The World of Computer Software/The World of Computer Software.iso/yt34b10.zip/YTINSTR.DOC

Text File | 1992-12-09 | 23KB | 500 lines

                  Y     Y AAAAA   N    N K  K EEEEE EEEEE
                   Y   Y  A   A   NN   N K K  E     E
                    Y Y   AAAAA   N N  N KK   EEE   EEE
                     Y    A   A   N  N N KK   E     E
                     Y    A   A   N   NN K K  E     E
                     Y    A   A   N    N K  K EEEEE EEEEE

                    TTTTTTT RRRR AAAAA DDDD  EEEEE RRRR !!
                       T    R  R A   A D   D E     R  R !!
                       T    RRRR AAAAA D   D EEE   RRRR !!
                       T    RR   A   A D   D E     RR   !!
                       T    R R  A   A D   D E     R R
                       T    R  R A   A DDDD  EEEEE R  R !!


                              by Alan Davenport




        It is a period of great instability. Mankind has broken the time and
distance barrier to the stars with inexpensive warp driven space ships. Anyone
with enough credits can buy a ship and head out into the void. Chaos rules.
The central Earth government found that it is impossible to maintain law and
order throughout the vastness of space and on the countless outposts that have
appeared almost overnight. The only law is of survival. The only hope for
survival is in strength. The only way to strength is through ruthless trading
of basic goods. It seems that all ports always have too much or too little of
one thing or another. You've purchased your ship, barely able to afford the
minimum of holds, defensive fighters, a few remote sensor robots, some shield
energy, and a few days cloaking charge. An ant to be squashed by the more
powerful trader barons. However, you are smart. You are confident that you can
hide out long enough to equip your ship with more powerful arms and holds and
that you will one day be a trader baron to be feared!


        As you sit down on the bridge of your new ship, you admire its compact
and efficient design. Since you spent your every last credit on this beauty,
and on equipping her, you live on the bridge. Your first move is to power up
the ship's computer and start browsing its operations manual....


M - Move

        Each location in the galaxy is called a sector. Each sector can have
from 1 to 6 flux paths called "warps" which appear on the sector display.
Warps lead to other sectors, usually close by, but occasionally reach long
distances. To move, select a sector NUMBER to move to and enter the number
after pressing "M".


S - Sensors

        Just moving around blindly will get you killed real fast. It's best to
use your sensors. They will show you what is in the adjacent sectors. Whether
they have a port, a planet, are mined, has other players or have a defense
force in them.


R - Launch a Sensor Robot

        There are times when you will want to check a path to see if it is
safe to travel. Or you may be hunting for planets, ports or other players. A
sensor robot will display all these. Launching one takes one turn. They can be
bought cheaply at Earth. It is not advisable to run out of them. Robots are
not reusable and some forces do not like their sector scanned and will try to
destroy any sensor robots passing through. Be careful when using robots. A
path that showed as "safe" may not be safe forever!


P - Port

        To earn credits, you must transport goods from port to port. Some
ports sell raw materials (Ore), Some sell food (Organics) and others sell end
products (Equipment). It is more than just buying from one port and selling
that product to another. Some ports are rather inflexible in their prices.
Other port's prices vary greatly. All vary to some extent with supply and
demand. You must use common sense in trading. If you suck a port dry (buy all
there is to sell) or saturate a port (sell them so much that they don't want
any more) you are going to be getting prices a lot less than if you spread
your trading out.


B - Buy a Port

        You can purchase the deed to any port except Earth. Ports are rather
expensive but once you own one, the money it makes becomes yours less 10%
taxes taken out by the Government PER DAY for defenses. The port will remain
in your name until your death or someone "buys you out". It is best to buy
ports on well traveled routes or nearby the home system (Earth) since they are
more heavily traded.


$ - Take Credits from your Ports

        Use this command to electronically transfer the credits earned by your
ports to your ship.


A - Attack Another Player

        It's a rough universe. You may be harassed, attacked, or even KILLED
by other players. You may attack other ships in self defense or maybe you got
up on the wrong side of your cabin today and just feel mean. You attack with
your "defensive" fighters. You may pick how many you wish to attack with and
that group will fight until they kill off the attacked ship or are themselves
killed completely off.

        If you manage to kill off the ship you are attacking, you will be able
to recover whatever portion of the ship that wasn't destroyed and that you
have room to carry.

