[BarracksDripBucket]

Nice, glad to hear you made it through.


That's interesting - I don't think I've changed anything related to the ending, but I'll see if I can replicate/fix that!

Just beat WC1 for the first time ever thanks to your mod. Thanks so much for this!

I also had the problem with the ending. It just stuck on the medal screen. I didn't know if it was normal since I've never beat it before, but compared a YouTube video.

On the whole ran really great. I did have an issue once where the joystick froze. Also on a few occasions got a hissing sound on loop which wouldn't go away until I quit.

 

[AllTinker]

Just beat WC1 for the first time ever thanks to your mod. Thanks so much for this!

I also had the problem with the ending. It just stuck on the medal screen. I didn't know if it was normal since I've never beat it before, but compared a YouTube video.

On the whole ran really great. I did have an issue once where the joystick froze. Also on a few occasions got a hissing sound on loop which wouldn't go away until I quit.

Nice, thanks for the feedback!

Was this on DOSBox? If so, the bundled one?

The hissing thing is an old bug in their Adlib driver which I tried to reduce, but clearly haven't eliminated. Basically their system for allocating channels for music/sound stumbles over itself and corrupts the driver/chip state. I have a plan to fix it...

The next version is taking a while because I've decided to target WC2 as well, and it's a pretty involved process; but WC1 will also see some major new improvements if it all works out.

 

[BarracksDripBucket]

Nice, thanks for the feedback!

Was this on DOSBox? If so, the bundled one?

The hissing thing is an old bug in their Adlib driver which I tried to reduce, but clearly haven't eliminated. Basically their system for allocating channels for music/sound stumbles over itself and corrupts the driver/chip state. I have a plan to fix it...

The next version is taking a while because I've decided to target WC2 as well, and it's a pretty involved process; but WC1 will also see some major new improvements if it all works out.

Yup your bundled DOSBox package.

To be honest considering how many hours I put in over the last few weeks (I really sucked and retried missions many times!) the issues occurred very rarely.

Great to hear you're working on WC2 too! But I thought it didn't have the speed issues like the first one?

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Great to hear you're working on WC2 too! But I thought it didn't have the speed issues like the first one?

It doesn't ruin the gameplay like WC1 but there are some aspects that need fixing -- like the mouths moving too fast in the cutscenes or the ships flying out of frame in the debriefings.

 

[kingmakeress]

The next version is taking a while because I've decided to target WC2 as well,

Great news!

 

[BarracksDripBucket]

It doesn't ruin the gameplay like WC1 but there are some aspects that need fixing -- like the mouths moving too fast in the cutscenes or the ships flying out of frame in the debriefings.

Just started WC2 using DOSBox and see what you mean. Some animations run too fast, and other sequences like the autopilot flyby. Not too bad overall though.

One thing I miss from the mod are the additional 2 buttons used for after burner and throttle. Using combinations and double presses with the default 2 buttons is a bit of a pain.

 

[AllTinker]

Just a quick update - I've figured out the ending bug. It only occurs if you're using a joystick/gamepad. The only downside to my fix is that only the keyboard will advance past the medals screen, but it's better than just becoming unresponsive.

There'll be a new release pretty soon, which I'm going to call 1.0. It also fixes some issues in the launcher, at least one of which may have been contributing to some of the weirder problems people have seen, especially on real hardware. It also adds an option to adjust the space blue level and should help with SBEMU support amongst other things.

1.0 isn't the end of the road obviously, it's just that the things I want to do next require a bit of a different approach, and I have no idea how long it's going to take to get there. But it'll be how it gets to WC2, and some exciting new possibilities for WC1.

 

[DarkenedRoom]

Been updating all of the DOSBox Staging configs to v0.83.0-RC1 including Wing Commander with the WCAT mod. You'll be pleased to know it seems to work without issue. The changes for v0.83.0-RC1 result in a very small config, with some settings now the default in RC1. Most settings are now 'personal preference' settings like MT32 or the joystick settings. You can find my example config below if it helps. You can also find some more RC1 examples for Privateer and Privateer 2 here: https://www.tales-from-darkenedroom...uccessful-dosbox-staging-candidate-part-2-g-z

 

[Panther1.0]

Hey ALLTinker, great work, i'm a little late on this, life been keeping me busy, lol

nice to see the time and love you put into this..
cheers!

 

[Darkmatter]

You've been able to dig pretty deep into WC1's code if you've made that many improvements. I was curious if you had any intention of seeing if you can up the resolution of either the game itself, or the max resolution of the various sprite sheets? Number of sprites per sheet/ship, res size, etc?

Or would WC choke on it's own code if you tried to modify that?

Either way, nice work!

 

[kingmakeress]

Or would WC choke on it's own code if you tried to modify that?

That is my question as well.

 

[AllTinker]

I was curious if you had any intention of seeing if you can up the resolution of either the game itself, or the max resolution of the various sprite sheets? Number of sprites per sheet/ship, res size, etc?

I've made exciting strides on a completely different approach for "WCAT 2.0" which will allow far more drastic code changes - potentially things like this - while still running on vintage DOS hardware. I'll go into more details once I have something to show.

Having come this far I'm committed to seeing WCAT for WC1/2 to its logical conclusion before I get back to Confederation - it's only going to make it better than it would have been otherwise.

I'm happy to get into the details of what the technical challenges are; beyond just my current approach - (mostly) hand-editing machine code in a hex editor. But suffice to say there's very good reasons why experiments with that sort of thing have been restricted to the Windows versions (e.g. Kilrathi Saga). I'm aiming to change that, partly because the DOS versions are my personally preferred way to play WC1/2.

