The Fred Fish Collection 1.5/ffcollection-1-5-1992-11.iso/ff_disks/300-399/ff357.lzh/Empire/Doc/Ships

Text File | 1990-06-02 | 9KB | 158 lines

                Amiga Empire by Chris Gray - Ships


Ships and naval affairs are a major part of Amiga Empire, both in terms of
exploring the world and conducting internal affairs, and in terms of
conflict with other countries. Ships are built at harbor sectors using the
'build' command. Goods and people can be loaded onto ships at harbors
using the 'load' command. Goods and people can be unloaded from ships at
harbors using the 'unload' command. Tenders can transfer goods to ships at
sea using the 'tend' command. Ships have radar and can see nearby sectors
and ships using the 'radar' command. Groups of ships can be organized into
fleets using the 'fleet' command. Planes can land on aircraft carriers and
can take off from them using the 'fly' command. And, most important, ships
or fleets of ships can be moved around using the 'navigate' command. Other
commands refer to ships during conflict, such as 'fire', 'assault',
'board', 'drop', 'mine' and 'torpedo'. The 'lookout' command can also be
done from a ship, and will report other ships and nearby land sectors.

Ships are examined using the 'ships' command, which is much like a 'census'
command for ships. Note that the 'ships' command updates the ships,
however, since there is no explicit 'update' for ships.

When a ship is first built in a harbor, it will have 50% efficiency and no
mobility. It will be given the technology level of the country building it.
The ship will be initially empty. Empty ships can sail around and do radar
commands (each ship in considered to have a crew, independent of any
soldiers or civilians the ship may be carrying). Certain hazards to
navigation exist: unfriendly ships can try to sink or take over your ships;
mines dropped by destroyers can damage and even sink ships that run into
them; and bad weather in the form of hurricanes can damage and sink ships
that attempt to navigate in the eye of the storm. A ship must be at least
20% efficient or it will sink. Also, it must be at least 60% efficent
before it can navigate, fire guns, be loaded, etc.

The types of ships in Amiga Empire are:

PT boat, symbol 'p' (PaTrol boat, not Patrol-Torpedo boat)
    These are the cheapest ships to build. They are very small and can go a
    long way on their mobility. They also have quite good radar. These
    characteristics make them excellent as scouts, either when mapping
    coastlines or as hard to see lookouts. They can also carry 10 military
    and fire one gun, so they can take over vacant islands and try to sink
    other PT boats. A PT boat hitting a mine or being hit by a torpedo is
    often sunk outright.

destroyer, symbol 'd'
    These are the most versatile of the ships. They carry more military and
    guns than a PT boat, and have just as good radar. They are also the
    only surface ship with sonar, so they can see submarines on their radar
    scans. Destroyers can also use the 'mine' command to drop shells into
    the water as mines. They can also use the 'drop' command to drop shells
    as depth charges, attempting to hit submarines. If such a submarine is
    still 60% efficient, it will attempt to torpedo the destroyer. If there
    are any submarines in range they will attempt to defend the submarine
    as well.

battleship, symbol 'b'
    Battleships are the naval equivalent of a fortress. They are fairly
    slow moving, but their radar is excellent, and they can carry 127
    military and shoot 4 guns. A battleship sailing up and down an
    undefended enemy coast can do tremendous damage, and can usually take
    over several sectors. They are also quite hard to sink, due to their
    size.

submarine, symbol 's'
    Submarines are mostly an offensive vessel. The only surface ship that
    can see them is a destroyer. They have fairly weak radar/sonar of their
    own. Submarines can use the 'torpedo' command to fire torpedos at
    surface ships. Only destroyers can fire back with depth charges. Subs
    can also torpedo other submarines, in which case the target can torpedo
    back if it is still able. To keep submarines from becoming too strong,
    and to adjust for the often non-real-time nature of an Empire game, the
    mobility of a submarine goes to zero and then negative when it fires
    torpedos. This prevents it from leaving the scene too quickly, and
    allows the victim country to try to find and attack the submarine with
    destroyers. This factor can be removed by a deity, and can also be
    applied to destroyers dropping depth charges.

