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Assassins - Ultimate CD Games Collection 1
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Assassins - Ultimate CD Games Collection (1994)(Weird Science)(Track 1 of 2)[!][Amiga-CD32-CDTV][CDD5332].iso
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instructions
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arcade
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yachting
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1994-10-27
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13KB
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245 lines
LA OROYA Software, 1993.
------------------------
Document for the Yachting programme, by Stephan Scholz
The programme >>> Yachting <<< is public domain.
C O M M E N T S :
=================
This programme intends to show the relationship between wind speed
and direction, sail-boom angle and yacht heading and speed, turning
this into a playable simulator game.
On loading, a screen showing a circular wind graph appears:
The darker blue zone shows the maximum traveling speeds for modern
yachts, according to the direction the wind is coming from. The
light blue area shows speeds with raised spinnaker for rear winds.
Improvements on the first version:
----------------------------------
- The rather messy printed numbers for the yacht speed have now
been converted into a speedometer dial, and the heading is now given
by a smooth mini-scrolling compass. The dashboard now boasts the name
of the programme, and the pseudonym logo "La Oroya" - taken from a
mountain-town in the Andes I had always wanted to visit but never
got round to.
- Some calculations have been taken out of the main loop and some
numbers converted into variables - scrounging milliseconds...
- Also, compiling it did seem to improve things a bit, thank heavens!
- The background scrolling speed has been improved, making the whole
programme perform more smoothly. The culprit was that I was copying
the whole background instead of a third of the strip! My sincere
apologies for any hassle caused.
- The race is done in three separate laps. Before starting, you can
point your yacht in the desired direction, i.e. depending on the wind
angle, you can choose your course by clicking on the rudder chevrons
"<" or ">". Press space to start the lap. You will have to keep your
space bar down a few seconds, as the routine only reads the keyboard
between waves, when the horizon is up. This part also lets you quit
by pressing "Q".
You will win if you ve won two out of three laps,
Wind direction changes a bit from lap to lap.
Once you ve started the radar-scanner indicates a green dot near the
buoy you should be heading for.
- An ocean sound, changing with speed, adds atmosphere...
If you are stealing the other s wind this sound will change into a
swishing sound. If your wind is being stolen, your speedometer will
tell you, and the ocean sound becomes quieter.
- The creacking noises are when you move your sail or raise or lower
the spinnaker. The latter now takes a few seconds - 5 creaks!
- Collisions are accompanied by a violent crashing sound, and you
are spun off course violently!
Future versions might have a damage control.
Possible improvements :
-----------------------
- Instead of having an automatic competitor getting sailing speeds
from a wind angle table called AUTOS in the SAILDATA procedure,
one could have a version where a second computer were linked up
and a second operator controlled the other ship in the same fashion
as Object 0 (the viewpoint - your ship, in effect) is controlled.
- One could also set up a championship routine, perhaps with
different models that behaved differently under different weather
conditions, and hall of fame to enter one s name.
Further comments:
-----------------
A mathematical co-processor would probably be a grateful additive
to use with this trigonometry and decimal-places ridden programme !!!
An accellerator is also convenient, giving faster screen update and
smoother movement, as the processor has a lot of work with all the
calculations. I have tried to keep these to a minimum, using data
tables as much as possible, and I haven t included a jib (the
fore-sail), or the turning effect that can be achieved by letting
out or bringing in only one of the two sails. A trigonometrical
drift calculation for each sail is necessary, similar to the
propulsion calculation (which would have to be done for each sail
too), so you can guess what will happen without an accellerator!
Hence also the lack of lateral drift. Normally, depending on your
speed, your true course can drift upto 5 degrees leeward of your
heading with winds forward of the beam. This sideways drift could
be included, but would slow down the programme and make it harder
to sail than it already is.
So at present the YACHTING programme supposes that your course is your
heading, and this is kept constant unless you move your rudder, i.e.
you have a jib that someone is attending to, thus maintaining the ship
balanced and on course. This way you are spared the never-ending rudder
operations necessary to keep single-sailed craft on course, or balancing
the jib and the mainsail all the time.
INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO SAIL:
----------------------------
On the starting line, choose which direction to face when you start.
Take care you are not heading squarely into the wind - you won t get
any speed at all! Click on the rudder chevrons "<" and ">" to rotate.
Your yacht will move forward if the wind catches the sail. In the
main navigation instrument in the lower center, there is a light blue
line indicator in the green ring, indicating where the wind is coming
from, relative to your ship. If you turn your ship, this line will
turn, moving round in the green ring as the wind angle changes with
respect to your ship. This line is the apparent wind, which will move
forwards as you gather speed, so you will have to adjust the sail boom
accordingly, to maintain optimum sail angle with respect to the wind.
Inside the green circle, is a drawing of your ship. You have a boom
indicator which can be moved outwards on inwards by clicking on the
chevrons "^" and "v". The boom will be light blue if optimum sail
efficiency is achieved, although this is not possible for very rear
winds. It will be green if the wind is pushing the sail - meaning less
efficiency, as no laminar flow is being achieved. Laminar flow happens
happens with a wind incidence of 10 to 25 degrees on the sail, as a
suction force is ceated, similar to an aircraft wing.
