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Text File | 1994-11-17 | 81KB | 1,822 lines

Ironseed Techbook and Trials Guide Quick Start Manual Part I. Features Grafix 2.5 Meg of compressed video data conveys a universe that is both rich and vibrant having believability and depth unparalleled by any other science fiction world. From the glint in the Sengzhac's eye to the grotesque squirming of the worm-like D'Pahk each alien race is unique in its movement and alive with animation. Music We present to you a sound track that is as dark and seductive as the world of Ironseed. Using one of the most advanced realtime digital mixers available for the PC we bring you a soundtrack unmatched by any non-CD game title. After nearly eight months of work on the sound alone we present a combination of modern dance, classical, and eastern elements in Dolby Surround that form a powerful musical score. The Dual Module Player mixes digital samples in realtime allowing for smaller sound files. The sound stays under 10 Meg while supporting over an hour of playback at up to 44 kilobytes per sec. That's an effective data compression ratio of over 16 to one! DMP also supports a wide range of audio cards... Sound Blaster compatibles as well as the complete Sound Blaster family, the Aria, and the Gravis Ultra Sound. Story With a backdrop 4 years in the making and a story line equivalent to a 250 page novel, the universe of Ironseed is a dynamic one. There are 10 established empires and the possibility for a thousand others that evolve as the game is played. Your struggle to unite the free worlds will take you from the trade circles of the Guild to the mystic home of the Quai Tetrad. You will be deigned the voice of the Icon and as their liaison will be the only defense against the scavenger armada. Ironseed... the ship... the movement... and now, the last hope for mankind. Part II. System and Environment A. Minimal System Requirements Basic Program: - 80386 processor - 25 MHz clock speed - VGA card and monitor - 530,000 bytes of low memory - MSDOS 4.0 - MS compatible mouse Sound Setup: - Aria, ProAudio Spectrum family, Sound Blaster family, Gravis UltraSound or a compatible of one of these sound cards - 1 Mb of EMS memory - 600,000 bytes of low memory B. System Recommendations - 80486 processor - math co-processor - 33 MHz, 50 MHz for best performance - accelerated video board - disk cache TSR program - ram disk TSR program - 615,000 bytes of low memory Part III. Installation To install the program, follow these steps: A. Boot the computer. B. Insert the first disk into the floppy drive. C. Type A: (or the appropriate floppy drive) followed by a carriage return. D. Type ISDEMO also followed by a carriage return. The installer will run. E. Follow the prompts for the installation. Part IV. Optimizing Your System A. Try running a disk cache program such as Smartdrive. This will allow frequently accessed data to remain in memory longer rather than in the slower access disk drive. Optimal size is about 1 Mb for 4 Mb of RAM or 2 Mb for 8 Mb of RAM. B. Set an environment variable 'TEMP' to a ram disk such as Ramdrive. This is simply a 'SET TEMP=' and the drive letter of the ram disk in the autoexec.bat file. Make sure that the ramdisk has at least 128 kb. C. Disable any TSR's that require large amounts of the processor's time. Even a simple keyboard enhancer can steal valuable time from the CPU. Part V. Trouble Shooting A. Sound Failure: Make sure that the sound card is installed correct, volume turned up sufficiently and there is at least 1 Mb of EMS available. B. Open File or Fatal File Error: Make sure that your current directory contains the Ironseed executable and all the subdirectories such as data, sound, and saved games. Test your hard drive for failures in case a file has been corrupted. C. Out of memory Error: The program itself, Is.exe, requires about 600k of low memory. If sound is used this may increase. It is important to note that the main program will not run with less memory. Part VI. The Story So Far... It is the thirty-eighth century. The fall of Earth is but a legend and humanity has migrated to a terraformed Mars. The Pentateuch, a group of five preists, rules the newly risen technocracy with an iron fist. In a bold attempt to eliminate the last of their political opponents, the five began the purgation trials. With guerilla tactics their followers went about convicting those who would oppose them. To counter them an underground movement was initiated and an elaborate plan was conceived. A virus was spread throughout the circuit matrix. A thousand days from inception, the virus was scheduled to delete all personality files. The Ironseed movement as it was called, hoped that by stealing a ship they could escape... leaving behind Mars... and the Pentateuch. Their intent was to return after the fall of the technocracy. ...but a computer malfunction turned a thousand days into a thousand years... As the captain, you are awakened along with the crew by an alien horde. After a brief dialogue, communication is cut off and they attack. The game begins as the attack ends. Part VII. In The Beginning... After the introduction you should see the Ironseed logo floating above a starfield. At the bottom of this screen four options will be listed: A. Ordering Info How to get the full game. B. Continue Game Choosing this option will bring up a listing of save game slots for previous games you have saved along with the game-date. If no games have been saved or if you have not selected your crew to begin your quest these slots should read "Quick Start 2/3784." If this is the case you may either select one of these and use the default crew and ship or you may choose cancel. Cancelling will bring you back to the Ironseed logo. (Use the Quick Start for Slow is you have less then a 486/33.) C. Introduction Choosing this option will run the introduction again. D. Quit to Dos Choosing this option will exit the program to the dos prompt. Part VIII. Main Screen The Main Screen is the screen to which you are born and it is the screen to which you must always return. It is divided up into three main sections: The Primary Display, the InfoBox and the Command Cube. The Primary Display is the upper half of the Main Screen. This is the area through which the world outside your ship can be seen. You should be able to see the planet or star you are orbiting on the left hand side of this display. The InfoBox occupies the lower left hand side of the Main Screen. When the ship's computer or the crew have an important message for you it will be appear there. The InfoBox will store the last 24 messages. You may scroll up and down through these messages by using the scroll bar and arrows to the right of the InfoBox. Your ship has three different modes of operation: Rest mode, Alert mode, and Combat mode. Depending on which of these modes your ship is in your weapon power and shield level will vary. For quick switch to a different mode select the Panic button from the bottom left of the main screen, doing so will toggle your ship mode (Rest, Alert, and Combat modes turn the Panic Button green, yellow, and red respectively.) If you are in Rest mode the Panic Button will raise your shields and arm your weapons taking you into Combat mode. If you are in Combat mode the Panic Button will lower your shields and power down your weapons. If you have no damage you will return to Rest mode. If you have taken damage you will instead power down to Alert mode. As captain of the Ironseed, you directly control the actions of your six primary officers. These crew members can be accessed through the six faces of the Command Cube found in the lower right corner of the main screen. The cube is laid out as follows: (Psy) Psychometry (Sec) Security (Eng) Engineering (Ast) Astrogation (Sci) Science (Med) Medical Keyboard Substitutes: Command Cube Manipulation Other Keys _________________________ __________ Q or F1 W E R T or F4 A or F2 S D F G or F5 Z or F3 X C V B or F6 Alt-Q,Alt-X Quit Spacebar Clear Right Display ESC Clear All Displays Esc=Curved Arrow button=Universal Exit Part IX. Secondary Controls Some displays will open an icon bar at the top of the main screen. For these displays, the keyboard equivalents are as follows: Position Key ________ __________ 1..4 Arrow Keys 5 Space Bar 6 1 7 2 8 3 For most other screens, Arrows Keys, +, -, 1, 2, 3, Q, W, E, and ? have some effect depending on the operation of the screen. ESC is the universal cancel/exit key.Part X. Start Hints Probes: While a complete scan of every planet is not necessary, it is recommended. It is always better to be thorough to avoid missing anything. In order to speed this process it is best to focus on building a full troupe of probots. Once you have four the scans can be done two at a time. In general it is better to scan for anomalies first. This way you can retrieve them while the other scans are being completed. Retrieve all anomalies you find; many of them are useful. Those that have no immediate use can be traded away. When sending down probes to a visibly viable world (i.e. lush green, life bearing) you should beware of the inhabitants. Because of the heat and light generated during atmospheric entry, the probes are particularly visible, vulnerable to being scanned. From time to time if the populace of a world is technologically advanced they will capture or destroy probes sent to study them. Because of the intense surface heat suns are not