A brief history of EAW Code Group releases

[Moggy]

NOTE: this topic is intended to be a very brief history of the work done by The Code Group over the last two decades. It does not therefore go into technical details in great depth. If you have any questions, please ask by posting on the board. We'll do our best to answer. For simplicity the main features of each staged release are set out. In reality since 2006 there has been continuous development of EAW by the Code Group, and after the main release at each stage it was usual practice to issue periodic updates including new features

How it Began

"The coders group is comprised of SEAWC members who, along with others, work 'behind the scenes' to develop EAW, such as the 1.28 release"
Sandbagger 31st October 2008

When the EAW Code Group was first formed In 2004, members of the Group were already in discussion with some of the original EAW programmers and Atari Interactive, the company which held the rights, to see what the possibilities were, but it was feared that a complete copy of the EAW source code had already been lost.

In that year, this board, The Gen, was established and became the place where the Code Group could discuss their work.

Although there was general agreement that EAW had been released "unfinished", Atari Interactive had no further plans to develop EAW themselves, and in 2005 an agreement was reached with the Chief Executive. That agreement enabled the EAW Code Group to develop the EAW source code and discuss development with the original programmers who had worked on the title. Atari Interactive thanked us for our interest and passion for the game, and wished us the best.

Working with the original programmers a complete copy of the code was unearthed in Feb 2006. With further help from the original programmers the Code Group were able to compile the code and by July 2006 had a fully functional system. Work then began to produce the first wholly new compiled version of eaw.exe since 1.2 was released by Microprose in 1999.

In 2007 Atari Interactive were happy to extend the agreement indefinitely in these terms "You may do as you wish for your further enjoyment of this title for non-profit reasons only ... the agreement shall be seen as seen as final, for an indefinite period" So it is that the subsequent releases by the EAW Code Group are developments of the EAW source code properly permitted by the copyright owners.

Contents of this thread:

EAW 1.28 released June 2008

EAW 1.28A released June 2009

EAW 1.28B released July 2009

EAW 1.28C released October 2009

EAW 1.28D released Dec 2009

EAW 128E released August 2010

EAW 128F released February 2012

EAW 129 released March 2013

EAW 130 released November 2013

EAW 140 released December 2014

UAW 150 released July 2016

UAW 160 released February 2020, the current version

[Moggy]

EAW 1.28 released June 2008

EAW 1.2 always had its data files in a set of 23 CDF archive files, and the 1.28 release was a patch for an existing 1.2 installation, which included the new exe and some edited CDF files.

Improvements and enhancements in gameplay:

Updated Flight / Damage modelling for the 30 default planes utilising the new exe's improved gun damage routines. This corrects the relationship between small mgs and medium mgs/cannons. Damaged flight controls (with explosions) will increase drag, but are still partially effective. Improved,more aggressive AI behaviour, and Escorts that really escort! Destroyable tailgunners in bombers. New engine temperature handling. Combat flaps for most fighters. New take-off and landing routines, be careful with that rudder or the undercarriage will break! New aircraft parking routines. Fixed load-outs. Accelerated time even close to the enemy is possible. Improved AAA, be careful around enemy airfields! Night fighters get a form of radar during night missions on Ace setting. Four engined bombers are flyable from groundstarts, and individual engines can be started or stopped. "Bomber stream" night bomber formations.

Gun convergence set at historical ranges and gunsight reticule size adjustable from a value in eaw.ini. "Realistic Gunnery" amended, and now the only difference is the bullet damage gets increased by a factor of 1.5 when "off"

Dustclouds on the runways and glaring sun including nicer sunsets, great for hiding planes in no icons games! New explosions and craters. Falling debris from cannon hits on aircraft. Wrecks for crashed planes. Improved cockpits on some aircraft including nicer rearview graphics. Bullet smoke trails. Gun flashes from muzzles, visible from inside/outside cockpit. Improved contrails with adjusted appearance altitude. More people on the ground and birds in the air. Baled pilots become 3D Parachutists with corrected decent rate. Correct pre-decimal currency in UK/US leave passes. Giant shadows bug that appeared at low levels is fixed. Fully ungarbled cockpit fix.

F9 view available almost down to ground level and Extended field of view in 1024 x 768 mode

A two aircraft selection screen option, Axis and Allied, with the colour of the text being changed by left-clicking at the bottom of the screen and selecting from the popup colour palette. Any flyable plane except for the V1 is listed for selection in single missions. Interdiction missions allow you to select the type of convoy and the size. Adjusted altitude bands for missions. Alternative Quickstart missions available with ini toggle. Ability to make fighter sweeps over friendly territory. "Players Skill" set in Configure Game/Difficulty/Combat now limits viewing options and icon range.

Separate sound ini's and related "Sounds" folder and New individual sounds for each aircraft, with added Doppler effect and an increase in volume during dives.

Ground object damagemodel updated and ground vehicles (train, trucks etc) resized. Moving ship convoys. Up to 255 Ground object types nowavailable, and there are different allied and axis vehicles and trains.

Frames Per Second now printed on screen with "Ctrl G"

Many bugfixes to the default game

Improvements to multiplayer:

The host can set the target, friendly and enemy bases, types of AI planes, whether you respawn after dying, whether your squad includes AI plane, and several other things. The "Difficulty" setting limits ingame viewing options and icon range. Interdiction types and sizes can be set, as in single mission mode. Multiplayer settings can be created in a text file and loaded by the host

Remember the modders!

Importantly, EAW 128 began the work of moving the data tables within the exe, into external data files. All through the source code you can read the original programmers' notes that this data "must be moved into an external file", but this had not been done when the original EAW 1.0 was released, and still had not been done when 1.2 was released.

As a start. in 128 the data relating to ground objects could be saved in an external "TMod.dat" file, the data relating to ship convoy waypoints could be saved in an external "convoys.dat" file, and the data relating to aircraft formations could be saved in a "Frmation.dat" file. These files could be made and changed by editors, and If any of them are present in the EAW folder the new exe would use those file in preference to the hard encoded tables in the exe. This was modders' delight!

