1,000 Best Games for Windows/1000BestGamesForWindows.iso/sharewarefin/STARS.ZIP/README20.TXT

Text File | 1996-02-24 | 25KB | 580 lines

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General outline of the new Stars! 2.0 features: Nov 20, 1995
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Universe creation:

  Advanced options:
    Beginner: Unlimited Minerals.  All planets begin with 40,000kT of each
      mineral.  Mineral densities are also improved.  Option unbalances game
      play, but makes things easier for beginning players who don't want to
      deal with resource allocation.
    Public Player Scores.  After 20 years all players scores are known to
      all other players.

  Winning conditions:
    Each of the values has a spinner next to it to adjust it.
    Conditions:
      Owns X% of all planets.
      Attains Tech X in Y fields.
      Exceeds a score of X.
      Exceeds the next nearest player's score by X%.
      Has a production capacity of X thousand.
      Owns X large ships
      Has the highest score after X years.
      At least X years must pass before a winner is declared.
    Each of the conditions has a checkbox at the front to enable or disable
    it.  At the bottom you can specify how many of the enabled conditions
    the winner must satisfy.  You can also specify the number of turns which
    must pass before a winner is declared.  Multiple players can achieve
    victory at the same time (with the same or different conditions).

  Races have a new way to spend left over advantage points:  Mineral
    concentrations.  This comes in handy when everyone's home world starts
    with a concentration of Ironium of 4.

  Race Wizard now has been reworked.  New page sets the Primary racial
    trait.  Each race may only pick one of the following:

    Hyper-Expansion
      Growth rate is twice the value selected on page 4 of the wizard.
      Max pop per planet is halved.
      Settler's Delight engine Warp 6 for free only for Mini-Colonizer hull.
      Mini-Colony hull
      Field Dissapater weakens the shields of all ships in the same
        battle location (square) by 25%.
      Meta Morph hull (has all General Purpose slots).

    Super-Stealth
      Pick Pocket scanner sees enemy fleet cargo in same location. (Can
        steal cargo)
      Chameleon scanner 160/45 plus 20% cloak
      Robber Baron scanner sees enemy fleet cargo and enemy planet surface
        minerals (can steal from enemy ships AND planets).
      Shadow Shield strength 90 plus 15% cloak.
      Depleted Neutronium armor strength 280 plus 10% cloak
      Transport Cloak
      Ultra-Stealth Cloak
      Rogue hull.
      Stealth Bomber hull.
      Starts with Tech 5 in electronics.

    War Monger
      +1 initiative in battle.
      Colonists attack better.
      Magno Pulse Mark I area weapon power 100 range 2 radius 1
      Magno Pulse Mark III area weapon power 400 range 4 radius 3
      Magno Needle SE ray weapon power 150 range 3
      Magno Needle LX ray weapon power 600 range 5
      Battle Cruiser hull.
      Dreadnought hull.
      Starts with Tech 5 in weapons, Tech 1 in energy and propulsion.
      No planetary defenses.

    Inner-Strength
      Colonists defend better.
      Planetary defenses cost 40% less.
      Ships heal faster.
      Croby Sharmor shield strength 80 plus 100 dp as armor.
      Wide-Beam Mine Phaser power 35 range 4 sweeps mines at 500 /year
      No Smart, Neutron, Enriched Neutron, Peerless or Annihilator bombs.
      Fielded Kelarium armor strength 275 plus 50 dp as shield
      Colonists on freighters reproduce at 1/2 of their race's max rate.
      Speed Trap 30 mines.  Stop fleets cold.
      Jammer 10, 30, 50 deflects torps.  (you still take collateral damage).
      Tachyon Detector reduces the effectiveness of other players cloaks
        by 25%.
      Super Freighter hull
      Fuel Transport hull.

    Space Demolition
      Mine Dispenser 80, 150, 250.  Standard mines that go boom.
      Mass Discriminator 100, 230, 400.  Go boom for ships > 200kT mass.
      Speed Trap 30, 60, 90 mines.  Stop fleets cold.
      Mini Mine Layer hull.
      Super Mine Layer hull.
      Mine fields act as normal scanners.  Cloaks % acts as the percent
        chance the fleet will be seen.
      Can travel thru enemy mine fields 1 warp speed faster than is safe
        for other races.

