BATTLESHIPPE (C) 1994 BY KEITH COOPER v2.0 1. ABOUT INSTALLATION 9. CONFIGURATION (EDITABLE) 2. INTRODUCTION 10. SMART ALEC TEXT 3. OBJECT OF GAME 11. *>bIg tImE eRrOr<* 4. SOUND OPTIONS (WARNING) 12. PLAYER CONFIGURATIONS 5. RUNS TOO SLOW/FAST 13. AUTHOR, ABOUT THE 6. HELP 14. CONTACT ME :) 7. CREATE NEW BOARDS vs... 15. DISCLAIMER 8. LOAD PREDEFINED BOARDS 16. FAMOUS LAST WORDS ------------------------------------------------------------- (1) ABOUT INSTALLATION ------------------------------------------------------------- IF YOU RECEIVED THIS FILE ON A BBS, YOU HAVE ALREADY UNZIPPED TO ACCESS THIS FILE. YOU NOW WILL FIND 4 FILES. BATTLE.TXT = THIS HELP FILE INSTALL.EXE = INSTALLATION AND RE-CONFIGURATION FILE INSTALL.PIC = SCREEN FILE FOR INSTALLATION BAT_SHIP.EXE = SELF EXTRACTING FILE (28 FILES) YOU HAVE 2 CHOICES. RUN INSTALL AND LET IT UNZIP AND CONFIGURE FOR YOU, OR , MAKE BATTLE DIRECTORY, RUN BAT_SHIP IN IT, THEN RUN INSTALL TO CONFIGURE (OPTION B) EITHER WAY, BACK UP THIS ZIP FIRST AND AFTER BAT_SHIP.EXE HAS BEEN RUB, IT CAN BE DELETED FROM HARD DRIVE. ------------------------------------------------------------- (2) INTRODUCTION ------------------------------------------------------------- THANKS FOR TRYING BATTLE SHIPPE. ALTOUGH IT'S A CLASSIC GAME I THINK YOU'LL FIND I'VE ADDED GREAT TWISTS AND HUMOR TO IT. READ ON TO DISCOVER IT'S SECRETS. ------------------------------------------------------------- (3) OBJECT OF GAME ------------------------------------------------------------- TWO PLAYERS TAKE TURNS SHOOTING AT HIDDEN SHIPS IN AN OCEAN. MUST SINK 5 OF THE OPPONENTS SHIPS TO WIN. (17 DIRECT HITS) YOU START OFF AS A SEAMAN 1ST CLASS AND AS YOU WIN, YOU MOVE UP IN RANK. ******************************************************** WIN FIVE GAMES AND YOU BECOME ADMIRAL AND GET A SPECIAL END SCREEN THAT ISN'T SEEN BEFORE. ******************************************************** YOUR PRESENT RANK IS SAVED IN THE CONFIGURATION FILE BATPLAYR.CFG, ALONG WITH YOUR NAME. YOU CAN EDIT THE NAMES IN THIS FILE (UP TO 5 LETTERS) ------------------------------------------------------------- (4) SOUND ------------------------------------------------------------- TYPING "Q" AT ANY TIME WILL TOGGLE SOUND ON AND OFF (NOT IMMEDIATLY EFFECTIVE WHEN ENTERING FIRING CODE) ******************************************************** IMPORTANT: DO NOT CHOOSE THE DIGITAL SOUND EFFECTS DURING SETUP (EVEN IF YOU HAVE A SOUND CARD) UNLESS YOU HAVE THE ACCOMPANYING SOUND FILE WHICH NEEDS TO BE EXTRACTED SEPERATELY IN THE SAME DIRECTORY AS THE BAT_SHIP FILES ARE LOADED. (if you get "FILE.WAV not found" messages, then run INSTALL.EXE and choose sound option for IBM speaker) ******************************************************** If you do acquire the digital sound file for Battle Shippe then note that it is WAV files using your sound cards DOS WAV player. (PLAY.EXE <-Copied and renamed if needed) This means you will be able to replace the sounds with your own. Get file for help on how and what the files are. It is free ware. ------------------------------------------------------------- (5) IT RUNS TOO SLOW OR FAST ------------------------------------------------------------- THERE IS A FILE CALLED BATTLE.CFG. THIS HOLDS VARIABLES (NUMBERS) FOR VARIOUS TIMING DISPLAYS. THE DEFAULT IS FOR A 486\33 BUT IF THE PROGRAM RUNS TOO SLOW OR TOO FAST FOR YOU (I.E. THE MISSLE TRAVELING ACROSS SCREEN OR THE EXPLOSION THAT FOLLOWS A HIT) YOU CAN CHANGE THE VALUES IN BATTLE.CFG WITH A TEXT EDITOR. BELOW THE NUMBERS, IN THE FILE, ARE THE DESCRIPTIONS FOR THE NUMBERS. IF YOU RECEIVED THIS PROGRAM ON A DISKETTE, YOU CAN USE THE INSTALL.EXE PROGRAM TO RE-CONFIGURE, OR FOLLOW THE ACCOMPANYING EXAMPLES. IF THE PROGRAM CAN'T FING