home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
ftp.barnyard.co.uk
/
2015.02.ftp.barnyard.co.uk.tar
/
ftp.barnyard.co.uk
/
cpm
/
walnut-creek-CDROM
/
BEEHIVE
/
GAMES
/
STARSHIP.ARC
/
STARSHIP.DOC
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1989-09-27
|
5KB
|
99 lines
Don't read this file yet, just type STARSHIP and play!
{based on a startrading game in MBASIC, whose author I can't find any
more, plus an MBASIC adventure game SPACEADV, by Dan Daetz, plus
UNIVERSE, a minicomputer FORTRAN folk game, the version used currently
being in custody of David Ingham. Yours truly: Harry Ingham, editor,
translator, and co-author} {possible extentions: full warfare system
with boarding, save game, hi-score file}
This is a star-trading game with various special opportunities and hazards.
It requires the following files: STARSHIP.COM STARCHN.CHN E.CHN CARGO.DAT
STAR.DAT To run the game, place these five files on the logged disc, and
type STARSHIP.
Also included are the following:
Source files:
STARSHIP.PAS
STARCHN.PAS
include files for STARCHN
ESTAR.PAS
STAR1.PAS
STAR2.PAS
STAR3.PAS
E.PAS
include files for E
ESTAR.PAS
E1.PAS
E2.PAS
E3.PAS
Source files for creating data files:
STARMAKE.PAS
STARMAK2.PAS (makes a random starport file)
CARGOMAK.PAS
That's 19 files! Note that ESTAR is included in both E and STARCHN.
Also included is GO.COM. Should the program (ahem) die on you, GO will
usually restart it. There's no source file for GO for the simple reason
that GO.COM is empty! It makes the operating system think you've loaded a
program when you haven't, and it runs whatever's in memory. Useful in
other contexts for repeating programs without waiting for them to load again.
As of this writing, the program does not crash, but I might add some
features, and therefore some bugs.
Notes:
The player will find that there are many surprise events, some of
which he can more or less control, and others which are random. It is
not always obvious which is which.
The bandits are quite diverse and unpredictable, and their typical
ship is not like a trader at all, having no main hull but only various
modules, pods, weapons, drive units, etc. bolted to an axial column.
Thus (a) they fight differently than you do, and (b) they sometimes
negotiate to take only part of your cargo, because of the difficulty of
stowing the rest.
Navy ships are far more powerful in battle than other ships. Alien
ships are of different types.
Your own ship has a single hull, partitioned for cargo, quarters,
etc, and with many ports, bays, and attaching points suitable for
auxilliary equipment you don't have yet. Lifeboats and probes neither
slow the ship nor take up space, because they are locked on outside the hull,
and their drive units are used as auxilliaries, making up for their
extra mass.
Appologies are due to:
Kepler, for the navigational geometry
Einstein, for the time system
Wirth, for infesting a Pascal program with featurogenic elephantiasis
Turing, for writing a computer game that could have been done with
cards and dice
Philipe Kahn, for the way I compiled this
Kurt Vonnegut, George Lucas, and Prez Prado, for obvious reasons
Revision notes: the easiest way to revise the game is to change a constant.
This requires no programing skill--if you change the constant "crewstart" to
10, the player starts the game seriously short on crew, and must combat this
for years, altering the character of play. Trippling the constant "danger"
causes three times as many bandit attacks--so maybe you'd better
increase the constant "laserstart" to 5. and so on.
Monkeying with the routines is not hard either. Greatly increase the
reward money and you have a bounty-hunting game, not a trade game.
Running up new .DAT files is time-consuming but amusing (Want to make this
a gun-running game? art-dealing? booklegging? Or a file like STAR.DAT
can send you around Heinlein's future history space, or Niven's, or LeGuin's.)
Those trying to learn Pascal programing would be well advised not to copy
the techniques used in this code. 'Nuf said.
Anyone with Turbo Pascal and more than 64K can recompile the program
without chaining, to eliminate the time and noise of disc action. Just cut
most of the declaration part at the beginning of the chain files (variables
below the dotted line may not be shared), put the three files end to end, and
compile. You should also cut the instruction to include ESTAR in E, since it's
already been included. All three chain instructions can be replaced with gotos,
or if you want to be sanitary, you can reorganize a little.
The current version includes two debugging devices: the {$R+} compiler
directive, and a procedure which dumps most of the variables to the screen
in case of a fatal error.me-consuming but amusing (Want to make this
a gun-running game?