Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!dan-hankins From: dan-hankins@cup.portal.com (Daniel B Hankins) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: F16 Combat Pilot: help wanted Message-ID: <37765@cup.portal.com> Date: 9 Jan 91 04:24:15 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 101 I own F16 Combat Pilot. I have three problems with it, for which I am looking for solutions. See the bottom of this post for information on what I will trade for solutions to these problems: F16 CP would be my favorite combat flight simulator (superior to Falcon), if it were not for the following three things that have nothing to do with the game, but which make it practically unusable: - - - 1. It has disk-based copy protection, which makes me afraid to play it. With the amount of time I would be spending with it, and the amount of disk accessing it does, I know that eventually that disk will wear out. I haven't yet found a cracked version or a disk copier that would enable me to exercise my legal right to have a backup. 2. It ALSO has word-in-the-manual copy protection. And this one is pretty bad; it gives the number of a paragraph on a page and the number of the word it wants from that paragraph. Unfortunately, A. Paragraphs are split across pages, so it's hard to tell which paragraph the program is asking for. B. Pages are filled with headers and bulleted and numbered items, as well as text paragraphs. Sometimes a header is considered a paragraph, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes an item is introduced by a boldface word. Is it word 1 or not considered part of the paragraph? C. Sometimes it isn't clear whether items such as "ECM" or "29" or "AGM-65" are words to be counted or not. Thank God it only asks once per boot. I've taken to numbering paragraphs whenever a guess turns out right, and after a few instances of retrying as many as six times (it asks for a different word after each failure), I've developed a feel for how it counts things. 3. Each time it saves status to the save disk, it corrupts that disk a little more. After 10-15 writes to the save disk, the program can't read its own save disk any more. I get around this problem by using a program that quickly copies AmigaDOS disks and allows retries on bad sectors (TurboBACKUP). Usually after five or so saves, the disk isn't too badly corrupted to be copied by Turbo, with a few retries on marginal sectors. However, this means I have to frequently quit playing the game in order to copy the save disk; you didn't really expect a program this heavily copy-protected to multitask, did you? And of course when I reboot the game, I have to go through the word-in-the-manual nonsense again. - - - So here are my questions: 1. Can anyone tell me what copy program will duplicate this program, or (by email) where I can get a version that's been cracked to remove the disk copy protection? I am not interested in pirating the game; I want to encourage software companies to make more programs like this. Even if I were, it's pretty much unplayable without the manual. 2. Can anyone tell me (by email) where I can get a version that's been cracked to remove that *&^%*$&#! word-in-the-manual copy protection? It's driving me BATTY! Sometimes I still have to try three or more times, and I HAVE the manual. 3. Can anyone tell me where I can get a version that's been modified to write the save files as standard AmigaDOS files, so that I don't have to keep killing the game to make backups of the save disk? For the first-received reliable information that solves any one of these problems, I will mail $5.00 US, or up to three disks of PD and shareware software from my library. For the first-received reliable information that solves two or three of these problems, I will mail $10 US, or up to two disks of freely redistributable software and any one of the following games which I have purchased but no longer play (solved, mastered, lost interest, or is not my kind of game): Jet Test Drive Three Stooges Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Defender of the Crown Zoom! Emerald Mine StarGlider II By the way, all of the above are also for sale for $10 apiece (plus you pay shipping if you purchase one, I pay shipping if you solve my problems). Dan Hankins dan-hankins@cup.portal.com dan.hankins@pro-realm.cts.com Time-Life Mystery of the Unknown #547: Who invented soap-on-a-rope, and why?