BATTLE.CFG, IT WILL TELL YOU THEN LOAD IT'S OWN DEFAULTS. (486\33) FASTER MACHINE = LARGER NUMBERS (SLOWS RESPONSE) OLDER\SLOWER MACHINE\LAPTOPS = LESSER NUMBER (SPEEDS RESPONSE) THE VARIABLES IN BATTLE.CFG ARE AS FOLLOWS: 4000 OPENING TITLE SCREEN \ 3000 OF > 2000 THE FIRE ON THE SHIP / 1300 FLASH LAUNCH LINE AT TOP WHEN NO SOUND 150 THE FLIGHT OF THE MISSLE 1000 THE PAUSE BEFORE INPUT WHEN YOU HIT A SQUARE ALREADY HIT 100 HOW MANY CYCLES THE EXPLOSION GOES THROUGH 100 THE WAIT BETWEEN EXPLOSION UPDATES (3) 3000 END SCREEN OF MEN IN WATER AND BOAT FIRE 1 START UP SOUND DEFAULT ( 1=ON, 0=OFF) C MONITOR. C = COLOR, M = MONO (EASIER TO READ MONO COLORS) Most important will be the missle flight sequence and the explosion that follows a hit. I use 150 for missle flight on a 486\33, a 386\33 might try 40. a pentium or local bus video might try 700;just experiment. Again, use a text editor or use the INSTALL.EXE program and when prompted, choose RE-CONFIGURE. This will change the variables according to machine you choose. (but are only defaults and might need further editing) ------------------------------------------------------------- (6) HELP : This was going to be online but wasn't worh the code ------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT MAKES BATTLESHIP SO SPECIAL IS THE LOAD\SAVE FEATURE OF BOARDS. BATTLESHIP CAN SAVE UP TO 30 BOARDS THAT YOU CREATE. WHEN YOU START, YOU ARE GIVEN A CHOICE TO DESIGN YOUR LAYOUT OR PRESS L TO LOAD A PRE-DEFINED BOARD. -------------------------------------------------------------- (7) CREATING NEW BOARDS ------------------------------------------------------------- IF YOU CHOOSE TO ENTER: (Design your own) YOU WILL BE INSTRUCTED TO PLACE YOUR SHIPS ON THE BOARD. THERE ARE 4 TYPES OF SHIPS. SHIP "A" IS FIVE SQUARES (you have one of these) SHIP "B" IS FOUR SQUARES (you have one of these) SHIP "C" IS THREE SQUARES (you have TWO of these) * SHIP "D" IS TWO SQUARES (you have one of these) LAY EACH SHIP DOWN USING THREE KEY INPUT: * FIRST YOU CHOOSE THE SHIP (A-D) * THEN YOU CHOOSE THE COLUMN (A-J) * AND THEN THE ROW (1-0) 0=10 THIS WILL MARK THE TOP LEFT CORNER OF YOUR SHIP ON THE GRAPH. THEN YOU TELL IT TO LAY THE SHIP EITHER ACROSS (A) OR DOWN (D) ship> X ----> (A) | \|/ (D) THE SHIP WILL THEN APPEAR ON THE BOARD. YOU CAN LAY A SHIP NEXT TO ANOTHER BUT YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO EITHER 1. CROSS ANOTHER SHIP OR 2. RUN THE SHIP OFF THE EDGE OF THE BOARD. ONCE YOU HAVE FINISHED, YOU ARE GIVEN 3 OPTIONS: * ENTER = CONTINUE TO NEXT PLAYER OR START OF GAME * P = PRINT YOUR BOARD PLACEMENT ON YOUR PRINTER. (if your printer is not ready or connected, don't attempt a printout) * S = THE SPECIAL FEATURE; THIS WILL SAVE YOUR BOARD IN A FILE NUMBERED BAT1.GME TO BAT30.GME. ------------------------------------------------------------- (8) LOAD PREDEFINED BOARDS (Special feature) ------------------------------------------------------------- THIS GAME SHIPS WITH 10 BOARDS ALREADY DEFINED. AFTER SAVING SOME FAVORITE SETUPS, AT A LATER TIME, WHEN YOU WANT TO PLAY A QUICK GAME, YOU CAN CHOOSE THE LOAD "L" OPTION AND IT WILL RANDOMLY CHOOSE A PRE-DEFINED BOARD FOR YOU. THERE ARE TWO PARTS TO THIS. IF YOU ARE A COMPLETE NOVICE AT DOS, THEN SKIP THIS; BUT IF YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEMS ... THE GAME SAVES 30 BOARDS. THE BOARDS ARE NUMBERED IN SEPARATE FILES, BAT1.GME TO BAT30.GME. YOU CAN EDIT THESE FILES IN A TEXT EDITOR OR CREATE YOUR OWN BOARDS USING THE PROGRAM. ALTHOUGH ITS BEST TO CREATE NEW BOARDS USING GAME, SOMETIMES YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE PLACEMENT OF ONE SHIP. FIRST LETS LOOK AT EDITING A BOARD TO SEE HOW IT'S DONE. 0 = WATER 1 = BOAT A SAMPLE BOARD MIGHT LOOK LIKE THIS: 