Hi,

very soon we will release EAW1.28c.

Here are some new features:

- max 60 plane types usable, online and offline.
- Planes will show a engine start smoke. Depending to the current throttle setting, the colour change, up to a wet start.
- With the wrong throttle setting the engines wont start.
- If the engines are still cold and you raise the throttle to fast, the engine will take a little damage, if you repead this to often, the engine will start to smoke.
- The engines can overcool in a unpowered highspeed dive, so its needed to be carefully with the throttle afterward.
- The above can get dissabled with the engine overheat on/off option.
- Before 1918 chutes wont beavailable.
- A "war ship" convoy type got implemented.
- If you choose one of the two "ship convoys" as target for an interdict mission, only targets that have a "ship convoy" linked get displayed on the preflight map.
- The plane FM´s now can get modeled with a 2nd supercharger stage.
- Many actioncodes got added(most for additional damages).
- every nation can plane chategory now can have its own formation inside an external formations.dat
- We can select up to 64 planes in single mission mode and allso in carier mode we can command such groups.
- The campaign routines got adjusted to make "bomber campaigns" better playable(we will have escort now and we start the campaign not anymore always with a sweep mission).
- The V1 slot can now be a fully usable plane slot.
- We can adjust the screen fade times to our peference(EAW.ini setting)
- We can controll the throttle setting, if we fly in winglevel and auto climb mode.
- We can dissable the 2d cockpits in all screen resolutions by an EAW.ini setting.
- Multi engined planes now sometimes lose a wing, when the engine burn to long.
- The computed gunsight now work in relation to the distance, not the enemys g-force.
- AAA and tail gunners now wont stop to shoot anymore, when a plane just smoke.
- The frontlines now get displayed on the single mission map.
- AI´s will avoid hills rather good now.
- A automati seasonal switch got introduced, this can switch 5 different terrains depending to the mission date.
- The singlemission date can follow a normal movement with every mission we fly. Always after a mission the date will count upward by 1 - 9 day´s, at the end of the month the next month start, at the end of each year, the next year start.
- We can determine the current month and day with related EAW.ini values. With help of this values we also can dissable the moving date and enable the old style randomized date. This will dissable also the seasonal switch. We also can enable a static season, if we want.

Last but not least, we did introduce a absolut new folder/files/cdf storage/read structure.
Note! Nothing changed, if the game get used like usual!

Otherwise we can place a complete campaign into its own subfolder, with its own "savedata" folder, with its own CDF´s, with its own seasonal folders, with its own "second plane set".
To load this setup we just need to loade one lonely file.
Additional addon files still can get loaded right into the EAW root.
If a setup dont need many new files(like some ETO campaigns), the exe will take the missing files from the default CDF´s.

With this system campaigns can get offered in a "hidden read only" folders, but they stay flexible.

We just hurri up the 1.28c release, cause SPAW is ready and need EAW1.28c.

This will follow in not to long future.

- A 7217 error fix, which will work for maybe 95% of all PC´s.
- Selectable scnarios(SAW, DAW, WWI, SPAW etc) from inside the EAW.exe(no external tool needed anymore.
We will have a "scenario list" inside the EAW root, where all "Scenario subfolders" get listed and this list will show up on a new screen.
Now we can point the exe to the wanted scnario.
If we have one selected the available plane sets and probably other features will show up as option.
By easy we can have 10 or more plane sets per scnario.

The selected setup can get used in multiplayer mode, where the clients setup adjusted to fit to the host´s setup.

With other words: We will be able to fly one mission in the pacific, the next in Europe, the next in Spain and the next in Finland, without to leave EAW and without to load any files, online and offline.

The newly introduced filestructure is the base for this

Greetings,

Knegel

I was just about to ask, thanks K.

Is my pc included on that list? Maybe I can try that exe

Sounds great, really looking forward to this one

Poor Stratos,

i guess it wont work for yours with the current configuration.
You be actually the 1st person we found for whom the fix dont work perfect. The test exe you run include already the code for it.

I only can suggest to look for a other graphiccard driver or to fiddle arund with the settings, like "vertical sync always off " etc.

Greetings,

Knegel

Where can be the problem? I can't thing in any difference betwen me and other Pc's Maybe is the Infogrames CD?

Have you been looking for an original Microprose disc? Or, tried the compatiability thingie? It has never made a difference with me but you never know.

Do we still need to have Patch 1.28a and b install before we install 1.28c or do just install it over a new origial EAW install.

Hi Stratos,

every graphiccard driver is unique, same like all MOBO´s, chipsets and CPUs and their drivers are different.

The newer Nvidea cards gave most trouble for EAW, up to absolut unplayability due to the 7217 error(CTD with error message).

Many things depends on the graphiccard driver. There are probably several different around for your card. One of them might fix the problem.
With my Nvidea MX460 i had also to seak for a driver which provide better ingame graphics, cause the default driver provided me with a pixeled sky and the ground did look bad as well.
People with ATI cards also cant use some drivers cause they also cause the 7217 error or they dont provide horizon fog.
Some ATI drivers also provide you with the same screens you have now.

What i want to say is: Your PC is somehow different to the others.

The Infogrames CD work same good or bad like the microprose CD, but a "normal" installation from CD often caused problems, cause somehow WinXP dont seems to like the regestry entrys, that get written when you install EAW from CD.

If you have EAW installed from CD, uninstall it and simply copy the contents of the CD into a wanted directory. In this case no regestry entrys get written, this already CAN solve the problem, while i guess its the graphic driver, or one of its settings.

If you want to play EAW with your system you need to play around with it.

Greetings,

Knegel

Before you try putting EAW back use 'regedit" to copy your registry then use the search function to root out all EAW entries and delete them. It could also be possible that you have a bad reg entry or two. But make sure you back up your registery first incase something goes wrong.