SAIL(6) | Games Manual | SAIL(6) |
sail
—
sail |
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sail
is a computer version of Avalon Hill's game of
fighting sail originally developed by S. Craig Taylor.
Players of sail
take command of an
old-fashioned Man of War and fight other players or the computer. They may
re-enact one of the many historical sea battles recorded in the game, or
they can choose a fictional battle.
As a sea captain in the Sail
Navy, the
player has complete control over the workings of his ship. He must order
every maneuver, change the set of his sails, and judge the right moment to
let loose the terrible destruction of his broadsides. In addition to
fighting the enemy, he must harness the powers of the wind and sea to make
them work for him. The outcome of many battles during the age of sail was
decided by the ability of one captain to hold the ‘weather
gage’.
The flags are:
sail
is a multiplayer game. Each player runs
sail
to either connect to an existing game or start a
new one. The game server (or “driver”) is an extra fork of the
sail
program created when a game is started. The
driver coordinates the game and runs the computer ships.
If a player joins a game in progress, a synchronization process occurs (a rather slow process for everyone), and then the game continues.
Note that while each scenario can be running independently with different players, each scenario can also only be running once at any given time.
sail
was first written under, the communicating
processes must use a common temporary file as a place to read and write
messages. For e.g. scenario 21, this file is
/var/games/sail/#sailsink.21. Corresponding file names
are used for the other scenarios.
In addition, a locking mechanism must be provided to ensure
exclusive access to the shared file. sail
uses a
technique stolen from an old game called “pubcaves” by Jeff
Cohen. Processes do a busy wait in the loop
for (n = 0; link(sync_file, sync_lock) < 0 && n < 30; n++) sleep(2);
The most noticeable effect this communication has on the game is the delay in moving. Suppose a player types a move for his ship and hits return. What happens then? The player process saves up messages to be written to the temporary file in a buffer. Every 7 seconds or so, the player process gets exclusive access to the temporary file and writes out its buffer to the file. The driver, running asynchronously, must read in the movement command, process it, and write out the results. This takes two exclusive accesses to the temporary file. Finally, when the player process gets around to doing another 7-second update, the results of the move are displayed on the screen. Hence, every movement requires four exclusive accesses to the temporary file (anywhere from 7 to 21 seconds depending upon asynchrony) before the player sees the results of his moves.
In practice, the delays are not as annoying as they would appear. There is room for “pipelining” in the movement. After the player writes out a first movement message, a second movement command can then be issued. The first message will be in the temporary file waiting for the driver, and the second will be in the file buffer waiting to be written to the file. Thus, by always typing moves a turn ahead of the time, the player can sail around quite quickly.
If the player types several movement commands between two 7-second updates, only the last movement command typed will be seen by the driver. Movement commands within the same update “overwrite” each other, in a sense.
It should be thrown out and replaced with something socket-based.
\ b---------------- ---0 \ \ \ up to a range of ten (for round shot) \ \ \
b 00 ---- Stern rake! a
The period of history covered in sail
is
approximately from the 1770's until the end of Napoleonic France in 1815.
There are many excellent books about the age of sail. (See
REFERENCES).
Fighting ships came in several sizes classed by armament. The mainstays of any fleet were its ships of the line, or line of battle ships. These were so named because in fleet actions they would sail in lines so as to present all broadsides to the enemy at once. The modern terms “ocean liner”, and “battleship” are derived from “ship of the line”.
The pride of the fleet were the “first-rates”. These were huge three decked ships of the line mounting 80 to 136 guns. The guns in the three tiers were usually 18, 24, and 32 pounders in that order from top to bottom.
Lesser ships were known as “second-rates”, “third-rates”, and even “fourth-rates”. The most common size was the 74 gun two-decked ship of the line. The two gun decks usually mounted 18 and 24 pounder guns.
Razees were ships of the line with one deck sawed off. These mounted 40-64 guns and were a poor cross between a frigate and a line of battle ship. They neither had the speed of the former nor the firepower of the latter.
