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DOCUMENTATION FILE FOR ATC-GAME. (Version 1.7) / 9-1 @75 ================================ *************************************************** * This documentation is only 10 pages long! * * So, please, print it.... and read it! * *************************************************** WARNING ! --------- The ATC-Game and ATC-PRO require a high definition VGA video card & monitor (640 x 480, 16 colors). The graphics part of the game (the radar screen) is drawn in vector graphics, not in bit-map which would be too slow. Changing the screen definition would cause aspect ratio calculations for each vector drawn, a condition which was not considered practical for this game. It is recommended to run the ATC-Game on a 80386 system or higher for optimal performance. Running on a low performance system can cause sluggish Video and slow command input validation. When you start up the ATC-Game, it will self-detect your video mode (setting) and report its findings if this is different from VGA 640 x 480, 16 colors. So, if you are not sure of what you have got, you can always try without locking up your system. (See your Video adapter manual for the correct settings) CONTENTS OF THIS DOCUMENTATION: ------------------------------- 1. Game definition. 2. How to play. 3. Screen layout. 4. Terminal area layout. 5. Game rules. 6. Game Commands. 7. Radar display layout. 8. Flight simulator parameters. 9. Terminal Area parameters. 10. Hints. 11. Self running demo. 12. Information on ATC-PRO. 13. Problem support. 1. GAME DEFINITION. ------------------- The ATC-Game is an ATC (Air Traffic Control) simulation game. As an Air Traffic Controller you are in charge of the Terminal Area (TMA) of Wingsfield international airport. The TMA is a volume of airspace which is the buffer between the airport take off and landing activity on the one hand and the Airways which are used by arriving and departing traffic on the other hand. The Wingsfield TMA is a square of 28 nm extending from the ground up to 12,000 feet. In the TMA it is your reponsibili- ty to vector the departing traffic to the appropriate airway and the arriving traffic to the active runway, while maintaining adequate separation between aircrafts. Standard minimum separa- tion is 3 nm (nautical miles) horizontal or 1,000 ft (feet) ver- tical. You will actually control the traffic by issuing clearan- ces. In this you are assisted by the most recent technological developments in Air Traffic Control such as a Data Link with all aircrafts and Computer Assisted Traffic Monitoring (CATM) which are things real world Air Traffic Controllers can only dream of. LIABILITY DISCLAIMER: The ATC-Game and ATC-PRO are games with no other purpose then leisure and free time occupancy. This software is not suited for professionnal training and no as- sumption can be made that the (realistic) simulation in this game could be in conformity with international air traffic ru- les and regulations. 2. PLAYING THE GAME. -------------------- Aircrafts are handed over to you either by the Airport Tower Controller (yellow progression strips) when they are ready for take off, or by the Airways Controller (blue progression strips) when they arrive from outside with your airport as a destination. Airway controllers will warn you in advance of arriving aircraft, their estimated arrival time and altitude, so that you do not vector departing aircrafts head-on with arriving ones! Clearances to arriving traffic can only be issued after they have actually entered the TMA (= visible "blip" on your screen). Wingsfield airport is located in a quite touristic area. Occasio- nally it will happen that private pilots doing some sightseeing will cut through the TMA without being aware of it. Of course they are not in radio contact and you will not be able to issue them any clearance. The CATM will report those aircrafts on your screen as "not identified" as soon as they are under primary radar coverage and it has been determined that no Data Link can be established with them. 3. SCREEN LAYOUT. ----------------- ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────┐ │ (Airport elevation) │ Runway, Wind & │ │ │ Time information.│ │ │ │ │ ├──────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ STRIPS Stack. │ │ MAIN ATC RADAR SCREEN. │ │ │ │ Maintained by the│ │ (Displays also the HELP screen) │ 'CATM' - Gives │ │ │ an overview of │ │ │ all airplanes un-│ │ │ der your control.