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INSTRUCT.DOC
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1992-11-10
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NOVA STRIKE 2.1
Nova Strike is a space flight simulation combat game. The object of the game
is to develop the flying skills and tactics necessary to destroy all the enemy
ships. You are given only one ship which has superior performance and weapons
to accomplish this. Among the changes in this new version are: improved radar
range, better flight stick response and support of the mouse buttons. This game
requires a 286 or greater, 240k available memory, VGA graphics and a mouse.
BEGINNING OF GAME
When game begins all ships will be positioned near one of their bases. Each
side has three bases. The position of these bases are randomly chosen each
game. Only one of the three bases will begin the game with its location known
to the opposing side. The other two are secret until a ship from the opposing
side comes within radar range of them.
DIFFICULTY LEVELS
There are 2 difficulty levels. The levels correspond to the number of enemy
ships per base when the game begins. The second level is geometrically harder
than the first.
Level 1 - 3 enemy ships.
Level 2 - 6 enemy ships.
PRACTICE GAME
This game allows you practice. For this the beginning of the game is
altered so that you begin near two enemy ships and one of their bases. The
purpose is to allow you to practice using the weapons before playing a real
game. Remember that this game begins with you at a favorable advantage since
the enemy ships are both in front of you and relatively close to each other.
Fighting 2 ships at once will be much more difficult in a real game.
OUTCOME
The object of the game is to destroy all the enemy ships. When either your
ship or all enemy ships are destroyed the game will end, unless there are
missiles in flight. If so, the game will continue only until they detonate.
If your ship was destroyed during this time, your keyboard and mouse will be
frozen. The game can end in a win, lose or draw.
If you win the game you will get a message in the upper left hand corner
of the screen saying that all the enemy ships were destroyed. You may continue
to fly until you hit the Esc key.
INSTRUMENT DISPLAY
When game begins you will be positioned directly behind one of your bases
and your instrument display will be on. On the right there are five horizontal
bars, they are:
VLCY - Your velocity.
ACCL - Your acceleration.
SHLD - Your shield strength.
LASR - Your laser strength.
FUEL - Your current fuel.
Directly below:
MISSILES - Your current count of missiles.
There are three circles in the middle of the screen, they are:
Left - Top down radar. Objects above you are red and objects below you
are green.
Right - 3 dimensional radar. You are given a three dimensional perspective
of where an object is in relation to your viewpoint. Objects in
front of you are green and objects behind you are red.
On both radars bases and ships are displayed constantly while
missiles blink.
Middle - The small circle between the radars is the artificial horizon. Your
roll and pitch are displayed as arcs.
LOCK - If a missile has a lock on your ship the word "LOCK" will appear
below the artificial horizon.
Finally, on the right there are:
STAR REFUELING - If you currently within the star system this will be on
and you are continuously gaining 25 units of fuel.
DIFFICULTY - The difficulty level of this game.
REMAINING BASES - The remaining enemy bases.
REMAINING SHIPS - The remaining enemy ships.
COMBAT MODE - Whether the combat mode is on or off.
ALARM - Whether the alarm is on or off.
FLIGHT OVERLAYS
At all times your flight stick, the small square and the flight stick home,
the small cross are displayed.
WEAPONS OVERLAYS
There are two types of crosshairs. One has horizontal and vertical lines
and the other is a circle with a dot in the center.
If you have a laser lock on a target a small box will appear around the
target.
If you have a missile lock on a target a small circle will appear around
the target. If you have no missiles this circle will not appear.
If you have a lock on a ship or a base it will display that targets shield
strength below it.
TACTICAL OVERLAYS
When tactical overlays are on, bases and ships are designated by triangles
and circles respectively in the following conditions:
Your bases are displayed as green triangles unless they are known to the
enemy, then they are blue.
Once you have discovered an enemy base it will be displayed as a red
triangle.
When a base is fairly close to you the triangle will not appear.
