Star Fighter 3000 Pilot's Manual
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This version of Star Fighter 3000 runs under the Window Manager,
allowing you to return to the desktop at any time to continue with
other work. You can even play the game in a window, whilst other
applications continue to run in the background! Interactive help is
provided on all aspects of the desktop interface, and in most cases
this should be sufficient.
When you run the game its application icon is installed on the
icon bar. Clicking SELECT on this icon will open the
main game window, whilst clicking ADJUST will open the
Choices dialogue box.
The icon bar menu provides the following options:
- Info
- Leads to a window giving information about the program.
- Help...
- Opens this game manual.
- Choices...
- Opens the Choices dialogue box.
- Quit
- Quits the application.
The main window displays the same graphics that you would see in
full-screen mode. Mouse clicks (except for MENU) and key presses
are passed on to the game, though the latter only when the window
has the input focus. The window will gain the input focus when you click
on it - to get the input focus without side-effects hold down
the Shift key when clicking.
If the mouse is being used for flight control then the pointer
will be hidden and all mouse clicks (including MENU) will be
claimed by the game. You can free the pointer by pressing F12 to
remove the input focus from the game window; this will also pause
the game if 'auto-suspend' is configured.
The game window provides a menu:
- Full screen
- The game takes over the entire screen, removing the
distractions of window furniture. Multi-tasking is suspended when
not in the desktop, which allows the game to run much faster. You
can return to the desktop by pressing F12.
- Suspend
- Ticking this option will pause the game and free up CPU time
for other tasks. Suspension of the game is total, and thus distinct
from the in-game pause facility (which allows continued control of
camera views, for instance). You also can configure 'Auto-suspend'
(see 'General options').
- Scale view
- Leads to a dialogue box, which allows you to change the extent
of the game window so that it takes up more or less space on the
desktop. Either enter a percentage scale in the writable field, use
the adjuster arrows, or select from one of the standard
scales.
- Screenshot
- Leads to a standard save box from which you can drag a file
icon to a directory display or type in a complete file path. The
game's current screen display will be saved to this location as a
Sprite file.
- Choices...
- Opens the Choices dialogue box.
- Help...
- Opens this game manual.
This dialogue box is split into several pages in order to keep
it to a manageable size. Use the radio buttons down the right-hand
side of the window to control which page is displayed.
The 'Cancel' button discards all changes. The 'Set' button
confirms any changes and configures the game appropriately. The
'Save' button acts like 'Set', with the addition that it writes the
new configuration to file so that it is remembered next time the
game is run.
You can keep the dialogue box open by clicking any of these
buttons with ADJUST rather than SELECT. This is particularly useful
with 'Cancel', to reset the dialogue box from the internal
configuration.
- Speed limiter [Value]
- This value sets the maximum speed of the game in centiseconds per frame. Reducing it will speed the game up, whilst increasing it will slow the game down (and increase the time available to other desktop tasks). The values that correspond to the standard speeds available in the configure menu are 5 'Slow', 4 'Medium', 3 'Fast' and 0 'Max'.
The game will only run up to the configured speed if your
computer is fast enough. In full screen mode it will also be restricted by the monitor frequency (typically 1 to 2 cs per frame).
- War backdrop for menu [Off / On]
- Turning the backdrop off should make the in-game menus more
responsive on slow computers.
- Big ships launch missiles [Off / On]
- A-T-A missile launch from big ships and space stations was
broken in earlier versions of the game and hence has not been
thoroughly play tested. You may wish to disable this option if a
mission seems unreasonably hard.
- Lasers hit bonus coins [Off / On]
- In earlier versions of the game, lasers would hit any bonus
coins in their path. The default is now for lasers to pass straight
through coins, but you can restore the original behaviour by
setting this option.
- Start in full-screen mode [Off / On]
- You can configure the game to start in full-screen mode, as did
earlier versions of Star Fighter 3000 (although you will still be
able to return to the desktop by pressing F12). You must save the
configuration for this option to take effect.
- Initial scale [Percentage]
- This percentage scale dictates the size of the main window when
the game is first loaded (hence you must save the configuration for
it to take effect). To change the current display scale, you should
instead use the 'Scale view' dialogue box.
The lower button will insert the current game window scale into
the writable field; clicking this and then 'Save' is the easiest way
to save the current scale.
- Auto-suspend [Off / On]
- If enabled, the game will be suspended when the main window
loses the input focus. This can prevent a potentially fatal loss of
control whilst playing the game in the desktop.
- Scale mouse pointer [Off / On]
- You may find that in the desktop the game's larger pointer
shapes are cropped (only part is visible), due to a restriction in
the computer's video hardware. By configuring 'Scale mouse pointer'
off you can force the pointers to always appear the same (small)
size regardless of screen mode or game window scale.
- Detail level [Very low / Low / Medium / High / Very high / Max
/ Custom]
- This controls the quality of graphics rendering in the game.