minesweeper, symbol 'm'
    Minesweepers are slow and poorly armed. They are, however, the only way
    (other than sacrificing lots of ships) of getting rid of mines.
    Whenever a minesweeper navigates, you will see a "Sweep, sweep" message
    and it will remove up to 5 mines from the sector it enters. Note that
    when navigating a fleet, the order in which the ships are moved is the
    order of those ships in the fleet.

tender, symbol 't'
    Tenders are slow and poorly armed, but can carry lots of military,
    shells and guns. While at sea, the 'tend' command allows you to
    transfer these supplies from a tender to a ship in the same sector.
    This can be vital when carrying on a naval action at some distance from
    you nearest harbor.

carrier, symbol 'c'
    Aircraft carriers are much like mobile airports. They cannot build
    airplanes like airports can, however. They have radar and guns like
    other ships, but have the additional major ability of being able to
    launch airplanes with the 'fly' command. The airplanes require crew and
    bombs (shells) from the carrier, and the carrier's mobility is used as
    fuel for flying distance. Airplanes can bomb sectors and ships, and can
    damage them by crashing into them. When landing on an aircraft carrier,
    the success is governed by the weather and the efficiency of the
    carrier. Beware of sinking your own carrier!

freighter, symbol 'f'
    Freighters are civilian ships. They cannot carry any military and
    cannot fire guns, even though they can carry lots of guns and shells as
    cargo. They can carry 127 each of civilians, shells, guns, iron ore and
    gold bars. If an enemy attempts to 'board' a freighter, nearby ships in
    the same fleet will defend it. This automatic defense is not available
    for other ship types - they are on their own. Freighters are the only
    ship, and the only way, of getting civilians from one land mass to
    another.

The exact default statistics for the various ships types are given in the
following table. Note that a deity can change any of these values.

   type  name      cost sp vis rng civ mil  sh gun plns ore bars vrng
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   p   PT boat       30 50   6  1   -   10  10   1   -   -    -    4
   s   submarine     70 25   1  2   -   25  27   2   -   -    -    3
   b   battleship   127 25  25  8   -  127 127   4   -   -    -    6
   d   destroyer     60 35  15  3   -   80  40   2   -   -    -    4
   f   freighter     80 20  20  -  127   5 127 127   5  127  127   3
   m   minesweeper   50 20  20  1   -   25  10   1   -   -    -    3
   t   tender       100 30  20  1   -  100 127  30   2   -    -    3
   c   carrier      127 25  25  2   -   60  60   3  127  -    -    4

    cost - number of production units in a harbor needed to build the
           ship. Also, cost * 9 dollars are needed for the build.
    sp   - speed factor - the larger the better
    vis  - how visible the ship is to radar and lookout
    rng  - twice the maximum gun firing distance
    civ  - number of civilians it can carry
    mil  - number of military it can carry
    sh   - number of shells it can carry
    gun  - number of guns it can carry/fire (tender can fire 1, freighter 0)
    plns - number of planes it can carry
    ore  - number of tons of ore it can carry
    bars - number of gold bars it can carry
    vrng - how far it can see (radar and lookout) - subs are special

Ships can be organized into fleets using the 'fleet' command. A fleet,
which is indicated by an upper or lower case letter (thus you can have up
to 52 fleets), is just a list of upto 100 ships. The 'navigate' command
accepts a fleet letter instead of a ship number, and will attempt to make
the entire fleet move as a unit. The first ship in the fleet is the
"flagship" of the fleet, and if it runs out of mobility, the entire fleet
cannot be navigated anymore. If other ships run out of mobility, they will
just drop behind. The ships in the fleet do not have to be all in the same
sector, but it is tricky to navigate when they are not. Fleets are also
used as a military unit, in that ships in a fleet will defend each other
from enemy fire. Ships not in any fleet will show up on the 'ships' report
as belonging to fleet '*'. A ship can be removed from a fleet by adding it
to another fleet, including adding it to fleet '*'. Fleet '*' cannot be
navigated, and is not a military unit.