L'AVVENTURISTA (The Adventurer) by Maurizio M. Gavioli SIMULA Flightware - 1995 WHAT L'AVVENTURISTA IS ---------------------- L'AVVENTURISTA is an FS5 driver which allows to play FS4-style adventures on FS5. In general, it works with any FS4 adventure and any scenery (either of FS4 or of FS5). However, as facilities (navaids, airports, runways, etc.) are different from FS4 sceneries to FS5 sceneries, it is better to use each adventure with the scenery it was created for (old FS4 adventures with FS4 sceneries and new FS5 advnetures with FS5 sceneries). With the supplied facility databases (in Flight Planner format), it becomes possible to create new adventures for the FS5 sceneries. SHAREWARE TERMS --------------- L'Avventurista is a SHAREWARE program: you may try it for 15 days. After that period, if you still use the program, a payment of 20 US$ (or equivalent amount in other currencies) is required. Payments can be sent by one of the following ways: *) by International Money Order *) dropping the banknotes in an envelop! to the following adress: SIMULA Flightware, via De' Vicenti 2, I-20148 Milano, ITALY *) or by bank draft to the following account: Credito Lombardo, ag. D, via Soderini 50, I-20142 Milano, ITALY acc. no. 17274/4 in the name of SIMULA Flightware Please avoid cheques, if possible: they cost too much to convert in Italian liras and requires a significant book keeping! No credit cards, sorry! DISTRIBUTION TERMS ------------------ L'Avventurista can be freely distributed and uploaded to BBS, ftp archives and other public services, provided that all its files (listed in the FILE LIST below) are kept toghether and the copyright notice at the end of this document is not removed. L'Avventurista is distributed in two files: *) AVSTA1.ZIP containing the driver, 2 sample adventures, the installation program and this document. This file is required to play the adventures. *) AVSTA2.ZIP containing the Flight Planner databases and this document. This file is useful for creating new adventures for FS5 sceneries. AUTOMATIC INSTALLATION ---------------------- To install L'Avventurista you have to unzip the AVSTA1.ZIP files. If you are reading this file, I assume you have already done that! You may unzip it anywhere, but NOT in the directory containing Flight Simulator. In the following, I'll assume the files have been unzipped in the C:\TEMP directory. If you have chosen another drive and/or directory, replace the correct drive and/or directory in the following instructions. All supplied files have to reside in the same directory. To install the program, you may use the supplied INSTALL program: 1) switch to the drive where the unzipped files reside: C: 2) switch to the directory where the unzipped files reside: cd \temp 3) run the INSTALL program: install 4) answer the questions and follow the prompts. MANUAL INSTALLATION ------------------- If you like to know what's going on behind the scene, you may also install L'AVVENTURISTA manually: 1) unzip the supplied AVSTA1.ZIP file somewhere (let's say into the C:\TEMP directory) 2) copy the driver into the Flight Simulator directory (let's say C:\FLTSIM5): copy c:\temp\avristae.fso c:\fltsim5\avrista.fso (for the English version) OR copy c:\temp\avristai.fso c:\fltsim5\avrista.fso (for the Italian version) 3) create the ADV subdirectory: mkdir c:\fltsim5\adv 4) copy the supplied sample adventures into the ADV directory: copy c:\temp\advsamp*.adv c:\fltsim5\adv 5) copy the supplied sample STN into the PILOTS directory: copy c:\temp\advsamp*.stn c:\fltsim5\pilots 5) using a text editor, edit the FS5.INI file, adding the following line at the end: DEVICE=AVRISTA.FSO If you have unzipped AVSTA1.ZIP in another drive and/or directory than C:\TEMP and/or if your FS5 resides in another drive and/or directory than C:\FLITSIM, replace the appropriate drives and/or directories in the above instructions. If you are in doubt, it is better to use the automatic installation procedure. FLIGHT PLANNER DATABASES INSTALLATION ------------------------------------- Simply unzip the file AVSTA2.ZIP into your Flight Planner directory. No other step is required. FILE LIST --------- L'Avventurista contains the following files: In AVSTA1.ZIP: *) AVRISTA.TXT this text! *) AVRISTAI.FSO the Italian version of the driver *) AVRISTAE.FSO the English version of the driver *) ADVSAMP1.ADV a sample adventure *) ADVSAMP2.ADV another sample adventure *) ADVSAMP1.STN a situation used to start ADVSAMP1.ADV *) ADVSAMP2.STN a situation used to start ADVSAMP2.ADV In AVSTA2.ZIP: *) AVRISTA.TXT this text again! *) WORLDAME.FPD a Flight Planner data base listing the facilities in the East American portion of the FS5 default scenery *) WORLDAMW.FPD a Flight Planner data base listing the facilities in the East American portion of the FS5 default scenery *) WORLDEUR.FPD a Flight Planner data base listing the facilities in the European portion of the FS5 default scenery *) EUROPE1.FPD a Flight Planner data base listing the facilities in the Microsoft EUROPE 1 scenery. *) *.NDX four indexes for the above data bases. USE OF THE PROGRAM ------------------ To run an adventure, the .ADV file must be placed in the ADV subdirectory created during the program installation. Then: To use an FS4 scenery: 1) select the appropriate scenery via the "Scenery | Scenery Library" menu 2) place yourself into the appropriate region (America, Europe, or Japan) via the "World | Set exact position" menu 3) select the option "Options | L'Avventurista" menu 4) select the desired adventure from the list 5) click on the "Load" button: the adventure will be loaded and started. To use an FS5 scenery: 1) by sure the scenery is present! 