Great memories. I was playing the original Gunship (1986) on my ST. Gunship 2000 was a major upgrade and would have been one of a handful of games I bought for my first PC.
LOVED IT... Have tried unsuccessfully to get it running right in DOSBOX.. Always too fast, or if cycles are cranked down too much, a slideshow to fly but the enemies still have Hyperspeed reflexes.
Gunship2000 was the first (and almost ONLY) sim where I really bonded with the AI teammates. Got to know their strengths and weaknesses, enjoyed seeing them progress, get promotions, decorations and mourned their loss. Great mechanic allowing you to pick up your downed pilots in a Blackhawk!! I always kept a BH in reserve in the HEAVY SECTION just in case. GOOD TIMES...perhaps best remembered fondly rather than recreated.
I still have numerous SIM and .REP files.
Back in the day I had a GS2000 Play by Email correspondence with a guy on AOL (!) where we would send each other custom built missions, fly them and provide Debriefs and REPLAY files of our activities or try to outdo each other with scores.
Last edited by Recluse; 05/03/1905:35 PM.
Long system spec sig follows:
PowerSpec G436 Lian Li ATX 205 MSI Z490 Plus Motherboard Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz 32 GB RAM DDR4 1600 Nvidia RTX3070
LOVED IT... Have tried unsuccessfully to get it running right in DOSBOX.. Always too fast, or if cycles are cranked down too much, a slideshow to fly but the enemies still have Hyperspeed reflexes.
Gunship2000 was the first (and almost ONLY) sim where I really bonded with the AI teammates. Got to know their strengths and weaknesses, enjoyed seeing them progress, get promotions, decorations and mourned their loss. Great mechanic allowing you to pick up your downed pilots in a Blackhawk!! I always kept a BH in reserve in the HEAVY SECTION just in case. GOOD TIMES...perhaps best remembered fondly rather than recreated.
I still have numerous SIM and .REP files.
Back in the day I had a GS2000 Play by Email correspondence with a guy on AOL (!) where we would send each other custom built missions, fly them and provide Debriefs and REPLAY files of our activities or try to outdo each other with scores.
All that and more. LB2s playability was incredible. I spent a couple years in the UH-60 just dropping off and picking up troops or prisoners.
But the graphics eventually overpowered the gameplay. Sorry, ya, I'm one of those.
That being said, I LOVED GS2000 when I'd take my heavy section in and hit SAM sites, or SAM heavy targets. Pop this guy up, he attacks, then he drops and then this guy over here pops up and fires.... ad airgasm. Loved loved loved it.
Hated when I'd try to show it to a friend who'd say, "Hey that polygon just polygon'd your polygon."
LOVED IT... Have tried unsuccessfully to get it running right in DOSBOX.. Always too fast, or if cycles are cranked down too much, a slideshow to fly but the enemies still have Hyperspeed reflexes.
Gunship2000 was the first (and almost ONLY) sim where I really bonded with the AI teammates. Got to know their strengths and weaknesses, enjoyed seeing them progress, get promotions, decorations and mourned their loss. Great mechanic allowing you to pick up your downed pilots in a Blackhawk!! I always kept a BH in reserve in the HEAVY SECTION just in case. GOOD TIMES...perhaps best remembered fondly rather than recreated.
I still have numerous SIM and .REP files.
Back in the day I had a GS2000 Play by Email correspondence with a guy on AOL (!) where we would send each other custom built missions, fly them and provide Debriefs and REPLAY files of our activities or try to outdo each other with scores.
I recommend setting your cycles at 10000. The briefing wont crash and the gameplay is pretty comparable to playing on a fast 386 CPU back in the day.
I plan to document my playthrough of the Persian Gulf and Central Europe campaigns (when I get the promotion) and later switch to PC version to play the Phillipines and Antarctica. Too bad the Amiga version didn't get the updates - no additional campaign, no support assets, no mission builder and no replays.
Anyway, here's the second mission:
Stay tuned for more
The plan is to release each new video on Wednesday and Saturday for now.
WOW... I hated infantry more than anything.. They would sling Heaters at you just out of range of the M261's and it would require 2x2 rocket salvos to kill them...
I don't understand how you evaded all those missiles!! For me even when I was at my best, "INCOMING FRONT! INCOMING RIGHT!" was quickly followed by "We're HIT! We're HIT!".
Good job!!
I looked at some of my old Replays and it was really a good walk down memory lane! My game in DOSBOX seemed to always CRASH at some point in the PLAYBACK, though.. I haven't tried actually playing since recent attempts that were just TOO FAST.
