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Fighter Ace ® Friends was discontinued on April 2 2007 to make way for expansion.

Contents 1 Fighter Ace Friends ® v1.05 Manual v1.05 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Getting Started 1.3 Login 1.4 Choosing a Nickname 1.5 Start Chatting 1.6 Help Queue 1.7 Chat Log History 1.8 Changing Availability 1.9 Graphic Legends 1.9.1 Emoticons 1.9.2 Navicons 1.9.3 Ranks & Medals 1.9.4 Countries 1.9.5 Fonts 1.10 Preferences 1.11 Advanced Preferences 1.12 Credits

Fighter Ace Friends ® v1.05 Manual v1.05

"Communication is the corner stone of any community"

Introduction

Why Java?

Various and multiple resent issues have prompted us to implement a dedicated chat client for Fighter Ace ®. The most important reason being that of communication. The reason I personally opted to use Java was simply because of support and time to market the program. The FAF client/server architecture is quite small in comparison to other solutions. For example: The FAF Conductor Driver is less than 50 kb and fully threaded. Conductor it self is less than 500 kb. All this and the use of the same protocol as the Fighter Ace ® client make it possible for us to grow this application beyond just a chat messaging tool.

One good side effect of the current implementation of FAF is that it can be used on the back-end where one usually does not have any direct communication means. The FAF client was born to be morphed into what the user wants it to be. All graphic, sound and text objects can be changed by the pilot or the graphic master of a squad, creating a unique skin of their own. The sounds were done in such a way as to evoke smiles and to be sufficiently good for default use but not so good as to stymie the "I can do better" attitude too much.

When using FAF it should be very obvious that Fighter Ace ® is an international endeavor, time zone and flags (optional) included in the chat for each pilot make it easier to get the "feel" of the other person. One notable feature that is absent from FAF is the capability to send files directly to users and there is a good reason for this. I do not want to expose client IP numbers to others in the community and thus making it trivial to make a denial of service attack on the unsuspecting user. For us to channel the file transfer through our server infrastructure is impossible and very expensive, also we would be liable for any copyright infringement done on any data passing through our servers. The largest reason is that of security and not to implement YATV/WP (yet another trivial virus/worm propagator.)

Denis Tumpic
Toronto 2003


When Fighter Ace ® was at the MS Gaming Zone, there was a neat little program called Zone Friends that was used in conjunction with the gaming lobbies by all of the users. After moving from Microsoft, FA lost the external chat feature and we realized, after a large amount of feedback from players, that this was a feature that was sorely missed by the community.

In my opinion, an Online Gaming Community thrives in an environment of communication. Of course there is in-game communication of various forms, but Fighter Ace ® goes beyond being just a game. While people may “meet” in the game, quite often friendships are formed that frequently go very much further than the gaming environment. We hope that adding another avenue for people to get together will enhance the strength of the Community overall.

Richard Teachout
Seattle 2003

Getting Started

Installing FAF should not pose any immediate problems. However if JAVA jdk 1.4.2 is already installed some problems may manifest them selves and it may be necessary to un-install the jdk before continuing installing FAF, please reinstall the jdk after FAF. You can run FAF on any Linux 2.4+ x86 architecture and Sparc Solaris 8+ architecture as well. Please download the J2SE v1.4.2 at http://java.sun.com for the OS in question and copy all FAF files over to that machine. You need a valid pilot nick to successfully use FAF. Minimum requirements are 128 MB PII-450 to just run FAF, some OS variants can have lesser specifications and still work.

Login

First time users of FAF should be fairly acquainted with how our login procedure works in FA. There is no major difference in how the FAF login procedure works. Select the appropriate Server in the drop-down box and enter your account name and password. You may enable the "save password" functionality but for real security you should never have passwords saved automatically. One addition to the login is the generic help login. The help login can be used at any time, with or without a valid subscription to get problems sorted out. You will be automatically queued to the help queue using the help login and appropriate personnel can help you ASAP with any problems you may have with FA or FAF. Users that have not used Fighter Ace ® and created them selves a unique pilot nick will not be able to initiate a chat session.

Choosing a Nickname

The login precedes in much the same way as the FA client by prompting you to choose one of your pilot nicks. Simply select one in the drop-down box presented. Using the wrong account name or password will not get you this choice but will instead show where the problem may be: Authentication problems, FAF Server problems or Network related problems.

Start Chatting

Now that you are logged in. The server stores data, about your personal achievements and settings will be echoed back from the FAF server. The main window will show who is logged in and what kind of users they are. Buddy, Squadron, SYSop and HQ lists that are the important ones. Help Queue, personal persistent chat rooms, blocked, gagged and suspended lists the less important ones.

You may initiate a chat with any user by choosing one of the users in the lists. Users have the option to block any other user. SYSop and HQ personnel can not be blocked. It is prudent to first strike up a conversation in one of the global rooms and then take it private. Joining a global room is done in a similar fashion but select a room instead of a nick. Also adding the pilots that you communicate with most to your buddy list will make it simpler to know when people you know are on-line. Squad mates are automatically put in a special list for convenience.

