Amiga Empire by Chris Gray - Ships Ships and naval affairs are a major part of Amiga Empire, both in terms of exploring the world and conducting internal affairs, and in terms of conflict with other countries. Ships are built at harbour sectors using the 'build' command. Goods and people can be loaded onto ships at harbours using the 'load' command. Goods and people can be unloaded from ships at harbours using the 'unload' command. Tenders can transfer goods to ships at sea using the 'tend' command. Ships have radar and can see nearby sectors and ships using the 'radar' command. Groups of ships can be organized into fleets using the 'fleet' command. Planes can land on aircraft carriers and can take off from them using the 'fly' command. And, most important, ships or fleets of ships can be moved around using the 'navigate' command. Other commands refer to ships during conflict, such as 'fire', 'assault', 'board', 'drop', 'mine' and 'torpedo'. The 'lookout' command can also be done from a ship, and will report other ships and nearby land sectors. Ships are examined using the 'ships' command, which is much like a 'census' command for ships. Note that the 'ships' command updates the ships, however, since there is no explicit 'update' for ships. When a ship is first built in a harbour, it will have 50% efficiency and no mobility. It will be given the technology level of the country building it. The ship will be initially empty. Empty ships can sail around and do radar commands (each ship in considered to have a crew, independent of any soldiers or civilians the ship may be carrying). Certain hazards to navigation exist: unfriendly ships can try to sink or take over your ships; mines dropped by destroyers can damage and even sink ships that run into them; and bad weather in the form of hurricanes can damage and sink ships that attempt to navigate in the eye of the storm. A ship must be at least 20% efficient or it will sink. Also, it must be at least 60% efficent before it can navigate, fire guns, be loaded, etc. The types of ships in Amiga Empire are: PT boat, symbol 'p' (PaTrol boat, not Patrol-Torpedo boat) These are the cheapest ships to build. They are very small and can go a long way on their mobility. They also have quite good radar. These characteristics make them excellent as scouts, either when mapping coastlines or as hard to see lookouts. They can also carry 10 military and fire one gun, so they can take over vacant islands and try to sink other PT boats. A PT boat hitting a mine or being hit by a torpedo is often sunk outright. destroyer, symbol 'd' These are the most versatile of the ships. They carry more military and guns than a PT boat, and have just as good radar. They are also the only surface ship with sonar, so they can see submarines on their radar scans. Destroyers can also use the 'mine' command to drop shells into the water as mines. They can also use the 'drop' command to drop shells as depth charges, attempting to hit submarines. If such a submarine is still 60% efficient, it will attempt to torpedo the destroyer. battleship, symbol 'b' Battleships are the naval equivalent of a fortress. They are fairly slow moving, but their radar is excellent, and they can carry 127 military and shoot 4 guns. A battleship sailing up and down an undefended enemy coast can do tremendous damage, and can usually take over several sectors. They are also quite hard to sink, due to their size. submarine, symbol 's' Submarines are mostly an offensive vessel. The only surface ship that can see them is a destroyer. They have fairly weak radar/sonar of their own. Submarines can use the 'torpedo' command to fire torpedos at surface ships. Only destroyers can fire back with depth charges. Subs can also torpedo other submarines, in which case the target can torpedo back if it is still able. To keep submarines from becoming too strong, and to adjust for the often non-real-time nature of an Empire game, the mobility of a submarine goes to zero and then negative when it fires torpedos. This prevents it from leaving the scene too quickly, and allows the victim country to try to find and attack the submarine with destroyers. This factor can be removed by a deity, and can also be applied to destroyers dropping depth charges. minesweeper, symbol 'm' Minesweepers are slow and poorly armed. They are, however, the only way (other than sacrificing lots of ships) of getting rid of mines. Whenever a minesweeper navigates, you will see a "Sweep, sweep" message and it will remove up to 5 mines from the sector it enters. Note that when navigating a fleet, the order in which the ships are moved is the order of those ships in the fleet. tender, symbol 't' Tenders are slow and poorly armed, but can carry lots of military, shells and guns. While at sea, the 'tend' command allows you to transfer these supplies from a tender to a ship in the same sector. This can be vital when carrying on a naval action at some distance from your nearest harbour. carrier, symbol 'c' Aircraft carriers are much like mobile airports. They cannot build airplanes like airports can, however. They have radar and guns like other ships, but have the additional major ability of being able to launch airplanes with the 'fly' command. The airplanes require crew and bombs (shells) from the carrier, and the carrier's mobility is used as fuel for flying distance. Airplanes can bomb sectors and ships, and can damage them by crashing into them. When landing on an aircraft carrier, the success is governed by the weather and the efficiency of the carrier. Beware of sinking your own carrier! freighter, symbol 'f' Freighters are civilian ships. They cannot carry any military and cannot fire guns, even though they can carry lots of guns and shells as cargo. They can carry 127 each of civilians, shells, guns, iron ore and gold bars. If an enemy attempts to 'board' a freighter, nearby ships in the same fleet will defend it. This automatic defense is not available for other ship types - they are on their own. Freighters are the only ship, and the only way, of getting civilians from one land mass to another. The exact default statistics for the various ships types are given in the following table. Note that a deity can change any of these values. type name cost sp vis rng civ mil sh gun plns ore bars vrng ------------------------------------------------------------------ p PT boat 30 50 6 1 - 10 10 1 - - - 4 d destroyer 60 35 15 3 - 80 40 2 - - - 4 b battleship 127 25 25 8 - 127 127 4 - - - 6 s submarine 70 25 1 2 - 25 25 2 - - - 3 m minesweeper 50 20 20 1 - 25 10 1 - - - 3 t tender 100 30 20 1 - 100 127 30 - - - 3 c carrier 127 25 25 2 - 60 40 2 127 - - 4 f freighter 80 20 20 - 127 - 127 127 - 127 127 3 cost - number of production units in a harbour needed to build the ship. Also, cost * 9 dollars are needed for the build. sp - speed factor - the larger the better vis - how visible the ship is to radar and lookout rng - twice the maximum gun firing distance civ - number of civilians it can carry mil - number of military it can carry sh - number of shells it can carry gun - number of guns it can carry/fire (tender can fire 1, freighter 0) plns - number of planes it can carry ore - number of tons of ore it can carry bars - number of gold bars it can carry vrng - how far it can see (radar and lookout) - subs are special Ships can be organized into fleets using the 'fleet' command. A fleet, which is indicated by an upper or lower case letter (thus you can have up to 52 fleets), is just a list of upto 100 ships. The 'navigate' command accepts a fleet letter instead of a ship number, and will attempt to make the entire fleet move as a unit. The first ship in the fleet is the "flagship" of the fleet, and if it runs out of mobility, the entire fleet cannot be navigated anymore. If other ships run out of mobility, they will just drop behind. The ships in the fleet do not have to be all in the same sector, but it is tricky to navigate when they are not. Fleets are also used as a military unit, in that ships in a fleet will defend each other from enemy fire. Ships not in any fleet will show up on the 'ships' report as belonging to fleet '*'. A ship can be removed from a fleet by adding it to another fleet, including adding it to fleet '*'. Fleet '*' cannot be navigated, and is not a military unit.