New Version 8.21 (late June 2020)

[bbosen]

I just uploaded the latest version as of this date (24Jun2020). Here is the "WhatsNew.txt" file describing it's new features:

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Changes in the late-June 2020 version (Lac08p21) include:

TEN online, multi-player, server-based missions are now available. (The original three such missions are unchanged.) All of the other new ones are still in a stage of experimental development, but the one labeled "PEABODY'S MISSION" has had quite a bit of alpha testing and is now ready for vigorous exercise by the LAC Community. It is bigger and more complex than prior missions, and takes place in a heavily forested, mountainous terrain. Victory requires destruction of TWO enemy airfields instead of just one, and HQ airfields are further fortified by an adjacent, very strong, artillery battery. Please report your experience with this mission in our LAC Forums.

Two of the remaining new missions, named "BLAKE'S MISSION" and "HYRUM'S MISSION", have been claimed by two of our developers for further improvement, and we can expect to see them creatively enhanced soon.

The four remaining new missions, named "NET MISSION 7", "NET MISSION 8", "NET MISSION 9", and "NET MISSION 10" respectively, are all essentially identical in function, and each is available for adoption by one or more members of the LAC community who would like to become a "Mission Developer". Each features a single moving aircraft carrier on which players can land a RedTeam aircraft for refuel, repair, and re-arm services. New LAC Mission Developers are encouraged to follow the pattern that created that single RedTeam aircraft carrier for enhancement with a BlueTeam aircraft carrier. There are abundant opportunities to further enhance these missions according to your inspiration! The source code for these new missions is extensively commented for easier understanding, and our forums, at:

https://sourceforge.net/p/linuxaircombat/discussion/

....now offer an additional new forum area in support of Mission Developers. Interested members of the LAC community are encouraged to use these facilities to claim one of these missions as their own, to make their own improvements resulting in better missions, and to submit the resulting, improved code back to us through our forums. The best of these efforts will be incorporated into future versions of LAC!

LAC's standard cockpit instrument panel is now enhanced with an additional instrument displaying the estimated repair status of the selected, hostile airfield. In large missions with multiple defended airfields, this instrument is a great aid to players needing to understand the complex, evolving, tactical situation.

The visual appearance of battleships has been improved with addition of a large, central smokestack.

The following additional mission objects are now available for general-purpose use by new mission developers:

1: Naval Destroyers.
2: Artillery Batteries.
3: Aircraft Carriers.

Mission developers can move Battleships, Aircraft Carriers, or Naval Destroyers around during their missions. Players can land aircraft on aircraft carriers and (if they are very very careful) they can take off again.

Mission developers can now easily create new missions of far greater complexity. As an example, a new, "sample" mission is included as "PEABODY'S MISSION". It takes place in a mountainous terrain covered with conifer forests and dotted with lakes of various sizes. Each of the two teams has two defended airfields, and victory requires destruction of BOTH opposing airfields. The two HQ airfields are toughened by the presence of a very strong, adjacent, artillery battery.

LAC's infrastructure in support of mission developers has been improved. Now it is much easier to synchronize repair status of airfields, and to synchronize the movements of mobile mission objects across multiple, network-connected players, and to avoid confusion if a new MissionCommander enters an established mission that has already advanced into its preconfigured set of MissionChronoMilestones.

Text-to-speech vocalization of many items of interest is now comprehensively implemented for players that install the free, well-known, optional "espeak" text-to-speech application. Users are urged to install espeak to benefit from this optional improvement.

When used with any of the three long-standing, "classic", online, multi-player, server-based missions, this version remains interoperable with all prior versions since 7.92.

Changes in the mid-June 2020 version (Lac08p15) include:

No new player features or flight model changes. When used in any of the three classic online, multi-user, server-based missions, this version remains operationally compatible with all prior versions since Lac07p92.

