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Most Valuable Games 1
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Most Valuable Games I (MVP Publishing)(February 1995).iso
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shortlin
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rules.txt
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1980-01-01
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RULES
1. Introduction
A wide-spread railroad network starts embracing continents in the
dawn of 19-th century. With the development of infrastructure
manufacturing of locomotives and railroad cars grows, traffic
gradualy increases...
You are in charge of railroad traffic controlling on a major
section of sophisticated network with siding, switches, signals,
crossings and other means of shunting. You goal is to assure an
uninterrupted collision-free passage of differrent trains to
target points through this section.
You success both in traffic dispatching and railroad managing and
constructing determines your score.
2. History period
simulated is from 1800 to 2000. You will get the oppotunity to
control the trains specific for every period over these two
centuries. As you progress in the time scale the technical
characteristics of the trains are getting better. The power and
speed increase. You will see all kinds of locomotives from the
ancient steam locomotive, then electric traction and diesel ones
to the gas turbine machines.
3. Railnet
is to be constructed from elementary track parcels connecting
each other in several different ways, switches, signals,
crossing, dead-ends and other elements.
The railnet on the play screen has from 1 upto 6 entrances
(outlets). These are the track parcels crossing left and right
boundary of the game screen. Each entrance parcel is surrounded
by several houses of the same bright color forming together
Yellow, Red, Cyan, Blue, Green and White towns. It is only on
these entrances that the trains enter or leave railnet.
You can construct any railnet by adding any elementary parcel
provided you have enough money for its building. So the topology
and geometry of each railnet is under your control. Several
topology restrictions on it still exist: for instance, you'll
not be allowed to construct triple switches etc.
4. Trains
enter your railnet from occasional towns (entrances). The color
of the train determines the color of the town (entrance) where
this train should be routed to. For example, the yellow train
(come from Red or any other town) should be routed to Yellow
town.
You can use switches and signals to control the train. The train
moving to either closed switch or closed (red) signal will stop
and then immediately CHANGE ITS DIRECTION FOR OPPOSITE and
CONTINUE MOVING. So each closed control element provides such a
reflection. After reflection the train moves backward in usual
manner and may be routed to the destination town. The train
itself IS NOT UNDER YOUR CONTROL; you control the means of
traffic organization and use the railnet topology you'd built
instead.
Every type of locomotive has its own power characteristics.
Generally the power gradually grows as you move forward two
centuries time scale mentioned earlier. The power of locomotive
determines the maximum speed that the train can move at. Each
train is moving with its constant linear acceleration that mainly
depends on its total weight that in turn is proportional to the
number of the cars in this train. The train then reaches its
maximum speed and continues moving with it.
For any accident with the trains you'll be charged for the amount
of money proportional to the number of cars involved in the
clash. You will pay SEVERAL TIMES MORE FOR EACH PASSENGER CAR
in comparison with non-passenger car.
Each train routed to its destination town crosses the screen
boundary and disappears. You'll get your money for each car
routed. Every train routed to the entrance that is not its
destination will just be reflected as it occurs at ordinary
dead-end.
MAD train. At the higher levels of the game you can see the
blinking train appear. This is the MAD train. The train without
the operator (as well as with dragged or overdrunk operator),
with fault control system, with the hostages captured by
criminals etc. is the MAD train. Mad train does not obey your
control AT ALL: it will not reverse on red signal and will clash
at closed switch or dead-end. However it still will disappear at
any entrance. So the best you can do with mad trains - route them
to any entrance or at least force it to clash.
5. Entrances (more)
You start the game in 1800 and will have a couple of entrances
soon in the beginning. The land is still virgin over there and
you can see several forests around. Then you begin constructing
your own railnet to provide the routes between each pair of
towns. As the time passes you'll notice the houses appear once
in a few years. These are the future towns and every 40 years
you'll get the new entrance in the new town. So you'll manage 6
entrances railnet by the end of 20-th century.
Locking. The entrance formally is the track parcel crossing the
screen boundary. Any time you should expect the new train coming
in you railnet from any entrance. There is the only exception and
it is reffered to as ENTRANCE LOCKING. Once the entrance is
occupied by at least one car of any train the entrance becomes
LOCKED. Any new train(s) that is to come in your railnet from
this LOCKED entrance has to wait till this entrance becomes
UNLOCK. Once there is such a train(s) you can see the entrance
man rise the hand with a flag on the display panel.
6. Contructing the railnet
you should know that 1) every parcel cost you 2) there is a few
topology restriction 3) you will be charged for any tree in the
forests you will cut down or any house destroyed.
7. Destruction
The rails get older and sometimes you railnet will have
destructions on it. You can see them as the small blinking
red-border white triangle with a bang in the center (traffic
danger sign). The destruction also appears at the location of the
accident. The train meeting the track damage on its way will have
an accident in turn so you need to repair the track. The longer
is total railnet the more destructions occur on it.
8. Repair
To repair the track you should use the special platform named
server. Server is called from any entrance and may be routed to
any entrance then or kept in the railnet. You pay for its call,
and for it's repairs. The server meeting the destruction of the
track on its way makes a short stop and repairs the track. Any
number of servers can operate simultaneously over you railnet.
9. Levels
The game has potentially infinite number of levels. Any new
level introduces the higher flow of incoming trains, the higher
intensity of destruction and adds one or more new events.
When you succesfully reach 2000 year in the game you just have
the same initial situation in 1800 but your money and routed
trains counters are from previous level.
10. Pausing, saving and restoring the game
Any time in the simulation you can just strike any keyboard
button and you'll get in PAUSE mode. The menu appearing on the
screen offers either to go on or save or quit.
Save the game when you have to return to current point of
simulation later or keep it for somebody else or investigate
another 'realization' in the future. All the saved games reside
in the working directory on your disk and may be restored later.
Each save takes about 4K of disk space.
To restore the game you choose "LOAD GAME" option in the main
menu. You can see ARCHIVE menu then. It provides the
opportunity to look through all the saved games showing you the
full saved game screen and current characteristics of that
session and the file. Here you can also delete the old games.
Having chosen the saved game you just use menu "GO" option to
start simulation.
Currently there is a 'pause toll' introduced in the game. When
you go on playing either after pause or after the previously
saved game one extra train will immediately come into your
railnet from occasional entrance. This might prevent the
real-time game to become step-by-step game.
11. Person profiling
All your achivements, records and saved games are profiled by
users (players) names. Once you run SHORTLINE from DOS command
line using you name as the argument the system registrates you
and will keep track of your sessions later. Now you name may be
shown in the record table. Also you can identify the saved files
by your name. Finally, the system will follow your current play
level and if you start new game you'll be proposed to play at the
level you have already reached before.
Running SHORTLINE without player names will cause profiling with
the name "Unknown".
You can load and play somebody's game with no restrictions but
all the best results will belong to the owner of the saved game.
12. Controls
You use 2-button mouse to control the simulation and keyboard to
work with menus. There are only 5 mouse actions that control all
the simulation.
MOUSE ACTION
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click 2 buttons together - toggle between ROUTE and BUILD modes
left button (ROUTE mode) - toggle the nearest switch or signal
right button (ROUTE mode) - call the server from nearest entrance
left button (BUILD mode) - choose the track parcels to be build
right button (BUILD mode) - build the track parcel shown
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13. 'Inside SHORTLINE'
This manual is to be supplied. It'll contain the detailed
description of the model geometry and topology, math formulas and
constant using in simulation, provides the better understanding
of different aspects of the game and give strategy tips.
* * *