    Packet Physics
      Mass Driver 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13.
      Can fling packets at speeds up to Warp 16.
      Mass packets have built in penetrating scanners with a range equal
        the the square of their warp speed.
      Mass packets are smaller and cheaper to build.
      Energy Dampener slows all ships in combat by 4 initiative points.
      In non-tiny universes starts with two planets seperated by a fair
        distance.
      Starts with Tech 4 in Energy.

    Interstellar Traveller
      Stargates any/300, 100/any, any/800, any/any.
      Stargates cost 25% less.
      Stargates reveal full details on all other planets in transport range
        that also have stargates.
      Exceeding the safety limits of stargates is less likely to kill your
        ships.
      Stasis Sump absorbs 50% of all area effect damage producing 1kT of
        fuel for each 10dp absorbed.
      Starts with Tech 5 in propulsion and construction.

    Jack of All Trades
      Scout and Frigate hulls get a built-in 40/20 scanner
      Start with:
        Starts with Tech 3 in all fields.
        2 scouts
        1 colony ship
        1 medium freighter
        1 mini bomber
        1 mini miner
        1 destroyer

  Secondary Racial Traits.  Each race may pick any combination of the
    following:

    Improved Fuel Efficiency
    Total Terraforming
    Advanced Remote Mining
    Improved Starbases
    Jump Start
    Mineral Alchemy
    No Ram Scoop Engines
    Balky Engines
    Only Basic Remote Mining
    No Advanced Scanners
    Low Starting Population
    Regenerating Shields

  New research option starts all 'poor' fields of research at Tech 3.

  Players can view the universe parameters (New game dialog) during game
  play much like View Race.

  Races get a 400 or 1000 point bonus for taking a 2% or 1% growth rate
    respectively.

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Mine fields:
  Players that you declare to be your "Friend" are immune to your mine fields.

  Mine types:
    Normal (just go boom)
      Damange/ship 100 (200 for ramscoops)
      Min fleet dp 500 (700 for ramscoops)
      Probabiltity of a hit 1% (3% for ramscoops)
      Max safe speed Warp 4 (3 for ramscoops)
      Parts:   parts marked with * require the Primary Race Trait of Space Demolition.
        Mine Dispenser 80  * (lays 80/year)
        Mine Dispenser 100   (lays 100/year)
        Mine Dispenser 150 * (lays 150/year)
        Mine Dispenser 250 * (lays 250/year)

    Mass discriminator (go boom only for big ships)
      Damange/ship 500 (700 for ramscoops)
      Min fleet dp 2000 (3000 for ramscoops)
      Probablitity of a hit 1% (3% for ramscoops)
      Max safe speed Warp 4 (3 for ramscoops)
      Trigger mass 200kT (a single ship at least this massive will trigger it)
      Parts:  all of these require the Primary Race Trait of Space Demolition.
        Mass Discriminator 100  (lays 100/year)
        Mass Discriminator 230  (lays 230/year)
        Mass Discriminator 400  (lays 400/year)

    Speed Trap (stop you dead in the water)
      Damange/ship none
      Min fleet dp none
      Probablitity of a hit 10% (20% for ramscoops)
      Max safe speed Warp 3 (2 for ramscoops)
      Parts:
        Speed Trap 30   (lays 30/year) requires Space Demolition or Inner-Strength.
        Mine Dispenser 100  (lays 100/year) requires Space Demolition
        Mine Dispenser 150  (lays 150/year) requires Space Demolition
        Mine Dispenser 250  (lays 250/year) requires Space Demolition

  Laying Mines is a new waypoint task for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years or
    indefinitely.
  Sweeping for Mines is a new waypoint task for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years or
    indefinitely.
  Minefields are displayed in the scanner as circles with patterns.
  Players with the Space Demolition primary racial trait can self-destruct
    standard mines.

_________________________________________________________________________
Scanner improvements:
  Probable enemy ship paths are displayed with you select them.
  Scanners are additive ala cloaks.
  New Mine Fields overlay shows minefields you know about.
  New Idle Fleets overlay filters out fleets with orders.
  Fleet masses for enemy fleets are now reported more correctly.
  Mass packets can be seen if in scanner range.
  Wormholes can be seen if in scanner range.  (As if 75% cloaked to normal scanners)
  New ship based Scanners:
    Pick Pocket scanner can see contents of enemy fleet cargo holds.
    Robber Barron scanner can see surface minerals on enemy planets.
  Mass packets act as pen-scanners for the Packet Physics race.
  Mine fields act as normal scanners for the Space Demolition race.

