To: falcon3 (Falcon3 Mailing list) Reply-To: falcon3 (Falcon3 Mailing list) Errors-To: postmaster@onion.rain.com Precedence: bulk Bcc: falcon3-outgoing Subject: Falcon3 Digest V2 : I69 Falcon3 Digest Volume 2 : Issue 69 Mon Mar 15 19:09:48 PST 1993 Compilation copyright (C) 1993 Jeff Beadles Send submissions to "falcon3@onion.rain.com" Send add/drop requests to "majordomo@onion.rain.com" For an index of back issues that are available, send a message containing the line "send index from falcon3" to "netlib@onion.rain.com" Also, the archives are available via ftp from onion.rain.com [147.28.0.161] Today's Topics: Rich Little is my wingman John Asa Price Re: F3 medals/campaign ribbon query knutson@mcc.com (Jim Knutson) Re: Falcon3 Digest V2 : I66 s5uagm@fnma.COM (Andrew Miller) RE: Falcon3 Digest V2 : I68 millar@mervax.decnet.lockheed.com ( high detail with emm LASKEY@snd01.pcr.co.uk Medals John Long Subject: Rich Little is my wingman Jeeze! My wingman keeps changing his voice! It's a little disconcerting. Just a wish, but I wish my wingman would maintain a consistent voice. Of course it would be REALLY neat if the VOICES were somehow tied to the FACES of the pilots. I know, I know that takes up too much RAM... But it would still be neat. Later guys! -John ------------------------------- From: knutson@mcc.com (Jim Knutson) Subject: Re: F3 medals/campaign ribbon query + assorted tidbits First, you should always start out by declaring which version you are running. I'm assuming 3.01 since you mentioned BGM-109s. > 1. I'm not sure about the medal terminology: what do those metal pins > at the top, and in the middle of the medal mean? Are they based on kills, > previous decorations of the same order or ...? > > --------- > | 0 0 0 | <------- From one to three > --------- present > | | > | | > | o o | <------ Here > \ / > \ / > ----- > / \ > | | > \_______/ I believe they are called oak leaves, or oak clusters, or something like that. You wear your ribbons (the top part) in rows above your left breast pocket with about 5 to a row I think. You only wear one ribbon for each type award you have received (wearing that many medals would be cumbersome). The oak leaves indicate how many times you have received that ribbon/medal. I suppose the two clusters down below are because there is only enough room for three on the ribbon itself. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I seem to remember there being gold and silver clusters, but I don't remember why and I may be mixing the memory with rank insignias (it's been at least 10 years since I've seen my dad in his dress blues). > 2. Sometimes the computer fails to place enemy ground unit. > On a CAS mission near an Iraqi base all I found were big black boxes > hanging in midair a few feet from the ground. No smoking wrecks either > (i.e. no ground combat), I retried the mission on AB5 to get there as fast > as I could and got the same result. I checked with the Pause-Tab debugger > and saved pictures to view on F3slide: amusing. It's possible that they were taken out on an earlier flight. Many people have reported problems like this in campaigns. Either due to allied ground troops pounding your target into a pulp before you get there, or because you have already taken out the target while freelancing on a previous mission. Your only recourse is to find some other site with similar targets and pound just enough of them to get credit for the mission. > 3. The BGM-109s have a tendency to crash all too often. > The first time I saw one crash I thought about that Cruise missile around > Baghdad (?) which was diverted by AA fire and hit a hotel. But then, I > saw several more crash in open country, friendly controlled territory. > As I flew escort toward Kuwait City, I caught one incoming from the N-WEST. > Aren't they usually launched from the fleet in the Persian Gulf i.e. from > S-EAST? It's a known bug. Cruise missiles in OFT suffer from engine failure just like the B52s did (in patch C?). I assume this will be fixed in a later release. > 4. The picture file includes female photographs, but the debriefing > addresses everybody as male i.e. "Wills crashed HIS F-16". (minor point) > ^^^ Although females did participate in desert storm, there are no female pilots in combat flight units that I know of. Therefore, it's probably more "realistic" to have male wingmen although that might alienate a substantial portion of the female Falcon players (are the any out there?). > 5. Why are my wingmen able to lock on to SA342 Gazelles with > their AIM9-M (Fox One) and get a kill? I tried, but neither the 9P nor > the 9M lock, forcing me to use the gun. This happened in Kuwait on a > couple of occasions. First I padlocked my wingmen: he launched and announced > (Fox One). Then I padlocked the chopper and the missile hit it no problem. > Bug? Chalk it up to computer simulation. SH blew the simulation of helicopter lock on. SAD/SAM mode can lock on helos, HFR cannot. Computer pilots have the advantage because of the reaction time between noticing lock and launching. There's a long discussion of this in the wais library and the UGF3. > or at roveda@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu. BTW I'm using OFT with the latest patch > 3.01.1. Ah ha! I was close. Jim Knutson | | knutson@mcc.com --=oOo=-- cs.utexas.edu!milano!knutson + Wk: (512) 338-3362 Check Six! ------------------------------- From: s5uagm@fnma.COM (Andrew Miller) Subject: Re: Falcon3 Digest V2 : I66 John Long (while checking his six) writes: >... > The Internet is not a "real time" net, data has to flow thru relays, and if > any one of these relays delayed (called a "relay delay" :) data, well, you > figure it out. > Large thruput, but, Long delays. Pinging someone who is attached to your same node, can take