The Best of Select: Games 9/CD_1.iso/tips/outpost/out15doc.txt

Text File | 1995-08-01 | 200KB | 4,459 lines

Outpost 1.5

This is a text version of the new documentation that is included with
Outpost 1.5.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR OUTPOST 1.5

386 or higher
Windows 3.1 or higher
MS-DOS 5.0 or higher
8 MB RAM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 - Ballyhoo
    What is Outpost?
    The Plot
    "Winning" Outpost

CHAPTER 2 - Installation and Setup
    Installing Outpost
    Saving Games
    Improving Game Performance
        Preferences for Speed
        Micro Solutions to Macro Problems
    Playing the CD Outpost Soundtrack
    Other CD-ROM Version Notes
        Audio Break-Up Questions
        General Questions
        Other Notes

CHAPTER 3 - The Journey Begins
    Getting Started
    Difficulty Level
    Packing for the Trip
    Probes and Satellites
    What You Get Is What You See
        Mouse Clicking
    Your First Move: The Seed Factory
    Turns

CHAPTER 4 - Playing to Survive
    Construction
    Emergencies
        Plague
    Factories
    Mining
        Gathering Resource Information
        Mining and Processing Ore
        Mined and Processed Resources
        Other Resources
    People
    Power
    Robots
        Robot Command
        Robot Types
    Storage
    Transportation
        Trucks
        Monorails

CHAPTER 5 - Playing to Thrive
    Information and Reports
    Starting Secondary Colonies
    Macromanagement Through Artificial Intelligence
    Assigning Work to a New AI
    Morale
    Research and Labs
    Terraforming

CHAPTER 6 - Game Mechanics and Strategies
    Morale
    Trade
    Trade Diplomacy
    Transfers
    The Rebel Colony
        Activating an Abandoned Rebel Colony
        Defections
    Planetary Resources
    Space Program
    Technological Advancement

CHAPTER 7 - Common Problems ... Simple Solutions
    At the Outset
        Seed Factory and Robominer Placement
        Building with Tubes
        If the Tile Picker Window Is Empty
        Early Construction
    Seed Factory Collapse
    Using the Robots That Landed with Your Seed Factory
    Building Robots with Your Seed Factory
    Building New Robots without the Seed Factory
    Activating New Robots with Robot Command
    Robodiggers and Robominers
    When Robodiggers Dig
    When People Are Dying Too Fast after Landing
    When Buildings Go Idle
    Population Distribution
    Why People Die
    Resource Movement from Mines to Colony Smelters
        Automatic Trucking
    Trucks

CHAPTER 8 - Advanced Strategies
    One CHAP Is Enough
    Terrain
    Build a University Early
    Monitor Resources
    Research Your Brains Out
    Prepare for Disaster

CHAPTER 9 - Quick Start and Comprehensive Tutorial
    Preparation for Your Journey
    On Arrival at the New Planet
    On the Planet
    Operating Your Labs
    The Artificial Intelligence Menu
    The TUTOR.OPS Saved Game
    Suggestions Beyond Turn 81
    More about Researching Nanotechnology
    Around 110 to 130 Turns with This Saved Game
    More Storage
    Grow Slowly

CHAPTER 10 - Outpost Protocols and Practices to Live (and Die) By
    The Numbers Game
    Colonists
    Turns
    Recycling
    Destruction
    Trucks
    Construction
    Production and Use
    Morale
    Longevity
    Distribution

CHAPTER 11 - Progress and Status Indicators
    Outpost Screens
        Executive Summary Report
        Master Laboratory Report
        Master Factory Report
        Keeping an Eye on Multiple Screens
        Tile Picker List

CHAPTER 12 - Technical Support, Direct Sales Information, and Hints
    Technical Support
    Direct Sales/Information
    Hint Line
    Software Piracy Announcement
    Responsible Parties

APPENDICES
    Appendix 1 - New Features Help
    Appendix 2 - Resource Priorities for Structures
    Appendix 3 - Planet Classes
    Appendix 4 - Research Topics

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY


INTRODUCTION

Outpost is modeled on a complex system, and must be experienced to be
completely understood. Nevertheless, you will need basic information in
order to know what is expected of you. This manual is our attempt to
provide you with this information in an orderly and beneficial fashion.

* Chapter 1 describes the Outpost plot, and the goals for winning the game.
* Chapter 2 covers installation, saving games, and all manner of matters
  technical.
* Chapter 3 provides information and details on the beginning of your
  journey. Learn how to pack for the trip to give yourself a decent chance
  at survival in the harsh, new world that awaits you. Discover how to "win"
  Outpost.
* Chapter 4 finds you on your new planet trying to build and sustain your
  colony. The game's mechanics and the features are discussed in great
  detail. This chapter is separated into basic needs and higher-order needs,
  organized in alphabetical order where appropriate.
* Chapter 5 covers very special topics: reports and information, starting
  secondary colonies, macromanage-ment, morale, research, and terraforming.
* Chapter 6 relates many effective and efficient game play strategies and
  tips.
* Chapter 7 discusses common problems and simple solutions.
* Chapter 8 explores some advanced strategies.
* Chapter 9 presents a comprehensive, yet brief tutorial that will bring you
  up through the beginning colony setup stage.
* Chapter 10 encompasses protocols and practices to constantly keep in mind
  while playing Outpost.
* Chapter 11 shows crucial game screens indicating progress and status.
* Chapter 12 provides the details you need to know if you ever need or want
  Sierra's helpful customer service and technical support.

The appendices include some fairly detailed hints on research trees. The
exact text of the game's Help buttons for the new features found in
Outpost 1.5 is provided as well. Finally, resource priorities for the many
Outpost structures are provided.

Outpost contains an extensive internal help system. At the bottom left of
the Outpost screen is a globe icon. This is your Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Left-click on this icon, and you will be presented with a list of options,
one of which is Help. A right-click on
any part of the main game screen, when the the game's main window (Tile Map)
is displayed, will give you a dialogue box with a context-sensitive Help
option. Context-sensitive Help sends you directly into the portion of the
Help system that relates to the part of the screen you clicked on.

If you come to a part of the game that you do not understand, try getting
some help. For ready reference and ease of play, some of the information
imparted by the various help screens is included in this manual.

Helpful charts and tables are included throughout the manual. A tutorial is
provided in Chapter 9.

So, Commander, now you have everything you need to determine the fate of
humanity. Sit back, relax, take the helm, and pray that fate is kind.



CHAPTER 1 - BALLYHOO

WHAT IS OUTPOST?
Outpost is a realistic simulation of what it would take to build a
self-contained colony on a hostile planetary surface. This strategy game is
based on current NASA research, and is designed by former NASA-Ames Research
Center Systems Manager Bruce Balfour. Balfour also designed the award-winning
Neuromancer, and Sierra On-Line's The Dagger of Amon Ra.

You must rescue humanity from certain doom, choose a new planet from a galaxy
of possibilities, and establish a colony on the planet's surface. This colony
will be the final Outpost of humanity, and your competence as the leader of
this Outpost will determine whether our species will survive.  The colony
must be managed as though it were any other city on Earth: short-term goals
include continuing the building program, keeping the rabble employed and
happy, exploiting planetary resources, recycling waste, and dealing with
random events. Eventually you may want to pursue long-term goals such as
advancing the civilization, researching new technologies, establishing
terraforming operations, and creating trade between colonies. How you proceed
in pursuit of your self-established objectives is up to you; you're in
command.

Outpost is based on fact, but it's also a game, which means that there are
bits of humor and the occasional dramatized event for your amusement. A
reasonable amount of scientific progress over the next 50 years is also
assumed. However, the underlying model, the technologies, and the science
have been extensively researched. Most planet types are based on planets in
our very own solar system; they may not be exactly the same, but they're
similar.

The model used in Outpost is a complex system of the real world, so poking
the model in one spot will have an effect on everything else. Events will
invariably occur that you cannot anticipate, and no two games will be exactly
the same. Keep in mind that Outpost is a strategy game, and is not played in
real time. You can take a half a moment or a week and a half to make your
move, so feel free to think about it. And whatever you do, don't try to grow
your colony too fast, since this will usually lead to death for your
colonists.


THE PLOT
It is the early part of the 21st century. Government funding of NASA has
continued to shrink since the 1990s, leaving the space program in the hands
of a few multinational conglomerates. Now it appears there's a slight
problem, and it's hurtling toward Earth.

An enormous asteroid, which the media name Vulcan's Hammer after an old
science fiction novel, is headed right for Earth, with an excellent chance
of striking the planet with a billion megatons' worth of destruction. Only
one company responds to the threat by building a colonization starship. The
starship is assembled in Earth orbit, and is then fueled from the atmosphere
of Jupiter. By the time fueling has begun, pandemonium reigns on our home
planet, but by then it's too late to build another starship. Utter
destruction of Earth means two things: that your colony will be the last
bastion of humanity, and that you can't turn to other survivors for
assistance if your colony falters. There aren't any other survivors.

Your colonist population is limited to 200 people, most of whom have the
skills required to rebuild civilization. You'll be asleep for most of the
50-year (average) trip to your destination of choice; while you nap, any
probes you may have sent ahead of the starship will start sending back data
when they arrive at your target star system. You'll evaluate the data to
select the appropriate planet for your colony. If you don't feel that
the probes have given you enough data to make a good decision, you can
allow the ship's computer to make a guess.

When you land, a certain element of the population feels that your
leadership is lacking, and that two colonies will have a better chance of
survival than one. These rebels abscond with up to half of your colonists
and resources to start their own colony. You'd like to deal with it, but
you're too busy trying to survive. In the meantime, the rank and file are
watching your every move to see what kind of leader you are. When you screw
up, morale goes down. When morale goes down too far, colonists begin leaving
for the rebel colony. So don't screw up.

That's the situation you find yourself in at the beginning of the game.
You'll find more interesting facts and fascinating details in Chapter 3, "The
Journey Begins."


"WINNING" OUTPOST
Outpost is about control. We've set out to create a strategy game that you
can customize according to your preferences. You determine when to end the
game, and what the goal is. If you'd like to work toward a specific goal,
you can build up your space program to the extent that you can build a new
colonization starship. You can also work toward the worthwhile goals of
developing nanotechnology or terraforming technology. Or, if you're a people
person, you can make your colonists so blissfully happy that even the
rebels come to stay.

Outpost is a true test of your ability to survive in an alien world. If you
wish, any particular game can be played indefinitely. The possibilities and
combinations for building and maintaining a successful colony at the various
difficulty levels on the available planets will keep you occupied for hundreds
of hours.

As mentioned above, for those of you who wish a more concrete objective,
there are two ways to "win" a particular game: terraform the planet, or build
and launch a spaceship. Both goals require extensive research, planning, and
conservatively estimating, from about 800 to 10,000 game turns.

If your colony is completely abandoned due to colonist defections, you will
find that your colony is suddenly an inactive ghost town, and you are unable
to get reports by clicking on your structures. An AI message will inform you
that your colony is abandoned. At this point, you still have access to the AI
interface News Briefs, which will give you the final news reports from your
colony.


CHAPTER 2 - INSTALLATION AND SETUP

INSTALLING OUTPOST

1)  Start your PC and launch Windows.
2)  Insert your Outpost CD or diskette #1 in the appropriate drive.
3)  From the Windows FILE menu, select RUN.
4)  If installing the floppy disk version, type A:\SETUP (assuming your
floppy drive is A:) and click OK. If installing the CD version, type D:\SETUP
(assuming your CD drive is d:) and click OK.
5)  Follow the on-screen instructions.


SAVING GAMES
Running a single turn is accomplished by left-clicking on the small planet
Icon in the lower right-hand corner of the main game screen. This screen is
the only place where games can be saved.

Note that games can be saved only from the main game screen where you see
the diamond-shaped map.

Occasionally, you may have trouble saving the current state of your game.
If this happens, you will be unable to select the inactive Save menu item
in the File menu. To remedy this, try running another turn before you again
select the Save Game option. This will permit the internal processing steps
required so that you can save the current state of the game.

After loading a saved game, the mines on the main screen will all appear red
and not indicate their true status. There will also be no turn number under
the lower-right globe. You must run a turn for the mines to change to the
proper status color and for the turn number to update.


IMPROVING GAME PERFORMANCE

PREFERENCES FOR SPEED
To improve the performance of Outpost on slower machines, choose the
Preferences button on the control panel that starts the game, or right-click
on any area outside the Tile Map diamond when you're playing the game. Select
Control, then Preferences.

Click on the boxes for each option you wish to de-select. If the box has no
"X" in it, the option is turned off. Press the OK button to return to the
normal game screen.

If you're looking for a hardware solution, the CD version animated sequences
will run best on CD-ROM drives that are double-speed or faster. Increasing
your amount of system RAM to 16 Megabytes or more will also improve game
performance.

We also recommend that you run Outpost using a Swap File under Windows.
To do this, you need to launch Windows in Enhanced mode. For more information
about creating a swap file and launching Windows in Enhanced mode, consult
your Windows documentation. If you continue to run into problems, a good
troubleshooting technique is to increase the size of your swap file.


MICRO SOLUTIONS TO MACRO PROBLEMS

PROBLEM:  After installing Outpost, I double-click on the game icon but all I
see is a black screen.