hospitable to probes. When cooler suns actually have temperatures that fall within the tolerance range for the probe thermashielding, the occasional flare or solar prominence will finish the device. Until advancements can be made in the design of the device, scanning a solar body is not recommended. Fuel Economy: Conserving fuel in the beginning is crucial. In order to continue your travels you will need to build more fuel nodules. To avoid scavenging your probots and manufactories for fuel it is essential that you collect as many anomalies as possible before your initial fuel allowance is exhausted. Previous deep ship captains suggest the closest body travel algorithm. This exploration method involves travelling to whatever happens to be the nearest system to you in the local star map. As trite and simplistic as this may seem it tends to keep fuel use low while maximizing the systems visited. Research and Design: In order for your crew to advance in ability they must expand their knowledge base through research. Unfortunately, this requires their time and often, a great deal of their resources. Yet the benefit of knowledge is great. By increasing the knowledge base of each crew member you increase the number and variety of items that can be designed and built by the engineer. A small green light will appear next to the crew member, in the main screen, by the cube whenever he or she is researching. Because of the enormous amount of time and resource it takes to research, some activities may not be performed at the same time research is conducted. When such a time arrives the crew member will end his research and continue with the task assigned to them. It is important to keep those research lights green. When at all possible your crew should be researching. Manufacture: Upgrading your ship and building new items is the best strategy to surviving a hostile environment. Spending time to build better offensive, defensive, and other devices is well worth it. Even Leopold Demasque, military genius of the Final War agreed: Bigger ships and bigger guns = A better chance. The only draw back of continually upgrading your ship is the amount of time it takes. Some devices, especially the most powerful weapons and shields, are very complex and require crew members to have a great deal of knowledge. Vast amounts of components and materials may also be required to construct these vicious devices. We've come along way since caves and kill sticks, eh? Gathering: Minebots and manufactories can be left on planets to collect and process the indigenous ores and gases. After returning to the system, these devices will have filled the planetary cache. This is a cheap way to gather much needed materials and components. Scanning the planet beforehand will tell the type of items that can be gathered or created by the bots. Trade: Trading with other lifeforms is another way to help create that massive weapon or device. Depending on how you barter you can affect the congeniality of the aliens you encounter. Because of the size of these empires it may take a long time for news to travel. However, everyone likes a good deal, but continue to cheat in your trades and they will become angered. Crew: Talking to the crew can help you, the captain, remember your objective as well as helping you to understand your ship and the universe around you. The crew are privy to a wealth of information and to access that knowledge you have but to ask. Depending on the races you have encountered and the number of times of you have encountered them the crew will have different things to say about each. Race names are a good starting keyword for questioning. Most other subjects will arise from those topics. Detailed Command Guide Psychometry 1 Psych. Evaluation 2 Ship Hail 3 Planetary Communication 4 Crew Status 5 Psychometric Research 6 Crew Communication 1. Psychological Evaluation Moving between stars requires your vessel to travel at speeds near the speed of light. Unfortunately, the amount of force necessary to drive a ship at those speeds grows exponentially the closer one gets to light speed. In order to cut down on fuel consumption any unnecessary mass was left behind. This 'unnecessary' mass included the quarter of a million bodies that made up the rebellion. Not to worry. The marvels of modern science have made a fine art of personality containment. Before the bodies of your crew were disposed of, the magnetic signature of their brains were copied, or encoded, into the ship's computer. This has several interesting side effects. First of all, it is possible to make adjustments to a person's psychological attributes. Multiple copies of an 'encode' may also be made. The transparent container on the left side of the screen contains the physical manifest of an encode. When psychological containment was in its infancy it was discovered that for a soul to have permanence it had to have a physical focus. After hundreds of years of trial and error it a very specific chemical bath was found to contain the proper staying materials to keep a soul viable. The material itself is called Ego Synth, while the chamber into which it is placed is termed the Psychotropic Enhancement Chamber. A personality is defined by its biorhythms, the three primary attributes by which any personality encode may be described. These are mental prowess, physical viability, and emotional strength. Selecting evaluate will allow you to see an encode's biorhythmic graph. The tick marks to the right of the graph show the mental, physical, and emotional ratings for that encode. The higher the mental rating, the greater that person's Skill; The higher the physical rating, the quicker that person's Performance; The higher the emotional rating, the greater that person's sanity. While these aren't equal, they are directly related. The combination of these values determine the resulting color of the egosynth. Accessing the Encode function near the top left of this screen will bring up the menu for encoding a crew member. For each crew member there exists a backup chip to which that crew member may be saved. At times it may be necessary to restore an encode. The continual psychological drain of having no physical body combined with the rigors of ship duties will erode an encode. In order to restore a person's sanity it may become necessary to restore that person's encode (hopefully you will have saved the encode at a point at which they were sane.) The draw back of re-encoding a personality is that you will lose any experience they may have gained between saves. The other option is to have engineering continually manufacture Mind Enhancers. While Mind Enhancers will raise their lowest attribute they are expensive to manufacture and will eventually run your cargo dry. Obviously there is quick solution. You must maintain a balance between these two. Encode when the crew is doing well and be sure to manufacture Mind Enhancers when you have spare components. 2. Ship Hail Ship Hail will allow you to communicate with any nearby ships. If no ship is present the Com-Screen will be full of static. All you can do at this point is exit the screen. Since the only lifeforms that speak your language are onboard your ship it is essential that you establish some basis of communication. If there is a ship nearby your psychometrist will attempt to establish a cypher key. If the aliens cooperate some form of lingual key will transmitted to your ship and talks may begin. Occasionally a race may have a language so different from our own that an adequate translation matrix is difficult if not impossible. If this is the case, the ship's computer will do the best it can with what it has to work with. To communicate with a race with which you have established contact you simply enter keywords of interest. The computer will construct an appropriate translation using the cypher key. Any responses from the other ship will be appropriately translated. Another useful function of the Com-Screen is the info bar. By selecting this button the ship's computer will scan the alien vessel and will tell you all it can about it. Let's talk trade Nearly every sapient race founded itself on commerce. Trade between nearby communities harbored a sense of unity and eventually brought whole nations together. The importance of trade can not be overstated. Even now as ships pass between stars trade is essential. As captain of your ship you will be responsible for conducting commercial negotiations. Be wary of who you deal with. Bad deals abound. On the other hand, be sure not to cheat your friends; they'll remember. Steps to completing a barter: You've just transmitted your intent to trade to the other ship. The alien craft is silent for a moment and then the message is received, "Yes... we agree to trade with you, filthy human." What can you expect? You're new here. You're lucky they haven't already destroyed you. What type of money will we be buying our exotic wares with? None. With empires rising and falling like waves on a Thydizian beachfront there's no reason to believe anybody's currency is worth anything at all. We'll be trading strictly in hardware. What do you have that I want? That'll be the question of the day. Bartering, my friend. That's how things are done in space. 