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Jane's Combat Simulations:
Longbow 2 v2.07F
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(C) 1997, ORIGIN Systems, Inc. This document may not, in whole or part,
be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any
electronic medium or machine readable form without prior consent, in
writing, from ORIGIN Systems, Inc.
ORIGIN Systems, Inc. believes the information contained in this
document is accurate and reliable. ORIGIN Systems, Inc. reserves the
right to update this manual at any time and without notice.
To find out the latest information about Longbow 2, as well as other
Jane's Combat Simulation products, please check out our Internet Web
site: http://www.janes.ea.com
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This file has been provided as a supplement to any documentation for
Longbow 2. It details last-minute information, as well as some of
the most common questions and answers.
To print a hardcopy of this file, click on File and select Print
from the menu above.
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I. New Features and Manual Updates
-A. New Information
-B. Documentation Updates
II. Troubleshooting
-A. Joysticks
-B. Resizing Desktop
-C. Third-Party Screen Savers (Windows 95)
-D. DirectX (Windows 95)
-E. Autorun (Windows 95)
-F. Frame Rate Help
-G. Additional Help
III. Improving System Performance
IV. Customer Service / Tech Support
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I. NEW FEATURES AND MANUAL UPDATES:
A. New Information:
- When you complete a campaign and save your progress, your
savegame will be deleted since the campaign has been
completed.
- You can change your pilot's callsign, squad name and division
without erasing the pilot record. If you change the pilot's
name, it will replace the pilot record.
- When using the SMALL install size, users may occasionally
experience slight hesitation in flight when a speech phrase
is loaded off of the CD and played. With the NORMAL and LARGE
sizes, those speech files are copied to the hard drive and
there is no pausing. If you have enough hard drive room, and
you object to the pausing, we suggest use of the NORMAL option.
- The pop-up boxes with menu selections (e.g. the Multiplayer
options menu) can be cycled through backwards by holding down
the SHIFT key and left-clicking.
- While in the in-flight NAV map (ALT-N in flight) hitting
Pause Game will pause the entire game, allowing you to study
the map and make adjustments without worrying about flying
over a SAM site or other threat.
- When you generate a random mission, if you choose random enemy
quality, you may be given CAT III enemies which will not be too
challenging for the experienced player. For a good challenge
select CAT II (medium) or CAT I (hard) enemy quality.
- You can create your own unit insignia. To do so, create a 256
color bitmap file and copy it into the Janes\Longbow2\PData
directory. Name the bitmap file the name of your unit. For
example, if your unit is the 5th Armored Battalion, rename
your BMP file to 5th Armored Battalion.BMP. The pictures look
better if they are square. The picture will be resized auto-
matically, however, you may get better results if you resize it
to 60x60 using a graphics editor.
- The summary panel of the mission planner can be used to quickly
edit mission data. Look for subtle underlining of fields that
you can click on to activate drop lists.
- In multiplayer mission planning, the CP/G edit field is only
active when at least one human player is not assigned to a
seat. One of the unassigned players can then be assigned to
the CP/G seat by the helicopter's pilot player.
- In multiplayer mission planning for two team scenarios, data
changes by the opposing team are indicated by small red icons
on the summary panel. This is to alert you that your computer
does not have these changes yet. Although you are not allowed
to see the opposing teams flight plans, the game engine on each
player machine needs this data to properly create the mission.
Wait until the opposing team has sent their changes and the red
symbols have disappeared before leaving the mission planner.
- In the game, the various maps are refered to with both a name
and two numbers in parentheses. Here is how to interpret the
different numbers:
In Game Map
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NTC (0,0) National Training Center
AZR (6,0) Eastern Azerbaijan
AZR (3,0) Central Azerbaijan
AZR (0,0) Western Azerbaijan
B. Documentation Updates:
- The Azure Rune (NTC) campaigns have been renamed from "Friend
vs. Friend" to "US vs. US Equipment" and "Friend vs. Enemy" to
"US vs. Russian Equipment."
- The industry videos are not available.
- There are no scrollbars in the Jane's Book text windows. To
view the text, use the PG UP and PG DOWN keys or push your
mouse forward to move the text up, and pull it backward to
move the text down.
- Multiplayer games are designated by a large dot instead of an
X.
- If you add a new waypoint before a waypoint with a preset
loiter time (e.g. a recon waypoint) you must move the loiter
time from the new waypoint back to the original action point.
See the manual for instructions on how to do this.
