BBS Toolkit/BBS Toolkit.iso/doors_2/ytbeta2c.zip/YTSYSOP.DOC

Text File | 1991-01-28 | 17KB | 377 lines

                  Y     Y AAAAA   N    N K  K EEEEE EEEEE
                   Y   Y  A   A   NN   N K K  E     E
                    Y Y   AAAAA   N N  N KK   EEE   EEE
                     Y    A   A   N  N N KK   E     E
                     Y    A   A   N   NN K K  E     E
                     Y    A   A   N    N K  K EEEEE EEEEE

                    TTTTTTT RRRR AAAAA DDDD  EEEEE RRRR !!
                       T    R  R A   A D   D E     R  R !!
                       T    RRRR AAAAA D   D EEE   RRRR !!
                       T    RR   A   A D   D E     RR   !!
                       T    R R  A   A D   D E     R R
                       T    R  R A   A DDDD  EEEEE R  R !!


                              by Alan Davenport




        "It is a period of great instability. Mankind has broken the time and
distance barrier to the stars with inexpensive warp driven space ships. Anyone
with enough credits can buy a ship and head out into the void. Chaos rules.
The central Earth government found that it is impossible to maintain law and
order throughout the vastness of space and on the countless outposts that have
appeared almost overnight. The only law is of survival. The only hope for
survival is in strength. The only way to strength is through ruthless trading
of basic goods. It seems that all ports always have too much or too little of
one thing or another. You've purchased your ship, barely able to afford the
minimum of holds, defensive fighters, a few remote sensor robots, and a few
days cloaking charge. An ant to be squashed by the more powerful trader
barons. However, you are smart. You are confident that you can hide out long
enough to equip your ship with more powerful arms and holds and that you will
one day be a trader baron to be feared!"


        Yankee Trader is the result of thousands of hours of work. The total
source code is well over 15 THOUSAND lines. While being developed, it was
completely rewritten from top to bottom many times over. Afterward, many
months of fine tuning, to achieve a decent game balance, followed.


        Yankee Trader is a space trading/war game. There are several different
door games of this genre. The original idea for such a game was called "Trade
Wars (c)" which was first published by Hewlett Packard in "The People's Book
of Computer Games 1 and 2" and was first converted to a BBS door by Chris
Sherrick. The door game became very popular and several other space
trading/war games have appeared in recent years.


        Yankee Trader takes the idea of a space trading/war game to new
heights. There are many new ideas and enhancements to the old theme. The idea
of a space trading/war game still remains, the result however is something
entirely different, YANKEE TRADER!


        This door is the result of my love for programming. I have fixed every
bug that I have found and I believe that it is reasonably clean however it is
NOT a commercial product but the result of programming for a hobby. As such
there is NO GUARANTEE OF ANY KIND EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. IN NO CASE SHALL I BE
HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OR LOSSES RESULTING FROM YOU RUNNING THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF I HAVE BEEN INFORMED OF POSSIBLE OR REAL PROBLEMS. BY
RUNNING THIS SOFTWARE YOU HAVE AGREED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY PROBLEMS
THAT MAY RESULT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS, DO NOT RUN ANY OF THE PROGRAMS
IN THIS PACKAGE. NOT EVEN ONCE!


General information :-

This door uses the Microsoft QuickBasic 3.0 run time module BRUN30.EXE. The
reason for using the run time module instead of making stand alone programs is
to keep the distribution package a reasonable size.. otherwise it would be
almost 600K! This copy of the run time module has been patched so that it does
NOT cause the modem to hang up on the caller when they exit the door. It ALSO
has been patched so that it will EXIT if ever the message "Fatal Error, Hit
any key to return to the system" appears providing you with an extra level of
protection against hanging your system in the event of a severe error/bug!

        BRUN30 doesn't HAVE to be in the directory with the game files, just
as long as it is in your system PATH someplace. Since this copy has the extra
patches applied to it and if you have other doors that use BRUN30, you may
want to put it in your path (Utilities directory?) and delete all other copies
of BRUN30 you may have. This will save you some disk space and also give you
extra protection while running other BRUN30 dependent doors. However if you do
not use BRUN30 any other place, you should place it in your YT directory. This
will make the game load marginally faster since your system doesn't have to
search the entire path to find BRUN30.


Getting set up :-

        Starting with the basics, decide which drive you wish to run the door
on and make a directory to hold all the files. Move ALL of the files in this
package into that directory. You are now ready to run the initialization
program.


Initializing the game :-

        Before you can run the game, you must run the initialization program
"YT-INIT.EXE". This program will set up ALL the data files needed to run the
game. You can also run YT-INIT any time you wish to restart an old game. The
game is open ended and you will never HAVE to run YT-INIT but sometimes, when
a game starts to get old, you may wish to restart everyone over fresh.

        IMPORTANT: If you were previously running one of the BETA TEST
versions of YT, you REALLY SHOULD reinitialize the game! There were a lot of
bugs to be fixed in many of the betas and there may be some mangled fields in
your game's data files!