[Moggy]

EAW 1.28A released June 2009

128A arrived a year after the release of 128. Building on the success of that first patch, 128A provided a large list of ground-breaking additions, as well as many important bugfixes to the original game. In many ways it achieved more than the original 128.

Improvements and enhancements in gameplay:

Changes to Flight Models, including the Fw109A and Spitfire IXc modelling better performance more correct for the mid 1943 time period. The Ai defensive and offensive maneuver routines rewritten. The AI´s shoot better if under G forces. AI planes now 'follow' moving ground targets when doing interdict missions. A new engine burn sequence included. Engines can now be destroyed now without fire, but they also can burn forever. The pilot will die, if a single engined plane doesn't stop burning. Try a high speed dive to put out the fire! The stall routine got adjusted so planes can spin in both directions. Full flaps only selectable for the all Spitfire planes, as is historically correct. Ordnance weight remains correct during flight. If you fire your guns the weight of bullets is reduced correctly. If you drop a bomb the weight and drag of the bomb rack remains. In single missions and carrier mode random encounters, planes which spawn from airfields as you are on the way to a target. "Scramble encounter groups" now only will appear if we fly below 12000 feet. Friendly groundstarted encounter groups are also possible. Radar related encounter groups appear mainly in the air, rather big distances from their homebase. Airfield related encounters appear only if you get rather close to an enemy base in rather low altitude. Overheat routine changed so air cooled engines can smoke when damaged without overheat, until the oil is empty. Aircooled engines will cool down slower and heat up faster at slower speeds. An engine 'rated altitude' was introduced for all planes. Above this altitude, the engines almost dont overheat. Autoclimb offline, by selecting "Autopilot" two times. This feature puts the plane into a sustained climb that accounts for engine temperature and power changes. The bail out routine was disabled if the plane is below 30 feet alt! If we land and bail out, we will see the pilot running away and we don't count as being dead. The undercarriage will extend only one more time after the hydraulic are damaged. This will happen without sound as there is no power used! Then it wont retract! Landing gear is more delicate and craters are real so be careful on bombed runways.

The ability to fly from or land on carriers with a flight deck 60 feet high, set as airfields anywhere on a water tile. AI routines were adjusted to allow AI to takeoff or land on carriers. The ability to fly from or land on water in seaplanes.

German single mission intercepts and Allied single mission escorts are now possible in 1940, if 1940 Allied bombers are present (therefore not by default). Squads can have 16 planes while doing interdict and bomb mission.

Every plane could now have one gun pod option, selectable from the loadout screen. Working torpedoes (including wakes) now a loadout option in single missions, and are loaded if bombs are chosen for a online "Ship" interdiction mission. The AI can use then successfully also. A "computed gunsight" triggered by a flight model value and additionally the user can disable it in eaw.ini. The "gyro" gunsight only works in "gunsight mode"(1st step zoom). It gets adjusted to the movements of the currently toggled target (icon), otherwise to the closest target. The gunsight adjusts the reticule in relation to your own and the targets G-force. So it won't work as well if your plane has a different bank angle than your opponent. The gunsight was currently activated only for the P51D, P47D, Me262A, Bf109K, FW190D9, Spit14 and TempestV.

Time acceleration now goes in smaller steps upward: 2,4,8,12,16,20,24,28,32,36 to max 40, this decreases the probability of crashing by accident.

Now when using "Control G", in addition to fps the current plane weight (in lb and kg) and the IAS speed (in km/h and mph) gets displayed. This is very useful for testing. You can see the weight of the loadout, of racks, of the used fuel and you can see the weight reduction when you shoot the guns. The fuel weight/Volume display calculation adjusted so that British planes now use "Gallon UK", US planes "Gallon US" (like before), while for German planes the calculation now shows the right litres.

Control of head movement position in snapviews for each plane by values in 30 "vc_offset_**.mpf" files inside the savedata folder. An editor, EAWMUtilityV2.exe included to allow people to edit them to their personal preference. 4 steps zoom: If you push snapview forward (usually hat switch), the pilot will move rearward. This offers the sight to the gauges and around the frames. If zoomed in, we have also a Y offset, so although zoomed in, the pilot isn't that close to the gunsight. This is a perfect attack view. Padlock used to be disabled when the plane stalled, now it only will get disabled when the plane spins. The current frontline gets displayed in multiplayer or single mission briefing and inflight maps.

New "gun selection/fire" system

Primary guns, secondary guns, additional guns. What's the difference? It depends on the flight model setup for a particular plane. This allows for every plane to have six "gun groups". The guns set up in the first group (ie say canons) are regarded as the 'primary guns'. Those in the second group (ie say machine guns) are the 'secondary guns'. Any other pilot controlled guns in groups 3 to 6 are 'additional guns'.

The Code Group wanted a new way to deal with all the guns installed on a particular plane which would be quick and simple to use in the heat of a dogfight. With 128A there was now no need to switch through different, in most cases not needed, gun setups anymore, instead the new setup involved up to three main “fire buttons”, as is historically accurate in real planes of the period. To shoot all guns (including primary, secondary, and additional guns) with one and the same button, “FIRE ALL (selected) GUNS” remained, but additionally there was now an option to “FIRE PRIMARY GUNS” only, and also to “FIRE SECONDARY GUNS” only.

