Let's Play F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0: Epic Carrier Attack Mission
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- Опубліковано 16 кві 2011
- LP of a crazy dangerous Soviet Carrier attack mission in the North Cape theater. Watch as I sneak past Migs and SAM Radars to complete the mission, only to run out of fuel literally 1km from my home airfield and have to glide to a landing.
Review and extras:
dos-scholar.blogspot.com/2011/... - Ігри
I’ll never forget being a kid playing this. I was so amazed how interactive the cockpit was. I loved how you could see your targets and actually watch your cockpit screen video. It was so bad ass dodging su’s and mig’s late at night on the old Packard Bell 486
There was a time when all I played was this, Civilization and Railroad Tycoons.... All Hail Sid Meier!!
ryanjwebb Me too.
Indeed!
Me too. Those exact three.
Getting a Microprose sim for Christmas in the 80s... great times.
Great memories! I love the mission assigned to you: Destroy a cargo ship. Oh, and also destroy an aircraft carrier while you're at it!
Nice flying. This is one of my all time favorite games. I recently discovered DOSBox and have been flying F-117A missions again. Thanks for the tips on radar avoidance.
hjw3001 still flying, I am doing photo shop maps of Lydia, Central Europe. Great learning exercise.
Played this game so much. Landed miles away and drove to the airfield having taken so much damage. Also go in and bring pilots back to life and try again. Loved this game.
This game was so awesome! Got the CMoH!
And probably more Airman's Medals and Purple Hearts than you could care to count, I bet :D
What a great game, great video. Thanks for making and uploading this.
i always loved the animation of the bunker getting hit
I adore how you explore and discover in modern games, but lets hear it for old school flight sims, programs that took coffee table literature to get in AIR, to even UNDERSTAND a mission, let alone accomplish it.
Well done on the no fuel landing! I always carry extra fuel to avoid the heart attack you felt at the end.
I've played this game so much in the past. An awesome flight simulator.
I wish I knew about the manual. Back in the day some friends and I had to find everything out on our own. We also had a few tricks to collect more points, easily get all medals and even a purple heart without having the pilot go KIA or MIA. The highest rank I've achieved was Colonel. If you knew the game well you could get a promotion every 5th mission (usually). At about 25 missions flown, if the pilot was still alive, you could get to Colonel, although sometimes you could hit a cap at Lt. Col., depending on your score. From there, regardless of what missions you flew, the pilot didn't get any more medals or promotions.
What you mean is, you pirated it... :D ... which might also be why you hit the promotion cap, they seemed to put some fairly sneaky crack-detecting routines that wouldn't crash it outright but would spoil your game somewhat.
I bought this shortly after it came out. It even included a cool manual. I so miss Microprose and Spectrum Hollobyte. Both these companies actually merged together in the 90’s. Incidental, I visited Spectrum Hollobyte In the 1995 when FAlcon 3.0 was out and I mentioned to the rep that it would
be so cool if Spectrum Hollobyte and Microprose merged as I thought that the flight sim community would have the best of both worlds. She just smiled.... little did I know a merger was already in the works. Unfortunately, It didn’t work out as I had hoped.
Bought F-19 Stealth Frighter back in 1988, played it on an IBM PS2 Model of 25, with a B&W monitor. The model 25 was a real dog, 8088 processor and was such shitty construction, it only lasted a year and a half. Just rediscovered this on GOG as the upgraded MP F-117 for $5.95 and I thought it would be a real bore, what with the old graphics. When I started playing it again, I realized what kept me so enthused back 30 year ago. I have been playing this constantly for the last week, forgoing FSX and the other modern programs I have on my system. I am using a HP DC7700, a HP 19 inch monitor, a 250gb. Western Dig. Hard drive, joystick, and a Genforce 500mb. Graphics card. Old equipment by today's standards, but excellent enough to run Need for Speed 2,3, and 4, FSX, FS9, Sierra Golf sim., Janes USAF, Janes 688, and so on. Still using Win. XP. Love all of it.
This brings back so many memories!
I used to drive around the countryside in this game like a car, exploring towns and stuff.
Lol! How fast could you go? Would the jet blow up?
This owas one of my favorites! When I first got it, I carried the box wite everywhere and devoured the manual and played for hours (I preferred the "realistic" version with no air-to-air missiles). Also Gunship 2000 and Strike Eagle III.
Great trip down memory lane! Thanks for posting.
