Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon

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Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon

Developer(s)	Barking Dog Studios
Publisher(s)	Disney Interactive
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release date	October 31, 2002
Genre(s)	Strategy and Naval warfare

Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon is a PC game that involves strategy and naval battle. It follows five years after the film, Treasure Planet. There is a campaign that details the story of Jim Hawkins as a naval officer in campaign mode, as well as several historical and open-map skirmishes.

1 Game modes
- 1.1 Campaign
- 1.2 Skirmishes/Multiplayer
2 Gameplay
3 Additional information
4 External links

[edit] Game modes

[edit] Campaign

The game Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon continues Jim Hawkins' adventures. 5 years after Treasure Planet, Jim Hawkins is admitted to the Royal Navy. He begins as a cadet but raises in the ranks, reaching the rank of Commander. At this time the Empire was in the process of peace with the Procyons, raccoon-like warriors who would constantly raid the Empire. Not only that but the Empire was constantly under attack by Pirates.

During this time the Procyons send a Diplomatic Fleet, more like a war fleet, to Parliament for the peace talks. However, on the Frontier, strange ships appeared. The Navy, Procyons, and Pirates use solar-powered wooden ships (Procyons using trimaran design). These strange ships were made of iron, and were given the name Ironclads.

Towards the end of the game Jim Hawkins investigates and scouts the galaxy for the Ironclads. Here is where Silver appears again. He commands the Pirate fleet who, by the looks of it, are also in league with the Procyons. In the 11th mission it was verified that the Ironclads were commanded by an elite branch of the Procyon Navy. Jim is promoted to commander and given command of a Man-O-War, to warn the Empire of the Procyon trap.

However, along the way they are attacked by a Pirate fleet, commanded by Silver. Jim tries to talk to Silver, but Silver denies knowing Jim and threatened to destroy Jim's fleet. Silver retreats after his fleet is destroyed, to a Pirate fortress. Jim pursues Silver to the base only to find two command ships. They were identical. The real Silver recognizes Jim and tells Jim that the other is a robot. The fake Silver tells Jim over and over to destroy the real Silver. The real Silver tells Jim to go with his gut. Here the player has the option of firing on the real Silver and fake Silver. Jim fires on the fake Silver, destroying it. Now that Jim and Silver are together again, they band their fleets together to fight the Procyons.

In the 12th mission, Jim hurries to Parliament, and Silver to fight the Ironclads. Jim is winning but a Procyon Dreadnought and Cruiser come at full speed. Fearing the worst, Jim engages the Procyons. Then a movie comes on. Jim's ship is battered and lost all its weapons and sails. The Dreadnought constantly fires on the crippled ship. At that moment Silver comes with his ship, on a collision course with the Dreadnought. He says, "Hold steady, lad! I won't be letting you die today!" Then there is a huge explosion. It's unknown whether Silver is alive or dead but Jim and the Empire are saved.

[edit] Skirmishes/Multiplayer

In the game, there are three separate factions: the Royal Navy, the Procyons and the Pirates, the Ironclads being a special subsection being part of the Procyon fleet. In the skirmishes, the player gets the choice of choosing which faction they play and who they are allied with. In historical skirmishes, the fleets, crew, arms, factions and their allies are locked, but the player can choose which faction to play. In open-map skirmishes, it is possible to construct your own fleet, and put custom weapons configurations and crew. There is a limited amount of "victory points", which function as currency; the largest amount being 1000, but the amount can be limited at the start of the game. Similarly, a maximum of 10 ships per fleet is allowed, but this can be further limited at the start of the game.

Multiplayer can also use either historical and open maps, with the obvious difference that there is more than one player. Each player must interchange a unique code, which ensures that a player only plays against his/her friends and not someone he/she does not intend to play with. There is also a talk system to allow communication between players. The multiplayer system works either over LAN or the Internet; however, Disney shut down the matchup server some years ago and Internet play is now impossible.

[edit] Gameplay

[edit] Controlling

The system used for controlling a ship in the game does not use the arrow keys like most games where the player needs to drect a vehicle, it uses a point-and-click style. There are two methods: single-waypoint and multi-waypoint. Single waypoint is the normal point-and-click, where the ship will follow the shortest path to a waypoint from its position (however not automatically avoiding other ships, islands, etc.) Multi-waypoint involves putting multiple waypoints, allowing more flexible direction. The ship, again, will take the shortest path to each waypoint. A button at the bottom right hand corner of the middle HUD panel toggles between the two.