But What of the 'additional guns'? These might include for example the gun pods of the Bf 109G6 and the outer wing guns of the FW190A4. What if you needed to fire primary and secondary guns (ie canons and machine guns) without firing the additional guns (ie gun pods) or on the contrary if you needed to fire the additional guns (ie gunpods) without firing primary or secondary guns? This is dealt with by two other new commands. The toggle “ADDITIONAL GUNS ON/OFF” removes the 'additional guns' from the FIRE ALL GUNS command, and also from the “FIRE SECONDARY GUNS” command. So you can fire (ie) the cannons and machne guns, or just the machine guns without firing the (ie) gun pods. Lastly there is the option to fire only the "additional guns", which is selected with the new “ADDITIONAL GUNS BUTTON SWAP”. If this is selected, the “ADDITIONAL GUNS ON/OFF” command acts as “FIRE ADDITIONAL GUNS” button. The ability to fire the additional guns separately become more obvious when the additional guns don’t shoot to the same direction as the other guns - such as “Schäge Musik” guns in German night fighters, for straight rearward firing guns in some German planes, and for some ground attack guns, adjusted to shoot downward.

Graphic Enhancements

Multi Skins now possible for all plane squadrons. Where the skinners have created skins which display variant markings, colours and codes within a squadron, these will be displayed. Some skins were already in 24 bit colour bitmaps. A Flaps action code was now available so that 3dz models could be built in which flaps (including diveflaps, if fitted) would graphically deploy and retract. Ground battle explosions introduced near frontline. Airfields which allowed the underlying terrain to show through were now possible. Transparent ground object shadows implemented. Usable Aircraft Carriers. . Frontline people sprites implemented. Different gunsight reticule for each type of plane. Terrain shimmering partially fixed. Keibins Horizon 5 implemented as default horizen graphic. A fix for 109E4 cockpit was implemented sorting out the propeller position and more smooth propeller graphic.

Enhancements to Multiplayer

The most important change was vastly improved stability allowing up to 16 human pilots (including for 16 player ingame chat, including about nearly 100 AI planes depending on your connection speed. The ability of the host to select both primary and secondary bases for friendly and enemy. This allows meaningful escorts/intercepts in real time, with fighters from one base and bombers from another. Some fixes regarding the online briefing: 1. If "Mayhem" is selected, no AI planes will get displayed anymore. 2. If "Mayhem" is selected, "starting point" "high altitude" and "low altitude" get displayed. 3. Mayhems wont show "respawn" and "No Ai´s" anymore. In Green and Veteran mode ALL active planes show an icon on the map. In Ace mode only the friendly planes show an icon. The engine status (run or stopped) gets transmitted, so now we can see if someone shuts down their engine. The "Host Sound Bug", where the host player could not hear bullets hitting his plane, is fixed. The multiplayer debriefing screen now works for all known card/driver combinations, including glide users. Autoclimb "Shift A" is now available.

Bugfixes

AI speed when using IAS on the HUD is now correct. The gun ground attack routine was fixed (strafing planes almost never used guns while making ground attacks). Turrets will work on all convoy ships. The regroup order while escorting missions was fixed (if there is a 2nd escorting group, it now won’t return to base). The strange "nose down" movement below 100 feet altitude (when HUD turns red) got disabled. Big bombers had real problems, now they are able to land better. Mr.Jelly’s 7217 fix was added by default. This cures many instants of this type of error. The code Group was still researching the ultimate fix for this problem.

For the modders!

The possibility to add 5 additional terrain tile types. The max number of runways got increased to 32, The take off style gets triggered by the runway type (carrier-short, grass-WWI, concrete/steel mat-normal). Bombers and multi engined planes always use the normal take off (if not RW_CARRIER). Close to the frontline, the ground objects (tanks, people etc) can be side specific (eg. German, Allied) if the right ground object numbering is used. An external "Year.dat" was introduced for scenarios which don't take place in the deafault EAW years. The "Year.dat" entries are displayed on the briefing screens(black chalkboard background) and in the logbook.

[Moggy]

EAW 1.28B released July 2009

This was a small package which upgraded 128A to implement the results of Code Group work that had not been finished in time for the release of 128A, but which it was felt should not await a further major upgrade.

The major feature of 128B was a boon to modders, introduction of the CDF pointer system. The CDF archive files conained the basic files - graphics, 3dz models, fligh models etc which EAW needed to run. This enhancement enabled modders to release complete packs in custom made CDF files, with an accompanying "CDF.set" file. In 128B a new CDF which was introduced named "CDF.CDF". This contained the default "CDF.set" file which this exe reads for the CDF names to use. It will use a "CDF.set" file in the EAW directory in preference if one is present.

Two CDF files (FLT and DATA) have been replaced with improved versions.

The online CTD after all enemies are down (on escorts) has been fixed. The groundstarted encounter groups are back. An "AutoCombat" EAW.ini entry has been added which will let the players plane fight as an AI plane, on autopilot if the player has an enemy plane target selected.

Ground battle explositions will show a water spash and no crater, if on water.

[Moggy]

EAW 1.28C released October 2009

128C was a significant achievement of the early Code Group work. It was the last Code Group release that had full backward compatibility with the original EAW release.

Major changes:

The "dir.set" system

The major achievement of 128C was to find a better way of dealing with multiple theatres. In order to use alternative theatres (Finland, Desert, Mediterranean, etc) the player either had to have multiple independent installs, or by one means or another, swap files into the root folder. Of course in order to load a different theatre the files had to be deleted from the root folder before the new ones could be loaded. This method could eventually lead to significant disk fragmentation. So the Code Group came up with a better one. It produced an exe that read a file in the root folder which contaned a list of paths to the files that the exe needed to load. This was "dir.set". Combined with the OAW utility it meant that swapping files in and was a thing of the past. Alternative theatres would now simply sit in their own folders and the exe would know where to look for them.

A new single mission system and flying by the Years and Seasons:

Other scenarios have dates before and after EAW’s ‘stock’ World War II years. 1.28c allows proper dating and seasonal changes of terrains. Month and day can now be selected in the single missions screen, and these values will be stored in the eaw.ini file. If the month value is between “=1” and “=12” (January to December), the game will provide a steadily increasing mission date in single, multiplayer and quick-mission mode, with every played mission. This does not influence the career date. If the current scenario has a “Use Seasons” presence file, the Month setting triggers the game play season. This can therefore determine the terrain and/or weather setups to be used. If the seasonal setup is activated, it automatically becomes a "host setting" in multiplayer mode, so everybody in game will get the same setting.

