Copyright: Copyright ® 1996 David Bollinger


Contents

Introduction

   The Wave Editor allows you to customize the layout of the various "waves" within the game.  You may create custom layouts which include for example:  more or less rocks, more or less aliens, different combinations of aliens, customized text on the mission briefing screen, etc.

The Menus

   The File menu allows you to open or save an entire Wave Configuration File (WCF), and exit the program.
   The Edit menu allows you to create a default "template" for either the single wave currently displayed, or for all waves.  You may then modify these defaults to your liking.
   The Help menu allows you to view this help file and view version and copyright information.

Editing The Waves

   Keep in mind that you are designing waves for the moderate difficulty level.  The game will internally modify your waves in order to generate the other difficulty levels.

   In general, to design a wave you simply specify "how many" and "how often" you wish for the various game objects to appear.  The game itself will handle the placement of the objects.   So you don't need to literally "place" objects on the screen, merely request that they appear.

OVERALL
   WAVE NUMBER - This spin control allows you to select which of the 50 waves with the WCF you wish to modify.  As you scroll through the waves you will notice the other parameters on the form changing to reflect the configuration of that particular wave.

   DESCRIPTION - This is the short "sector" description that appears in the upper right corner during the game.

   SKILL RATING - This is an overall control which affects the "strength" of the various game objects.  Increasing this value will make both the rocks and aliens more difficult to destroy.  The original set of waves have a linear progression of Skill Rating's, making the game progressively harder as the waves increase, but you may mix and match skill ratings if you wish to place a more difficult wave in between less difficult waves if you wish.

MISSION BRIEFING
   DO BRIEFING - If this box is checked, the mission briefing panel will appear before this wave (assuming that mission briefings are enabled within the game itself).

   IMAGE - This is the name of the "radar" image that appears on the mission briefing screen.

   TEXT - There are 4 lines of text, each 54 character longs, which appear on the mission briefing screen.

ROCKS & MINES
   NUM ROCKS - The total number of rocks at the start of the wave.

   ROCK TYPE - The size of the rocks at the start of the wave.

   NUM MINES - The total number of proximity mines at the start of the wave.

   MINE TYPE - The size of the mines at the start of the wave.

   MINE PATTERN - If a pattern is selected for the mines it will override both the NUM MINES and MINE TYPE parameters and instead create a fixed number of mines arranged in a regular pattern.

WAVE VARIATIONS
   FAST ROCKS - If this box is checked, the rocks at the start of the wave will have a slightly higher than average velocity.

   TINY ROCKS - If this box is checked, all rocks and mines at the start of the wave will be tiny.  It will override the ROCK TYPE and MINE TYPE parameters.  It is simply a shortcut method of requesting all objects to be tiny.

   JUST MINERS - If this box is checked, all aliens that appear on this wave will be mine layers.  It will override the settings in the alien spawning section (described below).

   ALIEN BASE - If this box is checked, alien bases will be created instead of rocks.  The NUM ROCKS parameter then describes the number of alien bases to be created.  On an alien base wave, the aliens are free to begin appearing immediately, thus the ROCK WEIGHT VALUE (described below) has no effect.

   VERTICAL ROCKS - If this box is checked, all rocks at the start of the wave will have vertical motion only, and will "fall" from the top of the screen.

   BONUS-O-RAMA - If this box is checked, a bonus item will be released every time a rock is destroyed.

   CAPTURE ALIEN - If this box is checked, the aliens may release an escape pod when they are destroyed.

BOSS WAVES
   BOSS WAVE - If this box is checked, a large boss alien will appear on this wave.

   FAR DISTANCE, NEAR DISTANCE - These parameters affect the "brain" of the boss alien and influence its flight path.  The boss alien's actual flight path will vary depending upon a number of conditions, so these parameters only affect it indirectly.  In general, the FAR distance is the static distance that the boss would remain away from the player if nothing else on the screen were moving.  In general, the NEAR distance is the distance from the player at which the boss alien is forced to alter its course.  Reasonable values are 100-200 (FAR) and 10-100 (NEAR).  The FAR distance should be significantly greater than the NEAR distance.

ALIEN SPAWNING
   ROCK WEIGHT VALUE - When the total "weight" of the rocks on screen drops below this value aliens will begin spawning.  You may think of this weight value as simply a count of tiny rocks - if the weight value is 5, then aliens will begin appearing once there are fewer than 5 tiny rocks left on screen.  Larger rocks have greater "weight" values.
   Once this rock weight value has been passed, the rest of the alien spawning section becomes active.

   There are 8 alien spawning definitions available, they all work the same and are of equal importance.  You may fill in none, just one, several or all 8 definitions depending on the number and variety of aliens you wish to create.  Each definition can create many aliens, but of only one type.  To create several different types of aliens on a single wave you will need to fill out several spawning definitions.

   TIM GT - This means "Time Greater Than".  An alien can only be created by this spawning definition after this much game time has elapsed since the rock weight value was passed.

   CNT LT - This means "Count Less Than".  An alien can only be created by this spawning definition if the total number of aliens on screen currently is less than this number.

   RND EQ - This means "Random Equal".  An alien can only be created by this spawning definition if this randomness value approves it.  Higher values make the aliens less likely, lower values make aliens more likely.  If your value is 100, then there is a 1 in 100 chance that an alien will be created, etc.

   AD TYP - This means "Add Type".  It describes the type of alien to be created by this spawning definition.

   Let's try some examples:

   TimGT   CntLT   RndEQ   AdTyp
   -----   -----   -----   -----
     30       4     200    Tol'Doth

   This means:  after 30 units of game time, if there are less than 4 aliens on screen, and a 1 in 200 chance occurs, then a Tol'Doth alien will be created.  Note that this single spawning definition is capable of creating up to *4* aliens.

   TimGT   CntLT   RndEQ   AdTyp
   -----   -----   -----   -----
     30       2     200    Tol'Doth
    100       2     200    Myotani

    Slightly modified:  This set of two spawning definitions will attempt to keep 2 aliens on screen at all times (note the CntLT values).  It will begin by creating Tol'Doth aliens (note the TimGT values).  As the player destroys those aliens eventually (after 100 units of game time) it will begin creating Myotani aliens to replace some of the destroyed Tol'Doth aliens.  The end results is that at no time will there be more than 2 aliens on screen, but they may be any combination of Tol'Doth and Myotani.

   TimGT   CntLT   RndEQ   AdTyp
   -----   -----   -----   -----
      0       1      50    Tol'Doth
      0       1      50    Myotani
      0       1      50    K'rin Vahl

   This set of spawning definitions practically guarantees that there will ALWAYS be exactly 1 alien (see CntLT values) on screen.  They will begin appearing IMMEDIATELY after the rock weight value has been passed (see TimGT values).  Since the RndEQ values are low, there will not be much "grace" time between the death of one alien and its replacement by another.  However, the newly created alien is equally likely to be ANY of the three types.