So, here are the weapons and their importance:
Cannon – Your standard cannon on your fighter. Can be used to hit both land and air targets.
AIAAM Firebolt – A very long range fire and forget (F&F) missile, which can break through ECM systems, but can easily be detoured by a standard countermeasure. It cannot turn as well, so don’t prefer using it when the enemy fighter is close. Used against air targets.
AMRAAM 130A – Medium-ranged F&F missile. Has better turning rate than the AIAAM does, but less range. Used against air targets.
AIM 9M R – Sidewinder missile, short-ranged. Has a good turning rate, but this missile can be detoured by ECM and countermeasures. Useful for close combat. Used against air targets.
ASRAAM N – Advanced short range missile. The best choice for close combat, as the enemy won’t get enough time to detour this missile. However, it is useless if your target is running. Used against air targets.
Backwinder 9x – The nastiest weapon in your arsenal. This short-ranged missile fires backwards. A continuous beep lets you know if your target is just behind you. Used against air targets.
Maverick AGM 1 – The lightest, but the most manueverable air to surface missile. If you want to hit more land targets, then this weapon is your choice, because many of them can be mounted on your plane. In overall, 12. Used against ground targets.
CSW (Conventional Stand-off Weapon) – This is a missile which destroys any enemy machine in the range of its explosion, but not the vicest choice against buildings as it can not have a lock on a target. Used against vehicles (But not airplanes!).
MRASM AGM 109H – A cruise missile which explodes in a straight line, and is the most commonly used against bigger enemy ships and airport runways. Note that this is the only weapon that can destroy runways.
ASALM BDM – The best choice against buldings. This cruise missile has a powerful explosion, and has the highest chance to destroy enemy buildings in one shot. Used against ground targets.
2090LB Fuel Pod – This pod provides you extra fuel for longer missions, such as dogfights. However, this fuel pod is so big that it can only be mounted on the primary mount of your fighter, so your cruise missles cannot be mounted if this one is up. These are the ASALM and MRASM cruise missiles.
Chaff: Countermeasure used for detouring rockets, mainly radar controlled.
Flare: Countermeasure used for detouring rockets, mainly I.R. controlled.
The in-flight controls:
Arrow keys: Turns and pitches plane
Numpad +: Increase throttle
Numpad –: Decrease throttle
Enter: Choose weapon
Space: Fire weapon
1: Changes your first display, the radar: 20 meters circular radar, a 100 meters front radar and a horizontal radar, which operates if your target is locked.
2: Changes your second display, the reports display: armament report, missile camera, and systems report.
3: changes your third display, the map: a map where your position and vector is shown, a map where it is hidden, and a horizontal display.
C: Fire chaff.
V: Fire flare.
G: Raise/lower gears. If the ‚GEAR‘ display is red, then your gears are jammed and inoperational. Do not attempt to land when they are jammed, they can not hold the mass of your plane!
F: Set flaps. Flaps are used to ease take off and landing, it lets your craft to go with less speed without stalling, and climbs better. When flaps are jammed, they are inoperational and they won’t do nothing to your safety of landing or taking off.
B: Use brakes. Brakes lower your craft’s speed, and loses speed better. Useful and recommended for landing.
A: Engage Autopilot. The autopilot keeps your craft on the 00 vertical vector, and keeps it straight. Whenever you faint, the autopliot engages automatically.
E: Engage ECM. ECM is used to detour some rockets with a chance.
S: Engage stealth mode. If you are in stealth mode, your radar is gone (But not your small sound radar), but the others also don’t see you on their radars.
I: Change your HUD display color.
R: Set radar range at your close circular radar.
P: Pause the game. Press P again to use ‚boss mode‘, in other words, blank your screen. Hit any key to continue.
H: Show/Hide cockpit HUD.
L: Level your plane.
M: Turn your displays on/off.
.: Run smooth controls. Useful if you fly on mouse.
ESC: Eject. Hit once, you’ll get asked to eject by your desplays showing EJECT. If you hit it once again, you confirm the ejection, and you’ll parachute to the ground.
CTRL: Hold Ctrl to turn harder, but your speed and G force effects will suffer.
Shift+F[Weapon], example: Shift+F1 = AIAAM: Directly changes your weapon to the one you want to select.
F1-F12: Changes your view. If you have selected an external camera, hit the button again to show your current speed, altitude, vector and the camera position you have selected.
