Morse Mastery: 3 new training modes in spring update!
[p]Hey folks![/p][p]I am very excited to share the latest update to MORSE, let's get stuck in![/p][p]![]()
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[/p][p][/p][h2]Calibration [/h2][p]This is a dedicated mode that explains and shows in detail how to calibrate your telegraph to your skill level. This is set up for each of the different telegraph types, you tweak your cooldown and dot/dash threshold and can test in-game on beacons to see how your settings handle. There's also a visualiser that shows how your dots and dashes are translating as you adjust in real time.[/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]Another commonly requested feature was being able to calibrate your telegraph in real time and see how your input of dots and dashes change, but I much prefer players getting to have that tactile ritual of tweaking and refining those settings by hand and chose to keep things manual.[/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]A final feature that I'm very happy with for calibration once you've tuned your key: A words per minute speed test. Words per minute in amateur radio is the unit measurement for how quickly you can enter Morse Code. There's also a degree of competition around it, for example the High Speed Telegraphy championships that happen nationally and internationally. The word PARIS is used as a standard to measure WPM against, so you can keep practicing entering that word to gauge your skill. I may add a mode where you can change the word in question to practice entry with different letters, let me know if that's something folks would be interested in! I have plans in the coming months to expand the settings menu to something more granular so there'll likely be some more settings to follow that will be integrated in a similar manner.[/p][p][/p][p]![]()
[/p][h2]Speed[/h2][p]Or more accurately, speed training allows you to practice against enemies approaching from the right, where each kill increases the speed and rate of the enemy advance. This gets extremely frantic when you get above a score of 30 and really lets you hone your skills navigating the grid. If a ship gets by and you've sunk more than one ship, the X Y grid words change, allowing you to try out other letters and words. I'm curious to see how high a score folks can reach! [/p][p][/p][p]![]()
[/p][h2]Listening[/h2][p]The third training mode is a "guess the letter" challenge for identifying the sounds of different letters. A submarine is hidden on the grid, you hear the sound of the letter where the submarine is located e.g. (dit dah dit) then you mimic the sound pattern to locate and destroy the submarine (R). After entering each letter of the word, a new word is chosen, so you can get a wide comprehension of letters. [/p][p][/p][p]What I like about all 3 of these exercises is each of them tie to the mechanics of the game seamlessly and strengthen both your proficiency of play and also of the skill. It's worth mentioning that these training tools work with all 3 telegraph types, so feel free to experiment and try each out.[/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]It's great being able to expand MORSE as an educational tool and I am very open to suggestions for different training modes folks would like to see in there or how these training tools could be improved. [/p][p][/p][p]Also of note, this is a pretty substantial addition to the game and with that, there comes increased risk of bugs. Please drop any issues you come across here and I'll try to respond promptly and address any problems that may arise.[/p][p]![]()
[/p][h2]A spring clean to tidy the UI [/h2][p]A recurring point of feedback for MORSE has been the "ticker tape" notification printout blocking the bottom of the the grid/gameplay. In-keeping with the season, I've refined the placement of the interface to make it less cluttered:[/p]![]()
[/p][p]One other addition I'm quite happy with is integrating a cursor to the game, which in game displays your dots and dashes (and works with the different telegraph types). This means for folks who are playing with a mouse who have dual monitors they don't accidentally click out of the screen and generally to have another visualisation of dots and dashes and adds a nice design flourish. [/p][p][/p][p]![]()
[/p][h2]My own training journey![/h2][p]The last thing I wanted to mention that I am proper stoked about is I've officially started training for my foundation Amateur Radio License. Shortly after the game launch, I had a trip to the Cairngorms planned and wanted to rush to get my license in time, but the more I dug through Essex Ham's incredible free course on the fundamentals of UK Amateur Radio, the more I realised these were really fascinating and useful skills to learn for my career doing electronics and hardware. So, I waited till last month to sign up (now that things have calmed down a little) and I am currently halfway through the course. I'm hoping to get my license in the next couple of months so soon I'll potentially have my own callsign and I'll finally get to transmit my first Morse Code, well overdue! [/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]That's all for now, thanks again to everyone who has enjoyed and learned about the project so far, I have some very interesting updates coming down the pipe around outreach that I'm eager to share, so stay tuned for that soon.[/p][p][/p][p]73, Alex[/p]
A dedicated training mode
[p]The number one request for MORSE has been to add a training mode to allow players to pursue mastery of Morse Code. With that, I've created a dedicated suite of educational tools in MORSE. This is to allow people to specialise in 3 areas; Calibration, Speed and Listening.[/p][p]- [p]The ticker tape printout has been moved up to the top left.[/p]
- [p]The "enemies left" tab has been moved to the bottom left of the screen.[/p]
- [p]The lives have been tucked in the top right.[/p]