Thanks for uploading this.... such a classic flight sim.
Great walkthrough of an epic mission, thanks
So much nostalgia.
I loved that game so much back then! Thanks fpr the Upload!
I played this in the early 90s when I was in primary school. Far too complex for me back then, but I scored plenty of purple hearts and loved it anyway! It was responsible for me becoming a military pilot
I loved this sim! It came out shortly after the first gulf war and required different tactics to reach and destroy the target and safely return.
Close call there, mate. Nice flying.
My childhood memories flashbacks
I can see that was a very close call with the landing. Twice when playing this game it was so bad that I had to eject because of running out of fuel (though in both cases ejected over friendly territory).
Great video. Watched the whole thing.
Thanks that brings back memories
Great job and moderate explanation of the game. You're absolutely Right, you had to become very familiar with the manual. I personally thought that was a good idea, no plug and play. Brought back Good memories
Running out of fuel, or trying to get back with a wing shot off was normal
Or fighting the stick when the flight control computer got damaged, or babying it along when one of the engines got shot out, or being forced to eject over the home field because the landing gear was screwed, or having to remember which way to aim towards home because the avionics were destroyed leaving only the bare analogue part of the HUD with speed/altitude/compass, or having a greatly increased radar profile and high drag because the bay doors jammed open, or racing for home at full throttle with fingers crossed because the fuel tank was leaking... etc :D
I think I once managed a successful landing with like seven of the nine damage lights lit up, one of the dimmed ones was obviously the landing gear but I can't remember the other. Was pretty proud of it, either way. Possibly got a double purple heart :D :D
Goddammit, Mark! You remember it all !! This all happened to me too!!! ;) I remember it in order i read this hehe.
@@markpenrice6253 I would for get to close the bay doors, lol
Ah, the 90s...where a stealth would just fire one Harpoon at an aircraft carrier :D
And you could take out almost any target short of an airbase, oil rig or suspension bridge with nothing more than a well-aimed burst of vulcan cannon fire...
Looking super.
Never read the manual. Kicked ass.
I remember I would always just drive around destroying the friendly airbase instead of actually taking off and doing the mission. Also only had the pc speakers so the engine sounds were a high pitch screech rather than the more calming sound it is here.
hehe... yeah... essentially one of the earliest first-person 3D sandbox games, you could say. Once you get bored of following the missions, you can just mooch around blowing shit up or pulling stupid stunts. Especially if you flick it into Training mode and reset/turn off the machine without saving once you've had enough. No damage, infinite weapons and fuel... let's see how fast it'll go on land... or how high it'll fly, then what speed you can reach diving straight down... and just how many different tanks (both military, and oil storage) there are to blow up on the plains of central europe... and if day eventually turns to night if you leave the plane sitting there (or whether you hit the edge of the map if you take off and set it in level flight...), enable accelerated time, turn off the monitor and go do something else for a few hours.
And of course, going for as many points as possible after achieving the primary objective on a really short-range mission by keeping one missile in reserve (to hit the secondary on the way home), taking out all the nearby radar dishes (and missile boats, if there's not enough radars) with the other missiles then destroying all their individual SAMs and any enemy planes in the area (which tended to regenerate in increasing numbers in response, even if they had no way of detecting or tracking what was shooting them...) plus any other "soft" ground targets with careful bursts of cannon fire... being careful to deliberately shut down the engines within gliding range of the home base if fuel somehow runs low, so you have enough to spin them back up and conduct any last second corrections on approach without falling prey to the annoying bug where *any* touchdown with zero fuel counts as a crash, even though a technical stall with closed throttles and a scant 4lb (like, one gallon) of Jet-A in the tanks registers a successful landing so long as the plane is relatively level and the descent FPM is below the critical figure... 1000+ points and a lot more entertainment from a single, otherwise stupidly simple low-scoring mission? I think so... :D
and flying so high to avoid the gladiator SAMs hahah
released in GOG
the first flight sim game i played!
Greetings from 2020.
Hysterical the *Secondary* is the carrier. Yes supply and logistics are vital but a carrier is a carrier...
Depends what was aboard the cargo ship!
wasnt there f-19 stealth fighter before this? i tried to play it on dosbox but i didnt know what the hell i was doing. but this looks like a gem of a game. along with red storm rising.