A second important control is the speed control, at the left hand side next to the radar mini-map. There are 4 speeds, Full Stop, Ahead Slow, Ahead Full and Emergency Full, in order of speed. However, speed effects turning rate, the faster the speed the wider the turning circle. Faster speeds mean a better ability to escape, but slower means better turning circle, so in a battle the player must often choose between the two.

[edit] Firing

One of the main focuses of the game is the battling itself. Each ship is loaded with a set amount of guns, each in a weapons bank which is one section of the ship. Each bank can have more than one gun, Man-o-Wars can have 4 guns in their largest banks.

Each of these banks are grouped in 3 groups, light, medium and heavy. Light guns are not powerful and heavy guns are powerful. There are also special weapon types which are locked and not changeable in the game lobby, and lobbing weapons, which are fired manually (explained later). Light guns tend to be more useful against sails (especially the Laser Gattling Gun, much like a machine gun), and heavy weapons tend to be useful against the hull.

Most weapons load, aim and fire automatically. A green square borders the weapons icon in the weapons bar on the left when a weapon is in range of a targeted enemy. Then it is simply a matter of clicking on the part of the enemy that you wish to fire upon.

Lobbing weapons, however, are aimed and fired manually. Clicking on their respective icon changes the cursor to the lobbing weapon's icon in the main screen, where the player must place the weapon's charge in a certain location. Often, because a ship is moving, estimation of where the ship will be is crucial to use these weapons effectively. The mortar weapons are long-range and can tear a ship apart if placed correctly; Grav Charges can trap ships making them easy targets, they have a medium range.

A feature of the firing system is Panic Fire, represented by a small flame at the very left of the middle HUD panel; it can also be used with the X key on the keyboard. This fires all weapons in range of an enemy, regardless of whether there is an obstacle or not, and whether that enemy is already targeted or not. It only fires fully-loaded weapons banks, and does not fire lobbing weapons. Each of the weapons banks will fire to the enemy closest to them, even if there are multiple enemies on one side; it also does not selectively aim at any part of the enemy ship, just at the middle of the hull. Panic Fire comes in handy when the player is surrounded.

[edit] Fleets

Controlling a fleet is an important part of the game, because being unable to properly control a fleet in the game can result in a quick loss. The primary ship, which is the main leading ship of the fleet, gives all the commands to all of the secondary ships. There are two information bars for controlling fleets, the fleet commands bar (at the bottom, a button on the middle HUD panel opens it) and the ship bar, which shows the icons of the ships in the fleet and their overall condition.

The fleet commands bar contains the formations for the fleet and two additional commands, Fire on my Target and Open/Cease Fire. There are 6 formations: Line Abreast (horizontal line), Echelon Left (diagonal line to the left), Echelon Right (diagonal line to the right), Column (vertical line), Diamond (diamond shaped) and Convoy (primary ship followed by secondary ships two-by-two). Each formation has advantages and disadvantages in battle, highlighting while restricting certain weapons banks. For example, Line Abreast highlights frontal weapons but has more area front on; Column is good for broadsides but it is easier to hit the side of the ship.

Fire on my Target gives the command for all ships to fire upon your target. This is useful if there is a ship that you wish to get rid of or damage significantly, without having to battle it for some time. Open/Cease Fire either commands to open fire if cease fire is on, or to cease fire if open fire is on. This helps if you want to stop firing on the enemy because you want to capture it, for example, or to open fire on an enemy that has just arrived on the scene after a cease fire. Fire on my Target automatically turns off Cease Fire if it is on. The gunners on your ship (the primary ship) will still shoot even if Cease Fire is ordered, and point-defense lancers on all ships (if they have them) will continue to fire at hostile torpedoes and mines.

Apart from these global commands for your fleet, there are also more local commands, such as telling a specific ship to tow another ship, target a certain enemy, grapple an enemy, or go to a certain location. These commands can be done through the ship bar, or left-clicking directly on a secondary ship. The camera will focus on the ship, and you can issue local commands (such as to go to port) to that ship. However, you cannot tell the ship to target a specific section of the enemy's ship, which weapons to fire, nor how to go to a certain location; the captain of that ship carries out those orders.