SOLUTION:  Use the ALT-TAB function to find the Midi Sequencer window. Make
sure the "Don't display this warning in future" box is checked and then
select OK. Make sure to restart Windows so the changes can take effect.


PROBLEM:  The animated sequences are all distorted when I run in 32,000- or
16 million-color modes.

SOLUTION:  Some video cards may experience graphics distortion if run in
high color mode. Selecting a 256-color driver will remedy this problem.


PROBLEM: Some of the text within the dialog boxes or buttons appears to
be cut off.

SOLUTION: Make sure you are selecting a video driver that uses small fonts.
Windows video drivers that have a Large Font option will display an
incomplete text message within Outpost dialog boxes. For information about
changing your video driver, consult your video card or Windows documentation.


PLAYING THE CD VERSION OUTPOST SOUNDTRACK
The orchestrated Outpost soundtrack is the classic "Mars, the Bringer of War"
movement from the Gustav Holst symphony, "The Planets".  You can listen to
this dramatic soundtrack by inserting the CD into any handy CD player, or by
using the Windows Media Player on the CD-AUDIO setting to play it from your
CD-ROM drive.

Skip to Track 2 and play the theme. (The score to "The Planets" is
copyrighted by G. Schirmer, Inc.)


OTHER CD-ROM VERSION NOTES

We highly recommend that you disable your screen savers while playing Outpost.
If you are in the middle of game play and your screen saver kicks in, you may
experience audio break-ups and/or video break-ups. You will also want to
disable any audio enhancement utilities such as Whoop-it-up, Icon hear-it,
or others, as they may cause audio problems during simulation play.


AUDIO BREAK-UP QUESTIONS
If you experience audio cutouts during the game you may need to alter the
audio buffer size of the MSCDEX driver located in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You
can do this by adjusting the /m:AUDIOSIZE parameter. We recommend that this
value be set to at least 10. If you experience slow movement or audio cutouts
consistently, you may wish to lower the size of this buffer. For more tips,
please refer to the "OTHER NOTES" section.

GENERAL QUESTIONS
Q: What resolutions does the game run in?

A: Outpost will support most Window video drivers but requires a
640x480 256-color driver or better.

Q: I've got an SVGA video card, but Outpost does not appear to be running in
256 colors.

A: You may not be running in 256-color display mode. Check this by going to
the MAIN program group and double-clicking on the Windows Setup icon to see
your current display mode. "VGA" indicates that you're running in 640 x 480
in 16-color. To run in SVGA's 256-color mode, the SVGA display driver would
need to be loaded. These SVGA drivers are provided by the video card company
rather than by Microsoft. Most 256-color video drivers do not come standard
with Windows, so you may need to contact your hardware or your video card
manufacturer to obtain the specific drivers for your video card. If you're
unfamiliar with installing these drivers, consult your video card manual or
your dealer for more information.

Q: What's the difference between BASE and EXTENDED sound cards?

A: The basic difference between the two is with the number of instruments and
notes that each can play. Examples of sound cards that often run in BASE MIDI
mode include the original Sound Blaster, Thunderboard, and Pro Audio Spectrum
cards. BASE level MIDI cards are configured to use channels 13 through 16 in
the MIDI Mapper.

Examples of EXTENDED MIDI devices include the Roland MT-32, CM-32, LAPC-1,
and various General MIDI devices such as the Roland Sound Canvas and the
Wave Blaster. Many of the newer FM sound cards such as the Soundblaster 16
and the Pro Audio Spectrum 16 may also use a special EXTENDED MIDI mapper
setting which enables them to play in EXTENDED MIDI mode. EXTENDED level MIDI
cards are configured to use channels 1 through 10 in the MIDI Mapper. If you
have an FM Synthesis card, choosing EXTENDED MIDI might not dramatically
improve the music you hear within the game.

Q: The music is fine but the audio and/or voice volume is low, or vice-versa.

A: Many sound cards also come with Windows mixer software that can adjust the
SYNTHESIZER and DAC volume levels separately. Try running this utility and
adjusting the input levels of the various devices.

Q: The music is fine, but the voices hesitate or skip. What can I do?

A: Basically, the audio will hesitate or skip if played during an animated
sequence. Waiting for the audio to finish before running the animated
sequence, or vice-versa, will normally remedy this problem.

Q: I've got a Roland MT-32 (or a Sound Canvas, or a General MIDI device) and
a Sound Blaster. The speech is okay, but the music and sound effects are
incorrect. What can I do?

A: Quit the game, reset the EXTENDED sound device, then restart the game.
This will flush the odd sounds that may have been loaded by a previous game
or MIDI play option. If you have a Roland MT-32, try using the specific MID
file created for this device.

OTHER NOTES
If you are experiencing random lockups, make sure that you are using
the latest Microsoft CD-ROM extensions driver, version 2.23. MSCDEX 2.23
is also shipped with MS-DOS 6.2 or above and should be found in your DOS
directory. Contact Microsoft or your local dealer if you need the latest
Microsoft CD-ROM driver.

If you have any random problems running under Windows, you may be running
third party shells such as HP's Dashboard, Norton Desktop, PC-Tools or
Packard Bell Navigator. Disabling these desktops and running the game under
Program Manager can solve many problem.  You can also refer to the desktop
documentation for additional troubleshooting tips.


If the audio still skips after trying the suggestion outlined in the first
section of this section, try the following troubleshooting steps:

1)      On most CD-ROM drives, there is a /M:X stock buffers parameter for
the MSCDEX line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT. Adding /M:20 should help to eliminate
audio skipping and choppy video segments.

Example of AUTOEXEC.BAT line:

LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /V /M:20

NOTE - the above line is provided only as an example. Your MSCDEX statement
will most likely be different than the example noted above. Your path and
switches might be different. In any case, the /M:X value can be added at the
end of the MSCDEX line.

2)      In the SYSTEM.INI file found in your WINDOWS directory, try
increasing the DMABufferSize line to 256. If your SYSTEM.INI file does not
contain this line, you may add it to the end of the [386ENH] section.
This line will appear in the [386ENH] section of this file and should read
as follows:

DMABufferSize=256

As with other Windows applications, installing Outpost will update your
SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI files. If you want to immediately restore your system
environment after installing Outpost CD-ROM, we took the added precaution
of backing up your original WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files into the \WINDOWS
directory. The WIN.INI file is renamed WIN.OPS, and SYSTEM.INI is renamed
SYSTEM.OPS. Normally there is no need to restore these files, since these
files are constantly updated every time you use Windows. Do not copy and/or
rename these files in your WINDOWS directory after installing Outpost, or
you'll lose any changes made during the initial Outpost setup.




CHAPTER 3 - THE JOURNEY BEGINS

GETTING STARTED
Welcome to Outpost, a realistic strategy simulation of space colonization.
Your mission is to colonize a hostile planet in a distant star system.
You'll begin by selecting the star systems you'll consider calling home.
You will send out VLBI* probes to four star systems to determine which one
is most likely to contain habitable planets. This information will arrive at
Jupiter while you are fueling up for your trip, allowing you to choose one of
the four star systems to colonize. At this time, if you've packed them, you
can send out ULBI satellites for information on planets in your star system
of choice.

If you don't trust yourself to make a decision at this point, click on the
"AI Select" button to let the computer decide.

*What's VLBI?  It's a probe with a very long baseline interferometer.
Perhaps this would be a good time to mention that there is a glossary
in the back.


DIFFICULTY LEVEL
When you start a game, you'll choose a difficulty level: Beginner, Easy,
Medium, or Hard. Many of Outpost's internal conditions are affected by your
choice. Planetary hostility and a variety of other issues are affected by
the difficulty level you select. The difficulty level also affects the
numbers and types of supplies the rebels take from a starship when they leave,
how critical your population is with regard to your decisions, the types of
star systems chosen by the AI as your destination when you choose "AI
Select", and the frequency of explosive accidents for your Tokamak Power
structure, Hot Lab, and nanotechnology facilities.

New Outpost players should use the Beginner difficulty level to learn how
things work in the game without the added stress of resource management.
This level gives you most of the nanotechnology from the beginning of the
game, even though you haven't officially "earned" it through proper research.
(However, you still have to research the nanotechnology areas to gain the
other available benefits.)  Nanotechnology gives you almost infinite
resources.

Because of this, you have no mined resource restrictions, allowing you to
learn how to construct your colony, control morale, use power, and manipulate
your population without limitations on new construction. Your colonists will
still die through accidents and old age, and they will still require food to
eat and air to breathe, but they won't be dying from a lack of mined
resources.

As your experience increases, increase the level of difficulty of future
games. At the highest difficulty level, trying to colonize a hostile planet,
Outpost is extremely challenging.

Once a game has been started, the player cannot change the difficulty level.
To change the level, you must start a new game. Saved games retain their
previous difficulty settings.

PACKING FOR THE TRIP
So, Commander, you've got the money, the weight restrictions, and the
colonization plan. It's time to choose the cargo you need to take with you to
your new home. Unfortunately, you can't take everything. The starship's
propulsion system can push only so much cargo up to a reasonable speed to
arrive at the destination within a reasonable amount of time. Will you take
an extra 50 colonists, or pack an additional unit of food?  Should you favor
one satellite over another?  What will the weather be like?  You can't phone
ahead, and you have only one chance. You'd better make the right choices.

Certain items will automatically be included. You must, for example, take 100
colonists. At the point when you begin packing additional materiel and
personnel, you will have 172 remaining funds, and a remaining weight maximum
of 78 units. The following cargo chart provides additional details.

CARGO           WT      COST    ADVANTAGES OF CARGO

Colonists(50)   1       1       Colonists will operate facilities upon arrival
                (Colonist Landers are required to move them)
Food            1       1       One unit will feed 10 colonists per turn while
                the agricultural dome is being built
Life Support    1       3       Used to keep colonists alive until a CHAP
                facility is built
Colonist Lander 9       16      One lander will transport 50 colonists, one
                way, to the new planet's surface
Cargo Lander    10      17      One lander will transport a cargo weight
                value of 20, one way, to the new planet's
                surface
Seed Factory    10      18      Provides basic power, robots, resource
                processing, or temporary residences until
                Residential Units are built
Tokamak Reactor 10      20      Provides most power needs on most planets

Solar Power
Satellite       8       15      Provides safe power for planets near stars
                (Also requires Solar Receiver Array)
Solar Receiver
Array           5       10      Receives power from Solar Power Satellite

Geological
Probe           4       14      Collects data to determine best landing site

Weather
Satellite       4       12      Collects data on local weather

Interstellar
Probe           0       15      Sends back detailed data on possible new
                planets
Communications
Satellite       4       11      Enables robots to find their way around a
                planet without the use of Communications
                Towers

Orbital
Observer        6       13      Works like a spy satellite to keep an eye on
                other colonies

ULBI Probe      0       14      Provides specific data about a target star
                system

The tutorial in Chapter 9 walks you through the launch sequence and contains
recommended levels for each cargo item.


PROBES AND SATELLITES
In choosing which probes and satellites to pack, you should give careful
consideration to the types of data you'll need to make intelligent decisions
on your new planet. The starship itself can provide enough basic survey data
about topography, chemistry, and geology for your AI to determine the best
possible landing site. Satellites and probes provide more information than
the starship can, however, and will enable you to make an even more informed
decision as to the landing site. Additionally, satellites and probes remain
in use and perform an ongoing function. Keep this in mind while considering
the tradeoffs of various types of cargo.

If you have packed ULBI probes, data will begin arriving while you are
between Jupiter and your star system of choice. These data will provide
information about specific planets within the star system. Since you can't
change your mind if you drop down to a planet and decide it looked more
hospitable from orbit, you'll need to make the right decision the first time
about which planet to colonize. ULBI data can be very helpful.

Once you've chosen which planet looks the most promising, you can send out
an interstellar flyby probe if you've packed one. An interstellar flyby probe
will provide detailed information about the planet you've selected. A planet
with a low hostility level can have as many as 25 possible landing sites;
hostile planets can have as few as one.

When you arrive in orbit at your destination, you'll launch the satellites
and probes you brought with you. If you drop everyone down to the planet
without deploying your probes and satellites, they won't launch themselves.
Don't forget to launch them before you leave the starship forever, or you'll
have wasted your resources and your colonists will think you're an idiot.


WHAT YOU GET IS WHAT YOU SEE
Now that you've finally made your decision as to which planet to colonize,
the top left corner of your screen shows the planet you'll call home. If
you right-click within the planet window, you will be able to replace the
default planet name with one of your own choosing. Click on the center
button for a stationary view of the planet. Possible landing sites are
shown on the planet as tiny rectangles. These have the best geography,
potential mining locations, and environment for colony placement. When you
click on one of these rectangles, you have chosen a possible site for your
first colony.

After you've made an informed or not-so-informed decision about a landing
site, two more windows will appear on the screen. The middle window, or "Tile
Picker", shows a Seed Factory tile. The top right window shows your chosen
landing area from an orbital perspective. The red dots you see are potential
mining locations. This window is called the "Site Map". You can right-click
here and rename your site, view the Elevation Map, or close the Site Map.
You can study up to four Site Maps at once.

When you find a good location for your new colony on the Site Map, near a
group of potential mine locations or beside a single mine, left-click on
that spot. The small square box that formerly appeared in the top left corner
of the landing Site Map will now move to that location. The diamond-shaped
Tile Map that takes up most of your screen shows the specific area
highlighted on the Site Map by the small square.

