Showing posts with label startrek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label startrek. Show all posts

The A-Z of geek: I is for Intra-Galactic Battles

So I have had a lazy Sunday afternoon watching Star Trek movies. All the references to 'photon torpedoes' and transporter beams put me in mind of a retro DOS game action that I actually spent many hours playing throughout the 90's.

I is for Intra-Galactic Battles

IGB is a strategy game by William D. Hause released back in 1990. Although not endorsed in any way by the owners of the Star Trek franchise, the look and feel of the game places in the Star Trek universe. Four factions battle for control of the game world: The Federation, Klingons, Orions and Andromedans.

The aim of the game is to destroy or capture all of your opponents space craft. This is not a game for people you need graphics and storylines to enjoy a game. IGB is simple great because of the gameplay.



The alien races are differentiated by their method of attack. The Klingon weapons never miss, although their destructive power decreases with distance. The word Klingon is replaced by 'Gorgon' in all game documentation, presumably to avoid a nasty law suit. The Federation weapons have a chance of missing based on the distance they are from their target, however they always do maximum damage for each successful strike. The Orion weapons do minimal damage to the hull integrity of enemy ships but instead murder the crew onboard. Once an enemy ship has been thus 'softened up' a bit, Orions use transporter beams to try to take over control of the enemy ship.

An Intra-Galactic Battles skirmish. The green base has fired a laser at the pink klingon. What is klingon for "All your base are belong to us"?

My favourite race is the Andromedans whose weapons have no maximum value - they can simply be charged up to any level, thus can be significant one-shot killers, provided you have not been destroyed while you wait to charge.

Game play involves management of resources, so that there is a healthy balance between energy used to charge your defensive shields, weapons, tractor beams and engines.

When you first load IGB you will be presented with half a dozen options for scenarios to play out, although you can also select a 'custom battle' in which you can add your own ships at will. You can play with a friend or select 'Computer' when prompted with the question 'Who will control this ship?'. You can also add ships at anytime to the battle either on your own side or your enemies, so an IGB battle can theoretically last forever, although I did find my IBM PS/1 actually ran out of memory during a very long battle.

Play Intra-Galactic Battles in your browser now.

#startrek #dos #retro #games

Arduino Star Trek control panel and love-o-meter

I have continued to learn Arduino programming using the Arduino Starter Kit.


The next project in the book uses the Arduino to control three LEDs in what it imaginatively describes as a Star Trek style captain's control panel.  In this project you learn how to write code to test the status of a push switch and then, depending whether it is pushed or not, set the voltage on the LED circuits to high or low. It's another really simple project and is the first introduction to using the Arduino to control components rather than just supply power.

The project comes with a template to help you imagine that you really are Captain Kirk, if you needed help with this.

The next following project is an imaginatively titled love-o-meter.

It uses some code to get read a value from a linear temperature sensor.  Depending on the temperature your program reads the Arduino will set the voltage on up to three LED circuits. The temperature sensor is a rather small component and it actually took me a while to find it! This project also comes with a handy cardboard template - complete with lips - to help bring it to life.  Put your fingers over the temperature sensor and watch the LEDs light up one-by-one.  I understand that the Enterprise was fitted with something like this to help test the compatibility of Federation captains with alien women, only Captain Kirk often chose to ignore it.

The love-o-meter also introduces you to the serial monitor - a console for the output of text so you can see what's happening inside your Arduino.  This is useful as in this project it is unlikely that the ambient temperature is as high as 20 degrees.  I had to adjust my program and found better results when I looked at the serial monitor.



Join me soon as I continue to work my way through the brilliant Arduino starter kit.  Coming soon we will look at using the tri-colour LED and the servo motor!

As it is customary to end an Arduino post with a Douglas Adams quote, here goes:

“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.”

Still here? Well, you might like this post about the FUZE Basic Robot Arm Kit, or some noteworthy note apps for Windows.

Timetrek

Timetrek is a game by D.Elliot for Program Power (released in Europe in 1982).  I remember this game fondly and so when I found it on the brilliant BeebEm BBC Microcomputer emulator, I thought I would have a go at porting it over to the Windows platform. I hope that neither D.Elliot nor Program Power mind that I have done this.

For the most part all I have had to do is slow the game down so it runs correctly on modern PCs, although I also have made a slight change to the Enterprise's phasers - they didn't work well under Windows.

DOWNLOAD executable and source code. (BB4W source code)

Timetrek is a version of the Star Trek text games that were popular in the 1970's and 80's.  Your mission to command the Enterprise and rid the galaxy of all klingons.  Yes, every single one!  Not a bad little game, from a time when you could squeeze a good game into 11 kilobytes.

Timetrek in all its glorious teletext graphics goodness.

The Enterprise (the 'E') shown on both the galactic map and the short range scan.  The asterisk is a star (don't collide with it), and there appears to be one pesky klingon one quadrant up.

The Enterprise in battle with two klingon ships.  Good stuff!

The rules (part 1)

The rules (part 2)

Choose your skill level carefully as the difficulty ramps up very quickly.


The original cover from the Micro Power release.



Label

World Karma Game