Ian Williams,
Yes, there was a game called F-19 Stealth Fighter. It was made back in 1988. This game (F-117A Nighthawk) is the sequel to F-19, hence the "2.0" in the name. It's basically an upgraded version of F-19 Stealth Fighter.
The keyboard controls in the game are pretty ridiculous. The F117 game actually came with a keyboard overlay with all the commands.
1988 was the 8-bit "Project: Stealth Fighter" (which actually looks impressively close to the later versions), which was largely based on leaks and guesswork, and apparently caused a minor panic at the DoD when they saw it because of how close some parts were to reality.
F19 was something like 1990 or 91 (we bought it not long after release, for the ST, after seeing the review in one of our first magazines... and we bought that computer in mid 1990), and seems to have had a revision or two itself; initially it only had the F19 from the 8-bit game, with the upgrades being to the core game and graphic engines, more detail to the missions, much lusher briefing and debrief screens etc. At some point they hastily added the F117A as a selectable option after the real plane was partially declassified after its use in the Gulf War became hard to keep secret, with more accurate (and less forgiving) flight characteristics, and tweaked the plane model for both options to look like a mix of the two (even the F117A graphic on the choice screen doesn't look entirely like an actual Nighthawk)... which is the version we bought.
Possibly either some missions were lost in order to fit that in, or there was another update that added extras, as there's reference in the manual to advanced ones that involve dropping off Special Equipment as parachute equipped packages, or night landings at temporary "secret" airfields that are only lit up between certain times to drop or pick up similar packs, which I've never ever had come up even after probably 100+ plays.
Then later came this "v2.0" which upgraded the graphics to multi colour VGA (all the previous 16-bit ones were CGA, Herc, or EGA/PCjr/Tandy, the latter of which was used as the basis for the in-play parts on the ST/Amiga and colour Macs even though they had better menu/briefing/interstitial illustrations much closer in appearance to VGA), further tweaked the F117A option to only have two bays instead of four and be rather twitchier, altered some of the missions and theatres (even the v1.x releases still had Iraq as friendly and Iran as the Big Bad that the US was actively running strike missions into, which became out of date pretty much as it was being duplicated and shipped) and added some new ones. Maybe improved the sound as well, but I don't know what the older PC options were; the ST would have been Tandy/PCjr spec (with a few half decent stabs at sample playback) and the Amiga/Mac sort of GUS-like, so it only having Internal Screecher would be a surprise, but it might only have gone as far as Tandy, Adlib or MT32/MPU401, with no Soundblaster, Gravis or Soundsource options - similar to other Microprose releases of the era.
As far as I know, all of them had the keyboard overlay included in the pack, along with some nice large-scale maps for all four theatres (more of a gimmick than anything, as the in-game map was easily good enough, but might have been useful if your avionics got shot up) and the humongous manual that was more of a general combat flight and military hardware training manual than just instructions on how to play. Certainly that's what we had in our box, anyway, which was a pretty good anti-piracy measure if nothing else. You could learn what key did what after a while, and probably get by with a written list (which is lucky given that ours eventually got torn and thrown away), but the overlay made everything far easier for the first couple dozen sessions until you got used to it. That's also why, if you map them out, you'll notice most of the crucial keys are around the edge of the keyboard, in the function block or numpad, and very few in the middle of the main group... in fact most of the latter are very rarely-used option adjustment keys (detail, training/full combat switch, volume, control sensitivity, "Boss Mode", abandon mission, resupply or position jump in training mode, etc) which only work when Alt (or Option?) is held down. It's very much designed for use with the overlay. Even the 8-bit versions had one, or at least I've seen heavy suggestion that they did...
Let's see how many I can remember... 0 was brakes, + and - throttle, 7-8-9 were bay doors, landing gear and flaps (though maybe not in that order)... 6 autopilot? 3-4-5 chaff, flares and decoy... 1-2 IR and radar jamming...
m, [,] and [/?] selected front, left, right, rear targeting camera view.
z toggled time acceleration
v, b, n, I think were targeting system mode (air-air, air-ground strike/recon, and navigation), auto-target (basically selects closest viable target in the selected direction unless a primary or secondary objective is in range) and "next" target (cycles through everything in that 90-degree view in an inscrutiable but reliably looping order)
x, c ... unsure. Possibly map zoom in/out.