 

[Darkmatter]

I've made exciting strides on a completely different approach for "WCAT 2.0" which will allow far more drastic code changes - potentially things like this - while still running on vintage DOS hardware. I'll go into more details once I have something to show.

Having come this far I'm committed to seeing WCAT for WC1/2 to its logical conclusion before I get back to Confederation - it's only going to make it better than it would have been otherwise.

I'm happy to get into the details of what the technical challenges are; beyond just my current approach - (mostly) hand-editing machine code in a hex editor. But suffice to say there's very good reasons why experiments with that sort of thing have been restricted to the Windows versions (e.g. Kilrathi Saga). I'm aiming to change that, partly because the DOS versions are my personally preferred way to play WC1/2.

My first experience with WC was when WC1 first came out on DOS, but I'm curious as to why it's your preferred way of playing?

 

[AllTinker]

It's all entirely subjective of course. There's a few subtle things - I particularly prefer the DOS renditions of the music - but at the same time there's Kilrathi Saga features I want to "backport" to the DOS version.

 

[Barbaros]

Hello everyone,

I'm playing WC1 on a real MS-DOS 6.22 retro computer.

I have a Thrustmaster F-16 FLCS joystick and a TQS throttle.
As soon as I go to 4-axis in the menu and select HOTAS at the bottom, the mouse cursor hikes in a random direction as soon as I click Recalibrate.
I've tried several things, but the hike always occurs.
Even if I exit the menu with the Back button, the joystick isn't recognized in the game.
Everything works perfectly with 2-axis control.
Additionally, the joystick and throttle are displayed as not recognized, even though I successfully tested the combination with diagnostic tools.
Could there be a problem with the Thrustmaster HOTAS support in W.C.A.T.?

I've also noticed another problem when switching the audio from AdLib to MT-32. I don't have an MT-32 yet, but I plan to get one.
After switching in the menu, the game no longer starts.
Is this because I don't have an MT-32 yet, or is it a bug?

Barbaros

 

[SpaceProbe]

Since I'm finished with WC1 I'd like to replay WC2 at some point, here's hoping for a W2CAT arriving anytime in the not too distant future

 

[AllTinker]

Could there be a problem with the Thrustmaster HOTAS support in W.C.A.T.?

Give it a try in "[3-Axis] Linear Throttle" mode - Thrustmaster HOTAS sticks use a custom protocol which WCAT doesn't (directly) support. As I understand it, they use the 4th axis as a digital encoding channel, which would look like nonsense to software without specific support. I'll see if there's anything more I can do for 1.0 to sidestep the issues - unfortunately I don't have one to test with, and it's a bit out of reach at the minute...

Also you can hit Alt-J to recalibrate without having to click on the menu item. I don't think that's labelled too well in the current release.

I'm definitely keen to add proper support for Thrustmaster, along with the CH Products and Sidewinder protocols, but I'm 99% sure it's going to have to wait for WCAT 2.0... That's a while away yet though - I really need to get 1.0 out first. Should be in the next week or two I hope!

Is this because I don't have an MT-32 yet, or is it a bug?

Definitely not a bug in WCAT - it might be something about how WC implemented MPU Intelligent Mode I suppose - it works fine with a real MT-32 though (or MT-32pi, MUNT etc.).

here's hoping for a W2CAT arriving anytime in the not too distant future

Working on it! I'm hoping I'll be able to add at least basic support for WC2 prior to WCAT 2.0.

 

[deUS]

I have a t.flight hota x.
4 axis are beeing recognized but two of them are misplaced.
X and Y of the joystich are fine but the z-axis controls the speed. And the thrust lever controls the rolling.
I will try to adjust it with joystick gremlin.

 

[AllTinker]

X and Y of the joystich are fine but the z-axis controls the speed. And the thrust lever controls the rolling.
I will try to adjust it with joystick gremlin.

Interesting! You should also be able to change this with the DOSBox mapper (Ctrl-F1).

I'll have to add an option so you can explicitly set what axis 3/4 do. That should help with all non-standard sticks - including Thrustmaster FCS etc.

 

[Barbaros]

Give it a try in "[3-Axis] Linear Throttle" mode - Thrustmaster HOTAS sticks use a custom protocol which WCAT doesn't (directly) support. As I understand it, they use the 4th axis as a digital encoding channel, which would look like nonsense to software without specific support. I'll see if there's anything more I can do for 1.0 to sidestep the issues - unfortunately I don't have one to test with, and it's a bit out of reach at the minute...

Also you can hit Alt-J to recalibrate without having to click on the menu item. I don't think that's labelled too well in the current release.

I'm definitely keen to add proper support for Thrustmaster, along with the CH Products and Sidewinder protocols, but I'm 99% sure it's going to have to wait for WCAT 2.0... That's a while away yet though - I really need to get 1.0 out first. Should be in the next week or two I hope!

I re-enabled the joystick with 4 axes and HOTAS as a linear throttle.
After clicking "Click to redetect," the mouse cursor hikes to a corner again.
Then I pressed Alt+J and was actually able to recalibrate the joystick. After that, the mouse cursor no longer hikes.

However, under Joystick, it says "No secondary joystick connected," and the joystick no longer works in the game.
With 2 axes and 4 buttons, everything works perfectly; it only doesn't work with throttle and 4-axis mode.

Perhaps a 3-axis selection needs to be implemented for the Thrustmaster TQS, since, to my knowledge, the TQS only has one analog axis, not two. I would be very happy if this could be taken into account in future versions.
Attached is a screenshot of the launcher with the settings I've made.

If you need further testing with the FLCS+TQS, I'd be happy to help.

I've created a B50 and M50 configuration file for the Thrustmaster F-16 FLCS for WC1.
I've assigned all the buttons on the FLCS to them; it might be useful for other FLCS users. I'm also sending it along.