Other displays on your cockpit:
STALL: If you are going to slow that you can’t keep your current pitch, you will stall. Beware of this, though. If you stall too low, you have a big probability to crash. If this happens, press ESC twice, fast!
P: Your current engine power. Every line shows 10% of your engine power.
F: Your current fuel available. Every line shows 10% of your overall fuel.
FUE: Fuel report.
Brown: You are starting to run low on fuel.
Red, blinking: You are very short on fuel. Return to base immediately!
Red: You are out of fuel.
ENG: Engine report.
Brown: Engine is off. Increase throttle if you are not landing.
Red: Your engine is not operational.
ALT: Your altitude report.
Brown: You are low. (Below 500)
Red, blinging: You are dangerously low. (Below 200)
Red: You are at ground level.
RD: Radar report.
Brown: Radar is inoperable at long range, but will be repaired.
Red: Radar is inoperable.
WEP: Weapon report.
Brown: Weapon system is jammed. Will be repaired.
Red: Weapon system unavailable, only cannon can be used.
COM: Communications report
Brown: Communications are braking. Your communications line will not function properly. Will be repaired.
Red: Communications unavailable. Your communications line is out.
Communications line: This line is used to show you some informations. Confirmations about downing an enemy, rocket fired on you, accomplishing a mission, and many other things.
Sound Radar: Close-range radar which cannot be damaged. Shows enemy fighters and projectiles.
THREAT: Shows that a hostile is in radar range.
Fire display: Shows if you have an engine fire.
Upper light lit: Your left engine is on fire.
Lower light lit: Your right engine is on fire.
Both lights can be lit. Remember that an engine fire drains your fuel pretty quickly.
LOK: Shows that an enemy has a target lock on you.
LCH: Shows that an enemy has fired a missile on you.
ARM: Shows that you have a lock.
RUN: Shows that your engine is low on RPM, but your RPM is optimal for landing on a runway.
Running Multiplayer over TCP/IP.
Now here comes the hard part. DOSBox can emulate modem and serial conenction into a TCP/IP connection so you can play Retaliator on LAN or over internet. Now I show you the steps.
1. Install/Copy Retaliator into a DOSBox folder, let’s now name it games.
2. Make a txt file, named retal.txt with this content:
mount x games\retalmp
x:
retal.exe
3. This one is only needed if you can’t see the extension of the files.
On your folder’s toolbar, select folder’s options, view and de-select ‚hide extensions known file types‘. Sorry if it isn’t the same in english, I have a hungarian Windows.
4. Rename your ‚retal.txt‘ file into ‚retal.bat‘. Now you have an MS-DOS batch file which can be used via drag & dropping on the DOSBox. This was needed to let DOSBox run your primary settings, not the defaults.
5. Open DOSBox’s ‚dosbox.conf‘ file with Windows notepad or Notepad++. Be sure that you have a copy of this file BEFORE you edit it, label it as ‚dosboxsp.conf‘, representing DOSBox Singleplayer.
For Host: at serial, set these settings:
serial1=nullmodem
serial2=dummy
serial3=disabled
serial4=disabled
For Client: at serial, set these settings:
serial1=nullmodem server:192.168.0.2 port:23
serial2=directserial 699
serial3=disabled
serial4=disabled
Clients must be sure that the IP name given at nullmodem server is the IP of the host. This is my Local Area Network Multiplayer settings. If you are not sure about your host’s IP, use Hamachi. Hamachi is a freeware software which is very useful when you are networking.
Now save. The sad drawback of these are that now DOSBox will start slower. That is why we needed a copy of this file. If you want to restore settings, copy the multiplayer file, label it as ‚dosboxmp.conf‘, and rename ‚dosboxsp.conf‘ as ‚dosbox.conf‘.
6. Whenever you want to play Head to Head, you only have to be sure that both the host and the client is in the menu. Do not initialize modem or anything. You only have to press F1 And you are ready to launch.
A few words about multiplayer mode: You need to hit targets displayed on your communications line. Each correct hit is 1 point for you, but anything destroyed which is not a target means 1 point for your opponent. Both players have 5 lives. So, this is not only a race against you and your opponent to reach the target, but there still can be a dogfight against the two players. However, cannon is not added to the gameplay.
Enjoy!