
               ;   ͸
               ͻ           SKI JUMP INTERNATIONAL v2
                      
               ͼ  ;      - THE NEW GENERATION -


                      by Ville Knnen 1994-1997


        - Official homepage can be found at:
           http://www.hut.fi/u/vkononen/sj.html

        - Frequently Asked Questions are answered in the file SJ2.FAQ


        Some Early Words from the Author Himself:
        -----------------------------------------

        This ski jumping game has been created out of need.  I couldn't
        find a decent ski jumping game anywhere so I decided to make
        one myself.  The main goal has always been make a game that is fun
        to play, the visual side has been left with smaller attention,
        as can be easily seen.   Ski Jump International 2 is at it's best
        when played with a bunch of friends and since the new generation
        version allows up to 10 players competing against each other and
        computer opponents, it makes a great social event, and is great for
        schools and clubs.

        There are two versions of the game available, an unregistered and a
        registered version.  The unregistered version will have some annoying
        restrictions to it and you are (principally) allowed to try it for
        30 days before you have to register.  I know very well that most of
        you will never register, but it's very cheap and easy to do, and
        it gives the author a little bit of compensation for all the hard
        work he has put into giving you this product.  So be a supercool
        dude (or chick) and register.  Trust me, it makes SJ2 a much more
        enjoyable experience for the both of us.  Please see REGISTER.TXT
        (or REGISTER.FIN for Finnish speakers) for more of that vital info.
        
        If you know absolutely nothing about the sport of ski-jumping I
        recommend trying to follow it on TV, or visit this great web-page
        which will answer most of your questions.
        (http://www.cdnsport.ca/jump/)  Ski jumping is a fun sport and it
        makes a exciting computer game.

        Please enjoy,

                Ville Knnen



        User's guide:
        -------------

        The Menus:

        They should be quite easy to move around in, so I won't start
        explaining them now.


        The Scrollfix:

        If the scrolling of the screen during jumping isn't fully smooth,
        you can try to fix it by setting the Scrollfix ON from the Setup
        menu.  If the scroll still isn't smooth enough, contact me and
        we'll figure something out.  Beta testing has shown that a good
        portion of especially newer machines need the scrollfix ON.


        Multiple Name Files:

        In the Setup menu is a possibility to change the names of the
        computer opponents in the SJ2 World Cup and the Team Cup.
        (Items 7 and 8)  The number selected is used to load the nameset
        from the nameset files which are named NAMES?.SKI and TEAMS?.SKI,
        where the ? is the number selected.  You can make a new namefile
        yourself with a simple file editor, you can use the ones
        already with SJ2 package, or you can try find new sets from the
        SJ2 WWW-homepage.  The sets included in the SJ2 registered version
        are:

        NAMES0.SKI (and TEAMS0.SKI) - These are the defaults.
                                      "Cool dudes" list.
        NAMES1.SKI (and TEAMS1.SKI) - FIS World Cup 1996-1997 levels.
        NAMES2.SKI                  - FIS World Cup 1997-1998 levels.
        NAMES3.SKI                  - The Presidents of the U.S.A.
        NAMES4.SKI                  - Roman Emperors
        NAMES5.SKI                  - Tennis ATP Top 50 @ end of 1997
        
        If you want to make your own set, use the next available number
        (NAMES6.SKI for example), and change the set number from the Setup
        menu.


        Sending Your Highscores for the Universal Superman list:

        Every time you exit the program the program _automatically_ creates
        the SENDME.TXT file, which includes your highscores and hillrecords
        in one file.  This is the file you want to send me via e-mail or
        otherwise.  I collect all the best results to the infamous
        Universal Records page which has the top results from around the
        world.  It is very fun to see how your own results rank when
        compared to other people's results.  Highly recommended!

        A little warning:  Don't try to edit either the TOPTEN.SKI file or
        the SENDME.TXT file since they are both encoded with a complex
        method.  If you try to send me fake results I *will* find out
        easily and you will be placed on a blacklist.


        Resetting the Hiscores:

        You can reset the high scores by pressing 'r' in the High Scores
        screen.  You can also zero the high scores by pressing 'z'.


        Signing Up Jumpers:

        You can sign up up to 10 jumpers to compete in the World Cup. If
        the amount of players is either 4 or 8 the Team Cup is also available.