New Railways and shipping convoys system

Mr Jelly discovered that in the file which controlled the EAW railway layout, “EAW_RRD.dat”, there unused values. These were repurposed as a flag for each track section, a value from 0 to 99. The use of this was, if the value is divisible by 5 then the track section is rendered and visible in the game, otherwise it is invisible. This made it possible to have shipping convoys running on invisible tracks both at sea and on rivers. It also made it possible by use of “TListXX.mpf” files for different segments of either railways or such shipping convoys to have different composition. Trains running on ie German or Russian tracks could now look like German or Russian trains. Dutch barges could look like Dutch barges. The “TListXX.mpf” files make it entirely possible for a system of railway lines and inland and sea shipping convoys to operate in this way at the same time. This does not affect the other EAW system of making sea shipping convoys using "convoys.dat"

Expansion of external device control system

This now allowed (for example) two devices to be connected (stick and pedals).

Game play

Engine starts now require throttle management for more realistic flying. No gas, no start. Too much throttle and an explosive “wet start” of flame appears. Engine may be damaged by repeated wet starts or jamming the throttle forward too fast on a cold engine. A 2nd supercharger stage added for piston engines with high altitude capabilities. Multi- engined planes may lose a wing when a damaged engine burns too long. Tail gunners and AAA (ground fire) will not stop shooting when a plane engine just smokes. AI planes will avoid hills rather well now. They cannot be led to crash into a mountainside so easily anymore. Before 1918 dates, parachutes will not be available to pilots and crew. It was considered cowardly to use them.

A new type of convoy has been added for interdiction missions. Convoys composed mainly of warships can be selected for attack. If you choose either of the two "ship convoys" as target for an interdict mission, only targets that have a "ship convoy" are displayed on the preflight map. The campaign routines have been adjusted to make "bomber campaigns" better, with more dependable escorts. The V1 slot can now be used as an extra plane slot of another type. Any number up to 17 extra squads may be entered. This will produce a sky filled with aircraft, always an EAW specialty, with massive dogfights called “furballs”. Up to 256 aircraft seen at once. Heavy flak accuracy and rate of fire can be varied.

the ingame HUD display fonts can be switched to large. Keyboard Language can be changed to different national settings. A number of new action codes have been added to the 3dz modelling. Most are codes for additional damage types.

1.28C MiniPatches

Two mini patches were released shortly after the main release, again to incorporate work that had not been finished in time for the major release.

The first patch implemented an eaw.ini line which enabled the cockpit propeller view to be toggled on and off (useful for screen shots), changed the control for offline autoclimb, and as requested by the modders provided that where a "Music" folder has been provided by a Scenario maker then it will be used if it is in the Scenario folder.

The second patch installed the DirSetExeManagerV5 filemanager. Working with the new "dir.set" system, this now enabled a player to select one of three versions of the eaw.exe, and eight scenarios/theatres in addition to the default 1.28C ETO theatre which had the Allied Carrier. The theatres were DAW, KAW, Malta, Russia-Germany (winter), SWOTL, SPAW, SPAW45 and SAW.

EAW 128C Download

Jel has made a more up to date installation of EAW 128C for those who would like to give it try. Get it from here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QIg54d ... sp=sharing

This downloads a 7Zip which when unzipped creates a "1.28c_JellyPack" folder with a complete 128C installation. To fly simply run EAW "1.28C Theatre Selector.exe" which is a simple Manager programme. Choose which exe to use (original EAW pilot map "OldMap" the newer Pilot map system "NewMap" - try out both!) and then choose which theatre to fly in. Choose from the default ETO and others including the desert, Malta, South Pacific, Spain, and Korea.

EAW 128C retains backward compatibility with the original Microprose release, so aircraft skins and models, and screens etc which you can download from old EAW 1.2 sites such as Sandbaggers Tally HO! can still be used by dropping them into the 128C root folder.

[Moggy]

EAW 1.28D released Dec 2009

This was really an interim release to incorporate Crashing Jack's work on 1024x768 screens, but incorporated new work by Jel and Knegel on online multiplayer.

General features

All screens and menus changed to 1024 x 768 resolution. This had several effects. For the vast majority. computers suffering the 7217 error (which was fixed in 1.28b) but still suffer screen tearing, and also for those that do not display the briefing screens properly, these problems should be fixed.

New Career screen and sprites. The hanger screens have had the sprites removed. The multiplayer selection screen has a new layout. The debriefing screen has a new look, and you first appear before your CO. The "fuel gauge" before entering the flying portion of the game now appears if your ini setting is 1024 x 768. Each nationality now has it's own arming screen. These are CHALK3D.MPC (US or Default), CHALK4D.MPC (German), and CHALK5D.MPC (British). If chalk4d.mpc and chalk5d.mpc are not present, the game will default to chalk3d.mpc.

The WSPRITES.CDF has all the hanger sprites removed, and some custom ones added. The PIC.CDF file has all the "extra" graphics removed that are not used in the game. This was done to decrease the download by 9 megabytes.

Multiple controllers. You can now add rudder peadls or a seperate throttle to your set up. The Mousewheel can be used as a throttle by setting Set Throttle Device=0 in the eaw.ini file. This is very handy for those that use mouselook to look around. Now you don't have to take your hand off the mouse to adjust the throttle.

"War Emergency Power," implemented for planes that are modeled with the feature. When you start a game, WEP is available by default. By pushing "Throttle 100%", you will deactivate it, then the Max Throttle will be reduced to a value where the engine wont overheat in normal flight (if you park on the runway with max throttle, the engine still might overheat). Pushing "Throttle 100%" again will re-enable the maximum possible Throttle. This should help you to fly with the best plane performance, without cocking your engine. If you take a look at the rpm, you will see that only a little reduction in throttle is needed to prevent overheating.