The four arrows around the Tile Map will move you in any direction within
the confines of your landing site. This will allow you to make small steps
to put tiles down on the perfect terrain. Larger moves should be made on the
Site Map, but the Tile Map is where you'll spend most of your time, since it
shows the structures you've built or are currently building.

When selecting a plot to land the Seed Complex, the main thing to remember
about the false color Elevation Map is that black areas represent clear
terrain. You can reach the Elevation Map if you right-click on the Site Map,
then select the Tools and Elevation Map options. The best area to start your
colony is black with a red diamond (mine marker) nearby.

After you land, colored markers identify locations on the Site Map. Red
diamonds mark potential mines, white diamonds mark depleted mines, light
blue dots mark your colonies, and a dark blue triangle marks the rebel
colony. If you don't have an Orbital Observer Satellite, a rebel colony will
remain invisible on your Site Map unless it becomes abandoned, in which case
the marker will change into a light blue dot.

MOUSE CLICKING
Clicking on windows will become second nature as you play Outpost, but here's
a crash course on what your mouse can do. Right-clicking anywhere in the
main screen window will display a default dialogue box.

Selecting System permits you to do a normal Windows Minimize or Close of the
game, which will give you the option to exit. If you select File, a standard
Windows Save or Save As will be presented, as well as Exit, which is the
same as Close under the System menu.

Under Control, you can run a single or multiple turns, arrange icons, and
make personal game operating choices if you select Preferences. The
Preferences box will enable you to turn on or off the animated sequences,
animations of individual tiles, music, and sound effects. You can view the
surface or underground levels you have developed by selecting Level.

A right-click on the Planet Display Window will enable you to Move, Minimize
or Close the window. Selecting Tools permits you to rename the Planet,
toggle the Elevation Map, or get Help.

When you right-click on the Tile Picker window, you'll be able to Minimize
or obtain Help.

Right-clicking on the Site Map will open a System menu similar to the ones
discussed above. Selecting Tools gives you the ability to rename the site,
and Help is self-explanatory.


YOUR FIRST MOVE:  THE SEED FACTORY
When you've located a spot you think is suitable for building, click on the
Seed Factory in the Tile Picker window. The arrow cursor will change into a
diamond-shaped cursor. Now you can position the cursor on the Tile Map, and
left-click the mouse. The Seed Factory Landing Marker will appear on your
Tile Map. Nothing else will appear on the Tile Picker screen.

A Seed Factory is an automated, unmanned manufacturing facility capable of
making more factories. When the Seed lands, four robots (a robominer, a
robodigger, a robodozer, and an explorer) roll off and begin working without
your intervention. If you have disabled Automatic Trucking from the
difficulty screen, you will also start with four trucks. After a turn, the
digger, miner, and dozer become available to you. You can set these robots
down to do your bidding at a site of your choice.

TURNS
You'll find an icon on the bottom right corner of the screen. You will
left-click on this icon, a planet with an orbiting moon, when you want
Outpost time to advance one unit. Time advancement will allow mines to be
excavated, food to be harvested, roads to be built, factories to be
constructed, and other types of progress to be made. Time advancement also
furthers plagues, natural disasters, and the decay of your manmade
resources; what's more, morale will drop if your population feels that
progress isn't being made quickly enough. Advance a turn only when you've
done all you can during the current move.

When tiles are available for placement on the Tile Map, they appear in the
Tile Picker window. When you have made all the moves allowable in one turn,
an unspecified unit of time, no tiles will appear in the window, and a
message reading "None Available" will appear. When this happens, you must
advance time by clicking on the icon at the bottom right of the screen. This
will advance the number of turns, and hence the units of time, by one.


Your first goal is quite simple. It is to avoid being killed by plague,
famine, lack of oxygen, exposure--you get the idea. In order to survive, you
must have the following: mined resources to build and operate your
structures; CHAP facilities to provide air to your buildings; Agricultural
Domes (AgriDomes) for food; energy; and protected underground residential
areas. You must also connect all of these structures with tubes so that air,
water, people, and recyclables can pass between them. Later in the game,
you'll play to thrive, but for right now, you're doing great if you live
through the next turn.


CHAPTER 4 - PLAYING TO SURVIVE

CONSTRUCTION
Build facilities for your colonists at the first opportunity. They'll really
think you're the greatest if, early on, you provide them with a place to
live and food to eat. You should build your first structures in this order:
Agricultural Dome, CHAP, Residential Units, Storage Tanks, and Power
Facility. Later, as their lower-order needs are met, your colonists will
demand Medical Facilities, Research Labs, and Parks. There are a lot of
buildings to choose from in Outpost. What does each one do? When it's time
to construct some buildings, use this handy guide showing your building
options. For additional information about each facility, use the Help system.


TILE     DESCRIPTION     # PEOPLE TO   # TURNS   MORALE  PRODUCTION  CHANCE OF
               OPERATE     TO BUILD  EFFECT    RESULT    BREAKDOWN

SURFACE STRUCTURES:

Agricultural
Dome     Provides Food          1           5       +1      Food        20

CHAP
Facility Produces life-support
     gases and water        4           6        0     LSA, LSB,    10
                               LSC

Command
Center   Allows colony-building
     to commence            1           3       0                   50


Communications
Tower    Extends communications 1           2       0                    5

DIRT
Facility Helps minimize damage
     from catastrophes      2           5       +1                   0

Factory  Produces robots,
     road material, etc.    1           6       0       Robots,     10
                                Parts, Roads,
                                Fuel Cells

Hot Lab  Houses potentially
     dangerous experiments  2           5       -1      Research     20

Mass
Driver   Launches payloads
     into orbit             4           9 per   0                    20
                        segment

Mine     Provides ore for
     building               1           7       0       Mined ore    30

Monorail Carries ore, resources,
     or passengers          1           7 per   0                    30
                        segment

Monorail
Intersection    Carries ore,                        0                    30
     resources, passengers  1           12 per                                                        segment

Monorail
Power    Powers the Monorail     0          6       0                    30

Monorail
Station  Acts as required terminal
     for Monorail line       1          6       0                    30

Nanotechnology
Facility Eliminates reliance on
     resources               2          5       +1                   20

Police   Reduces crime level,
     improves morale         2       4 surface  +1 or -1             20

Road     Allows transportation
     of resources            0          2        0                   0

Robot
Command  Communicates with
     robots, orders repairs  1          3        0                   30

Seed
Factory  Produces robots and
     processes ore           0          2        0       Robots      0

Smelter/Ore
Processor  Changes ore into                                  Processed
     processed resources     3          7        0       resources   10

Solar
Powersat
Receiver
Array    Produces power from
     orbiting powersats      1          4        0       Power       20

Spaceport  Launches cargo and
     satellites into orbit   4          7        0                   30

SPEW
Facility Recycles wastes         2          8       +1       MPG         40

Storage
Tanks    Acts as delivery points
     for processed resources 0          2       0                    0

Terraforming
Facility Creates breathable
     atmosphere for planet   4          9       +5      Breathable   20
                                air

Tokamak
Fusion
Reactor  Creates safe, reliable  1     2 if brought,   0    Power 5 if brought
     fusion energy           1     9 if built                 30 if built

Trade
Mission  Allows trade-built by
     trade partner           1          2        0      Trade        0

Tube     Provides a supply line
     between buildings       0          1        0                   0

Warehouse Stores medicine,
     fuel cells, robots,etc  1          2        0                   5




TILE     DESCRIPTION     # PEOPLE TO   # TURNS   MORALE  PRODUCTION  CHANCE OF
               OPERATE     TO BUILD  EFFECT    RESULT    BREAKDOWN

UNDERGROUND
STRUCTURES:

Admin.   Provides                                        Increase in
     administration site    1           2       0    productivity   10

Commercial Acts as a retail
     outlet for luxury items 2          3       +1                  10

Geothermal
Power
Plant   Provides a clean
    source of energy        1           9       0      Power        20

Lab     Allows "safe"
    experiments to take place 2         4       0      Research     20

Light
Industry Produces luxuries,                                Luxuries,
    clothing, or medicine    2          4       0      Clothing,    20
                               Medicine

Medical
Facility Reduces population
     attrition from disasters 2         4       0    Life extension  20

Mine
Shaft   Provides mine access            varies by
    (built by robominer)    0       terrain     0       Mined ore    0

Park/
Reservoir Provides safe
    environment to play in    0         3   +1 per turn Entertainment 10

Police  Reduces crime level,             3
    improves morale           2   underground   +1 or -1             20

Recreational
Facility Provides colonists
     with entertainment       1       4         +1/turn  Entertainment 20

Red Light
District Provides colonists               4
     with entertainment       2  or spontaneous +2/turn  Entertainment  0

Residential Houses colonists      1       3         +1 or -1               10

Tokamak
Containment Contains reactor             varies by
    (built along w/reactor)   0       terrain   -1 to 0                 0

University Educates the rabble    2       4         +1/turn  Education     20


EMERGENCIES
Crises are a foregone conclusion on your new planet. The variable is your
competence in handling such emergencies.  Plus, your colonists will be
watching to see how you handle yourself, and morale will increase or decrease
based on your leadership ability. Such problems are almost nonexistent at the
Easy and Beginner levels.

A DIRT (Disaster Instant Response Team) Facility will minimize damage from
unpredicted events that occur to your structures. The DIRT response area is
limited; on average, the DIRT can protect structures within a five-tile
radius. The closer a structure is to a DIRT team, the likelier it is to
survive catastrophes with minimal damage.

PLAGUE
No matter how many times your colonists gargle, they won't be able to avoid
the space-germs that cause plague. When there's an outbreak you'll have about
20 turns to respond to the threat. If you've had the good sense to establish
a Medical Facility, which will double your response window to about 40 turns,
or had scientists working on an antidote in one of your Research Facilities,
your colony might survive. Keep in mind that Monorails do a very effective
job of carrying the plague, so you'd better be ready to cut your losses by
bulldozing sections of rail line. If you respond soon enough, you may be able
to isolate the plague to just one colony. The chance of a plague striking your
colony increases according to your chosen level of difficulty.

FACTORIES
Since you couldn't bring everything with you from Earth, you had the
foresight to bring materials you would need to create factories. In these
factories you can manufacture items you require to survive, and later, to
thrive.

There are two major categories of factories: light industry factories, which
are clean and non-polluting and which can operate under the planet's surface;
and surface factories, which require much more in terms of raw resources and
energy, and which are placed on the surface so that they won't contaminate
the environment below.


Light Industry Factories provide three commodities:

*  MEDICINE is produced at the rate of one unit per turn. When a medical
emergency strikes the colony, stored medicine is automatically used. If
there is no medicine in storage, colonists will die. One hundred units
of medicine can be stored in a warehouse.

*  CLOTHING is produced at one unit per turn, and is distributed in
Commercial structures. Thirty-three units of clothing can be stored in a
warehouse.

*  LUXURY ITEMS are produced at the rate of one unit per turn per factory,
and are distributed in Commercial structures. Distribution of luxury items
is the primary means of manipulating the morale of your colonists, and
Commercial structures draw luxuries at a rate of one per turn as long as
there are luxury units available. You must choose which luxury items you
wish to produce, from a list that includes fuzzy dice and wax lips.


Surface Factories build four basic products:

*  ROAD MATERIAL is a combination of dense and sturdy components used to
form a durable roadbed on a bulldozed surface. Road Material is produced at
the rate of one unit per turn per factory.

*  FUEL CELLS, used to power robots, are produced at the rate of one every 10
turns. Fuel Cells die after 200 turns of use. Each Fuel Cell takes two mass
units of storage, so you can store 50 of them in a warehouse.

*  TRUCKS, used to move resources from the mines to the smelter, are produced
at a rate of one every five turns.

*  ROBOTS are manufactured in the Seed Factory when you arrive at your new
home, but a regular Surface Factory can build the full range of robots,
including the new types you're able to develop through scientific research. A
factory can produce only one robot type at a time, which you select, and can
build them at the rate of one every five turns. Robot storage at a Surface
Factory is limited to 10, after which production stops until the robots are
deployed or stored in a warehouse. Warehouses can store 20 robots with fuel
cells.

In addition to these Surface Factories, there are five "special" factory
types. Each produces one type of product. Note that the Terraforming Facility
is only available after suitable research has been performed.

The Agricultural Dome produces food. Each dome produces 10 units of food per
turn, assuming the dome receives enough resources per turn, and any research
resulting in a new food source increases the amount of food produced. The
storage available at a dome is 1000 mass units, after which dome food
production is shut down until the stored food is consumed. No other storage
for food is available. One unit of food feeds 10 humans per turn.

The smelter processes ores into pure, useful resources. In the smelter,
ores produce half their weight in processed metals, and minerals lose
nothing. Fusion elements are also processed at a one-to-one ratio. One
entire transported load of ore is processed in one turn, after which the
processed resources are shipped to colony Storage Tanks to become
available for use. Smelter storage is limited, so processing will cease if
maximum storage capacity has been reached.

The CHAP (Closed Habitat Atmospheric Production) Facility
produces a breathable environment for most of the colony structures.
This differs from the Terraforming Facility, which allows an
atmosphere to be generated for the entire planet. One CHAP is
sufficient to generate the breathable gases for a large colony, but
having multiple CHAPs reduces the likelihood of losing your
atmosphere production capacity in the event of a catastrophe.

