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Text File | 1994-06-17 | 35KB | 658 lines

TURBO TREK 1.4 USER MANUAL =========================== 0.0.0 Introduction 0.1.0 Overview TurboTrek is basically a game of starship combat. Players have a variety of starships from which to command, each of these with different strengths and weaknesses. Players may play preset scenarios or design their own scenarios using the built in editor. Combat may be directed against a computer controlled opponent or a starship controlled by another player. Fleet actions involving many ships are also possible. EGA/VGA display, and mouse are required to run this game. 0.2.0 Purpose of the game This game's purpose is to attempt to simulate starship combat in as plausible a way as possible. TurboTrek was never designed or intended to be an arcade style game where ships disintegrate upon taking one hit. Here, ships are comprised of devices that can take damage during combat. Such damage will degrade a ship's combat effectiveness. It is your job, as the starship commander, to manage these ever dwindling resources in an effort to reach a favorable outcome. 0.3.0 Simulation Constraints In this version, the "universe" is limited to one playscreen and may contain no more than 30 objects. Asteroids possess no net gravitational field in order to speed calculations. 0.4.0 Software Installation TurboTrek may be played from diskette, or installed to a hard disk. In either case, we strongly suggest you make copies of your original diskette before use. To install to a hard disk, insert the diskette into drive A (or B, if that's your 3.5 inch drive) and type 'A:INSTALL' (or 'B:INSTALL'). The installation program will create a directory on the target drive called 'TT1', and load all the files there. To start the program, type: TT or TT S (for the silent version). 0.5.0 Credits Design: John Garza, Robert Gerami Programming: John Garza, Robert Gerami Documentation: Jennifer Clark 0.6.0 Diskette Exchange If your machine can't handle 3.5 inch diskettes, return them to us and we will exchange then for 5.25 inch low density diskettes at no charge. 1.0.0 The Basics In order to play TT, you need to know the basics. This body of knowledge can be broken down into 8 modules: Game Structure & Philosophy, Simulation Control Screen, Energy Allocation Screen, OPS Screen, Movement and Distance, Sensors/ECM, Weapons, and Damage and Repair. 1.1.0 Game Structure & Philosophy TurboTrek is a game of starships. These starships are comprised of devices. Devices lie at the heart of TurboTrek. Much effort was expended to try to make device responses as plausible as possible. Very little of TurboTrek is random. Each device has data which describes its strength, energy requirements, range, effects, reliability, and other factors. Since TT was originally designed as a multiplayer game, it was decided to have a segmented game turn. Each turn is divided into 10 subturns. And within each subturn, each ship gets one opportunity for action. This results in each player getting several mini-turns per whole turn and diminishes the coarseness of "I move everything - you move everything". A little terminology: each "game turn" is comprised of an Energy Allocation Phase and an Operations Phase. Each Operations Phase is comprised of 10 Subturns. Energy Allocation and Operations will be discussed later in this document. 1.2.0 SimCon - the simulation controller SimCon is the first screen of TT. This is where you select the desired scenario to play. You are provided with a list of all scenarios showing (from left to right) the filename, a short description, and the number of objects in the scenario. The vertical cursor keys and the pageup/pagedown keys are used to highlight the desired scenario. A list of all available commands appears on the message bar at the bottom of the screen. Commands may be activated by typing the letter in parenthesis. 1.2.1 Selecting/Running a Scenario In order to get a visual perspective of a scenario, move the highlight bar to the desired scenario, then hit the "M" key. This displays the game map for the scenario. You can hit any key to return to the scenario file list. To run the selected scenario, press the "R" key. 1.2.2 Robot ships Some starships in certain scenarios are under computer control. These ships can be identified by the word "robot" appearing before their name. For example: "robot Enterprise". These ships are useful when you are playing solo and need an opponent or when you are undertaking a large fleet scenario and need some extra firepower without the added burden of commanding another starship. The algorithms controlling the robot ships are fairly good, but a seasoned starship captain can usually do better. If at all possible, do the commanding yourself. 1.2.3 Multiplayer games Multiplayer games in TT are very easy. Just select a scenario with multiple ships and give command of each to a seperate player. When a ship's turn comes, give the keyboard/mouse to the assigned player. 