The four new, sample missions introduced back in Lac08p11 have been further cleaned up and improved. At present, all of them are functionally identical, and they duplicate the logic of our well-known, classic, "Network Mission 01", with some increased run-time reporting to increase understanding in support of new mission developers. We hope a few budding programmers will join our development team by adopting and customizing one or more of these missions. They have all been improved with increased and more detailed source-code comments, and with embedded examples showing how to take advantage of optional new features. Furthermore, LAC's underlying infrastructure has been made more robust in support of features that we hope will be helpful for future mission developers. For example, by following or duplicating well-documented patterns within those four published sample missions, it is now very easy for mission developers, even if their programming skill is modest, to change terrain types, weather conditions, or to insert events of any of these types at any desired point in their custom missions:

1- Text messages on the cockpit's "SystemMessage" panel.
2- Acoustic "beeps".
3- Acoustic verbalization of text ("Text-To-Speech" sound effects).
4- Video Clips.
5- Web pages.
6- Additional self-defending airstrips.
7- Movement of self-defending Battleships or Aircraft Carriers (more types of moveable objects to come).
8- Synchronization of mission states across multiple players (to synchronize the location of moveable objects).
9- New definitions for victory and mission-ending conditions.

All of these new development tools are documented in a new LAC Forum named "Mission Developers" here:

https://sourceforge.net/p/linuxaircombat/discussion/

Changes in the early June 2020 version (Lac08p12) include:

Improved handling of Community Handles. Now, the user's configured "CommunityHandle" is automatically and consistently used as the Mumble username, and users are automatically issued a randomized CommunityHandle commencing with "NEW" and followed by a four-digit random number upon startup. Thereafter, until that name is replaced with something NOT based on that pattern, users receive gentle but frequent reminders about editing their ~home/.LAC/LinuxAirCombat.txt configuration file to change it.

The cockpit now displays the user's Community Handle during all seven of the online, multi-user, server-based missions.

Several minor bugs were fixed in the format and color of messages displayed on the cockpit's "Mumble Panel".

No changes were made that affect flight. When used in any of the three classic online, multi-user, server-based missions, this version remains operationally compatible with all prior versions since Lac07p92.

Changes in the late-May 2020 version (Lac08p11) include:

Additional missions and tools for developers: LAC's menus now offer 7 online, multi-user, server-based missions instead of just three. At this point, however, the four additional, new missions are functional duplicates of "Mission Network 01", so this is just an interim release, anticipating further development in each of those four new missions. The client and server infrastructure in support of all missions has been significantly expanded in support of these additional missions: Whether in flight or from within LAC's mission menus, selection of any combination of either of the two distinct Mumble Command Modes, 32 Realms, 7 Missions, and two Team Affiliations results in correct display of the corresponding information, in the proper color, on the cockpit's Mumble Panel, and Mumble quickly switches to the corresponding channel if it has been created on the server, or to the nearest available approximation thereof if nobody has yet created that Mumble channel. All seven missions have been subjected to significant online testing and appear to be stable, well-behaved, and well-documented.

The source code for each of the seven online, multi-user, server-based missions has been broken out of "mission.cpp" for better modularization, and EXTENSIVE source-code comments have been inserted into each of the four files corresponding with the four new missions. As a consequence, it will hereafter be fairly easy for programmers of elementary or better skill to customize the source code for the creation of new, more sophisticated missions. Two of those missions have already been "spoken for" as follows:

Blake Williams is working on Mission #4.
Hyrum Bosen wants to begin working on Mission #5 soon.

Accordingly, Missions #6 and #7 are available for community experimentation and development. If you decide to participate, please read the extensive explanatory comments within the source code of "MissionNetworkBattle06.cpp" or "MissionNetworkBattle07.cpp" as appropriate to your choice, and follow the guidance therein given. Please avoid modifying any of the source code for the other files unless you negotiate something extraordinary with me, as primary developer, through email contact via "webmaster@AskMisterWizard.com".

The missions are written in industry-standard "C++", but with the extensive source-code commentary that is now available, you really don't need to know much about C++. You can just follow and expand the well-documented, existing pattern. If you want to create an official new mission for Linux Air Combat, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE! Submit your modified source code for my evaluation. You have a lot of freedom to choose different aircraft, weather conditions, terrain features, victory goals, mission object locations, numbers, and dynamic positions, durabilities, weapon loadouts, timed or event-driven cockpit messages, text-to-speech messages, etc. I can easily visualize far more sophisticated missions with, for example, additional defended airfields, moving battleships, aircraft carriers, timed cockpit messages, timed audio messages, additional anti-aircraft guns, moving tanks, more complex victory conditions, etc. Check in on LAC's forums for further guidance. A new forum area, for mission developers, will soon appear and I will populate it with YouTube clips showing exactly what to do to get started.

This version also offers more multimedia and menu help for new users needing to configure their online usernames for use in the LAC community.

