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Text File | 1992-01-13 | 34KB | 1,651 lines

BATFISH Submarine Combat Simulator Captains Notes Copyright August ,1989 John W. McCue Authors Note There are many different makes and models of personal computers available on todays market. BATFISH has been coded with this in mind and should work on most equipment. One thing that the software cannot work around is the general speed of individual processors. You may experience some slowing of the game when you are dealing with either large scenarios or have large numbers of targets visible. If you find this to be the case, you will find a vast improvement in performance by adding a math co-processor to your machine. Testing has shown that a generic XT model computer with a co-processor will perform as well as, or better than, more advanced machines. These chips are relatively inexpensive when compared with more costly machines and will enhance your enjoyment of BATFISH and many other packages you may have. THIS PROGRAM IS COPYRIGHTED AND IS BEING DISTRIBUTED AS SHAREWARE. YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO FREELY COPY AND DISTRIBUTE "BATFISH" PROVIDED THAT ALL ACCOMPANYING FILES ARE TRANSFERRED WITHOUT MODIFICATION, AND YOU CHARGE NO FEE TO DO SO. You may play BATFISH for free ONLY until such time as you can reasonably determine if you like it or not. This does NOT mean until you have mastered the game and/or become bored with it! If you enjoy it, send payment of $15.00 along with a copy of the registration form. This program is complete, and is not "crippled" in any way. When you register, in addition to having met your legal and moral obligation, you will be put on the mailing list for future upgrades/enhancements and new programs by the author. Introduction Congratulations, Captain! CINCLANTFLT has just issued new orders. You have just been promoted out from behind your desk at Fleet Operations Headquarters. With no actual experience in submarine command, fleet operations or combat strategy, you have been selected by the review board as being more than qualified to fill the vacancy. You will take command of a Fleet Class Submarine without delay (or any training). General Notes The submarine you now command is a generic collection of all the best attributes of several different classes of submarines. General 'housekeeping' duties on board are performed by your junior officers (the little lackeys), removing the need for you to worry about them. However, you command the submarine and are responsible for anything that may endanger her. For example, the engine room staff will charge your batteries when surfaced without being told or the torpedo room crews will reload torpedo tubes when they are empty (providing you have closed the outer door on that tube). Major Electric Corporation and Hydro Dynamics Inc. constructed your vessel at the Fleet yards in one of the secret costal Naval Yards. Initial testing and work-ups indicate that your vessel meets all operational requirements laid out in the contract. However, the manufacture indicates that your submarine MAY dive below the contract test depth. Care should be taken below this depth because you may damage your vessel to the point where recovery is not possible. Notes on Starting BATFISH Set your default directory to the location where the games files are stored. At the DOS prompt, enter the command: BATFISH After the game has loaded, you will need to register your ship and yourself. You will also be asked to enter a 'console code'. The console code is used to identify a specific game. This sill allow multiple players to use the game. When you exit from the game, the current status will be stored automatically so you can restart it later. To restart a saved game, enter your console code after the BATFISH command. For example, if you started a game with a console code of SUBM, to restart it you would use: BATFISH SUBM You are also able to start, or restart, a game with a specific scenario. Using the example above, you can start BATFISH in scenario 14 by entering the command: BATFISH SUBM 14 BATFISH comes with a predefined scenario file which will give you many hours of enjoyable and challenging play. You can, however, create and use your own custom scenario file(s) to give you endless possible combinations to suit your taste, style and skills. This feature is truly unique among gaming software today. See the notes on the scenario builder at the end of this document, and enjoy! Notes on Command Registration After you have started BATFISH, you will be required to register the name of your vessel, the name of the captain who will command your vessel and a unique console code for your vessel. The console code will allow