The next class was the frigate. Often called the “eyes of the fleet”, frigates came in many sizes mounting anywhere from 32 to 44 guns. These were very handy vessels. They could outsail anything bigger and outshoot anything smaller. Frigates did not generally fight in lines of battle as the much bigger 74s did. Instead, they were sent on individual missions or in small groups to harass the enemy's rear or capture crippled ships. They were much more useful this way, in missions away from the fleet. They could hit hard and get away fast.
Lastly, there were the corvettes, sloops, and brigs. These were smaller ships mounting typically fewer than 20 guns. A corvette was only slightly smaller than a frigate, so one might have up to 30 guns. Sloops were used for carrying despatches or passengers. Brigs were small vessels typically built for land-locked lakes.
sail
are represented on the screen by two
characters. One character represents the bow of the ship, and the other
represents the stern. Ships have nationalities and numbers. The first ship of
a nationality is number 0, the second number 1, etc. Therefore, the first
British ship in a game would be printed as “b0”. The second Brit
would be “b1”, and the fifth Don would be “s4”.
Ships can set normal sails, called Battle Sails, or bend on extra canvas called Full Sails. A ship under full sail is a beautiful sight indeed, and it can move much faster than a ship under battle sails. The only trouble is, with full sails set, there is so much tension on sail and rigging that a well aimed round shot can burst a sail into ribbons where it would only cause a little hole in a loose sail. For this reason, rigging damage is doubled on a ship with full sails set. This does not mean that full sails should never be used; the author recommends keeping them up right into the heat of battle. When a ship has full sails set, the letter for its nationality is capitalized. E.g., a Frog, “f0”, with full sails set would be printed as “F0”.
When a ship is battered into a listing hulk, the last man aboard strikes the colors. This ceremony is the ship's formal surrender. The nationality character of a surrendered ship is printed as ‘!’. E.g., the Frog of our last example would soon be “!0”.
A ship that reaches this point has a chance of catching fire or sinking. A sinking ship has a ‘~’ printed for its nationality, and a ship on fire and about to explode has a ‘#’ printed.
Ships that have struck can be captured; captured ships become the nationality of the prize crew. Therefore, if an American ship captures a British ship, the British ship will thenceforth have an ‘a’ printed for its nationality. In addition, the ship number is changed to one of the characters ‘&'()*+’ corresponding to its original number ‘012345’. E.g., the “b0” captured by an American becomes the “a&”. The “s4” captured by a Frog becomes the “f*”.
The ultimate example is, of course, an exploding Brit captured by an American: “#&”.
sail
to many.
Ships can head in 8 directions:
0 0 0 b b b0 b b b 0b b 0 0 0
Movement commands to sail
are a string of
forward moves and turns. An example is “l3”. It will turn a
ship left and then move it ahead 3 spaces. In the drawing above, the
“b0” made 7 successive left turns. When
sail
prompts you for a move, it prints three
characters of import. E.g.,
move (7, 4):
move (7, 4): 7 move (7, 4): 1 move (7, 4): d /* drift, or do nothing */ move (7, 4): 6r move (7, 4): 5r1 move (7, 4): 4r1r move (7, 4): l1r1r2 move (7, 4): 1r1r1r1
Because square riggers performed so poorly sailing into the wind, if at any point in a movement command you turn into the wind, the movement stops there. E.g.,
move (7, 4): l1l4 Movement Error; Helm: l1l
Old sailing captains had to keep an eye constantly on the wind.
Captains in sail
are no different. A ship's ability
to move depends on its attitude to the wind. The best angle possible is to
have the wind off your quarter, that is, just off the stern. The direction
rose on the side of the screen gives the possible movements for your ship at
all positions to the wind. Battle sail speeds are given first, and full sail
speeds are given in parenthesis.
0 1(2) \|/ -^-3(6) /|\ | 4(7) 3(6)
| 3 +
The wind speeds are:
Ships can grapple each other by throwing grapnels into the rigging of the other.
The number of fouls and grapples you have are displayed on the upper right of the screen.
sail
to either board an enemy ship or to
defend your own ship against attack. Men organized as Defensive Boarding
Parties fight twice as hard to save their ship as men left unorganized.