A few bugs were also fixed, including yet more protection from the segmentation errors that have sometimes been seen immediately upon entry into online missions with active gun-camera player activity. Previous releases had been diminishing the frequency of these errors, but they were still seen from time to time. I HOPE they are all gone now!

Users who have installed the popular "espeak" text-to-speech application will now hear brief text vocalized from time to time. At present this is used only for introductory or explanatory information in unusual situations.

Users who have installed the popular "vlc" media player application will now see and hear brief new video clips from time to time. At present this is used only for introductory or explanatory information in unusual situations.

Users are encouraged to install "vlc" and "espeak" if their LINUX distro does not automatically make them available. Both of these applications are popular, well-known, well-behaved, and ubiquitously available. Although their use in LAC is minimal and optional at present, we anticipate their increasing use within new missions, and new mission developers ought to be able to have a lot of fun inserting video clips and/or text-generated speech into their work.

As configurable new options, LAC's automated use of "espeak" and "vlc" can be individually disabled by editing the value of "NetworkMode" within the user's ~home/.LAC/LacConfig.txt configuration file. This follows the same pattern that has long been used for optional disabling of LAC's automated use of "Mumble".

No changes were made that affect flight. When used in any of the three classic online, multi-user, server-based missions, this version remains operationally compatible with all prior versions since Lac07p92.

Changes in the mid-May 2020 version (Lac08p08) include:

I fixed the long-troubling, poorly named "LAC Maneuver Segmenentation Faults" bug, which had been causing segmentation faults upon startup of online missions when GunCamera "REPLAY" aircraft were active. This is the last known cause of segmentation faults in typical LAC situations.

Mumble is now automatically invoked when LAC starts up. Consequently, the litttle "lac" start script has been simplified so that it no longer attempts to invoke Mumble. Furthermore, LAC is far more intelligent about invoking Mumble: If the user's "CommunityHandle" has been customized with an appropriate username, Mumble is directed to connect him to our Mumble server's "root" channel, logging in with that "CommunityHandle" as his Mumble username. On the other hand, if the user's "CommunityHandle" has not yet been customized (in his ~home/.LAC/LacConfig.txt file), then he is connected to a new Mumble channel named "NewPlayersStartHere" under a Mumble username commencing with "NewPlayer" followed by a 4-digit pseudorandom number.

Furthermore, when a user that has not configured his "CommunityHandle" clicks the prominent "ONLINE DOCUMENTATION" link from LAC's main menu, a narrated, instructive video clip is automatically displayed, presenting detailed instructions to help him get his CommunityHandle set up. That movie is displayed on top of the browser-based, online LAC documentation that is also activated at that point.

Then I enhanced the mission detail menus for the three online, multiplayer, server-based missions so that a user who has still not configured his "CommunityHandle" sees additional prompts to do so at the bottom of his display screen. Those prompts urge him to activate the "ONLINE DOCUMENTATION" link as described in the previous paragraph, resulting in automated launch of the aforementioned, helpful video training clip.

The "SELECT YOUR AIRCRAFT" menus have all been enhanced with an additional button named "CHECK FOR MULTIMEDIA". As before, the logic allows the user to cycle through 54 different versions of this menu, each describing a distinct aircraft. Within each of those 54 separate instances, the new "CHECK FOR MULTIMEDIA" button quickly invokes the user's preferred browser and displays a custom web page associated with the referenced aircraft. Almost all of those web pages now display a relevant YouTube documentary video clip.

As a consequence of these changes, selection of an aircraft from among the 54 emulated by LAC is now a much more immersive and educational activity, and users benefit from increased, natural enthusiasm as they consider each as a candidate for flight. Furthermore, online players are now much more likely to be properly identified to one another as they interact online.

No changes were made that affect flight. This version remains operationally compatible with all prior versions since Lac07p92.

Changes in the early May 2020 version (Lac08p07) include:

Recent online experience has been dominated by unopposed strikes from B29s, B17s, B24s, He111s, and Lancasters. These would have been a lot more fun for both sides had they been opposed. They were unopposed because warning messages created by the tactical alert system, intended to warn players about incoming strategic bombers in time to launch opposition, were too subtle. They got lost in the "fog of war" and were generally unnoticed.

Accordingly, I enhanced LAC to turn the background color of the cockpit RADAR display bright yellow whenever a hostile heavy bomber is present in the mission but too far away to be marked within the bounds of the current RADAR display range. As a consequence of this change, airfield defenders are now given much more prominent warnings about incoming, hostile bombers while they are still at long range, even if the RADAR range is focused only on short-range activity. Whenever the player sees his RADAR display background turn yellow, he knows there is at least one hostile heavy bomber in the mission but beyond his current RADAR range setting. (When the RADAR range is subsequently zoomed out far enough to allow display of the threat, the usual green background is restored.)

