PC Gamer 2.14/1997-03_Disc_2.14.iso/starcom/readme.txt

Text File | 1996-12-05 | 22KB | 460 lines

Star Command:  The Manual
Magazine Demo Version v.01
NET PLAY IS ENABLED (up to 4 players)--You don't need the CD
UNLIMITED INSTALL
Demo Limitations:  Nomad and Triumverite Races Not Included, No
Campaign, No Battle Randomizer

PUBLISHED BY:
GT Interactive Software
255 Shoreline Drive  Suite 520
Redwood City, CA  94065
[phone]

DEVELOPED BY:
Metropolis Digital, Inc.
Games and Post Production Offices
12 South First Street, 11th Floor
San Jose, CA 95113
[phone]

Copyright GT Interactive Software (publisher) 1996.  All Rights
Reserved.  This material is the property of GT Interactive and is
intended and restricted solely for use of GT Interactive Personnel or
authorized appointees.  The sale, copying, or reproduction of
this material in any form is prohibited.  STAR COMMAND is Copyright
of Metropolis Digital, Inc. (developer) 1996, all rights reserved.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
486/66 PC  or higher (Pentium Processor is recommended)
MS-DOS 5.0 or higher
16 MB RAM required
25 MB of free hard drive space
1 MB of VRAM on your video card
Double-speed CD-ROM or higher
Sound Blaster sound card compatible
Network play requires IPX -compatible network card

INSTALLATION:
1)  Run INSTALL.EXE
2)  Choose a destination path for installation
(DEFAULT=C:\STARCOM)
3) Press RETURN
4) Go to the directory containing the file STARCOM.EXE
(DEFAULT=C:\STARCOM)
5) Run STARCOM.EXE

THE STORY SO FAR:
Four cultures met in the deep void.  Weary of endleess exploration, and
eager to peacefully colonize the fertile worlds of the Zeta Galaxy, they
formed a non-aggression pact and engaged in limited trade.  Thus, the
programming Computrons, the disposessed Nomads, the questing
Triumverites, and resource-hunting Terrans were able to co-exist quietly
and autonomously.
Then came the Age of Solinite.  Computron mining vehicles chanced
upon a method of transforming the warp storms that plagued the Zeta
Galaxy into an awesome source of energy.  They freely shared this
knowledge with their nearest neighbors, the Nomads.  Armed with this
unprecedented source of energy, the Nomads constructed a fleet of
devastating warships known today as Mass Driver Cannons.  The
Nomads sought to rain fiery death upon the manipulative Terrans.
The Terrans suspected that the Nomads harbored animosity against
them for their frequent espionage.  Terran spies within the Nomad
government confirmed this suspicion.  These spies not only provided
the Terrans with status reports on the Nomad fleet, but also revealed
the secret of Solinite.  The Terrans incorporated this technology into
shield piercing mini-shuttles which could deliver special mechanized
operatives deep into enemy ships.  The Nomads soon found that their
own destructive technology was being used against them.
The Triumverites emerged from their cloaked colony worlds to examine
the wreckage of the Nomad/Terran war.  They soon unlocked the secret
power of Solinite.  The Triumverites used Solinite to develop weaponry
that destroyed all systems of propulsion.  Terran and Nomad ships
began disappearing from battlezones.  Computron scanners determined
that the Triumverites were harvesting frozen Terran and Nomad ships
for research.  The Computrons also detected huge surges of energy
emanating from the Triumverite homeworld.  They discovered that the
Triumverites were using an unidentified technology to structurally
enhance Triumverite warships, making them virtually indestructable.  All
this data led the Computrons to the conclusion that the Triumverites
would eventually achieve galaxy-wide domination.
To preserve balance, the Computrons initiated a program to develop the
Tech Disruptor.  The Computrons allied themselves with the Nomads in
order to optimally combine their shield repair and Disruptor technology
with the Nomad's raw firepower.  The Computron/Nomad alliance held
back the Triumverite threat until each of the four races' central
governments collapsed after a series of mysterious bombings and
assassinations staged by the elusive Ahkun Vek Warlord, Narvek.
Narvek quickly absorbed the four races' technology.  The Ahkun Vek
had been secretly fomenting hostilities between the races for so long
that Narvek's single dreadnaught was able to defeat the great multitude
of divided Terran, Computron, Nomad, and Triumverite forces.  Narvek's
reign of terror began, and the Zeta Sector trembled in his iron grip.
Using the four races' technology combined with Ahkun Vek
dreadnaught design, Narvek began constructing four super-
dreadnaughts.
Some of the Terran survivors banded together to stop the Ahkun Vek
nemisis.  Together they formed a secret revolutionary military group
called Star Command:  an interstellar peace-keeping force dedicated to
protecting their ideals and destroying the mysterious Ahkun Vek.

