Contents

The following Help Topics are available:

Controls

Dead-Eye Aiming

Modules

Requesting Modules

Quick Start

For Help on Help, Press F1


Modules

The following table is a complete list of regular and found Modules. An X indicates that a Module is compatible with the appropriate Robot and/or can be found during gameplay.

Note: Some of the Modules are available for use only in later missions.

Modules	Sekhmet	Anubis	Horus	Found
Barrier				X
Blaster		X
Bouncers			X
Cluster	X
Combo				X
Crawlers			X
Eye of RA				X
Firewall				X
Flares	X	X	X
GTOAir	X
Impervious				X
Infrared				X
Invisible				X
Jammer	X	X	X
Laserflash		X
Locusts				X
Longshot	X	X	X
MKUltra				X
Masher	X
Mines			X
Minesweep				X
Mortar	X
Phalanx		X
Pineapple	X
Powersmasher				X
Radar	X	X	X
Rapidfire	X	X	X
Repulsar	X	X	X
Rocketfuel			X
Scanner				X
Scarab				X
Scorpions				X
Slowbos		X
Smokebombs	X	X	X
Starburst		X
Stealth	X	X	X
TMines			X
TMissile	X
Teleport				X
TOW	X
Trackers		X
Vengeance				X
Vipers				X
X-Ray				X


RAPIDFIRE

Makes regular bullets fire at a much higher rate. Does not affect special bullet types used by Anubis, only the standard bullets available to all Robots.


LONGSHOT

Makes regular bullets fire much further. Only affects regular bullets available to all Robots, not special bullet types for Anubis.


REPULSAR

A twitchy defensive tool. Detonates an energy pulse around you which repels nearby bullets. A very effective defense against SLOWBO and TRACKER weapons.


SMOKEBOMB

Provides cover for your escape from the enemy. Smokebombs can be dropped at any location in the combat arena.


STEALTH

Makes your Robot radar-invisible for a period of time. Makes it much harder for your opponents to see you and makes you invisible to Trackers and other guided missiles.


SARCOPHAGUS

A repair booth. You must stand inside it for 15 seconds to fully repair your Robotshields cannot be repaired. The enemy can destroy the Sarcophagus before you are repaired. Each team can have only one Sarcophagus at a time.


TOWER

The source of your power. Destroy the opposing team's Towers to increase your strength. When enough of the city is under the influence of your Towers, you win the game. See the Tower section of the manual for more information.


LASERFLASH

Super high-speed laser bullets. They do a great deal of damage quickly and are ideal against shields. They have a rapid reload rate and may be fired from a very long distance.


BLASTER

Slow bullets which do an incredible amount of damage when they find their target.


STARBURST

A specialty bullet designed primarily for taking out shields. It fires in bursts of five tiny bullets at a time. It is not very effective against a non-shielded Robot, but it can chew up a shield quickly.


SLOWBOS

Specialty bullets that are similar to a fragmentation grenade. You can fire only one Slowbo at a time. Hit the fire button while a Slowbo is in flight to detonate it. Each detonation of a Slowbo creates 40 or more bullet fragments which damage anything in the area, including you. Slowbos travel very slowly.

PURPOSES OF SLOWBOS


PURPOSES OF SLOWBOS

•	If a Slowbo actually hits an enemy Robot dead on, the resulting fragmentation explosion does a lot of damage.

•	A Slowbo which impacts a Robots shield directly does a great deal of damage to the shield pieces since so many bullet fragments hit it directly.

•	Slowbos travel great distances and can be detonated from far away.


TRACKERS

Small self-guided missiles which are fired like bullets. Trackers have a 3 stage system: (1) An initial flight stage (light blue). Due to this initial flight stage, you can not fire a Tracker at a Robot standing right next to you.  (2) Armed (yellow, sound effect plays). Once the Tracker hits the arming stage, it had better be near an enemy Robot. If it cannot find an enemy Robot, it will attempt to acquire anyone in the area before (3) Detonation.