You mentioned using 10,000 cycles in the other thread, but that is WAY too fast. I cranked it down to 3000 and was still too fast. Will play with it a little more now that I have the bug again..
As you mentioned in your video summary, the DOS version originally had a MAGIC altitude (I want to say 135 feet AGL) that would allow you to get within Rocket range (2.9 km) of any target without detection. In the patch, they "fixed" this so detection was more variable and my great strategy went out the window...
EDIT: So I flew a training sortie with 3000 cycles and it was actually playable. Interestingly, though, just as with the playback of the REPLAY, when the sound for "GOT PRIMARY!" played, the game crashed with sound looping which required a reboot to fix. Quitting DOSBOX not enough. ERROR MESSAGE in DOSBOX was "DMA SEGBOUND WRAPPING ERROR". Googling for a solution. This was DOSBox 0.74. Maybe an earlier version works better??
Tried it in DOSBOX 0.73 and it worked but instead of GOT PRIMARY voiceover, I got a <Swish Swish Swish> sound ant text for HQ:PRIMARY ACHIEVED. Can't recall if this was sometimes happening. I noticed that my DOSBOX 0.73 CONF had SB1 instead of SB16 as my 0.74 CONF.. so ONE MORE TEST
Also had trouble getting GS2K to recognize my RUDDER axis as ANALOG, but I programmed it and the Collective as DIGITAL so I can use the full COUGAR + Pedals setup..-
Last edited by Recluse; 05/05/1901:24 AM.
Long system spec sig follows:
PowerSpec G436 Lian Li ATX 205 MSI Z490 Plus Motherboard Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz 32 GB RAM DDR4 1600 Nvidia RTX3070
EDIT: This makes a nice rotor compliment to [F-14] Fleet Defender, IMO (GS2000 being just a little older).
Last edited by MarkG; 05/05/1906:50 AM.
The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in Gives way and suddenly it’s day again The sun is in the east Even though the day is done Two suns in the sunset, hmph Could be the human race is run
WOW... I hated infantry more than anything.. They would sling Heaters at you just out of range of the M261's and it would require 2x2 rocket salvos to kill them...
I don't understand how you evaded all those missiles!! For me even when I was at my best, "INCOMING FRONT! INCOMING RIGHT!" was quickly followed by "We're HIT! We're HIT!".
Good job!!
I looked at some of my old Replays and it was really a good walk down memory lane! My game in DOSBOX seemed to always CRASH at some point in the PLAYBACK, though.. I haven't tried actually playing since recent attempts that were just TOO FAST.
You mentioned using 10,000 cycles in the other thread, but that is WAY too fast. I cranked it down to 3000 and was still too fast. Will play with it a little more now that I have the bug again..
As you mentioned in your video summary, the DOS version originally had a MAGIC altitude (I want to say 135 feet AGL) that would allow you to get within Rocket range (2.9 km) of any target without detection. In the patch, they "fixed" this so detection was more variable and my great strategy went out the window...
EDIT: So I flew a training sortie with 3000 cycles and it was actually playable. Interestingly, though, just as with the playback of the REPLAY, when the sound for "GOT PRIMARY!" played, the game crashed with sound looping which required a reboot to fix. Quitting DOSBOX not enough. ERROR MESSAGE in DOSBOX was "DMA SEGBOUND WRAPPING ERROR". Googling for a solution. This was DOSBox 0.74. Maybe an earlier version works better??
Tried it in DOSBOX 0.73 and it worked but instead of GOT PRIMARY voiceover, I got a <Swish Swish Swish> sound ant text for HQ:PRIMARY ACHIEVED. Can't recall if this was sometimes happening. I noticed that my DOSBOX 0.73 CONF had SB1 instead of SB16 as my 0.74 CONF.. so ONE MORE TEST
Also had trouble getting GS2K to recognize my RUDDER axis as ANALOG, but I programmed it and the Collective as DIGITAL so I can use the full COUGAR + Pedals setup..-
Hey Recluse, which version are you running? You can check it by entering the SETUP.EXE, it's in the upper right corner. I had no problems with 469.08 (with Islands & Ice Scenario Disk). The only problem I had was I got crash in the briefing when trying to check my objectives (when you press on the papers and the camera pans down), but I found that setting the cycles to not more than 10000 fixes that. I think I used DOSBox 0.74 for that but not 100% sure, the guy from that forum noted that going to DOSBox 0.73 fixed the issue for him. Note that the patch linked in that forum will update the game to 469.085 - the same version you will get with the CD-ROM release.