Enemy ships will have a circle around them, this aids in acquiring the ship
quickly if it is very small. If the circle is blinking it means that the ship
is out of your radar range and in the radar range of one of your bases. When a
ship is fairly close to you the circle will not appear.
STRATEGIC OVERLAYS
Strategic overlays will display a map of the entire system. Bases will be
displayed the same as in tactical overlays. The location and direction of
ships are displayed as small vectors. Your ship is yellow and enemy ships are
orange. You can change the magnification of this map and also toggle the
shield strength of your bases and any enemy bases in your radar range.
PERFORMANCE
Enemy ships have the same maximum acceleration and velocity as your ship
under normal acceleration. However, they do not have afterburners which allow
you to double your maximum acceleration and velocity.
You need to be familiar with these terms:
"maximum normal acceleration" - The maximum acceleration you are capable
of without the afterburner.
"maximum normal velocity" - The maximum velocity you are capable of
without the afterburner.
"maximum acceleration" - The maximum acceleration you are capable
of with the maximum normal acceleration
set and with the afterburner on.
"maximum velocity" - The maximum velocity you are capable of
with the maximum normal acceleration and
the afterburner on.
LASER AND SHIELD ENERGY
Energy is automatically moved between the shields and the lasers as needed.
For example, whenever the shields are below 100 percent they will transfer
laser energy to get them back up to 100 percent. If you try to fire the lasers
and there isn't enough laser energy, the energy will be taken directly from the
shields.
SHIELDS
Both ships and bases have shields. However, only ships have shields that
can regenerate. Shields take damage from missiles, lasers and in the case of
ships, collisions. Bases have stronger shields than ships . Bases take only
one half the damage that a ship would take to its shields from weapons. Once
either takes damage that takes the shield strength below 0, they are destroyed.
Ship shields are regenerated by consuming fuel.
LASER AND MISSILE LOCKS
Your laser and missile locks extend for a certain angle from your line of
sight and can even lock onto enemy missiles. The lasers of enemy ships extend
for a much smaller angle and they cannot lock onto your missiles. You must have
a lock to fire a weapon. Although you never lock on your bases, they can still
interfere with you getting a lock on something behind them. Also, there is a
certain minimum distance that a ship or base needs to be in front of you to get
a lock while you can get a lock on a missile nearly point blank. The range to
get a lock is half your radar range.
Note: Your weapons will not fire if you had a tenuous lock. That is, you did
not have a lock the next time around when the keyboard or mouse command
was processed.
LASERS
All ships have lasers. It takes eight units of energy to fire your lasers
and each shot causes ten units of shield damage. Enemy lasers take four units
of energy to fire and cause five units of shield damage. Also, enemy ships can
fire their lasers at only one third the rate your ship can. Lasers are
regenerated by consuming fuel.
MISSILES
Your ship can carry up to 5 missiles, while enemy ships can only carry up to
3 missiles. Once fired they will home in on their target even if another
ship or base comes between them and their target. Only if they lose a lock
on the target or if the target is destroyed before the missile reaches it will
a missile try to acquire a new target. Missiles can fly only a certain amount
of time after which they detonate. When missiles detonate they cause damage to
any ship or base near them regardless of what the target was. Enemy missiles
cause between 0 - 35 units of damage while your missiles cause between 0 - 70
units of damage depending on how well they intercept a ship. Other than
destroying them with your lasers, the best way to limit the damage caused by a
missile to have a high velocity and pull up or down before they hit. Also,
flying towards the missile creates a very high closing speed and makes it harder
for it to get a good intercept. One other way is to outrun a missile. This can
usually only be done at maximum acceleration.
Note: Often when you fire missiles they appear to fly off the screen. This is
because they are out of your field of vision, they are still homing in
on their targets. Also the damage mentioned above from lasers and
missiles is to the shields of ships. Bases will take less damage.