F-keys were mostly to do with camera views. F1, return to normal cockpit view (and cycles through left/right/rear afterwards?). F2, F3 a couple of different external views (fixed angle and chase-plane). F4, missile view (always fun!), F5 and F6 plane-to-target and target-to-plane (bit rubbish a lot of the time but could occasionally be useful or interesting). F7 switch left cockpit screen view (essentially switch between geographic and tactical maps), F8 switch right screen (targeting, waypoints, target info, mission info), F9 cycle through waypoints (often used right after takeoff as the first waypoint is only occasionally useful)... and F10, eject, requiring a double-press.
Spacebar, cycle through weapon bays
Enter, fire current weapon/use selected equipment (extended fuel tank, camera, etc).
(Special note - don't know if there's a particular key to fire the cannon, as opposed to the missiles... maybe backspace? One thing that can catch people out on the ST & Amiga versions, particularly, is that the joystick fire button *only* fires the cannon, and everything else requires use of Enter... which actually makes a lot of sense when you get used to it, as they help with accuracy for the different weaponry/items - cannon is generally used with intense use of the stick whilst dogfighting or strafing, and not using any keyboard commands, whilst missiles/bombs/other kit is more limited use and you generally want to be very definite about triggering it, maybe with careful timing but still resistance to accidental finger twitches, and in sequence with hitting other keyboard controls, especially the targeting mode/direction/target selection, bay selection and bay doors, as well as various others like switching to the next waypoint, throttle control, countermeasures, and even the view controls...)
Also the regular cursor keys are analogues of the joystick directions, and the pad is used pretty much exclusively for manipulating the navigational waypoints. The options are something like Alt-D for detail, Alt-S for volume ("sounds"), Alt-F for control sensitivity (??), Alt-T for training, Alt-R for resupply, Alt-H for boss mode ("hide"), double-tap Alt-A for abort... think the "slewing" was Alt-J, K, L and ; ... maybe one or two more that I forgot?
Don't thiiiiiiiink I've missed any, at least nothing important. Some might be a bit mixed up, but shouldn't be difficult to look it up.
ah... no... there was some other key for the ILS system, and another for changing between normal and wide-angle view (shrinking the HUD down and showing more like 90 degrees of the horizon instead of 45)... and I think Shift may have modified a few more things than just making the throttle controls min/max instead of nudge down/up... like regular or reverse, internal/external versions of some views, that kind of thing. Plus one or other of the screens could show a couple different damage report displays, and there were detail options for both the map and the target views. So I'm either missing keys, have mixed some up, or most likely both.
Auuugh. See, this is why you need the overlay. Though in my defence this IS a game released 25 years ago and that we last played to any extent 18-20 years ago...
Still, I have to wonder, what is it that I haven't been able to learn or remember that's made way for that information to stay resident instead?
Please insert F-19 Disk C into any drive...
i had the manual, and the keyboard overlay back in the 90s, i never used the manual to do anything but pass the copyright protection, but i really miss that keyboard overlay, it was handy. but anyway as i was saying, i never needed the manual, after a little time learning how to play it was pretty simple, but still fun. i did read the manual, but just because it was fun reading with lots of information about military aviation.
Probably got picked up by radar a lot more often than you should (fly directly toward/away from pulse radars, turning whilst close in to them; skirt around continuous-wave FMs/dopplers at as constant a radius as possible...) and had a lot of trouble learning carrier landings or managing strike missions that used anything other than Mavericks and Harpoons, then...?
F2 key dose not select my hud from air nav or gnd. What other key could it be?
ALT + Enter gives you full screen in dos box
I mowed grass for I don't know how long to save up for this game. I remember the day I bought it at Wal-Mart for 40.00. Always fun blowing up Saddam Hussein's palace!
I remember the day I bought it at a Radio Shack in 1994. Yes, they sold computer games back then. I can't remember what I paid for it, though. That was twenty years ago. Now this game is on my Steam account. :)
You weren't charging enough--twenty bucks a yard was the lowest I would go and that was for easy ones that took an hour.
Still being watched 2020
I have played it since it came out. Now on Steam. I still can not pass the mission in Persian Gulf where you must air drop supplies, they never hit their target no matter how high/low fast/slow I make the approach.
Can you add your debriefing? You did really good.
I have played it for over 25 years, and apparently, I have been doing it wrong
Nice commentary and flying!
Added to the Museum playlist.
Exhibit in the FSM: www.migman.com/sw/F-117A
Lucky you :D I didn't have a soundcard at the time. Plane engine sound was something continuous "VREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !", un-mutable
I guess I'm a few decades late, but actually it *was* mutable. Alt-V changed the "sound level", and one press would turn off the engine noise while leaving the other SFX intact.