EVASIVE TACTICS

TRACKER STRATEGY


EVASIVE TACTICS

Once a Tracker is locked on to you, there is little you can do. Some evasive tactics:

•	Shields. A Tracker, or any bullet, which impacts your shield does the same amount of damage. Trackers should be used only against Robots whos shields down, or have large gaps in them.

•	Stealth. If you are in stealth mode you are invisible to a Tracker.

•	Jump. Jumping, using your rocket pack, and other radical changes in position might allow you elude an incoming Tracker.

•	Energy pulse. A special Module called Repulsar repels incoming bullets, but only when they are extremely close to you. More than a single Repulsar might be required to evade a Tracker.


TRACKER STRATEGY

You get a very limited number of them, but if they hit, they do a lot of damage. It pays to learn how to use this weapon well.


PHAYLYNX
PHALANX

Anubis has two auto-firing guns, one located on each shoulder. If an enemy Robot is off to his left or right and the Phalanx is activated, these guns fire automatically. They are great for close combat and blasting holes in shields.


ROCKETFUEL

Contains rocket fuel for Horus. You can fill all six module bays with Rocketfuel. You can see your fuel being consumed on the bay status display.


MINES

Do a small amount of damage to a Robot. However, they are extremely effective at destroying shields if a Robot hits them with his shields up. Mines come in packs of five per module. There can be no more thirty mines per team in the city at any given time.


TMINES

Tracker mine, an awesome weapon. When triggered, it fires 4 Tracker missiles into the air to hit any Robot it can find. Each Module has five TMines. There can be only fifteen TMines per team at any given time.

If a Robots shields are up, a TMine does not do much damage. The trackers will most likely get absorbed by the shields.


CRAWLERS

Designed to look like a sand dollar crab. When they detonate, Crawlers do a massive amount of damage. It moves around on little legs looking for victims. There are five Crawlers per module and a limit of fifteen Crawlers per team at any time.

DEFENSIVE STRATEGIES FOR CRAWLERS

OFFENSIVE STRATEGIES FOR CRAWLERS


DEFENSIVE STRATEGIES FOR CRAWLERS

•	Put multiple Crawlers in corners so that when the enemy comes about, Crawlers approach him from different directions.

•	Put Crawlers on the tops of buildings. Crawlers will drop off the tops of buildings onto your opponents head.


OFFENSIVE STRATEGIES FOR CRAWLERS

•	Detonate Crawlers with your shields up.

•	Fire bullets at approaching Crawlers with your shields up.

•	Use Minesweep to detonate Crawlers.

•	Force Crawlers to get stuck by leading them into blind alleys.


BOUNCERS

Similar to a bouncing betty mine. When you fire a bouncer: it pops up in the air, then falls to about the height of a Robots head, and detonates. There are five bouncers per module and a limit of fifteen bouncers per team at any time. The detonation launches a circular ring of bullets that will hit anything in their way.


PINEAPPLE

A grenade. When thrown, it bounces along the ground and comes to a rest. After about two seconds, it detonates. All grenade explosions have a fairly narrow range for damage and require a lot of skill to be lethal. It takes practice to aim them properly.

To launch a Pineapple, set your point of view up to the angle at which you want to launch and fire.


MASHER

Like Pineapples except they explode on impact. It takes a lot of practice to aim them for proper effect.


MORTAR

Blow up anything that can be destroyed such as Towers, Modules, Mines, and Robots. Mortars fly much higher and further than regular grenades.


GTOAIR

A ground to air missile. It attacks anything above a certain altitude. This includes Supply Ships, Robots (such as Horus in a rocket pack), a Robot in a sniping position, Towers, and Sarcophagi.

It takes several ground to air missiles to take out a supply ship.