more than one player to be active and allows BATFISH to identify all aspects of your command. Batfish will not allow more than one occurrence of a console code. However, following an untimely loss of a command, BATFISH will allow a console code to be used again. Notes on the Patrol Sector The Patrol Sector you have been assigned is somewhere in the Mid Atlantic. There is not a speck of land to be seen for several hundred miles in any direction, so you should not run into very much. Some have described this area as the end of the earth. It isn't really, but you can see it from here. (and it really looks rather pleasant) CINCLANTFLT has not imposed any boundary on you, so you are free to roam at will. The Hydrographic Service at CINCLANTFLT has filed a report for your patrol area stating that water thermal boundaries may be present. These boundaries between water masses of different temperatures are ideal for distorting and masking sound waves. You may find it useful to locate this boundary, if it exists, as this is the only way to avoid detection by escort ships while they are using active sonar in your area. Notes on Scenarios Play in BATFISH is broken down into individual scenarios. Each scenario consists of one or more ships that are loaded into your patrol sector. Once in your patrol sector, these ships will attempt to manoeuver and speed away from you. There are two ways that ships may leave your sector. They will either get to far away for you instruments to detect, or you will have sunk them. When all ships have left the patrol sector, the next scenario will be loaded. This will continue until no further scenarios are available, or you find yourself joining your trophies in Davey Jones Locker. As mentioned previously, you may create your own scenario file or use the default file supplied. A sample file is included at the end of this document. Notes on Targets Targets are ships in your patrol sector. You objective is to sink as may tons of shipping as possible with the least number of torpedoes. So you will have to make a judgement call as to the largest targets available for a given situation. When lining up on targets, remember to compensate for target speed, distance, size and zig-zag patterns. Hits registered against targets must be serious enough to sink them. Minor damage may slow the target but repairs can be made to correct the damage. In short, make sure the ship is going down, don't assume that is should. Care must be taken when going into combat against warships of any kind. Should you be caught on the surface, or allow them to locate your periscope, they will shell you with deck guns and that can ruin your whole day. Other hazards you will encounter include depth charges dropped from destroyers and torpedoes fired from opposing submarines. You should exercise caution where it is appropriate. Notes on Replenishment At Sea CINCLANTFLT has placed a large submarine auxiliary replenishment ship at your disposal. This vessel will provide you with all the torpedoes that you. You will contact the replenishment vessel by radio when you need it. Be extremely careful. DO NOT SINK IT!!! When attempting to rendezvous with your support vessel, you must manoeuver into a position along side it. The distance between the two vessels must be small enough to pass lines from one boat to the other but not so close as to ram one another. Your speed is also critical. Once you have successfully connected with the other vessel, replenishment will commence (at a very feverish pace) with little intervention from you. You may break off at any time you wish, should it be necessary. The captain of your supply boat is an experienced commander. He has been provided with a full accounting of your level of knowledge and experience. As a result, he will generally stay well out of harms way. That is, until you call for him. When he is making an approach, it will take very little to spook him and abandon any attempt to rendezvous. You may find it necessary to request resupply more than once. Notes On Displays The information displayed on your different instruments is of great value to you. Instrumentation will tell you what your submarine is doing, what its current state is and is a primary link to the world outside the hull of your boat. You should pay close attention to what the are telling you. Submarine control systems, over which you exercise your authority, will provide you with two indicators. These are yellow and green. The yellow indicator will indicate what you have ordered and the green one tells you what the submarine is doing. For example, if you have ordered a speed of 30 knots from a speed of 0 knots, the yellow indicator will point at 30 while the green indicator will slowly climb