You can select from one of a number of pre-set detail levels (which
correspond to those in the in-game menu) or else select 'Custom'
and change the individual settings yourself. Choosing a pre-set
detail level will update the sliders to show the new values.
'Custom' detail will automatically be selected if you change any of
the sliders.
- Texture map detail [Very low / Low / Medium / High]
- You can select from a number of texture mapping algorithms,
each of which gives a different trade off between accuracy and
speed.
- Objects plot distance [Slider]
- The distance beyond which no objects are plotted.
- Objects height cut-off [Slider]
- The height above which no ground installations are
plotted.
- Hills & clouds cut-off [Slider]
- The height above which no objects are plotted (not even
mountains or clouds).
- Sound enabled [Off / On]
- Allows you to completely disable all sound output from the
game.
- 4 channels / 8 channels
- Use these radio buttons to select the maximum number of simultaneous sounds to allow. Mixing 8 channels of 16 bit linear sound is quite CPU intensive, so it is only recommended for more powerful machines (e.g. StrongARM).
- Volume [Slider]
- Allows you to set the volume of game sound output with finer
accuracy than the pre-set levels available in the in-game configure
menu. The volume does not change as you drag the slider; to hear
the new volume level you must ADJUST-click the 'Set' button.
- Play game music [Off / On]
- Allows you to disable the game music, for instance to listen to
an audio CD instead.
- Sound effects [Mono / Stereo / Reverse stereo]
- Stereo sound effects require more calculation than mono effects
and thus may slow the game down slightly on old machines. You
should select reverse stereo if your speakers are the wrong way
round.
This window lists the keyboard controls used by the game, all of
which may be redefined (except for return to desktop, which is
always F12). The current key definitions are displayed down the
right-hand side, adjacent to their function name.
Click SELECT on one of the displayed keys to redefine it - the
icon will be highlighted to show that it is awaiting your input.
You may press any key except F12. When a key press has been
recorded the highlight will move on to allow rapid definition of
multiple keys. You can de-select the highlighted icon by
ADJUST-clicking on it.
The flight control keys may only be used when neither mouse nor
joystick control is enabled.
(Note: Users with a non-UK keyboard configured will see only key
numbers rather than key names. Foreign keyboard layouts may be
defined by adding a suitable message file to the
!Star3000.Keyboards directory.)
- Enable mouse control [Off / On]
- When mouse control is enabled you cannot use keys for flight
control, though you can still use the keyboard for other commands
(e.g. camera views, ECM, map). Selecting this option will de-select
joystick control, if it was enabled.
- Auto-centre flight controls [Off / On]
- With auto-centring enabled the flight controls will gradually
return to a neutral position when mouse movement ceases.
- Intercept mouse driver [Off / On]
- To allow mouse control in the desktop without disrupting other
applications, the game intercepts low-level communications between
the mouse driver and OS kernel. If you disable this option then the
game will revert to more conventional methods, but mouse control
will only operate in full screen mode (as is the case on RISC OS
3.1 machines).
- Sensitivity [Slider]
-
The sensitivity of flight control using the mouse can be varied
from very low (takes a long time to react) to very high (reacts
quickly, but can be difficult to control). This slider allows finer
adjustment than selecting one of the pre-set levels from the
in-game menu.
Note that control sensitivity will also be affected by the OS's
configured mouse pointer speed, unless mouse driver interception is
enabled (see above).
- Mouse buttons
-
Configuration of mouse buttons works on the principle of tying
actions to buttons. A display field shows the action currently
configured for each mouse button. To choose from a list of
available actions, click on the adjacent pop-up menu icon.
Some actions replace the flight control keys ('Fire weapon', 'Thrust')
whilst others give access to commonly used commands. 'Change weapon' cycles
through your available weapon systems (skipping any that have been exhausted) so that you don't have to reach for the keyboard in the heat of battle. 'No action' does nothing.
- Enable joystick control [Off / On]
- When joystick control is enabled you cannot use keys for flight
control, though you can still use the keyboard for other commands.
Selecting this option will de-select mouse control, if it was
enabled.
- Port number [Value]
- Some interfaces support more than one joystick, which are then
identified by a number from 0 to 255. Generally you will want to
leave the port number configured to 0.
- Type [Switched/Analogue]
- Joysticks essentially come in two varieties, switched (Atari)
and analogue (PC). Both are supported, but you must specify which
type or else the flight controls will behave strangely.
- Calibrate joystick
- Click this button and follow the on-screen instructions to
calibrate your analogue joystick to return its full range of
values. This will only work if your joystick software supports
Acorn's calibration SWIs.
- Joystick buttons
- This is similar to the configuration of mouse buttons. Up to
eight joystick buttons are supported, and you can choose an action
to tie to each. For more details see 'Mouse
options'.
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