│ │ │ (Airplane pro- │ │ Your Salary + │ gression strips)│ │ (nm scale) > marking clue level │ │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────┴───┬──────────────┤ │ WARNING and Advisory Messages from 'CATM'. │ Command input│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────┘ The main Radar Display contains a blue overlay of the TMA layout and displays the radar tracked aircrafts as a green "Blip". The CATM (Computer Assisted Traffic Monitor) will add a tail to each "blip", representing the actual direction and speed of the tracked aircraft. It will also add a "label" with the flight-ID and Type of aircraft (Jet or slower Light airplane) and some important flight information collected from the aircraft through the Data Link. (Actual altitude, actual trend, final destination, active clearance). The strips stack is maintained by the CATM and color coded. 4. TERMINAL AREA LAYOUT. ------------------------ The Wingsfield Terminal area extends from ground to 12,000 ft. Besides the airport, represented by its runways in the center, the terminal area contains the following items (all in blue overlay): - 3 navigation beacons (STA, BRA, WET). - Over Beacon STA (Stacky) there is a holding pattern where airplanes can temporarily be "stored" out of the way. - The runway centerline for 25R/25L is 252°. - The Runway centerline for 07L/07R is 072°. - 4 airways are identified as N, S, E, W with their "floor" at 5,000 ft which is the lowest altitude at wich you can clear an aircraft into an airway. - A noise restricted area in the left bottom corner. This area is restricted for flight below 6,000 ft. Incursions in the area at an altitude below 3,000 ft will cause an official complaint to be issued to by the local community. - Out of the end of all runways there is a "Locator Outer Marker" (LOM). These are navigation beacons used by the airpla- nes in the landing procedure. The reason why they appear on your screen is because you should vector all aircraft in such a way that they will be able to pass the LOM at the proper alti- tude and lined up with the runway for landing. Vectoring aircraft too fast, too high or not properly lined up over the LOM may cause a "missed approach" if the pilot cannot handle the approach within normal instrument flight rules. - In the Left Top corner there is a 'High Terrain area' which slopes up to 2,300 ft. We strongly recommend that you printout the TMA Layout which will be possible with most system configurations by pressing the "Print Screen" button. Don't forget to include the "GRAPHICS" command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You can then use the print- outs to draw direction lines and reference points which will as- sist you in vectoring aircraft properly. WARNING: To avoid smudge when printing, print the screen right at start of the game, before any plane blips have appeared. This is because most video cards will ignore the write-through func- tion which is used by the vector graphics when printing out, causing write-through video to be visible on the print, causing smudge. NOTE: For those of you who are unable to print correctly from the DOS PrintScreen key, ATC-PRO can be obtained from the author with a 'print' command which is ONLY for HP-Jet black and white printers (sorry no color supported). The print option supports all Hewlett Packard Desk-Jet and Laser-jet models with HPCL control language. DO NOT FORGET TO SPECIFY IF YOU WANT THE HP-Jet PRINT OPTION INCLUDED WHEN YOU ORDER ATC-PRO. It is not normally included in the standard package (avoiding unnecessary heavy extra code). This option is free ! 5. GAME RULES. -------------- You start the game with a salary of 7,000 . The airways controllers and the Airport Tower controller will hand the airplanes over to you when appropriate. Airways are handed over in blue strips with the estimated arrival time and the arrival altitude. Ground traffic is handed over in yellow strips when the airplane is ready and waiting to line up onto the runway for take off. As soon as an airplane has been taken over by you (by issuing it a clearance) it will be shown as a green strip. So all GREEN strips are under YOUR control, and only you! When you clear an arriving airplane for landing, it will change its strip to light blue while it is conducting the approach and final landing. The landing is conducted on instruments by the pilot. There are no further clearances required. If you vectored the airplane in such a way that it cannot conduct the approach safely, the pilot will decide a missed approach. The standard procedure for a missed approach for all runways at Wingsfield is: - Set course to STA; - Climb to 3,000 