Regarding the controls - vanilla DOSBox can only recognize one USB controller AFAIK. If you have one joytsick and separate rudder pedals it will not see its axis. If that's the case you can combine the controls as one "device" with external software (ppjoy?) so DOSBox would see it as one controller and then set up the axis in DOSBox mapper accordingly. Or maybe there's custom DOSBox build that accepts several controlers? Can't say, didn't use them but you can google for "DAUM DOSBox".
Also, if you want to play Amiga version as in my vid you can use pre-built custom WinUAE build with Gunship and Gunship 2000 ECS and AGA version from here:
Pobierz: [10.59 MB] [1st link with EXE] [second link with protected RAR archive - password "tc"]
That's single EXE file, don't worry, it has no viruses, at least to my knowledge.
While in game you can press F12 to open WinUAE settings window, you can save your progress ("Extras" -> Save) - it uses savestate which dumps all RAM and CPU registers so you can save whenever you want in game, I only use it between the missions, so no cheating for me
The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in Gives way and suddenly it’s day again The sun is in the east Even though the day is done Two suns in the sunset, hmph Could be the human race is run
Hey Recluse, which version are you running? You can check it by entering the SETUP.EXE, it's in the upper right corner. I had no problems with 469.08 (with Islands & Ice Scenario Disk). The only problem I had was I got crash in the briefing when trying to check my objectives (when you press on the papers and the camera pans down), but I found that setting the cycles to not more than 10000 fixes that. I think I used DOSBox 0.74 for that but not 100% sure, the guy from that forum noted that going to DOSBox 0.73 fixed the issue for him. Note that the patch linked in that forum will update the game to 469.085 - the same version you will get with the CD-ROM release.
Regarding the controls - vanilla DOSBox can only recognize one USB controller AFAIK. If you have one joytsick and separate rudder pedals it will not see its axis. If that's the case you can combine the controls as one "device" with external software (ppjoy?) so DOSBox would see it as one controller and then set up the axis in DOSBox mapper accordingly. Or maybe there's custom DOSBox build that accepts several controlers? Can't say, didn't use them but you can google for "DAUM DOSBox".
I am running the latest patched I&I version 429.085
I seem to recall when I had Janes Apache Longbow (DOS) running under DOSBOX, it recognized the Rudders just fine. I created a COUGAR profile with DIGITAL axes for Collective and Rudder rather than messing with the ANALOG axes and everything is working pretty well control-wise
I think I still have my ORIGINAL install copied over from my old 286, but I think THIS install is from some Abandonware download since my original boxes have 5.25" floppies
Last edited by Recluse; 05/05/1903:28 PM.
Long system spec sig follows:
PowerSpec G436 Lian Li ATX 205 MSI Z490 Plus Motherboard Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz 32 GB RAM DDR4 1600 Nvidia RTX3070
I am running the latest patched I&I version 429.085
I seem to recall when I had Janes Apache Longbow (DOS) running under DOSBOX, it recognized the Rudders just fine. I created a COUGAR profile with DIGITAL axes for Collective and Rudder rather than messing with the ANALOG axes and everything is working pretty well control-wise
I think I still have my ORIGINAL install copied over from my old 286, but I think THIS install is from some Abandonware download since my original boxes have 5.25" floppies
Nice, I have 3,5" floppy version (4 disks), though I'm not even sure if the floppies still work. I could chekc them since I still have an old 386 with floppy drive in the basement collecting dust. My newest PC at home doesn't sport even a DVD drive not to mention a floppy drive You can still buy one on USB though. The version I run is also probably from some abandonware site (I suspect the Home of the Underdogs when it still provided downloads). After checking it out today after so long I have to say missile avoidance is a bit harder in PC version.
If you want I could provide you a working PC Install. My current copy was copied over from (however I did it) on my old XP machine. Good Old DOS.. NO REGISTRY entries.
I also found I have zip files with the 2 I&I disk contents and probably also have zips of the original GS2000 disks SOMEWHERE. I also have the very handy GS2KED program which allows you to edit your roster, changing ranks, decorations, experience etc.. for all pilots. A bit more full featured than using the DRAWER to recover after a bad dream
I used it routinely when I wanted to start a new squad but didn't want to go through the process of flying SINGLE missions to rank up so I could get command. I always found the SINGLE missions hardest esp since PRIMARY and SECONDARY were usually incredibly far apart... I also have a PDF with just the I&I GPS codes...
Long system spec sig follows:
PowerSpec G436 Lian Li ATX 205 MSI Z490 Plus Motherboard Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz 32 GB RAM DDR4 1600 Nvidia RTX3070