Rapier Blueprints...?

Dralthi5

Spaceman
For the hell of it, I decided to see if I could install my ten-year-old WC1, and I guess I was successful (BTW, was it normal to sit through dozens of "Please insert Disk 1" then "Please insert Disk 3" and then "Please insert Disk 2" and so on and so on). But once it got past the opening credits (which moved surprisingly fast-- I'll have to use MoSlo or something like that) a red screen with a blue box appeared and it was labeled "Rapier Blueprints." The blue box asked: " What is the velocity of the Dart DF."

I asked myself: "What the hell? I dunno," and typed in any old answer. But... much to my shock and horror it said "Access denied" and kicked me back to DOS. What the hell was that and how can I get past it?

------------------
If I'm locked on, there's no such thing as evasive action!
 
copy protection
biggrin.gif
, old games had those, ck claw marks for the answer maybe.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
...Exactly. It's copy protection. In this particular case, you would've found the answer on the Rapier blueprints. The answers to most of the other questions are somewhere in Claw Marks. It only takes a few days to get everything memorised
biggrin.gif
.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
How stupid is that?
smile.gif
Why the hell did they have those things for... copyright protection, was it?

------------------
If I'm locked on, there's no such thing as evasive action!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Arg! Now it asked me what the range of a laser cannon was. So, being patient, I looked in Claw Marks and it wasn't there.



------------------
If I'm locked on, there's no such thing as evasive action!
 
A laser cannon's range is 4800. You'd find that on the Hornet blueprints.

So, you've never heard of copy protection before? Well, back in the good old days when games didn't span six million CDs, it was very difficult to keep people from simply copying the disks and distributing them to their friends. So, companies decided that the easiest way to dissuade people from doing that would be to ask questions whose answers could only be found in the printed documentation, assuming (correctly) that most folks wouldn't bother to copy that.
 
Uh-uh. I got that impression already.

BTW, I didn't find it on the Hornet's blueprint. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough, but it does't say a thing about the laser's range.



------------------
If I'm locked on, there's no such thing as evasive action!
 
I have no clue either. When my WC1 5.25" Mint In Box arrives sometime next week I'll look and see if I can help you.

Isn't eBay a great thing?

WC2 Deluxe EA Classic - $5.99 + $3.55 S/H
Academy EA Classic - $3 + $3 S/H
WC1 5.25" MIB - $16.50 + $4 S/H
WC2 5.25" MIB - $5.50 + $4 S/H

All in the span of four days. All, Mine. I don't find it the least bit crazy to spend $40 on WC games either. Even the two copies of WC2, one's an EA Classic with no manuals, the others an original on EIGHT 5.25" floppies, with manuals.
 
Yes, it does. Right there, at the top of the blueprint. Above the Top View, to be precise. There's a little bit there about the Hornet's guns.
 
Dralthi5 said:
Uh-uh. I got that impression already.

BTW, I didn't find it on the Hornet's blueprint. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough, but it does't say a thing about the laser's range.

If you get SM1 and SM2 you get new questions, including how many trees are planted on Goddard or some such question. I'll try to keep an eye out here, but feel free to drop me an e-mail. I'm usually on here through the week (work's been slowish) so I have time to kill.

I'll tell you a game that bites with copy protection was the final Infocom game of the Enchanter series (text based adventure game, if you never heard of Infocom) The game came with 6 trading cards about famous wizards in the history of the world you are playing in. The "facts" including their handicap at some type of card game. About 2/3rds of the way through the game you come across your old mentor who asks you a question about one of the wizards. Well, I could only find 5 of the 6 cards, and the one I was missing was the one I needed. So, I guessed. He gave me waht I came for and I left. At the freaking end of the game, I'm facing off against the villian and my mentor shows up and tells me that I'm a fake because I didn't know the answer to his question and I die a horrible death. Turns out I had guessed wrong but the game didn't have the decency to tell me that when I screwed up, it waited until the end of the game and snatched victory from my hands. fortunately I had a save from shortly before that and I found the other card, so I finally beat the game, but man was I pissed at the time.
 
Jumper said:

Isn't eBay a great thing?

WC2 Deluxe EA Classic - $5.99 + $3.55 S/H
Academy EA Classic - $3 + $3 S/H
WC1 5.25" MIB - $16.50 + $4 S/H
WC2 5.25" MIB - $5.50 + $4 S/H

All in the span of four days. All, Mine. I don't find it the least bit crazy to spend $40 on WC games either. Even the two copies of WC2, one's an EA Classic with no manuals, the others an original on EIGHT 5.25" floppies, with manuals.

hmmm guess im the only WC2less fan, *kills himself*
 
Quarto said:
Yes, it does. Right there, at the top of the blueprint. Above the Top View, to be precise. There's a little bit there about the Hornet's guns.

Am I going blind? Did I lose my glasses? Or just my mind? I don't see it!


------------------
If I'm locked on, there's no such thing as evasive action!

[This message has been edited by Dralthi5 (edited July 08, 2000).]
 
I don't know... it's right there... can it be that yours doesn't have it for some reason? The data about the laser gun starts in the 13th square from the left, 2nd row from the top. Check that, and if it's still not there... <shrug>
 
Maybe my Claw Marks (that is what we're talking about, right?) is different somehow.

------------------
If I'm locked on, there's no such thing as evasive action!
 
Not the Claw Marks! It's the blueprints. They're large sheets of blue graph paper with the plans for each of Confed's four fighters on them.
 
Well, you could see my confusion. " Most of the answers can be found in Claw Marks..." I believe you said something like that. I assumed, because you weren't quite clear, that these so-called blueprints were in the manual. But no! They're not. Anyway, I don't have these goddamned blueprints.

------------------
If I'm locked on, there's no such thing as evasive action!
 
I really don't know what the problem is, I was forced to guess every number but one when someone trashed my documentation back in '90. The blueprints are fairly straitforward. ESK ratings, gun ranges are listed in small text. If you got KS from PC gamer, you wouldn't need to know the numbers.
smile.gif


Dralthi, keep a look out for WC1 blueprints on ebay. I haven't seen them go for more than $2 yet.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top