EAWPILOT.ZIP

EAW Campaign Editor Version 1.0 - a Windows editing program for Microprose's European Air War, written in Visual Basic 3. This text file details the files contained in EAWPILOT.ZIP.

OPERATION
EAW pilot careers, or campaigns, are contained in files named CAREERxx.SVE (where xx is a two-digit number such as 00, 01, etc). These files are found in your EAW SAVEDATA directory (typically C:\PROGRAMS\MICROPROSE SOFTWARE\EUROPEAN AIR WAR\SAVEDATA).

EAWPILOT operates by amending these career files. When saving an amended file you can save under any name, but EAW will only recognise and use a file named CAREERxx.SVE that is in the SAVEDATA directory. You can change any of the variables displayed, but a few notes may be helpful.

The controls will be familiar. You must"Open" a career file before you can make changes to it. To retain any changes you must "Save" it under its current name, or "Save As" a new name, before you "Exit".

SQUADRON DATA
Group and Squadron names can be edited to whatever you like (try "617 Squadron" for a Mosquito career, for example, or introduce "JG 54 Grunherzen").

You can now re-equip your squadron with any other flyable aircraft. Fly a Spitfire in the USAAF, or a P51 in the RAF, for example. Or fly a mission or two in a B26, then swap to a P38, and then to a Tempest. 

Be aware that EAWPILOT is optimized for the EAW add-on "Enemy Coast Ahead". It will work on any EAW career file, but if you do not have ECA installed and you change your aircraft to one that is non-flyable in the original EAW (like the B26 Marauder or Me410), your PC will crash when you try to fly. Also, EAW stores bombs and rockets at squadron level, so changing aircraft will give you problems with ordnance loads unless you have Limited Supply off (do you want to be a fighter pilot or a supply clerk, anyway?). And yes, you can change to an enemy aircraft, with some interesting results.

You can change your airfield to any other in the EAW world, but changing to an enemy one will cause the airfield AA defenses to fire at you while you are still on the runway (unless you have also changed to an enemy aircraft). You will have to apply a bit of geographic and historical knowledge and be careful about this, because you can lose half your squadron before you even get off the ground if you change to the wrong base (if you don't know where the front line is, maybe you shouldn't be commanding a squadron).

The number of aircraft available to your squadron (and available but damaged) can be changed. 

The date can be changed to any year and month between January 1940 and December 1950 (EAW does not accept 1939 as a valid year, for some reason). Changing the year and/or month (say from a 1943 campaign back to 1942, or from August 1940 back to January 1940) will give you a much longer campaign, but will only change the year or month. That is, it will not change the aircraft available, or where the front line is at any given time. 

PILOT DATA
The name and rank of each pilot in your squadron can be changed to whatever you want, as can the fatigue and morale levels, and the sorties and kills recorded. Rank determines who flys and in what position. And of course the C.O. can select the ordnance on missions. 

Fatigue and Morale:  These two are numeric parameters, from 0-255.

Fatigue increases every mission, and lower is better.  It increases if the pilot bails out, and drops between missions if the pilot doesn't fly. Setting the fatigue level to 0 improves the AI pilots' performance, and may make them more likely to survive bailouts. Reducing the number of aircraft in your squadron below the number of available pilots will enable pilots to be rested.

Morale increases on successful missions. Higher is better.  Mission failure causes morale to drop.  The most visible thing with setting the morale to maximum (255) is that the AI pilots are more willing to engage for longer periods.  As an Allied player this is useful, as it keeps the escorts more in the fight.  As the German, this might not be such a good solution, as the AI pilots hang around longer and have a tendency to get shot down more as they make ineffective passes at heavy bombers. Setting the German pilots to low(er) morale makes them make a few passes at the bombers and then the head home.  This lessens their casualties, but doesn't help them down bombers, either.

Sorties and Kills:  This changes the kills and sorties for pilots in your squadron, as shown on the chalk board in the squadron room; although not in your personal log book. Apart from being able to credit yourself with kills you "know" you got, some players report that AI pilots with high sortie and kill figures fly and fight better. Note that you cannot increase sorties above 800 or kills beyond 350 (call it the "Erich Hartmann limit" - if you want to do better than 352 victories from 825 combat dogfights you will have to do it yourself).

"Refresh" and Refresh "All" buttons: Refresh will reactivate a pilot from POW, MIA, KIA or Wounded status, minimize his fatigue and maximize his morale. Refresh "All" will do the same for every pilot on your squadron.

FILES
EAWPILOT.ZIP contains the following files:

EAWPILOT.TXT	This text file
EAWPILOT.EXE	The main executable file
VBRUN300.DLL	System file required by Visual Basic 3

INSTALLATION
EAWPILOT.EXE can be placed and run from any directory, but is best in your EAW SAVEDATA directory, because access to the career files is easiest from there. EAWPILOT.TXT can be placed anywhere, but is logically best placed in the same directory as EAWPILOT.EXE.

VBRUN300.DLL is a system file required by Visual Basic 3, and must be placed in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. Many people will already have this file installed on their system.

WARNING
MICROPROSE DOES NOT OFFICIALLY SUPPORT THE HEX EDITING OF ITS
SOFTWARE. IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE WITH EAW USING THIS PATCH,
DO NOT CONTACT MICROPROSE. DELETE THE CAREER FILE YOU HAVE CHANGED AND SEE IF THE PROBLEM IS THERE. IF IT IS DELETE ALL THE FILES WHICH CAME WITH THIS PATCH AND SEE IF THE PROBLEM IS STILL THERE. CONTACT MICROPROSE IF IT IS. IF THE PROBLEM IS ONLY THERE WHEN YOU ARE USING THIS PATCH, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

The inspiration for this program came from Nicholas Bell (nbell@icdc.com), who found the raw data and put it all together in his DOS editor, EAWEDIT.EXE. 

The files in EAWPILOT.ZIP are freeware and can be freely
distributed. I hope you enjoy them. Any comments, suggestions
or complaints, let me know.

Charles Gunst
1 June 1999
Email: GunstQC@aol.com



