GEMini Atari/GEMini_Atari_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1993.iso/files/bbs/ccdemo2/cc.doc

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Cosmic Conquest Documents
(c) 1988 and 1989
by Scott Robertson and Craig Fuqua
Stillwater, OK

June 11, 1989

The authors grant permission for the free distribution of this document file
and any demonstration version of the game; however, the full version of the
game must be purchased from the authors. Cosmic Conquest and its accompanying
programs were written entirely in GFA Basic.

[Note: Because the sysop can customize some aspects of the game, these
documents are vague about numbers. Default values are given in a table at the
end of these documents.]

Cosmic Conquest places you randomly in one of up to 100 planets in a galaxy of
up to 26 solar systems.  Your goal is to control more than half of the solar
systems.  A solar system is under your control when you own all the planets in
that system (moons aren't necessary). To do this, you manage the production of
your planets to create machines of war, defense, intelligence-gathering and
transport.

D)isplaying and V)iewing the map:
There are two ways to look at the galaxy: D)isplay and V)iew map.  If you
select D)isplay, the game will send the entire map out so you can capture and
print it at home. It's a 99x99 grid that takes up six pieces of paper and shows
the locations of solar systems (denoted with letters), planets (letters and
numbers) and the orbits of the planets.  By the way, it's possible for one
planet to overlap another if their orbits intersect, but this shouldn't last
more than a day or two.  The V)iew function lets you see a screen-sized area
around a specific planet.

Each player starts with 100 fighters, three inter-planetary missiles (IPMs),
ten scout/transports and five defense station(s) on a planet with a production
of 30 units per day. That's where the equality ends, though -- solar systems,
other planets and moons have different characteristics. Each player must
develop his own strategy for competing with others and winning the game, but
we'll list a few basics along with the functions of the various parts of the
game.

Y)our Brief/Individual lists:
When hit select Y from the main prompt, you have four options, two of which
we'll discuss here and two in the next section. B)rief presents a simple,
columnar listing of all your planet and moon holdings. I)ndividual lets you see
the production and stockpile reports on a single planet or moon.

Y)our Stockpile/Production reports:
After signing onto Cosmic Conquest for the first time, you'll want to look at
the information on Y)our S)tockpiles and P)roduction. This is probably the most
common function you'll use during the game. After selecting S)tockpiles or
P)roduction, you'll be prompted to hit return to show information on all of
your holdings or to enter the solar system letter for the information about the
moons and planets you own in that system. You can't see information about a
body you don't own. Each planet has a maximum production capability and each
item takes a certain number of production points.

C)hange production:
Use the C)hange command from the main menu to allocate production to the
various areas. Read the prompts to find out how much each item "costs" to
produce. Your home planet has a production rate higher than the other planets
(except for other players' home planets of course), and it will all be set to
fighter production. If you want to produce some IPMs or something else, you'll
need to change it. Also, when you conquer a planet, its production stays the
way the previous owner set it, so you'll at least want to look at it. Moons,
and some planets, are incapable of producing defense stations.

When you take a planet or moon, its current production may not equal its
maximum production. Planetary production goes up one to three points each day
until it reaches its maximum value. Moon production goes up one point per day.
Some moons have maximums of 0, which means they're basically rocks.

After you control all the planets in a solar system, the current productions on
the planets will eventually exceed the maximum production by 3 to 4 points. You
don't have to control the moons to control the solar system.

P)layer ranks by Planet, Systems, pRoduction and Equivalent stock:
To see who else is playing the game and how well they're doing, choose P)layer
Sort. You tell it which information to sort: number of P)lanets, number of
S)olar systems, total pR)oduction and E)quivalent stock. This last value is the
total of all of a player's stockpiles and active stock (things in flight), and
reflects the production cost of each item; for example, each defense station
adds 10 points to your equivalent stock.

L)aunch:
A command you'll become very familiar with is L)aunch, which allows you to send
stock from one of your planets or moons to another. There are a few limits:
your fighters travel in squadrons of up to 255 members, scouts travel alone,
IPMs have a maximum flight range of one day, and transports have a limited
capacity.

      o F)ighters are the cheapest items to produce and travel very fast. If
launched at an enemy planet or moon, they'll fight until they take the planet
or until they're destroyed. When they reach a hostile planet, they'll be met by
whatever fighter stockpile is there. Depending on the ratio of fighters to
fighters, a number of your attack force will slip past the other fighters and
sweep the defense stations, which will return fire. If they're not destroyed,
these fighters will go back up to engage the defending fighters and start the
attack again. YOU TAKE A PLANET WHEN YOU LAND A FIGHTER ON IT. First, though,
you have to bring its fighter and defense station stock to 0. Whatever other
stockpiles are left become your property. If your fighters arrive at a planet
you own, they'll join the stockpiles there.

      o Send S)couts to find out what's on a planet or moon, but remember
they're on a one-way flight and have a chance of being shot down. The planet
scouted won't see the scout unless it shoots the scout down. A scout can
transmit information about specific stockpiles and some productions. Default
instructions are displayed; if you want to scout other areas, answer N)o when
it asks if the settings are OK and use the next two menus to program the scout
before you launch it. Scouts can be converted to transports. See the section on
transports for more information.

     o I)PMs (inter-planetary missiles) have a limited range but are more
devastating than fighters and, therefore, cost a little more to produce.
Fighters can't shoot them down, but defense stations can. IPMs will hit
stockpiles, including defense stations, or current production if they get
through. Defense stations shoot at missiles, and the number of defense stations
compared to the number of missiles in a flight affects the number of IPMs that
get shot down. IPMs hit as a group, so you may want to send several, smaller
flights so they don't all hit something worthless, like scouts.  Unlike
fighters, IPMs WILL ATTACK YOUR OWN PLANETS instead of joining the stockpiles,
so make sure you only launch against an enemy planet. If you're going to send
missiles and fighters in an attack, make sure the missiles arrive first. IPMs
can only injure a planet or moon, they can't take it over, so make sure you
send fighters afterward if you intend to claim the target.

      o T)ransports are scouts with the complex scanning equipment removed to
make room for either IPMs or fighters.  When they land, they put themselves and
their cargo into the stockpiles of the target planet or moon, regardless of who
owns it. This is a way to give fighters, IPMs or scout/transports to an ally or
transfer them to your various conquests.