1.2.4 Creating/Editing Scenarios TurboTrek has a built in Scenario Editor allowing you to custom design your own sceanarios. In SimCon, the "C" key creates a blank scenario for you to edit. The "E" key allows you to edit the currently hilighted scenario. The editor screen shows a list of all TurboTrek objects on the left side of the screen (the GLOBAL Object List), a list of all objects within the scenario on the right (the SCENARIO Object List), and the icon of the currently selected object in the middle. The left/right cursor keys allow you to switch between the Global and Scenario Object Lists. The up/down cursor keys allow you to select (highlight) an object in the list. Under both lists, you have the options (S)ave+Exit and (E)xit. (S)ave+Exit prompts you for a filename (no extension) and a short description of the scenario. It then saves the scenario to disk and exits from the Editor back to SimCon. (E)xit simply exits without saving the scenario. Under the Global List, you may (A)dd an object to the scenario. You will be prompted for a name. If you desire the object to be computer controlled, prefix the name with the word "robot". Next, you will be asked to position the object on the playscreen. If you are using a mouse, the editor screen will replaced with the playscreen. The newly added object will appear in the top left corner of the screen. Simply click and drag the object to the desired location. Then click on the red message bar at the bottom of the screen to return to the editor. If you are not using a mouse, you will be prompted to enter X and Y coordinates. Under the Scenario Object List, you may reposition objects using the (P)osition command, rename objects using the (R)ename command, or delete objects using the (D)elete command. 1.3.0 Energy Allocation Before any operations occur in a turn, all players are taken to the Energy Allocation Screen and must distribute energy to their ship's devices. Energy is the main resource of starships during combat. The effective commander knows where and when to direct energy. On the Energy Allocation Screen, all ship's devices are listed on the left. The amount of energy required to power a device is shown to the right of the device name. You mouse click on the "+" or "-" buttons on a particular device line to allocate or deallocate energy to that device. The power box on the right shows how much energy is available to distribute. When you're finished, click on the "DONE" box, and the Energy Allocation Screen for the next player (if any) is displayed. When all players have undergone Energy Allocation, you are taken to the Operations Screen. "How much energy should I allocate?" is a common question from new starship commanders. This answer only comes from experience. But there are some guidelines: Most devices have a fixed number of energy points required for operation. Photon Torpedoes are an example. To arm one and fire it usually requires 4 points. If you allocate 8 points to Photon Torpedoes, you get 2 Photon Torpedoes to fire. Sensors, on the other hand, being low power devices, only require 1 point to use them an unlimited number of times during the turn. High power equipment, such as Warp Drive or most weapons, can be considered "energy sinks". Once you fire all your weapons banks, you can't fire again unless you recharge the device at the next Energy Allocation. Similarly, if you warp across a region of space, the energy used to do so is lost. This is due to the large amounts of power required to operate the device as well as the slower cycle time for high power hardware. But never fear, starships are usually bristling with multiple banks of weapons. Deflectors are switched on or off in the Energy Allocation Phase simply by allocating (or not allocating) energy to them. Most starships require 5 energy points to operate Deflectors at the minimum level. Deflectors can be "overcharged" to achieve greater performance. If you allocate more than the minimum 5 points, the Deflectors are activated as well as reinforced. If you are new to TT, it's a good idea to always keep your Deflectors reinforced to prevent a critical hit from shutting them down. 1.4.0 OPS screen OPS means "Operations". The OPS Screen is the screen you see when you are actually playing a scenario. The majority of the screen is devoted to the map display. Individual game objects (ships, missiles, planets, etc.) are reduced to icons and placed in their appropriate positions on the map. Ships with operational deflectors have a dim white bubble around the ship icon. Ships with deflectors damaged below 50% operability show blue bubbles. At the lower left is a list of available function keys: F1 - Halt F3 - Grid F2 - ID Tag F4 - Status (F1) When running a scenario with robot ships, the F1 key acts as a halt mechanism. In large fleet scenarios involving robots, it is handy