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[DarthHelmet86]

Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review and download (if available)

[dosraider]

One of the best early chopter sims you can get, still worth playing even if the graphics/sounds are completely outdated.
Whilst Comanche was more 'arcade' -(not 'really really' but yeah)- oriented Gunship also will get your brains to do some work.

Highly recommended are the quick ref card and manual, game is complex, but not thàt complex its ruins the fun.

Quick ref card: (print this one!)
http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.7291

Manual:
http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.7290

Also: there are still a lot of fan made missions and even complete scenarios floating around on the internet, some of those are excellent.

[Neville]

Thanks for the docs, dosraider. As usual with MicroProse sims, not only they are essential for playing, but also make a great read by themselves.

I bought this game many years ago, by mail order. It's probably one of the few games I bought at full price, but I never regreted the move. For years I kept it installed in my harddrive and played it obssesively. It's one of those games that are easy to play but hard to master, and you'll constantly be discobering new features and strategies to succeed.

One good tip is to use an inferior chopter than the one you're given by default to complete your missions: your superiors will be impressed if you succeed and promotions will become available sooner. Oh, and the "intercept" missions are a bit annoying. You'll usually be given the starting location of the enemy and the direction they're following. But at least on the easier levels, the enemy tends to use the roads available, so following them is always a good strategy.

[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by Neville

Thanks for the docs, dosraider. As usual with MicroProse sims, not only they are essential for playing, but also make a great read by themselves.

Right, I remember how awesome it was to read the F-19 manual. IIRC it was this particular game that was so well researched that the Pentagon even suspected them of having had access to the back-then classified F-117 design. Or so the story goes

[Wicky]

Gunship 2000 was probably the DOS game I've spent most of my time with. I was so bad at it, that they never gave me a wingman as promotion, so I had to use a savegame of a friend. But hey, once I got promoted the action really goes off. To carefully hatch your wingmen and see how they get better and better.. ah those were the days. I remember when I was like Lt.Colonel and my best wingman just 1 rank below me, I would let him do entire missions all by himself. He would wipe out enemy tanks left and right, refill his ammo at depots, evade enemies who were too strong for him.
Some wingmen are not so good, and to watch carefully who gets promoted, so they don't learn "stupid" things, like for example:
If some wingman goes on a kamikaze attack run, and you promote him, he will think this is a good thing to do, then will repeat doing kamikaze in the next mission (until he dies)
Thanks for uploading this!

[Phreeze_lu]

this game is ace. my father cut out the keyboard shortcuts and put them on a plexiglas that we lay over our keyboard i was bad at it, but played it some years back and was much more successful.

[Wicky]

A quick keyboard summary.
Remember to use "keyb us" to fire up the american keyboard layout, it will not work otherwise in Dosbox.

Part I - Navigation
===============

9 ... engage rotor
the two keys between 0 and "backspace" control the rotor power.
(hold shift for faster rotor power increase/decline)

3 .. raise/lower landing gear (d'oh)

c, v ... adjust minimum altitude warning level. Also tells wingmen at which altitude they must fly.

F10 ... open map
-> F ... assign waypoints in map, confirm with <enter>
-> B ... assign route back to base
-> <space> ... toggle map zoom

F1 ... exit map and cockpit view

cursor keys ... forward/back/left/right obviously



Part II - Your Chopper
==================

5 ... Autopilot engage, to next waypoint
(the waypoint disappears when flying over it with autopilot)

6, 7 ... cycle waypoints

0 ... Autohover, works only at low speed (for landing)

y, x ... toggle the big display mode in the center (aka MFD)

ü, + ... time acceleration up to x16


Part III - Combat
==============

8 ... open/close weapon bays (only the stealth Comanche has those)

backspace ... cycle targets

space ... cycle weapon hardpoints

1,2,4 ... salvo mode x1, x2 and x4 for hydra missiles

enter ... fire current weapon.

n ... engage radar jammer to make it harder for radar guided to lock you on.
m ... once it fails, drop chaff to confuse radar missiles, and make a hard turn!

. ... engage IR jammer same as above
- ... drop flare to quickly confuse a heat seeking missile, same as above

(the jammers generally work good, but also alert farther enemies to your presence)


Good luck, warrant officer candidates!
Permission to publish these quick instructions on our game page granted

[Wicky]

How do you do those recon missions? Perhaps all enemies in an area must be spotted, but I always get shot down. Can you attack them?

[dosraider]

Originally Posted by Wicky

How do you do those recon missions? Perhaps all enemies in an area must be spotted, but I always get shot down. Can you attack them?

From what I remember from this gem:
YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW SON, DO AS YOU'RE TOLD.

If they tell you in the briefing: recon and avoid engagement, now f*cking do recon and avoid engagement by keeping a low profile, hide and be sneaky. Retreat, hide and wait long enough after any enemy contact.

Bring back the data, that's how to complete those missions.

[mpwuzhere]

Originally Posted by Wicky

How do you do those recon missions? Perhaps all enemies in an area must be spotted, but I always get shot down. Can you attack them?

Some of those recon missions can be accomplished by going up, rotate, spot, land...mission accomplished. Just pray that an AA doesn't take you out though unless your trying to get a lot of purple hearts.

So I have been wanting to play this game again for a long time...I installed it once and my machine was way too fast (I didn't know about DosBOX). Now that most machines don't have floppy drives my disks are obsolete. Yes, I have my original floppies along with the book, strategy guide, and keyboard layout.

BTW, one of the things I loved about this game....the screen shots are from the movie Firebirds...