2) select the option "Options | L'Avventurista" menu 3) select the desired adventure from the list 4) click on the "Load" button: the adventure will be loaded and started. To appear in the list, adventures MUST be placed in the ADV subdirectory created during the program installation. The "Avventurista" dialogue window has several options: *) button LOAD loads and starts the selected adventure, if any *) button RESTART restarts the loaded adventure (if any), resetting the situation (if loaded) *) button UNLLOAD unloads (freeing any allocated memory) the loaded adventure (if any) *) option MASTER ON/OFF turns on/off the player. If it is turned off, adventure playing is stopped, even if an adventure is loaded. The playing will resume, at the same point, when this switch is turned on again *) option LOAD STN/MOD if this option is checked when loading an adventure, L'Avventurista will search for a situation (.STN) or a mode (.MOD) with the same file name of the selected adventure and will load it if present. To be loaded, STN's or MOD's MUST be in the PILOTS subdirectory. An .STN takes precedence over a .MOD if both are present. STN/MOD loading takes place ONLY when loading the adventure. *) button KEYS displays the KEY MASK dialogue. See below. *) button DONE exit the dialogue. KEY MASK DIALOGUE ----------------- This dialogue is reached via the "Key" button of the main Avventurista's dialogue. It displays a layout of the alphanumeric part of the keyboard, where all keys are represented by check buttons (excepted some combining keys like Ctrl, Alt and so on). Any key which is checked will be masked out from FS5: this means that the adventure will recognize it but FS5 will not. This feature is intended to allow playing FS4 adventures which make use of keys having a function in FS5. For instance, if an adventure requires tath the user presses the "X" key for some reason, FS5 would respond activating the auto-landing feature. By checking the X square in this dialogue, the X keypress will not reach FS5 but will still available to the adventure. All functions masked in that way can still be reached via the menu or mouse equivalents, if they exists. Keys can by individually masked on and off at any moment, without the need to re-load or restart the adventure. The "R" key (often used by adventures to ask for repetition of the last message) is checked (masked) by default. CREATION OF NEW ADVENTURES -------------------------- To create new adventures to use with FS5 through L'Avventurista, you may use the same old tools used for FS4. If you are familiar with the AAF language, you may write the adventure text with a text editor and then compile it either with the original AAF compiler (AAF.EXE), if you own it, or with one of the shareware compilers (for instance, AAFPLUS). Otherwise, if you own Flight Planner for FS4 and the Pilot Power Tools, you may write a flight plan with the former and convert it into an adventure text with latter. You still need an adventure compiler to compile the text into an .ADV file. To generate a flight plan suitable for FS5 sceneries, it is recommended to use the appropriate Flight Planner data base, choosing it among the supplied ones in accordance with the scenery and the region you plan to fly into. In any case, placing the plane at the beginning of the adventure using the SETPOSITION command proved to be not always satisfactory; it is better to make an STN which places the aircraft at required point and to give it the same name as the adventure file. This way, several other parameters can also be set (views, weather, etc.) NOTE ON THE SUPPLIED FLIGHT PLANNER DATABASES --------------------------------------------- 1) In general, navaid and airport caracteristics match what actually is in the correspoding scenery, not what is in the real world! 2) The American area of the WORLD scenery has been split in two databases (WORLDAMW from the West coast to 85W and WORLDAME from 95W to the East Coast) because the number of navaids is so large that it exceeds the Flight Planner limit. This should also leave some room in each database for personal additions to account for additional sceneries in the same area. 3) The database for the European area of the WORLD scenery (WORLDEUR) contains all the navaids, but only Paris De Gaulle, Paris Olry and Munich airports, which are the only ones of some relevance. 