TOW

A player-guided missile with a video camera in its nose. As soon as you fire the Tow missile, your point of view switches to the missile automatically. Your joystick is now flying the missile! While you are flying the Tow, your own Robot is undefended. After detonation, your point of view switches back to the Robot.


CLUSTER

A missile which explodes several seconds after it has been launched. When it explodes, a group of bomblets float slowly to the ground and detonate. It is great for clearing minefields and destroying weapons stockpiles.


TMISSILE

A specialty missile that only goes after Towers. It is most effective on mature Towers and frequently misses against Towers in their incubation stage. It does not discriminate between friendly or enemy Towers, so it must be well aimed.


IMPERVIOUS

For about 30 seconds your Robot is completely impervious to damage of any kind. You can shoot and do everything you would normally do in this mode, but you wont take any damage from any weapons. While impervious, your Robot appears as a translucent outline. As time runs down, your Robot becomes more opaque.


TELEPORT

Randomly teleports you to other locations in the city. There is always an element of risk when using a Teleport.


POWERSMASHER

Damages or destroys all enemy Towers in the vicinity without damaging your own Towers.


XRAY

Turns your view into a wire frame mode for 60 seconds. This is extremely useful for finding Modules or enemies.


MINESWEEP

Detonates all mines in a large area. If you see the enemy dropping mines, fire Minesweep immediately and make them explode in his face.


INVISIBLE

Makes your Robot completely invisible for 30 seconds. While you are invisible, your shield is down. You will absorb damage, but the enemy cannot see you.


SCORPION
SCORPIONS

Scorpions are very similar to Crawlers. However, Scorpions are not associated with a team. They go after anyone once they awaken.

The best strategy with Scorpions is to create a nest of them so that when an enemy Robot comes along, he is attacked by them. Scorpions chase whoever disturbs them. When they get close enough, they raise their tails and fire a laser bolt. They aim for the head and quickly pierce a hole through shields. Scorpions can be shot and killed.


LOCUSTS

A specialty weapon that destroys enemy shields but not the Robot its self. The locusts go after any Robot except the one that launches them. If there is no other Robot in the neighborhood when you fire Locusts, the locusts hover around the position where you are standing. They continue to hover here until another Robot comes along.

If a Robot has a shield up when he encounters a swarm, the shield will be quickly destroyed.


INFRARED

Changes your vision to infrared mode for 60 seconds. This allows you to see any Robot, even if he is stealthy or invisible.


BARRIER

Can be thrown inside a tunnel to block it off, or in a ring around your Robot to act as a defensive shield. Barriers can be destroyed with bullets.


EYEOFRA

Acts as a sentinel. The eye rotates in the air, shooting Laserflash at anything in its vicinity.


VENGANCE

A swarm of particles which penetrate a shield and attack a Robot. This roiling mass of particles chases a Robot for about 60 seconds and is impervious to shields. If that Robot is destroyed, they head for any other Robot except the launcher.

There is no way to defend yourself from Vengeance other than to run.


COMBO

Combines Rapidfire, Longshot, and Radar Modules and frees the Weapon Bays that they had occupied.


FIREWALL

Creates a wall of flames which can be used to block an entrance to a building or tunnel. Similar in function to the Barrier module. A Robot can shoot through a Firewall, but it will suffer massive damage if it walks through.


FLARES

Launch into the air and light an area as it slowly falls to the ground.

Flares are available in place of Smokebombs during night missions.


JAMMER

Jams all radar within ½ of the normal radar range around your Robot. Jammer can be toggled on and off to take a quick look at your own radar.


MKULTRA

A mind control weapon that scrambles the visual and audio processing of any enemy Robot in the vicinity.


RADAR

Required for the operation of your Radar Display.


SCANNER

Automatically identifies all Modules that you encounter. When your Robot has an active Scanner module, all Modules have their name displayed above them.