I strengthened the self-defending guns of heavy bombers a bit.

The Me163 "Komet" now develops fuel leaks when damaged, limiting its combat effectiveness when deep inside enemy territory. This tends to return the Komet to its historic role as a "point defense" weapon.

I enhanced the "Norden Bombsight" logic with better introductory training and prompting text to assist new users.

I further minimized the visual perception of network jitter.

I enhanced the "lac" launch script. Now if Mumble is installed, it is invoked before LAC whenever this standard little launch script is used. Recent experience confirms that this is less confusing for brand new users.

Changes in the later-Apr 2020 version (Lac08p06) include:

The Mission Detail menus for the three online, server-based, multiplayer missions have been further enhanced. In addition to the two new clickable areas from version 8.05 that cycle Team and Realm affiliation, a third clickable area has been defined. It is labelled "SYNCHRONIZE MUMBLE WITH REALM/MISSION/TEAM". The prior version had attempted to keep Mumble synchronized with every incremental change in Realm or Team, but that proved to be slow and cumbersome and it generated a lot of extraneous, administrative Mumble traffic. This new version only synchronizes Mumble to the user's chosen combination of Realm, Mission, and Team when the user clicks on that new "SYNCHRONIZE MUMBLE WITH REALM/MISSION/TEAM" label.

This version also modifies the value of "NetworkTransmitTimerInterval" when Realm "01" is in use. In that case, the value of "NetworkTransmitTimerInterval" is set to the special value of "101". This greatly improves the visual perception of network "jitter" when flying in Realm "01". If long-term experience with this setting does not cause problems for the server, then we may double the rate of packet transmission with a similar adjustment to "NetworkTransmitTimerInterval" in some or all of the other Realms too.

Changes in the late-Apr 2020 version (Lac08p05) include:

The Main Menu has been expanded with an extra button, labelled "ONLINE DOCUMENTATION". It activates an Internet browser for the user from within LAC and conveniently presents several pages of specially chosen online documentation and training video clips. By default, LAC tries to use the "firefox" browser, but the user can specify a different browser by editing a new line, near the bottom of the "LacConfig.txt" file.

Two types of user misbehavior are better managed as follows:

1 of 2: in MissionNetworkBattle01 and in MissionNetworkBattle02, if a user in flight presses <esc> to temporarily exit a difficult tactical situation and then returns without reasonably exercising menu buttons, he sees "<esc> ABUSE DETECTED" in his SystemMessage Panel and he gets destroyed as punishment.</esc></esc>

2 of 2: Anytime the player damages a friendly aircraft or facility in any of the three online, server-based, multiplayer missions, he sees "YOU INFLICTED FRIENDLY FIRE!" on his SystemMesssage Panel and, if he is participating in MissionNetworkBattle01 or MissionNetworkBattle02, he loses access to IFF for a period of time that is proportional to the amount of friendly damage inflicted. If the damage is extremely serious, he suffers other consequences, building up to permanent loss of HUD, RADAR, Tactical status reports, target vocalization, airfield service, and finally, upon landing, summons to court-martial for treason.

The Makefile was enhanced with the "-fPIE" compiler option for better compatibility with popular compilers.

The Mission Detail menus for the three online, server-based, multiplayer missions have been enhanced with clickable areas that cycle Team affiliation back and forth between BLUE and RED and that cycle "REALM" through all available values from "00" to "31", so it is no longer necessary to edit the LacConfig.txt file to specify Team and Realm affiliation. Keep in mind that with the small population of users currently active in LAC, we are urging everybody to limit activities to REALM 0 so we can find one another.)

Changes in the mid-Apr2020 version (Lac08p02) include:

Better support for players that don't have a joystick. The logic that supports flight without a joystick has been improved. Several serious bugs were fixed. Now it's much easier and more reliable to fly with just a mouse and keyboard, whether using the formerly flawed, optional "RELATIVE" mode, or the long-stable nonrelative mode. Both modes are now improved. As an option for pilots that are serious about tuning mouse controls for the maximum possible performance, players can edit their ~home/.LAC/LacControls.txt file to map two keyboard keys to "key_TrimRudderLeft" and "key_TrimRudderRight". In that case, even rudder inputs become available to players flying with only a mouse and keyboard for flight control input. Moving the mouse left or right controls ailerons, and moving the mouse up or down controls elevators. LAC's "SETUP OPTIONS -> GAME" menu allows configuration of mouse controls in "RELATIVE" or nonrelative mode. Beginners will probably prefer the "RELATIVE" mode.