4) The database for the EUROPE1 scenery contains all the navaids but only a selection of the airports: the ones with a VOR and/or at least one ILS. As far as possible, airport coordinates have been chosen in order to place the plane outside of any obstacle and on a taxiway. According to Flight Planner standards, runways have been indicated only in one direction, unless both directions had an ILS, in which case both have been indicated, each with its own ILS frequency. All runway lengths have been indicated with a conventional value of 5000 feet, without any indication of markers. 5) Across the lines separating one cant band from another, FS5 has sometime problems in converting its own Lat/long coordinates from/into FS4 X/Y coordinates; as a result either the scenery or the current view position jump back and forth between two different points. This problem affects heavily the Seattle area and prevented the correct placemente of some airports in the EUROPE1 database. SAMPLE ADVENTURES ---------------- ADVSAMP1.ADV - From Boston Logan to N.Y. JFK - ETE 1h36m navaid frequencies: 1) TMU GROTON 111.80 2) DPK DEER PARK 117.70 3) JFK 115.90 ADVSAMP2.ADV - From Zuerich to Salzburg - ETE 1h40m navaid frequencies: 1) KPT KEMPTEN 109.60 (already tuned in NAV2) 2) MUN MUNICH 112.30 (already tuned in NAV1) 3) Salzburg VOR 113.80 (use NAV2) 4) Salzburg ILS 109.90 ADVENTURE COMMANDS ------------------ L'AVVENTURISTA recognizes all the commands recognized by the original AAF.EXE adventure compiler. As these commands are documented in the AAF manual, which is subject to copyright, they will not be repeated here to avoid copyright problems. Only the differences will be described. Unimplemented commands ---------------------- While ALL commands are recognized, some among them are not implemented: *) the command to display .PCX files is not implemented *) the command to play soundtrack files is not implemented An adventure file containing them will be correctly executed excepted that PCX files will not be displayed and .VOC files will be not played. Therefore, if an adventure gives the choice between "voice mode" and "text mode", the latter has to be chosen. Undocumented commands --------------------- L'Avventurista implements the following undocumented ADV conditions (as they are not documented, I assume they are NOT subject to copyright): *) SETBITMASK(var, val1, val2): TRUE if ( (contents of var) AND val1 OR val2 ) is not zero, FALSE otherwise *) CLIMBRATE(max, min): TRUE if the vertical speed is between max and min expressed in feet per minute (this condition was not implemented in the original FS4 driver, but was recognized by the AAF compiler). L'Avventurista DOES NOT implement (but recognizes) the following undocumented commands: *) NOMENU switch off the display of menus and make them unaccessible to the user *) MENU switch menus on VARIABLES --------- Variables are different from FS4 to FS5: either because the variable with the same meaning is placed at different addresses in the two programs, or because it has different values or codes for the same meaning or because it does not exist in both programs. As a consequence, L'Avventurista tries to re-map FS4 variables to FS5 equivalent variables, but only to a limited extent. As variable names (appearing in the original AAF manual) are presumably copyrighted and variable addresses are proprietary information of BAO, the equivalences established by L'Avventurista are not listed here in detail, but only described in general. The following classes of variables are re-mapped: *) variables related to chrological time *) variables related to auto-pilot *) variables related to atmospheric weather (please note, however, that these variables are read-only, because they are periodically re-written by FS5 with data coming from the weather areas) *) variables related to EFIS *) variables related to navaids (NDB exluded) *) variables related to several aspects of the aircraft situation (pause, auto-coordination, gear, lights, etc.) Other variables are not re-mapped: on them read operations return 0 and write operation are ignored. In particular, the following classes, among others, are not re-mapped: *) variables related to NDB and transponder (because their values are stored differently in FS4 and FS5): use the appropriate condition instead. *) variables related to yoke, rudder, throttle positions and values OTHER PRODUCTS BY SIMULA FLIGHTWARE ----------------------------------- SCENARI ITALIANI 4.1; a scenery for FS4 (also compatible with FS5) covering the whole of Italy, including all Italian airports and navaids, runway lights according to ICAO standards, Visual Aids for Radio Navigation (VARNs), etc... SCENERY ITALY; a scenery for ATP also covering the whole of Italy: 29 primary airports and several minor, all navaids, assignments, several new planes, etc... COPYRIGHT NOTICES ----------------- L'Avventurista is copyright of SIMULA Flightware. Microsoft Flight Simulator is copyright of Microsoft Corp. Flight Simulator is a trademark of Bruce Artwick Aircraft and Adventure Factory is copyright of Bruce Artwick Organisation Flight Planner is copyright of Robert MacKey Pilot Power Tools is copyright of Robert MacKey Florence, 13 June 1995 Maurizio M. Gavioli SIMULA Flightware snc