The boarding strength of a crew depends upon its quality and upon the number of men sent.
In sail
, crew quality is quantized into 5
energy levels. Elite crews can outshoot and outfight all
other sailors. Crack crews are next.
Mundane crews are average, and Green and
Mutinous crews are below average. A good rule of thumb is
that Crack or Elite crews get one extra
hit per broadside compared to Mundane crews. Don't expect
too much from Green crews.
The types of shot and their advantages are:
On the side of the screen is displayed some vital information about your ship:
Load D! R! Hull 9 Crew 4 4 2 Guns 4 4 Carr 2 2 Rigg 5 5 5 5
sail
follow all the rules above with a
few exceptions. Computer ships never repair damage. If they did, the players
could never beat them. They play well enough as it is. As a consolation, the
computer ships can fire double shot every turn. That fluke is a good reason to
keep your distance. The driver figures out the moves of the computer ships. It
computes them with a typical A.I. distance function and a depth first search
to find the maximum “score”. It seems to work fairly well,
although I'll be the first to admit it isn't perfect.
sail
by typing a single character.
You will then be prompted for further input. A brief summary of the commands
follows.
sail
:
(a) Ranger 19 gun Sloop (crack crew) (7 pts) (b) Drake 17 gun Sloop (crack crew) (6 pts)
This is John Paul Jones' first famous battle. Aboard the Bonhomme Richard, he was able to overcome the Serapis's greater firepower by quickly boarding her.
(a) Bonhomme Rich 42 gun Corvette (crack crew) (11 pts) (b) Serapis 44 gun Frigate (crack crew) (12 pts)
(b) America 64 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (20 pts) (b) Befford 74 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (26 pts) (b) Adamant 50 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (17 pts) (b) London 98 gun 3 Decker SOL (crack crew) (28 pts) (b) Royal Oak 74 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (26 pts) (f) Neptune 74 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (24 pts) (f) Duc de Bourgogne 80 gun 3 Decker SOL (average crew) (27 pts) (f) Conquerant 74 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (24 pts) (f) Provence 64 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (18 pts) (f) Romulus 44 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (10 pts)
(b) Monmouth 74 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (24 pts) (b) Hero 74 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (26 pts) (b) Isis 50 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (17 pts) (b) Superb 74 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (27 pts) (b) Burford 74 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (24 pts) (f) Flamband 50 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (14 pts) (f) Annibal 74 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (24 pts) (f) Severe 64 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (18 pts) (f) Brilliant 80 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (31 pts) (f) Sphinx 80 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (27 pts)
(b) Nymphe 36 gun Frigate (crack crew) (11 pts) (f) Cleopatre 36 gun Frigate (average crew) (10 pts)
(b) Mars 74 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (26 pts) (f) Hercule 74 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (23 pts)
(b) Ambuscade 32 gun Frigate (average crew) (9 pts) (f) Baionnaise 24 gun Corvette (average crew) (9 pts)
(a) Constellation 38 gun Corvette (elite crew) (17 pts) (f) Insurgent 36 gun Corvette (average crew) (11 pts)
(a) Constellation 38 gun Corvette (elite crew) (17 pts) (f) Vengeance 40 gun Frigate (average crew) (15 pts)