        While moving around you may run into defensive forces. These forces
will try to prevent you from entering their sector (unless they were dropped
by a team member.) If you run into one, you may either try to fight them off
or run away using emergency warp. If you attack, your force will either fight
until it is killed off or wins the battle. If you attack with a large enough
force, the defending fighters may decide that it is futile to resist and will
offer to surrender. If you accept their surrender, they join YOUR forces. If
however you reject their surrender, they will fight to the death (for what
other choice have they?)

        Being cloaked improves your chances in battle.

        Your ship is equipped with a cloaking device. This device will make
your ship invisible to other ships and improve your chances in battle. It is
NOT foolproof however but being cloaked greatly protects you from most
hazards. Unfortunately, the cloaking device requires a great deal of energy.
This energy is not in the same form as produced by your ships engines and is
quite expensive. It may only be bought at EARTH (Sector 1 port). Cloaking
energy cannot be stored for any length of time. Once you buy cloaking energy,
you immediately become cloaked and your cloaking device will continue to
function until it exhausts all the available cloaking energy.

        Having a lot of shield energy will help you survive attacks.

        Your ship is equiped with shields. These shields will protect your
ship when it is attacked by either other ships or missiles and if you hit
sector mines. Shield power may be purchased at Earth.


I - Info on Your Ship

        This command tells you the current status of your mother ship. It will
tell you much good information that you require to survive and is available at
most menus, even if it is not displayed.


D - Drop a Sector Mine

        Sector mines are produced by the larger planets. They may be dropped
off in a sector and will seek out and explode on ANYONE who enters the sector
after it is armed, (including YOU!) doing great damage. They are dangerous but
are useful for laying traps for your enemies.


Q - Quit Back to the BBS.

        You should be able to figure this one out.


Z - Instructions

        You should be able to figure this one out too!


T - Team Menu

        There is safety in numbers. You may team up with up to 3 others. The
resources of Team Members are shared. Defense forces will allow passage of
other team members. Planets with ground defenses will allow team members to
land, etc. Items appearing on the team menu will vary. Only what is actually
available for use will show up. When you create a NEW team, you will become
the Team Captain. The team captain has extra functions and can banish team
members, change the team password, etc. (You pick the team password when you
create a new team. Other players will use this password to join your team.)
You will remain the team captain until you die or quit the team. If this
happens, the next team member who logs onto the game will be promoted to
captain.


F - Drop Defensive Fighters in a Sector

        If you wish to keep others out of a sector you may leave a portion of
your ships defensive fighters there. They will try to prevent anyone who is
not a team member from entering the sector. If someone runs into them who is
not a team member, they will either have to use emergency warp or try to fight
their way into the sector. If they choose to fight they will use their
fighters against your defensive fighters.

        If they attack with overwhelming odds your defense force may decide it
is hopeless and surrender! Don't leave too small defense forces unless you
like wasting fighters.


L - Land on or Create a Planet

        Something that you might want to drop fighters to defend is a Planet.
Planets are much more efficient at producing items than ports. Any excess
goods produced by planets are stored in warehouses and you can take this
excess for FREE. Planets produce Ore, Organics, Equipment, Fighters, Mines and
Missiles. They also have a bank where you can deposit excess credits at 5%
interest per day compounded by the minute!

        If you try to [L]and in a sector where there is no planet, the planet
builders "Genesis, Incorporated" will ask you if you wish them to build a
planet here. When you buy a planet, it will have a defense level of 1 and will
produce 1 unit of each item per day (Except mines and missiles.) Not very
impressive. HOWEVER you can quickly build up a planet by transferring cargo to
it. A planet will also slowly increase production if you just leave it alone.
If there is 10 times the daily production of ore, organincs or equipment in
storage in the warehouses, production for that item will slowly increase. The
bigger the planet, the faster the increase. Production of fighters is the
average of the daily production of ore, organics, and equipment. Missile
production per day is total production of ore, organics and equipment / 1000.
Mine production per day is total production of ore, orgranincs and equipment /
2500. There is no upper limit on how big a planet can grow however over
populated planets stand the chance of being hit by a plague.

        Obviously, you don't want just anyone in the universe to come along be
able to plunder your planets! Especially when they reach a decent level of
productivity. To defend your planets you can either drop defensive fighters in
the same sector and/or build up ground defenses. Ground defenses will keep
anyone who is not on your team from landing on your planets. Ground defenses
are quite expensive but anyone attacking them will spend much more on their
attack then you had to spend to build the defenses! Any ground forces on a
planet grow at a rate of 1% per day.