1st: Select an item to Buy. Scroll through the list on the left of the Message Area until you have highlighted an item of interest. To select this item for barter choose the Barter For button (who'd a thought). This will effectively say to your alien friend, "I want this item." Selecting Reject will remove or touching the Exit Arrow will deselect the item 2nd: Choose what you are willing to give in exchange. The left hand side of the Message Area should now be the list of items in your cargo hold. You'll want to choose an item or set of items that have a net worth equivalent to or slightly less than what you are bartering for. This isn't as complicated as it sounds. Put simply, if you're asking for 5 apples you don't offer a truck load of oranges in return. You'll want to offer something worth the same as 5 apples (that is unless you really don't like oranges.) To add an item to the list, select the Add button from the center of the Message Area. As you add things to the list you'll notice the space between the Accept and Reject buttons changing colors. This space is called the Barter Gauge. This is a simple computerized evaluation of the deal your about to make. If only part of the bar is full, the aliens want more. If the bar is green and fully lit, the aliens accept the offer and are willing to commit to the trade. If the bar is red and fully lit, the aliens are ecstatic and you have offered them entirely too much. In the event that your Barter Gauge goes red you'll probably be wanting to subtract a few items from the list. To do this you should highlight the item you wish removed from the list. Once you've done that select the Remove button and the item will be returned to your cargo list. It is important to note that the more difficult something is to manufacture the more it is worth. Complex devices like shields and weapons are worth substantially more than the basic elements that comprise them. 3rd: Accepting an offer. Once you've completed the bartering process you'll be wanting to complete the deal by swapping the materials you selected. To do this you should select the Accept button from the right side of the Message Area. If the deal is acceptable to your alien friends they will send a cargo pod to your vessel and the trade will be complete. If they don't like the deal you're making they will simply do nothing. In theory they are waiting for you to regain your sanity... thinking that your poor decision making skills are the result of short term brain damage. 4th: Ok. Ok. How do you exit a sale before it's too late?! If you want to deselect an item before a sale is made choose the Reject button. If you're paranoid and you want to exit Trade completely, select the Exit Arrow from the right side of the screen. 5th: I've made a sale but I changed my mind. Indian giver! You gave your word. You made the sale... Now you want your stuff back?! If you're peaceful you'll just get over it. If you're a warmonger you'll fight them and hopefully recover the stuff from their burnt out hulls. In either case you screwed up. Making a deal is concrete. You need to be sure you want to sell something before you say accept. 6th: I'm done trading If you're done trading select the Exit Arrow. This will return you to the conversion. From this point you may continue to converse with your alien friends. One man's junk is another man's treasure Despite public opinion Worthless Junk actually has a value, however minute. Since technologies from race to race vary widely it is often possible to get away with giving garbage in exchange for valuable material. While no race will immediately refuse a wad of slag (hey, they don't know what it is) they will eventually catch on to what is and isn't junk. Continued use of Worthless Junk as a bartering tool is not suggested. 3. Planetary Communication This function is identical to Ship Hail function expect it deals with lifeforms on the planet you are orbiting. 4. Crew Status Crew descriptions, experience levels, and experience points may be viewed in this area. You can scroll through the crew by using the arrow keys. 5. Psychometric Research This toggles your Psychometry officer's research status. Researching will increase their knowledge base, or experience points. Do this whenever possible. 6. Crew Communication Talking to the crew can help you, the captain, remember your objective as well as helping you to understand your ship and the universe around you. The crew are privy to a wealth of information and to access that knowledge you have but to ask. Depending on the races you have encountered and the number of times of you have encountered them the crew will have different things to say about each. Race names are a good starting keyword for questioning. Most other subjects will arise from those topics. Once you are in this area you have but to select the crew member you want to talk to. Their storage light will turn red and their image will appear in the center of the screen. You may then enter keywords of interest. To speak to another crew member just select the one you wish to address. Engineering 1 Damage Control 2 Shield Status 3 Weapon Status 4 Weapon Config. 5 Computer Logs 6 Engineering Rsrch. 7 Bot Control 8 Component Creation 9 Cargo Inventory 1. Damage Control No system is infallible. Things wear out; they break down. If you're particularly agressive things may even get blown up. In any case, you're going to want to repair the damage. Dealing with damage is done through this cube function. When accessed, the engineering team listing should appear on the right side of the Primary Display. Above this you should also appear a control bar with 8 buttons. Of these pay attention to the three labeled Team 1, Team 2, and Team 3. These three will take you to the list of ship systems. To the right of this list are the respective damage values for each system. If all values are zero everything is fine, throw yourself a party. More often than not these won't be zero. In that event you'll want to set your engineering teams to work. To begin repair on a damaged system it's a simple matter of selecting the team from the menu at the top and then choosing a damaged system from the list. If a team is occupied with another task (constructing a device, researching an artifact) that team number will be to the left of OTHER. This is at the bottom of the list. Once you have given your orders you can clear this menu by selecting CLS from the button bar at the top of the screen. 2. Shield Status Since the time of the first war man has had to fashion tools of death. Against these tools man has had to defend himself with shields, however crude. While shields are no longer fashioned from bone and skins they still exist in one form or another. This function allows you to install a shield or to adjust the power levels of your current shield. When activated a shield menu should appear on the right side of the Primary Display. At the top of this display should be the name of the active shield and immediately below that should be the percentage of shield damage. You should also see three gauges showing the power levels for the different alert modes. The first of these is the REST mode, the second is the ALERT mode and the third is COMBAT mode (for more info on ship modes see Main Screen controls.) Clicking on the gauge will set the power level for that particular ship mode. Clicking on the shield icon in the button bar above the shield menu will change the shield menu to the shield description and installation menu. Below the active shield name you should see a list of four attributes: Sys. Damage, Max. Energy, Protection, and Cargo Size. System Damage is a redundant. It has the same meaning as in the main shield menu display. Maximum Energy is the amount of Energy the shield will require when at maximum power. With the most powerful shields it is a good idea not to leave the shield very high as it will tend to drain large amount of power from the auxiliary power supply. Protection is the total number of damage points a shield can deflect before damage is taken by the ship itself. The bigger the better. It is important to note that the total number of shield points will be split among the different damage types. The damage types and how the percentages affect the damage absorption can be seen below. Cargo Size is, as it suggests, the number of cubic meters the shield occupies when uninstalled. Below all this on the shield menu you should see the picture of the shielding device next two four bar graphs. These graphs represent the percentage breakdowns for each damage type. The damage types are as follows: (P) Psionic Damage affects the viability of the personality containment matrices. Life support will be the first thing to go if the ship takes a major hit from a psionic weapon. The same can be said for your opponents. (P) Particle Damage is taken from cannons which fire particle streams, whether it be electron, proton, or neutron based. Particle Damage can also be the result of some device which corrupts the make up of matter itself. While the latter is often more destructive a good shield can still take the brunt of the attack. (I) Inertial Damage is the result of an explosive weapon. Missles or weapons of an explosive nature will result in Inertial Damage. Retroexplosive hull coatings and advanced kinetodispersive barriers render such technology harmless. (E) Energy Damage is taken from energy bolt weapons such as the whip. Weapons such as these seek to fry the components of enemy computer systems. While this is all fine and good if it is the other guy you won't want it happening to you. If at all possible have a shield with at least a nominal amount of Energy Damage protection. From this area you may also install another shield. If a shield other than the reflective hull is installed you will have to uninstall the current shield before installing a new one. Uninstalling Shields When in the secondary shield menu you should see a plug-and-outlet icon in the button bar. Clicking on the plug in the out position will allow you to 'unplug' your current shield. Installing Shields Once you have no active shield you can continue by clicking on the plug-in-the-socket in the button bar. This will allow you to pick the shield from those in your cargo that you wish to install. 