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Engines/Movement:

  Ramscoops can create fuel:
     At max free speed they produce .1kT / ly.
    At 1 warp speed below max free speed they produce .3kT / ly.
    At 2 warp speeds below max free speed they produce .6kT / ly.
    At 3 warp speeds below max free speed they produce 1kT / ly.

  Ramscoops in minefields:
    Are more likely to set off mine fields than standard engines.
    Normal and Mass Discriminator mines are 3 times more likely to go off.
    Damage from mines is greater per ship and per fleet.
    Speed Bump mines are twice as like to go off.

  Races with the Space Demolition primary race advantage can safely travel
       thru a mine field 1 warp speed higher than anyone else.

  Warp 10:
    All engines can go Warp 10.
    Most engines cause damage to ships at Warp 10.
    There is a new Warp 10 engine available to no-ramscoop races.

  You can now traverse wormholes and stargates.
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Starbase changes:
  Starbases take part in combat.
  There is a new tile in the command pane for the starbase.

  Starbases design.
    There are 4 starbase hulls with slots for weapons, armor, etc.

    Starbase Hulls:
      Orbital Fort:
         No ship building, one orbital slot plus weapons/armor/shields.
      Space Dock: requires Improved Starbases race attribute
         Limited ship building, one orbital slot plus w/a/s.
      Starbase:
        Unlimited ship building, 2 orbital slots plus w/a/s.
      Ultrabase: requires Improved Starbases race attribute
        Unlimited ship building, 2 orbital slots plus w/a/s.

    Starbases can hold Orbital devices such as Stargates and Mass Drivers.

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Orbital Devices:

  Stargates:
    You can only jump to-from your own stargates.
    You can't carry cargo through stargates.
    The major race trait Interstellar Traveller allows your starbases
      with stargates to scan any planet in stargate range which also has
      a stargate.

    Range:  (how far can fleets jump)
      This is determined by the source stargate's range.
      You can exceed this by up to a factor of 5 and possibly still make it.
      You will take damage if you exceed it.

    Mass:  (how big of a ship can pass through)
      This is the min of the src and dest stargate mass capacities.
      You can exceed this by up to a factor of 5 and possibly still make it.
      You will take damage if you exceed it.

  Mass drivers:
    Mineral packets are flung between systems with mass drivers.
    Mineral packets are made of the three minerals only.  No fuel or
      colonists.
    Mineral packets are built and flung via the production queue.
    Mass drivers are targeted via the Set Dest button on the Starbase tile.
    Planets take damage if they receive packets at a higher warp speed than
      they can handle.
    Damage works like a comet strike except it is possible to completly kill
      a colony.
    Mass packets can be seen in the Scanner pane (assuming they are in
      scanner range).
    If you can intercept a mass packet in flight you can steal from it.
    You can fling packets up to 3 warp speed higher than the rated speed,
      but the packets will be unstable and disintigrate as they travel.
    The path to the mass driver target is displayed in the scanner.

__________________________________________________________________________
Battle:

  Battle plan changes:
    Each round of battle now consists of two parts:
      Movement: Every token moves from slowest to fastest.
      Attacks:  Every token attacks from fastest to slowest.
    You can delete battle plans now.
    Spread out now also makes tokens prefer squares which have not yet
       been occupied.
    Dump Cargo checkbox unloads freighters at the start of battle.  They
      take a -1 initiative but this is usually more than made up by their
      change in mass.  See Fallout (below) for information about Dumped
      cargo and Wreckage.

    New battle plan tactics:
      Lightning strike (initiative + 4, armor and shields / 4)
      Defensive advance (initiative - 4, armor and shields + 25%)
      Self Destruct long range (blows up as soon as damage will be done
        to the target)
      Self Destruct medium range (gets to two squares away before blowing up)
      Self Destruct close range (gets to point blank range before blowing up)

    New battle plan targets:
      Weakest opponent.  (picks the weakest token to attack)
      Strongest opponent.  (picks the strongest token to attack)
      Best Match.  (picks the strongest token this token can probably defeat)
      Starbase.

  Starbases take part in combat:
    They don't move but have an initiative of 6 (7 for the War Mongers)
    They can be targeted like anything else.

  VCR improvements:
    Many more statistics about ship state and battle tactics are now
      displayed.

  Fallout from battles:
    Cargo is dumped as a mineral packet (salvage).
    Salvage is free game for anybody nearby with a freighter.
    Survivers of battles in which ships beyond their tech level in one or
      more fields got killed have a 50% chance to advance one tech level in
      one field.