from 0 to 30 as the speed of your boat increases. (Remember, that's almost 2,400 tons of submarine you are trying to move and it will not pull wheelies) Attitude reporting, depth for example, will only have a green indicator. These instruments are relating the attitude of the submarine based on other factors that impact your boat. The main screens you will see represent the areas where you will be when in command. They consist of the Control Room, the Bridge, and the CIC (Combat Information Center). Each of these areas will have a changeable insert to assist in your command functions. Most information can be obtained from other areas when needed. However, where physical limitations exist, they have been enforced. For example, you will not be able to use the periscope from the radar room or the bridge because it is in the control room. Also note that some instruments are subject to noise infiltration. This is causes by a number of things. The most obvious will be noise caused by excessive speed and wakes caused be ships and torpedoes. On occasion, there will be insufficient information available to you crew when you request plots. Be aware of this behaviour and manoeuver your ship accordingly. Remember, you are the captain. Control Room ______________________________________________________ | _______________ _______________ | | |Damage Control| | Torpedo | | | | State Board | | State Board | | | |_______________| |_______________| | | | | ______ ______ ____________ ___ ___ ________ | | | 1 | | 2 | |_____7______| | 8 || 9 || || | |______| |______| ____________ |___||___|| || | ______ ______ | | ______ | 10 || | | 3 | | 4 | | | | 11 | | || | |______| |______| | 14 | |______| |________|| | ______ ______ | | ______ ______ | | | 5 | | 6 | | | | 12 | | 13 | | | |______| |______| |____________| |______| |______| | |______________________________________________________| |_____________________Message Area_____________________| |_____________________Menu Area________________________| CIC ______________________________________________________ | ____________ | | | |_____7______| | 14. Insert | | ________ | | | | | | - Radar | | | | | - Sonar | | | 10 | | - Radio Direction Finder | | | | | - Listening (passive sonar) | | |________| | - Plot Board | | ______ ____ | | | | 11 | | 8 | | | | |______| |____| | | | ______ | | | | 2 | | | | |______| | | | ______ | | | | 1 | | | | |______| | | |___________________| Radius Ring | |____Message Area___|__________________________________| |_____________________Menu Area________________________| 1. Rudder Angle 2. Speed 3. High Preassure Air 4. Battery Power 5. Aft Ballast 6. Forward Ballast 7. Torpedo State (Quick Ref.) 8. Diving Plane Angle 9. Viewing Direction 10. Depth Gauge 11. Compass 12. Rate of Change of Depth 13. Boat Attitude (Bubble) 14. Selected Insert Periscope _____________| |______________ | | | | ========| View with Hash Marks |======== ========| |======== |Angle(absolute) Magnify | |_______________________________| Bridge ______________________________________________________ | | | | | View From Bridge | | | | | |______________________________________________________| | Angle in Degrees From Current View | |______________________________________________________| Notes On Torpedoes Your submarine is configured with 6 forward tubes and 2 aft tubes. Each torpedo tube is loaded with one torpedo and you will have 24 reloads available, for a total of 32 torpedoes in all. Your crew will load torpedoes after you have fired them and closed the outer doors. Once the torpedoes are loaded, they are primed (set for depth and armed). When you fire a torpedo, a large quantity of air is required to force it out of the tube. A torpedo has sufficient range to hit a target that is well over the horizon, assuming you can aim that well. Each is equipped with both a magnetic exploder and a contact exploder. So you can achieve a hit on a ship even if there is no physical contact. However, CINCLANTFLT has issued the following warning. "The Magnetic Exploders currently installed on the MARK 41 series have been known to detonate prematurely within the magnetic field generated by larger vessels. Commanding officers should be aware of this behaviour and react accordingly." Notes on Damage Repair As the Captain of the submarine, you are responsible for ordering emergency repair work for any damaged spaces. Due to manpower limitations, you only have one damage control crew. When they are assigned to do repair work, they will work until the level of damage is reduced to a lower level. You will see the change in the Damage Control State Board. But remember, you command and they blindly obey. If you interrupt them and/or change their work assignment, the damage control crew