GAME MODES:

MULTI-PLAYER CAMPAIGN: (not available in DEMO)
In the Star Command Campaign, you have been chosen to lead the crew
of a commandeered Ahkun Vek Mothership.  Your mission is to
command an advance group of Terran insurgents and stir rebellion
against Narvek's violent rule.  Along the way, build treaties with the
Computrons, Nomads, and Triumverites. Victory is achieved when you
successfully demolish the four super-dreadnaughts under construction
and destroy Narvek himself.  Carefully study the Ahkun Vek, learn their
plans, build counter-technology, and blast them back to the nebula they
came from.  Your Campaign game is saved each time your Mothership
enters Hyperspace.  To enter Hyperspace, move your Mothership into
the green glowing area at the border of the sector you currently occupy.
Only Motherships may travel between sectors;  in two-player
Campaigns, if either Mothership enters Hyperspace, both Motherships
will travel to the new Sector.  If you wish to get a better idea as to where
the Hyperspace jump will take you, right click on your mini-map--this
changes your mini-map into a global map detailing where you have
explored during the Campaign.  If your Mothership is destroyed you will
return to the Campaign Selection screen.  If your plans go awry during
the course of a battle, you may quit the game and restore your save slot.
A save slot will always start you at the point where you have just exited
Hyperspace.

BATTLES:
Your specific goal in sector Battles is to collect asteroids (NOMAD),
crystals (TERRAN), plasma (TRIUMVERITE), gaseous anomalies
(COMPUTRON), and Solinite to build a military force of highly
specialized warships, defensive stations, and droids to protect
your colony from leaders who oppose your way of life.  Command Mass
Driver Battleships, Shield Resonators, Point Laser Towers, Fighter
Carriers, and a vast array of alien technology to tactically outmatch your
opponents.  Victory goes to the survivor.  When you click on Battles on
the Main Menu, you will first be asked to enter your log-in name.  After
typing your name, click OK.  You will then see the Battle Selection
screen.  Here you will have the option to Create or Join a Battle.
If you click Create, you will enter the Gathering Screen.  At this time, all
other players on the network will see your name appear under the
Battles banner as a valid game to join.  Click on the name of the Sector
where you wish to do battle.  If you wish to add computer controlled
commanders, left click on an empty slot under the Commanders banner.
If you wish to toggle off a computer, left click on the slot you
wish to purge.  If an unwanted human player has intruded on your
gathering, left click on their name to eject them from the game.  Choose
which race you wish to represent in the battle by left-clicking on their
insignia, depicted in the lower left quadrant of the screen.  Send a
message to the group asking if they are ready, then click the START
button.
Joining a battle is very similar to Creating a battle.  To Join a battle, on
the Battle Selection screen click the name of the battle you wish to join
under the Battles banner.  You will then see a screen very similar to the
creating player's Gathering screen, except you will not be able to choose
the Sector, nor will you be able to eject Commanders from the game.
Whether you are joining or creating a game, the most important decision
to make before the battle begins is which race you will control.  Each
race has unique technologies and provides a different strategic
approach.  The Terrans are a culture of explorers who would rather
conquer than kill their enemies.  They use an arsenal of guided missles
and Infiltrator Tech to capture their enemies' units.  The silicon-based
Computrons are Experts at healing themselves and transporting
themselves out of danger.  They possess Tech Disruptor weaponry and
the fastest vessels in the Zeta Galaxy.  The Nomads have developed the
mercilessly destructive Mass Driver technology and long range warp
torpedoes.  They also use point laser defense and droid transport
vessels to aid in their lightning fast onslaught tactics.  The Triumverites
use stealth weapons to harrass their enemies at long-range and cripple
their engines.
Through repeated structural realignment, the Triumverites can bring
their ships to a near state of invincibility.