The SPEW (Sewage Processing and Environmental Waste) Facility
recycles basic wastes and building materials from structures you've
chosen to destroy. Recycling improves morale and enables you to
reuse resources. Recycled buildings produce MPG (Multi-Purpose
Goo), a special synthetic that can be used to replace any other
resource required to maintain the functional status of an existing
structure.

Terraforming Facilities are generated through extensive scientific
research. They allow you to create a breathable atmosphere on
certain planets. Success with terraforming has a significant positive
effect on the morale of your colonists.

MINING
In Outpost, the mining of local resources is necessary to the
survival of your colony. Each planet type has a different
composition of ores, reflected in the value called Planetary
Hostility. If you select a planet with a high Hostility rating, the
offsetting characteristic of the planet will be a greater abundance of
mined resources.

On average, any mine will have a mixture of ores, with life support,
metals, and minerals being most common, followed by fusion
elements (see the chart on page 31). In general, Metal Ores A and
Minerals A are more common than B-grade ores, which are more
common than C-grade ores.


GATHERING RESOURCE INFORMATION
You can gather information about resources on your planet in
several ways.

From orbit, your starship will provide pertinent but basic
information about the hostility level of your new planet, surface
mineral deposits indicating reasonable mine locations, and basic
planetary data. The AI will then generate landing Site Maps with
the red dots that indicate potential mine locations.

You can launch a geological surface penetrator from orbit. The AI
will then provide you with the maximum digging depth for your
miners and diggers, an estimated total number of mining locations.

Explorer robots investigate potential mining sites identified from
the starship. Explorer robots will also mark any potential mining
locations with a red dot.


MINING AND PROCESSING ORE
Mines will produce ore for 100 to 400 turns, depending on the
digging depth of the planet. If the storage maximum of 500 units is
reached, the mine will shut down temporarily, but otherwise
production from an active mine will be continuous. See the section
on transportation for more information about moving mined
resources.

When mined ore reaches the smelter, production of processed ore
begins. Metal ores will generate processed metals at a ratio of two
to one; minerals and fusion elements are processed into purified
minerals at a rate of one to one.


MINED AND PROCESSED RESOURCES
Several categories of resources must be mined for survival. For
simplicity's sake, Outpost resources are grouped. They are:

* PRECIOUS METALS extracted from mineral ores by smelting.
* RAW RESOURCES shown with an "ore" prefix, such as OreMinA.
* FUSION RESOURCES


GROUP           PROVIDES                    CONSISTS OF

Metal           Building materials          OreA, OreB, OreC, OreD,
                        MetalA, MetalB, MetalC, MetalD

Fusion          Reactor fuel, other fuel    OreFusionA, OreFusionB,
                        OreFusionC, FusionA, FusionB,
                        FusionC

Mineral and     Raw materials               OreMinA, OreMinB,
Precious Metal  such as gold                OreMinC, MinA, MinB,
                        MinC, PrecA, PrecB



OTHER RESOURCES
Besides mined materials, other resources are generated by your
colonists. These are:

*  FOOD, produced in Agricultural Domes. Production is enhanced
through scientific research.

*  LUXURY ITEMS, manufactured in your light manufacturing facility,
and distributed in commercial facilities.

*  POPULATION, which is increased by, well, the population. Morale
level affects the rate of reproduction.

*  POWER, which is created by the Seed Factory and the other power
facilities.

*  BREATHABLE ATMOSPHERE, which is created by the CHAP for your
buildings.

PEOPLE
One of your goals should be an ever-increasing population. Another
is to keep this population contented so that they will be productive
and not creep off in the night to the rebel colony. A good rule of
thumb is to keep them reproducing, especially in the beginning.

During the first 60 turns on your new planet, the fatality rate will be
high. Realistically, however, this hardship will produce a human
race which is tougher than it was. Morale will drop when people
die, just as it will rise when a birth occurs. Reproduction will take
place at a tremendous pace: during the first 60 turns, your colonists
average six children per couple, although low morale will cause a
lower birth rate and higher mortality rate.

After the first 60 turns, reproduction will drop to four children per
couple. When birth and mortality rates have stabilized at a lower
level, you can begin making plans for the long-term growth of your
colony.

POWER
The colony's ability to expand and thrive depends in large part on
access to, and exploitation of, available sources of power. You can
generate power through several means:

POWER SOURCE            PROS                        CONS

Fuel Cells              Simple,                     Limited to robots
            immediately available

Geothermal Energy       Cheap, clean                You may not find a
                            fumarole

Seed Power              Immediately available       Extremely limited

Solar Power Satellite   Generates up to 2000        No more than two receiver
                            arrays per satellite

Tokamak                 1000 units of power         Requires maintenance
Fusion Reactor          per turn, efficient


ROBOTS
Robots are important to your colony. They perform tasks that
would otherwise have to be performed by the human population.
When your colonists must perform menial tasks, morale drops.
Additionally, when robots are performing the less glamorous
functions, humans are able to perform higher-order jobs such as
research, which enables your colony to progress and thrive.



Factories produce robots at a rate of one every five turns, and Fuel
Cells at a rate of one every 10 turns. One Fuel Cell will operate one
robot for 200 turns.

ROBOT COMMAND
Robot Command facilities communicate with field robots.
Sometimes you'll lose contact with field robots because they've
been lost in rough terrain. Unfortunately, you cannot avoid losing
robots; just keep building robots to replace those that will inevitably
be lost.

ROBOT TYPES
Here are the types of robots available to you, and a brief description
of their uses:

Robodozer: Prepares a foundation for building both on the planet
surface and underground. The number of turns required to prepare
terrain for building depends on the condition of the terrain.
Robodozers can also create dirt roads by bulldozing in a straight
line, at which point paved roads can be laid down.

Robominer: Digs mine shafts, locates mineral deposits, builds ore
elevators, and caps the mines with storage facilities. The number of
turns required to dig a mine depends on the condition of the terrain.
Homes in only on existing mine beacons.

Robodigger: Creates underground residences. It can dig either
horizontally or vertically. The area dug out will be visible to the
player, while the unexplored surrounding area will remain black.

Roboexplorer: Wanders the surface of the planet seeking new
mines. The number of turns required to locate new mines varies by
mine prevalence on your chosen planet.

Repairbot: If there is an existing supply of fuel cells, Repairbots
can replace Fuel Cells on "dead" robots.  Repairbots are generated
through research into robotics.

Humanoid Worker: Performs labor so that a human can be
reassigned to a scientific research job if one is available. Humanoid
workers are generated through research into robotics, and will
show up in the population details report once you start building
them.



Getting Shafted
If you're having trouble digging deeper mine shafts or air shafts,
keep these hints in mind:

*  To extend a mine shaft to a deeper level on planets where this is
possible, place a robominer directly on an existing underground mine
shaft.

* To extend an air shaft to a deeper level on planets where this is
possible, place a robodigger directly on an existing underground air
shaft.

When Robodiggers Dig
On the surface of the planet, a robodigger can dig a new level only
when it starts next to a surface tube connecting it to its home
colony. Because the robodigger constructs the air shaft for the
underground levels, the tube connection is required to carry air and
power to underground structures.

Exploding Robodiggers
If you find that you've built your colony in an area surrounded by
impassable terrain, don't give up hope. Place a robodigger on the
impassable location of your choice and set it to "Self-Destruct". As
if by magic, the robodigger will destroy itself and leave clear terrain
in its place next turn. However, the contained explosion of the
robodigger will also destroy any underground structures on the
eight tiles immediately surrounding it.


STORAGE
Two types of facilities are used as storage on your new planet.

Storage Tanks are used to store processed resources. If the
resource comes from the smelter, it must go to the Storage Tank
rather than a warehouse. Storage Tanks can store 1000 units of
processed resources.

Warehouses store everything but processed resources. Each of
these items requires a specific mass unit of storage, and each
warehouse can accommodate 100 mass units of storage.
Warehouse storage is provided for:

    Clothing        3 mass units
    Fuel Cells      2 mass units
    Luxury Items    3 mass units
    Medicine        1 mass unit
    Road Materials  3 mass units
    Robots w/Fuel Cells  5 mass units
    Trucks          6 mass units

Without storage facilities to house resources, all factory production
will be unavailable. Always make sure a storage facility is built
simultaneously with a factory to house the output.


TRANSPORTATION
An effective transportation system on your new planet is critical to
your survival. What good are ores if you can't get them to the
smelter and the colony?  How can you establish efficient trade if
you can't move trade goods?

There are but two safe methods of motor transportation in Outpost.
Resources and people are transported via either semi-automated
Trucks or a Monorail System, and there are pros and cons to each.


TRUCKS
Trucks can travel over any terrain that's not impassable, but it's
more efficient to drive over dirt or paved roads. Dirt roads are
created by bulldozing a terrain tile. After a section is bulldozed, a
paved road can be laid if the road materials have been produced by
your factories. It takes two turns for a road crew to complete a
section of paved road. If a road crew takes more than two turns to
pave a road, it's probably because there isn't enough road material
available from your Warehouses. Trucks travel much faster over
paved roads. For each game turn, a Truck can cross over one rough
terrain tile, three clear terrain tiles, four dirt road tiles, or five paved
road tiles.

An active mine can store up to 500 units of ore. If the mine reaches
this limit, however, the mine will shut down until the ore is
removed. Trucks can carry 100 units of ore from a mine to a
smelter. After the raw materials are processed they will
automatically be moved into storage. Once the processed ore is
placed in a storage facility, it is available for use by the colony.
If you're playing on the Beginner difficulty level, or if you've
loaded a saved game from a previous version of Outpost, all
trucking will occur automatically. Other difficulty levels give you
the option of Manual or Automatic Trucking. Under the Automatic
Trucking option, the transportation of ore and resources will occur
behind the scenes. Manual Trucking forces you to establish
individual routes and shipments for your Trucks.

Trucks travel on terrain, either rough or clear; and roads, either dirt
or paved. Dirt roads are simply bulldozed. After a section is
bulldozed, a paved road can be laid; paving takes two turns to
complete.

Generally, within the bounds of a particular colony, Trucks will
automatically move resources from the smelters to Storage Tanks,
and from factories to Warehouses.


MONORAILS
Monorails move at a continuous speed of six tiles per turn, and can
carry 500 units of ore to the smelter. Once the Monorail line is
built, terrain has no effect on it, and Monorail lines can be set on
continuous loops to connect sites that have frequent contact.

Monorails do have drawbacks, however. They are costly and time-
intensive to build, and any stops must have Monorail Stations.
Plagues travel with great efficiency on Monorail lines, and if you
rely solely on this mode of transport, a plague can either wipe out
your colony or bring your entire planet's transportation system to
its knees when you sever the lines to save the colony. On the other
hand, if you're a diabolical killer, you can also send a little gift of
the plague over to a colony of rebels with whom you've established
a trade agreement.

A Monorail System has five components: the Monorail Station, the
Monorail Power Transformer, the Monorail (track), the Monorail
(track) Intersection, and the standard Tube connecting the Power
Transformer to a colony.

The Monorail Power Transformer can be built only at the end of a
Tube connection. The colony supplies life support, power, and the
workers to operate each Monorail section.

Monorail (track) tiles connect to Monorail Stations. Monorail
Stations can only be placed next to a Monorail Power Transformer
or a Monorail (track) tile.

A Monorail (track) or a Monorail (track) Intersection can only be
placed next to a Monorail Station or another Monorail (track).

When a complete Monorail System has been established between
two stations, and the power/resource connections have been made,
the Monorail line will become active.

Power interruptions or line breaks can bring Monorails to a halt.

A Monorail can establish a round trip or one way trip to each
station, allowing for circuits that don't follow round trip. If two
lines are connected, it becomes a circuit with only one train
running.

The Monorail Power Transformer tile connects tube to Monorail
Station in any direction. Every Monorail Station requires one. This
tile has the same building and operating stats as a tube, except it
requires one unit of power to operate, and it takes two turns to
build instead of being instantly placed like a tube.


CHAPTER 5 - PLAYING TO THRIVE

So now your colony is developing at a healthy rate. You want to
move to the big time: to perform scientific research, increase
morale, delegate tasks, and spy on rival colonies, just like leaders
did back on good old Earth. In a word, you wish to thrive.


INFORMATION AND REPORTS
You need information to make intelligent decisions, and there are
plenty of sources in Outpost. Your AI will provide you with a
variety of reports at any time. If you would like an overview of
your planet, the Executive Summary Report is available either
through your AI or through the Command Center. This information
includes the total number of active mines, the current pool of
available resources, and how many Agricultural Domes are
producing food, among other things. There is also a Detail button
under the Population entry, which will provide you with a
breakdown of your population categories. (See Chapter 11 for
details.)

A left-click on most buildings will give you a report on that facility.
These include individual mining reports, factory production
summaries, warehouse and resource storage reports, and laboratory
research reports. A request for a lab report will also enable you to
choose which area of research that lab should pursue.

You can reach the Help file either by right-clicking on the chrome
ball in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen or by clicking on
any part of the main game screen when the Tile Map is displayed.
This will give you a dialogue box with a context-sensitive Help
option. Context-sensitive Help will send you directly into the
portion of the Help system that relates to the part of the screen you
clicked on.