will do as they are told and any repair work done to that point is wasted. Certain areas of the submarine are integrated together, more for your convenience than anything else. When assigned to repair one of these areas, they will begin working where the most damage has occurred. Where damage is equal, then the crew will start on the most valuable compartment. Damage repair areas include: - Forward and Aft torpedo rooms - Engine room - CIC (radar, sonar, sound, RDF and plot) - Control room and Conning tower - Planes room - Steering gear - Ballast tanks - Battery compartment Notes on Combat Strategy Hey! You're the Captain! Notes on Entering Commands As the captain, you are responsible for issuing commands for any and all functions that are required for the safe and efficient operation of your submarine. Several methods for entering commands are provided depending upon the function desired. A mixture of 'hot keys' and menus are provided. Menus The menus operate on three levels. The first level represents a selection of general functions, the second level represents the selection of specific functions and the third level executes the specific function requested. When you are in menu mode, the following HOT keys perform the following functions. 'left arrow' OR '4' moves the menu selection bar one option to the left. The menu bar will wrap around when necessary. 'right arrow' OR '6' OR 'space key' Moves the menu selection bar one selection to the right. The menu bar will wrap around when necessary. 'up arrow' OR '8' OR 'return' OR 'down arrow' OR '2' Select the option that is currently highlighted by the menu selection bar. When you are at a second level menu, and you select an option that is used to change the speed or toggle some aspect of the game, the 'up arrow'/'8'/'return' keys will act to speed up the function selected while the 'down arrow'/'2' keys will act to slow the function down. Other keys. Each menu option starts with a unique letter for that series of options. To select the desired option, just enter the letter. The default action taken is the same as to hitting the ENTER key. Any key that is not 'HOT', as defined above, will take you out of menu mode and return you to command mode. For safety reasons, the key you enter to get back to command mode will not be acted upon but the keyboard interface will consume the key stroke. Menu Options Level 1: MAIN Function: Allows you to select a specific set of functions. INSERT Select a new insert for the current screen. COMPARTMENT Select a new compartment. MODE Change a mode of operation of a specific function. RANGE Change the range of an insert or adjust the magnification factor. NOISE Turn noise element on or off. TIME Change the time attributes of the game. FIX Repair damage in selected compartment. EXIT Used to exit the game and manage setup files. RETURN Return to command mode. Level 2: INSERT Function: Allows you to change the screen insert currently displayed. You may select one of the following. RADAR - active radar SONAR - active sonar LISTEN - passive listening DIR FND - passive radio direction finder PLOT - Plot board MAIN - return to the main menu Level 2: COMPART Function: Allows you to change compartments. CONTROL - control room RADAR - active radar room SONAR - active sonar room LISTEN - passive listening room DIR FND - passive radio direction finder room PLOT - plot room BRIDGE - bridge (if you are on the surface) MAIN - return to main menu Level 2: MODE Function: Allows you to control operating modes for various functions. DRAG - toggle the trace function (radar/sonar) on or off VERBOSE - toggle text messages on or off CLR MENU - toggle 'menu clear on level 2 select' on or off HOLD - toggle pause on or off MAIN - return to main menu Level 2: RANGE Function Set the base operating range or magnification. RANGE - set the range for the current insert MAGNIFY - set the magnification MAIN - return to the main menu Level 2: NOISE Function Toggle noise elements on or off. ALL - all noise elements ENGINE - engine noise SONAR - sonar noise RADAR - radar noise TARGET - target noise BLAST - explosion noise MAIN - return to main menu Level 2: TIME Function Change the speed of various functions RADAR - change sweep speed SONAR - change sound propagation speed PAN - change pan speed for periscope and bridge TEXT - change the speed that messages appear GAME - change the speed of the whole game MAIN Level 2: FIX Function Repair damage to compartments on the submarine BALLAST - repair ballast tanks STRN GR - repair steering gear ENGINE - repair engine room POWER - repair battery room TORPS - repair torpedo rooms XCNT RM - repair control room and conning tower CIC - repair CIC and related compartments DVG PLN - repair diving