3. Weapon Status When this function is first activated a list will appear on the right hand side of the Primary Display. This list will contain all of the weapons that are currently installed on your ship. Clicking the right arrow will show you a breakdown of the weapon selected and, to scroll through the list while in this mode, click up or down. The values given for each weapon are identical in meaning to those given for shields except for Damage. It is obvious that this value represents the amount of damage inflicted to the enemy instead of the damage shielded. 4. Weapon Configuration Selecting this function will bring up a layout of your ship's gun nodes. This is the Weapon Configuration menu and should fill the majority of the Primary Display. From this area you may install or remove weapons from your ship's hull. Installing a weapon Start by selecting a gun node without a weapon already installed in it. (Gun nodes are the locations along your ship hull at which a weapon may be placed.) An empty node will appear as an black grey square on the Weapon Configuration menu. Select one of these nodes. A selected node will have a red border along its edge. After you have an empty node selected you should select the plug- in-socket icon from the button bar above the Weapon Configuration menu. This will take you to a list of weapons available in your cargo hold. You will begin the game with no weapons installed. Fortunately you have a Dirk in your cargo hold. It would be a good idea to install it as soon as possible. Later in the game (hopefully) you will have constructed other weapons. These will appear in the list at the left. The right side of the display will provide you with a breakdown of the highlighted weapon (see Weapon Status). Once the item you want installed is highlighted, you may proceed with the installation by again selecting the plug-in-socket icon from the button bar. Removing a weapon Perhaps you want to remove a weapon from your hull so that you can put another in its place, perhaps keeping the engineering teams busy amuses you, or perhaps your encode has lost integrity and you've gone mad... regardless of your reasoning you've decided that you want to remove a weapon. Select the weapon you want to remove from those shown in the Weapon Configuration menu. To remove the selected weapon choose the plug-out-of-socket icon from the button bar. You will be asked if you want to proceed with the removal. Better have a good reason to be removing that weapon. If it's your only one you'll have a lot of explaining to do to the crew. You never know when you'll be attacked, or by whom. (For mindless violence see Battle) 5. Computer Logs As the captain, you make a note to enter into this virtual logbook all the events of potential interest. This command will take you to a list of these entries. Clicking on an entry title will begin Query Mode which allows you to read the associated file. To get back to the log entry list when in this mode simply toggle Query Mode off by selecting the question mark near the top right of the screen. To scroll through the list of entries while in Query Mode use the arrow keys on the screen. 6. Engineering Research This toggles your Engineering officer's research status. Researching will increase their knowledge base, or experience points. Do this whenever possible. 7. Bot Control Any items in the planetary cache may be retrieved through this function. By choosing the out-of-the-box-arrow in the button bar above this menu, any highlighted items will be retrieved by a probot. You may also send items to the planet's surface by clicking on the into-the-box- arrow in the button bar. This will bring up your cargo list. Highlight the item you want to send down and choose the into-the-box-arrow a second time. This will send a probot down with the item. Placing Bots To send down a minebot or manufactory to process materials for later retrieval, merely click on the Bot icon at the far right of the button bar. Due to the difficulty of processing foreign ores and working in hostile alien environments it will take a minimum of one full cycle before any ores or materials can be processed. In general you will have to leave a system and return to it before your bot will show progress. Once the planetary cache is full the bots on that planet will produce no more materials. It will be necessary to remove those items before production can continue. Retrieving Bots When you first enter the Bot Menu click on the bot icon on the far right of the button bar. This will allow you to retrieve any bots that you have placed on the surface below. 8. Component Creation (Big guns... BIG guns... BIG &#@ GUNS!!!) "Screw diplomacy! I wanna kill something!" While this is a common saying it is a hollow statement unless you've got the guns to back your agression obsession. In order to build that awesome arsenal you'll have to start here, in the Component Creation screen. The best way to learn how to use this interface is to actually use it. A Brief Walk Through Let's say you've just begun your mission. For some strange reason you think it is vital that engineering analyze the components of a weapon in your cargo hold. In fact, it's the only weapon in your cargo hold (perhaps that's why you think it vital to analyze it.) Regardless of your reasoning, the first step in decomposing a device is selecting the Decomposing button from the top left of the interface. The light next to that button should change to green, indicating that you are now in Decompose Mode. Below that button you should now see a list of items colored bright white. These are the items in your cargo hold that you can disassemble. The weapon that we are looking for is the Dirk. Select it from the list using your pointer. Once it has been highlighted you should see it listed under Current Project on the far right of the screen. At the top of this screen you should see the Item Status area. This area provides you with a readout of any shield or weapon selected (for more info on this function see Weapon Status and Shield Status.) We wanted to analyze the Dirk. A brief description of its function is given at the bottom left of the screen. The description of any item selected can be found in this area. If you want to disable this feature you can toggle Query Mode off by selecting the question mark button at the top left. If the light is red Query Mode is off. Go ahead and click it again. We'll want that light green so we'll know the descriptions of what we are selecting. Now we have a description of the Dirk, but we don't know what it's made of. When an item is selected the three parts which comprise it are given to the immediate left of Current Project. If Dirk is still selected we should see the three parts: StrataMount, Ion Cache, and Flux Lens. If we wanted to, we could proceed with disassembling the Dirk. Disassembling/Decomposing Items Under Assign/Inspect Teams we can choose an engineering team to do the work. If a team has a red light next to them they are busy. You can Inspect the work of a busy team by selecting that team with the pointer. Their task should appear beneath Current Project. Make sure you are in Decompose mode by checking the light next to that button; it should be green. Next, select a free engineering team. The item will vanish from your cargo as your engineering teams pull it out to take it apart. To check the progress of your team you can click on them again (make sure they are busy before you select them; selecting a free team will put that team to work decomposing whatever else you highlighted!) As a team progresses you will see the green bar grow beneath the item in Current Project. When this bar reaches the full length of the box the task will be completed. Rejoice! You've just decomposed you're only weapon. The crew is beginning to think you've gone quite mad. You've just taken apart the only weapon you had on board. It would be a good idea to put that weapon back together before they erase you (see Assembling/Integrating Items.) It's a pity that when you first start the mission your crew lacks the ability to build Dirks (i.e. You can't put it back together again once it's disassembled. If you were foolish enough to actually take it apart and you really can't put it back together just restore the game.) Once the item is completely decomposed you'll want to go back into Integration Mode. Check the light next to the Integrate button. Is it green? Make it so. A list of items you can manufacture will appear below. As your crew's knowledge base increases so will your ability to create bigger and better armaments. In the beginning that list is fairly small but each time a crew member increases his or her knowledge base it is a good idea to check the list again... you never know what the crew will design next. I don't know nuffin' bout' no devices... what's what? Regardless