The Outpost Evening Star, your colony's newspaper, disseminates
information to the colonists. Your AI then condenses news items
into briefs as an Executive Summary. The newspaper is a good way
for you to gauge the opinion of the person on the street; or the
person in the tube, as they say on your planet.


STARTING SECONDARY COLONIES
When your original colony has reached a reasonably stable
condition, extra resources will start to pile up until you've reached
the conditions that allow you to start a secondary colony. You will
know when this condition has been reached if you watch for a new
Command Center to appear as an option in the Tile Picker window
at the top center of the main game screen. If surplus conditions
change and reserves drop below minimum, the Command Center
option will disappear from the Tile Picker window.

The surplus resources required to start a new colony are as follows:

2 Robodiggers, 2 Robodozers, 2 Robominers, 2 Trucks

100 units each of Metals A, B, C and D
40 units each of Precious Metals A and B
50 units each of Minerals B and C
30 units each of Fusion A, B and C

70 units of Mineral A
100 units of Food

2 unemployed colonists

Once a new Command Center is placed on a new colony site, the
items listed above are transported as a basic package used to start
the new colony.

To monitor the conditions in your new colony, remember to left-
click on the Command Center in the new colony to view its
Executive Summary Report. Then, if you want to switch back to
the control of your main colony, click on your home Command
Center.


MACROMANAGEMENT THROUGH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The chrome ball icon at the bottom left of your screen represents
your Artificial Intelligence, or AI. Your AI will serve many critical
functions, including warning you of impending disasters and
allowing you access to a general help file. When your research in
the field of computer science has developed sufficiently, you can
switch from micromanagement to macromanagement through the
use of multiple AI managers.

You've been overseeing every aspect of colony management since
you started the game, which can be a logistical nightmare when
dealing with multiple colonies. Multiple AI managers can handle
some of the administrative tasks so that you won't have to worry
about every clogged toilet on the planet.

Please note that when multiple AI managers are first made available
to you, they may be unstable. You must do sufficient research into
AI personalities to ensure that your AI managers will respond to
your commands in an appropriate way. If you are dealing with an
unstable AI, you may tell him to build Agricultural Domes for 200
turns, only to find after 200 turns that he's been building
Communications Towers. And if your AI screws up, you can be
sure that in this, as in all things, your population will blame you.

With macromanagement capability, you have the ability to
specialize an individual colony's function. With the basic necessities
of life and connections to a few good mines, a colony can become a
power center, a recycling center, a smelting complex, a storage
complex, a bedroom community, or a shopping mall. As long as
these specialized colonies are connected by trucking or a good
Monorail network, then you have a powerful method of
management available to outwit your competition.

Once the multiple AI personality research has been completed, one
new personality will be generated approximately every 100 turns.


ASSIGNING WORK TO A NEW AI
Once you've started a new colony in the normal manner, and
you've done the research that generates multiple AI personalities,
the AI interface will become available.

When you click on the "Assign AI to Colony" button under
Macromanagement, all your available AI personalities are listed by
name in the "Assign AI" column. Click on an AI name, then choose
a colony name from the"To Colony" column.

Now you want to tell the AI you've assigned to the colony how
you want the building program managed. This is done by selecting
one of the options from the "Building Emphasis" column, such as
Agricultural Center or Storage Complex. If you choose the
Deassign option, the AI assigned to that colony will halt any current
building program there and wait for further instructions, conserving
resources in the meantime.

If an AI personality assigned to a colony turns out to be unstable,
you can Deassign it. Once you have done the research to solve AI
Personality Problems, all AI's will be updated.


MORALE
In Outpost, as in life, the morale of the population is dependent on
many factors. Significant rises in morale mean you're doing a good
job; they lead to a higher birth rate, a lower death rate, and
increased production. Drops in morale mean you're a failure as a
leader; they result in a lower birth rate, a higher death rate,
decreased production, and colonist defections to the rebel colony.
Of course, if your colony's morale soars, rebels will defect to you.
It's that kind of capricious behavior on the part of the colonists that
makes your political life uncertain, and makes the morale model too
complicated to explain.

When trying to determine how your population will react, think how
you would feel in a given situation. If, for example, someone forgot to
tell you to evacuate the surface during a solar flare, you might get a
little grouchy. On the other hand, if your leader provided you with
sophisticated Luxury Items such as whoopie cushions, your morale
would rise. Okay, maybe that isn't such a good example. Play with the
model. Poke it and see what happens.

Morale has a direct effect on factory production quantities, so you
must try to keep it as high as possible. The best way to directly
manipulate morale is through providing colonists with Luxury
Items. The planet's hostility level will have an effect on morale, as
will the crime rate. Technological advances will also have a positive
effect, so perform scientific research and bulldoze old factories to
make way for new, improved factories. And whatever you do,
don't make the mistake a certain 1980s presidential candidate made
and assume you can get away with anything. They're out there.
They're watching you. And they know every move you make.

Tiles enhancing morale are: AgriDome, DIRT Facility,
Nanotechnology Facility, SPEW Facility, Terraforming Facility,
Commercial Structure, Park/Reservoir, Recreational Facility, Red
Light District, and University. Tiles detrimental to morale are:
Tokamak Containment, Hostile Police Station, and Hot Lab. The
next chapter discusses morale in more depth.


RESEARCH AND LABS
Research is a means to an end, and should be pursued with vigor.
One measure of victory is establishment of a space program for
your colony, and this cannot be achieved without a lot of research
in every field. You must also do research to engage in terraforming,
improve the quality of life for your colonists, and increase their
morale.

Scientific research is the key to your continued survival and the
advancement of your civilization. A lot of scientists think they're
too good to work in the SPEW. You should put them to work
doing research in active labs as quickly as possible, to keep their
morale high. Just as their morale is affected by their positions on
your colony, the rate of research progress will be affected by your
colony's overall morale.

When you click on an active lab, you'll get a lab report. This report
will tell you of any operating problems the lab might have, what its
current line of research is, and how much progress has been made.
The report will also give you the opportunity to assign the lab to a
research area.


Basic Research will accelerate all current research after about 100
turns. AIs assigned to Basic Research labs do not affect the rate of
progress. AIs can, however, make a difference when assigned to
specific Applied Research.

When you have completed a given area of Applied Research, the
result benefits the colony. Some areas of research were mastered on
Earth, but because you brought only the basic necessities of life
with you on the starship, technology must be reestablished or
subjects rethought from your new planetary perspective. The
number of turns required to make progress in Applied Research
varies, and can be positively affected by the presence of an AI.


TERRAFORMING
Terraforming is the process of making an Earth-type environment
on another world. Obviously, if you could manipulate the climate of
your new home in such a way as to make it more like your old
home, that would be a good thing. Your colonists would certainly
like being able to breathe the air, and morale would go up
accordingly. You can't just start terraforming, however. You'll
have to do extensive research, and even then some planets just
aren't appropriate for transformation into replicas of good old
Earth. Mars-type planets are the likeliest candidates, a fact which
should influence your choice of a planet destination if you wish to
engage in terraforming.


CHAPTER 6 - GAME MECHANICS AND STRATEGIES

You've managed to survive on your new planet, and you're even
thriving. Now you'd like to develop some subtlety to your play,
perhaps delve a bit deeper into Outpost's model and gain insights
into this complex and involving strategy simulation. Or maybe
you'd just like to know how to cheat. Either way, this chapter
offers tiny glimpses into certain aspects of the game. If you don't
want to know, read no further.


MORALE
In an attempt to maintain a realistic feel to Outpost, we've made
the people as fickle and capricious as possible. As you are the
leader of the colony, you bear the brunt when morale is low. The
good news is that morale in your new home is like morale here on
Earth. If you're an effective politician, you can manipulate it to
your benefit.

You must always try to keep the morale of your population as high
as possible. Morale has a direct effect on factory production,
population production, the death rate, research, and the defection
rate. The most effective way to manipulate morale is to provide the
colonists with Luxury Items. The more Luxury Items your colonists
have, the happier they are.

Police have an effect on morale. You can define the attitude of the
police yourself. Are they hostile toward the population? Then
morale will be affected negatively. But hostile police also reduce
the crime rate significantly, which affects morale in a positive way.
Benevolent police, while impacting morale positively, don't have
much of an effect on the crime rate.

A Red Light District has an effect on morale as well. This is an
unusual structure, because you can place it on the Tile Map, or it
can generate spontaneously because of a high crime rate. The Red
Light District increases morale and the birth rate, but draws two
luxury units per turn from the storage area which might otherwise
have been distributed to the population. If the crime rate remains
high, more and more of your residential areas will turn into Red
Light Districts. You can reduce the number of Red Light Districts
by building more Police Stations near trouble areas.

Humanoid robot workers increase the morale level. Your
population is composed mostly of scientists, and they feel they are
overqualified for factory work. They want to work in research labs,
but someone must work in the factories. If you can provide robot
workers for factories, freeing the colonists to work in research
facilities, you'll affect morale in a positive way.


TRADE
Let's say that the rebel colony has managed to thrive since you
landed. You may recall that they stole personnel and supplies from
the starship. Now perhaps you'd like to bury the hatchet and
establish trade with them for mutual benefit. When you initiate
diplomatic relations with the rebel colony, your trade partner will
build a Trade Mission in their colony for you. This building, which
has both a surface and an underground level, costs you nothing in
supplies, and requires one staff member from your own colony. As
soon as the Trade Mission is built, you can engage in unlimited free
trade with that colony. Legally, this is all you can do with it.
Trade relies on a barter system. Once diplomatic contact and a
trade agreement have been established with the assistance of your
artificially intelligent assistant, you will make an offer to trade
something of yours. Your trade partner will offer something of
theirs in return. You can trade surplus resources, people, and assets
(such as robots you have produced in your factories).

The "comparative advantage theory" states that a country should
produce and sell to other countries the products it produces most
efficiently and effectively, and should buy from other countries
those products it can't produce as efficiently or effectively. On
another planet, trade between colonies, which act as countries,
allows you to apply this theory for mutual survival.

The value of your trade items is affected by the current exchange rate.
The initial exchange rate is based on the difficulty level you selected at
the beginning of the game, but it will fluctuate based on your previous
trading successes or failures, and surplus resource levels in each trading
colony.

If you have a surplus in a commodity another colony requires, you
can dominate the trading session, demand a high price for your
resources, and eventually gain a surplus balance of trade.
Unfortunately, the same is true in the other direction; if this
happens, you will have a deficit balance. Avoid a deficit and your
trading posture will be better, allowing you to dominate the
negotiations.


TRADE DIPLOMACY
Your handy AI helper monitors conditions in your colony. When
your colony seems stable enough to begin interacting with the
rebels or another colony, the Diplomacy button will allow you to
initiate diplomatic relations.

When you left-click on the Diplomacy button, your AI helper will
ask which colony you'd like to contact to establish diplomatic
relations. Select a colony name from the menu. The current
Diplomatic Status is also shown at this point:

NO DIPLOMATIC CONTACT means that you have either made no
attempt to establish contact with the target colony, or that contact
has been broken and enough time has passed so that you can try
again.

TRADE AGREEMENT means that you are currently in a position to
trade with the target colony because you have already established a
trade agreement with them.

HOSTILE means that the rebel colony remembers how devious you
were the last time they had a trade agreement with you, and you
took advantage of them by building extra structures to undermine
the economy in their colony.

Depending on the difficulty level of your game, you have a
reasonable chance of establishing diplomatic relations with the other
colony unless they've had previous unpleasant dealings with you.
As mentioned previously, if you had a trade agreement with them,
then built several structures in their colony, they may have kicked
you out of their colony and broken off diplomatic relations. In this
case, if you try to re-establish relations too soon, they will refuse
your devious diplomatic approaches.

If you receive a message that "diplomatic communication is not
available at this time", it means that your colony resources are not
currently in a position where you can safely trade with someone
else. It can also mean that something horrible happened to the rebel
colony.

If you successfully establish diplomatic contact, you can offer them
a trade agreement, silently break off communications, or say "hello"
and break off communications. If you break off communications
here, you will leave them feeling confused. If you offer them a trade
agreement, they have the option of accepting or rejecting it, based
on their feelings toward you. If they accept your offer of a trade
agreement, they will build a Trade Mission in their colony for you,
which will take about two turns, assuming they have no problem
with the necessary resources. When the Trade Mission is finished,
you may trade with them by left-clicking on the Trade  button in the
AI interface.

When you select "Initiate Trade Session", the AI will ask you,
through the trade interface, to identify which of your colonies is
going to trade resources ("Trade for") and which colony will be
your victim ("Trade with"). At this point, you can also check your
Diplomatic Status with that colony.

If you have a trade agreement with the target colony, you can Offer
Trade. Select the commodity you wish to trade. You will be shown
what amount of that commodity is available for trade, then asked
what quantity you wish to trade. When this offer is made, your
trading partner will probably make a counteroffer. This offer and
counteroffer process of negotiation will continue until someone is
satisfied with the trade or gives up in disgust.

When you accept your trading partner's offer, the trade session will
come to an end. Remember that transportation by Truck or
Monorail is not required to move the traded commodities between
the two colonies.