FUEL CONSUMPTION
Fuel is used for acceleration and to regenerate shields and lasers. Your
ship carries twice the fuel that enemy ships do and is able to consume fuel
twice as fast if necessary for normal acceleration and regeneration of shields
and lasers. The amount of energy that goes towards regenerating your lasers and
shields is your maximum fuel consumption minus the fuel required for your normal
acceleration. Using the afterburner does not affect this formula. Also while
you are in the star system you will gain 25 units of fuel which is enough to
maintain 25 percent of your maximum normal acceleration. Be careful not to run
out of fuel outside of the system or you will be stuck. A maximum fuel load is
approximately enough to get you from one end of the star system to the other and
back twice without using the afterburner.
RADAR
All ships and bases have radar of the same range. While bases cannot attack
an enemy ship, they do transmit the position of an enemy ship. For example, if
enemy ships are within the radar range of your base but not your ship it will be
displayed on the strategic display and tactical overlays.
COLLISIONS
If ships collide with each other they cause 1 unit of damage to each others
shields. If enemy ships collide with either themselves or you they will
maneuver to break off the collision. You do not collide with bases.
BASES
Bases are represented by two horizontal triangles. Both are gray on the
outside but yours are green on the inside and the enemies are red. Bases are
passive, they cannot attack and you cannot collide with them. They are used to
refuel and rearm. They do have radar which allows any ship on its side to know
the exact location of a ship from the opposing side whenever one comes into its
radar range. Since bases do not move once a ship from the opposing side comes
within radar range its position is known from then on.
DOCKING
To dock with a base you need to fly towards the center of it at about 1/2
your max normal acceleration. When inside it your velocity will be slowed down
to 1/5 your max normal velocity and your shields will flare green. You will
replenish your missiles and fuel. However, if you have any missiles in flight
when you are docking you can replenish your missiles only up to the number of
missiles that are not in flight. You cannot fire weapons when you are docking
and you cannot dock at an enemy base.
COMBAT MODE
Toggling combat mode on will set your maximum normal acceleration and turn
the afterburner on, set the mouse speed to alternate speed for combat and remove
bases from the radar screens. When you toggle it off your mouse speed and radar
screens will be back to normal but it is left to you to decide what new velocity
you want to set.
AFTERBURNER
Your ship has an afterburner, enemy ships do not. Using the afterburner
doubles your maximum acceleration and velocity from what normal acceleration can
provide. However the additional acceleration it generates requires twice the
fuel that the engine consumes at its normal maximum acceleration. To use the
afterburner you must have at least one unit of normal acceleration. When the
afterburner is on your velocity and acceleration bars will be missing the middle
line. This means that the scale has been doubled. Also, whenever you toggle
off the afterburner the middle line will reappear for the acceleration but if
the velocity is too high to be displayed on the normal scale the velocity will
continue to be displayed on the higher scale until the velocity decreases to
the maximum normal velocity.
STAR SYSTEM
The game takes place in a system of stars. The system is circular although
most of the stars are located in a narrow horizontal plane. It is here that all
bases are located. The stars are not active in any way except as a frame of
reference when flying and continuously supplying 25 units of fuel to any ship
within the system.
SOUND
There are different sounds for firing missiles, firing lasers, exploding
missiles, exploding ships, collisions and the alarm. The maximum distance to
hear any of these sounds is twice your radar distance except the sound of a
collision. You will only hear this sound if your ship collides with an enemy
ship.
ALARM
Using the alarm will alert you to the presence of enemy ships or bases that
come in your ships radar range. It also will alert you to enemy ships in radar
range of your bases. It enables you cruise without having to constantly look at
your radar screens or strategic displays for attack or newly discovered enemy
bases. It also warns you if you have come within range of a previously known
enemy base which you were trying to skirt around.
STRATEGY
Your basic strategy should be to fight only 1 or 2 ships at a time and then
get away as fast as possible before other ships can arrive to engage you.
Destroying bases will force enemy ships to refuel more often. Destroying
all of them will severely weaken them since they cannot replenish missiles and
fuel. Without being able to refuel at bases, enemy ships will gain fuel only
from the stars and be forced to spend most of their time cruising at very low
velocities. Destroying bases is more helpful on the second difficulty level.