PLAYING THE GAME:  THE COMMAND SCREEN
1) Main View Screen
Where you observe all the action within a particular sector of the
galaxy.  Moving either your mouse or arrow keys adjusts your view.   In
Campaign, in order to move to another sector, you need to find the
hyperspace entrance to that sector.  You will then see your ship
disappear from one sector, then shift to the next.

2)  Oval Red Pause Button
Pause the game.  Click again to un-pause.  Paused mode brings up exit
option.  Click on the 'EXIT' text to exit the game.

3)  Mini-Map
Friendly vessels and structures appear in your ownership color.  Enemy
units appear in their ownership colors.  The terrain depicted in the mini-
map varies in color depending upon the type of terrain.  Shield flickers
(damage/healing effects) blink.The red rectangle on the mini-map
indicates your current Main View Screen area.  You may click on the
mini-map to quickly jump the Main View Screen to a new area.

4)  Current Piece
This displays an image of the current single piece selected or the leader
of a group.

5) Damage Gauge (to the right of the Current Piece)
The current selected unit has four systems which effect its operation.
Shields protect the unit from being destroyed.  Engine allows the ship to
keep moving.  Tech effects how often the unit may use its technology.
Control allows you to maintain command of the unit.  Each system
displays two status values.  The red bar indicates the current amount
of damage that the unit has sustained in a particular system.  The green
bar indicates that system's maximum capacity.  Many high-level units
inflict permanent "green" damage when they hit, while low level units
usually do more temporary "red" damage.  Repair units can only repair
"red" or temporary damage.  Only the Triumverite Repair Matrix
can repair "green" or permanent damage.
5a) Shield Damage - A unit is destroyed when its shields are reduced to
zero.
5b) Engine Damage - A unit moves more slowly as its engines take
more damage.
5c) Tech Damage - A unit will use its technology less frequently as its
tech is
damaged.
5d) Control Damage - A unit will change ownership or self-destruct
when its control
is destroyed.

6) Piece Name
Name of currently highlighted piece.

7) Rank (under the image of the Current Piece)
A unit will improve its Shield, Engine, Tech, and Control, as well as its
accuracy,
movement speed, rate of fire, number of shots, damage, shot range,
responsiveness to
orders, scanning range, and gain unique abilities as it gains rank.

8) Description
Lists the highlighted piece's capabilities.

9) Selection Storage (red buttons on the far right)
Click on a memory slot to store a selected group in memory.  Hit the
corresponding function key to bring up the selection again.  Click on an
already defined slot to reassign a new selection group.

10) Resources
A green bar indicates the quantity of a particular resource that you
possess.  When you select a piece to build in the Building Options Bar,
a blue highlight indicates the amount of resources necessary to
construct the unit.  The amount appears red when you don't
have enough resources.
10a) Solinite - All
10b) Gaseous Anomaly - Computron
10c) Radioactive Asteroid - Nomad
10d) Plasma - Triumverite
10e)  Crystal - Terran

11) Production Meter (giant glowing green light on the lower left)
The Production Meter must be fully charged in order to build units.
Smaller units like droids cause the meter to drop slightly, while larger
units such as Ultra-Tech devices deplete the meter nearly completely.

12) Race Selection (on the right of the Production Meter)
Indicates which race's units are displayed in the Building Options Bar.
At the beginning of the game, only your race appears bright and the
other races gray.  The buttons light up as another race's technology is
ready to be acquired.  Click on a race to view their building options.