several miliseconds. Heavily loaded nodes are designed to drop packets to avoid overflowing. Most likely way to slow, unless you're attached to the same wire. A TCP/IP broadcast could let every machine know the p&a of each player/bogie. > It would be better to have a dedicated network hub manage the connects. > ... have the aircraft send > *control* data out, have the hub calculate position and attitude, check > for collisions etc. and send each player p&a data + collisions and > control feedback. ... > Wow, a client server flight model engine! Runnig on a Sparc10. True multitreaded calculation of 128 different flight models, broadcasting constant p&a vectors for each aircraft/weapon/target. Also calculates colisions/hits. The client/aircraft machines do all the graphics and send "stick" info back to the server. Should work! But not over multiple networks. > I've been diddling with this idea for a while, wanting to see a system > that *would* allow a player to hack to some extent, and also allow > for upgrades in the form of new weapons, etc, while still eliminating > the possiblilty of cheating. > Any machine with any OS could compete equally with any other. Only the graphics/presentation would be different. Jim Knutson asks SH about implementing Forward Air Control, and SH says: > > Thanks for your suggestion. We have considered adding that feature to Falcon > 3.0, but cannot find the space for it in the program. We would have to > eliminate at least two other features in order to try to implement a FAC. Hmmm, another server on the same subnet... acting as the FAC... and AWACS! - Andrew - ------------------------------- From: millar@mervax.decnet.lockheed.com (jeff at NCA 1-3268 on x7047) Subject: RE: Falcon3 Digest V2 : I68 Subject: Head to Head protocol in F3 I am interested in finding someone who can help us use the head to head data to control cockpit instruments in a simulator. We make cockpit systems here and our current flight models are 1) not very good and 2) not much fun. Ideally, we would either tap into two F3's playing or pretend to be another F3. The F3 flight data including position, attitude, velocity, etc would be used to generate cockpit instruments in our simulator. For extra credit, we might use the external scene to project in front of the pilot for added realism. Thanks in advance for your help Jeff Millar Lockheed Sanders 603-885-7047 millar@mervax.sanders.lockheed.com ------------------------------- From: LASKEY@snd01.pcr.co.uk Subject: high detail with emm Hi Ian, Sorry I'm not quite sure which Ian you are - but regarding QEMM, well I very nearly did go for it at one stage, but found some emm386 parameters that got me more umb space so it's not necessary at all now! I've got the SMARTDRV disk cache loaded high, the Microsoft mouse driver high (which isn't the smallest driver in the world ), and then I can loadhigh falcon3 and get high-detail planes - oh, got the f3pad.zip hack loaded too which gives you airbrake/afterburner indicators in the padlock view mode - another great utility from Ken "Stinger" Richardson! Tornado looks good - I saw a message on here earlier complaining that slow, high AOA fly-bys were practically impossible in F3 due to it switching into complex model at <300knots - Tornado works great, and experiences some great spins too (requires correct spin recovery methods). Release date looks like end of April - they're currently refining the railroading sections I believe. Regarding "Derm whipping" , last time we played was at 2400 with an old UART chip. Slow progress. Now I've got the faster chip we tried at 57600 on Sunday, but no-go. Dropped to 38400 and still didn't work, later I discovered that the V42bis patch had vanished from my falcon3.exe file :-( Check six yourself!!! Mike. ------------------------------- From: John Long Subject: Medals I think that the number 1 factor in the awarding of medals is how bloody the battle was. If your wingmen get waxed and you take hits and the mission was successful, you *should* get a medal. The number of kills you make is not as important as how much shit flew thru the air. The exception is the Purple Heart, which is awarded for wounds incurred in combat. Bear in mind that in The_Real_Thing, awarding medals is subject to the whims of above. REMF's get medals for kissing ass all the time, and heros get passed over because they don't kiss ass enough. Bummer that the military has all that bullshit. To see the award animation, make sure you have animations turned on in config, and at the end of a mission, WAIT. Anybody ever get the Medal of Honor? Yeah, sure. mind ye hinde -longjohn ------------------------------- From: John Long Subject: Re: Falcon3 Digest V2 : I67 > ------------------------------- > > From: Ryan Grant > Subject: Hacking Serial to TCP/IP > > I do know exactly how the NetSpace gang did it. Although not an author of > any of the code, I am affiliated with the group that made it and know a bit > about it. The game doesn't do serial at all, and the current strategy for > multiplayer networking didn't grow out of any serial hacks. It was designed > for TCP/IP, off of some unreadable Telnet code. So there's no mystery > conversion between serial and net connections. When I asked the guys who > wrote it how easy it would be to send serial, they moaned. Turns out > data rate is the ultimate check against it there (NetSpace allows up to > 9 players, and sends 512K packets of info for each ship each frame). I ^ The "K" is a typo, yes? 512 *bytes* even sounds like more than necessary. I would think that the data out would vary in size depending on the presense of missles that have been fired. Seems to me SH would see a cash cow in these hacks... -longjohn ------------------------------- [[ End of digest Volume 2 : Issue 69 ]]