The amount of fuel available at the commencement of MissionNetworkBattle01 and MissionNetworkBattle02 has been diminished in order to more diligently force all players to land for fuel before commencing any other mission tactics.

Bugs in the Me163 refueling, rearming, and repair logic were repaired.

Fixed a bug that had failed to assert accurate "blackout" and "redout" effects when in the external view mode.

Airfield objects and battleships are now visible from much greater distances. This aids in accurate bombing and dive bombing.

Fixed bugs in the Junkers Ju87 and the Aichi D3A that were incorrectly permitting them to retract landing gear, in conflict with their historic, fixed-gear designs.

Fixed bugs in the Junkers Ju87 flight model that had caused occasional segmentation faults when its dive brakes were active and during violent maneuvers.

Enhanced cockpit realism when IFF is disabled or damaged: without IFF, many of the advanced cockpit and RADAR targeting features are now unavailable and pilots are forced to rely on voice radios and LAC's target "vocalization" to locate other aircraft and airfields.

Enhanced the results of damage in flight: Now, as damage levels increase toward 100%, pilots experience various new types of failures associated with WEP, Undercarriage, IFF, Ordnance access, Speedbrakes, and flaps, in addition to the aileron and engine thrust damage that have long been experienced by LAC pilots.

Improved pilot experience after landing for refuel, re-arm, and repair services: the 20-second duration of HUD and RADAR shutdown has been diminished to just 5 seconds.

Changes in the early Apr2020 version (Lac08p01) include:

The cockpit's "TAR ALT" display is now colored red when RedTeam objects are selected, and colored blue when BlueTeam objects are selected.

The duration of flight supported by fuel supplies has been adjusted for all aircraft so that bombers have longer flight endurance and greater range than fighters, etc. The B29 now has the longest flight duration (without refueling) in the sim, and the Me109 has the shortest endurance of all piston-powered aircraft, according to its well-known reputation. Others fall in between these extremes. In general, heavy bombers can remain aloft about twice as long as fighters, and medium bombers can remain aloft about 50% longer than most fighters.

The Spit5 and Spit9 now suffer from fuel-flow cutoff when pulling negative "G" forces, in the same manner as their historic counterparts.

The DeHavilland "Mosquito" has been upgraded from the "bomber-only" version to the "Fighter-Bomber" version, equipping it with guns and rockets in addition to its bombs. These changes should make the "Mossie" a more popular choice among LAC players.

I found and fixed several minor errors in the menu logic that displays "HISTORIC PERIOD" associated with each aircraft. Now, in LAC's menus, early-war aircraft are correctly described as "EARLY WAR", and all late-war aircraft are correctly described as "LATE WAR".

I found and fixed a tiny little bug in main.cpp's "event_targetPrevious()" function that was failing to vocalize aircraft team affiliations if there was only one other aircraft in the mission.

I found and fixed a bug that was causing the "FIGHTERS" tutorial mission to start out with IFF disabled every second time it was re-started.

I enhanced the two-player "HEAD TO HEAD" mission so that its cockpit instruments now display "DATA FLOW" instead of "CONNECTION" to better describe that mission's true use of network activity.

I adjusted starting positions in all three of the server-based, multiplayer missions. Now the player starts out farther from his requested airfield and higher up, giving more time to set up landing when desired.

I found and fixed a bug that sometimes caused LAC to "Hang" destructively when a targetted object was destroyed (either by the player or by somebody else). This bug had also sometimes caused segmentation errors WITHOUT "hanging" the sim.

I adjusted startup logic that was sometimes causing segmentation errors within the first 5 seconds of online missions. (Those errors are now diminished in frequency but still occur from time to time. Not very often. They can be avoided by avoiding violent maneuvers during the first 5 seconds of a new mission.)

I found and fixed a bug that was sometimes causing segmentation errors when the player collided with another aircraft or mission object.

