Red Storm Rising

[MarkShot]

I was practicing and actually killed something and evaded a fish at the hardest level tonight. I was pretty pleased with myself. But I suppose that it's the kilo that you don't hear that will kill you.

One thing I find very different from SC/DW is that you have a much better idea in this game of what an enemy weapon is doing.

In SC/DW, my idea of what they are doing falls into about four categories:

(1) Bearing rate is changing rapidly - meaning either it was not shot at me or if it was it has failed to track. I have gotten out of the cone of death or PK=1. What a relief!

(2) I running at flank; deaf and have no idea what the weapon is doing, but it feels good to still be alive.

(3) The weapon is pinging at a considerable distance and perhaps I can just quietly sneak off. Starting to sweat.

(4) The weapon is pinging loudly and the interval is rapidly compressing - Oh S**T!!! (famous last words)

It gets even more fun when there are fish all over the place and your BB display looks like a bowl of pasta!

[Robsoie]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

I am playing the DOS version. I've never seen the Amiga version. What makes it so special? Is it really worth the trouble if you are unfamiliar with the Amiga and WinUAE to get the Amiga version running?

The Amiga version features better graphics:
PC


Amiga


but from what i remember that's the only difference, the gameplay is as good for both version. After that, it is more a matter of preference between using DOSBox or WinUAE interfaces, loading times, etc... i prefer running DOSBox, for me it is just quicker and easier with D-Fend to setup or launch games.

Additionally, WinUAE is requiring "kickstart" rom files, without those files WinUAE is useless to run emulated games, the problem nowadays is that kickstart files are not available for free anymore as they decided to sell them again, so be warned that unlike DOSBox, to get WinUAE working 100% to play your games, it is not free.

[MarkShot]

Thanks for the answer. If graphics were revelant to me, I would not be playing 15 year old games for starters.

[Robsoie]

Actually, the game is not 15 years old, in fact next month it will be 20 years old !!

The fact people are always playing and enjoying it is a testimony on how much great Red Storm Rising is.

There are few games that have stood the test of time like RSR.

[MarkShot]

Well, I meant that more in the general sense as I play quite a few old DOS games.

The oldest two I think I have recently played both date back to 1990:

Balance of Power

Conflict Middle East

[bishop]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

The oldest two I think I have recently played both date back to 1990:

Balance of Power

Conflict Middle East

One of my all time favorites that I still play is Star Raiders through an Atari 8 bit emulator. That was released in 1979(!) and is STILL a blast to play. The grandfather of space flight combat games, way way ahead of its time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Raiders

Regarding differences between the Amgia/DOS versions of RSR, besides the graphics already mentioned, the sounds are a little bit better. Plus it supports the mouse, which I don't recall if the DOS version does (been a while since I played that version)

[MarkShot]

Alright, everyone who played the original pong on a b/w tv set raise your hands? (hand raised)

Everyone who played Lunar Lander loaded from paper tape on a PDP-8 raise your hands? (hand raised)

Everyone who built their own radio sets with vacuum tubes raise your hands? (don't go back that far)

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Originally Posted by SandyCaesar

Once they're active, though, they're totally out of your control.

If you shoot and miss, there's a good chance that the enemy will decide to go active to find you. Be warned.

Sure you can, you just go to the weapons control screen (F4 I believe) and you could control the torp at any time active or not. The one problem was that it only showed you ownship generated data. If you did not have a good solution, you had about no chance to steer the weapon to the target correectly and it did not update based on torpedo sensor data.

[bishop]

Originally Posted by MarkShot

Alright, everyone who played the original pong on a b/w tv set raise your hands? (hand raised)

Everyone who played Lunar Lander loaded from paper tape on a PDP-8 raise your hands? (hand raised)

Everyone who built their own radio sets with vacuum tubes raise your hands? (don't go back that far)

I had one of these:

[TarJak]

And I had one of these:

[MarkShot]

No joke ... I really had one of these as a kid. And in junior high and high school used a slide rule! Yeh!

[Eugene]

OK, Mark - that's getting seriously twisted

At a slightly different angle of incidence: Recluse and I recently flew F15 Strike Eagle III in front seat/back seat mode. Using dosbox it was easy. But amazing. Fully functional. Also, we managed to crank up the Falcon 3.0 campaign, online, same method. Far easier than when it was new and in dialup modem mode.

Still kind of fun, although Falcon 3 graphics were so muddy that flying down low and using terrain was not much fun, unlike SE III.

[MarkShot]

I had gotten to the top of Compuserve's F3 Ladder - 1994. At that time, it was H2H via 9600 baud modems over toll lines.

The conventional wisdom was getting to the top took a phone bill of about $500 USD/month!!! I managed to do it on $200 USD/month. Mainly, I picked up a lot of extra flight hours by teaching students as long as they paid the toll calls. I had students as far East as Puerto Rico, El Caribe and as far West as Vancouver, Canada.

The Internet was truly a revolution for MP gaming! By 2000, I was flying EAW H2H and teaching combat with players from all around the globe for the staggering sum of around $35 USD/month on broadband.

In 1994, maybe I was getting at best 8 hours/week of H2H flight time. In 2000, I was regularly averaging about 3-4hrs/day.

Now, I've retired my wings to take life at a much slower pace: Dive to 450 ft, right hard rudder, all ahead flank, rig for depth charges!

[Weps]

Last year I didn't have too much time to work on Red Storm Rising, but things have changed in the new year. I'm back on it !

Finished some 'major' parts, which you can see in my second short youtube vid

Originally Posted by Hitman

Please consider allowing a chance to add later improved graphics and higher resolutions, even if in 2D of course

I've split functionality, so it should be no problem to add or replace graphics/sounds. Fact is that I simply am not a graphic/sound artist. I try, but things just end up as if a 4 year old has drawn things. So I just copy stuff (and hope someone will take the time to provide better stuff) :-)

Same goes for shiptypes, missions and campaing events. I've made an 'engine' to simply read things from a file instead of having everything hardcoded in the program. So adding these should not be a problem either.

For those that are interested, http://www.Red-Storm-Rising.com

[MarkShot]

I could live with those graphics.

Fact is that anyone who is playing SH3/SH4 for the visuals will pass on it no matter how much art you put in. You cannot compete with a big budget studio. On the other hand, as you said, you will now have a modular engine and code. You can upgrade various parts of the game physics and AI. I know there has been much discussion in the DW forum about sonar models and what aspects are really important to model in engagements.

I still have yet to really invest time in RSR, but it is on my list.