  Cloaking affects battle.
    Cloaked ships which move after firing are less likely to be targeted.
    Tachyon Detector device can prevent this.

  Weapons:
    Beams:
      Beam weapons now have a range of 4 or less.
      Beam weapons are now spread over the entire 26 tech level range.
      Beam weapons tend to be more powerful than they used to be.

    Torps:
      Torps tend to be less powerful than they used to be.
      3/4 all torp damage goes direct to armor.  1/4 to shields.
      Now only 1/8 of all torp damage is applied as collateral damage.
      Torps can now be deflected using jammers.
      Deflected torps still cause collateral damage.
      Torps can now be fired from point blank range.
      Starbases don't take collateral damage from torps unless they were
        the target.

    Devices:
      Jammers give incomming torps a chance of missing.
         Jammer 10: 10% chance of deflection (Inner-Strength only)
         Jammer 20: 20% chance of deflection
         Jammer 30: 30% chance of deflection (Inner-Strength only)
         Jammer 50: 50% chance of deflection (Inner-Strength only)
         Jammers are additive.

    New Weapons types (listed under Area Weapons in the Tech Browser):

      Area weapons:
        Weapons have a range to the center of the blast.
        Weapons have a radius of the blast.
        Weapons damage every token in every square in the blast area.
        Damage is reduced based on distance from center of blast. (1/2 at 1, 1/4 at 2, etc.)

      Ray weapons:
        Weapons have a range.
        All tokens on a line thru target square take damage.
        All tokens one square away take full damage.
        Damage is reduced based on distance. (1/2 at 2, 1/4 at 3, etc.)
        Tokens beyond target square still take damage if in range.

      Rail gun:
        Behaves as an Area weapon.
        Designed to defend starbases, it is very heavy (50kT).
        Range of 9, power of 1dp, radius of 0.  (only damages ships in target square)
        No tech requirements.

  New damage model.
    Damage is displayed as C @ P% where C is the count of ships and P is the
       percent of damage they have.  Such as 10@33% says that 10 ships
       are one third damaged.

_________________________________________________________________________
Reports:

  There is now a Report menu for the Planet, Fleet and Score reports.
  Hitting F3 brings up the Planet report.  Hitting it again goes to the
    Fleet report.  Hitting it a third type closes the report window.
  Clicking on the column headers brings up a menu.
  You can sort and reverse sort on any one column.
  You can hide and unhide columns.
  Each report remembers its size, shape, position, hidden columns,
    sort order, etc.

  Planet Summary Report:
    Clicking on the planet name selects the planet in the command pane.
    Clicking on the production queue column selects the planet and brings
      up the production dialog for that planet.

  Fleet Summary Report:
    Clicking on any column selects the fleet in the command pane.
    Clicking on the destination column also selects the destination waypoint
       in the scanner and summary panes.
    Clicking on the Fuel and Cargo columns brings up the Transfer dialog.
    Clicking on the Composition column pops up the full composition list.

_________________________________________________________________________
New Waypoint Tasks:

  Merge With Fleet:
    Waypoint must be a fleet.
    All ships, fuel and cargo from this fleet are added to target fleet.
    Target fleet's orders are unchanged.

  Lay Mines:
    You choose the amount of time the fleet should spend laying mines.
    Requires at least one year in the same location.
    Will automatically move on when the specified number of years is up.
    You can set up patterns of lay mines N years here, M years there and
      repeat.

  Sweep For Mines:
    Same UI as laying mines.
    Requires Beam weapons.
    Races with the Inner-Strength primary race attribute get a heavy duty
      mine sweeping beam weapon.

  Patrol:
    You specify a battle plan and an intercept range in light years.
    Fleets owned by players you've declared as Enemies are automatically
       intercepted when they come within the patrol range.
    Each intercept is inserted as your next waypoint.
    Intercept speed is automatically set to the fleet's Best Speed.
    Intercept orders are set at the end of turn generation so that you
       can see what every fleet is up to and change targets, speed, battle
       plans and so on at the start of the next turn.
    If you had additional waypoints already then you will continue to your
       next destination when the intercepted fleet is dispatched.
    If you don't have additional waypoints but have the Report Orders
      checkbox checked then you will automatically return to where you
      started from.
    Otherwise you will stay at the position of the kill until the next target
       is in range.

