1942: THE PACIFIC AIR WAR SCENARIO Machine Requirements: -------------------- To run 1942: The Pacific Air War Scenario, you will need: 1) 1942: The Pacific Air War 2) A 386SX processor (386DX 33 MHz or higher recommended) 3) 580k free conventional memory 4) 1600k free EMS memory 5) 9 Megabytes of hard drive space (this is required for installation only after installation only 6.5 Megabytes are required for game play files) 6) A Joystick or mouse NOTE - 1942: The Pacific Air War and the Scenario have not been tested under Microsoft Windows. Design Changes -------------- During the ongoing play test process, we made design adjustments that could not be included in the manual or technical supplements. The following is a list of these changes: 1. Autopilot When flying in training mode, the autopilot key will enable full computer control of your aircraft. The autopilot will land, dive bomb, and make torpedo runs. We encourage you to use this feature to learn how to perform difficult maneuvers (such as carrier landings!). When not in training mode, your autopilot will only takeoff, maintain formation on the way to and from the target, and fly your patrol route on CAP. Landing, dogfighting, dive bombing, and torpedo bombing must be done by you. 2. Kill Credits Pilots are given credit for a kill based on the percentage of damage they inflicted on the plane. If two pilots damaged the same enemy plane, the pilot who inflicted the most damage will get credit for the kill. So you may not receive credit for a kill even if you are the last pilot to damage a plane. 3. Ditching Planes can be successfully ditched in the ocean. You need to hit the water at a very slow speed (stall the plane below 50 ft.). During a pilot career, ditching will be treated the same as if you bailed out (you will be rescued, captured, or killed). 4. Setting Cruising Altitudes When a strike flies to a target, there is always a lead flight that everyone else follows. For mutual fire support reasons, the flights in a strike stay close to each other until they reach their target. Because of this, you may only adjust the cruising altitude of the lead flight. All other flights will automatically adjust their cruising altitudes to match. 5. Controlling Flights and Individual Planes While using the Flights menu in the map screen the Spacebar will now toggle between control of the entire flight or individual planes. 6. Freeing Up Hard Drive Space If you wish to free some space on your hard drive, you can delete animations from the game. 1942 will detect that the animation files are missing, and continue to run normally The following files (and ONLY these files!) are O.K. to delete: OPEN.FLC (1,563,324 bytes - 1942 title animation) MPSLOGO.FLC ( 794,272 bytes - MicroProse animation) ANIM.CDF (1,931,486 bytes - Carrier battle newsreels) 7. Virtual Cockpit Padlock Feature When you select the padlock feature from within the Virtual Cockpit, 1942 will lock on the enemy plane closest to the center of the screen. The easiest way to padlock an enemy is to center the virtual cockpit view and use the gun sight to line up the enemy plane. 8. Carrier Battle 3-D Engagements If you abort out of a 3-D engagement before the mission is completed, the computer will finish the attack as if you had selected to observe. Keep in mind that, due to limitations in the number of planes that can be represented in 3-D, damage from large strikes will be a combination of the damage done in 3-D, and damage calculated statistically. Your performance in 3-D, however, will have a limited effect upon the outcome of the statistical damage. 9. Realistic Flight Option The difference between realistic and non-realistic flight modes is quite significant. We decided to combine all the realistic and potentially irritating problems that a pilot faces into this category. The "purist" can select this mode to experience a more accurate simulation of air combat, while the casual gamer can focus on the more "fun" elements. Here is a list of problems added in this mode: - Engine torque will effect flight. - Planes will shake and break apart if flown too fast. - Engines will overheat and burn up if kept at max power. - Torpedoes will fail if dropped at too high a speed or altitude. - Arrestor cables will be limited to the rear 1/3 of carrier. 10. Career Tailgunners After several heated debates, the design team/lead tester have agreed to allow tail gunners in the career. 11. Japanese Radios (or Lack Thereof) The Japanese usually preferred not to carry radios in their aircraft due to their excessive weight. Therefore, as a Japanese pilot, you will not receive the radio messages the Americans did in flight. 12. Scuttling Ships in a Carrier Battle When severely damaged ships slow a Task Group down to a degree that is dangerous to the remaining ships, you should scuttle the ship. This was not an uncommon practice used to prevent the enemy from capturing the ship. You can scuttle ships in the Damaged Ships option in the Taskgroup menu. Select a displayed ship to scuttle. 