Technical and Gameplay Notes


TECHNICAL NOTES

1. In the lowest Terrain detail level, turning on the Blending option in 
the Renderer section of the In-Flight Menu has no effect.  

2. If you eject the Flight Unlimited CD from your CD drive during
installation, you may cause an error in the installation which will
prevent Flight from running properly.  If this occurs, please delete your
previous Flight directory and re-install.

3. When selecting a sound card in the installer, due to the nature of
its hardware the Ensoniq Soundscape will autosetup correctly, but will 
not allow you to set up manually.  The Roland RAP-10 will set up manually,
but will not autosetup.  Also, the RAP-10 joystick port may autodetect
ordinary throttle-less joysticks as having throttles and rudder pedals.

4.  Loading "SHARE" may cause problems in flight.  We strongly
recommend that you take SHARE out of your AUTOEXEC.BAT start-up file with
the REM command.


5.  When saving copies of the screen with the PRINT SCREEN key, it is 
possible to cause Flight to produce corrupt .pcx files, by flying
in 640x480 screen resolution.  To fix this, you need only change screen 
resolutions once (by pressing alt-m) or visit the In-Flight Menu (by
pressing ESCAPE), and then you can save screen images from any screen 
resolution, including 640x480.

6.  If you fly certain hoops courses, and then immediately fly a towed takeoff 
in the Grob sailplane, you may find that the tow plane appears to be much 
higher than its actual altitude, although it tows normally.  You can make 
the tow plane normal again by quitting this flight (press "q" to quit) and 
going flying again (select "fly again" from the logbook page).

7.  You must have at least 15 megabytes of space on your hard drive to run
Flight Unlimited.


FLYING WITH THE KEYBOARD

Flight's keyboard flying interface has been implemented to
meet the demands of aerobatics flying.  You may find it differs from
keyboard systems on other flight simulators you have tried.  We 
have found that with this keyboard system you can make small 
adjustments, hold a fixed attitude, and also make rapid, forceful changes.
It may be unfamiliar for a short while, but it is very effective in
allowing you to fly.

The keys function as follows:

-If you tap a key, the control surface it is linked to moves slightly, 
then settles back to neutral.  

-Tapping rapidly will quickly bring the surface to full deflection.

-If you hold a key down, this holds the control surface fixed in its
current position.  When you release the key it returns to neutral.

-You can center any control surface by pressing the key opposite 
its current deflection - e.g., if you have full down elevator, you 
can center instantly by pressing number-pad 2.

The keys are laid out as follows:

ALT + any key or number-pad ENTER + any key moves that control surface as
far as it can go.

On the number-pad:

7=full left rudder  8=down elevator  9=full right rudder

4=left aileron      5=centers elevators 6= right aileron

1=left rudder       2=up elevator    3=right rudder

There are also rudder keys for the left hand:

a=left rudder  d=right rudder

If you have a joystick and don't have rudder pedals, you may want to 
fly with the joystick in one hand and your off-hand on the rudder keys.  

By holding down the ALT or number-pad ENTER key all the time, you can
create an approximation of a more standard flight-simulator keyboard
interface, if that is what you prefer.


PLAYING THE GAME

1.  When you're flying, you should be wary of putting your plane in an
accelerated stall.  Pulling the stick back quickly, all the way, is often
less effective than pulling back gently and firmly.  When you slam the 
stick back suddenly, you can stall your wing briefly, so that you lose
airspeed and actually pull up more slowly than you would with a slower
pull.

2.  Flight Unlimited includes a starting logbook called "Cool Demos," with
recordings of some sample flying sessions, some of it pretty flashy. 
Watching these might give you some ideas about things to try in free flight.

3.  Flight starts with the gyroscopic flight model set to on as a default
(you can change it in the In-Flight Menu: Options panel).  The gyroscopic
flight model (as opposed to the standard model) is unique to Flight,
makes for exquisitely realistic flying, and lets you do cool things you can't
do on any other simulator.  It allows for gyroscopic effects such as slipstream, 
torque, and gyroscopic precession (see Chapter 8 of the manual, p. 50-51
for an explanation of these effects).  However, if these effects are
making it difficult for you to fly the lessons (particularly if you don't
have rudder pedals), you may want to switch to the standard flight model,
which is simplified but in some ways easier to cope with.

4.  Flight starts out with the screen resolution set to 320x400 while you're
flying.  You will probably want to adjust screen resolution for yourself
(alt-m while flying, or the View section in the In-Flight Menu) - Flight
offers a wide variety of screen resolutions, including 1024x768 mode (this
mode gives a display of almost one million pixels, among the highest SVGA
displays and frame rates available anywhere; understandably, it will not give 
you as high a frame rate as 320x200 mode).  You can find your own balance 
between graphics quality and gameplay speed, depending on your preferences 
and the capabilities of your computer.

5.  Like real planes, the planes in Flight can take be damaged
by high-G stresses and overspeeding (if your airspeed indicator is near or at 
the red mark, you are probably overspeeding), and can even break apart in
mid-air!  When you hear your wings start to creak from the strain, you may want to
take it easy, or switch your plane strength from normal to nigh-invulnerable
mode.  For this reason, you will probably not always want to fly with your throttle 
at max.

6.  We have added an additional camera view in Flight - the ground camera. 
It is available through the In-Flight Menu: View panel, or by cycling
through views by pressing c or shift-c.  It shows the plane from a fixed
vantage point on the ground, as an spectator might see it during an air-show 
or aerobatics competition.  You can zoom in and out as you would in
other views.  

7.  When you are flying a towed takeoff in the Grob, you'll be better off
not using the rudders.  Just use your ailerons to keep the wings level.

8.  Look at hints.fu for some basic pointers on the lessons.

9.  Don't forget to calibrate your joystick!  Press alt-j from flight or
the FBO, or choose controls in the In-Flight Menu.

JOYSTICKS

1. If you are using the XL Action Joystick you should configure your 
joystick option to "Thrustmaster" in the Controls section of the In-Flight 
Menu.

2. For those of you who own a Thrustmaster (P)FCS/WCSII or F16-FLCS, we have 
included the appropriate .ADV and .B50 files in the DEVICES\THRUSTMS directory.

3. In the DEVICES directory on your CD-ROM, we have also included config files for 
the Gravis Firebird and Gravis Phoenix, in DEVICES\FIREBIRD and DEVICES\PHOENIX 
subdirectories, respectively.