SCARAB

A small, fast-moving beetle which searches out the nearest enemy Robot. Similar to the Vengance module but far more dangerous. When it finds the enemy, it "attaches" itself for a fixed time and detonates if it detects any movement. The Robot is notified when the Scarab Beetle's timer has expired.


VIPERS

Produces an egg which cracks open after a few moments and releases five vipers. The vipers then wait in the area for a Robot to approach. When a Robot comes close, the vipers bite his feet off.


Controls

Note: We strongly recommend using a joystick to play S.C.A.R.A.B..

Gameplay Controls

Note: Mouse users, see Gameplay Controls for the Mouse below.

ACTION	JOYSTICK	Keyboard
Move	Move Joystick	Directional Keys
Fire Weapons	Button 1	SPACEBAR
Dead Eye Aiming	Button 2	Hold CONTROL
Jump (fire rocket if Horus)	Button 3	INSERT or Z
Raise/Lower Shields	Button 4	DELETE
Rotate Shields	Hold Button 4	Hold DELETE
Pick up module	Button 5	ENTER or P
Cycle through Weapons	N/A	16
Eject selected Module	N/A	SHIFT + 16
Activate Weapon in selected bay	N/A	16
Look Up/Down	Hat Button Up/Down	+/-
Center Point of View	Tap Button 2	ASTERISK
Switch Robots	N/A	TAB
Cycle Camera Views	N/A	F1F3
Cancel Repair in Progress	N/A	X
Sacrifice Yourself	N/A	CONTROL + S
Toggle the chat window (Multiplayer games only)	N/A	TAB
Zoom Radar In/Out	N/A	R
Center Joystick	CONTROL + J	CONTROL + J
Toggle Aura On/Off (Night missions only)	N/A	U
Increase/Decrease Connection Speed (Multiplayer games only)	N/A	[/]
Gameplay Controls for the Mouse

ACTION	MOUSE
Move	N/A
Fire Weapons	Right-click
Dead Eye Aiming	Left-click and hold
Jump (fire rocket if Horus)	Left-click the Robots feet on the Status Display
Raise/Lower/Rotate Shields	Left-click the shield bar on the Status Display
Pick up module	Left-click the Robots body on the Status Display
Cycle through Weapons	Left-click the Module Bay
Eject selected Module	Right-click the Module Bay
Zoom Radar In/Out	Left-click the edge of the Radar Display
Order Module	Left-click an item on the Module List
Requesting Modules

Module Requested	Keyboard Commands
Sarcophagus	S
Tower	T
Supply Ship Items	A - N


Module Request

When you request a module, your supply ship delivers it. The module falls from the sky and bounces on the ground near you. Walk up to the module and press ENTER or P to pick up the module and add it to one of your bays. To activate the item in that bay, press the appropriate number key (1-6).


Quick Start

The Object of the Game

To win a single-player mission or a multiplayer game you must either kill all of the enemy robots three times each or control the city for five minutes continuously by placing and protecting power-producing Towers.

Playing the Game

The two opposing sides in S.C.A.R.A.B. are Ra (Gold) and Osiris (Blue). Each side has a supply ship which delivers weapons (link), Towers and other equipment. Each side has the use of three classes of Robot: Horus, Anubis, or Sekhmet.

You begin the game with three lives. On the Mission screen you choose a class of Robot for each life. Each Robot has different weapons systems and capabilities. Each robot has six Module bays which can be loaded with weapons and other equipment. See the Robots section of the manual for more details.

Ordering Modules

The Module list shows you which Modules are available for ordering. (As you progress through the missions, new Modules periodically become available.) It also shows Tower and Sarcophagus.

When you request something from your supply ship, it locks on to your coordinates and makes the drop at that location. Depending on the location of the supply ship, this may take a little time. So, even if you have left the area, the Module is delivered to the original coordinates. A little while after you order a Module, you see the blue Module packs fall out of the sky and drop onto the ground around you. Pilot your Robot on top of the Module and press ENTER or P, and you see the armaments loaded up into each weapon bay. To select a particular weapon hit the number 1-6 represented by the bay it is in. There are also special Modules which can be found scattered around the battlefield. For a complete list of Weapons and their functions, go to the Weapons section of this Help file.