The "computed Gunsight" has been fixed. Before the EAW.28c release some code for this was lost, and it has been re-introduced. The default setting for this is 300 which sets the deflection range to 300 metres. You can try variations.

On-line multiplayer features

A new rearming feature: just land and move close to a hanger and wait a bit to rearm. While waiting for the guns to be rearmed, you can select a loadout (if available for your plane-type) by keyboard commands. If you choose a loadout that is not available for your plane, then "Unloaded" is displayed.

The "Kill Shooter" feature. This keeps people from sniping at you when you spawn in online play. As long as you fly low with your gear down, anyone shooting at you is killed instead. This gives you a chance to get into the air before someone can shoot you down. Another online feature is that when you drop a bomb, it will no longer appear to stay on the hardpoint. This was a bug in the default game. When in Online Multiplayer mode, when a player is using the "Chat" feature, his guns won't shoot.

You can now join a game already in progress. If it is an air started mission, you can join up to the mission setup screen. At this point you can join in the chat for the game and let them know you are there. This makes it easier for a new player to join a game, instead of waiting for a game to end and someone to show up in the chat room. If it is a ground started mayhem, you can actually jump right into the game! This works very well for Team Mayhems, as up to 4 Home Bases can be selected. Up to four different plane types can be selected, but by the Host only. An advantage to this is that when a person joins a game, it is a bit random as to your plane type, and adds variety to the game instead of everyone picking the same aircraft. Now if you arrive a bit late to the game, you can still join in! In addition, if you need to leave the game to make some adjustment to your stick, resolution, graphic quality, or take out the trash, you can rejoin the game when you are ready and not have to wait for another session.

New "End Mission," "Quit Game," and "Pause" routines for Multiplayer. In the default game, accidentally pushing "Esc" or "Alt Q" would pasue the game for all. This situation is much worse when many people are playing (currnetly up to 16!). So, the "Pause" feature is not available in Multiplayer. To end a mission, you must press and HOLD the "Esc" key for a period of time (time differs depending on the speed of your computer). To quit the game, press and HOLD "Alt Q" for a period of time (again, time differs depending on the speed of your computer). In both cases, a "Yes/No" question will appear. "Warp" correction - cartwheeling planes due to lag and other issues - has been adjusted.

The Preflight chat now can be activated and stay "hot." By default we had to activate it every time we sent a message, usually by pressing any key. This was annoying, because the you had to press the first key of your message twice - once to activate, then to enter the letter into the chat. Now the chat will stay activated, until you make a "right mouse click." Then it stays deactivated, until you press another key.

[Moggy]

EAW 128E released August 2010

128E not only consolidated the work begun in 128C and 128D, but made a number of important changes

Creation of individual aircraft specific data

The biggest change in 1.28e is that individual aircraft data can be used. These "30 plane" files such as "planes.dat" were broken up into single plane files, which would enable aircraft inventory folders to be made for specific theatres. In these inventory folders different sets of folders for each slot would contain (1) flight data, and (2) graphical data (3dz files, skins, hangar etc). It was done this way so that although a user might choose an ETO, desert, or a South East Asian Spitfire V skin, the flight data could be the same. PlaneSounds00.mpf to PlaneSounds29.mpf would now set engine sound file numbers for startup and cruising individually for each of the 30 slots.

Before 128E we only could create static plane sets which meant that perhaps 50%(or more?) of an addon theatre download size was related to the plane set(Skins, hangar screens, mini pics, several dat files and the flt´s). To replace only one plane by another was complicated and could be frustrating. Now with 128E we could store each FM/DM and each skin(hangar screen, minipic) just one time and then load it into any wanted plane set.

The original “weapons.dat” file had two parts, weapons data followed by hardpoint data. This made it difficult to add new weapons types to the end of the weapons data section without overwriting the start of the hardpoint data section. Accordingly as part of this enhancement, the original weapons.dat file was divided into a new "weapons.dat" which conatained data only for the individual weapons and other loadouts, and a new "hrdpoint.dat" file which now contained the removed data for weapons stations (hardpoints),

The new "Planes" folder and "Planeset" folders

Introduction of "Planeset" folders for theatres. These folders contained "PDir.set" and "FMDir.set" files which enabled the exe to locate in which planes inventory folder the skin/model/hangar and flight data for each of the 30 planes was stored. The release came with a default "Planes" inventory folder and the "ETO_01" theatre with four planesets.

Kenegel's ETO_01 theatre was created as an example, to give an idea of how the new system could work. Althought the folders have particular static names (month names, season names, planeset1 to planeset10) for convenience, any file type could be placed in any of them. In placing files it was important to understand that the exe had a particular search pattern: 1. EAW root folder (Dir.set root), 2. The current game season Seasonal folder(if present), 3. The current game date Month folder(if present), 4. The currently selected Planeset folder (if present), 5. Now the remaining folders, like they are listed in the dir.set files, 6. 128E Folder root, 6. 128E Default CDF´s.

This created many possibilities: you can load 4 seasonal setups in the seasonal folder - additionally you can load frontline setups, weather setups etc into the month folders - additionally you can create 10 plane sets(or use the folders for other purpose). Keep in mind, if there is no Planeset available, each Month folder gets its own Savedata folder, so you could have 12 plane sets, all with their own savedata folder. Since the date switch with every mission, it would be possible to create a campaign, using just the single mission mode. Plane replacements, frontline movements etc could happen every month.

Mr Jelly's new "DirSetPicker" program enabled a player to load files from a "DirSets" folder. The new system made it relatively easy to revise popular scenarios reworked to run in 1.28e. The 128E package provided Desert Air war, A re-worked and reduced Finnish Air War with three planesets, South Pacific Air War (including the 1945 "What if?" scenario) and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. Other new and updated theatres were added later including the WWI Western Front Beta, Spanish Civil War, and ModSquad's revised Battleof Britain.