  Custom Zip Orders:
    You may now define 4 totally custom Zip Orders that will be remembered
      across games.  Set up a frequently used transport order, right-click
      on the Zip Diamond and select Customize/Import, name it and you're
      all set.
_________________________________________________________________________
Misc. Improvements/Changes:

  Naming fleets:
    There is a Rename button in the Fleet tile.
    Other players don't see the new names.
    If you hit Rename, delete the text and hit Ok you're back to Fleet #n.

  Wormholes:
    Have two ends with independant movement.
    Range from Very Stable to Very Unstable.
    Tend to stay away from gravity wells.
    Some stick around for 30 turns or more.
    Some move on in 5 years or so.
    Jiggle or drift every year.

  Production dialog:
    New buttons to move items Up and Down in the queue.
    There is now a single queue item for Terraforming.  (see below)
    All Auto Build options which require minerals will do necessary mineral
       alchemy if player has that ability.
    New auto build Factories then Mines option.

  Scanner:
    Fleet triangles now point in roughly their direction of travel.
    Clicking on enemy fleets displays their travel vector with ticks to
      indicate their yearly rate of travel at the current speed.
    A new Zoom mode of 38% has been added.
    Planets now have 3 indicators for Starbases, Mass Accelerators and
      Stargates.

  Terraforming:
    There is now a single queue item for Terraforming.
    It always improves the env value which will increase the planet value
       the most.  If you can do Temp +4 and Rad -2 than you can add up to
       6 Terraform items to the queue.
    Total Terraforming can now get you up to +/- 30% at tech 25.
    Total Terraforming races can now terraform for 30% less resources
      than other races.

  New Hulls:
    Mini Minelayer: requires the Space Demolition primary racial trait.
      Fuel capacity:    100kT
      Cargo capacity:     0kT
      Armor strength:    75dp
      Engine slots:    1 x 1
      Scanner slots:   1 x 1
      Minelayer slots: 1 x 3
    Super Minelayer: requires the Space Demolition primary racial trait.
      Fuel capacity:   1000kT
      Cargo capacity:     0kT
      Armor strength:   800dp
      Engine slots:    1 x 3
      Scanner/Special: 1 x 3
      Minelayer slots: 2 x 8
      Mine/Special:    1 x 3
      Shield/Armor:    1 x 3
    Meta Morph: requires the Hyper-Expansion primary racial trait.
      Fuel capacity:    400kT
      Cargo capacity:   300kT
      Armor strength:   500dp
      Engine slots:    1 x 3
      General slots:   4 x 2, 1 x 8, 1 x 1

  Existing Hulls:  (Don't assume these are the only changes)
    General Purpose slots can now hold mine laying pods.
    Fuel Transport:
      Has a built in scoop that collects 2kT fuel / ly traveled.
      Ships in the same fleet as this hull heal 5% faster.

    Super Fuel Xport
      Has a built in scoop that collects 3kT fuel / ly traveled.
      Ships in the same fleet as this hull heal 10% faster.

  Defaults dialog:
    You can now pick the default battle plan.  This is the plan that is
       given to fleets when you pick the Attack or Patrol task.  It is not
       used for fleets without attack orders that get attacked.  They still
       use the Auto Defense plan.
    You can now tell idle planets to terraform if necessary.  If checked
      planets with nothing in the queues and auto build satisfied will
      automatically add terraforming to the queue if it will improve the
      planet.

  Research dialog:
    There is now a dropdown which allows you to choose the next
       field of research to change to once you have completed the
       next level of the field you are currently working on.  Choosing
       'lowest field' will continually shift research to the field with
       the lowest tech value after each advance.
    Planets with Auto-Build orders and empty queues are now more closely
       calculated when doing the estimated resources for next year.

  Parts/Tech Browser:
    Many changes here.  Don't assume any parts are untouched.
    New Super Fuel pod and Super Cargo pod carry 100kT each.
    Overthruster now requires Propulsion 12.
    In general parts are now spread over the entire 26 tech levels.
    New part categories:  (see high level topics for details)
      Area Weapons
      Mine Layers
      Starbase Hulls
      Orbital

  Keyboard:
    Shift-N/Shift-P take you to the next and prev planet with a starbase.
    r / R brings up the fleet rename dialog.
    v / V flashes the cursor in the Scanner pane.


NOTE:
  Due to the extensive improvements for Stars! version 2.0 it is not possible
  to play games with a mixture of Stars! 1.x and 2.0 players. Stars! 2.0 is
  incompatable with Stars! 1.x game files.