Starting a Mission

When the mission begins, there is a short grace period. During the grace period no enemies fire at you. If you hit the fire button and use a weapon you give up your grace period.

Pay attention to the status section of your game screen. Your robot doesn't just get killed, he gets taken apart, piece by piece. Green indicates full health, yellow - damaged, red - almost gone, and black means that the corresponding body part has been blown away. When your Robot is damaged, you can repair it in the field. Each team has one sarcophagus which can completely heal any robot over a 15-second period. Type S to order a Sarchopagus. The supply ship drops it at your location. Walk into it and repairs begin. After 15 seconds you will be completely healed. The sarcophagus is unusable for 30 seconds after it has repaired someone. It is often better to destroy your sarcophagus after you have used it. If you do not destroy it, your enemy can use it. Also, later in the game you may need it again on the other side of the battlefield, and you can't request a sarcophagus drop if you already have one on the battlefield.

Although the sarcophagus heals your robot completely, it does not restore the shield. The only way to get your shield restored in a game and that is by using an Ankh. Around the battlefield you will see 4 Ankhs floating in mid-air, slowly rotating. If you stand directly underneath an Ankh it falls to the ground and explodes. When it explodes it has a 50/50 chance of either healing you, or killing you. When it explodes it will also heal or kill any robot within the blast radius, including the enemy who was pursuing you. This means you could potentially kill yourself but heal your enemy, or vice versa.

If you shoot an Ankh, it explodes and kills anything within the blast radius. If during combat your have lost both of your arms and are still getting shot up by the enemy you have the option of sacrificing yourself to the gods. If you hit Control-S the Gods will consider your request. You cannot sacrifice yourself your 3rd life, but you can on the first two. When you sacrifice yourself (it takes about 6 seconds to complete) it will create a massive explosion which could backfire on the robot who was trying to kill you.

Winning by Power

Each team gets 16 Towers to place across the battle field. Each time you order a Tower, it drops to your present location. After about 30 seconds the Tower activates, and you see power radiated on the power map. This marks territory that is now under your control. You can place up to four of your Towers in a single location to concentrate the power in that spot. If you attempt to place more than four Towers, power saturation occurs, and you cant order any more Towers in that area. Power saturation decreases your potential power output. Meanwhile, your opponent is placing his Towers and trying to weaken or destroy your Towers. As a Tower becomes weakened it radiates less power. In order to maximize your power output, you must seek out and destroy your own weakened Towers and replace them with new ones.

As you place more Towers into the playfield your power increases (gold or blue bars above and below the power map). Your goal is get it past the 50% mark. Once your power goes past the 50% mark, a five-minute countdown begins. If you can maintain your power above 50% for the full five minutes, you win the game. If your enemy knocks your power output below 50% at any time during the countdown, the countdown timer is reset to five minutes.

As your mission progresses, keep your eye on the Power Grid Display. Ra power output is represented by gold. Osiris power is shown in blue. Areas of contested power are blurred. When Towers from both sides are placed in the same vicinity, the area is considered in contention. If you can gain control of a contended area, your power output is greatly increased. To do this you must either place more Towers than your opponent in the area or destroy some of the enemy Towers. However, if you destroy all of the enemy Towers, the area is no longer considered in contention, and your power output is not boosted.


Dead-Eye Aiming

Dead-Eye aiming allows you to dynamically adjust your target with pin-point accuracy. When you are engaged in a battle, seconds are critical. Mastering the art of Dead-Eye aiming is essential if you hope to survive. Before you can kill an enemy, you must destroy his shield. This often requires great precision.

•	To use Dead-Eye aiming, hold Joystick Button 2 or Hold CONTROL or the left mouse button and fire.