There may be times when the counteroffers from your trading
partners seem odd. You should keep in mind that a number of
factors determine the value of the items being traded, such as the
current exchange rate, your chosen level of game difficulty, trade
advantage, and research into the social sciences related to trade
negotiation (specifically, these are: Social Sciences-Economics,
Social Sciences-Political Science, Social Sciences-
Psychology-Trade Negotiation).


TRANSFERS
Another aspect of the trade interface allows you to transfer
resources directly between the colonies you own. This transfer of
goods does not involve bargaining. You can't transfer items
between one of your colonies and the rebel colony unless it has
been abandoned and you have assumed ownership. If you choose
one of your own colonies to trade with when you enter the trade
interface, you will automatically enter the transfer interface instead.
The transfer interface can also be reached by right-clicking on
specific buildings and selecting Transfer from the menu.

Accessing the transfer interface from a specific building shows you
which assets are available at that location, as well as the quantity.
Click on the asset you wish to transfer, then use the up and down
arrows to select the quantity you wish to move. When you click on
the OK button, you will enter the Transit Information interface so
that you can assign Trucks or Monorails to move the assets you've
chosen to a new location.

Accessing the transfer interface from the trade interface shows you
which of your colony assets are available to be moved to a different
colony. The rest of the interface works the same way as a building
to building transfer within your colony (described above).


THE REBEL COLONY
ACTIVATING AN ABANDONED REBEL COLONY
When the rebel colony has been abandoned, the dark blue triangle
changes into a light blue dot, just like the one that marks your home
colony. You can assume ownership of the rebel colony by left-
clicking on the Site Map where the rebel colony is located, then
left-clicking on the rebel Command Center. You will then be able to
see the rebel colony executive report. When multiple colonies are
available, clicking on any Command Center makes that the active
colony. Until another colony's Command Center is selected, all
reports you see will relate to the active colony only.

When you assume the operation of a rebel colony, you will have the
capability of bulldozing their structures and rebuilding the colony,
or starting to build new structures right away using standard
building methods.

A right-click on any friendly Command Center will bring up the
Move Colonists interface. This little box asks for the number of
colonists you'd like to move, which colony you'd like to move
them from, and which colony you'd like to move them to. After you
fill in your responses, run a turn to move that portion of your
population.

DEFECTIONS
Defections will occur when morale in a colony drops below 200 for
an extended period of time. Your colonists will defect to the rebel
colony at an increasing rate for every turn in which morale is below
200. If morale hits zero, the colony will empty out quickly.

The reverse of this is also true. If your colony's morale rises above 800
for a prolonged period, rebel colonists will defect to your colony. The
rate of immigration will increase as your morale gets closer to 1,000.
Naturally, all of these immigrants will have to be housed and fed, just
like your regular colonists; otherwise morale will start dropping.

Defections can result in a "ghost town" ending for your colony, as
well as the ability to assume ownership of the abandoned rebel
colony. Both possibilities are described elsewhere.

PLANETARY RESOURCES
You began mining as soon as the starship touched down, but the
digging depth on this hostile planet is limited, and the mines play
out quickly. What should you do? Build a SPEW facility as quickly
as possible. SPEWs will provide you with the miracle element MPG
(Multi-Purpose Goo), which you can use as a substitute for other
resources.

SPACE PROGRAM
If you want to develop your own space program, you'll have to do
extensive research in the areas of astrophysics, extraterrestrial
mining, celestial mechanics, standard propulsion spacecraft,
mathematics, wind tunnels, and spacecraft testing and analysis.
Then, when your research has been completed, you must build the
technological elements that you've discovered. When you're ready
to launch, you can do so at that time and thus end the game, or you
can hold off launch and continue to play. Launching the starship
will be your last official act as commander of the colony.

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT
Your factories work fine, but the Tile Picker has just offered a new
factory type. Should you replace your factories with these newer
ones? When you have a chance to advance the technological level
of a factory, bulldoze the old factory and build a new one to
produce the same items. The newer factory will work more
efficiently and have fewer breakdowns, and you can use the old
materials to make Multi-Purpose Goo. Your workers will produce
more because they appreciate the new facility. When raw resources
are low, or if you want to focus your available resources into
certain areas for a few turns, you can also shut down production at
some of your lower-priority facilities.


CHAPTER 7 - COMMON PROBLEMS ... SIMPLE SOLUTIONS


AT THE OUTSET
SEED FACTORY AND ROBOMINER PLACEMENT
Use the Elevation Map on the Site Map window to choose a
landing area. The clear terrain is marked in black, so the best
locations are black with red dots (which mark potential mines
identified from orbit).

When you place the Seed Factory, a red "X" will appear on the
diamond-shaped Tile Map. Run a turn by left-clicking on the small
planet in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The turn
number will appear below the planet. When you see the Seed
Lander on the map (in place of the red "X"), you can start running
turns to get the Seed Factory started. Construction tiles and pre-
fabricated tubes will appear.

While the Seed Factory is building itself, place a robominer from
the Tile Picker window on one of the red mining beacons nearby. If
you don't see a mining beacon, scroll to that position on the map by
clicking on the Tile Map arrows and watch the box on the Site Map
to line it up with a red dot. When you place a robominer on the red
mining beacon, you will see the robot replace the beacon. It will
take several turns for the first level of the mine to be dug, after
which resources can be moved to the Seed Smelter.

As you run your first turns, keep using the robodozer to clear
terrain around your Seed Factory. Also place a robodigger at the
end of one of the tubes at the Seed Factory construction site so that
it can start digging your first underground level. When the
robodigger is finished digging, the robodigger on the map will be
replaced with the top of an air shaft.

BUILDING WITH TUBES
Tubes carry air and power from your CHAP and power facilities.
For most structures, a tube connection is required to physically
connect them to your existing network of buildings and tubes. Since
construction also requires a tube connection on a tile adjacent to
your intended building site, you may find that nothing is available in
your Tile Picker window except for robots and tubes.

After placing a tube on a bulldozed section of the diamond-shaped
Tile Map, structures will then appear in the Tile Picker window if
resources are available to build new structures. When your colony
is just starting, tubes will not be available in the Tile Picker window
until you have brought down your first Colonist Lander.

IF THE TILE PICKER WINDOW IS EMPTY
During construction of your colony, there may be times when the
Tile Picker window is empty. This means that all the robots are
actively assigned to tasks on the Tile Map, and that no resources
are currently available to construct new buildings. Running a few
turns will remedy this situation.

EARLY CONSTRUCTION
In the "Construction" section of the manual, it is suggested that you
build your first few structures in this order: Agricultural Dome,
CHAP, Residential Units, Storage Tanks, and Power Facility. If
your morale is falling fast, you may want to build a Park/Reservoir
or two to slow the fall of morale before you build a power facility
(since the Seed provides power for about 150 turns).

During the first 50 turns or so, you should build SLOWLYù-allow
each of your first structures to finish building before starting a new
one. While structures are building, you can always bulldoze, mine,
and tunnel horizontally or vertically with your robodiggers
(assuming you have these robots available when you want them).

Because a SPEW facility provides resources from the sewage
generated by residential units, this is also a good structure to build
early on, along with a warehouse and a Robot Command facility to
make use of robots built by your Seed Factory. Gradually add more
mines to keep your resources flowing.

Remember that an operating SPEW will generate MPG, which will
take the place of any resources you may temporarily be missing.
MPG is stored at the SPEW facility and used automatically when
necessary to maintain existing structures. You can check the
amount of MPG you have in storage by left-clicking on the SPEW
facility to get its report.


SEED FACTORY COLLAPSE
Remember also that you will lose your Seed Factory units (power,
smelter, robot factory) after 150 turns, so you must build structures
to account for this loss if you want to maintain those functions.

Before the Seed Factory units collapse, make sure that your tube
connections will be maintained between structures. Tubes are
required to carry power and air, both for construction of new
buildings and maintenance of those buildings. You need a constant
physical connection of buildings and tubes to keep supplying power
and air to all of your structures, so there must be tubes that bypass
your Seed Factory units by the time the units collapse.


USING THE ROBOTS THAT LANDED WITH YOUR SEED FACTORY
Your Seed Factory landed with four robots on board: a robodozer,
a robominer, a robodigger, and an explorer. While the Seed Factory
is building itself, these robots can be assigned to tasks on the
diamond-shaped Tile Map that dominates your screen. When
available, these robots are visible in the Tile Picker window at the
top center of your screen.

When you first place your robots, it's wise to place a robodigger
adjacent to one of the tube openings that are part of the Seed
Factory complex. The robodigger will then start digging a shaft to
create your first underground level.

Place a robodozer beside one of the other tube openings to prepare
a building site. Place the robominer on a red mining beacon
(described in the "Seed Factory and Robominer Placement"
section). When you have placed all of these robots, the Tile Picker
window will be empty. You must run turns to complete the current
activity by those robots. As each robot completes an activity, it will
reappear in the Tile Picker window for reassignment to a new task.

Explorer robots perform their function automatically. Each explorer
is capable of finding new mines, assuming they have not all been
discovered yet. The starship locates a large portion of a planet's
potential mine sites; the geological penetrator probes discover more
potential mine sites; and the explorer robots can find the mine sites
that are the most difficult to locate. On the easy difficulty level, 10
explorers are sufficient to discover the remaining mine sites.

BUILDING ROBOTS WITH YOUR SEED FACTORY
Once the construction of your Seed Factory is completed, you can
use it to build additional basic robots. Left-click on each of the
finished units to read the report that identifies its individual
function.

When you select the robot factory portion of the Seed Factory, you
can start building additional robots. A text entry area on the robot
factory report has a small arrow to its right. Clicking on the arrow
button will pull down the robot production menu. The Seed Factory
can only produce these types of robots. By selecting one of these
robot types and closing the report, you have set the factory to
produce one of those robots every five turns. After you've built one
or more of a single robot type, you can go back to this same report
and reset production to build a new robot type.

New robots must be stored in a warehouse. Usually, one warehouse
is sufficient to handle robot storage for a long time, since active
robots in the field require no storage. Active robots will last for 200
turns, which is the limit of their Fuel Cell capacity. You must have
at least one warehouse to store the robots that your Seed Factory is
building, otherwise nothing will happen. Then, to activate the
robots from your warehouse, you must also build a Robot
Command center (described below). Each Robot Command center
can run 10 robots in the field.


BUILDING NEW ROBOTS WITHOUT THE SEED FACTORY
The Seed Factory can keep producing robots right up to the end of
its lifetime, which occurs around turn 151. For this first phase of
the game, Seed Factory robot production will often be sufficient for
your robot needs. However, at some point you may decide to build
more. A Surface Factory is required to build more robots. After
turn 151, this is your only option for building new robots. Active
robots have a life of 200 turns before their Fuel Cells die, so you'll
start losing them after turn 200, if you haven't already lost any
through accidents.


ACTIVATING NEW ROBOTS WITH ROBOT COMMAND
However they are produced, new robots need to be stored in a
warehouse, from which they are available to Robot Command units.
Each Robot Command facility can operate 10 robots. If you want
to operate 11 robots, you will need to build a second Robot
Command facility.

If a robot factory has produced robots, and a warehouse exists to
store the robots, and at least one Robot Command facility exists to
operate 10 of the robots, they will appear in your Tile Picker
window so that you can place them on the Tile Map. If all the
currently available robots are active, no robots of that type will
appear in the Tile Picker window.

The radius of a Robot Command area is unlimited if you have a
Communications Satellite in orbit (assuming you packed one when
you left Earth). If you have no Communications Satellite,
Communications Towers must be built to extend the range of your
robominers and other robots. Each Robot Command facility and
each Communication Tower have a communications radius of 30
tiles.


ROBODIGGERS AND ROBOMINERS
To extend a mine shaft to a deeper level on planets where this is
possible, place a robominer directly on an existing underground
mine shaft. This will not affect the functioning of the existing mine.

To extend an air shaft to a deeper level on planets where this is
possible, place a robodigger directly on an existing underground air
shaft.


WHEN ROBODIGGERS DIG
On the surface of the planet, a robodigger can dig a new level only
when it starts next to a surface tube connecting it to its home
colony. Because the robodigger constructs the air shaft for the
underground levels, the tube connection is required to carry air and
power to underground structures.


WHEN PEOPLE ARE DYING TOO FAST AFTER LANDING
It is often wise to leave your colonists in orbit for the first 20 turns
while your Seed Factory and its robots are doing their jobs to get
the colony started. This number will vary somewhat depending on
how much life support and food you brought with you on the
starship (you packed it at the Ship Configuration screen before
leaving on the trip to the new planet).

After you bring your first Colonist Lander down to the surface of
the planet, you have fewer than 20 turns in which to make sure that
a CHAP facility is built. Some people may die in the meantime
through accidents or old age, depending on the hostility level of the
planet you've chosen.


WHEN BUILDINGS GO IDLE
Buildings go idle because of lack of resources, power, or people. In
the case of laboratories, they can also go idle if they are not
assigned a specific line of research.

If a particular structure's report shows its status as ôidle,ö you can
find out what resources it needs by clicking on the Needs button at
the bottom of the report. (In the case of the CHAP facility, the
CHAP facility report is reached through the Executive Summary
Report buttons.)

