Old Sub Game: USS STINGER

[BarracudaUAK]

I have the disk laying around somewhere...

After reading several post about the various tidbits that some here would like to have in a sub sim, I was left thinking "Stinger had that"...


The Rundown:

For those that have never seen the game, you are a Diesel-Electric submarine (the box cover shows a "teardrop" shape of a newer sub cruising on the surface.) which must sink 2 "convoys" of ships within a certain time frame. I think it was 16 hours.

You have 2 ports on opposite "corners" of the map. You can refuel/recharge batteries, reload and repair your sub.

The interface was REALLY simple, 1 screen.

You had a "periscope" view on the top 1/3 of the screen. The "world" was a light colored sky, a blue ocean, and everything else (ships, islands, etc.) was "wire frame".

You had 4 torpedo tubes in the bow, and a single missile tube, you could "guide" your missile by turning your scope, and by using the arrow keys for altitude. But your torpedoes were "straight runners".
If memory serves, you had 16 torpedoes, and 5 missiles.
You could only fire on the surface.

Depth control was all manual. You controlled the flooding of the ballast tanks and the blowing of said ballast. The more water you let in, the deeper you would sink.

Dive planes were also controlled manually.

You would empty your ballast tanks with compressed air from your, you guessed it, air compressor... which you had to manually turn on when surfaced so that it would refill your air tank.
If you forgot to turn off the air when you surfaced, you could empty your air tank.

Diesels charged your Batteries, which again, had to be activated manually (I think...).
You could switch to Electric power on the surface. (I had to do that once. Ran out of fuel on the way to port!)
Diving automatically switched to batteries, but surfacing did NOT automatically switch to the diesels.

You had 9 throttle settings. Stop, ahead 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, Full, and back 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and Full.

Speed was displayed as "lines" next to your throttle indicator. Each 1/4 throttle increment was 4 "lines", for a total of 16.

The manual said that opposing Destroyers (covered a bit more further down) were twice as fast a you, and freighters where 1/2 as fast.
Based on this, and the 16 "lines" of speed, means that your sub's speed was 16 kts surfaced, 16 kts Submerged and the Destroyers could reach 32 kts, while the freighters could only do 8 kts.

In the lower center of your screen was your Radar/Sonar. It was the "rotating" radar screen, with an "afterglow". Which meant that you only saw what was in that direction for a few seconds, untill it made another pass.
It functioned this way as a sonar as well.

The ships you encountered where 2 convoys of 4 (or 5, I forget which) ships each. Which there were 2 freighters in each convoy, with 2 or 3 Destroyers.
Hitting the Destroyers anywhere, and there was a "V" shaped explosion/smoke cloud, and then the ship disappeared. No sinking here!

The freighter had to be hit in the "cargo" area in the center of the ship, if you hit the nose, or under the superstructure at the rear, you got a message saying "minimal damage". No matter how many times you hit it, it would NOT "sink"!

After you sank both convoys and returned to port, you were given a end mission screen showing how well you did. Such as how long it took, how many torps/missles/fuel etc you used.

Then, you restarted and did it all over again!

The game is REALLY basic, and in many ways crude.
But it ran on an 8086 processor, and only needed 128kb of RAM! CGA graphics and used the PC speaker.
Sound was your basic "blips" and "buzzing".
It was released/published in 1984! (I think, I didn't get it until the early 90's.)
An 8 year old game, "new" and still on the shelf....


I guess I'll end this "description", and ask, did anyone every play this game?



Barracuda

[agathosdaimon]

interesting, i have heard of it, but never played it. The oldest i have played is Sub Battle Simulator (wait is that one older than Silent Service?) i love Sub Battle Simulator, it has alot going for it and more than Silent Service i think, more variation in the missions and the unique side external views of your sub underwater and the surface above it are really cool, especially given the black silhouettes the game uses, so when you see the black silhouette of a destroyer passing over your sub it looks really tense.

Is USS Stinger set in WW2? or is it fictional? it has a missile tube?

[BarracudaUAK]

It's fictional. The box art is a modern sub cruising on the surface.

But a time frame is never given. Half of the game's info is on the back of the box!


Barracuda