        The Rules of the World Cup:

        The rules of the Ski Jump International World Cup somewhat differ
        from the FIS "Real" World Cup.

        * The Warm Up Round (if chosen active from the setup menu) is not a
          qualifying round.  You can be as lousy as you want on the Warm Up
          Round and you will still be able to compete in the actual
          competition.
        * The first round is jumped is reverse order, with the jumpers that
          is highest in the SJ2 World Cup rankings is the last to jump in
          the first round.
        * The jumpers with the 30 best scores after the first round qualify
          for the second jumping round.  The second round will be jumped in
          reverse order from the first round standings.  (30., 29., 28. and
          so forth, you get the idea)
        * The jumpers with the 15 best scores after the second round score
          World Cup points, with the winner getting 30 points.
        * A round cannot be re-started if one jumper jumps a ridiculously
          long (and at same time dangerous) jump.  In other words there is
          no competition jury, or no one is listening to it.
        * There are 15 hills in the SJ2 World Cup.
        * Style points are awarded according to the "old" standard. That
          means that the length of the jump will also affect the style
          points.



        Jumping:
        --------

        The ONLY way to be a good ski jumper is to practice and practice
        even more. There are no big secrets involved.   The more you
        practice the easier it is to constantly develop great jumps.
        The best place to effeciently train yourself for future
        competitions is the Practice selection from the main menu.  You can
        even choose the hill you want to train at.


        Keys during jump and flight:   ( otherwise know as QUICK.TXT )

        Up Arrow .................. Take-Off
        Right Arrow ............... Rotate forward
        Left Arrow ................ Rotate backward
        T or t..................... Telemark landing (one foot in front)
        R or r .................... Two Footed landing (feet parallel)
        Esc ....................... Universal Escape key
        F10 ....................... Terminates current cup
                                    WARNING! USE WITH CAUTION!
                                    Doesn't ask anything, just quits the
                                    cup or season in progress


        The Traffic Lights:

        When the program has checked some stuff and you have pressed a key
        or so, the jumper sits on a beam at the top of the in-run.  A traffic
        light of sorts will appear somewhere on the top part of the screen.
        The traffic light is controlled by a little man by the wind meter.
        This little man is constanly thinking if the wind conditions are
        safe for jumping, and as soon as the wind is in decent numbers (usually
        right away) a green light is shown and you are ready to go.  Press
        a key (preferably the right arrow) and your jumper starts to slide
        down the in-run at a increasing speed.  First you might want to
        wait for the wind to be favorable, but don't wait too long since
        you will be disqualified if you decide sit on the bar for too long.
        The blinking green light signals that you should be pretty soon.


        The Wind:

        The wind meter in the bottom-right corner of the screen plays a
        very big part on the length of the jump.  The difference between
        1.5 m/s backwind and -1.5 m/s headwind can be about 20 meters in
        flight distance in a K-120 meter hill with the headwind being
        favorable, since it increases lift considerably. The optimal wind
        is around -1.0 to -2.0 m/s headwind (the wind bar is green during
        headwind).   Sometimes when the wind is moving around a lot and
        your jumper has some bad luck and has to jump in to a non-favorable
        wind while the other competitors have better wind conditions, it can
        be virtually impossible to win a race no matter how well you jump.
        Remember that it can be the other way around in the next race.
        

        Take-Off!:
        
        When the jumper reaches the parallel section of the in-run it a
        good time to think about timing your take-off.  This is the one
        most crucial point on the success of the jump.  "The timing is
        everything"  So when the jumper is in the correct position press
        the up-arrow to begin take-off.

        If you have started the take-off too early, the skis will rotate
        forward (the tips fall away from under the jumper).  This will
        result in short distance and a lousy jump.  You will want to avoid
        this from happening since it can be dangerous for jumper, at least
        in real life.

        If you have been late with starting the take-off, the skis will
        rotate backwards (tips come up).  This leads in increased
        air-resistance and loss of flight speed and distance, but this is
        still a better option than taking-off too soon.  Even the best
        jumpers can be just a little late on take-off so don't worry about
        it too much, you can try to make up for it with good flying.  Next!