CHAP facilities and power facilities are at the top of the priority list
when resources are scarce, allowing you time to react to the
resource shortage. Bulldoze unnecessary structures, particularly if
you have an operational SPEW facility to recycle the bulldozed
building materials. Make sure you have operating mines, an
operating smelter, and sufficient space in your Storage Tanks to
handle the processed resources coming into your colony.
If buildings are idle only because of a lack of people to operate
them, you can bulldoze unnecessary structures to free up employed
workers, or wait for your population to grow and age so that you
have a larger available workforce. They will all age as you run each
turn.

POPULATION DISTRIBUTION
In the Executive Summary Report, you'll find a Details button in
the population section. Clicking on this button shows you the
current breakdown of your population by category: infant, student,
worker, scientist, or retired.

You will witness population explosions on occasion. This will be
apparent when you see more infants and/or students than workers
or scientists. workers and scientists are required to operate your
facilities, so this is a limiting factor to your colony expansion. Only
time will age your young people to the point where they become
workers and scientists. Universities help to shift the student and
worker groups into the scientist group by bringing up the general
educational level of the population.

It is not possible to assign the adult population to specific tasks.
One of the limits on building new structures is whether enough
colonists are available to build them and staff them. If they are
available, they will be assigned to those structures automatically
when you build them.

If the worker population drops below zero because of starvation,
any students will move into the worker population until the crisis
has passed (usually when the students get old enough to become
permanent workers). After the permanent worker group is above
one again, the student worker group will return to the student
category to finish their studies. It's just a survival thing where they
try to keep the CHAP, one mine, one power supply, and an
AgriDome operating.


WHY PEOPLE DIE
People die naturally from old age or by accident. These deaths will
occur no matter what you do. Deaths also occur by starvation or
lack of air, and these are the deaths you can do something about.

When you receive a death message after running a turn, it may not
mean you're doing anything wrong. Check to make sure that you have
enough food being produced by your agricultural  domes (one unit
feeds 10 people), and that your structures are getting enough air. If you
have handled those requirements, then you know their deaths are due
to old age or accident.

After Turn 60, deaths by old age or accident are reduced because
the first part of the colony has been built, the weakest people who
survived the trip have already died in the hostile environment, and
construction accidents are fewer because the workers have learned
safer techniques.

RESOURCE MOVEMENT FROM MINES TO COLONY SMELTERS
AUTOMATIC TRUCKING
Mined ores are stored at each mine shaft until a full load is ready to
be moved by the Truck assigned to that mine. When built, each
mine has one Truck to automatically move ores to the Seed Factory
smelter or to the high-capacity smelter you can build yourself.
Storage Tanks are also required to receive the smelted resources
and make them available to the colony. You won't see these Trucks
operating, but they're on the job.


TRUCKS
AUTOMATIC TRUCKING
Trucks can be produced by your Surface Factories to move
resources between the mines and the smelters. These Trucks are not
affected by the Robot Command facility limit of 10 robots each.
Internally, a Truck is created to serve each mine when new mines
are built. Any Trucks you build will remain in your Warehouses
until they're needed, at which time they will be used automatically.
On the Easy difficulty setting, it is possible to get through most or
all of a game using only a few of these Trucks.



CHAPTER 8 - ADVANCED STRATEGIES

ONE CHAP IS ENOUGH
A successful colony needs only one CHAP to provide sufficient air,
so long as the interconnecting tubes actually link all structures
(tiles).


TERRAIN
The harshness of the terrain plays an important role in the orderly
construction of your colony. If the colony is surrounded by hostile,
or worse, impassable terrain, development will be rendered
awkward and impracticable to the point where that particular game
may need to be abandoned.

After landing on a planet, build the colony on and adjacent to as
benign a terrain mix as possible. That way, a dozer can do its job on
such terrain in one turn, rather than the three to four it might take
for hostile terrain. Minimizing the number of turns to accomplish
important tasks should be a number one priority of any colony
administrator.


BUILD A UNIVERSITY EARLY
Educated colonists become scientists, able to perform the advanced
functions required by the colony to succeed. A University, which
lasts only about 100 turns, goes a long way to increasing the
educational level of colonists for this purpose.

MONITOR RESOURCES
Nothing is more discouraging than having an entire colony grind to
a halt. This can result from overextending your resources, power,
or people. Become accustomed to carefully balancing the need to
better the colony through construction and maintaining an orderly
resource structure. Also, resist the urge to go ôwhole hogö even
when the Executive Summary Report seems to show unlimited
resources. Analyze your resources, and prosper!

RESEARCH YOUR BRAINS OUT
There is no way to overemphasize the need for complete and
absolute research in every major research tree permitted in the
Applied Sciences. Enhanced structures, facilities, morale, and all
other matters that affect the colony cannot be built or improved
upon until the necessary research has been completed. If you get
bogged down by the bewildering array of research possibilities,
simply use the handy chart in the appendices to give you a clue to
the paths available.

PREPARE FOR DISASTER
Disaster in Outpost can take many forms. Some tiles have specific
turn limits (not to be confused with term limits). Do not be caught
with your tiles down. If a structure is to be demolished, start
construction on another to pick up the slack. Probably the most
dramatic attrition disaster is the total destruction of the Seed
Complex around Turn 150. Plan ahead, and make sure that life-
giving tubes connect what you have built around the complex, in
preparation for the destruction.


CHAPTER 9 - QUICK START AND COMPREHENSIVE
TUTORIAL

If you're having trouble getting your first colony started, start a
new game, and follow the steps in this tutorial to build a stable
foundation for a colony on a Mars class planet.  In this way, you
can develop a relatively steadfast colony that will give you a
springboard to future success.  At the same time, you will be
actually playing the game, and gaining familiarity with the game
controls.

Since you will be playing a dynamic simulation game, the numbers
given in the reports in this tutorial may vary when compared with
the numbers you get when playing the actual game. Deaths and
other results will also vary, so the numbers given in this tutorial
should be taken as a guideline only.

The saved Outpost game, TUTOR.OPS, is a generic example of a
burgeoning colony that can be generated by following the steps in
this tutorial. Again, because of the dynamics of the simulation, the
numbers in the saved game may be different each time you follow
the tutorial steps. If you wish, you can also load this saved game
and play starting from Turn 81.

Also keep in mind that there are differences between the CD and
Floppy versions of Outpost. If you see a reference to a sound in this
tutorial that you aren't hearing in the Floppy version of the game,
that's because it isn't there.

Another way to use the tutorial is to simply read it carefully,
without playing the game simultaneously. This will give the new
player a broad overview of what can be expected in the way of
dynamic game events and the specifics of game control and
mechanics. After reading the tutorial, the player can then jump right
in and play a new game based on the concepts learned, referring
back to the tutorial where needed.


PREPARATION FOR YOUR JOURNEY
This game assumes a chosen difficulty level of Easy with Auto
Trucking on. The first probes (VLBI) were targeted on Alpha
Centauri A, Barnard's Star, Sigma Draconis, and Wolf 359.


Destination Selection - Select Sigma Draconis and press the Launch
button.

Interstellar Launch System - Press the Interstellar Probe button. As
the other buttons light up, press them in sequence. Do the same
with the Starship button sequence.  In the CD version, when you
click on two of the Launch Starship buttons, the sounds you hear
are portions of a NASA recording made of the communications
between the ground and capsule during the launch of Freedom 7.

Interstellar probe data on the first planet in the Sigma Draconis star
system.
(Clicking on each planet in the display gives you the statistics on
that planet. When you're ready to select a planet, click on the
Select button at the bottom of the display.)

(As a reference point for these number entries, Earth = 1.0)
Equatorial Diameter:  0.53 (6,794 km)
Mass:  0.11
Rotation Period:  24.62 hours
Surface Gravity:  0.38
Mean Distance (in Astronomical Units, AU) from the primary star: 1.52
Solar Energy Received:  0.44
Approximate Mean Temperature (Centigrade):  -23  (average)
Escape Velocity (km/second):  5.02
Principal atmospheric gases:  Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen

Of the available planets, the fourth planet looks best because its
equatorial diameter is about half that of Earth's diameter, the
rotation period is about the same as Earth's, the solar energy
received by the planet is good enough to get some use out of the
solar power satellite packed for the trip, there is a trace of an
atmosphere, and the approximate mean temperature is the mildest
of the planets in the Sigma Draconis system.

ON ARRIVAL AT THE NEW PLANET
As you enter orbit around the chosen planet, the Orbital Launch
System appears. Additional entries on the planet information
section refer to "Estimated number of mining sites: Unknown", and
"Maximum digging depth: Unknown". Launching the geological
probe to fill in that information shows you detailed information on
mining sites and digging depths.
Launch all other satellites, finishing with the launch of the Seed
Factory.

The planet display window appears, identifying the planet as Sigma
Draconis 4. To have a stationary view of the planet, click on the
center button at the bottom of the window, then look at different
landing sites by clicking on the little squares on the planet's surface
(you can view a maximum of four landing sites at once).

To evaluate each landing Site Map, right-click on the Site Map,
then choose Tools and Elevation Map from the menu.  Black areas
= Clear terrain, Red areas = Rough terrain, Green areas = Hostile
terrain, Yellow-Green area = Impassable terrain, Bright Red
diamonds indicate potential mining locations.

If you don't see enough black terrain on the Site Map, right-click
on the Site Map, then choose System and Close to close that Site
Map.  When you find a Site Map you like, close the others, then
left-click on a black area near one or more red diamonds. The large,
diamond-shaped Tile Map should show a lot of clear terrain, which
you can check by right-clicking on the Tile Map and reading the
terrain type message. If you're near a mine, you may see the red
mining beacon on the Tile Map.

Left-click on the chrome ball AI icon in the lower left corner of the
game screen. Press the Feature Naming button, then press the Name
Site button. Enter the name you'd like for your Site Map, such as
ôVulcan's Forgeö in the sample game, and click OK. Do the same for
Name Colony later in the game once the colony has gotten started.
Place the Seed Factory by left-clicking on it in the top center Tile
Picker window, moving the clear diamond cursor to a location on
the Tile Map that's at least two spaces away from a red mining
beacon, and left-clicking the cursor on that location.  If you're
successful, a landing marker appears.

Run one turn by left-clicking on the planet/moon icon in the lower
right hand corner of the screen.  Turn "001" will appear under this
"completed turn" planet icon.

At this point, it's a good idea to Save the game, just in case you
want to start over again without going all the way back to the
probe launching and ship configuration screens.

ON THE PLANET
You should now see the Seed Lander on the Tile Map in place of
the landing marker. The Seed Lander is surrounded by four tube
sections and four ôunder constructionö tiles (buildings). A left-click
on each construction tile tells you the building type, status, and the
number of turns until the structure is completed. The seed units will
finish building in this order: Power, Smelter, Robot Factory,
Command Facility.

Before running a second turn, place a robominer on a mining
beacon (left-click on the Tile Map scrolling arrows to move around,
or hold down the Shift key while you click on a scrolling arrow to
jump five spaces in your chosen direction).

Before you run a second turn, place a robodozer at a tube opening
and a robodigger at another tube opening. The empty Tile Picker
window now says, "None Available".   Run one turn, and the
robodozer will reappear in the Tile Picker window because it is
finished bulldozing the terrain tile where you had it assigned.

The idea is to keep your robodozers dozing, your robodiggers
digging, and your robominers mining, as you run turns to complete
new structures. Place the robodozer next to another tube opening
and run another turn.  Place the dozer again next to some terrain
that has already been bulldozed and run another turn.

On Turn 4, the completed seed power unit will appear in place of
its construction tile. A left-click on the power unit will show you its
report: staff status is full because it's automated, the product is
power, and the production level is 50 units per turn. The Resources
button is shaded out so that you can't push it because this facility is
automated and draws no resources.

As you build your Seed Factory, you may notice a dark blue
triangle on the Site Map. This is the rebel colony and you will only
see it if you have an Orbital Observer satellite in orbit.

Place a dozer, run a turn. Follow this pattern two more times and
the air shaft cap will appear where the robodigger was working.
The robodigger is available again, so it appears back in the Tile
Picker window.

At Turn 8, if you left-click on the air shaft cap, you will descend to
your first underground (UG) level. You can see which level you're
on by the level indicator at the left of the Tile Map, which now says
"Level 1". The lower portion of the air shaft and the underground
terrain tiles immediately surrounding it are visible.  The extra tiles
are visible because the robodigger excavated a one tile area around
the base of the air shaft to allow for tube connections.  No terrain
tiles are visible around the mine shaft because the robominer builds
an enclosed shaft that has no need of tube connections.

This might be a good time to place your robodigger on an air shaft
to create a second underground level. If you do this while
underground structures are all connected to the air shaft, you would
disconnect the air and power underground for several turns, which
could be very distressing to your colonists.

Place a robodozer beside an air shaft tube connector opening.
Place a robodigger on an underground terrain tile between the air
shaft and the invisible terrain that surrounds it. When you place the
robodigger, you get a control interface:

Choose a direction toward one of the invisible areas next to the
location where you've placed the robodigger, then click on Set. The
robodigger appears and starts working.  Also place a robominer on
the mine shaft that is visible at this level (scroll to it with the arrows
if necessary).

Run one turn and you'll be on Turn 9. You'll see that the
robodigger's UG work area has appeared. Run one turn and place a
robodozer, then run two turns, place a robodozer beside an already
dozed tile, and run two more turns. Repeat this step once more. (If
you wish, you can run multiple turns by pressing the F5 key,
entering the number of turns you'd like to run, and clicking on
Run.)