Each squad has their own private chat room that nobody else can join without being invited by a squad member. If you are part of a squad and you log in to FAF, you will see an extra room listed with your squad name on it. You can however invite people with drag-n-drop functionality to any chat session that you participate in (one possible application could be for squad recruiting and interviews).

The auto scroll functionality will stop when selecting chat history text for copy or for back log reading. To re-enable this: simply slide the slider to the bottom and click on the bottom white text area (last free text line) in the chat history.

Pilot; Right click on a nick, Menu: Chat Using -> YourNick

Room; Right click on a room, Menu: Join Using -> YourNick

Help Queue

The help queue system was implemented with efficiency in mind. All SYSop and HQ personnel can at any given time start a help session with pilots in the help queue. When a help session is started that pilot will be lit up and other help personnel will know that that pilot is being helped. Once we have their issues resolved we delete them from the queue. Help personnel can also drag-n-drop more personnel into a help session or drag-n-drop the pilot to the appropriate helper or room after screening the problem.

Menu: Enter/Leave Help Queue

Chat Log History

FAF is saving all chat logs by default. They are in the ChatLogs directory in the main FAF directory. The files are simple html files that can be viewed with any HTML browser (Internet Explorer/Netscape/Opera/Mozilla.) The logs can be viewed at any time, even when not connected to the FAF server. After un-installation the logs will be kept to minimize upgrade problems and you will be able to read the chat but graphics will be gone. To have a more permanent chat log you may want to save specifically from the web browser.

Changing Availability

There are times when too many things will happen at once. Set availability to Away to make it impossible for others to contact you.

Right click in any free area in the main window, Menu: Availability -> Here/Idle/Busy/Away

Graphic Legends

There are many icons that can be used for expressing thoughts and emotions. We have included the ones that make sense to have in an environment like this.

Right click in any free area in the main window, Menu: Legends -> All/Emoticons/Navicons/Rankicons/Countricons/Fonticons/Flagions

Emoticons

These are the usual and normal emoticons that are recognized by most other chat programs out there.

Navicons

These icons should be used to convey a plane or formation maneuver without much typing.

Ranks & Medals

These icons are used to convey information of who the pilot is. In addition, at certain times medals will be awarded to individual pilots and squads for a variety of possible achievements. These medals will show up next to the pilots nickname when they chat.

Countries

These are in game country specific icons that can be used when talking about targets and should be used in conjunction with the Navicons.

Fonts

Changing font attributes on the fly in any chat can be done through the font legend. The changes will be in-line and only valid to the end of that chat line. For permanent style change use preferences and set accordingly. We opted to have a clean Chat Window with no buttons to lessen clutter and font jockeys.

Preferences

The "while running preferences" have only attributes that can change while running the FAF client. You may specify a different language, chat color, font style and size. Sound can be enabled per event basis so you get an audio cue that you prefer.

Advanced Preferences

There are some settings that can not be changed while running the FAF client. These settings have been relegated to the FAF.ini file. All changes to this file need to be precise. Out of spec settings will not run the client.

[Misc]

KeepChatLogs  = "YES" ; YES - Auto Save into ChatLogs, NO - Nothing saved

Default= "English" ; Just for bundling

Flag = "14" ; Hex code of flag in flag legend F## lower case

InGameFlag  = "X" ; In game Country, A - America, G - Germany, B - Britain, R - Russia , J - Japan, X -Null

Graphics = "ON" ; ON - All graphics are on, OFF - All Chat graphics are off, even codes

TimeStamps  = "ON" ; ON - Full time stamp and Timezone, OFF - No time stamp/timezone in chat

Sounds= "ON"; ON - Sound system on, OFF - All sound processing is off

AdditionalFontSize = 0; For people with bad eye sight 5-15 depending on screen size, use with discretion

ScaleIconsToo      = "YES"       ; YES - will scale icons according to AdditionalFontSize, NO - Will Not scale icons with fonts
ShowOfflinePeople  = "NO"        ; YES - Show offline buddies and mates, NO - Don't show offline Buddies and mates
BeepSounds         = "OFF"       ; ON - Each enabled sound will sound the PC-Speaker beep, OFF - No beep sounds
EnterExitMessages  = "OFF"       ; OFF - No enter nor exit messages in chat history, ON - Log user enter and exits

Credits

Executive Producer: Michael D'Agnillo 

Executive Designer: Doug Johnson

Client/Server Programmer & Sounds/Design : Denis Tumpic

Graphics/Design: Richard Teachout

QA Team :  Richard Patha Alistair' DeJonge

Feature Designers: Jay Gardner, Mariah Rabb, Greg McGuffy, Bob  DeBell, David McLean

Special Thanks: John Yow and The Core Beta Group