Monster Media 1993 #2/Image.iso/games1/dragc300.zip/DRAGCITY.DOC

Text File | 1993-05-13 | 13KB | 253 lines

Welcome to DRAGCITY U.S.A.   Version 3.0     Copyright Richard Nikula 1993.

   Your uncle died and has left you his dragster.  Its not state of the art.
   In fact, its a manual 3 speed job with the engine in front of the driver.
   You've decided to cast good judgement aside and race it yourself.

STARTING DRAGCITY

   To invoke DRAGCITY, enter the following command:
     DRAGCITY [options]

     Options are as follows.  I would suggest that if you use the same
     options most of the time to create a batch file or to specify the
     options from menu program.

     -m : Suppress mouse usage even if a mouse is present.  All entry
          must be done from the keyboard.  The keyboard can be used for
          entries even when this option is not used, except the gears
          display which results in unexplainable (in a paragraph) gear
          selections.

     -s : Suppresses the sound effects.

     -d : Suppresses digital sound effects and uses the PC speaker

     -l : Moves the tachometer to alternate location.

     -t : Activates tournament mode if 2 or more players are racing.

     -p1name:  Specifies player 1's name.
     -p2name:  Specifies player 2's name.
     -p3name:  Specifies player 3's name.
     -p4name:  Specifies player 4's name.

     -a# : Set the default accelerator sensitivity.  The default value
          is 5.  The accelerator can still be adjusted during game play.

     -c# : Adjust for various (fast) computer speeds.  The game should
         autoadjust for processors up to 25Mz. However, if you find the
         elapsed times to be too fast, specifying -c1, -c2, etc will slow
         you down.

     -xn# : Sets the car color for player n's car.  # is any number between
         1 and 255.  Numbers 1 thru 7 and 56 thru 63 represent work best.

     The following settings will most likely not need to be specified but
     can be if problems with default settings occur:

     -p : Suppresses page switching.  If your graphics card doesn't work
         with paging active, try this option. It will result in
         slower elapsed times however and eliminates access to gears
         and history at some times.

     -e : Set video mode to EGA 640 X 350 X 16 colors
     -v : Set video mode to VGA 640 X 350 X 16 colors.

   Note: options can be combined but must be specified separately
   as in the following example:

     DRAGCITY -m -s -p1Joe -p2Bill

   starts the game no mouse, no sound and 2 players (Joe and Bill).

INITIAL OPTIONS MENU

   As an alternative to using the option switches, you can specify
   the settings via the options menu.  The options menu is presented
   automatically when DRAGCITY is started with no switches. The
   options can be changed by typing the first letter of the option
   (or if mouse support is active, by clicking near the beginning of
   each option).  To leave the options menu, press ENTER (with the
   mouse, click on the "press ENTER" line or press both buttons
   simultaneously).  If for some reason, you don't want to continue
   with DRAGCITY, pressing escape (ESC) terminates the program.

   The option settings and their defaults are as follows:

   Players   -  Default is 1 player.  Up to 4 players may be specified

   EGA/VGA   -  Default is based on current graphic monitor.  Shouldn't
                need to be adjusted.

   Mouse     -  Default is Mouse active if a mouse driver is loaded or
                Keyboard if not. If DRAGCITY can not find the
                mouse driver, you cannot set the mouse option on.

   Sound     -  Default is sound on.  Sound can be set off.
                The game makes a small amount of sound to indicate
                relative speed. If you wish to play without
                being heard, turn the sound off.  If a Sound Blaster
                driver is available, digital sound will be used.
                Note, the sound blaster driver must have the correct
                port, DMA, and IRQ values set in it (these are not
                overridden).  If you get errors initializing the sound
                support, use INST-DRV to change the driver.

   Tournament - Allows racing in either friendly or tournament modes.
                In friendly mode, racers take turns one a time and
                compare times. In Tournament mode, the players race
                against each other based on the draw. Requires at
                least 2 racers. Default is "friendly".  Actually I
                like to play tournament mode by myself and use my
                imagination.

PLAYER NAME SPECIFICATION

   Being a pleasant program, DRAGCITY requests that players enter
   their names.  You can either enter your first name as requested
   or just press ENTER (or a simple mouse click will do), in which
   case, you will be known by the affectionate name, PLAYER1, PLAYER2
   and so on.  If you specify all names via the switches above, you
   will bypass this request.  Names are used to show whose turn it is
   and for posting entries to the history file.

RACING:

   To drive, you need an accelerator and a clutch.  If you have a mouse,
   the right button acts as the accelerator.  When pressed, you
   accelerate otherwise you slow down.  The left button is your clutch.
   Just tap it whenever you want to change gears (and initially to leave
   the starting line).  If you don't use a mouse, the space bar can be
   used as an accelerator (pressing it once starts accelerating and
   pressing it again starts slowing you down).  Also the ENTER key is the
   clutch (which works just like the left mouse button).

