Air Defense Setup Instructions As of: April 7, 1991 Version 2.4 I think you will enjoy Air Defense. This game is written by Darel Schartman, a user on my BBS. I've known Darel for a few years and he has programmed several on-line games for Forem XEP, the 8-bit BBS program. This is Darel's first game specifically for Forem ST. Air Defense has been Beta Tested by Nodes 391, Carlis Darby, and 398, Bill Day, and myself at Node 224 for over a month prior to this release. Our thanks to both for their help. As an overall protection, there is a general error routine that will trap all fatal game errors, return the user to the BBS, and write an Air.Err file in the Air Defense game folder. AIR.ERR will contain the date, time, and error code responsible for the untimely program termination. The modem code and the message routines are the two places where the user interacts with the program, and through that, your BBS. The input routines are armored to filter out all but ASCII characters. No hanky panky allowed. Even the famous 1e45 from SEE has been tested -- it will cause Air Defense to abort to the BBS, however, because of the times that data is saved, it won't do a user any good to use it. The input routines all have time-out features and will terminate the game if there is no input for approximately 2 minutes. Like Forem, a 30 second warning will be given. The players login name is read from Forem.Dat. I chose to do this instead of using Dorinfo1.dat because that was the code I wrote previously for NFL Picks. I'm lazy. If you have a good argument for using Dorinfo1.dat instead, I'll change the code to read Forem.Opt (to find out where the silly bugger is), and then the code to read the info. In NFL Picks, I used a routine to look for carrier detect and if found, assumed the player was on the modem. Conversely, if carrier was not present, the game defaulted to local mode. I changed this for Air Defense to look instead for the word "local" as a parameter to the run line in the Fdoorsx.dat file. There's a little less room for error this way. I will personally guarantee that there is NO backdoor in this program, nor any code to accomplish anything except handle game play. I have examined every routine, not because I didn't trust Darel, but because I was helping him debug the code and get the Forem functions working properly. Game Setup Create a game folder on the drive of your choice and copy all game files into it. You need to create two text files, AIR.SET and PATHS.DAT. You can do this with a text editor or by using the supplied AIR_CNFG.PRG. To use the AIR_CNFG.PRG, you must follow the instructions below. AIR.SET contains three lines, the path to Forem.Dat and the path to the Air Defense game files, and the reset period: blank for no reset, 1 for monthly, and 2 for bi- monthly. c:\ d:\defense\ 2 PATHS.DAT contains six lines as follows: line 1 - path to news and hall of fame file line 2 - hall of fame filename <--- Note: filename only line 3 - Today's News filename <--- Note: filename only line 4 - Yesterday's News filename <--- same as above line 5 - Sysop's login name line 6 - Alternate Sysop's login name For example, my file reads as follows: e:\games\ db015.003 db015.001 db015.002 DOC HOLIDAY DAREL SCHARTMAN The PATHS.DAT file gives you the capability to put the files anywhere you choose and with any name. They will be maintained by the game and are also viewable from within the game. Note that the data base files contain information that the internal game files don't. I strongly suggest you add these files to an appropriate database area. The Sysop and Alternate Game Sysop entries are case sensitive and DO NOT automatically convert your entries to upper case. This is to allow for the later versions of Forem which permit mixed case logins. Place the AIR.SET file in the same directory as Forem.Tos. The PATHS.DAT file is placed in the same folder as the Air Defense program files. Included with the game program is a program called AIR_CNFG.PRG. This is a configuration program that can be used to create or alter the AIR.SET and PATHS.DAT files. The AIR.SET file will be written to where you have FOREM.TOS and PATHS.DAT will be written to the game folder you specified in AIR.SET. However, this program is designed to be installed in DOORS and will work from local or from remote. You can retrieve and reset the values at any time. Note that you CANNOT run this program from the desktop without a "local" parameter. This is because it looks in the basepage for the "local" command. You can, however, run the program from within FOREM's sysop mode using the "system" or "K" command ("k" only on the newer versions of Forem) to execute the file. Just type the full path and filename, add a space, and type "local" (example: d:\defense\air_cnfg.prg local). You can then use this program to automatically generate or modify your game path files. Remember that you also select a reset period. You have three choices, no reset, reset monthly, or reset bi- monthly. Based upon your selection, when the month changes, the game will note the change and if reset is due, the game will be reset and the winner recognized in the Hall of Fame file. The first time you run the game, all the necessary files will be created and placed in accordance with the PATHS.DAT file. The Hall of Fame, Today's News, and Yesterday's News will only be created when there is something to report. When you as the Sysop or your designated Game Sysop complete game play, you will be shown an additional System menu. From this menu you may alter any of the paths or filenames in PATHS.DAT or redesignate the Sysop or Game Sysop. You can also reset the game. Resetting creates an entry in the Hall of Fame file. What this means is that the game runs until you decide to reset it. The menu also has two other commands. One prints the player file to your screen. You use this command to find out what user is playing with what game alias and what player number he/she is. The purpose of having this list available is to aid you in using the last command available, the