        Fly, Baby, Fly!:

        After a hopefully successful take-off, you should concentrate on
        flying.  To maintain the speed and to increase the lift it would be
        a great idea to rotate the jumper forward and this way reduce
        air-resistance.  This is done by pressing the Right Arrow.  So as
        quickly as possible, rotate the jumper to a good flight position
        which is when the angle between the body and the skis are around
        5-10 degrees.  The optimal angle is easy to find with a little
        practice.  Do not over-rotate the jumper!  This will lead to loss
        of lift as the "air-mattress" :) below the jumper is broken.  Note
        that sudden changes in the wind can rotate the jumper back or
        forward, so always be prepared to adjust the angle of jumper with
        the Left and Right Arrow as quick as possible during the flight.


        The Key to a Successful Landing:

        Due to gravity the jumper will eventually start to lose flying
        altitude and approach the snow.  Your mission is to land your
        jumper safely.  There are two kinds of landing styles available.
        1)  The Telemark Landing - where one foot is in front  and
        2)  The Two Footed Landing - where feet are parallel as landing.

        The Telemark starts with pressing 't' and is more risky especially
        with long (way past the K-point) jumps and is slower to perform but
        it will be rewarded in total points.  That is because making the
        Two Footed Landing (starts with pressing 'r' is penalized by the
        style judges by at least 2.0-2.5 points per judge and that is
        around 6.0-7.0 points per jump!  Still the Two Footed landing is
        faster to perform and it is up to 4 times safer.  You have to
        calculate the risks in a fraction of a second, often in
        competitions that 6-7 point margin is the difference between
        winning and not winning.

        Also remember that you have to start the landing early enough that
        the jumper has enough time raise to a sufficiently upright
        position.  A good basic rule is to use the Telemark at least on all
        jumps that don't fly past the K-point.

        The length of the jump, the landing style used and plain old luck
        will determine if the jumper manages to stay on his feet during
        landing.  This causes that very very long jumps are simply
        impossible to stand, so according to common sense you should start
        the landing a little earlier if you start floating way past the
        K-point.  See the comparison table below!

        Hill: HELSINKI K - 120 m
                           ---
                     | The probability of falling (approx.)
         Jump Length | Two Footed  Telemark
        -------------------------------------------------
             80      |    0,0 %      0,0 %
            100      |    0,1 %      0,4 %
            120 (K)  |    0,4 %      1,6 %
            125      |    1,2 %      4,8 %
            130      |    4,0 %     16,0 %
            135      |   13,1 %     52,4 %
            140      |   41,8 %       *  (* = impossible to stand)
            142      |   65,7 %       *
            144      |  102,7 %*      *


        Hillrecords:

        The program also keeps count of your hillrecords.  These records are
        for you only, that means that the computer jumpers cannot make new
        hillrecords even if they jumped further than the existing record.
        Hillrecords jumped during practice are not valid records.  When you
        reset your hiscores or when you start SJ2 for the first time, the
        hillrecords will be set a little past the K-Points of the hills.
        
        

        Scoring:
        --------

        The score for each jump is obtained by adding the distance points
        and the style points.

        The distance points are calculated by the formula:

            Length of jump - (2/3 x K-Point of Hill)  [effective meters]
          x 60 / (1/3 x K-Point of Hill)              [points per meter]
          -------------------------------------------
          = Distance Points

        The idea is that you get 60 distance points when you jump to the
        K-Point (start of the red zone in case you didn't know by now).

        There are five styles judges who rate the style of your jump with a
        number from 0 to 20 in 0.5 increments.  Then the highest and lowest
        of the style marks are ignored and the rest are added together, and
        so we get the style points.  So the maximum is 3 x 20.0 = 60 points.

        Note that there are no shared rankings in the World Cup or the Team
        Cup.


        Four Hills of the Americas:
        ---------------------------
        
        A new wild four-round miniature cup race from Sao Paolo to Caracas to
        Havana and finally Seattle.  It is included in the SJ2 World Cup from
        round 7 to 10 and it can also be jumped separetaly from the Main Menu.
        The rules are quite similar to the SJ2 World Cup.



        Team Cup:
        ---------

        The Team Cup is a six leg competition where the hills vary from
        year to year.  There are 15 teams with 4 jumpers in one team.  All
        of the scores from the two rounds of each leg are added together.
        Points are awarded to the six best teams with the winner getting
        ten points.  Prepare for a fierce battle with the opposing teams
        since winning is rewarded well, one bad jump can ruin the whole
        team's effort and remember that the opposing teams have their best
        jumpers jumping last...