ft; - When reaching STA, holding at 3,000 ft until further clearance. In case a dangerous situation arrises during the instrument lan- ding procedure, you can instruct the airplane to "GO AROUND" with the 'U' (Up!) command. This causes the airplane to execute a stan- dard missed approach procedure. If you are a safe controler, your salary will increase gradually. However, if you are not "up to standards" your salary will decrea- se. "Below standard" conditions are: - Excessive delay before clearing handed-over traffic. - Vectoring airplanes out of the TMA or not in the proper Airway for their destination. - Traffic advisory which is when the separation between airplanes is less then 3 nm horizontal or 1,000 ft vertical. - Ground traffic warnings (potentially dangerous conditions). - Air Miss, which is a near collision situation. - Incursions in the noise restricted area. Low altitude incursions (below 3000 ft) are more serious. - Missed approach. - Vectoring a departing aircraft to landing. - Vectoring airplanes into airways BELOW 5,000 ft. - Ground proximity warnings (500 ft or less above ground level). - Aircrafts sustaining excessive delay (forgotten in the holding!) will eventually run out of fuel... and crash! Vectoring aircrafts in such a way that they fly into the ground or into eachother (mid-air or ground collision) will cause you to be fired! 6. GAME COMMANDS. ----------------- While typing your command, you can correct typing errors with <Back-Space> and clear the complete command line with <Escape>. A clearance takes effect after you pressed <Enter>. Clearances which cannot be interpreted correctly will cause a low tone "beep" and are not transmitted to the airplane. All commands are in the format: FlightID + Command + [Command String] + [Option] The command string is self formated by the input parser (= in- cludes the spaces between command elements) - Only when you add an option at the end of the command string it has to be manually spaced out. Commands: C = Clearance ( + Command String). T = Take Off ( no command string). U = Up! (Emergency 'Go Around' for landing airplane). M = Monitor this plane (shows extended flight data). R = Report when reaching altitude x. (causes the label to turn yellow for a while). Clearance command strings: 3 digits = Set course to heading xxx. (must include leading zero's) 1 or 2 digits = Cleared to altidue n x 1,000 ft. 25L or 07R = Cleared to land on runway 25L or 07R. WET, S, STA, ... = Set course to a known TMA fix. Option: L, R = force turn to Left or Right regardless heading. Examples: ANYID T = Cleared for take off. will cause the airplane to line up onto the runway and take off. ANYID C 035 = Set course to 035°. Will cause the airplane to turn to this hea- ding. Notice that leading zeros are required. ANYID C 3 = Cleared to 3,000 ft. Will cause the airplane to climb or let down until the required altitude is reached. ANYID C 12 = cleared to 12,000 ft. ANYID C W = Cleared to airway W (west). Will cause the airplane to set course to W. ANYID C BRA = Cleared to BRA (Bravo) TMA fix. Will cause the airplane to set course to BRA. ANYID C 25R = cleared to intercept and land on 25R. Will cause the airplane to maintain present heading until it intercepts the runway center line, then the pilot will follow the ap- proach path on instruments and eventually land if the initial vectoring makes this at all possible. ANYID C 07L = Cleared runway 07L. ANYID C STA R = go to STA by turning RIGHT. Limitations on landing clearances: Landing clearances will only be accepted if the ACTUAL heading of the airplane is within +/- 60° of the runway centerline (for 25R / 25L this is 252°) and the ACTUAL altitude is within normal instrument flight rules to intercept the approach glide-slope). - Standard altitude to intercept RWY 25R/25L is 2,000ft. BEFORE intersection with the runway centerline, OUT of the LOM (Locator Outer Marker). Holding over STA: The Shareware version of ATC-Game does not include the holding procedures. For all airplanes, the flight simulation algoritms are designed so that planes will turn LEFT with a 180 difference in heading. By successively issuing the clearances ANYID C 280, ANYID C 100, ANYID C 280, ... at the right moment you can maintain any airplane in the holding pattern. To avoid this hassle you better register! SYSTEM COMMANDS: HELP, PAUSE, EXIT, MARK, RESET. ------------------------------------------------ HELP. ----- Limited on-line help is provided with the "HELP" command. Help will also freeze the flight simulator which means that while the help