        There is one piece of information you will need to give to the
initialization program. That is the full path and NAME of the scoreboard
bulletin. This is a straight ASCII text file that you can display from your
BBS. The maximum length of your scoreboard path/name description is 41
characters. An example of an entry for a scoreboard file is;

C:\QUICKBBS\TXTFILES\YTSCORE.ASC

        You may change the scoreboard description any time you wish by using
the game's configuration program. (If you get an error when the game tries to
generate the scoreboard you messed up the path/name somehow!)

        Once you are done running YT-INIT, you should bring up the game's
configuration program by typing "YTCONFIG.EXE". The default setting provided
by the initialization program will provide a decent game however, once you
become more familiar with the game, you may wish to change some of them
around.


The "RMT-INIT.EXE" Program :-

        This program is used by YT.EXE itself to run the user "Initiate
Genesis" function. When called by the game it will run with no intervention.
It takes your old, previously defined defaults and re-initializes the game.
You will find this program useful to re-start the game yourself. When run from
the DOS prompt, it will ask you if you REALLY want to re-start the game using
your old defaults. RMT-INIT.EXE will NOT do an initial initialization. To use
this program, you must have initialized the game using YT-INIT.EXE previously.


Running Maintenance :-

        The first thing you should do after YT-INIT completes successfully is
type YTMAINT and press enter in the game's directory. THIS IS IMPORTANT TO
INITIALIZE SOME OF THE AUTOMATIC FUNCTIONS! After this, you should add an
entry in your system maintenance batch file to run YTMAINT.EXE EVERY day ONCE
per DAY. YTMAINT is in integral part of Yankee Trader and if you do NOT run it
on daily basis you will SEVERELY inhibit the game! (Perhaps RUIN the game is a
better description!) An example of the batch file entries needed to be added
to your SYSMAINT.BAT file are below;

c:
cd \quickbbs\doors\yt
ytmaint.exe
cd \quickbbs


Running Yankee Trader :-

        Yankee Trader uses the file created by QuickBBS and other BBS programs
use to pass information to door programs called DORINFO1.DEF. To run YT, you
must pass the path and NAME of the DORINFO1.DEF file to YT on the command
line. There are converters to make DORINFO1.DEF for just about all other BBS
programs out there. If you are running a BBS that does NOT produce
DORINFO1.DEF itself, look around on other established BBS's with a decent
files area. You should be able to find a converter for your particular BBS
software with little effort.

An example of how to start YT is below;

YT.EXE C:\QUICKBBS\DORINFO1.DEF


Playing YT withOUT a BBS! :-

        I have included a program that you can use to log onto the game
WITHOUT having a BBS! The program is called "LOCAL.EXE" and all you have to do
to run it is to type "LOCAL" in your YT directory. Once the program starts,
enter the name you wish to use to log into the game. Once you enter a name, it
will load and start Yankee Trader automatically.

        "LOCAL" keeps a record of the names you use to log into the game in a
file called "LOCAL.DAT". The next time you use "LOCAL", you will be able to
pick your name from a menu, rather than typing it in. Once there are names in
the "LOCAL" menu, you may start "LOCAL" by typing "LOCAL #" where "#" is the
number of user on the "LOCAL" menu. This will go right into YT without you
having to wait for the menu to display. Any time you wish to start the menu
over, just delete "LOCAL.DAT".

        I've included the Quickbasic 3.0 source code (LOCAL.BAS) and the batch
file I use to compile the program (LOCALCMP.BAT) for the curious among you. It
should be possible to modify it to load ANY door that uses DORINFO1.DEF. Have
fun!


Running YT from your BBS :-

        Yankee Trader, even using the run time module, takes a lot of memory.
At LEAST 300K for the 1.0 version. Later versions probably will take even
MORE. For this reason you should NOT use a type 7 (Shell to program) exit from
QuickBBS. What you MUST do is a type 15 (Exit with errorlevel) exit. An
example of a batch file to run YT from a QuickBBS type 15 exit is included
with this package and is shown below;

Echo off
:RESTART
c:
cd \quickbbs
quickbbs %1

:afterbbs

if errorlevel 50 goto YT
if errorlevel 1 goto RESTART

Rem Allow exiting of batch file.
goto endit

:RELOGIN
c:
cd \quickbbs
quickbbs -r -e1
goto afterbbs

:YT
Rem Yankee Trader Batch File
c:
cd \quickbbs\doors\yt
yt.exe c:\quickbbs\dorinfo1.def
goto relogin

:Endit
Echo QuickBBS is now down.


        Using that batch file, you would set a type 15 exit on your YT menu
using your QuickBBS menu editing program for the menu entry to load YT and
place a "50" to exit with errorlevel 50 in the "Other Data" field.


Dealing with problem players, "LOCKOUT.DAT" :-

You may lock anyone out of the game by placing their name in a file called
"LOCKOUT.DAT". This file can be edited with any text editor. To use it, place
the players REAL name as it appears on your BBS in "LOCKOUT.DAT" and they will
be denied access to the game until you remove their name from "LOCKOUT.DAT".