        Understanding the Stats:
        ------------------------

        The Statistics screen is maybe not the most simplest one (I will
        try to upgrade it in the future), but it's a lot of fun to analyze
        your season as it goes along.  There is also a Stats screen for the
        Team Cup which is also great since it's quite easy to spot out who
        screwed up last time... :)

                        --- WORLD CUP STATISTICS ---
********************************************************************************
              Willy Blanket
   Where?     Pos.Pts. WC  12
1. Helsinki   8.  12   8.
2. Cairo      49. 0    13. AE
3. Hawaii     24. 0    16.
4. Katmandu   45. 0    17. P
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total:            12   17.

       This is the situation of one Willy Blanket after 4 competitions.

        * in the column Pos. is the final standing of each competition.
          (Willy Blanket was 8th in the first competition in Helsinki.
           He gained 12 points for that 8th place and was naturally
           8th in the World Cup Rankings)
        * in the column Pts. are the points awarded from each competition.
        * the column WC. tells the World Cup Ranking after each competition.
        * the columns 1 and 2 (not 12) try to explain what went wrong (or
          right) in each competition.  The column 1 has the "comments" from
          the first round and column 2 the second.

          Here's how to read the code:

          Code:      means:
          T..........You started take-off too early.
          L..........You started your landing too late
          F..........Your jumper fell because of a over-long jump
                     or just because of tough luck.
          D..........Did not participate in round (didn't make the cut,
                     or ESC was pressed)
          H.(blinks).Wow! You jumped a new hillrecord!

          If the column is empty, nothing worth mentioning happened.
            


        Tips and Quick Advice:
        ----------------------

        * Jump practice is best done in some relatively easy hill, Helsinki
          is just fine.  Never mind the wind at first, you'll have time to
          worry about it later.
        * The optimal take-off timing is quite close to the too early
          timing.  The idea is to get the largest possible amount of
          force from the legs to hit the in-run table without taking-off
          too early.
        * The optimal take-off varies from hill to hill, but it's quite
          easy to make the adjustment to other hills and in-run tables,
          since the optimal take-off spot is based on the speed of the
          jumper in the in-run.
        * For a jumper starting off, even scoring points during the first
          few seasons is a good result.  If success seems hard to come by,
          don't worry, you'll develop a routine quickly and jumping becomes
          surprisingly easy as you go along.



        JOINTOP.EXE
        -----------

        Jointop is a small program that allows you to join two TOPTEN.SKI
        files (the ones that hold your hiscores and hillrecords) into
        one TOPTEN.SKI file.  It's simple to use, just specify the two
        input files and the output file in the command line of the program.
        Something like this:  JOINTOP TOPTEN.IN1 TOPTEN.IN2 TOPTEN.SKI
        


        Hardware Requirements:
        ----------------------

        Ski Jump International Generation 2 will probably work in every PC
        from a 386sx upwards.  A VGA board and some memory is required
        I guess.   If you run into unsolvable problems, don't hesitate to
        contact me.
        

        Legal Stuff:
        ------------

        You are allowed to (blah blah) use the unregistered version of SJ2
        for 30 days before you have to register the product or delete the
        program.  The unregistered version can and should be spread around
        to your friends, the Internet and BBS' as much as possible, just
        remember to use the original and unchanged package (SJ2xx.ZIP).
        You are not allowed to sell or use any version of SJ2 for profit
        without direct permission from the author.
        
        The REGISTERED-BOY-DO-YOU-RULE version can only be used in one
        machine.  !!! Unauthorized copying of the registered version is a
        violation of law !!!   You guys do understand that it's quite easy
        to locate "the leak" since your registree name and number are
        visible in the game and also decoded in the program itself.  So don't
        be stupid.  "The time is always right to do the right thing!"


        Contact Info:
        -------------

        Ville Knnen
        Kalliopurontie 21 D 24
        02920 Espoo
        Finland
        Europe

        E-Mail:   vkononen@cc.hut.fi
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

        Free absolutely free to mail me with whatever questions or
        suggestions you may have.

        I hope you enjoy the best ski jump simulator on the market!
        

        And congratulations for reading this file to all the way down here,
        it's nice to know that I didn't spend all this time writing this
        damn thing for nothing.  Thank you very many!