of the creation mode you are in you can color code the cargo list in the Component Creation screen by selecting the Clr Code button beneath the cargo list. All items fall into three classes: Materials, Components, and Devices. When the Clr Code status light is green the items in the list above it will be color coded as follows: Materials: Brown Components: Light Blue Devices: Blue -Materials are processed from raw ores and minerals from a planets surface. This can be done by dropping a minebot. -Components are processed from materials. They are more complex than materials but still serve no direct purpose. These can be created by dropping a manufactory to a planet's surface. -Devices are made up of components and, sometimes, other devices. Devices include shields, weapons and ship upgrades. For every item that exists it requires three primary components to manufacture it. Here is a brief list of devices and components that you can eventually construct as well as the complete list of materials. Weapons PART #1 PART #2 PART#3 Relative Worth LEVELS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dirk StrataMount Ion Cache Flux Lens 58 1 2 2 3 2 1 Scimitar Dirk Solonoid Ion Cache 98 1 2 3 4 3 2 Broadswor Scimitar Scimitar StrataMount 218 2 2 4 4 4 2 Claymore Broadsword Steoplast Plasm Inverter 271 3 2 4 5 4 3 Blackjack Solonoid Flux Lens Pulse Loom 58 2 2 4 3 3 2 Whip Blackjack Ion Cache Flux Lens 98 2 3 4 4 4 3 Short Bow Solonoid Solonoid Vac-Feeder 71 2 2 3 5 4 1 Long Bow Short Bow Guidance Strut Duct Battery 111 3 2 4 5 5 2 Light Rai Disei Conduit Steoplast Vac-Feeder 97 4 3 4 4 5 3 Shields ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ReflectHu Steoplast Steoplast Polymers 73 1 1 3 3 3 1 Quart. Sh Solonoid Solonoid Plasm Inverter 60 2 1 5 5 5 1 Misc. Devices ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Probot Data Board Duct Battery StrataMount 58 1 1 1 1 1 1 Minebot Probot Cyberplasm Masking Pod 111 3 1 2 3 2 3 Manufacto Minebot Disei Conduit Mulroid 164 1 2 1 2 3 1 Fuel Nodu Radioactives Strange Particl Heavy Element 15 1 1 1 1 1 1 Reinforce Torque Stanchi Metal Weave Guidance Stru 84 2 2 2 2 2 2 Inc. Thru Dirk Dirk Pulse Loom 138 2 2 2 2 2 2 Add Cargo Guidance Strut StrataMount Torque Stanch 84 2 2 2 2 2 2 Ins. Gun Stasis Generat Stasis Generato Thynne Vortex 563 4 4 4 4 4 4 Mind Enha Proto-Nutrient Cyberplasm Biosynth 71 1 1 1 1 1 1 Components ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Solonoid Magnetics Coolants Heavy Ions 18 1 1 1 1 1 1 Data Boar Ceramics Liquid Gases Coolants 18 1 1 1 1 1 1 CyberPlas Organics Medicants Electrolytes 18 3 1 2 3 2 3 Disei Con Flux Lens Solvents Electrolytes 31 3 1 2 3 3 3 SteoPlast Metal Weave Heavy Ions Polymers 31 2 1 2 2 2 2 Flux Lens Crystals Magnetics Polymers 18 2 1 3 2 2 2 Metal Wea Conductants Radioactives Ceramics 18 2 1 2 2 3 2 Pulse Loo Polymers Alien Compounds Radioactives 18 2 1 2 3 2 4 Biosynth Organics Proto-Nutrient Protoplasm 31 4 1 2 4 4 2 Plasm Inv Crystals Electrolytes Alien Isotope 18 3 1 3 2 1 2 Grav-Coup Pulse Loom Radioactives Strange Parti 31 2 2 3 3 2 2 Torque St StrataMount Guidance Strut Ceramics 44 2 2 2 3 2 2 Vac-Feede Heavy Ions Oxidants Solonoid 31 2 2 3 2 3 2 Mulroid Esper Seeds Coolants Alien Isotope 18 4 1 1 3 1 4 Proto-Nut Protoplasm Organics Medicants 18 4 1 2 4 4 2 Duct Batt Conductants Magnetics Ceramics 18 2 1 3 2 2 1 Masking P Flux Lens Crystals Polymers 31 3 3 5 3 2 1 Guidance Heavy Ions Conductants Magnetics 18 1 2 2 2 3 1 StrataMou Heavy Ions Solvents Magnetics 18 1 3 2 2 2 1 Ion Cache Polymers Magnetics Liquid Gases 18 3 2 3 3 3 2 Materials ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protoplas Amino Acid Carboxylic acid Amine 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Polymers Alkene Alkene Industrial Ch 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Crystals Lensing Solid Lensing Solid Strong Acid 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Oxidants Base Transition Meta Protic liquid 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Esper See Lensing Solid Heavy Element Industrial Ch 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Heavy Ion Transition Met Transition Meta Strong Acid 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Coolants Halogens/Noble Ether Aldehydes/Ket 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Solvents Strong Acid Strong Acid Strong Acid 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Electroly Base Base Strong Acid 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Organics Amino Acid Amino Acid Amine 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Alien Iso Heavy Element Transition Meta Lensing Solid 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Conductan Halogens/Noble Transition Meta Alkyne 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Magnetics Industrial Che Transition Meta Heavy Element 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Radioacti Heavy Element Heavy Element Industrial Ch 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Liquid Ga Halogens/Noble Halogens/Noble Aldehydes/Ket 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Medicants Amino Acid Volatile compou Alkyne 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Ceramics Industrial Che Transition Meta Lensing Solid 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Alien Com Heavy Element Heavy Element Amino Acid 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Strange P Heavy Element Heavy Element Transition Me 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 Worthless Worthless Junk Worthless Junk Worthless Jun 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Assembling/Integrating Items Once you are in Integrate Mode you can choose from the item list something that you would like to create. While you may highlight anything you like from the list, you may only manufacture those items which are bright white. When you have highlighted an item it will appear beneath Current Project. The three parts that comprise that item are to the left of that. If an item is listed as red you do not have it. If it is green you do have it. If all three items that comprise it are green, rejoice! You can create that item if you wish! To create an item that is selected (and for which you have the parts) select a free engineering team and go to work. 9. Cargo Inventory In the center of this screen is the Cargo Door which opens immediately after this function is accessed. To view only certain cargo types you may filter out those you don't wish to see by clicking on the box of the appropriate cargo type. To bring those items back into the viewed list just click that same cargo type name. Jettisoning Cargo. Choosing the arrow-and-box icon will allow you jettison any unwanted cargo. This may become necessary from time to time if you have accumulated a large number of bulky items. An alternative this may be decomposing that bulky item. Unfortunately, if the cargo hold is full of these items it may be impossible to decompose that item without losing some of the components. In general it is a good idea to keep a close track on your space used and your cargo size allowance. No one wants throw anything away, especially if it's a valuable device. Printouts of the Cargo Manifest The chief function of this screen is the control pad to the right of the Cargo Door. If a printer is connected to your computer you may print out a complete breakdown of your cargo manifest. This list includes material, component, and device categorizations as well as space allowance in cubic meters. Science 1 Short Range Scans 2 Long Range Scans 3 System Layout 4 Planetary Scans 5 Science Research 6 Star Log 1. Short Range Scans Short Range Scans provide you with a scan of all space within 8M km. Incoming ships will set the scanners red when they come within 3M km. This scan should appear in the left side of the Primary Display with a scanning circle radius growing and shrinking as cyclic scans are completed. 2. Long Range Scans Long Range Scans appear on the left side of the Primary Display. These scans are much less intensive but cover a much greater area. Ambient signals appear in the upper rectangle. When a salient signal appears as the result of an alien ship you will see an unmoving blip. Proximity to solar bodies may obscure this blip with static. If you are near to a sun it is better to rely on short range scans as they are much more reliable. The maximum scan distance for the long range scanner sweeps is 20M km. 3. System Layout This function causes the active system map to fill the Primary Display. It is from the system map that you may choose the other planets in the system you wish to travel to. Basic information such as the number of visits, and the number of bots on the surface of a world can be displayed by selecting the Star Log icon from the button bar above the System Layout map (the second from the right.) To stop the System Layout rotation select the Halt button to the right of the Star Log icon. 4. Planetary Scans In the center of this screen a flat map of the planet should appear. To the left of the planet layout should be five buttons, each labeled with the different types of scans your probots may perform. (Land) Lithospheric Scans (Sea) Hydrospheric Scans (Air) Atmospheric Scans These scans are particularly useful when determining what materials could be processed from a planet. You'll want to perform these scans if you are looking to drop a minebot or