More realistic gunnery

Knegel put in great efforts to "de-arcadise" the default gunnery in stock EAW. This had for example, overlarge hit bubbles, resulting in too-easy kills from distances up to 1500m, even with small machine guns. The damage done by cannons was poor in relation to the basic machine guns. The complete bullet damage power routine was rewritten and a new "realistic gunnery off" routine was implemented, which made the gun power only slightly more powerful. Better AI ground attack behavior.

512x512 bitmap graphics

EAW could now use 512x512 bitmap textures in the game for aircraft and ground object skins.

Individual Ground object data files

In original EAW the data relating to ground objects was stored in the exe file. It was always the original programmers intention to move this data to an external file, but this was not done by the release of EAW 1.2. With 128 the data relating to ground objects was removed to an external "TMod.dat" file. Now in 128E that file was split so that each ground object could have its own individual TModXXX.dat file. With the increased number of ground objects which the game could handle, for modders, this made making ground object changes a lot easier.

Other enhancements

the selection of mission time relating to sunrise and sunset. A more flexible mainscreen menu system. 128 landscape objects per terrain tile rather than the old 64 objects per tile. Up to three controllers now supported. Numerous bugfixes and tweaks here and there. Up to 4 frontlines in single mission mode so it was now possible to generate a single mission campaign with many different frontlines, targets and planes per year.

Other new .mpf control files

ACP.mpf 'Alternative Career Plane' sets a plane number which a frustrated career pilot can use to switch to an aircraft type he would prefer to fly. frontline.mpf defines which of the available frontlines inside frntline.dat are used for the single missions. FlakData.mpf now sets the calibre and duration of light flak fire.

[Moggy]

EAW 128F released February 2012

An interim release, 128F implemented the work done by Will Gee on the format of "eaw.tm" which is the file that the exe reads to get the tile-map for the game. This new format allowed for four bytes per tile instead of one byte. This brought in the possibility of having many more terrain tile types.

The "TM2" System

The old terrain matrix file eaw.tm was replaced with "eaw32.tm". Utilities were provided to convert the old file to the new format. Many of the main changes associated with the TM2 system involve the moving of hard coded data from the eaw.exe into external files. The names of the terrain tiles were now stored in the new "TileBase.str" file. Some bump (water surface property) tile names were changed, and some new ones made. The hardcoded list which associated terrain tiles with areas of water, with the relevant bump tiles, was now in a file named "BumpVal.eaw".

As many new tiles could be introduced, the file which controlled the placing of non-target landscape objects on those tiles, "EAW_TTD.DAT", also needed reformating. It was replaced with the new "Geawttd2.dat" file. This has a header which includes the number of tiles in the set, and allows variation as modders build more scenarios with additional tiles.

New single mission sequence

As a consequence of work by Knegel on suggestions by Moggy, 128F implemented a new system of single mission flying by Knegel.

Single mission date and time could now be set in the single mission setup screen. Savedata folders in theatre folders will now contain separate folders for each aircraf slot. Single missions could now be saved to and loaded from these slot specific folders. To facilitate the editing of single mission files, the CRC check was removed. If you now created a series of single mission files in a particular slot's savedata subfolder, with filenames "FS100000.msn", "FS100001.msn", "FS100002.msn" etc the game will now allow these to be played automatically in sequence. If you now start EAW, choose that slot and go to the single mission setup screen, the first mission is loaded. If you end this mission, the next mission is loaded, and so on. If you leave the game before the last mission in the sequence has been flown, the last mission_num is stored in eaw.ini, so next time you play the game, you can carry on with the next mission in sequence. The player can also now load the first or any other mission of this sequence, and the sequence run from the loaded mission onward. So you also can refly a mission, then the sequence goes on. This single mission sequence system can be turned off and on in the single mission setup screen. Of course the player still can create customized missions, which will not affect the sequence (as long as there aren't more than 99999 missions saved in the folder!) So this was now a real little alternative campaign system.

Other improvements

Improved tracer colours and further improved routines for AI planes.

[Moggy]

EAW 129 released March 2013

This was the last Code Group release to use the original EAW aircraft slot system named after the default planes P109E, PP47C, etc.

New tile matrix size flexibility

This was the principal feature of 129. EAW had always used a tile matrix composed of 640x320 terrain tiles. As a consequence of work by Mr Jelly, 129 now had the ability to read tile-maps of different sizes which was ideal for theatres with a limited area of operations. A good example is the WW1 Western Front beta theatre created by Mr Jelly, which had a tile matrix of 265x160 tilemap. With this new system a different map file was needed, and "TargMap.pic" replaced "Europe1.pic". The new map exe used both “TargMap.pic” and the “TargMap1.pic” files which are basically the same picture but in different sizes, and are made from the “eaw32.tm” tile matrix file.

For example, The Western Front WWI beta has a 256x160 tilemap. The "new map" exe is programmed to look for a “Tileset.mpf” file in the root or theatre folder. The one for TWF has the values 256 and 160, and having read this the exe knows that the tilemap is 256x160 and works accordingly.
If no “Tileset.mpf” file is found by the exe, then the default 640x320 values are used.

Location specific convoys and different train tracks

128C had introduced the “Convoys.dat” external data file and the “shiplist.mpf” and “warlist.mpf” to determine ship or land convoy composition. 1.29 introduced a “Target.con” file. If for example Dover has an associated convoy and there a “Dover.con” file in the theatre folder, then if the player selected Dover as a ship interdiction target, the convoy composition in “Dover.con” is used in preference to the one in “Shiplist.mpf”.

First introduced during the latter stages of the 128F development cycle, and default in 129, “RTRACKXX.TER” files (ie “RTRACK05.TER” and “RTRACK10.TER”), versions of the “TRAIN32.TER” file which renders the railway track, are used instead if the track section flag flag is 5 or 10. This was how, for example, Mr Jelly was able to have a narrow gauge line as one of the four parallel lines running North from London. The system allowed for a different type of train convoy on each of the four lines, armoured goods, passenger and narrow gauge.