When I was a boy this game seemed difficult to me!
I believe F-117 is available on Steam... haven't tried installing it tho.. but they generally tweak the Steam releases of old MP games to at lease run on my Win 7 machine. I have TF1942 running on Win7 from Steam.
Bought it yesterday because it's on sale. It runs fine on WIndows 10. Need do find time to realearn the keyboard commands and try out if i still can beat this game. Loved it and all Microprose games back then. Luckily you can find a PDF manual and keymap in the installation folder. I wish Steam had F-15 Strike Eagle 3, Gunship 2000, M1 Tank Platoon and Harrier Jump Jet also. But they have B17 Flying Fortress, Gunship!, F14 Fleet Defender and 1942 Pacific Air War.
I have never seen this mision before! Never thought there is enemy carrier there.
What sound mod is this?
When starting the game, it asks for sound settings. I think these sounds appear if you choose Roland Sound Board.
Can you make one of these videos for the first Falcon game?
2023 gracias por el vídeo
Thank's dude Great tutorial, i want ask how about in long rang mission such as in iraq, i almost get Empty Fuel and cannot accomplish my mission
Add an extended range tank in one of the weapon bays (hitting "fire" conducts the transfer when it's selected, even with the bay closed - but wait until the main tank is at least half empty else you'll waste some of it), and cruise at a higher altitude where the air is thinner (when away from the more dangerous, track-happy radars) but at a lower speed, using the fastforward function to avoid boredom, and keep an eye on the autopilot map to drop back to normal play speed and cancel the AP (making any turns at waypoints manually and more gently). Drop back down to 200~500ft when the pings start intersecting your profile bar (more than one or two hits and they'll get enough of a fix on your general location with the sensitive but low-resolution sky-scanning radar to be able to point a more precise and harder to shake active-tracking dish your way... but only a few can see over the horizon, and that becomes a pretty short limit on range when you get down that low) and stay low whilst carrying out the actual mission (unless it's something that requires higher altitude, like camera shots, doing equipment drops or launching toss/parachute/glide bombs - in which case, pop up for the minimum possible amount of time then dive again... maybe scoot briefly to 1000ft for launching missiles as well, if you don't have many).
Climb again once out of the danger zone (which will take a bit more throttle, but you can take some time over it at both ends and balance your nose-up angle to gain 10,000ft or more whilst maintaining just enough speed to keep the stall warning bar below the centre tickmark) and crawl on home. Put the ILS on a good way out, delay starting your descent a little when it becomes active, then kill the throttle and glide as far as possible (which will likely see you losing height faster than the ILS path, so you may end up overshooting it), putting the engines back on at the last moment to resume a lower altitude cruise if you can't make it all the way without power, and don't engage flaps or lower the gear until a few seconds before lining up the final descent, as they increase drag and thus fuel use (as does an open weapons bay) and the small bit of excess speed needed to prevent stalling without flaps will scrub off pretty fast when you idle the engine and move to kiss the tarmac. (carrier landings are a bit trickier and need as slow an approach as possible, plus potential go-arounds, so prepare a bit earlier then hope you have enough in reserve in case the arrestor cables don't catch first time)
Really, time-limited missions are rare and even those are fairly lenient in most cases, and the plane will happily keep going on half throttle or less (using less fuel per kilometre) so long as you don't pull any wild manouevres. And full throttle is both extremely wasteful and raises your radar, visual and IR profile, so should only really be used for takeoff, short missions, streaking through danger areas before the enemy can track you, launching certain fussier missiles and bombs, and getting the hell out of town and/or pulling extreme dogfighting moves when things get dangerous. And in any case, the F19/117 isn't exactly a fast or nimble machine, there's very little that can't outrun it, chase it down or out-turn it, so your primary defence is staying low and hard to spot, and taking out anyone who does see you, as well as employing countermeasures where necessary, rather than relying on speed or agility. Running for the border is a last resort and you'd better hope it's not too far away, the enemy respects it and lets you go, and the missiles that get through and hit you don't hit anything crucial for getting home alive, or at least being able to eject in friendly territory or over international waters.
Or in other words, you want speed and maximum destruction, play a different game. Sometimes you have to give up the weapons bay space and take things at a slower, more considered pace in order to actually make it through.