Function Keys in YT :-

There are 5 function keys active on Yankee Trader. They are;

F4  - Toggles Local (Console) sounds on and off. Default is OFF when a remote
      caller is online and ON when you are playing in the local mode. The
      users can control their own remote sounds and they are totally
      independent of the local sounds.

F5  - End now! This is the "nuke" key. Hitting F5 will close all files and
      the communication port, and exit immediately.

F8  - Adjust users time in the door. You will be prompted for how much time to
      give the player. (Either more or less time.) Enter the time in minutes.
      45 minutes maximum. 0 will log them off. (F5 is quicker.)

F9  - Toggle local screen ON/OFF for remote callers. Has no effect when logged
      on locally.

F10 - Chat with online user. This will allow you to type in real time with a
      user logged into the game. The user's time does not decrease in chat.
      Hit [ESCAPE] to terminate chat with the user.


Running at a locked Baud Rate :-

        Yankee Trader runs just fine locked at 19200. It does NOT run at 38400
unfortunately since that is not a valid baud Rate for QuickBasic 3.0! There is
nothing I can do about that. Sorry. To run locked at 19200, you will have to
use a program JUST BEFORE you load YT to change the baud rate in DORINFO1.DEF
to 19200. I personally use "SOFTBAUD" which works just fine.


Problems? :-

That's basically it on setup. Some common problems you might run into are:

Problem: "When someone uses the autopilot, the game crashes".
Answer : Not enough memory. The door needs at least 300K to run.

Problem: "The door runs for a while then locks up tight."
Answer : There is enough memory to let the game start, but not enough to hold
         all the variables once the game has run for a while. Give it MORE
         ROOM to run in!

Problem: "The door hangs up the phone on my users when they try to exit back
         to my BBS."
Answer : You are NOT using the specially patched version of BRUN30.EXE
         provided! (OR you have another version someplace in your system path
         someplace that is being found BEFORE the patched version.)

Problem: "The game crashes when generating the scoreboard."
Answer : You have the path/name set up to and invalid path/name. Use YTCONFIG
         and fix the path/name.

Problem: "The door reports 'Command line missing. Aborting!'"
Answer : You MUST pass on the command line the path/name of/to DORINFO1.DEF.

Problem: "The door will not start and reports a problem accessing DORINFO1.DEF"
Answer : You may have passed an invalid path to DORINFO1.DEF OR you just
         passed the PATH. You must pass both the path AND the name. (See the
         example.)


Suggestions and Reporting Bugs :-

        This is the most sticky thing about writing doors. Why? I find that
90% of all bugs reported are NOT really bugs and that when 90% of real bugs
are reported I am not given enough information to track down and SOLVE the
problem! This is extremely irritating and frustrating to me and makes me want
to hang it all up and forget about it all!

        If a you do not like the way a routine works that is NOT a bug and
rather than reporting it as one it is much less irritating if you make a
SUGGESTION for a change and/or and improvement. Before making a suggestion
think to yourself 'Is it practical?' I receive "suggestions" all the time
(usually by non-programmers) that, if implemented, would totally change the
game or would take so much to implement that it would take a lifetime to add!
(I do this in my spare time as a hobby!) A LOT of thought has gone into the
game and establishing a reasonable game balance. Think about your suggestion.
Will it enhance the game or will it just mess up the game balance? I DO listen
to suggestions when they are well though out and when they are accompanied by
an explanation of just WHY the person thinks that it would enhance the game.

        When reporting real bugs (crashes, non-functioning or malfunctioning
routines) please, before reporting it to me, gather as much information as
possible. Write down the EXACT circumstances that cause the bug to appear. If
I cannot reproduce the problem, I cannot fix it! Nothing is more frustrating
to me, as a programmer, to know that there is a problem however am unable to
do anything about it since it was reported with too little information to
track it down!! Please be explicit and detailed when reporting any problems
you may encounter otherwise you are wasting your time and irritating the
person who spent so much time to bring YT to you. Thank you!


Old Beta Test Versions :-

        Please destroy any of the old beta test versions you may have lying
around. Remove them from your files area. The beta's all had bugs in them,
some more severe than others. It is best that they be destroyed.


Registration of Yankee Trader :-

        Please see "REGISTER.DOC" for information on how to register this
door.


Getting New Versions :-

        You can always download the latest version of Yankee Trader from my
BBS. OR you may file request it from 1:13/75 any time but National Mail Hour
and the time period from 23:00 to 24:00 Eastern time. My BBS phone number is
1-717-686-3037 9600 HST.


A Final Word :-

        I wish to thank everyone who has helped test the early, buggy beta
test versions of Yankee Trader. I was going to try to list you all but I am
afraid that I would miss someone and insult them by leaving their name out. So
I'll just say this; "Thank you one and all. Your help was appreciated more
than you can ever know!"