I enhanced the "TargetNext" and "TargetPrevious" facilities. Now they ought to be more accurately named "TargetNextRed" and "TargetPreviousBlue", respectively, since the first of them cycles FORWARD through all RedTeam mission elements (skipping BlueTeam elements), and the second of them cycles BACKWARD through all BlueTeam mission elements (skipping RedTeam items). Accordingly, the keys and processes formerly known as "TargetNext" now yield the next RED target, and the keys and processes formerly known as "TargetPrevious" now yield the previous BLUE target. This arrangement sensibly preserves existing habits, keyboard and joystick mapping, and documentation, with only a small adjustment in pilot behavior. The arrangement is more convenient than the "classic" arrangement that has been in use for the prior three years, since a player that knows the team affiliation of his desired target can now select it with an average of only half as many keystrokes or joystick button activations.

I enhanced the "Map Mode" display with new information revealing the player's current altitude and true airspeed, making "Map Mode" a lot more useful (especially when the Norden Bombsight is active.)

I completely rewrote the Norden Bombsight logic. The "Continuously Computed Impact Point" pipper (which was too "jumpy" in prior versions) now moves much more smoothly. Accuracy is greatly increased. The prompting text has now been optimized to give better advice, which is customized a bit according to the type of aircraft being used.

I eliminated the universally despised, vocalized "tour" of the tactical situation at the beginning of all three online, server-based, multiplayer missions.

As a consequence of all of these changes, LAC is a little more realistic, suffers from fewer segmentation errors and "HANG" problems, is more accurate, and easier to control in complex tactical environments.

This version remains functionally interoperable with all versions since Lac07p92, but it is better behaved, a bit more realistic, and nicer to fly. All players are urged to upgrade.

Changes in the late Feb2020 version (Lac07p96) include:

Another small improvement in the visual representation of network "jitter". This version remains operationally compatible with all versions since Lac07p90.

Changes in the Feb2020 version (Lac07p95) include:

When flying at very high speeds (beyond 380MPH) it has been possible to collide with your own bullets. This didn't happen very often, but it seemed to be a bit more frequent when flying in a straight line. Subsequent testing confirmed that aircraft began colliding with their own bullets at any speed beyond about 375MPH. This has now been fixed. After this change you will find that aircraft can now safely fire their guns and cannons at extremely high speeds without ill effect. This will be especially helpful for fans of the German Me163 "Komet", which can easily exceed 500MPH in combat. This version remains operationally compatible with all versions since Lac07p90.

Changes in the mid December 2019 version (Lac07r94) include:

Improvement in the visual representation of network "jitter". This version remains operationally compatible with all versions since Lac07p90.

Changes in the mid November 2019 version (Lac07r92) include:

Users can now edit the "NetworkMode" field of their LacConfig.txt file to instruct LAC to ignore the presence of Mumble. This will be good for users with computers suffering incompatibilities when trying to use Mumble, or for users wishing to employ some other VOIP application.

Run-time diagnostic reporting was simplified, eliminating several unimportant details and improving framerate when looking to the right, left, up, down, or to the rear from within the cockpit.

LAC's video resolution configuration menu now offers nine standard resolution options instead of just five, making it far less likely that inexperienced users will ever need to manually edit the corresponding resolution fields in their LacConfig.txt file. The vast majority of new users will be able to find an appropriate setting from within LAC's menus.

The flight model of the Nakajima N1K1 fighter was improved with better handling of high-speed compressibility.

LAC's volunteer flight test crew flew meaningful missions, including takeoffs and landings with agressive ACM, in all 54 of the WW2 aircraft and confirmed that all of them fly reasonably without a lot of segmentation errors, and within expected flight performance parameters according to the best available historic and anecdotal records. Top speeds at sea level, climb rates, stall speeds, roll rates, maneuverability, lethality, and durability are all adjusted to our satisfaction. For controlled flight at normal altitudes and speeds, the overall performance and "feel" is entirely reasonable for anybody willing to use a little imagination. (At the extremes of speed and altitude, the flight models are less accurate, but still respectable.) The biggest flight model compromise is evident during takeoffs and landings, which are considerably simplified and easier than in real life, but all of the active principles of flight are modeled in principle; LAC's compromises in takeoff and landing are matters of degree. All of the flight testers are satisfied with the resulting compromises.

Accordingly, we are declaring this release of "classic" Linux Air Combat as DONE, and we are issuing it with a new name:

"LINUX AIR COMBAT R 7.92".

The compiled executable program is now named "lac07r92".

This is the version that will be released for public distribution on 15Nov2019 after more than four years of intense development effort.