...or, just hit the "see another mission" button until it finally gives you something shorter.
I played the NES version, and it was not good. This version is amazing.
Why voice sounds (like "clear for tafeoff) aren't working on my game? Help me please.
What are the differences between 2.0 and 1.0?
Can I get this for the imac?
can someone please tell me all the controls like how to take off without a joystick or what ever he is using?
MiningNinjaOctopus You need to set the keyboard to be US (Keyb us command in dosbox). Also, read this manual, it covers the controls: www.abandonia.com/files/extras/25631_game_extra_1.pdf
thankyou
Sid Meier didn’t just made Pirates!
Wait! What have you done to the sounds to make it sound so awesome? I use Adlib through DOSBox but I'm guessing you're using a real DOS PC with real SFX card? Which card?
I could never land if I was out of fuel. Even with good glide and speed, it would only crash.
Must be a version thing. People must have complained about it considering every no-fuel interaction with the ground a crash...
this game in 60 fps would look so awesome
That is one thing about f117 and f19 I never understood: the fps cap. I guess there was some math limitation or something
Yeah... I even noticed that with the ST one. At least, when emulated, not having a suitably accelerated compatible machine (whether Mega STe, Falcon or TT, or some more regular machine with an accelerator board) to test it with. Crank it from 8 to 16mhz and it gets a little bit smoother, but not massively so... further increases even to 128 don't seem to have any effect. Rather annoying. Maybe it would have made the tight combat parts less stressful and guesswork heavy, but the poorly cracked disk image I found for download (annoying, seeing as I actually still have the original manual) always suffered some "gotcha" glitch every few minutes of flight regardless of emulation speed (usually the plane spontaneously flipping upside down, which was often fatal below 500ft...) making it rather difficult to complete missions or even get far enough through them to see serious action, enough so that I gave up on it and therefore didn't do much high-mhz testing beyond the most basic.
Anyway, it's maybe the same reason some other games employed such things - to keep a more consistent feel to the whole thing, and reduce the framerate variability that could make you feel ill from how smooth it is in quiet moments, then have you crash or get your ass shot off when the action gets heavier and more close-up and it starts jerking a bit (from a combination of 3D rendering replacing simple dots, and having to engage in increasingly accurate physics simulation of multiple objects instead of being able to fake it for the most part), as you're not used to dealing with it and your mind isn't in the necessary leading-the-action frame needed to keep control and get shots off at the right time...
...or in other words, the smoother the smoothest bits, the slower the slow bits feel. It works a similar way with video or audio encoding, in fact - a low framerate or sampling frequency doesn't seem so bad if it's consistent (much like the actually very borderline 24fps of cinema would be far more noticeable if regularly interrupted with higher rate clips, moreso than the short break every 20-30 minutes of TV ads, or low resolution video and low bitrate MP3, FM or even AM radio don't look or sound so bad after you've been watching/listening a while), and variable bitrate compression can seem better than constant even when the average encoding rate is lowered enough that the perceptual quality of the variable version is lower than all but the worst 10% or so of the constant... because your mind is better adapted to how it looks/sounds instead of being regularly offended by it dropping from being quite clear to obviously artefacted then back again. It's even arguably a reason why, in a much more directly relevant example, even TV-targeted anime is sometimes not filmed at better than 12 to 20fps even in the sections where it would be easy to achieve (pans or simple looping sequences) so the more complex, one-off, expensive and time consuming sequences that might only be made at 12, 8 or less fps don't look quiiiiite as jumpy as they otherwise might.
Remember that the first versions were released on the C64 and Spectrum which could barely maintain even a rudimentary sense of fluidity at the best of times with wireframe graphics, and the PC/etc versions were made to run on everything from the original 8088 upwards even though STs, Amigas, Macs (7-8mhz 68000s) and 8mhz+ 286s were the primary targets, with 386s and 68020/30 machines only having recently started breaking the home market in any significant numbers, and then largely in lowish mhz SX form, with the only sop to slow machines being a two or three step model-detail setting and the option to swap the map and targeting views to simpler displays to save a few hundred cycles here and there. So there would have been a fair likelihood of the lowest framerates being pretty low even though the increased graphic performance of such systems (including the PC despite the ISA bus, as EGA wouldn't have troubled it) and optimised redraw routines that avoided replacing the entire view area might mean the highest rate could have managed 25-30 fps or more without much trouble.