manufactory. (Life) Biospheric Scans This type of scan is useful when you want to know the specifics of the lifeforms on a planet. This is the only way to determine the type and TechLevel of intelligent lifeforms when they are encountered planet side. Tech Levels: 0.1-1.0 Developing Primitive Social Schemas 1.1-2.0 Early Imperialism 2.1-3.0 Industrialization 3.1-4.0 Global Networking 4.1-5.0 Extraplanetary Imperialism 5.1-6.0 Intersteller Imperialism 6.1-7.0 Multidimensional Travel 7.1-8.0 Psychoportation and Mass/Energy Matriculation (Anom) Anomaly Scans If you have only time for one scan this would be the one to perform. This scan will search for any materials, components, or artifacts immediately available on the planet's surface. Points of green light will appear on the surface where anomalies occur (if they occur.) To retrieve these items you will have to tell the probots where to return to. You will have to zoom into the area using the sky-cam. Select '+' twice for a full zoom, then select the area on the map where the anomaly occurred. If red messages appear in the zoom screen you are properly centered on the item. If the red dot is on the zoom screen but red messages don't appear, you aren't properly centered. Fine tune your position by using the arrow keys. Once you are centered on the item and the red messages appear, select the retrieve button from the bottom right of the screen. In an instant the item will have been acquired. General Scan Info It requires only two probes to perform any complete scan. To initiate another scan just select the scan you want to perform. As each scan is completed relevant information will appear in the Info Box at the bottom left. To scan through these lists choose the Prv or Nxt buttons to the right of the Info Box. To get back to the scan status list select the button between Prv and Nxt. When all five scans are completed a full planetary description will appear where the planet layout was. This description will tell you all there is to know about that planet. Planetary Evolution State Time Frame (yrs) Tech Level ------------------------------------------------------------- 0 Gaseous a. Nebula 1 Billion No Life b. Gas Giant 1 Billion No Life c. Heavy Atmosphere 500 M No Life 1 Active a. Volcanic 500 M Simple Proteins b. Semi-Vol. 400 M Single Celled Plants c. Land Formation 300 M Single Celled Animals 2 Stable a. Land & Water 200 M Vascular Plants b. Slight Veg. 150 M Multicelled Animals c. Med. Veg. 150 M 0 3 Ea. Life a. Heavy Veg. 15 M 0 b. Med. Veg. 10000 1 c. Med. Veg. 8000 2 4 Adv. Life a. Med. Veg. 4000 3 b. Slight Veg. 2000 4 c. No vegetation 4000 5 5 Dying a. Ruins 3000 No Life b. Med. Veg. 8000 No Life c. Dead Rock ? No Life 6 Dead a. Radiation 200000 No Life b. Astoroid ? No Life c. Null ? No Life 7 Star a. Yellow X No Life b. Red X No Life c. White X No Life In addition several other changes may take place: 5b to 2c 2c to 5c 3a to 5b All planets have the potential to change state or mode to the next one in the list. Years over a certain amount are broken down into smaller time frames with a random chance of occuring. Ie. 100 M into 1000 x 100000 with a 1 in 1000 chance every 100000 yrs. Game time is actually accelerated to induce more changes to the system. A planet changing state or mode destroys probots/minebots, cache, and info collected on the planet. You can get back to the planet view by selecting Anom from the buttons on the left. 5. Science Research This toggles your Science officer's research status. Researching will increase their knowledge base, or experience points. Do this whenever possible. 6. Star Logs Selecting the Star Log icon will activate the Star Logs info menu. This menu should appear in the right side of the Primary Display. The highest level of the menu is the star system names list. Moving to the right through this display will take you to the more specific levels of data Those levels are as follows System Names System Info Planet Orbit Planet Info Scrolling up and down in any of these modes will take you to the different stars or planets in that particular list. To return in the list to the system you are currently in select the Home icon from the button bar above the Star Log info menu. Selecting the System Layout icon from the button bar will take you immediately to the Planet Info level of the Star Log info menu. Security 1 Raise Shields 2 Arm Weapons 3 Evade Enemy 4 Mask Ship 5 Security Research 6 Attack Enemy 1. Raise Shields Raising Shields will take the ship into Combat Mode and will power your shield to the Combat shield level. As with weapons powering your shields may initially use a great deal of auxiliary power but if your enemy is quick it may be necessary to go in protected from the beginning. Selecting Raise Shields again will lower the shields. This will drop you into Alert Mode if the weapons are not armed or you will stay in Combat mode if the weapons are still armed. 2. Arm Weapons Arm Weapons will take the ship into Combat Mode and will fully power all installed weapons. While this may drain a significant portion of your auxiliary power it may be good idea to have weapons powered before you begin an important battle. Waiting for your weapons to power while the enemy draws near is not fun. 3. Evade Enemy Evade Enemy will have your flight engineers attempt to do just that. If it is possible to escape an alien ship this command will allow you to get out of their scan range. 4. Mask Ship The Mask Ship command will order engineering to mask all emissions from the ship in an attempt to make the ship 'invisible' While the ship is not truly cloaked it is certainly difficult to scan and almost impossible to track when in this mode. Enemies will usually drift away when you are in this mode. 5. Security Research This toggles your Security officer's research status. Researching will increase their knowledge base, or experience points. Do this whenever possible. 6. Attack Enemy Attack Enemy will order the ship toward whatever enemy vessels are nearest you and will proceed to engage them in battle. BATTLE!!! There are a lot of buttons. Complex commands scare me. Not to worry. As always, the commands for your ship are easier than they appear. We've got Battle Display, TargetBox, Weapon Configuration, and Status Bars. Battle Display The Battle Display is filled with a dark starfield. You are at the center of it and are surrounded by the scan perimeter which appears as a pulsing blue circle. The Battle Plane The Battle Plane is the plane that your ship flies in. The Battle Plane is always stationary relative to you. The movements and positions of other vessels will be tracked in relation to this Battle Plane. Ships will appear as white points while their projections on the plane will appear as dark red dots. For clarity a shadow line is drawn between the ship and its projection. In other words, the longer the shadow line the higher/lower that ship is from your plane of flight. ThrustPad The ThrustPad controls your movement through the BattlePlane. The controls are straight forward (up arrow=forward, down arrow=backward, etc.) TargetBox The TargetBox is in the lower left quarter of the battle screen. This display will tell you all you need to know about alien ships. When you enter battle the TargetBox will be in Data Mode. Alt The Alt button at the bottom of the battle screen will toggle the TargetBox between Data Mode and Visual Mode. Data Mode: What this means is that when ships are targeted on the Battle Display bar graphs of that ship's power levels and system damages will appear here. These graphs appear in the following order (from left to right). Levels (DMG) Hull Damage (LIF) Life (PWR) Power (SHD) Shield Damages (P) Power (S) Shield (W) Weapons (E) Engines (L) Life Support (C) Communications (C) CPU These values are the same as those on your own ship all are explained in greater detail below (see Primary and Auxiliary Status Bars). Visual Mode: When the TargetBox is in Visual Mode you will see a vid clip of the target vessel at the left of the TargetBox. Above that should be other information about the ship. From top to bottom that list is as follows: Race The race indicator will tell you which alien empire you're clashing horns with. Ship Type (and ship index) Depending on the estimated weaponry and hull strength the ship's computer will attempt to classify alien vessels in one of 15 categories (in order of least to greatest). Shuttle Scout Fighter Assault Scout Patrol Craft Corvette Frigate Lt. Destroyer Hv. Destroyer Lt. Cruiser Hv. Cruiser Battle Cruiser Flagship Battleship Dreadnaught The ship index (the letter that follows a ship's type) distinguishes between the different ships as they approach you. Each ship has a different index letter. The index for a ship will stay constant throughout a battle. Range This is the targeted ship's distance from your ship in thousands of Kilometers (k km). Tech Level This is the estimated Tech Level of the targeted ship (see Science Planet Scan for list of Tech Levels). (Accel) Acceleration This is a rating of how many units of velocity may be accumulated per second by the targeted vessel. (Prev) Previous/Next Selecting Next will move the TargetBox through the index list of ships. Previous will move you in the opposite direction through the list. These may become useful when the enemy is tightly clumped making directly selecting them from the Battle Display difficult. Weapon Configuration This is the bottom middle of the battle screen. In