DOS Games Discussion

When you move to a new quad, the positions of objects in the quad are re-randomised. I guess the idea is that the warp engines can't be used to navigate with precision, and so the reshuffling is a way of making you need the impulse engines to get the needed precision to position yourself next to a base or planet, or to get the best line of fire on an enemy ship.

However, in the end a mistake was made whereby the damage-checking code looks at whether the quadrant has been specified, instead of whether the player is actually moving between quads. Only after the damage check has been done, whether to warp or impulse is determined by whether the destination is in the same quad.

You can see the converse of the bug by setting a warp speed that is too high because the warp engines are damaged, and then attempting an intra-quad move. Only if you specified the quad does the move fail.

Does anyone know how to use the manual coordinates DeltaX and DeltaY? I've never been able to figure it out. Doesn't seem to correspond to the grids at all. At least not the traditional way you would think of x and y axis'. It's pretty frustrating when your computer gets damaged and you find out a Starbase is in trouble and you can't get there to help.

I figured it out once but then forgot how. If I have time I'll see about doing a little experimentation to work it out again. I know there's a way to input manual coordinates even if the computer is working, but I don't remember exactly how to do that either.

RareElusiveGrif wrote:Does anyone know how to use the manual coordinates DeltaX and DeltaY? I've never been able to figure it out. Doesn't seem to correspond to the grids at all. At least not the traditional way you would think of x and y axis'. It's pretty frustrating when your computer gets damaged and you find out a Starbase is in trouble and you can't get there to help.

You just have to remember two things:

• X and Y are the wrong way round (I don't know whether this is a deliberate design)
• the number is in octal - so 1.4 means 1 quad + 4 sectors in the given direction

Awesome, thanks! I've been wonderin' that for probably 17 years! I figured it must be something used in some field of expertise I am not familiar with. I must admit I would not have known what octal meant (still not sure I do) if you had not explained.

BlackMantis wrote:I figured it out once but then forgot how. If I have time I'll see about doing a little experimentation to work it out again. I know there's a way to input manual coordinates even if the computer is working, but I don't remember exactly how to do that either.

Hit F4 a second time.

The main viewer block comes up with "pretty pictures" labeled things like Array Monitor, Subspace Com Net, Grav Field, and some pretty ship status screens, all with pictures. Do these ever show real data like the damage summary screen, or are they just there to be pretty and inhance atmosphere?

And I just discovered I've been play v1.0 for years, and there's several v2.xs and a v3. I wondered what all this Mongol chatter was, but happy surprise! Now I know.

I asked because I was fiddling around today taking screenshots and writing some HTML5/Javascript to see what could be done and practice my "Single Page Web Applications" book lessons. It certainly isn't a remake in a day, and the code is all but nonexistent, but as a screenshot and homage site with potential promise for future, I was pretty proud with what I accomplished:
http://www.joelmcintyre.com/egatrek/egatrek.html


But I'm hoping some of you might be interested in telling me how the more esoteric parts of the game are supposed to work? Though I'm working with version 1, on easy, so it looks simple so far. I assume I'm missing lots.

I discovered something else just now. Even when the SR scanner is damaged to 0%, you still get the scanner reports when a Mongol moves!

In my time I've found three things that you can score points for rescuing:

• a federation base
• a Union ship
• settlers from a planet

It appears that it counts only if whatever it is has sent out a distress call. At least for bases - I don't know about the others. Is my inkling correct?

smjg wrote: ↑Tue Sep 02, 2014 7:19 am

BlackMantis wrote:

Speaking of points for rescues, if your ship is destroyed then do you lose them all? Or does it still score you for these behind the scenes?

It should still score them? I think? Might have to doublecheck that one.

It happened to me the other day, looks like it doesn't.

Furthermore, falling into a black hole doesn't count as loss of ship, even though the EOG report states that the ship was "destroyed". So if you're in a hopeless situation, you could maybe jump into a black hole and thereby keep your points for rescues (or, if you're thrown free, hope it's into a Mongol-free quad)....

smjg wrote: ↑Tue Sep 02, 2014 7:19 am

BlackMantis wrote:Okay, now that I think about it, I seem to recall that INFO does stop working when the scanners are down. I had forgotten -- been awhile. But I'm pretty sure SCAN does continue to work (which I suppose is probably a bug).

Yes, I've now found that it does.

Thinking about it now, maybe it's a feature Nels put in for his own development and testing.