TACTICS
If you are trying to escape a ship or get out far enough in front of him so
you can turn around and attack, jink up and down and left and right in a random
order. This will make it difficult for him to get laser lock on you. This is
more effective if you start jinking before the enemy ship starts firing since
by then it can match your movements fairly well.
When enemy ships are attacking your bases the tactical and stategic overlays
will display their location and you can often attack and destroy them before
they can turn around and fire their weapons at you. This assumes that you can
reach them before they leave the bases radar range or destroy the base.
To outrun a missile you usually need to be flying at your maximum velocity
and directly away from the missile.
Note: The above information on strategy and tactics are only suggestions. It
is up to you develop the strategy and tactics needed to win.
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION
If you are playing this game on a floppy disk make sure you have a backed it
up on another disk. Do not play from your only copy.
When you come up with a configuration that you like (colors, mouse speeds,
etc.) and have saved it "x", its a good idea to make a backup copy of the
configuration file "cnf". For example "copy cnf cnf.bak".
When enemy ships attack your bases they use their lasers only, they never
use their missiles.
You should spend most of your time flying at your maximum velocity. While
using the afterburner to achieve this will decrease your maximum range, it will
speed up the game and help you survive an unexpected encounter with an enemy
ship.
Try to detonate a missile soon after it is fired. This will cause damage to
the ship that fired it.
Try to avoid running out of fuel. If you do and you are in the star system
your will receive enough to maintain up to 25 percent of your maximum normal
acceleration but this would leave you extremely vulnerable to attack with little
fuel for velocity and/or regeneration of lasers and shields.
When you're upside down, objects will rotate towards you from the opposite
direction on the 2D radar.
Occasionally when you have a base lined up on the visual display and you
switch to the strategic display the vector repesenting your ship appears to be a
little off. This is because the end points of the vector rotate in a very small
group of pixels.
FILE SAVING
You can save games and the configuration. Filenames can be from 1 to 8
characters including the letters (a-z), numbers (0-9), and the underscore.
Letters are displayed as upper case even though caps lock is off. On the disk
the program will add the extension ".21" for the version of the software. You
may save as many files as you wish but the directory list can only list the
first 100. You can also save the configuration which are the defaults you are
allowed to change such as colors on the instrument display and the mouse speed.
From then on whenever you begin a new game you use the new defaults.
MOUSE
The mouse controls your flight stick. Moving the mouse backward increases
the pitch, moving it forward decreases the pitch. Moving it to the right rolls
to the left, and moving it to the left rolls to the right.
You can control both the speed of the mouse and whether the change is
arithmetic or geometric. Also, the default for the software is to read a 3
button mouse. If your mouse has only two buttons you must change the
configuration.
The left mouse button fires the missiles, just press and release it. The
middle mouse button(the right on a two button mouse) fires the lasers, keep it
pressed down as long as you want to fire.
KEYBOARD COMMANDS
q - Set acceleration to 0. 5 - Toggle afterburner.
w - Set acceleration to maximum.
e - Fire lasers.
r - Fire missile.
t - Toggle strategic display.
a - Decrease acceleration. z - Toggle instrument display.
s - Increase acceleration. x - Save configuration.
d - Decrease magnification. c - Restore default configuration.
f - Increase magnification. v - Toggle shield strength.
g - Toggle combat mode. b - Toggle tactical overlays.
F1 - Toggle alarm.
F2 - Toggle sound.
Esc - to quit, save game and quit or resume game.
Pause key will halt the game, hit the spacebar to continue.
The following keys change the configuration:
6 - Cycle instrument display color. y - Cycle radar center color.
7 - Cycle text color. u - Cycle velocity color.
8 - Cycle increment color. i - Cycle acceleration color.
9 - Cycle top of horizon color. o - Cycle shield color.
0 - Cycle bottom of horizon color. p - Cycle laser color.
