VCR Display
The version 4 VCR Display. ( VCR.EXE )
The above display shows a fleet battle in progress over a planet. Ships show
up as icons, fighter wings show up as triangles, ground bases show up as small
boxes and pods show up as little crosses. The currently selected object is a
ship belonging to player 3 ( empire 3 ) named USS Tocusam. To select a another
object to view you can left mouse click on it or use the PREV / NEXT buttons. If the ships only button is pressed the PREV / NEXT buttons will only jump to the next or previous ship. The currently selected
object will have a yellow box around it at all times. You can pause the battle
at any time using the pause button, click it again to resume. The FOF places a color coded friend or foe box around all ships on the screen. The
colors of the FOF boxes are: green for all the ships you own, light blue for neutral races and
red for enemy races. The pods and fighter wings are also color coded in the
same way.
The above display also shows the last weapons that this ship has fired and
when. If the weapon missed that will also be reported. From this display we can
see that the USS Tocusam fired a laser at time index 14 that was a hit! The
USS Tocusam is currently targeting the ship USS Poe. The USS Tocusam is receiving
incoming fire from a ship named the USS Lovecraft. The current time index is
116.
The selected item display shows you a picture of the object, who owns it,
its name, the shield level, the armor level, and the hull level. When the shield
level reaches 0% all incoming weapons fire will hit the armor. When the armor
level reaches 0% all incoming fire will hit the hull, doing damage to not just
the hull but all the ship ' s systems like: the engines, generators, life support and control systems.
When the hull level reaches 0% the ship breaks apart and explodes.
The display has a fixed size of 800 X 600 pixels. The display does not have a
menu bar, so if you want to move the display to another area of the screen you
will need to activate the drag bar and drag the drag bar to the new screen
position.
The command controls button gives you access to the VCR controls for sound
volume of both music and sound effects. You also have a few display options,
like hiding all shots that miss the target. You can access the load VCR file panel from the command controls panel.
The Report button stops the VCR and brings up a report screen that will
list all events that happened during the battle, including: the times that ships
were destroyed or left the battle, the times that ships entered battle, a list
of all weapons fired and whether or not they hit and how many times they hit,
and a list of which races fired on you.