down and Left h and j 4 and 5 + and 7 Down and Right l and j 6 and 5 + and 9 Forward and Left h and g 4 and 8 ( Forward and Right l and g 6 and 8 / Amiga and Atari ST views are located on the Keypad. All the Macintosh view keys also work on the Amiga. 5.3. The Radar Screen Air Warrior has what may loosely be called a "radar" mode built into each plane. This is not radar in the usual sense, and is not intended to represent a realistic radar display. It is instead intended to provide the pilot with a quick overview of the area around his plane, so that he may most economically locate targets to attack or friends to aid. It compensates to some extent for the small size of the computer screen and the lack of depth perception and detail, which make it difficult to know whether the little dot on the horizon is worth chasing or not. During World War II, very few fighters were equipped with radar, but fighters were often guided to targets by a steady stream of radioed instructions. This is what the Air Warrior radar mode simulates. Radar may not be available at all times or in all areas, and usually if radar is available it will be centered on some building located in friendly territory. 5.3.1. The Macintosh Radar Screen Holding down the = key is used to request radar mode, to tell you whether any enemy planes are nearby. The map display, like the above illustration, shows several things. Your plane is represented by a small + in the center of the picture. North is always to the top of the screen. Gray lines represent map grids (see the discussion of the Map). Short horizontal or vertical lines show the positions of the various runways. Small x's represent nearby fighter planes, and small boxes bombers, within about 8 miles. Any plane you can see out the window, either with or without a range and tracking icon, will be displayed on the map, with a tracking icon enabling you to identify it. In addition to these true position indicators, each map sector within a radius of two sectors will have a set of small icons along its sides telling you how many friendly and enemy planes are within the sector. Up the left side, small black boxes represent enemy planes. Up the right side of the sector, small diamonds represent friendly planes. Note that these counters are only updated every 45 seconds or so, whereas the true position indicators are updated continuously. 5.3.2. The Amiga Radar Screen Holding down the Enter key on the keypad on the Amiga is used to request radar mode. The Amiga radar mode is similar to the Macintosh. The same information is presented but the format is slightly different. Your plane is indi- cated by a white dash which is always centered on the display. Nearby aircraft are indicated by either dashes (fighters) or t-shapes (bombers). The dashes and t-shapes are appropriately colored for the allegiance of the aircraft they represent. Grid lines, airfields, and tracking icons are essentially equivalent in nature to those available on the Macintosh. The information on the Macintosh which is indicated by the black boxes and diamonds on the Macintosh is represented on the Amiga with colored boxes occupying the upper portion of the grid box. Enemy aircraft are represented with light green boxes, friendly aircraft with dark green. 5.3.3. The Atari Radar Screen Pressing the F2 key on the Atari ST is used to request the radar display. .The display format is similar to the Macintosh. Small plane shapes depict fighters and larger ones represent bombers. The relative position of your plane is indicated with an X. Small black boxes at the top of each sector represent the number of enemy planes (all types) in that sector; and diamond shapes are friends. Press the F1 key to return to normal viewing. 6. Line Oriented Commands The line oriented keyboard commands are used primarily for things that require communicating to GEnie, such as talking to another plane. To enter one of these commands, hit the esc key (or the ` key on a Macintosh that does not have an esc key.) A > prompt will appear on your screen, and anything you type will be echoed back next to the prompt. All of the line oriented commands should be entered just by their first character. These commands are ter- minated with a return, and can be canceled by entering a control X (-X on the Macintosh). Ending The e (end) command is used to leave the plane and return to the conference area. You must be stationary on the ground to end, which implies a successful landing on or off the airfield. Bailing Out The p (parachute) command can also be used to leave the plane and return to the conference area. The p command can be entered anywhere, and will rapidly eject you from the plane (on most planes the pilot leaps to the right to use the propeller slipstream to aid in clearing the tail, on the P-38 Lightning the pilot goes out the door on the left hand side.) You will find yourself falling rapidly. A second p command will pull the ripcord, allowing you to float gently down. The mouse may be used to steer. You may find it useful to free fall to within 1000 feet or so of the ground before pulling the ripcord. Tuning the Radio The t (tune) command is used to tune your in-flight radio. Just enter t, then a channel number from 1 to 999. Channel 1 is a public channel, the others are private to each country. Using the Radio To talk on the radio, hit a slash /. You'll see a : prompt, which means you can type your message. It'll be sent out over the radio channel you have tuned when you hit return. Using the Intercom To talk on the intercom p