screen is displayed all aircraft positions are "frozen". This enables you to read the help information without causing a catastrophy behind the screen! PAUSE. ------ A PAUSE command freezes the game while displaying the screen so you can look at it and think.... After PAUSE or HELP, the simulator clock (which is also stopped!) will gradually catch up the actual system time (shown on the screen). This is because all planes included in the simulator after freezing the screen will continue flying as of their last position, including the flight-plan timings set initially. MARK & RESET. ------------- The commands MARK and RESET are adding (removing) additional graphic markings to help you vector the planes corretly. Marking level >1 is set by default at start (Runway centerline and intercept angles) and can be removed with 'RESET'. EXIT. ----- Exit the ATC-game and return to DOS 7. RADAR DISPLAY LAYOUT. ------------------------ Each blip on the Radar screen generates a label with the flight information. Typical label design is: ANYID J =5 W>WE First label line gives the flight ID + airplane type. Airplane types are J for Jet. L for slower Light aircraft. Second label line gives the traffic situation: = Trend; 5 Actual altitude x 1,000 ft; W Flight destination; >WE actual (last) clearance issued. Trend can be = Level flight; U (Up) Climbing; D (Down) Descending; I Intercepting (runway centerline); L Landing (on centerline in final approach); G Ground (is landed or nearly landed); T Taking off. H Executing a holding procedure. Flight destination can be: W, E, S, N for departing aircraft; A for all arriving aircrafts; Flight destinations cannot be changed. They are set by the simulator when planes are generated. 8. FLIGHT SIMULATOR PARAMETERS. ------------------------------- One of the major parts of this software is the flight simulator which moves all the airplanes on the screen. The flight simula- tor uses advanced flight envelope algoritms which move each air- plane according to its individual parameters. The flight simulator parameters are set as follows: - Airspeed: 160 kts (knots) for Light aircraft. 240 kts for Jets. 320 kts, departing Jets above 6,000 ft (Transition). - Approach speed: 160 kts for Jets; 100 kts for slow aircraft. - Descend: 1,800 ft/min for Jets above 3,000 ft; 1,200 ft/min for slow planes and Jets below 3,000 ft. - Turn: Standard procedural turn at 180° per minute. Nearest turn left or right to new heading, except if forced with option 'R' or 'L'. - Climb: as to individual plane performance and load factor. The use of advanced autopilot software causes the "airplanes" to behave independently from eachother in a very realistic way: - Acceleration at take off and lift off when the appropriate speed has been reached. - Self determination of the course to a TMA-defined fix. - Self determination of left or right turn to new heading. - After a plane recieved a clearance to a runway, it will reduce its speed to approach speed, intercept the approach glide-slope, track the approach path down to the runway treshold, land and brake... unless landing conditions (altitude, speed, centerline, heading) are not met at the "missed approach point" which will cause a "missed approach procedure". - Airplanes executing a 'Missed Approach' will climb to 3000 ft and proceed to STA. 9. TERMINAL AREA PARAMETERS. ---------------------------- - The TMA extends from ground to 12,000 ft. - Airways connecting to the TMA extend from 5,000 to 12,000 ft. - Arriving traffic in Airways is always on EVEN altitudes, i.e. 6,000 ft, 8,000 ft, 10,000 ft, 12,000 ft. - Clearance to land on a runway must be given when the ACTUAL airplane conditions are as follows: * Altitude: 2,000 ft for Runways 25R/25L; * Heading +/- 60° from runway centerline. - Airplanes will track the approach glide-slope when within +/- 3° of the runway centerline. - Once airplanes are established on the runway centerline for final approach the horizontal separation limit is reduced so that both runways can be used simultaneously for approach without causing traffic advisories ("L" condition in the blip label). - Due to the proximity of the 'Noise Sensitive Area' at the approach end of Runways 07L/07R, it is recommended to land all arriving traffic on runway 07L only. For the same reason the approach clearance altitude is 3,000 ft (all other runways are 2,000 ft). The Tower Controller will direct all departing traffic to runway 07R only. However, runway 07R can be used for landing at discretion of the controller. - Standard minimum separation between planes: 1.5 nm horizontal or 1,000 feet vertical. 