Other improvements

129 also incorporated other improvements which had been instroduced in later versions of 128F. A new "Game loading" screen displayed in all circumstances where the old "fuel guage" screen did not. This displayed the empty inflight map and displayed the percentage of files loading. The number of possible planesets within a theatre folder was increased from 10 to 20, and the selection of planeset could be made from the in-game config screen. Debris from damaged and non-damaged aircraft (torn off wings and also smaller debris, and also fallen droptanks) can now hit your aircraft and cause damage to you. Modders could now set the colour and extent of smoke and fire issuing from non-target ground objects. Good for damaged ships or buildings. The screenie view distance fix is in.

The single missions system was further enhanced by new routines setting the timing of sunrise and sunset. The sunrise time in June is 4:00 (when the yellow center of the sun starts to show up). The sun set time is 20:10 (the yellow part is gone, and the orange part dissapears around at 20:25). In December the sunrise is at around 8:300 and sunset is at around 16:00. This varied sunrise and sunset on a monthly basis, and the single mission setup screen actually showed the time of sunrise and sunset for the mission day selected. The mission day, month, hour and minute can be accurately set in the single mission parameters screen. Multiplayer allows the host to make similar settings, with the same coarse/fine increases of hours and minutes.

Players' Choice

The player was given a choice. EAW 129 was released in two forms. One used the new map files ,and the other uses the old "Europe1.pic" and is for users who prefer that map. The "old map" exe could only be used if the tile matrix was the default 640x320.

Nine different theatres were included as part of the release: Battle of Britain, Desert, ETO with planesets, Malta, Ray Otton's improved and expanded ETO, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, South Pacific, Spanish Civil War,and the special ETO trains and barges for interdiction missions.

EAW 129 Download

Jel has made a more up to date installation of EAW 129 for those who would like to give it try. Get it from here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cJFa0a ... sp=sharing

This downloads a 7Zip which when unzipped creates a "1.29_JellyPack" folder with a complete 129 installation. To fly simply run EAW "DSP128-9.exe" which is a simple Manager programme. Choose which exe to use (original EAW pilot map "OldMap" the newer Pilot map system "NewMap" - try out both!) and then choose which theatre to fly in. Choose from completely default EAW, or others including ETO (with planesets), the desert, Malta, South Pacific, Spain, and Korea.

EAW 129 retains backward compatibility with the original Microprose release in respect of aircraft skins and models, which you can download from old EAW 1.2 sites such as Sandbaggers Tally HO!. You can still use these by dropping them into the 129 root folder. EAW 129 is not backwardly compatible with 1.2 screens, which are of a lower resoloution.

[Moggy]

EAW 130 released November 2013

130 was an experimental release.

EAW had always worked on a system of 30 aircraft slots. Any skin or 3dz files containing "p38h" were in the first slot, and any containing "V1V1" were in the 30th. This meant that the files were locked into slots. Not only that, but the flight model system was unhelpful. There were 30 individual flight model "flt" files, one for each slot, from "p38h.flt" to "V1V1.flt". Unfortunately other flight data files such as "planes.dat", "loadout.dat" and "pnames.str" covered all 30 slots. It was aggravating for modders.

However, during the development of 1.28D the Code Group found a way to break up those single files, such as "planes.dat", which contained data for all 30 aircraft slots. As a first stage, we were able to replace these with individual files for each plane. As a result we started working on an entirely new exe that could make use of this critical breakthrough. Principally through work done by Knegel, an exe was compiled which took the slot-free idea to its logical extent. The slots ceased to be named by or identified with the characteristics of particular aircraft (single, two engine etc). All thirty aircraft slots from 00 to 29 now had the full capacities available in any the previous particular slots. Any aircraft slot including the V1 slot could manage single and multi engine setups, props or jets.

This release was intended to be a public testing of the slot-free concept.

[Moggy]

EAW 140 released December 2014

Having done most of the work on EAW 130, Knegel's available time became limited, and Mr. Jelly took over as principal programmer. He contiued to develop 130 but hit a problem with torpedo missions online. There were always five possible mission types in EAW- escort, bomb, intercept, fighter sweep and interdiction. To solve the torpedo problem a sixth one was added, "ship stike" which allowed a player to fly ie a Kate online in a SPAW mission with a torpedo in a "ship strike" or with bombs in a bombing mission or truck interdiction. As an extra line for this mission type was needed in the "loadmis.dat" file, and as these would be incompatible with the previous ones, the new exe was renamed 1.40.

The base of 140 was effectively all the new developments of EAW 129 (which see above) with the slotless system of 130. Therefore 140 came in two versions, the "old map" version (which could only be used with the default 640x320 tilemap) and the "new map" version (which uses “TargMap.pic” and “TargMap1.pic” filesand allows for variant sizes in the tile matrix).

File management was now done conveniently by the "DirSetExeManager" program. In a couple of mouse clicks a player could switch between ETO basic, ETO full, ETO with barges (on the Thames, Seine and Elbe), SAW, DAW, SPAW, SPAW45 and Moggy's Middle East.

The new "slotfree" plane system

“Slot free” indicates that any plane could now be put in any of the 30 slots, without problems arising from the original specific intention of that slot, and that the old naming system ("P109E ...") has gone. Aircraft files were now loaded into the game from Planeset folders which contain “PDir.set” and “FMDir.set” files which contain the path to the skin, screen and flight data files. The 3dz and skin filenames in their individual folders, were now changed, with the previous individual slot distinction “P109E...”, “PMosq...” replaced with the simple “Plane”. The flight data files were now named: Plne.flt, Plane.dat, load.dat, LoadMis.dat, Plname.str, PlaneSounds.mpf, and GSight.spt. Other files, usually in the skin folder now named: NatName.str, VCGPlane.dat, Hangar.MPC, and vc_offset.mpf.

