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Amiga Collections: MegaDisc
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MegaDisc 24 (1991-10)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)(Disk 2 of 2).zip
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MegaDisc 24 (1991-10)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)(Disk 2 of 2).adf
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GAMES
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Action_Stations
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Action_Stations
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Text File
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1991-09-26
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4KB
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79 lines
ACTION STATIONS - Naval Surface Combat 1922-1945.
by
Ken Tremaine
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This is a very complex tactical naval combat simulation. It comes on
two disks with a detailed manual. It is hard-drive installable and is
password protected. It includes a scenario editor and generator. This
program contains data for nearly 180 battleships, battlecruisers
cruisers and destroyers belonging to US, Japanese, British, German,
French, Italian, Russian and Netherlands fleets. It simulates conflicts
in the Pacific, Atlantic and Mediterranean theatres. Shore batteries
are included, along with some ship-launched spotter planes, but no
submarines so it's just gunfire and some torpedoes from ships.
A hard-drive install program is provided, and should be run from a
write-enabled copy. It copies all the necessary files to your hard-
drive and includes the assigns for your startup sequence. I preferred
to have an iconx script in my game directory instead of this.
My script is as follows:
Echo "Assigning Action Stations to DH0:"
Assign Action: DH0:FUN/ACTION
Assign Fleet: DH0:FUN/ACTION
Where Fun is the directory on the hard-drive in which the Action
directory has been placed.
Once you load they game you notice that there are no fancy graphics or
introduction animations - in fact the simulation is played using menus
and a battleplot map. It is not a continuous simulation such as
Harpoon, instead it uses three minute turns which calculate movement,
visibility and gunfire. The menus let you check ship status and
lookouts' observations, control the ships' courses and speed, direct
guns, torpedoes, launch aircraft, make smoke, etc.
There is no time compression although you can direct the computer to
continue turns until enemy contact. The biggest drawback is the waiting
time for all the calculations to be completed. This is fairly quick when
only a few ships are involved, however it's a bit of a drag waiting a
couple of minutes for a turn when playing with large fleet actions of
twenty ships per side.
The battle-plot depicts your ships plus all sighted enemy ships as
circles or squares along with their courses and gunfire. It also
depicts ships with explosions or fires and those which are capsized.
There are no hit or kill animations in this program so you are never
quite sure of your results until you leave a scenario when the actual
results and damage to enemy vessels is indicated. The game lets you
play either side, or allows two human players, and initial positions can
be randomised. You can also alter weather conditions and crew
abilities.
Action Stations is a very detailed simulation and as such may have a
narrower appeal than Harpoon, however if you like immersing yourself in
gunnery data, armour penetrations and tactical plots then you should
really enjoy Action Stations. The manual boasts that the simulation has
been tested against combat experience to show actual hit rates
duplicated to within 10%. So you can re-enact over 30 historical
engagements from WWII with an amazing degree of realism. The program
also lets you try hypothetical engagements such as The Battle of the
River Plate with the Battlecruiser Scharnhorst instead of the Graf Spee.
If you like Naval simulations, then go out and purchase Action Stations.
You'll certainly get value for your money, as this is a massive program
which will keep you occupied for a very very long time.
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