13) Building Options Bar
At the outset of the game, only your Base is available for construction.
Once you build a Base, you have access to an Academy, a Battle
Station, and an Explorer class ship.  In order to learn new technologies,
move your Mothership adjacent to an Academy.  It is useful to build
multiple Academies, since after you havelearned all the technologies in
your race, then the Mothership will proceed to learn an alien Base
technology.  The Terrans will research Computron technology.  The
Computrons will move on to study Nomad tech.  The Nomads research
Triumverite tech.  The Triumverites will learn Terran tech.  When you
learn an ally's tech, you gain the ability to construct their command
center.  Further study requires that you build their academy for that
race.

THE MOTHERSHIP
The Mothership allows you to gather resources, build, and learn new
technologies.  While she is not armed herself, she is capable of instantly
generating well-armed structures to protect herself. You maneuver your
Mothership as you do the other ships in your fleet.  Just highlight
her on the Main View Screen when you want to move her into position
to build a structure, gather a resource, or gain knowledge.

BUILDING STATIONS
Click on the station you wish to build in the Building Options Bar.  The
cost of building the structure is represented in the Resource Level
indicator.  The Main View Screen will now center on your Mothership.
You may place the structure in an unoccupied space in proximity to
your Mothership.  The Main View Screen will not scroll while you are in
build mode.  If you do not wish to build, right click the mouse to
cancel the build operation.  To place the structure move the green
highlighted image of the building into the position where you wish to
build.  It appears green when it is valid to build.  Invalid areas will
appear red.  If all parts of the structure are green, click and the structure
is built.

CONSTRUCTING SHIPS
Move the mouse over the ship you wish to build on the Buildings
Option Bar.  The amount of solinite required to build the unit is noted in
the Resource Levels indicator.  The ship's functions are also displayed
on the status screen.  Click and the ship is produced adjacent to your
Command Center.
When you're ready to deploy, either highlight a single ship or click and
drag to highlight a group of ships with your Laser Pointer.  Left click in
empty space and the ships will proceed to that destination.  If you want
them to target a specific enemy unit, right click on the target enemy unit
and all of your currently selected units will attack.  When you target a
friendly ship, your highlighted ship will be linked to that ship
and will follow it everywhere.  You can link as many ships together as
you wish.  Repair ships will prefer to fix damage on the ship which they
target.

COMBAT
Hostile forces automatically fire at each other automatically.  The
damage inflicted on a particular unit can be determined by highlighting
it and checking the Damage Gauge on the Command Screen.  A piece
that specializes in damaging a particular system will also
do some residual damage to other systems.  For example, a higher level
tech damage weapon will also do some shield and engine damage.
A ship's fighting ability is determined by its rank.  As it gains rank, it
fires more rapidly and accurately, and responds immediately to
deployment commands.  When a ship is first produced, it's rank is
Recruit.  Be careful - it's inability to shoot with complete accuracy could
cause friendly fire casualties during battle.  Every time a ship
scores a hit, it earns an Experience Point.  Accumulating points moves
the ship up in rank.  The best way to train a new unit is to place it
adjacent to a university, where it can train up to the fourth level.  After
that, a unit must actively use its technology to gain experience.

RESOURCES
While exploring the galaxy, your ships will carve through the Unknown
and chart new regions that become visible on your Mini-Map.  You will
also discover the resources necessary for building your miltiary
machine.Solinite is the most important resource in the Zeta Galaxy.  You
use solinite for everything you build.  They are found inside two
sources:  Warp Storms andenemy units.You must first detonate a warp
storm before you can harvest the raw solinite within.  Each race has one
ship which can crack open a warp storm by selectingthe ship and right
clicking on the warp storm.  All races' first ship has the ability to target
warp storms (big packs of Solinite).  Also, if you detonate an enemy
unit, you cansalvage its engine core for Solinite.To harvest the solinite,
maneuver your Mother Ship close to a destroyed warp storm or engine
core.  The Mother Ship sends out a shuttle that uses a magnetic tractor
beam to lock onto the resource, then tows it back into the bowels of the
Mother Ship.
The solinite gauge on your Resource Levels increases each time you
harvest a resource.  The Mother Ship gathers natural resources in the
same manner it gathers solinite.  The other natural resources are
required for the construction of each race's
structures and ships (not droids):
        Terrans=        Crystal
        Computrons=        Gaseous Anomalies
        Nomads=        Radioactive Asteroids
        Triumverites=        Plasma