13. Look-up View ('Z' key) In an effort to provide better visibility, 1942 has created a 45 degree 'lookup' view from the cockpit. You can access this view from any other view by pressing the key. The key will act as a toggle between the original view and the "lookup" view. If you are using a joystick with a hat switch (A 4 position switch on the joystick. ie Thrustmaster, Flight Stick PRO ...) to control your view angle, pushing the hat switch forward will toggle between the forward view and the 'lookup' view. 14. Carrier Battles The Carrier Battles have been modified to allow for surface action between two opposing fleets. The action will be resolved on a statistical basis similar to that of Task Force:1942. MODEM PLAY: Modem Initialization String --------------------------- The files MODM28_8.TXT, MODM14_4.TXT, MODM9600.txt, and MODMINIT.TXT will be installed into your 1942 directory with this update. 1942 will read the file MODMINIT.TXT to find the initialization string for your modem. The other three files contain recommended initialization strings for 28.8K, 14.4K and 9600 baud modems. If you are encountering any problems connecting make sure you have selected the correct Comm Port and Baud Rate. If you are still having problems connecting to another modem, copy the appropriate initialization string file to MODMINIT.TXT. If you are still having problems, change the initialization string in MODMINIT.TXT using any text editor (such as DOS EDIT). Consult the manual for your modem for how to properly initialize your modem. The following command codes must be in the string "E0V0X0". 1942 does NOT use error correction or data compression. Mission Builder --------------- Using the Mission Builder, you can design your own modem missions within certain parameters. A maximum of six aircraft are allowable with a minimum of two. When creating a Head to Head mission you must have a 'flyable' airplane on each side for it to be recognized, while in Cooperative, you need to have two flyable aircraft on the same side. We suggest when designing your own missions to place the opposing flights extremely close to prevent a long uneventful flight. ADDITIONAL INFO ON PADLOCK VIEW While in the virtual cockpit, hitting the key toggles the padlock view on and off. When the padlock view is initialized, it will lock on the enemy plane that is closest to the center of the screen. The virtual cockpit will swivel to keep the enemy plane centered. While tracking the enemy plane, you can quickly return to a forward looking viewpoint to regain your orientation. If you are using the MOUSE to control the view angle: While the padlock view is active, you must hold the left mouse button down to view the enemy plane. Otherwise, you will view straight ahead. If you are using the JOYSTICK to control the view angle: While the padlock view is active, you must hold the second joystick button down to view the enemy plane. Otherwise, you will view straight ahead. If you are using the KEYBOARD or COOLIE HAT to control the view angle: While the padlock view is active, you must hold the key down to view straight ahead. Otherwise, you will view the enemy plane. We realize that the 'quick forward' view control is not consistent between the various methods of view angle control, but we chose the method that we felt worked best for each controller. TECHNICAL ISSUES: 1. Thrustmaster WCS Mark II Support We have provided a configuration file for the WCS Mark II. It's name is 1942PAW.ADV. Consult your Thrustmaster documentation for instructions concerning how to upload this configuration. 2. Tandy Keyboard Problems If you are using a Tandy computer and are experiencing problems with the game not properly responding to game keystrokes, the 'Alt' status of the keyboard has probably reversed. That is, pressing 'A' results in an 'Alt-A' keystroke and vice-versa. To fix this problem, tap on the 'Alt' key until the status reverses back again. We apologize for the inconvenience, but there seems to be something unique to the Tandy keyboard BIOS that causes this problem. Our play testers using Tandy machines report that this problem occurs infrequently and does not significantly detract from the enjoyment of 1942. We will try to work with Tandy to solve this problem in a future update. 3. BOOTDISK.EXE - EMM386 Problems In some Packard Bell, Tandy, IBM PS/1, Gateway 2000 computers or computers with network cards, there may be a problem with the standard Microprose bootdisk application and some memory configurations. If you experience a lock up and you are using a bootdisk made by the 1942 install program, edit the CONFIG.SYS file on the bootdisk from: DEVICE=EMM386.EXE ram x=b000-c400 /d=48 frame=e000 6800 TO: DOS 5.0 users: DEVICE=EMM386.EXE 2048 ram DOS 6.0 or later users: DEVICE=EMM386.EXE ram highscan If your hard drive is doublespaced, you are using the bootdisk, and you experience a problem, please add the following line to the end of the config.sys file on the bootdisk: DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\DBLSPACE.SYS /move Please note that if you are using QEMM v7.00 or later version and you are loading COMMAND.COM into a high region with DOSUP.SYS. BOOTDISK.EXE will be not be able to load COMMAND.COM. The solution is to modify the SHELL statement in the CONFIG.SYS file on the bootdisk to: SHELL=A:\COMMAND.COM /p /e:384 4. BOOTDISK.EXE - Sound drivers Some sound cards require a sound driver to be loaded, either in CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT. Due to the large number of sound cards available on the market today, BOOTDISK.EXE can not identify all of them. If you are experiencing problems with sound, and are using a boot disk made by BOOTDISK.EXE then check AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS on the boot disk to see if the appropriate sound driver('s) were installed. If not then refer to the manual for you sound card for what driver('s) that need to be loaded. 