        When you land at a planet, you will have the option of taking [1]Ore,
[2]Organics, [3]Equipment, [4]Fighters, [5]Missiles, [6]Mines or [A]ll (Take
as much as you can carry taking the most valuable items first.) You may also
[T]ransfer any ore, organics, equipment you are carrying to the planet. If the
amount of the item transferred stored on the planet exceeds 10 times the daily
production, the productivity will be increased for that item. This is the BEST
way of building powerful planets quickly. You may also transfer excessive
mines, missiles and fighters to the planet. This is a good way to share
resources with team members.

        Every Planet has a bank. You may deposit credits there which will earn
interest at the rate of 5% daily. At the bank, you specify how much you want
in the account. ANYONE who is allowed to land at the planet can withdraw the
credits. This is a good way for team members to share resources. Depositing
credits on an undefended planet is foolish.

        If too many people know where your planet is, you may hire Xannoron
Movers to move your planet to a new location. This takes a good deal of time
(10 turns per sector) but is a fairly safe procedure. There IS a very small
chance of the planet blowing up due to excessive stress, but that is "Bad
Business" and Xannoron Movers is usually quite careful. Moving two planets
into one another can have disastrous results.


+ - Launch a Plasma Bolt

        Plasma bolts are expensive but catastrophically destructive devices
that your larger planets will produce for you. You cannot buy them at Earth.
Plasma bolts will hit (and potentially destroy) ANYTHING that is in their
path! They have many uses. When you launch one, you will be asked which sector
you wish to send it to. Plasma bolts are extremely dangerous and can do great
damage to an enemy if fired with care. Plasma bolts have limited range and
weaken with distance.


! - Launch a Cruise Missile

        Missiles are destructive weapons that your larger planets will produce
for you. You cannot buy them at Earth. Missiles will attack (and potentially
destroy) ANYTHING that does not belong to you or your team members. They have
many uses. When you launch one, you will be asked which sector you wish to
send it to. Missiles are single-minded and will attack the FIRST thing they
find that is on their "hit-list". Be careful you don't hit the wrong target!
Missiles have no range limitation and do not weaken with distance.


C - The Ship's Computer

        The computer is the single most useful item on board your ship. It has
many useful functions that can be selected by number. Each one is described
below:

        1 - Exit Computer Control

                Easy, no description needed.

        2 - Port Report

                This will allow you to see the prices and amount of products
                of any port in a sector that is not defended by an enemy. You
                enter the sector the port is in and the computer gives you the
                data.

        3 - Autopilot

                This is the single most useful computer function. You enter
                the sector you wish to go to and the computer will program the
                navigation computer with the path data and you will be
                transported there (one sector at a time) automatically.

        4 - Rank Players

                This function will generate a scoreboard showing the relative
                power of each player, team, and alien forces in the game.

        5 - Sub-Space Radio

                The computer controlled radio will allow you to send messages
                to an individual player, your entire team, or ALL players.
                Using the radio, you can send a short message to anyone.

        6 - Review Radio Messages

                Radio messages are stored for a short time in your computer's
                memory. You may use this function to reread incoming messages,
                unexpired broadcast messages to all, or unread messages that
                you have transmitted to others.

        7 - Set Sectors to Avoid using the Autopilot

                There are times that you will wish to AVOID passing through
                dangerous sectors. The trouble with this is that the shortest
                path found using the autopilot may pass THROUGH one of these
                sectors!  Using this computer option,  you can command the
                computer to NOT choose paths through certain sectors. Up to
                thirty sectors may be eliminated.

        8 - Display Galactic Newspaper

                Almost everything that happens in the galaxy is recorded in
                the electronic newspaper. The list of what is displayed is
                rather extensive. A serious trader ALWAYS reads the newspaper
                on a daily basis for important information.

        9 - Planet Report

                Similar to the function #2 port report, this will display the
                information or the status of any undefended planet.

       10 - Path Finder

                This will allow you to check the path between any two sectors.
                It is useful for finding safe paths around dangerous areas.

       11 - Display Defense Forces

                This function will display all of your defense forces, their
                locations and strengths.

       12 - Check Port Profits

                This function will display all of your ports that have earned
                credits from trading. The totals of barren ports, ports with
                credits, and total credits earned are displayed.

       13 - Find Your Planets

                This function will list the sector numbers of each planet that
                you have placed ground forces on.

       14 - Find Nearest Ports

                This function is extremely useful when trading. It will save
                you endless wandering looking for a port to trade your goods
                at. It shows ports nearest your sector first then increasing
                in distance until you cancel the function.