planes MAIN Level 2: EXIT Function Exit and control functions. EXIT - exit and save game RESUPPLY - radio to resupply sub to head towards your position SV SETUP - save new defaults RS SETUP - restore saved defaults DF SETUP - restore factory defaults MAIN - return to main menu Hot Keys Command mode operation is based upon defined 'HOT' keys. These keys are used to perform functions and issue commands. Keys are available for manoeuvering, selecting inserts and attacking. H - Toggle hold on and off S s - Sonar L l - Listen (passive sound) R r - Radar D d - Direction finder (radio emissions) P p - Plot F9 - decrease insert range F10 - increase insert range tab - Toggle periscope up and down z - Pan left 1 increment Z - Auto Pan left x - Look forward X - Look aft c - Pan right 1 degree C - Auto Pan right ALT F9 - decrease magnification SHFT F9 ALT F10 - increase magnification SHFT F10 SHIFT F1 to SHIFT F8 - Toggle open/close outer door(s) ALT F1 to ALT F8 F1 to F8 - Fire < , - range ring out > . - range ring in + - increase speed - - decrease speed & - crash dive 4 (left arrow) - turn left 6 (right arrow) - turn right 8 (up arrow) - planes up 2 (down arrow) - planes down 7 (home) - blow aft ballast 9 (pg up) - blow forward ballast 1 (end) - flood aft ballast 3 (pg dn) - flood forward ballast esc - menu toggle Notes on the Scenario Builder The BATFISH Scenario builder has been included with the package. The scenario builder will accept a text file as input and generate the scenario file used by BATFISH. For example, if you create a file named MYSHIPS.RAW, the command SCENARIO MYSHIPS.RAW will build and load the scenario you have constructed. The internal structure of the scenario file consists of 3 types of statements. These are: Comment Statements Break Statements Ship statements Comment Statement A comment is a line of text with the first character in a line being a '!' character. You may place any text on the line and you may have as many comments as you like. Break Statements A Break Statement indicates to the Scenario Builder that one scenario is to be separated from another scenario. This statement must have a '+' character as the first character. You may enter any information you like on this line, after the '+' sign, and the Scenario Builder will treat this as comment text. Ship Statements A Ship Statement indicates to the Scenario builder that you want a specific ship to be loaded from the information you provide. Note that all numbers are either positive or negative whole numbers. The general structure of the statement is: <ship type> <x> <y> <crs> <spd> <ship type> Must be one of the following: CARRIER CRUISER BATTLESHIP DESTROYER SUBMARINE RESUPPLY CONTAINER TANKER TROOP <X> Is the x value of the starting position. This value is given in meters (or yards) and must fall in the range of -99,000 to 99,000. <Y> Is the y value of the starting position. This value is given in meters (or yards) must fall in the range of -99,000 to 99,000. <crs> This is the initial course of the ship. This value is given in degrees and must be in the range of 0 to 359. <spd> This value represents the initial speed of the ship. It represents knots (or miles per hour) and should be in the range of 0 to 30. See the example provided for details or have a look at the default BATFISH Scenario File provided in SCENARIO.RAW. There is no limit to the number of scenarios that can exist in a file. The level of complexity is up to you. You should remember that the more ships you put in, the slower things will run. If you have a fast enough machine, this will not be a factor. Don't forget your resupply boat(s). Remember to include a resupply sub early enough in the scenario file for you to reload from. If you have an existing submarine, and want to start a set of newly loaded scenarios, remember to force the scenario number back to zero using the command: BATFISH <console code> 0 Using the previous example, that is a console code of SUBM, the command would look like this: BATFISH SUBM 0 Example of a Scenario File. ! ! My BATFISH Scenario file ! June 1, 1990 ! ! 3 scenarios and a resupply submarine ! !--------------------------------------------------- ! Sen 0. Cannot forget supply boat. RESUPPLY 30000 40000 121 14 ! + Sen 1: a tanker and troop transport ! TANKER 20000 5000 321 2 TROOP 23000 7000 281 14 ! + Sen 2: two tankers and a destroyer ! TANKER 40000 21000 253 13 TANKER 40000 24000 253 13 DESTROYER 51000 -18000 109 27 ! + Sen 3: this is deadly... try it ! SUBMARINE -10000 20000 185 12 SUBMARINE -12000 21000 185 12 SUBMARINE -14000 22000 185 12 SUBMARINE -16000 23000 185 12 DESTROYER -18000 -21000 215 14 DESTROYER -20000 -22000 215 14 DESTROYER -22000 -23000 215 14 ! ! this is the end of the scenario file !