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 THERE ARE TEN ROWS, AND TEN COLUMNS 0,1,0,1,1,1,1,0,0,0 A-J AND 1-0, SEPARATED BY COMMA'S. 0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 THE 0'S REPRESENT WATER (A MISS) 0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 THE 1'S REPRESENT BOATS (A HIT ) 0,1,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,0 CONFINE YOURSELF TO 1-5 SQUARE SHIP 0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 1-4 SQUARE SHIP, 2-3 SQUARE SHIPS & 0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0 1-2 SQUARE SHIP. (17 1'S TO A BOARD) 0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0 IF YOU EDIT WITH A TEXT EDITOR LIKE 0,0,0,1,0,0,1,0,0,0 DOS' EDIT, THEN READ NEXT PART CLOSELY 0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0 > BATTLE.GME < BUT HERE'S THE CATCH. ANOTHER FILE CALLED BATTLE.GME, HAS A NUMBER FROM 1 TO 30. THIS TELLS THE MACHINE HOW MANY BOARDS THERE ARE TO CHOOSE FROM. IF YOU CREATE FIVE NEW BOARDS AND NAME THEM BAT11.GME TO BAT16.GME,THEN YOU NEED TO INCREASE THE NUMBER IN BATTLE.GME TO 16, USING A TEXT EDITOR. DON'T USE A WORD PROCESSOR THAT ADDS STYLE LINES AND CODES. DOS EDIT WILL WORK FINE. IF YOU USE THE GAME TO CREATE AND SAVE GAMES, THEN THE NUMBER WILL UPDATE ITSELF. AFTER YOU REACH GAME THIRTY, IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY LOWER THE NUMBER BATTLE.GME TO 15 AND REWRITE BAT16.GME TO BAT30.GME. IT WILL NOT ERASE THE FILES 16-30 BUT IT WILL NOT CHOOSE THEM DURING LOADS EITHER. YOU CAN ERASE THEM YOURSELVES OR LET THE GAME REWRITE OVER THEM. IF YOU HAVE A PARTICULARLY GOOD BOARD THAT YOU DON'T WANT ERASED, THEN RENAME IT FROM BAT1.GME TO BAT15.GME. THESE ARE NEVER ERASED. BUT DON'T LEAVE ANY BLANK GAME NUMBERS LOWER THAN THE NUMBER IN BATTLE.GME OR YOU WILL GET AN UNIDENTIFIED ERROR MESSAGE. (Big Time Error) ------------------------------------------------------------- (9) CONFIGURATION: BATTLE.CFG EDITABLE OPTIONS ------------------------------------------------------------- ALSO IN BATTLE.CFG AT THE 10 AND 11 LINE ENTRY ARE DEFAULT STARTUP VARIABLES. LINE 10 WILL BE EITHER A 1 OR A 0. THIS TELLS THE GAME TO START UP WITH THE SOUND ON (1) OR THE SOUND OFF (0). AGAIN DURING THE GAME, THIS CAN BE TOGGLED BY THE USE OF THE "Q" KEY ANYTIME. AT LINE 11 IS THE MONITOR VARIABLE. IT IS EITHER A C OR AN M. C = COLOR MONITOR; M = MONOCHROME MONITOR IF YOU HAVE A MONO LAPTOP OR MONITOR, YOU WANT TO USE THIS BECAUSE THE COLOR HIT MISS SQUARES ARE HARD TO DEFINE. (GREEN AND RED LOOK THE SAME IN BLACK AND WHITES, THE HIT SQUARES ARE REPLACED BY A PATTERNED BLOCK) ------------------------------------------------------------- (10) EDIT SMART ALEC TEXT ------------------------------------------------------------- BATHIT.TXT and BATMISS.TXT are fully editable ascii text files. Make your own random snappy comebacks for Battle Shippe. The 2 files originally shipped with Battle Shippe are funny and Family fun squeaky clean stuff. If you change it to anything less, remember do NOT distribute altered files. Please keep all original files intact when distributing. (Though you can trade 'em to your friends) BATHIT are the responses Skippy says when the opponents ship has been hit. BATMISS is for the misses. Each line is no more than 33 characters long, AND the last three lines in BATHIT automatically print the placement coordinates (i.e. A 5) See the text at end of file (BATHIT.TXT) Use these lines for such responses as "Thought you could hide out there at" A 5 <-Skippy puts A5 in) ------------------------------------------------------------- (11) BIG TIME ERROR ------------------------------------------------------------- If you received the error to consult this here, it is usually because you moved