- While in the virtual cockpit (F4) view you can snap your views
in different directions by holding down the ALT key and using
the numpad direction keys (2, 4, 6 and 8). For example, to
look back and right, hold down the ALT key and simultaneously
press the numpad 2 and 6 keys. When you release the keys, the
view will snap back to the front.
- The AI pilot ratings are listed in parenthesis after the
pilot's callsign. These ratings begin at 0% and increase as
the pilot gains experience. The better the pilot does, the
more the number will increase. If they do poorly, this number
can decrease.
- When you enter Instant Action it will retain whatever flight
and realism settings you have. It will, however, turn the
Invulnerable and Infinite Ammo options ON.
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II. TROUBLESHOOTING
A. Joysticks:
If you experience any problems with your joystick or other input
devices while playing the game, please refer to the Longbow 2
Windows help file for troubleshooting hints.
We have written several files for programmable joysticks for use with
Longbow 2. These files are located in the JOYSTICK directory on
Longbow 2 CD 1. Please see the joystick.txt file located on Longbow 2
CD 1 for more information.
B. Resizing Desktop:
With some video cards, the desktop will occassionally be resized to
640x480 resolution when you exit the game. If this occurs, restart
your computer and it should be restored back to your original graphic
settings.
C. Third-Party Screen Savers (Windows 95):
We recommend that you disable any third-party screen savers
(e.g. After Dark) while playing Longbow 2. If you have a third
party screen saver running in the background you may experience some
problems with the game. Please refer to the screen saver documentation
for information on how to disable it.
D. DirectX (Windows 95):
When playing in Windows 95, Longbow 2 requires DirectX 5 drivers to
run the game. Please see the Longbow 2 Install Guide for more
information regarding DirectX.
E. Autorun (Windows 95):
If you experience problems with the autorun menu no longer appearing,
when you insert CD 1, run the game by clicking on your Windows start
button, select Programs..Jane's Combat Simulations..Longbow 2..
Longbow 2. Once in the game, exit back to the operating system.
This should restore the autorun feature.
F. Frame Rate Help:
** For optimum Longbow 2 performance, your machine should be optimized.
For tips on this, see the Improving System Performance section below.
Longbow 2 supports a wide range of machine performance levels as
specified in the minimum and recommended machine specifications on the
box and in the Install Guide. Additionally, players tend to have
differing preferences in the trade-off between visual look and frame
update rate. For some, frame rate is everything and they are willing
to give up some visual quality to achieve this. For others, visual
quality is paramount and frame rate is incidental. Most players are
somewhere in between.
To properly support this range of machines and preferences, the
graphics in Longbow 2 are designed for easy customization. This
section will describe how to best adjust the parameters to suit your
machine and personal preferences. Remember, though, there is no free
lunch. You cannot expect to get fast frame rates and ultimate visuals
on the minimum spec machine.
When you installed Longbow 2, a rough performance metric was run that
set an initial condition for the graphics detail of either LOW, MEDIUM,
or HIGH. To change this, type ALT-O while in flight or on the base,
and select GRAPHICS and then choose LOW, MEDIUM, or HIGH. Click on
ACCEPT to save the changes and fly the game. Working through these
options will allow you to experience the full range in the trade-off of
visual quality versus frame rate performance.
Once you have settled on the rough setting, additional tweaking can be
done through the use of the CUSTOM settings. Again, go to ALT-O,
select GRAPHICS, and then select CUSTOM. The new screen will show a
number of sliders and option boxes that are marked according to the
rough setting you chose previously. You can adjust these and see the
results on the screen in flight.
The most important slider for performance is the HORIZON DISTANCE.
Changing it will have the most influence on the nominal frame rate of
the game. Note that the rough setting of "LOW" does not even bottom
out this slider. Setting "LOW" graphics and then moving it all the
way to the left is especially useful for those that try to run this
product on a below-spec machine or just prefer the ultimate in fast
frame rate. Also, TERRAIN DETAIL (the polygonal complexity of the
terrain), TERRAIN LIGHTING (real-time lighting), and SKY TEXTURE
(on/off) all affect the nominal frame rate.