   The first thing you need to do is stage.  (Note, before you begin
   the stage you can press ESC to activate the menu bar and choose
   gears to alter the gears as desired.) This is done by
   accelerating up to the starting line.  As you enter the staging
   area, the upper yellow light will turn on.  As you complete
   staging, the 2nd yellow light goes on.  Once this occurs, the
   remainder of the lights will begin to cycle.  You want to engage
   the clutch as soon as the bottom green light goes on.  If you
   engage the clutch too soon, you "red light" and have to start
   over.  You also need to adjust your engine speed (using the
   tachometer) to get a good start while not starting too slow,
   "going up in smoke", or blowing your engine.  Your RPMs when you
   leave the starting line have a big influence on racing time.

   Once you have starting racing, you will change from the starting line
   view to the racing view.  As you race, you will need to shift.
   Shifting too soon will result in lugging down the engine and a slower
   racing time.  Shifting too late also slows the racing time.  You'll
   have to get to know your car to determine the optimum points.  If you
   rev your engine too high, it will break so be careful going above "red
   line".  If you blow your engine while racing, the red light in the
   middle of the oil gauge will glow (you may be able to coast across the
   finish line if you are going fast enough).

   At the completion of the quarter mile, your reaction time, elapsed
   time, total time, and top speed are shown.  If any value is in the
   top ten, it will be followed by an asterisk (*).

   At the completion of each race, a menu bar is displayed at the
   top of the screen.  To race again, click the left button on the
   Continue box.  To display the record file, click on Records.  To
   change the gear values for additional race scenarios, click on
   the Gears box.  To show an analysis of the race, click on the
   Breakdown box.  To quit, click on the Quit box.  If during the
   race, you want to quit, pressing ESC will display these boxes.
   Only continue and quit can be selected, the remainder can only
   be viewed before and after racing.

   If you don't have a mouse, C, R, G, B, and Q can be used for Continue,
   Records, Gears, Breakdown, and Quit, respectively.

GEARS ADJUSTMENT

   If you select the gears display, the current settings will be
   shown in red.  Each gear has an optimum speed range which yields
   the most increase in RPMs.  Above and below this range, the gears
   are less efficient (and thus result in slower elapsed times).
   The low gear range also has an affect on the RPMs at which "burn
   out" will occur (burn out is easy to recognize because the RPMs
   will be high but the speed will be low).  The ranges and values
   for each gear are shown on the gears display.  You can choose
   from 6 different sets of gears for 1st through 3rd.  You can mix
   and match any combination of the 6 gears.  With a mouse, just
   click on the desired square.  When complete, click on the accept
   box.  If you don't have a mouse, just select the square desired
   by its coordinate.  For example, L2, M3 (This will be clearer
   when you see the gears display).  To accept the changes, simply
   type an A.

   The gears display shows the accelerator sensitivity.  Basically, this
   allows you to adjust how responsive your accelerator is.  The higher the
   value, the less responsive.  This is only of importance at the starting
   line.  By altering this value, the RPMs will increase faster or slower.
   The accelerator sensitivity can be adjusted at any time, however it is
   only displayed here.  (As a suggestion, to determine the best value sit
   at the starting line after the green light and increase and/or decrease
   the sensitivity until it feels right, than race.  After the run, invoke
   the gears display to view the value for future reference).  To Increase
   the tension, use the plus key (+), to decrease, the minus key (-).

   When viewing the gears display, you can also use the x key (exchange)
   to change the car color.  If you invoke the gears display from the
   starting line, the car will change color as soon as it moves.

   Note, if multiple players are playing, each has their own set of
   gears, color and accelerator sensitivity.  Changing one player's
   values does not affect the others.

HALL OF FAME

   This program maintains a history file of racing statistics.  It can
   be accessed before and after racing from the menu bar (Records).
   There are 4 categories as follows:
      Top speed.      The speed at the end of racing.
      Reaction time.  From green light to start.
      Elapsed time.   From start to finish.
      Total time.     Reaction plus Elapsed time.
    Your current run is also shown for comparison to the top values.
    You can reset the Hall of Fame by deleting the DRAGCITY.SCO file.

    To exit the Hall of Fame, pressing any key or a mouse click will do.

TOURNAMENT PLAY

   When 2 or more racers are participating, you can use a tournament
   format.  The players are randomly seated into 1 of 4 positions in
   the semi-finals.    To advance to the next round of competition, the
   racers must win the round.  If the player has a "solo" round, they
   must finish the race.  Blown engines, red lights, etc, disqualify
   the racer from advancing.  In 3 player games, one player is given a
   solo run in the semi-finals.  In 2 player games, both players are
   given solo runs in the semi-finals.

   After the semi-final round, the winners advance to the finals.
   The player with the lowest elapsed time goes second (since lane
   choice is of no advantage the faster racer gets the advantage of
   seeing the run of the competitor and thus knows how good of a run
   is required to win).

   At the beginning and end of each round, the tournament board is
   displayed.  This shows the racers that advanced as well as the
   racing times for all competitors.  To return to racing, press
   any key (or click the mouse).


AUTOMATIC MODE

   There is also an automatic transmission mode (which isn't much of
   a challenge but can be used to approximate the best possible
   time is for a given set of gears).  In this mode, all you have
   to do is hold down the accelerator.  Leaving the starting line,
   shifting, etc are handled automatically.  Although this is
   automatic, there is some variation and the elapsed time will vary.
   This mode can be activated / deactivated by selecting CTRL-A.

The file README.CTY has additional information on the requirements for
use of DRAGCITY.