the game files (but not all) or removed some files or mixed the files from two separate installations. Read the section (8) on the file BATTLE.GME. The number in the file (say...16) means, there should be 16 ".GME" files numbered BAT1.GME to BAT16.GME. This error usually suggests a missing or wrongly named .GME file. So compare the number in the Dos editable BATTLE.GME file, and see if there are that many BAT??.GME files in the directory. If there are only ten .GME files (BAT1.GME to BAT10.GME) then change the number in BATTLE.GME to 10. Also remember there cannot be a missing file in between. (for example BAT6.GME). Otherwise re-unzip BAT_SHIP.EXE into the directory the files reside (default is C:\BATTLE). BAT_SHIP.EXE is a self extracting zip file. It will set it up as the default players and 10 GME pre-boards. You can modify it using the install program choosing UPDATE CONFIG option. Or if the program resides on a disk, you can re-install the game using it. and if you're registered and are still having trouble,EMAIL me directly. (SEE "Contact Me" SECTION BELOW FOR INTERNET, AOL, BBS ADDRESSES.) ------------------------------------------------------------- (12) PLAYER CONFIGURATION ------------------------------------------------------------- THE FILE BATPLAYR.CFG HOLDS THE CURRENT CONFIGURATION FOR TWO PLAYERS. YOU CAN EDIT THEM YOURSELF OR USE THE INSTALL PROGRAM TO CREATE USER PROFILE. NAME 1 (MAX-5 LETTERS) 1 (=CIVILIAN) NAME 2 (MAX-5 LETTERS) 1 (=CIVILIAN) ------------------------------------------------------------- (13) AUTHOR ------------------------------------------------------------- KEITH COOPER IS AN INDEPENDANT SHAREWARE AUTHOR SINCE 1988. OTHER PROGRAMS INCLUDE: KENTUCKY DERBY AWARI WARRING KNIGHTS LOTTO LUCK ZIP-A-DEE-DOO-DAH (UTILITY) COMPU NAME AVALANCHE VEGAS PIG STRIG (GRAPHIC UTILITY) VEGAS TREASURE KC PAINT (A KIDS PAINT PROGRAM) DMENU 2.5 ------------------------------------------------------------ (14) CONTACT ME ------------------------------------------------------------ CONTACT KEITH COOPER THROUGH COMPUSERVE COMPUSERVE # mail through internet address to AOL AOL # KACooper@aol.com INTERNET # KCooper@cch.com SOFTWARE CREATIONS # KEITH COOPER If you enjoy BATTLE SHIPPE as much as I do, please show your support by registering. The fee is whatever you'd care to send. MAIL: COOPER GAMES 5ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ5 1461 W. Carmen Ave. ÛÛCooperÛ:)ÛGamesÛÛÛ Chicago, IL 60640 5ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ5 Make checks payable to Keith Cooper ------------------------------------------------------------- (15) DISCLAIMER ------------------------------------------------------------- NO WARRANTY IS SAID OR IMPLIED. NO RESPONSIBILITY IS ACCEPTED BY THE AUTHOR FOR THE PROPER OR IMPROPER USE OF THIS PRODUCT AND TO ANY HARM, DAMAGE OR EMBARRASMENT IT MAY CAUSE. BATTLESHIPPE IS THE SOLE PROPERTY OF KEITH COOPER AND MAY BE FREELY DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT FINANCIAL GAIN (EXCEPT DISK COST) PROVIDED ALL FILES ARE INTACT AND HAVE NOT BEEN MODIFIED. YOU ARE FREE TO TRIAL USE IT FOR A PERIOD NOT EXCEEDING TWO WEEKS. ------------------------------------------------------------- (16) FAMOUS LAST WORDS ------------------------------------------------------------- THANKS AGAIN. EVEN IF YOU DO NOT REGISTER, PLEASE E-MAIL ME OR WRITE ME AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT. I APPRECIATE IT. ARE YOU A DOOM COMRADE? ASK ABOUT DMENU. THE ABSOLUTE BEST AND EASIEST FRONT END MENU FOR DOOM I and II. MANAGES RECORDED GAMES AND PLAYBACK. SCREEN SHOT VIEWER. EVERYTHING YOUD LIKE TO REMEMBER HOW TO DO IN DOOM IS EASILY ACCESSED USING DMENU. -------------eof----------------------------------------------