UNIT OVERVIEW:
TERRAN
SHIPS
1. "Terran Base"-- newly constructed Terran ships appear adjacent to
the Terran
Base.
2. "Explorer" --Fires guided shield damage.  Can target warp storms.
3. "Tech Fixer"--repairs tech.
4. "Switcher"--swap locations with target friendly ship or station.
5. "Nuker"--destroys structures, shield dam, radial blast.
6. "ROC4"-- fires twin guided rockets.
7. "Infiltrator"--control dam.
8. "Infiltrator Carrier"--control fighters.
STRUCTURES
1. "Academy"--train Terrans.
2. "Missile Base" --fires twin guided rockets.  Non-mobile.
3. "Target"--friendly attack ships may attack this station.
4. "Droid HQ"--build Terran Droids.
5. "M-160"-fires a guided missle, shield damage.
6. "Special Ops"-shield damage, long range, bonus against droids.
7. "Controller"-launch long range shuttle to take over enemy units

COMPUTRONS
1. "Computron Base"--All Computron ships are created adjacent to the
Computron Base.
2. "XPLR"--Fires guided shield damage.  Can target warp storms.
3. "Shield DOC"--Shield Repair
4. "Reflex Weapon"--fires one shield damage shot at all enemy ships in
range.
5. "Tech Disruptor"--deals tech damage to enemy ships.
6. "EMP Launcher"--radial shield damage blast.  +10 Tech dam v droids.
7. "Penetrator"--Shield dam.  Heavy permanent damage.
8. "Disruptor Carrier"--Fighters launch to seek enemies and deal tech
damage.
STRUCTURES
1. "Programming"--trains Computrons.
2. "Techpost"--fires twin guided tech damage shots. Non-mobile.
3. "Teleportal"--transport target friendly ship adjacent to teleportal
(target a friendly ship by right-clicking on it).
4. "Droid Factory"--build Computron Droids.
5. "ComDroid"--fires a guided shield damage rocket.
6. "Scrambler"--cannot be targetted by structures, shoots a shield
damage shot.
7. "Foldspacer"--fires a radial blast shield damage shot.  It can jump to
any previously explored location.

NOMAD:  NOT AVAILABLE IN DEMO

TRIUMVERITE: NOT AVAILABLE IN DEMO


Space                centers main view screen on
currently selected unit
Enter                centers main view screen on
Mothership
Arrow Keys            scroll main view screen
F1-F4                load saved unit selections (those
red buttons on the right)
F5                toggle speed
L                center on and select the last piece
you built
H                halt all selected units
CTRL+left click            destroy friendly station
SHIT+left click            toggle add/subtract from group
select
Alt+(Player Number)        your units will not harm that player/
your healers will help them

TECH SUPPORT--call GT

CREDITS
MDI CREW
GAME DESIGN            Roger Fang
                Mark Jordan
PROGRAMMING        Roger Fang
                Herbert Ong
ART                Mike Withem
                Mark Jordan
                Steve Preeg
MUSIC/SOUND            Jeff Hofmann at
                J.D. AUDIO POST
CINEMATICS            Steve Preeg
                Mike Withem
                Jessi Chan
                Rick Sevy
                Dan Casey
                Stephanie Mulqueen
BUSINESS            Stephen C.H. Lin

GT CREW
FOR GT INTERACTIVE        Kurt Busch
                Robert Wong

SPECIAL THANKS
VOICE TALENT            Effie Alexandrou
                Ken DeGrande
                Jeff Hofmann
                Staci Takiguchi
PRIMARY TESTERS                 Steve Preeg
                Kurt Busch
                Robert Wong
                John Byrne
                Robert Dorsett
                Chris Garske