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Air Traffic Controller bsdgames

Theres a game thats part of the bsdgames package for debian/ubuntu called atc.

I've stumbled across it and started it up a bunch of times over the years and every time I have been confused and closed it.

Even if you read the man page it seems like a really confusing mess. And in some ways it is, but it's a simulator for being an air traffic controller so it has to be. Thats kinda the point of the game.

Just today I fired it up and actually managed to get into and I really like it. I think the man page could be better.

https://man.openbsd.org/atc.6

That was a lot of information and we didn't really need some of it

We all know what an input area is, and we honestly don't need documentation to explain the author's name being in the bottom right.

/pics/atc.png

But even after reading that I was a little confused.

I'm hoping I can trick people into playing it by trying to explain it

What you're doing

Planes come from numbers on the edges of the map (these are your exits)
Planes are represented by a single letter followed by a number
The number is the altitude of the plane in thousands of feet
Each plane as a destination it must reach. Sometimes this is an exit(the numbers planes come in from). Sometimes it's an airport.
Your goal is to direct each plane to it's exit without them crashing into eachother

How you're doing it

You issue commands to the planes via the input which auto completes your commands for you. (I find it helps to think of the words rather than the single keys)
Each command must be preceded by the letter of the plane you're issuing the command to
Planes are bound by the laws of text based physics and can only turn or change altitude so fast.

Commands (we will assume you are commanding plane "a")

altitude

You can give absolute amounts or relative ones via climb/descend

a altitude climb 1000

a altitude 9000

Planes can't go over 9000 feet and 0 feet is how you land (or crash)
You tell a plane to take off by changing its altitude to be above 0
You tell a plane to land by telling it to change to altitude 0. it has to hit altitude zero on the airport. Planes take 1 square to go up/down 1000 feet. So you can land a plane by having it go to 1000 feet, head towards the airport then the space before it's over the airport tell it

a altitude 0

Turn

Turning can be done via left/right relative directions

capital letters turn 90 degrees lowercase 45 degrees

Towards things on the map

You can tell planes to turn towards beacons, airports or exits. This only works if they have a straight shot. The pilots don't have as good of radar as you do and they will miss if you don't make sure they're actually on course.

a turn towards beacon 1

(remember the prompt autocompletes all the words for you, you actually type ttb1)

Absolute directions

Turning can also be done via absolute direction (this way is much easier for me)

Think of the keys AROUND the "S" key as sort of a compass (or an 8 way joystick) the game will translate these into their compass directions. north (up) being 0 south (down) being 180

qwe
aSd
zxc

a turn q

heads northwest or up/left-ish

but be careful a plane can only turn 90 degrees per tick do a u turn and you'll end up one row over from where you started.

Ignore/Unmark

This makes things have dashes for their info and the letters don't appear highlighted...

Use it when you have a plane on course to get out of the map it and will help you know to not pay attention to them right now.

ignore a

unmark a

mark a

Circle

Fly in a circle...

This is good when you need a plane to get lower/higher or you need it to stay out of some other planes way (by being at a different altitude)

Delaying

You can delay a command by adding "at beacon #<some number>" which is useful on maps with lots of beacons but I wish you could do it at airports.

Things to know

planes will crash if they are adjacent and being within 1000 feet of eachother in altitude counts as adjacent
you have to be going the direction of the arrow to land at an airport <>^v
planes must head into an exit at 9000 feet.
planes enter at 7000 feet
get planes out of 7000 feet asap to avoid crashes (a new plane can appear as you're about to leave and crash into you, so make sure approach exits at 9000 feet)

you can list maps with

atc -l

and play them with -f

atc -f easy or atc -f novice are good ways to learn how to play.

If you've ever accidentally stumbled onto this game and said "What the hell?... No" give it a try.