this Area you should see your gun nodes and the weapons installed in them. Next to each weapon should be a green light. This light is the Power Light for that weapon. PowerUp Sequence Each time a weapon is fired the system checks to see if the Power Light is active for that weapon. If the light is green and sufficient power is available in the battery that weapon will begin powering. If the light is red after the weapon is fired that weapon will not begin to power until the light is again green. After long battles when your batteries are low it may become necessary to remove power hungry weapons from the PowerUp Sequence. This leaves your batteries free to power less powerful weapons which can fire more frequently. Ultimately, what weapons are left in the PowerUp Sequence is up to you. Too many weapon configurations exist to explain the best technique for each. The best suggestion is to experiment with the Power Lights until you are familiar with the best setup for your ship. Firing a weapon Once power from the battery is allocated to a weapon it will begin to power. This will turn the border of the weapon icon from dark red to bright read then into dark green and eventually to bright green. If the targeted vessel located in the TargetBox is also within range of a fully powered weapon the border for that weapon will turn blue. If Active Fire is disabled you must click on the weapon before it will fire. Active Fire is explained below. Active Fire The cross-hair icon is responsible for toggling Active Fire and is located to the right of the Weapon Configuration Area beneath the word "Active." The Active Fire status bar is above the Weapon Configuration Area. When Active Fire is enabled the Active Fire status bar should be red. While this function is active all powered weapons within range of a targeted enemy will fire. For ease of play this feature is often enabled and left on for the rest of the battle. Active Scanner In order to increase the accuracy of the weapons when engaging an enemy it is possible to initiate an active scan of the ships you target. The Active Scanner toggle button is immediately to the right of the Active Fire toggle button. When enabled the Active Scanner status bar beneath the Weapon Configuration Area should be red. This function will increase your hit accuracy by 20%. Unfortunately, all those high energy ship scans have a cost. In order to pinpoint a ship you have to reveal your own position. This subsequently increases the enemy's hit accuracy by 20%. This is most useful when you've armed yourself with long range weapons or when the enemy is weakly armed. Primary Status Bars The three red bars on the right hand side of the battle screen are the Primary Status Bars. These keep you aware of your ship's most crucial system levels and damages. Those three, from right to left, are as follows. Shield Control Clicking on this bar will adjust the shield level of your ship. The higher you go on the bar the greater the allotted shield power will be. Notice the tick marker that appears near the top and to the right of the Shield Control bar. The height of this marker is the maximum power value the shield may assume. As your shield system takes more damage this marker will move down. A powered shield will continue to draw energy from your battery. For this reason, it is a good idea to keep the shield on zero power unless you are in immediate danger. Ground State Pulse Effect When your batteries have been exhausted and your shields are still powered you may experience a Ground State Pulse (GSP). Your shield power will fluctuate madly as a result. The reason for this lies behind the physics which drive your ship. The matter converters in the ship's drive core are step generators. They produce discrete packets of energy that the power buffers to the auxiliary storage batteries convert to continuous power. This is analogous to the difference between digital power and analog power. When the battery is exhausted the shield begins effectively feeding from the step generators. The resulting field instability can cause damage to the shield generator itself. The chance is small but leaving a shield in a GSP is not recommended. Auxiliary Power The second red status bar is the Auxiliary Power level. This represents the amount of power available in your batteries. For this gauge the height of the tick marker to the right of it is the maximum power the battery may store. As you take damage to this system the marker will move down reducing the amount of storable power. Keep an eye on this gauge. When it starts getting low you'll want adjust your shield level to avoid a GSP (see Ground State Pulse Effect). Hull Damage The Hull Damage is self explanatory. When this gauge reaches zero game over, adios, ciao, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Auxiliary Status Bars The Auxiliary Status Bars are located at the bottom right side of the battle screen. These status bars give you a read out of your ship systems and their associated damage levels. A list of these and the effects of damage are given below. From top to bottom they are as follows: Power Power system damage will reduce the recharge rate of your battery (i.e. auxiliary power) Shield Shield damage will reduce the maximum power that your shield may assume. Weapons Damage to the weapon systems will reduce your hit accuracy. Engines Significant engine system damage will render the engines inoperable. This is decidedly bad in combat as you will be a sitting duck. That's not bad as sitting ducks lie... but then again, I never believed a liar... it's like they always say... Life Support Significant damage to life support systems will erase backup encodes. This also very bad. Restoring your security officer after battle to regain his sanity will be impossible at that point. Obviously restoring or re-encoding your crew would be penultimately stupid following encode loss. It would be the same as saving a blank file over a good file. Dumb. Yes, very dumb. Communication Damage to communication systems will make talking with aliens impossible. CPU If the (CPU) Central Processing Unit onboard your ship is damaged many of the displays will not function correctly. Damage to the ship's computer will not kill the crew but will make most of the displays and menus difficult if not impossible to use. Zoom (+-) Above the Active Fire and Scanner buttons you will see the Zoom In/Out buttons. Zooming in and out will change the maximum scan range for the Battle Display. When enemies are very near it is useful to Zoom in, while distant enemies will only be visible from several Zooms out. Play around with these until you are familiar with their function. TimeSlice (+-) The TimeSlice control for battle is at the top right of the battle screen. The effect and control of the TimeSlice value is the same as it is for the Main Screen (see Medical, Options, TimeSlice) I've read all of this and I'm still lost. For the simplest battle control you need to remember FIVE controls: 1. Scanners and Fire Control must be active. 2. TimeSlice must be large (20 - 30) 3. Head away from everything close to you in the Battle Plane by using the ThrustPad (Run away! Run away!). 4. Set your Shield Level to one quarter of its total power. 5. Keep selecting all the vessels closest to you on the Battle Display until they are all destroyed. Beginners should use these five rules only for as long as they have to. These controls are effective against simpler enemies, but it is important to remember complex situations require complex strategies. Use these tips only as a foundation for your own schemes. 7. Release Drones This function creates a dummy enemy in the computer for you to fight in mock combat. Originally the battles from this simulation were harmless practice encounters. However, damage taken before your encodes were revived has made drone combat potentially dangerous. While the damage taken by your ship in these simulations is not physcially real the computer is unable to tell the difference. When encode containment reaches zero during mock combat the computer was to exit the combat environment. Now, the computer believes the damage it has taken has actually erased the crew. In the event of an encode breach the computer was also programmed to reload the crew from cold storage. Unfortunately only six hot slots remain for the thousands of crew back ups that exist. Confused, the computer will compress the data and stuff it into those slots anyway. This spells death for you. Take this as a warning. While drone battle is relatively inane it can be fatal. Do not attempt drone warfare unless you are armed with at least two Dirks. It is also suggested that you play in Easy mode (see Medical, Options, Difficulty) before you get yourself killed. Astrogation 1 Star Map 2 Sector Codex 3 Local Travel Hist. 4 Quick Ship Status 5 Target a System 6 Astrogation Rsrch. 7 Full Ship Status 8 Local System Info. 1. Local Area Star Map This star map will appear in the left side of the Primary Display. It will reveal all stars within a 40 light year radius. 