to be able to stop the game quickly. When pressed, you are given the option to Continue the game, Save the game, or Exit without saving. (F2) The F2 key changes the ID tag indicator. This indicator appears to the upper right of all ships. The indicator is yellow for the active ship, cyan for all others. The key cycles the ID tag from ship number, to name, to configuration, and finally to no tag on successive presses. (F3) The F3 key toggles a grid overlay for the map display. This is sometimes useful when calculating distances. (F4) The F4 key is the Status Key. It displays a short status report for the active ship. To the right of the function key list is the Movement Annunciator. This indicates whether or not the active ship is allowed to move during this subturn. Next on the right is the Name Annunciator. It displays the name of the active ship. On the far right is the Turn/Speed Indicator. It shows the current subturn and the speed of the active ship. At the very bottom of the screen is the OPS Bar / Message Bar area. The OPS Bar is a row of mousable buttons listing all currently available commands to the player of the active ship. Any command can be activated by clicking the button or pressing the capitalized letter. In addition to the self-explanatory commands such as "Pulser" or "Warp", there are 3 non-device related commands: R - Relinquish K - sKip all remaining subturns Q - Quit (R) The "R" key allows you to relinquish control to the next player. This is ALWAYS done after you are finished with your operations for the current subturn in order for TT to pass control to the next player. (K) The "K" key relinquishes control for all the remaining subturns in the turn. This is a time saver when you have nothing planned for the remainder of the turn. (Q) The "Q" key allows you to quit the scenario. Occasionally, you may see a red background message bar. This diplays information or asks for input. For example, if you press "P" on the OPS Bar to activate Pulsers, you get a Fire Control message asking you to specify the target. Another common message is the "End of Turn" message. This gives you the option to continue with another turn, save the game, or exit the scenario without saving. 1.5.0 Movement and Distance TT is played on a two dimensional map. The scale is 1000 kilometers to the pixel. Ships may move at speeds up to warp 10. Each warp factor corresponds to 40 pixels linear distance on the map. If a player moves his ship at warp 10, he gets 400 pixels of "movement points". Since TT uses segmented game turns, the player can not use all 400 points at once. Instead, he can move 40 pixels in each of the 10 subturns. Someone moving less than warp 10, is allowed to move on fewer subturns; one movement per warp factor. So a player moving at warp 3 is allowed to move 3 times per turn. You only have to watch the Movement Indicator at the bottom of the OPS screen to see if your speed allows movement on the current subturn. When you want to move, you may choose either Warp or Impulse drive from the OPS bar. Impulse engines are basically sublight backup propulsion systems. Warp drive is capable of much greater speed, and is almost always the preferred means of propulsion (especially in combat). When either mode of propulsion is chosen, you will be prompted to click on your target destination. Since TT rations movement points over time, you will see a red circle around your ship showing the maximum allowed travel distance this subturn. Players may combine Warp and Impulse movement within the same turn and even within the same subturn. 1.6.0 Sensors/ECM TurboTrek players are subject to limited tactical intelligence. All starships are capable of detecting the existence and general location of other starships. A starship may or may not be within another starship's ESR (Effective Sensor Radius). If a target ship is beyond your ESR, you may detect that ship, but if you fire your weapons, they will be highly inaccurate, so much so that it would be a waste to fire them. Two things commonly affect your ESR: damage to your Sensors, and an enemy using a Cloaking Device. Cloaked ships have no icon on the map, but they may have an ID tag indicating their presence. Direct fire weapons, like Pulsers, are useless against a cloaked ship. Some area effect weapons, like Photon Torpedoes, have a slight chance of hitting a cloaked ship if the attacking ship has sophisticated sensors and advanced torpedoes. Sensors, if selected from the OPS bar, first prompt you to select the target for the Sensor scan. After you click on the target, you are provided with tactical data on damage levels of devices on the target ship, and, if the sensor suite is sophisticated, data on power distribution within the target ship. 1.7.0 Weapons TT has 5 major types of weapons. There are minor variations within each weapons type depending on the size of the host ship and its civilization of origin. When you activate a weapon from the OPS Bar, you will see the Fire Contol Message prompting you to select the target. You may select multiple targets. Left mouse click on a target to allocate one round, right mouse click to deallocate one round. The total number of rounds on each target is displayed in green to the upper left of each object icon. Then click on "Fire" or "Escape" on the message bar as appropriate. 