G - Initiate Genesis

        It has been written that one day, a Trader Baron will arise who will
eliminate all of the evil in the universe. Only one true of heart and of great
power may do this. Are you the one to fulfill the prophesy?


W - Emergency Warps

        If you run into a fighter force too strong for you, or are trapped in
a sector and wish to escape, you may raise your engine power to emergency warp
levels. This uses a great deal of turns and you risk engine overload. If your
engines overload, you will lose all turns for that day. Emergency Warps are
for just that, EMERGENCIES! You should only use it in the greatest of need!


                  *** Miscellaneous Other Information ***


The Xannor

        Man has encountered one, and only ONE other intelligent race in the
galaxy; The Xannor. Unfortunately, they are completely aggressive and
(apparently) impossible to eradicate. They wander around and attack anything
and anyone they can find. They drop mines all over the place, sit in sectors
and refuse to leave, and fire missiles seemingly at random. In short, they are
arrogant little ------'s! The only good Xannor is a dead Xannor and the
government will grant you 1 turn for every 250 Xannor killed. The Government
will also greatly reward you if you can find their home system and destroy the
defense forces there. It is rumored that the Xannor home planet is quite a
prize for the brave and more powerful players to plunder!


The Mercenaries

        The government daily collects 10% (!!) taxes from port profits and
uses this money to hire mercenaries. These mercenaries will fight any Xannor
they find but also may plunder any planets they find, or join up with defense
forces of other traders! They are an unpredictable and dangerous but it is
rumored that they may be bribed to join up with traders. They will join up
cheaply with you (for life with a powerful trader baron is better than working
for the government!) but care must be exercised to not insult them or they
will attack you to the death! If you pay them enough, they will join up with
you and will remain loyal forever more. Nothing is certain however and care
should be exercised with them. If you are (heaven forbid!) killed, your old
defense forces will become mercenaries.


Entering Commands


        As a beginner, you will likely enter commands one at a time at the
various prompts however if you continue to do so you will never be more than a
mediocre player. The key to winning is to gain as much power as fast as
possible. The key to speed is stacking commands. Commands can be stacked
separated by semicolons. You may stack as many commands as you wish (within
reason). An example of how to land at a planet, take all, and leave is below:

L;A;L

        Command strings will cancel if something unusual happens. (i.e. you
run into a defense force, etc.) You can also cancel execution of a command
string yourself by hitting CONTROL-X.

Some times you will want to constantly reuse a command string. You can save a
command for reuse by placing a slash ( / ) at the end of the command string.
The example for land-all-leave above would then look like this;

L;A;L/

To REPLAY the commands, hit CONTROL-R. Any command recorded is remembered
until you log out of the game. Any new command recorded erases the previous
entry.


Repeating commands

        You also may repeat a command up to 30 times while only entering it
ONCE. To do this you enter your command string as usual, but put a "/R#" at
the end of it where "#" is a number from 2 to 30. Say you were trading between
two ports in sectors 555 and 666. A command string to do this would look like
this:

M;555;P;1000;Y;1000;Y;M;666;P;1000;Y;1000;Y

        You COULD put a slash on the end and then hit control-R to replay the
command but if you want to do a lot of trading, even this can get tedious. A
better way would be to use the repeat function. Let's say that you wanted to
trade between the two ports 30 times. To do this you would put "/R30" at the
end of the command. In this case, the command would look like this:

M;555;P;1000;Y;1000;Y;M;666;P;1000;Y;1000;Y/R30
                                           ^^^^
                                           See?

        That would trade between the two ports 30 times. Now let's say you
want to trade 30 MORE times. In this case, you can just hit control-R to
replay the above command 30 MORE times!

        If you want to CANCEL the command before it finishes, you can hit
control-X. This will work for ANY command not just for repeat commands. This
can be useful if you realize you made a mistake and want to abort! (-:


Global Commands

        Many commands of the most commonly used commands in the game are
global. That is, they are available at almost every menu prompt even if they
are NOT displayed. The global commands are [I] - Info, [P] - Port, [L] - Land,
[C] - Computer, and [M] - Move. There are a few others but those five are
available almost everywhere.


The Final Word

        That's it for the instructions. There are lots of not-so-obvious
features and functions that you will discover as you become more and more
proficient at the game. Don't be afraid to experiment. A lot of things that
seem random really aren't and can be used to your playing advantage as you
learn all the tricks. Remember, others will be learning too and the key to
winning is by being the most resourceful player!

Alan Davenport
29 January, 1992
BBS # 1-717-686-3037
9600 HST
Fidonet 1:13/75
Door Distribution System Headquarters