10. HINTS. ---------- - If you take off from parallel runways don't forget that separation minima apply as soon as the airplanes are airborne. - Airplanes reduce their speed when cleared for a runway (approach). Don't follow too close at high speed! (3 nm!) - There is an significant difference in approach speed between slow planes (L) and jets. Don't follow close at all! - Clear leaving airplanes to oneven altitudes so that they will always be separated from arriving traffic which is on the even altitudes. - Stay away (3 nm) or high from unidentified airplanes. - Read your progress strips as well as the blip labels to keep aware of what's going on and what clearances you issued. - Prepare your next clearance typed ready in the command-string. The clearance takes effect only when you press <Enter>. If something more urgent has to be done first, clear your waiting clearance with <Escape> and type-in a new one. - Above anything else keep calm, don't pannic! And try again! - Next time you fly for real, think about those controllers who are doing a bloody hard job! 11. SELF RUNNING DEMO. ---------------------- ATC-Game contains a DEMO option which can be choosen from the introduction screen. The demo is a self running ATC on Runway 07. During the demo you can use the mouse cursor to obtain plane monitoring. However no commands can be issued to the planes from the command line which is inhibited except for the Game Control commands: EXIT, PAUSE, FAST, MARK, RESET. With the Mouse cursor you can click (left button) on a plane blip to obtain the plane's Watch. Clicking again, but with the right button, will reset the plane watch. Under DEMO condition, you are allowed to issue the 'FAST' com- mand which will put the Demo in FastPace, i.e. around 4 times faster than the game normally runs. You will notice the fast pace condition from the foreward running game clock and a message in the message window. Unfortunately, it is not possi- ble to return from fast to normal pace. This is due to the fact that under fast paced demo the game clock is uncoupled from the system clock and stepped at a faster pace. Under normal game conditions, the game clock is synchronized with the system time. However, you can issue a 'PAUSE' command to freeze the demo and inspect the display when required. To run a game from the Demo, you have to exit and reload the game from disk. This is because the artificial intelligence tables behind the simulator have to be cleared and built up again from scratch. The DEMO has the same 'Look and Feel' as the registerd version of the ATCgame, ATC-PRO. From watching the demo running, you will easily notice that commands issued to planes are not pre-programmed. Instead, ATC-Demo relies on a highly advanced Real Time Artificial Intelligence (RT-AI) engine to establish the best possible strategy and look ahead of possible problems. The same RT-AI engine, which is running inside ATC-Demo, is the one taking care of issueing the 'look-ahead' warnings and the one provi- ding for new 'random' airplanes in such a way to challenge you. Under Demo conditions, ATC-Pro is some kind of Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde while the same RT-AI engine is trying to avoid traps invented by itself. Most AI engines could not cope with such a situation, however this is possible because we use a real- time engine. Demonstrating the power of RT-AI was, in first instance, why this game has ever been created. The RT-AI shell used in ATC-Pro is the Expert Zee Engine which is a proprietary development of the author who has been resear- ching Real Time Artificial Intelligence since 1986. And for those who like the real challenges, consider that the whole thing is up and running in no more than 230 K of DOS me- mory! (including graphic drivers). Thank you Mr Borland for your highly efficient Turbo-Pascal! 12. INFORMATION ON ATC-PRO. --------------------------- ATC-PRO is the complete version of the ATC-Game and can be ob- tained only by registration with the author. Registration information is shown in the introduction screen of the ATC-Game. Because the registration is ONLY US$ 20.