1.7.1 Pulsers Probably the most universal weapon in the game, Pulsers are the ultimate evolution of laser and particle beam technology. You can count on all spacefaring civilizations having some type of pulser weapon. They have very long range, although their power will diminish sharply with the distance traveled. They are at their most deadly at close range. Starbases and planetary bases have large mega-pulser installations. These devices are as large as a small house and are capable of damaging enemy starships from a considerable distance. They make excellent standoff weapons. 1.7.2 Disruptors Disruptors are used primarily by the Klingons. These devices were designed to provide a long range weapon for Klingon ships. Disruptors impart a violent kinetic energy oscillation to the target, and thus cause damage. Disruptors degrade slightly with distance traveled, but they have a good probability of hitting the target. 1.7.3 Photon Torpedoes Space Torpedoes predate even the Pulser. The modern Photon Torpedo is a sophisticated device pioneered by the Federation. It is a hyper-warp driven antimatter bomb. It does much more damage than the Disruptor, and since the warhead is encased, it does not degrade over distance. But since the Torpedo can be tracked, it may sometimes be evaded by the target ship. The Photon Torpedo is a good area effect weapon due to the massive energy burst caused by the matter-antimatter reaction. This can be especially effective in defending against an incoming swarm of closely spaced missiles. 1.7.4 Missiles/Drones Before Disruptors and Photon Torpedoes, the Space Torpedo, or Missile, (or Drone) reigned supreme as the long ranged weapon of space. Many civilizations still use these as a last resort weapon or launch them as target drones to sharpen gunner's skills. Klingons in particular, carry a wide assortment of missiles, used both as target drones as well as an aid in combat by soaking off enemy fire that would have otherwise been directed on the Klingon starship. Missile warheads have a yield similar to modern Photon Torpedoes but are much easier to kill since they are not hyper-warp powered. Missiles use conventional warp packs, so the target ship usually has enough time to avoid or destroy the missile before it hits. 1.7.5 Plasma Torpedo Perhaps the ultimate in torpedo technology, the Plasma Torpedo, invented by the Romulans, is the single most powerful ship mounted weapon in the game. The Plasma requires tremendous amounts of energy to arm and fire. Most ships that carry them are capable of launching only 1 or 2 per turn. The Plasma Torpedo is basically a directed plasma fireball. Although not a hyper-warp weapon, it moves at warp 10, making it difficult to outrun. The warhead degrades considerably with distance and can be weakened, or sometimes even detonated, by firing upon the torpedo itself. 1.8.0 Damage and Repair In the course of a TT scenario, you most certainly will receive damage to your starship. All starships have some ability to repair themselves. This is called Damage Control or DamCon, for short. You can allocate energy to DamCon, up to your ships maximum DamCon rating, which is shown on the Energy Allocation Screen. Most ships in TT have DamCon ratings of 4,5, or 6. Each ship receives "repair points" equal to the square of the ship's DamCon rating. For Example, a Federation heavy cruiser (type FCA) allocates 6 points to DamCon, his maximum rating. He receives 36 repair points to distribute to any ship devices of his choosing. Each "repair point" increases a device's operational rating one percentage point. In our example, let's say the FCA has Pulsers at 80% operational. He then chooses to distribute 20 of his 36 points to Pulsers. His Pulsers are now at 100% operational and he has 16 "repair points" left. He may choose to use these points now, or later in the turn; but in any case, points may not be accumulated from one turn to the next. Use them or lose them. Note that there is some random variation in the expected cost of repair and the actual number of repair points needed to repair a particular device. This was done to enhance realism. Damage Control may be activated by pressing "C" on the OPS bar. You then see the DamCon popup screen. Its operation is similar to the energy allocation screen: you click on the + or - symbols next to a device to allocate or deallocate repair points. If not using a mouse, you see the DamCon Prompt: "(S)elect (R)epair (Escape)" and the number or repair points available. At this point you should press "S" , for Select, and you will see a list of devices. You then select the device to repair by typing the parenthesized letter of that device (P for Pulsers, W for Warp, etc.). Next, you are prompted to enter the number of repair points to give to that device; just type the number followed by the Enter key. Now you may select more devices or hit "R" to perform the selected repairs. As always, the F4 key may be used to check your ship's status. APPENDIX A: TurboTrek Spacefaring Civilizations F ships - color: white Ship Types: Starbase (FSB), Battleship (FBB), Heavy Cruiser (FCA), Destroyer (FDD) K ships - color: grey Ship Types: Battle Cruiser (KBC), Light Cruiser (KCL) R ships - color: green Ship Types: Battle Cruiser (RBC), Light Cruiser (RCL) Orion - color: magenta Ship Types: Light Cruiser (OCL) Kzinti - color: red Ship Types: Strike Cruiser (ZCS) ========================================================================= A CONCLUDING NOTE Due to Paramounts greed. We have had to release TT with no reference to Star Trek. This is a sad day amoung us loyal Star Trek Fans. To help compensate for this we now include the MAKESHIP and CONVERT Utilities. Using these two tools you can create any ship design you would like. So feel free to create to your hearts content. ========================================================================= TurboTrek is copyright 1994 JDG Simulations, Inc. Please feel free to send any questions, comments, or suggestions to: JDG Simulations, Inc. P.O. Box 2294 Spring, TX 77383-2294 or Robert W. Gerami, Jr. 25 First Street Cambridge, MA 02141 CIS#: 72241,2065 ************************************************************************ MAKESHIP Utility Purpose: To create ships used in Turbo Trek Version 1.4. Use: From your Turbo Trek directory: type MAKESHIP <enter> Follow the prompts. Notes: Ship naming Convention is a follows: Example - FCA -> Federation CA 1st character is the RACE 2nd and 3rd character is the ship type. Use existing ships as templates for your designs. Existing ships all have the extension ".shp". CONVERT Utility Purpose: To convert ships created with MAKESHIP Utility into a usable DATA format for Turbo Trek. Use: Once your ships are created. Save the existing TT.DAT file to TTold.DAT (for safety sake). List out in alphabetical order all *.SHP files ( dir/on/w *.shp <enter> ) Type CONVERT shipname[1] shipname[2]... shipname[n] <enter> (file extension not used). example: CONVERT fca fdd fff kd7 kd6 kff rca rcl rff <enter> Note: You may only create ships, starbases and large planets. Asteriods, stars, neutral planets and the like cannot be created and used by Turbo Trek. ************************************************************************* Disclaimer: We shall not assume any direct or indirect responsibility for losses incurred from the use of "Turbo Treks". This program is provided on an "as is" basis with no guarantees whatsoever. If you purchased this program from a source other than the author directly, the author will not be obligated to provide you with a working copy. Please contact the vendor who sold you the evaluation disk. We do not wish to play mechanic when the vendor has sold you a defective disk. Shareware: "Turbo Trek" is NOT free software. NEITHER is it public domain software. This program is copyrighted shareware software. Shareware is user supported software. If you use this program repeatedly, then you are obligated to support the author. Please use the registration form at the end of the manual to register. The author does NOT receive any money from the distributor of this disk. If you paid $4-5 for this program from a vendor, the author receives nothing. The only financial income we receive from this program comes when you the user express your thanks by registering, otherwise the author goes unpaid. Please support the shareware concept. Shareware vendors who are interested in distributing "Turbo Trek" should contact the author first in order to insure you obtain the latest version. BBS are not under this obligation, and can distribute the program provided no changes are made to any files, including this "DOC" file. Individual users can make copies of this disk and pass them on to friends, as long as you make it clear what the shareware concept is all about. Registration Fee: $25.00 Includes a printed Tactical Guide and Latest Version of Turbo Trek. Send Payment to: JDG Simulations, Inc. P.O. Box 2294 Spring, TX 77383-2294 Name: _____________________________________ Phone: ___________________ Address: __________________________________ Fax: _____________________ City: _____________________________________ State/Zip: ________________________________ Where did you find your Shareware Version? ____________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ Comments or Suggestions? ______________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ Thank You! Robert Gerami and John Garza Authors of Turbo Trek.