«

[Capo]

Originally Posted by zirkoni

BTW, this game is much better than 1869 which is a bit similar.

I liked 1869 more, this game is just too easy

Well...

Am running High Seas Trader from Win98SE on an AMD XP2400 (underclocked to 1800), in a regular DOS window (NOT the DOSBOX emulator).

Haven't played it much (yet), but here are a few issues I've managed to overcome on my system so far:

- It must be started in "Full-screen" mode (NOT "Window" mode). This can be set in the MS-DOS window's "Properties" settings. Or you can create a DOS shortcut and just edit that one. If you see a minimize button, the DOS window is NOT full-screen, and DOS/4GW will crash.

- At first it ran waaaay too fast (even with the -P parameter). HOWEVER, there is a Pdelay.txt file that seems to be used ONLY with the -P parameter, and can be modified with any text editor. Here's what I've found (I suggest making a backup of the file before editing):

Line 10 (original value is 0) can be changed to slow down the "home port" animated screen (where the rats/birds/etc. are). Mine is now 90.

Line 11 (normally at 25) can be changed to slow down the "on ship" animation (sailing, cannon fire, etc.) once you leave the port. Mine is now 40.

Note that the "on ship" animations are not all that great, so slowing them down to a reasonable speed seems a bit jerky. But remember the game was written for slow computers that couldn't deal with high frame rates anyway.

That's as far as I've made it at this point. If I find other settings that will improve game play, I'll try to post them.

Great site btw.

^ Addendum:

There is another text file (4delay.txt) which is identical to Pdelay.txt. So if any changes are made to Pdelay.txt, then 4delay.txt should also be edited/copied so they remain identical.

Also... changing some values in Pdelay.txt can make the program unstable, so you should test-play the game for a good bit after making any changes. For example, line 8 will change the intro animation speed, but also makes the program crash occasionally (that animation runs ok at the present speed anyway).

The only (apparently) safe speed changes I've found are lines 10 and 11 as mentioned in the previous post, but there may be others later in the game.

These two changes make it vastly more playable though.

[Oskatat]

why weird? instead of wasting valuable storage capacity, they give you a link to a reliable and free site, that doesnt have adds, doesnt require registration, and has no viruses or bugs... what was the complaint again?

anyway, in the advanced dosbox tutorial is some info on how to make a game run on cycle (3000, 5000, etc) instead of auto (max, 75% etc). i couldnt get the hang of it, but maybe you can. I do know that HST runs perfect when you can adjust the cycles. there are other games that work fine when you can adjust cycles, but crash when you adjust the auto %. For example, theme park rushes far too fast too

Originally Posted by Oskatat

why weird? instead of wasting valuable storage capacity, they give you a link to a reliable and free site, that doesnt have adds, doesnt require registration, and has no viruses or bugs... what was the complaint again?

The "complaint" is that the server kicks off slow connections after a few minutes. I can only download about 1.3mb of the large files (and since they're PDF, even that info can't be recovered).

I'm in a rural area and on 28k dialup (cable and DSL aren't even available here).

It would be nice if someone would put those files on another site (if only for a day or two), especially the game manual.

Uploaded a modified HST world map here (89k GIF).

Land mass is colored gray and port names are re-typed (also removed the center line between pages). Hope someone finds it useful.

This is a pretty cool little game.

[Capo]

Nice, thanks DD

[DOS dinosaur]

Originally Posted by Capo

Nice, thanks DD

Glad to do it. Am hoping it will be handy for other games of that era too.

[DOS dinosaur]

A question about the HST trading log:

There are three prices listed for each commodity (at port, buy, and sell).

What is the purpose of the "at port" price?

[EDIT]
Never mind. It's the quantity "at port" (not the price).

[DOS dinosaur]

Sorry for the double post (triple actually), but I found and corrected three errors on the HST world map in the link above. The corrected version is here (a different link btw).

1. Changed Betize to Belize (my typo).
2. Changed Mangladore to Mangalore.
3. Changed Manilla to Manila.

The last two are errors copied from the original scanned image of the map, although they're spelled properly inside the game (in the trading log).

The map was also added to the game's downloads as an "extra" in case a mod wants (and has time) to change it.