2. Sector Codex Within the Sector Codex any star that is selected is automatically targeted. Due to the number of stars per sector the rotating sector map on the left is too dense for you to make accurate selections. You may only select a star from the x-y and y-z plane views. Selecting the engage engines icon will take you to whatever location you have selected without the targeting procedure. Origin: This button will return you to your present location within the Sector Codex. X-Loc, Y-Loc, and Z-Loc: These are your X, Y, and Z coordinates (respectively). You can enter coordinates into these by selecting the number area with your pointer. When inputting coordinates from log entries the Sector Codex will take you as close to that system as possible. The targeting computer is fallible, however. It may be necessary to select the system from the x-y and y-z plane views once you know a star's approximate position. Sectors (1-8): These buttons allow you to view the areas you have explored in the eight sectors that make up the local star cluster. Arrow Keys: These keys will allow you to change the perspective of the rotating sector map. Travel Log: This button will provide you with a history of the sector you have selected. White stars in the sector map are those you have been to. Red stars in the sector map are those you have seen in the Local Area Star Map but have not travelled to. The Scans Completed gauge in this area is not entirely accurate. As planets age and fall into new stages of development so do their scans become out of date. This percentage may be smaller than you thought it should be. The percent difference is a result of these changes. Sector Map: Selecting this button will take you out of the Travel Log Mode. If you aren't in this mode when you select this button nothing will happen. 3. Local Travel History Local Travel History is not a true path of travel. What it will tell you is the order in which you have visited the stars in the Local Area Star Map. 4. Quick Ship Status Quick Ship Status will give you the info associated with the Alert Bulbs on the right of the main screen. This is a list of hull integrity, primary power, auxiliary power, and shield power levels. You may also access this screen by selecting the Alert Bulbs themselves in the Main Screen. 5. Target a System To target a system you must have selected a system from either the Local Area Star Map or the Local System Info menu. When a system from either of these is selected you may then enter that system into the targeting computer by selecting this function. Once a location is targeted you may travel to it by engaging the engines from the button bar at the top of the Primary Display. 6. Astrogation Research This toggles your Astrogation officer's research status. Researching will increase their knowledge base, or experience points. Do this whenever possible. 7. Full Ship Status Full Ship Status will give you a breakdown of damages to the primary systems on board, the hull, fuel, and cargo statuses as well as the ship coordinates. 8. Local System Information This is the sister display to Local Area Star Map. When both displays are active they affect each other. Scrolling through the list of stars in the Local System Information menu will cause the target circle on the Local Area Star Map to move from star to star depending on the one selected. This menu has two primary functions which are as follows: Printouts of all visited systems Selecting the Printer icon from the far right of the button bar will provide you with a complete printout of all stars you have visited. As with the Cargo printer function you must have a printer on-line and connected to your computer for this to work. Targeting stars and engaging engines To move to another star you must first target the system you wish to travel to. Each star in the list has a distance in light years to the right of it. Stars whose distance value is white are within travelling distance (i.e. you have the fuel to get there). Select a star from this list that is within your reach. To target that system select the arrow-and-x icon from the button bar. To travel to a targeted system select the engage engines icon from the button bar. Medical 1 Game Options 2 Begin Time Burst 3 Clear All Displays 4 Save Game 5 Load Game 6 Medical Research 7 Encode Crew Member 8 Decode Crew Member 9 Quit to Dos 1. Game Options The Notepad icon will bring up a list of features that you can change about the interface. Screen Saver (On/Off) When this function is on and the system is idle for 750 loops through the main routine (750 loops is officially defined to be "a little while" in Channel7- ese) Time Slice (1-250) The Time Slice is the delay in milliseconds that is inserted into each scan cycle. Suffice it to say that increasing the Time Slice slows the program down. Depending on the speed of your machine you'll need to change the value of the Time Slice accordingly (66Mhz = 35, 50Mhz = 20, MHz = 10, MHz = 0). Sound (On/Off) This turns the sound for music and sound effects on or off depending on the setting. If you're machine is particularly slow you may want to turn the sound off to get better performance. Difficulty (Min/Avg/Max) Difficulty effectively changes your ability in battle. General Messages (None/Some/All) This function controls the crew alert messages (i.e. when a device is complete, when artifact research is completed, etc.) None: When you are not in the Main Screen your crew will not report to you. Some: When you are not in the Main Screen your crew will not directly report to you, but will instead put there messages into the Info Box at the bottom left of the Main Screen. All: The crew will report to you all the time regardless of where you are in the interface. Messages will also be sent to the Main Screen Info Box. Animation (On/Off) This function turns Animation off and on depending on the setting (this includes cube and planet rotation.) As with Sound, Animation may need to be disabled if you are running a slow machine. Every effort was made to make the game playable on a machine as slow as a 386 running at 25 MHz. In most cases either Animation or Sound will function on a slow machine but not both at the same time. Sorry. Font Style (Iron/Clean/Block) This feature will allow you to choose between three font styles. Play around and see which ones you like. Auto-Save (On/Off) When the Auto-Save feature is active you will be prompted to save your game each time you travel to a new system. If you like to save frequently this is a nice feature. If a save prompt constantly appearing annoys you, we suggest you turn Auto-Save off. Volume (0-64) This adjust the volume level of sound effects and music. (0 = no sound, 64 = max. volume) 2. Begin Time Burst This command will cause 1/2 days to pass. This is often useful if you have a large device that you need completed. Devices of this nature often take several days to complete. 3. Clear All Displays This command will clear any active displays from the Primary Display. 4. Save Game Used to store your progress. 5. Load Game Used to restore past games that you have saved. 6. Medical Research This toggles your Medical officer's research status. Researching will increase their knowledge base, or experience points. Do this whenever possible. 7,8 Encode/Decode Crew Member (see Psychometry, Psychological Evaluation) 9. Quit to Dos This command will exit the game and take you directly to a DOS prompt. If you've made important changes to your mission be sure you've saved the game before you make this selection. Saving your artifacts until the end is a better idea... the experience you gain as a result of researching an artifact is a percentage of your total knowledge base!! Da' Credits The Core Team Code Master: Robert W.Morgan III World Design: Jeremy Holt Sound Team Soundtrak: Andrew G. Sega a.k.a. Necros of the Psychic Monks Sound Code: Otto Chrons Sound Effects: Robert W.Morgan III Grafix Art Team The Interface: Jeremy Holt Aliens: PJ Beachem The Scavengers: Chris Tallent Design Assistants Babble: Chris P. Cash Rocks and Minerals: Scott Davis Planetologist: Jeff Smith Jeff's Sidekick: Alex Boster Writing Team Conversations: Jeremy Holt Maniacal Plotting: Jeff Smith Documentation Team Words: Webster Punctuation: Alfredo Withemstoe Dangling Participle: Mike Botts Quality Assurance Team Fanatic Devotees: Mike Matheny, P.J. Beachem, Jeff Smith, Alex Boster, Amy Butler, Ben Vandergrift, Those other weird guys. Disclaimer All rights reserved. No modifications, disassembly, and reverse engineering of this program and/or documentation is allowed. This package is copyright March 13, 1994 by Channel 7. The authors make no representations, express or implied, with to respect to this documentation or the software it describes, including without limitations, any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, all of which are expressly disclaimed. Users should be aware that included in the terms and conditions under which Channel 7 is willing to license Ironseed is a provision that the author and their distribution licensees, distributors, and dealers shall in no event be liable for any indirect, incidental, or coincidental damages and that liability for direct damages shall be limited to the amount of the purchase price paid for Ironseed. In addition to the foregoing, users should recognize that all complex software systems and their documentation contain errors and omissions. The author shall not be responsible under any circumstance for providing information on or correction to errors and omissions discovered at any time in this documentation or the software it describes, whether or not they are aware of the errors or omissions. The authors do not recommend the use of the software described in this documentation for applications in which errors or omissions could threaten life, injury, or significant loss.