T)ime:
For some users, this is a complicated function, but it's needed because planets
move in relation to each other. Use the T)ime function from the main menu to
find out how long a flight will take. There are two choices: D)ays ahead and
flight W)indow. The D option is easiest to comprehend and more useful during
regular game play. Answer the prompts for type of vehicle, source and
destination and it will show you how many days it will take between them.
Sometimes, you find that if you don't launch a one-day flight today, it will
take two days starting tomorrow. The opposite is also true: you may discover
that a two-day flight starting today may only take one day if you wait 'til
tomorrow. In planning a major assault, you can use this function to make sure
all your flights land the same day to overwhelm your opponent.

A flight window tells you the ranges within the next 100 game days (the game
should actually take less time) that it will take up to a specified number of
days for a type of flight to make a trip. Let's say you want to know on Day 10
how many days you can wait before losing your two-day flight range from one
planet to another. Select T and W then tell it F for fighters and give it the
source and destination and number of days, which is two in this example. The
function will list ranges of day numbers that it will take two days or fewer to
reach that target by fighter, or whether there are no days. Remember it only
looks ahead 100 days, so it may not find an ending limit. This function is most
useful in developing long-range plans and inexperienced users may want to avoid
it at first.

Play around with both T functions until you're familiar with them.

F)light reports in Summary or Order sent:
After launching a flight, you cannot recall it. The F)light function presents
two types of lists telling you about the flights you have in progress. The
S)ummary of flights adds up all the flights you have in progress and groups
them. For instance, if you send two groups of 15 fighters that will land on a
planet in two days, S)ummary shows you 30 fighters landing in two days. If you
send three-day flights and then some one-ay flights to the same destination,
S)ummary lists the three-day flights first. The O)rder of flights is a
chronological list of the flights you sent.

You can't launch or transport a defense station due to their size. No moon can
produce a defense station, and some planets also have production too low to
produce them.  You'll have to adjust your strategies to take this into
account.

Flights between planets and their moons are accomplished immediately and you
receive a report of the results after the launch. These zero-day flight reports
are added to your regular report file, explained below.

R)eports:
After your first day on the game, you'll want to use the R)eport function to
find out which flights landed and whether you were attacked. Fighter reports
tell how many fighters attacked and defended and how many survived. If the
attacker sent enough fighters to slip past the defenders and sweep the defense
stations, a second report will follow telling these results. It's not a second
attack.

M)oon count:
The M)oon function tells you how many moons are around a planet. You don't have
to own a planet to count its moons.

S)hift fighters from moons to planet:
The S)hift function moves fighters from your moons to your planets on zero-day
flights. This is a way to "harvest" the moons' production.  After selecting
S)hift, you enter the planet name and the number of fighters to leave on the
moons. If a planet has no moons or you don't own the planet, the action won't
be performed.

Planet Slayers:
Now that you're familiar with the commands, you should know humans aren't the
only ones new to this galaxy: two moon-sized ships called Planet Slayers enter
it from the top and bottom to take it over. They don't cooperate, but they
won't attack each other directly. To reference them when launching or viewing,
use their first initials inside <>s, e.g., "<P>". They're shown on the map this
way also. Your sysop has control over their names, and some amount of control
on their strengths and speed. Send scouts to find out what they're made of so
you can decide whether to stand and fight or run away if one comes your way. We
advise a group effort to get rid of them.

These computer-controlled players target the nearest planets and head for them.
They don't care about gathering solar systems, but if you're not careful, a
slayer can win the game.

As a slayer approaches a planet, it sends one fighter per day toward it as a
herald. If it's very close, its fighters may not land until it arrives, though,
so you should always keep track of these ships. When one arrives, it will park
over the planet and prepare to launch against it for a full day. When the
slayer is parked, you can send zero-day flights against it. The next day, it
will send scouts down to measure the planet and decide if it should conquer or
destroy it. If it conquers the planet, it will then turn its attention to the
moons and conquer those. If it decides the planet is too strong for it to take,
it will warm up its big gun and destroy it. This removes the planet from the
map, and causes significant damage to the slayer that will take some time to
repair.

Once conquered, the slayer will leave a fighter force on the planet, remove any
IPMs there, and prepare to target a new planet. You can re-take planets from
the slayers, but their other planets and the slayers will send reinforcements.
A slayer will target planets owned by the other slayer and if you're lucky
they'll waste their resources on each other.

The slayers are protected by defense stations and a stockpile of fighters, but
to kill them you must also take away 100 "damage points" from it. Fighters that
get past its defenses cause one point of damage, while IPMs will cause several
points.

Obviously, these boys are going to cause some trouble, but they have some
built-in strategic weaknesses you'll have to find and exploit. The best method
of dealing with them is brute force, we have to admit.

Default values for Planet Slayers:
    Fighters:  250
    IPMs:      100
    Scouts:     10
    Production: 50
    Speed:       7
    Names: Prostations, Vulvans