- we cannot accept cre- dit cards nor C.O.D. shipments. Only a registration with a 20$ bill in cash will entitle you to receive your registered copy. The registration merely covers the costs for production of your floppy, the packing and the mailing (air mail). The registered version has many enhancements such as: - Holding procedures over STA. Airplanes cleared for holding will head to STA and start the round-robin in the holding, applying a standard holding entry procedure (the pilots'... and the autopilot programmer's nightmare!). - Operation from all runways (you can select!). - Variable wind direction and strength with application of the wind component to the flight simulation. This causes the airplanes to "drift off" with the wind while flying like real the ones do! (the contollers' nightmare!). Expect stronger winds in "senior" mode! - Runway system change when the wind direction exceeds the maximum allowed cross-wind component. Then, ATC-PRO will issue a runway change - beware! - (Senior mode only). - Fuel exhaustion for arriving airplanes when you keep delaying their landing. - Choice of three proficiency levels: * chief controller (senior level = level 1). * controller (medium level). This is similar to the ATC-Game; * Aspirant Controller (training level) to allow you to design and exercise your own arrival and departure procedures without being under a too high a stress. - Ground obstacles which are to be accounted for (see Demo). - More complex Flight, Obstacle and Conflict algoritms, still more realistic! - Full Mouse support to allow you to issue quick and accurate commands with less typing. - 'Line up and hold' command to prepare the next airplane for take off on a runway which is not yet completely free. - Improved 'Report' command getting the plane to report when reaching the required altitude. - Automatic direction and distance reporting to any point in the Terminal Area for a watched airplane (requires mouse). - Optional 'PRINT' command to print the radar screen on a black & white Hewlett Packard Desk-Jet or Laser-Jet printer. (Sorry no color supported and no other printers supported). THIS OPTION IS INCLUDED ONLY ON SPECIAL ORDER to be specified WHEN YOU REGISTER (not standard included) and is FREE!. 13. PROBLEM SUPPORT. -------------------- If you have problems running this software or if you encounter serious error conditions, the author will try to support you at the best of his knowledge and time availability. Take the following steps: 1. Read this documentation carefully FIRST!. 2. Do not run ATC-Game from a DOS window under WINDOWS. Run it straight from the dos prompt (DOS version 3.3 or higher. Lower versions could work but have not been tested). 3. Move to the directory where ATC-Game is loaded BEFORE star- ting the game. 4. Do not change the name of the ATC-Game .EXE file. The correct name is 'ATCGAME.EXE'. ATC-Game uses version control of the .EXE file to set a number of parameters at load and expects to find the file ATCGAME.EXE on the disk. 5. Do NOT use a file compression program such as Stacker on the ATC-Game file. This will only slow down the access to the graphics part and may result in a system hang-up depending on which unstack TSR is used. (TSR = Terminate & Stay Resident program). 6. Avoid running ATC-Game together with TSR's which issue regu- lar interrupts (such as a display clock). If TSR's keep the system too busy, the ATC-game will run out of time slices to process its background tasks. 7. Check if you do not have an 'old' version of ATC-Game. Maybe a more recent version available from a good library or BBS has your problem fixed. The BBS version of ATC-Game is typically 'ATCGAMEx.ZIP' where 'x' is the current revision number. Any 'x' which is higher than the one you have got is a more recent version. The 'x' code in the ZIP file is not consistent with the actual version as displayed by the ATC- Game screen but shows only the BBS revision status. 8. If you cannot correct the problem, you can report it to the author who will do his best to handle your request. Do not forget to mention the following: - Complete version number and registration ID of ATC-Game as stated in the title of the Game screen. - Source where you got it from. - Configuration of your system (video card, cpu type,...) - a print out of your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. - Give the most detailed possible description of the error condition and do not forget to copy the Run Time Error code if DOS did exit ATC-Game with a system error - Typical message: "Run Time ERROR xxx at nnnn:mmmm". In order to facilitate debugging of program errors, ATC-Game has been compiled including all the debugging information. If you report an unreported error condition which can be traced and fixed, we will send you a corrected update of the program latest current version) free of charge. (C) Copyright 1993 - 1995 by E. van de Winckel, Brussels, Belgium. >>>>> END OF AUTHOR'S DOCUMENTATION FILE <<<<<<