So in an era where even the fastest machines might have occasionally dipped into single figures in high detail mode, progress in terms of raw processing and graphic power was pretty slow (unlike the frantic pace that would be set in the later 90s and early 2000s), and the plan would have been to release newer versions or entire new games to take advantage of future even-faster computers, capping it around 15-16 fps might have seemed entirely reasonable, limiting the variability on sluggish 5mhz, 8-bit bus PCs struggling even in low-detail and providing an almost completely consistant experience on super flash machines even at maximum detail...
And the 256-colour, higher poly re-release wouldn't have had much incentive to change that, or at least raise it ever so much, even if older processors were excluded from running the game at all, as it would have loaded up the faster-still PCs more heavily (2-3x or more, even), and particularly have started saturating the expansion bus enough that there might not have been enough bandwidth to sustain extra high rates even with the assistance of the VGA's onboard acceleration functions. That also might not have been as much of an issue with the rise of local bus graphics, but they didn't really start catching on en masse or even being properly standardised until a year or two after this version's release, and the titles that really showed them off were a cut above this with texture mapping and the like (Doom, Descent etc) so it would have been better to play safe and keep the original timing code with just a tweak to account for the 70hz scan rate... and heck, even some of the most up to date titles had caps of their own, albeit higher ones (e.g. Doom maxes out at 35fps). And I have a midrange 486 from 1992 in the back of the cupboard which works fine for even high rez SVGA/XGA use in Windows 3.1 or 95, but chokes badly on anything resembling a graphically challenging game of the same era as those OSes... it can just about handle Tempest 2000, but Screamer but is entirely unplayable. Early 90s PCs just weren't up to the task, and it wasn't until Multimedia PCs started properly living up to their name that they finally buried the Ataris and Amigas, and very nearly killed off Apple too...
Without a DX2/66 hosting a high powered video accelerator on a VESA or PCI bus (such as our first IBM-compatible was) available to demonstrate just how silky the game could be with next-gen hardware, let alone anything from the 21st century, there wouldn't have seemed any point to making the change.
What would be interesting to see is if it persists in the retro-re-released version that's now available via Steam... Like, whether it just runs the original 16-bit code in a disguised copy of DOSbox, and therefore remains limited, or if it's been ported to native Win32 code with suitable tweaks like upping the mapping, HUD and general rendering resolution (even if not all the bitmaps) and removing the framerate cap (as even the crappiest Steam-compatible computer should be able to run it at a rock solid 120fps...)...
@@cjurschik yeah, safe bet it's fixed-timestep simulation with lots of hardcoded and implicit constants.
Which settings are you using for music and sound effects?
How did you land with no fuel? Even with proper glide path my edition would crash with no fuel.
Good instructional video. I was not aware of how to be so stealthy and usually get l;it up soon after I take off.
Laceykat66 You can only land on a landing strip (friendly) if you do it with the proper glide and etc. You cannot land anywhere else if out of fuel.
I've never had a successful landing without any fuel on board. I don't know if it's deliberate or a bug they never fixed, but touching the ground with 0 lbs of fuel on board always counts as a crash even if you land very very gently. Never tested it but it might even cause you to suffer some bizarre crashing-whilst-parked incident if you touch down with a few pounds left, then max the throttle but also hit the brakes... Dunno if it would also happen with carrier landings, seeing as you don't actually descend to 0ft (very few if any land-based strips are above sea level, unlike the carriers). They're hard enough anyway when your engine is still operational, never mind trying to hit the right spot without it, so you'd probably crash outright anyway.
Might have been something fixed in this version though. Mine was the older "v1" on the ST (aka the EGA-only PC version), which was also missing a couple other things like the Special Equipment and Secret Airbase missions (or maybe they only unlocked if you got promoted to a really high rank which we never reached?)...
What seemed to work, however, was keeping an eye on your fuel if you'd been flying for a long time (the waypoint and mission info displays also show the fuel gauge), and shutting down the engine ahead of time if it ran really low, as you could still land OK, gliding in with the throttle at zero, so long as there was still some fuel onboard, even if only the bare minimum (which seemed to be about 4lb, of the 10,000lb total). If you don't idle it in time, or get distracted and don't keep track, and it goes to zero, your only option is to get as close as possible, then eject. Preferably above 500ft (even if that means using residual speed to climb towards it) and heading straight and level, though if it cuts whilst you're at low altitude and low speed you'll just have to hit the button as soon as you realise and hope to get lucky.