5. Notes about Sound Card Detection Many sound cards do not have a means of being safely identified. We have chosen to use only totally safe sound card detections (environment variables, drivers, etc). As a result, not all cards or options may be correctly detected, especially if the manufacturer's install was not fully or correctly performed. 6. If you own a Sound Blaster, Pro Audio Spectrum, or Adlib Gold: In order to avoid these problems, the Install program performs sound card detection through a software only approach. For Pro Audio Spectrum sound cards, the install will look for the "MVSOUND.SYS" sound driver file. For the Sound Blaster and Adlib Gold cards, the install will check for the presence of an environmental variable, which contains a list of parameters that define how the sound card is configured. If you are sure you own a Sound Blaster, Pro Audio Spectrum, or Adlib Gold, and the Install program does not seem to find your card settings, you should double check if you ran the install/configuration software that may have come with your sound card. These install/configuration programs often set up the necessary information that the MicroProse Install program will look for. 7. If you own a Roland, General Midi, or other type of sound card: The MicroProse Install does not perform any checks for Roland, General Midi, or other types of sound cards. You will have to manually select your card in the card type menu and select 'Configure Card' if your card is not set to factory defaults. 8. New Digital Sound Support for SoundScape, Roland RAP-10: We have added digital sound support for the Roland RAP-10 and Ensoniq SoundScape cards in this version. If you are using the SoundScape for digitized sounds, the digital interrupt should be set to the SoundScape's BASE interrupt, not the Sound Blaster interrupt. Many MIDI sound cards use IRQ 9, but often call it IRQ 2. We have tried to follow the manufacturer's conventions in most cases. If your option (2/9) is not shown, try the other one. 9. ISA Bus Speeds On computers that can have their ISA bus speeds greater than 8 MHZ, un- predictable results can occur. For the complete safety of you machine we recommend that the ISA bus speed not exceed 8 MHZ. Modem Play ---------- To play modem missions both players need to select 'Modem Play' from the Main Menu. Here, each player will need to select the appropriate settings for their individual modems: Comm Port and Baud Rate. Note!! the game will default to the slower baud rate if they are different. DO NOT RUN A BAUD RATE FASTER THAN YOUR MODEM CAN HANDLE! (For Example, connecting at 19200 with a 14400 modem.) DOING THIS WILL RESULT IN PLANES 'JUMPING' AROUND. RUN YOUR GAME AT THE FASTEST SPEED THE MODEM IS DESIGNED. Prior to play, a decision needs to be made as to whom the 'Master' machine (Connect) and the 'Slave' machine (Wait on connection) will be. The 'Modem Dial Menu' will only appear for the 'Master' machine. To dial a number, simply position mouse cursor over the 'Phone' window and click the LMB. Type the desired number and press the key when finished. Press the button labeled to complete the process. To facilitate frequently called numbers, 1942 allows for the storage of ten phone numbers. To select a saved number, simply click on the desired number, which transfers the information into the Name and Phone windows, and the press the key. To edit a number, click on the slot where the number resides displaying the information in the corresponding windows: 'Name' and 'Phone'. Next, select(by clicking) the desired information to altered, edit the information and press the key. Creating new numbers is exactly the same procedure except 'Empty' will appear in both windows instead of prior information. Once a link has been established, the 'Master' machine decides on the mission parameters which include: Mission type, American/ Japanese, Cooperative versus Head to Head, and the actual mission. You can communicate to each other by clicking on the 'Message Out' window, typing your desired message and pressing the key to send it. The communication allows for the remote player to have some say in the decision process. Ultimately, however, the decision rests in the hands of the 'Connector'. Before the mission begins, both player will be given the 'Difficulty Option' screen which either player may alter, but only the 'Master' machine can exit to begin the mission. Additionally, the 'Master' machine will be given the ability to change the weather and time settings for the mission. Unfortunately due to the lack of a 28.8k spec for high speed modems we have found that 28.8k modems will not always connect at that baud rate. To get the machines to connect try the next lower baud rate until a connect occurs. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Limitations ----------- When playing modem missions certain functions are unavailable: 1) Pilot's Map ('M') and all related map functions 2) Time Compression ('T' & 'R') ******************** **** THANK YOUS **** ******************** Thanks to the following people who helped our playtest efforts: Bob Abe Scott Zlotak Charlie Andaloro Mick Uhl Jim Hendry Bill Burton Doug Whatley Guy LaMarr Charles Brubaker Todd Cioni Chrispy Bowling Kathy Crowe Destin Strader Jimmy Smith Damon Harris Last minute programming John Paquin Special Thanks Michael Craighead Install Program Jack Miller Ned Way