In certain situations, the frame rate may slow down when there is a
lot of visual activity on the screen. OBJECT DETAIL can be turned
down to fix this in situations where there are many objects on the
screen. It is also useful to turn this setting to its lowest when you
are having performance issues in the Virtual Cockpit (you should also
turn COCKPIT ROTOR off). SHADOWS, EXTERNAL STORES and OBJECT LIGHTING
also have a significant effect on frame rate when there are many
objects in the scene. Finally, when there is lots of smoke or tracer
fire slowing things down, you can adjust this back by tweaking SPECIAL
EFFECTS, SMOKE DENSITY, and SECONDARY SMOKE EFFECTS.
Note: The TERRAIN RESOLUTION option under BASE SCREENS in the ALT-O
Options screens controls the visual quality of terrain texture.
Changing it will alter the installed size of the game and the amount
of time necessary to decompress new battle maps, but will have little
significant effect on the frame rate of the game.
G. Additional Help:
For additional help and information on the game, please see the
Longbow 2 Windows help file. To open this file, insert the Longbow 2
CD 1 into the drive and the autorun should come up. Select Help.
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III. IMPROVING SYSTEM PERFORMANCE:
Windows has several hardware options available to optimize
performance. Go through the following steps in order to check these
options.
1. Right-click on the My Computer icon.
2. Left-click on the Properties option. This will open the System
Properties box.
3. Left-click on the Performance tab.
4. Left-click on the Graphics button and move the Hardware
Acceleration slider to None (this may not work with some video
cards).
5. Left-click on OK.
6. Left-click on the File System button. Move the Read Ahead
Optimization option slider to Full (Hard Disk tab).
7. Left-click on the CD-ROM tab and move the Supplemental Cache Size
slider to Full.
8. Make sure the Optimize Access Pattern is set correctly for your
CD-ROM speed.
9. Left-click on OK, and then on OK again.
10. Windows 95 will then display a message stating you need to re-boot
your computer before these changes will take effect. Left-click on
YES to re-boot your system.
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IV. CUSTOMER SERVICE / TECH SUPPORT:
If you have any further trouble or questions, please feel free to
contact us in any of the following ways:
ORIGIN Phone Tech Support: (512) 434-HELP (512) 434-4357
ORIGIN FAX Tech Support: (512) 795-8014
ORIGIN Web Tech Support: http://www.origin.ea.com/tech
ORIGIN Internet Tech Support: [email protected]
ORIGIN Internet FTP Site: origin.ea.com
ORIGIN Tech Support Mailing Address:
ORIGIN Systems
C/O Customer Service
5918 West Courtyard Drive
Austin, TX 78730-5036
* Longbow 2 Web Site:
To find out the latest information about Longbow 2, as well as other
Jane's Combat Simulation products, please check out our Internet Web
site: http://www.janes.ea.com
* Janes Web Site: http://www.janes.com
* Customer Support around the world:
You can also reach our other Customer Service departments located
globally. Please consult the list below for the nearest office to your
location.
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Electronic Arts Ltd
PO Box 835
SLOUGH
SL3 8XU
ENGLAND
Telephone: 01753 546465
EA UK Internet Tech Support: [email protected]
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Electronic Arts France
Centre d'Affaires Télébase
4 Rue Claude Chappe
69771 Saint Didier au Mont D'Or Cedex
Telephone: 04 72532500
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Electronic Arts GmbH
Pascalstraße 6
52076 Aachen
GERMANY
Telephone: 02408 940 555
EA GmbH Internet Tech Support: [email protected]
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Electronic Arts SA
Edificio Arcade
Rufino González 23 bis. Planta 1ª. Local 2
28037 Madrid
SPAIN
Telephone: 1304-7091
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Electronic Arts Sweden
Business Campus
Johanneslundsvägen 2
19481 Upplands Väsby
Sweden
Telephone: 08 590 30151
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Electronic Arts Victor Inc
2-4-12 Jingumae,
Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo 150
JAPAN
Telephone: 813-5410-3111
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Electronic Arts Pty Ltd
P.O. Box 432
Southport
QLD 4215
AUSTRALIA
Telephone: 1 902 261 600 (95 cents per minute) ITM
7 days a week 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM
If you are under 18 years of age, parental consent required
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We would like to thank the Jane's Simulator Pilots who have sent in
their questions, comments and excellent suggestions from all over the
world! We hope you enjoy Longbow 2 and continue to send the critical
commentary and "wish list" requests that make Jane's Combat Simulations
the best that they can be!
Read me file written by: Courtney "Irasthmus" McMillan and Myque
"Perky" Ouellette.
Edited by: Tuesday "Vyper" Frase and Kevin "Fiend" Kushner.
-Good hunting. Out.