If the boom indicator is grey, however, it means the sail is
flapping loosely in the wind, and you are getting no push at all.
In this case you should draw in the boom, clicking on the red "v"
to the right of the instrument, until the boom slowly moves in.
It may take a while to start moving if it has been out far - all
that loose rope has to be collected..!
If you are headed straight into the wind, i.e. the blue wind line
is near the nose of your ship, taking in the boom will be to no
avail, and you will have to turn the yacht right or left, clicking
on the red ">" or "<" below the instrument - the yellow line is your
rudder. Turning will be very sluggish indeed if you have no speed, so
DON T turn into the wind without speed ! - i.e. for tacking - doing
a zig-zag course for a route against the wind.
Even if your boom indicates laminar flow, i.e. it is light blue,
there is a certain optimum position within the 10-25 degree angle
of incidence range, which is 22 degrees. Move the boom in or out
just a little to get this best push! Your speed will tell you.
Of course, depending on where the wind is coming from your optimum
speed will vary. There are no random factors affecting wind, boom
or steering. It s difficult enough without those!
If your competitor is too fast for you you might like to reduce
the A#*2.1 value to A#*1.7 in the SAILDATA procedure in the READ A#
instruction just before the AUTOS data section. (These values give
the speed for the automatic ship, based on the wind graph data table).
Your own ship s speed table is different: Your speed depends on wind
incidence angle on the sail - this table is SAILS data section, and
is complemented by the SPINNAKER data section further on). Don t change
these, as it will probably ruin your yacht s performance. Your
adversary s ship and your own ship behave differently:
Yours is a bit faster and sails closer to the wind, although your
competitor accellerates and turns faster, and runs very well before
the wind.
You will find it very useful to get round the other boat on the
windward side, steal the other s wind. Watch out you don t get on
the leeward side - you ll lose your speed.
If you are heading into the wind you can do so only at an angle.
Watch your speed indicator, which is to the left of the main
instrument. With a 12 knot wind your yacht (which is very
efficient and fast and behaves somewhat like a catamaran even!),
will sail forwards at about 8 knots with a real wind coming from
the side (90 deg.) and 3 or 4 knots heading into the wind at angles
of 40 or 45 degrees.
The real wind angle cannot be "seen" from your yacht, only the
apparent wind, which changes with your speed. Should you want to
see the real wind on the wind instrument, there is a line you can
use: Draw H(WW,3),H(WW,4) to H(WW,5),H(WW,6). Write this in, just
below Draw H(AWA,3),H(AWA,4) to H(AWA,5),H(AWA,6) in the main loop.
You may find it interesting to see how your ship s apparent wind
behaves with respect to the real wind, depending on your speed.
If you are sailing with rear winds, your boom should be let out as
far as possible, clicking on the red "^", and you can achieve a speed
of about 4 kts. without spinnaker.
If you click on the little box inside the speed instrument, this will
slowly raise or lower the spinnaker. The symbol in the box will tell
you if it is stowed (v), raised (^) or being raised or lowered (*).
The spinnaker gives you increased push for any real winds coming from
anywhere behind the beam (90 to 180 degrees). If you raise the spinnaker
with forward winds, this will bring you to a halt. With a spinnaker, the
maximum yacht speed, just over 10 knots, will be achieved with a real
wind at 135 degrees. If at 180 degrees, speed is about 6 knots.
For the moment, the program has a fixed real wind speed of 12 knots
but the wind direction is random.
Watch out with hitting the buoys or the other ship! It will send you
spinning violently off course! It may happen that the other one will
hit you too, so watch out! Keep an eye on the radar-scanner. The blue
dot tells you where the other ship is. You are the yellow dot. Even if
you or the other boat leave the boundary of the scanner, a dot remains
in the blue fringe on the margin to tell you in what direction that
ship is. The red dots are the three buoys, and a little green dot
near one of the buoys will indicate which buoy you should be heading
for.
Starting off, sail for the north buoy, which lies ahead and to the
left of where you are, (the other ship will set off, so you can
follow it - you are faster, and can overtake it).
Sail round the north buoy, (don t collide with it), and as soon as
you hear the bell, or you see the green dot on your scanner disappear
from the north buoy, you can set course for the Southwest buoy, and
then the East one, which is the "finish line".
To keep track of the route, the programme has to detect if you ve
entered an area 5000 VLU s in diameter which touches the north buoy
on the north side. The west buoy also has such an area to the south west.
During the race, rounding the buoy without hitting it is easy enough.
IMPORTANT:
If you don t enter these areas, i.e. if you give the buoy too wide a
berth, the programme can t detect that you have rounded the buoy, and
won t finish the race - the other ship will continue sailing past the
last buoy ad-infinitum... During the race it is easy enough to round
the buoys close enough without danger of hitting them.
The finish "line" is an area 5000 VLU s in diameter, touching the
last buoy on the south east (This is the buoy you started the race from).
You can enter the finishing area from any direction south of the buoy.
The program detects who is first to enter this area and will tell
you if you ve won the lap - and the times you ve bumped into something.
Have fun!
Stephan Scholz