"ShipBase III 1993 computer rules for WW1 and WW2" Topic

Does anyone else remember or still use these rules? In a voyage through the loft I found my old WW1 and WW2 fleets and Shipbase III an old DOS based computer moderated set of rules. Tried them out and they still seem to work. So it's back to 1998 (that's when they were bought).

More information about the rules and how they worked on our blog

abcwargamers.blogspot.co.uk

Yep, lurking somewhere in my attic. A real blast from the past.

i wish I could find a copy

The earlier version SHIPBASE II is available for free for download from the author's (David Ferris) site:

link

I understand the rights to SHIPBASE III was sold by David so it is not available from him. However the site has additional SHIPBASE III scenarios for download.

SHIPBASE II and SHIPBASE III are MSDOS so most likely won't run modern Windows systems/PCs. (Give it a try though.)

You can run MSDOS programs within a DOS emulator. DOSBOX is the way to go

dosbox.com

I recommend the D-Fend graphical front-end to DOSBOX as well

dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net

With DOSBOX you can also run MSDOS programs under Apple OS and Linux.

Just played a North Sea Ww1 1914-15 campaign using them over the summer.

I wish I knew how to edit the data files.

They seem a little deadly to smaller ships but we could crank through some fairly large engagements in an afternoon.

Many years ago I figured out most of the data lines in the data files. Line 27 is the secondary gun rate of fire.
For my downloaded copy I used either Word or Notepad to adjust the areas of the file I thought needed it, esp. the SG ROF which is an optimal maximum ROF (and over a 3 min turn is just overwhelming in number of hits achieved).
I recall discussing this with the author at the time and tho now I dont recall exactly why, he mentioned that some adjustments would reduce the per-centage of damage of torpedo hits as something (dont recall what) was built into the exe file. In any case, at the time I was satisfied with how the changes I made to my file went. Since then, I no longer like the per-centage based damage affects on speed, gunfire, etc so no longer use this program and have moved toward an actual damage incurred ruleset, or GQ3.
If anyone wants a one page word doc of the line by line data file coding I was able to figure out, send me an email. glenmwilli at msn dot com and put shipbase in the subject line.

Sold mine to Knoble Knight Games within the last years.

I still have it somewhere. Found the small guns did way too much- put 4% damage on the Yamato in one turn with 6pdrs during a test.

I agree with PTdockyard. That's why I gave it up for GQ3.