- - Decrease delays. [ - Decrease mouse speed.
= - Increase delays. ] - Increase mouse speed.
h - Cycle fuel color. n - Cycle missile lock color.
j - Cycle crosshair type. m - Cycle ship overlay color.
k - Cycle crosshair color.
l - Cycle flight stick color. . - Decrease mouse combat speed.
; - Cycle flight stick home color. / - Increase mouse combat speed.
' - Cycle laser lock color.
\ - Toggle number of mouse buttons.
F7 - Toggle mouse changes.
F8 - Reverse mouse buttons(if left handed).
F9 - Cycle border color.
F10 - Cycle border type.
More detail:
6 CYCLE INSTRUMENT DISPLAY COLOR
This changes the color of the instrument display. You are prevented from
changing the color to either top or bottom horizon color.
9 0 CYCLE HORIZON COLORS
When cycling these colors you are prevented from changing them to the color
of the instrument display.
d f CHANGE MAGNIFICATION
This changes the magnification of the strategic display. The three lowest
settings magnify in respect to the center of the star system, the rest in
respect to your ship.
v TOGGLE SHIELD STRENGTH
With this on you will see the shield strength of your bases and any enemy
bases in your ships radar range.
- = DELAYS
Setting delays will slow down the game. You may use this if the game runs
to fast for your liking. The default is 0. If your system is 20 Mhz or faster
you may wish to use this.
m CYCLE SHIP OVERLAY
This is the color of the circle that surrounds and enemy ship when tactical
overlays are on.
[ ] . / CHANGING MOUSE SPEED
Changes the rate the roll, pitch and yaw change in regard to your flight
stick. The minimum value is 5 and the maximum is 25. The default is 15 for the
mouse combat speed and 10 for the normal mouse speed.
MAJOR CHANGES FROM VERSION 2.0
Radar range has been doubled.
Energy is automatically exchanged between the shields and lasers as neaded.
You can use the mouse buttons to fire the weapons instead of the keyboard.
Enemy ships have improved lasers and better combat maneuvering.
In combat mode you can now lock on enemy bases.
Some improvements to the graphics and sound.
Improved flight stick response. The farther you move the flight stick from
its home position the greater the rate of change. You can also change back to
the older arithmetic response with F7.
Fixes sound and graphics problems on some computers that were caused by bios
differences.
---- Read the instructions for all the changes. ----
FILE ERRORS
If you get an error reading a file the program will abort. Most likely
cause is that a file is missing. Also the file could be corrupted or had the
permission changed.
If you get an error writing a file the program will abort. Most likely
cause is that there is not sufficient room on the disk. Also the file could
be corrupted or had the permission changed.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
If you are a registered user of this software and have a problem or a
question, fill out the technical support form, file "tech.frm" and send along
with a stamped self-addressed envelope to:
Nova Strike Software
240 Tiki Drive
Merritt Island, FL 32953
You may print out this form using the DOS print command.
NEW VERSIONS
You can always find the most recent version of this software on Compuserve.
It will be on the IBMNEW forum under general fun and games. Simply browse for
the keywords NOVA and STRIKE.
DISTRIBUTING THIS SOFTWARE
You are free to pass the UNREGISTERED version of this program around. This
includes posting it on bulletin boards and shareware distribution lists. Please
remove any previous versions of this program, these are:
Nova Strike 1.0 - released as self-extracting file "ns10.exe"
Nova Strike 2.0 - released as self-extracting file "nova20.exe"
and zip file nova20.zip
The above file names are only the names they were released under by me.
These could have been changed by others.
If you are a shareware distributor please write me to let me know that you
are adding it to your shareware distribution list. This will put you on my
mailing list for upgrades and new programs.
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
This software is licensed solely on an "as is" basis. No warranties, either
express or implied, are made by the developer with respect to the software,
its merchantability, or its fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk
as to the quality and performance is with the licensed user of the software.
Copyright (c) 1992 Michael Kline
All Rights Reserved