(b) Amphion 32 gun Frigate (elite crew) (13 pts) (b) Active 38 gun Frigate (elite crew) (18 pts) (b) Volage 22 gun Frigate (elite crew) (11 pts) (b) Cerberus 32 gun Frigate (elite crew) (13 pts) (f) Favorite 40 gun Frigate (average crew) (15 pts) (f) Flore 40 gun Frigate (average crew) (15 pts) (f) Danae 40 gun Frigate (crack crew) (17 pts) (f) Bellona 32 gun Frigate (green crew) (9 pts) (f) Corona 40 gun Frigate (green crew) (12 pts) (f) Carolina 32 gun Frigate (green crew) (7 pts)
(a) Constitution 44 gun Corvette (elite crew) (24 pts) (b) Guerriere 38 gun Frigate (crack crew) (15 pts)
(a) United States 44 gun Frigate (elite crew) (24 pts) (b) Macedonian 38 gun Frigate (crack crew) (16 pts)
(a) Constitution 44 gun Corvette (elite crew) (24 pts) (b) Java 38 gun Corvette (crack crew) (19 pts)
(a) Chesapeake 38 gun Frigate (average crew) (14 pts) (b) Shannon 38 gun Frigate (elite crew) (17 pts)
(a) Lawrence 20 gun Sloop (crack crew) (9 pts) (a) Niagara 20 gun Sloop (elite crew) (12 pts) (b) Lady Prevost 13 gun Brig (crack crew) (5 pts) (b) Detroit 19 gun Sloop (crack crew) (7 pts) (b) Q. Charlotte 17 gun Sloop (crack crew) (6 pts)
(a) Wasp 20 gun Sloop (elite crew) (12 pts) (b) Reindeer 18 gun Sloop (elite crew) (9 pts)
(a) Constitution 44 gun Corvette (elite crew) (24 pts) (b) Cyane 24 gun Sloop (crack crew) (11 pts) (b) Levant 20 gun Sloop (crack crew) (10 pts)
(b) Indefatigable 44 gun Frigate (elite crew) (14 pts) (b) Amazon 36 gun Frigate (crack crew) (14 pts) (f) Droits L'Hom 74 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (24 pts)
(b) Caesar 80 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (31 pts) (b) Pompee 74 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (27 pts) (b) Spencer 74 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (26 pts) (b) Hannibal 98 gun 3 Decker SOL (crack crew) (28 pts) (s) Real-Carlos 112 gun 3 Decker SOL (green crew) (27 pts) (s) San Fernando 96 gun 3 Decker SOL (green crew) (24 pts) (s) Argonauta 80 gun Ship of the Line (green crew) (23 pts) (s) San Augustine 74 gun Ship of the Line (green crew) (20 pts) (f) Indomptable 80 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (27 pts) (f) Desaix 74 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (24 pts)
(a) Saratoga 26 gun Sloop (crack crew) (12 pts) (a) Eagle 20 gun Sloop (crack crew) (11 pts) (a) Ticonderoga 17 gun Sloop (crack crew) (9 pts) (a) Preble 7 gun Brig (crack crew) (4 pts) (b) Confiance 37 gun Frigate (crack crew) (14 pts) (b) Linnet 16 gun Sloop (elite crew) (10 pts) (b) Chubb 11 gun Brig (crack crew) (5 pts)
(a) President 44 gun Frigate (elite crew) (24 pts) (b) Endymion 40 gun Frigate (crack crew) (17 pts) (b) Pomone 44 gun Frigate (crack crew) (20 pts) (b) Tenedos 38 gun Frigate (crack crew) (15 pts)
A scenario for you Horny fans. Remember, he sank the Natividad against heavy odds and winds. Hint: don't try to board the Natividad; her crew is much bigger, albeit green.
(b) Lydia 36 gun Frigate (elite crew) (13 pts) (s) Natividad 50 gun Ship of the Line (green crew) (14 pts)
Just for fun, take the Piece of cake.
(s) Piece of Cake 24 gun Corvette (average crew) (9 pts) (f) Flying Dutchy 120 gun 3 Decker SOL (elite crew) (43 pts)
(a) USS Scurvy 136 gun 3 Decker SOL (mutinous crew) (27 pts) (b) HMS Tahiti 120 gun 3 Decker SOL (elite crew) (43 pts) (s) Australian 32 gun Frigate (average crew) (9 pts) (f) Bikini Atoll 7 gun Brig (crack crew) (4 pts)
The only battle Hornblower ever lost. He was able to dismast one ship and stern rake the others though. See if you can do as well.
(b) Sutherland 74 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (26 pts) (f) Turenne 80 gun 3 Decker SOL (average crew) (27 pts) (f) Nightmare 74 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (24 pts) (f) Paris 112 gun 3 Decker SOL (green crew) (27 pts) (f) Napoleon 74 gun Ship of the Line (green crew) (20 pts)
(a) Concord 80 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (27 pts) (a) Berkeley 98 gun 3 Decker SOL (crack crew) (28 pts) (b) Thames 120 gun 3 Decker SOL (elite crew) (43 pts) (s) Madrid 112 gun 3 Decker SOL (green crew) (27 pts) (f) Musket 80 gun 3 Decker SOL (average crew) (27 pts)
Watch that little Cypress go!