Additional 3dz paste-on files

Complex and hi-res EAW 3d models are built using combinations of separate wire frame files. For example in original EAW single engine fighters were built from F.3dz (ie "P109EF.3dz") which constituted the entire body of the plane, fuselage and wings, and P.3dz which was the prop spinner. Two engine planes were bulit from conjoined F.3dz and G.3dz being the right and left side of the planes, and P.3dz being the props. Four engine planes were built from conjoined E.3dz being the right wing, F.3dz being the fuselage, and G.3dz being the left wing. In additional those four engine models could have three further wire frame files A.3dz, B.3dz and C.3dz providing turrets. Over time EAW modders learnt how to apply the four engine model of six separate wire frame files to one and two engine types, creating the possibility of finer modelling with separate hi-res skins for each section of the model.

3dz modellers of course wanted more - was there a possibility of adding to the number of separate wireframe segments that could be conjoined? Within the constraints of the old named slot system it was found that only one new wire frame could be added, which was D.3dz. However, one benefit of the new slotless system was that the previous obstruction to expansion was removed, and more wire frame files could be introduced. And so in 140, D.3dz was now joined by I.3dz, J.3dz, K.3dz, O.3dz and Q.3dz. Complex plane models could now be built from 12 conjoined wire frame files.

Additional mission type

Because of multiplayer problems with Torpedo missions, in 1.40 there is an additional mission type- a ship strike. It allows loadout values for this mission type to be in an extra line in the “LoadMis.dat” file, setting one with torpedoes to be the first choice. This is not important in single mission games as loadout is completely selectable, but it is critical in multiplayer where loadout selection is rather inflexible.

Multiplayer settings

On the mission parameters screen there is now a hotspot at the top which activates/de-activates multiplayer setting. This allows the host to use the map to select not just the target and the homebase, but the allied secondary base, and the enemy primary and secondary bases. They are saved in the “eaw.ini” file and are used when he then hosts a multiplayer game. To support this the 140 version of the Manager (DirSetPro “DSP140V3.exe”) will save the settings from “eaw.ini” and store them as an appropriately named file in the “MPData” folder of the 140 game root folder. This folder has subfolders for the various theatres. the 140 Manager can load this file, and if it is loaded, it will overwrite the current versions of these lines in “eaw.ini”. The values are only used if the player is the multiplayer host, in which case the settings are also passed on to the other players.

Definition changes for weapons

The code was corrected for weapons/loadout types "GUNPOD" and new weapons types "Torpedo" and "Cargo", enabling these to be properly set up in weapons.dat and used in individual planes loadout files.

Additional features in 140

Ray Otton found that the frequency of train spawning was unrealistically high- it was good for online fun though. So to accommodate this 140 could use a “TrainChance.mpf” file. It is a single number from 0 to 255. If it is 255 then the default spawning rate is used, if 128 then the spawning rate is halved.

[Moggy]

UAW 150 released July 2016

The main feature of 150 was the ending of use of the data archive CDF files. Editing them was inconvenient, and it became apparent that some of the editing programs which had hitherto been used, would not run in later versions of Windows. This prompted us to produce a version of the exe which had all the default files in the "SaveData" folder. Consequently the CDF files were no longer needed. At that stage we had the planeset folders inside the relevant theatre folders. Ray Otton suggested that it would be great to have them independent of each other, so that player could select any theatre, and choose either the appropriate planes, or have a bit of fun flying any of the other numerous plane sets. So UAW 150 was born.

In 150 a player uses the new Manager "PSMV2.exe" to select an exe, select a theatre, and independently select a planeset. The new system was far more flexible, and made making or editing planesets far more simple. Another feature was that planesets no longer needed to have the full of 30 planes.

The maximum number of weapons available for loadouts was increased to 100, and it could go higher if needed. A limiting factor had been the naming of the ordnance wire frame 3dz files with two digit number from "ord00.3dz" to "ord99.3dz". To incorporate the larger number of weapons possible, In 150 the naming of ordnance files was changed to include three digits from "ord000.3dz" onward. The plane hardpoint files were now renamed "hrdXY.3dz".

There had been runway lights of sorts for night missions in EAW as far back as Moggy's Night Blitz beta scenario in 2000. These were however ground bjects using the luminous colours in the EAW pallette. Mr Jelly was challenged to incorporate the luminous colours in the actual airfield 3dz file. The challenge was met and in 150 the 3dz airfield files could now use luminous colours for runway lights at night. Work on the sprite table led to the creation of 3D clouds.

Further work was done on seaplanes/floatplanes and true amphibians. A reused entry in the relevant plane,dat could now flag the plane type. Sea-planes and must take off from water, whereas amphibians can take off from water or a runway.

[Moggy]

UAW 160 released February 2020, the current version

The Code Group adopted the name Universal Air War "UAW" to recognise the long existing fact that the game included many different theatres (mediterranean, Desert, Pacific, Middle East etc) and not now simply a "European" one. But the exe is still "eaw.exe".

The release number was advanced to 160 as a consequence of the expansion of the number of weapons aircraft could carry. This was a consequence of Ray Otton's finalisation of the South Pacific (SPAW) theatre. Default 130 and 140 had 32 slots ending with the torpedoes. 150 had 82 slots. The original 160 had 100 slots, and the most recent 160 exes allow for 120 weapons slots.

In 160 the default files are now stored in a top "GameData" folder and the various theatre files now had their individual "Gamedata" files in which the single mission files for each slot were now stored. These replace the old "Savedata" folders.

A new "wall.mpf" file sets width of the non-flyable area around the EAW world (usually 32 miles). This is useful for modders to bring into full use towns and bases which are near the edge of the EAW map.

In the most up to date enhancement the "airborne radar" system for night missions, first included in EAW 128 back in 2008 was extended from "Ace" setting to all skill settings. The F8 key which in 1.6 had toggled the details displayed in the target box, will now at night, toggle the display of night radar box.