Bailing affects your score and short-term promotion chances, and doesn't make your superiors too happy, but it at least gives you a much better chance of keeping your pilot alive than crashing the plane whilst still on-board. Plus you get to see the eject sequence and some different mission-end screens (including for the bar-room) other than the "success" or "dead" ones. As they say, a successful landing is one you survive, a good one is one you can walk away from, and an excellent landing is one after which they can use the plane again...
correction 30 years
How do I get a copy of this game, Gunship 2000 and Wolfenstein? Thank you.
Steam has this game
Is Steam a website?
...oh dear
Try google.
I remember when this game came out, but I never played it... I better go check out the abandonware sites. (Maybe once I'm done with Shadow President?) BTW, those "radar planes" are called AWACS planes. (AWACS is spoken as "A-wax.")
The game does actually tell you that, maybe he just can't be bothered :D
I thought I'd come by and say I ended up getting F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0 off of Steam when it was on sale since I couldn't find it on any of the abandonware sites. I wasn't expecting the Ad Lib sound to be superior to the Roland sound. (Apparently MicroProse didn't have the programmers to utilize the maximum potential in the Roland MT-32 Sound Module.) I also noticed how much of a challenge it is in the MicroProse F-117 to avoid radar. In the Lockheed F-117, I was flying through pulse and doppler radar waves, and soaking up everything simply by flying slow and level.
Fuel emotions lol
They should of put this version on the Switch.
this game is $7 bucks on steam
$2.30 on GOG :)
much like piloting sub from seaquest dmv tv series
How'd you get it to sound like that? I always choose the Ad Lib sound card option, but it never sounded as good as your setup.
yeah every time I play it sounds like midi music
Even tho you gave a good explanation about doppler and pulse radars, you failed to use the stealth characteristics and tactics. As you bank you EMV gets higher. And when you have fighters comming your way you havecto navigate around and away from their doppler rdr. You dont want to kill anyone during you ingress, it draws unwanted attention.
Too bad the actual plane didn't have any air to air capability.
lol the commentary , Dude is proper serious regardless of the graphics
I'll take outstanding gameplay over graphics any day... Obviously your still wet behind the ears so I'll leave it at that.
@@joepiscapo1879 I bought and played this game in 1993 so presume some more! f19 stealth fighter '91 and f15 stike eagrle.
Wow, looks like this version is a bit more hardcore than the old one... some of those radar ranges and the intelligence of the enemies is a step beyond anything I saw then. Graphics are a hell of a lot better though, not just in colours but details too.
Still, given the extra fuel needed to take whatever detour it was you used after taking out that SAM, what was so unappealing about simply turning tail and throwing the throttle to 100%? Maybe take out a couple of the other radars along the way if it might have helped and be on guard against planes, be ready with countermeasures and even cannon, but otherwise just run fast and low directly for home... burn the fuel faster but use less overall.
NB you forget about the "next target" and "best target" keys? :) Could have aimed in-between the two targets and probably been able to get both harpoons in the air within a few seconds of each other and 40+km from either... cycle through to target and lock the cargo ship, pop up a few hundred feet, open the bay, launch, cycle targets until it shows the carrier, check for lock and launch, close the bay, turn hard (~80 degrees bank and haul back on the stick), firewall the engines and dive to 200ft. Be 10km away from the launch point before either missile finds its target, 20-30km by the time the enemy goes "what the f---?" and starts scrambling more fighters, vectoring those in the air to where the incoming missiles were tracked as coming from, and agressively flooding the region with radar signals, and 50+km by the point they get there to find you gone and start a wider search...
Also the option to show radar radii and type on the mission plan so you can figure a less risky route than the generally hopeless one that it automatically assigns for any non-trivial mission...
nav is not navigation mode, it is naval mode. you got the other two right.
News to me, mate. Particularly given that it works just fine for navigating to friendly airbases and around cities/etc in the Central Europe theatre where you can spend the entirety of every mission several hundred miles from the nearest sea.
I have DOSbox, but sadly have long since lost my disks for this and GOG.com doesn't have it. Bummers...
GOG just added this excellent sim to it's collection yesterday. :)
>weapon loadout screen shows harpoon, harpoon, sidewinder, maverick
>weapon selected after takeoff is amraam
wut
These games would be great with modern graphics!
This game is already great....