(a) Alligator 120 gun 3 Decker SOL (elite crew) (43 pts) (b) Firefly 74 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (27 pts) (b) Cypress 44 gun Frigate (elite crew) (14 pts)
(b) Shark 64 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (18 pts) (f) Coral Snake 44 gun Corvette (elite crew) (24 pts) (f) Sea Lion 44 gun Frigate (elite crew) (24 pts)
This one is dedicated to Richard Basehart and David Hedison.
(a) Seaview 120 gun 3 Decker SOL (elite crew) (43 pts) (a) Flying Sub 40 gun Frigate (crack crew) (17 pts) (b) Mermaid 136 gun 3 Decker SOL (mutinous crew) (27 pts) (s) Giant Squid 112 gun 3 Decker SOL (green crew) (27 pts)
(a) Killdeer 40 gun Frigate (average crew) (15 pts) (b) Sandpiper 40 gun Frigate (average crew) (15 pts) (s) Curlew 38 gun Frigate (crack crew) (16 pts)
(a) Enterprise 80 gun Ship of the Line (crack crew) (31 pts) (a) Yorktown 80 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (27 pts) (a) Hornet 74 gun Ship of the Line (average crew) (24 pts) (j) Akagi 112 gun 3 Decker SOL (green crew) (27 pts) (j) Kaga 96 gun 3 Decker SOL (green crew) (24 pts) (j) Soryu 80 gun Ship of the Line (green crew) (23 pts)
(a) Enterprise 450 gun Ship of the Line (elite crew) (75 pts) (a) Yorktown 450 gun Ship of the Line (elite crew) (75 pts) (a) Reliant 450 gun Ship of the Line (elite crew) (75 pts) (a) Galileo 450 gun Ship of the Line (elite crew) (75 pts) (k) Kobayashi Maru 450 gun Ship of the Line (elite crew) (75 pts) (k) Klingon II 450 gun Ship of the Line (elite crew) (75 pts) (o) Red Orion 450 gun Ship of the Line (elite crew) (75 pts) (o) Blue Orion 450 gun Ship of the Line (elite crew) (75 pts)
sail
on a
PDP-11/70 in the fall of 1980. Needless to say, the code was horrendous, not
portable in any sense of the word, and didn't work. The program was not very
modular and had fseek(3) and
fwrite(3) calls every few lines.
After a tremendous rewrite from the top down, the first working version was up
and running by 1981. There were several annoying bugs concerning firing
broadsides and finding angles.
Ed Wang rewrote the angle
() routine in
1981 to be more correct. He also added code to let a player select which
ship he wanted at the start of the game, instead of always taking the first
one available.
Captain Happy (Craig Leres) is responsible for making
sail
portable for the first time. This was no easy
task. Constants like 2 and 10 were very frequent in the code. The
sail
code was also notorious for the use of
“Riggle Memorial Structures”. Many structure references were
so long that they ran off the line printer page. Here is an example, if you
promise not to laugh:
specs[scene[flog.fgamenum].ship[flog.fshipnum].shipnum].pts
sail
received its fourth and most thorough
rewrite in the summer and fall of 1983. Ed Wang rewrote and modularized the
code (a monumental feat) almost from scratch. Although he introduced many
new bugs, the final result was very much cleaner and (?) faster. He added
window movement commands and find ship commands.
At some currently unknown time, sail
was
imported into BSD.
sail
has been a group effort.
Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander, and 20 more volumes.
C.S. Forester, Captain Horatio Hornblower Novels, (13 of them).
Alexander Kent, Captain Richard Bolitho Novels, (12 of them).
The Complete Works of Captain Frederick Marryat, (about 20).
Of these, consider especially
March 2, 2009 | NetBSD 9.2 |