Conference 7.286::atarist

	They only use the Hayes language for dialing, at least that's all FS2
	cares about (dunno about FALCON, my version of that is for the PeeCee)

	So if you don't mind dialing yourself, and you do the baudrate and
	other setups yourself, then it shouldn't really matter.

	I gave back my DEC-supplied Scholar and bought a $170 Supramodem
	which emulates Hayes quite well. The Scholar wasn't that bad, 
	but now I can use a lot more software with a lot less work.

	/pjh

    The Scholar Plus modem (DF-242?) is Hayes-compatible.

    I have never tried running FALCON over a modem, but have linked
    two STs back to back with a null modem cable and have found that
    any speed lower than 9600 baud and the reponse is pretty sluggish.
    Ie you are lining up on a target in preparation to 'pickle' it,
    press the space bar to do so an nothing happens for a shortish space
    of time but by which time you have overshot the mark. 9600 baud
    seems okay, but over a dialup link this might require a pretty
    groovy modem. I don't know and would be interested to hear people's
    comments. 
    
    FALCON is the best !!!!
    
    Interestingly, I read in the December issue of ST Format (good mag
    8^) ) that there is a new flight simulator out which will be reviewed
    in the next issue. All I know is what was written in the 'coming
    next month' section of the mag... and I quote :
    
    >The ultimate flight simulator ? We get out and about with a trainer
    for the ST that's no toy but a genuine flight trainer.
    
    Sounds interesting okay, so I am waiting with baited breath for
    next months issue.
    
    
    Jonathan 

    Re: .3
    
>    I have never tried running FALCON over a modem, but have linked
>    two STs back to back with a null modem cable and have found that
>    any speed lower than 9600 baud and the reponse is pretty sluggish.
    
    Hmm, that's interesting: I've run SubLogic JET over 1200 baud lines 
    to dogfight other ST pilots, and it works well. Maybe SubLogic knows
    something Spectrum Holobyte doesn't.
    				- hbm
    

    
    I've used SubLogic JET! between two Amigas at 2400 baud and it worked
    fine; instantaneous response and all that.
    
    We later tried Falcon at 2400 and found it to be unbearably slow.  It
    starts to work well at 19.2 kbaud (direct connect) and works all the
    way up to 57.6 kbaud, where the Amiga serial port craps out.
    
    One of the DEC Amiga guys wrote a serial port monitor and ran it while
    running Jet! in 2-player mode.  It looked like an amazingly small
    amount of information is actually transferred; basically aircraft
    orientation and X Y X coordinates and velocity.
    
    I'd say that the Falcon guys just didn't do it quite right.
    
    Ed

    Further to FALCON, but not really on the subject of comms, I have
    just purchased the FALCON mission disk. WELL WORTH THE BUCKS.
    
    Just one point though, the mission disk replaces disk one of the
    original two, it loads much quicker (great !!) but when it asks
    for disk two to be inserted it doesn't stop the drive spinning.
    This means you have to eject the first disk with the motor still
    spinning and when you put in the second disk it immediately starts
    rotating again. Is this bad for the diskdrive ?????
    
    A bit concerned,
    
    
    Jonathan

    ps. its a personal opinion only, but I find JET slow even on its
    own and not a patch on FS2 or FALCON.
    
    Jonathan

    I have just had a momentary glimpse of an advertisement for the second
    FALCON Mission Disk. It seems that it has SOTA (State of the art)
    weaponry to select from and ground radar controlled waypointing (or
    something).
    
    I love FALCON, it is the only 'game' (I don't really think of it as a
    game at all) that I play on a regular basis. At Lt.-Cnl level, those
    MIGS are VICIOUS !!!!
    
    I can't wait to get Mission Disk II
    
    Jonathan

    You mean you can actually shoot the MIGs down ??!
    
    How do you do that. I don't stand a change, even on the lowest levels,
    unless I press 'A' for auto-pilot. Then we go around in circles
    for about 2 minutes, until it passes my sights for a fraction of
    a second & I shoot him down.
    
    Any hints ?
    
    		Stuart P.

    Like I said, at Lt. Cnl. level it gets VERY hard. At 1st Lt. level it
    is relatively easy. Its been a while since I've done it, but I believe
    I am right when, for example, doing the Black Bandit mission (shoot
    down one enemy MIG), you can take off from the runway (heading 00),
    continue to fly due north and a MIG will attack you head on. Just make
    sure you have your air-to-air cannon at the ready and you can blast him
    out of the sky with no problems.
    
    I have another problem though. On the second disk there are two data
    files (ACTIVERO and HISCORE I think) which contain the list of scores
    an pilot names etc. If you want to reset everything back to Rookie
    level you can delete these files and the game will automatically
    rebuild them. I have done this in the past without any problems, but
    last time I did it the game seems to build a corrupted version of the
    ACTIVERO file. Damn. It shows the file as being 0 blocks in length, but
    if you list it, you get endless garbage text coming out. The garbage is 
    okay (because the file is compressed or encoded or something) but the
    size seems wrong. Anyhow, the end result is that once this file has
    been created by the game all the name and score fields on the duty
    roster screen are blank and zeroes. This is a real pain.
    
    I know I should not mess with games disks, but it worked fine in the
    past.
    
    Sigh.
    
    Have you got the mission disk Stuart ?? Its *WELL* worth the bucks !!
    
    Cheers,
    
    Jonathan