On Turn 16, after your first mine shaft reappears, place the
Robominer on another mine beacon.

The Seed Complex, which includes the Command Center, is
completed.  Left-click on the Seed Robot Factory to see this report:

Since no products have been set, the production level is at zero, but
at least it is fully automated and doesn't need people to run.
Functionally, it is operational (otherwise it would say "idle"), and
there is no chance of breakdown once you're up and running.


Clicking on Master produces the Master Factory Report for the
colony, and selecting Needs gives you the Seed Factory Structure
Summary.  Cancel would exit the report, and OK would set
production and also exit the report.

Left-click on the down arrow beside the Product entry, then select
Dozer from among the options listed (Digger  Dozer  Miner  Pause
Truck), and click on OK to set production and exit this report.  Run
one turn.

At Turn 17, the Cargo Lander, Colonist Lander, Robodigger, and
Robodozer are now all available in the Tile Picker window. Select
Cargo Lander and place within five spaces of seed on terrain that is
out of the way (diagonal to the seed smelter, for example) and that
has not been bulldozed yet (it's okay to land on bulldozed terrain,
but it's not necessary).  The landing marker appears.

Choose the Colonist Landers and place them the same way. Run
one turn. In the CD version, you see the Colonist Lander leave the
starship (if the CD animations are turned on) and hear Neil
Armstrong's "small step" speech from the Apollo 11 moon landing.
This is where you'll usually get a message that says "Colony 1 has
lost 1 colonist(s)", but this may vary.

The List button on the Tile Picker window can be selected to
switch from the graphics mode of the Tile Picker to the text list of
available structures and robots.

The Tile Picker only shows currently available robots and structures
that can be built with the currently available numbers of people,
power, and smelted resources.

By Turn 18, you can choose an Agricultural Dome and place it
beside a tube opening on a bulldozed tile. A construction tile
appears on the map. A left-click on the construction tile shows five
turns are needed to complete it. If you push the report's Resources
button, you'll see that the "Resources Needed" list entries are all
green and available.  Red entries would indicate resources currently
unavailable on that turn. Click OK to close the report.

Place a tube intersection between any structure or tube and the next
bulldozed terrain tile you'd like to build on. Place a CHAP on
bulldozed terrain at the tube opening adjacent. Run one turn.

The "Colony 1 has lost 1 colonist(s)" message at this point is a
death due to old age and the stress of living on a new planet.

At Turn 19, click on the Command tile to get the Executive
Summary Report. (The CHAP also shows this report when it is
built.)  Power, Population, Residences, Atmosphere, Food, Mining,
Luxury, and Morale levels are shown in this report, which is
probably your best source of information.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY REPORT
Right now, population and morale numbers are the most important.
Morale dropped from 574 to 548. You need to slow down the
decline. There are 0 Residential Units because everyone is stuffed in
the Command Facility.

Click on the air shaft cap to reach UG level 1. Place a dozer and a
digger. Run one turn. You should now be on Turn 20. There are
only tubes in the Tile Picker window because you have not
previously placed a tube underground. All the robots are working.
Run six turns while dozing and while connecting tubes to the base
of the air shaft.

On Turn 26, return to the surface and see the finished AgriDome.



Run one turn and place a dozer. Place the miner on another
Beacon. Place the digger and set the direction.  Run another turn.
Click on the mine shaft top to see the Mining Summary.
In this case, the Resources button shows the resources that are
stored at this mine.  Clicking on Needs, then Resources, shows the
mine's operating requirements of Power 5 and People 1.  Both are
green so everything is okay.  Red would mean something is
missing.

Place a Residential Unit at UG level 1 on Turn 28. You need the
CHAP for air, Residential Units for space and morale improvement,
and the AgriDomes to make food and morale improvements.

Some important points to remember here are: anything above 200%
in residential occupancy is a problem for morale.  Build more
Residential Units underground until you duck under the limit.
Always make sure that the CHAP is operating at full capacity.  You
can feed 100 people per turn per AgriDome, so when your
population nears 100, it's time to build another.  Mines need
Storage Tanks for their output.

On Turn 32, place a Storage Tank, and run three turns to move the
internal Truck from the mine to the smelter, if automatic trucking is
selected. (You won't see it moving, but it's moving.)  Now
resources will move from the smelter to the Storage Tank. See the
sections ôTrucks and Monorailsö for more information.

Turn 35. EXECUTIVE REPORT.
On UG level 1, place a Residential Unit, dozer, digger, and a tube.
Run two turns, doze, then run one turn. A Residential Unit appears
on Turn 38.

Turn 38.  EXECUTIVE REPORT
This report shows you need more Residential Units.  Remember,
more than 200% occupancy brings down morale.  The morale drop
seems to be slowing, however.

At UG level 1, place a Residential Unit, run one turn, place a dozer,
and run two turns.

At the surface, place a warehouse and dozer, run two turns, place a
dozer, and run one turn.


The WAREHOUSE SUMMARY REPORT shows 4 dozers (total
of 12 mass units of storage in warehouse)
The Executive Report at Turn 44 shows the occupancy rate is
below 200%, so people will be happier now. Three mines are
working.  Most important, the drop in morale is down and
beginning to level out.  The tide will turn soon!

Place a Robot Command unit, run one turn, doze, run one turn,
doze, and run one turn. Robot Command appears.  If you click on
Robot Command to see its report, you can see that you now
control one robot in addition to your original three.

Remember, each Robot Command facility can operate 10 robots
after they have been built and stored in a warehouse.

On Turn 47, select a red diamond mine site on the Site Map, place
a robominer, and return to your colony by clicking on the light blue
square on the Site Map.

At UG level 1, place a tube, and digger, and run one turn.

On the surface, at Turn 48 place a dozer, run one, place tube, place
AgriDome, place four dozers, run one turn, place five dozers, and
reset Seed Robot Factory to produce miners.  Place Solar Receiver
Array.

At UG level 1, place Residential Unit, run one turn, place a dozer,
and run two turns.

Turn 59.  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY REPORT

The residential occupancy rate is looking good, that second
AgriDome is feeding everyone comfortably, and the mines are
prospering. Morale drop has slowed to a crawl.

Run one turn; one colonist lost.

You will begin to notice that your population is increasing, even
though some colonists have died.  That's because the Underground
Residences are baby booming.

On Turn 54, at the surface, place a tube and a SPEW facility.

At UG level 1, place five dozers, run two turns, five dozers, run
two turns, five dozers, run two turns, place a robominer on new
Level 1 shaft, start new surface mine with a robominer on a red
mining beacon.  Run one turn.

On Turn 61, place five UG dozers, and run one turn.

On Turn 62, at the SPEW finished surface, place a tube and second
Storage Tank. Click on the first Storage Tank to see what it contains:
FIRST STORAGE TANK
Place five dozers, run two turns, Storage Tank 2 is finished. MPG =
6.

On Turn 64, at
UG level 1, place two tubes, place two Residential Units, place five
dozers, place one digger, and run five turns.

Turn 64.  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY REPORT
Morale is going up!!!
On Turn 69, the MPG is 25. Place first UG laboratory on UG Level
1, place six dozers, and run two turns.

Turn 81.  EXECUTIVE REPORT
You're on your way.  Things are progressing nicely. The Solar
Receiver Array is finished.  The SPEW is providing lots of MPG,
and morale is beginning a welcome slow climb.

The danger zone for morale is when it drops below 200 for
extended periods, since this is when your colonists may decide to
start defecting to the rebel colony.  If you can keep your morale
over 800, the rebel colonists will start defecting to your colony,
increasing your available workforce.  This current morale level of is
not out of the danger zone yet, but Parks, more Residential Units,
benevolent Police Stations, Recreational facilities, and other
buildings can have a stronger positive impact on morale when you
need it.  There are also lines of research that have a positive effect
on morale.

OPERATING YOUR LABS
Set the completed lab facility to do research by clicking on the lab
to generate the Laboratory Summary.  Click on the Research Topic
button to select the line of research you want your scientists to
follow.

If you click on the Color Legend button, you'll see an explanation
of the color codes used in the research tree.  Notice that the
Applied Research category, which is at the currently displayed top
level of the research tree, is green.  The green category means that
research has been completed at that current level, but that there
may be more research to do that follows it.  You can see this now
by clicking on Applied Research to see the next level of the tree
beneath it.  Now click on Computer Science, then Artificial
Intelligence.

This is the end of the current tree branch, and it's a good subject to
study now because it's the fastest way to arrive at the ability to
build a Hot Lab for dangerous research.  To get your lab ready to
start this research on the next turn, click on the Study button at the
left of the research tree window.
Notice that the Progress Meter is currently dark.  When you start
making some progress in your current research effort, a line of rats
will start appearing here to give you a general idea of how much
progress you're making toward a new discovery or new line of
research.

Click on OK to close the Laboratory Summary report, and run one
turn to start your lab research.  If you check the lab report now,
you'll see your current research topic listed along with the fact that
the lab is ôOperational.ö When this research is finished, the lab will
go ôIdleö until you assign it to do new research.  It may also go idle
when you don't have enough scientists, which may mean that you
need to build a University, or that you have to wait for your
children to age enough to go to work.  Of course, a lab can also go
idle when there aren't enough resources to keep the lab operating.

At around this time you need to start thinking about the collapse of
the Seed Complex units, which will take place around Turn 150.
Well ahead of time, you should lay six tubes to provide bypass for
the collapse.  Doze a cargo lander if it is in the way of one of the
tubes.  As with any of the other buildings, the material from the
dozed cargo lander will be recycled because a SPEW is operating in
the colony.


THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MENU
The AI icon is located in the lower left corner of your screen.  Left-
click on it once to open the AI menu.  Some events may seem
rather mysterious unless you stay aware of the News Briefs as they
are generated in response to events in your colony.  The News Brief
button is shaded when there isn't any news.  When you click on the
News Brief button, you'll see the current news brief. If you close
the news brief and there's more news to be seen, the button will
remain highlighted to prompt you to read it.

The AI menu also gives you the ability to name your planet, your
landing site, and your colony.  The Master Reports button lets you
keep an eye on your factories, labs, and executive summary report
from one location.  The Evacuation Order is always available, but
only needed when an alert warns you of an impending disaster.  The
Panic button has no real purpose other than to give you something
to press when you're starting to get hysterical.  The Help button
gives you access to the Help system.

The Launch Order button is not used to order lunch, but it will
become active when you have done all of the research and
construction necessary to put a new starship in orbit and make it
available for a new colonization mission that will end the game.
You don't have to end the game when this happens, but it gives you
a convenient ending point if you want one.
When you're ready to close the AI menu, click on the Cancel
button at the bottom of the menu.

THE TUTOR.OPS SAVED GAME
As mentioned above, you may wish to bypass the opening
difficulties of colony management, and play Outpost from Turn 81.


SUGGESTIONS BEYOND TURN 81
To continue the game from this point, here are some general
suggestions:

When your population approaches 300, build a third Agricultural
Dome to feed them.  If they start dying from starvation, the oldest
people tend to die first, which removes your retired people, then
your scientists, then your workers, then students, until all you have
left are your infants, who absolutely refuse to do any work.

If your Residential Occupancy is 200% or higher, you need more
Residential Units, otherwise the overcrowding will reduce your
morale.

Gradually add more laboratories.  If you have more than one, assign
at least one of them to Basic Research.  When you have a Hot Lab
built, work on the different aspects of Nanotechnology research
(you have to figure out the details) so that you can eventually build
a Nanotechnology Facility.  Full research into Nanotech 1 and
Nanotech 2 will be necessary.


MORE ABOUT RESEARCHING NANOTECHNOLOGY
Along the way, you may also have to bulldoze extra structures in
your colony to generate MPG, which will fill in for any resource
shortages that may show up from mining.  When you build a
Nanotech Facility, you will no longer require mined resources
unless your Nanotech Facility explodes (this is most common on
Medium and Difficult levels of game play).  Even with a Nanotech
Facility, you will still be required to produce power and people to
keep the colony operating.  Build your Nanotech Facility at least
two spaces away from any other structures (except for the tube
connection, of course), to minimize damage from explosions.


AROUND 110 TO 130 TURNS
Allow time, people, and resources to build a new smelter before
your seed smelter collapses at Turn 150.  One smelter will serve
your needs for a long time unless something horrible happens.


MORE STORAGE
Build a third Storage Tank when the first two are nearing their
storage limits.  Keep an eye on your Storage Tanks so that you
don't have resources backing up at the mines or the smelter from a
lack of storage in your colony.


GROW SLOWLY
Remember that a conservative approach to construction and
maintenance of your colony, as demonstrated in this tutorial, is the
safest method of expansion.  Your resource and population
limitations effectively serve as your budget in this game.  You
won't be able to build rapidly until you've created a
Nanotechnology Facility and no longer need concern yourself with
mining limitations.  One SPEW facility per colony will help you by
recycling sewage and bulldozed buildings.  Remember that mined
resources have limits, as they do here on Earth.


CHAPTER 10 - OUTPOST PROTOCOLS AND PRACTICES TO LIVE (AND DIE) BY

THE NUMBERS GAME
Outpost is filled with numbers and is a statistician's dream. While
all statistics have some measure of importance, the following
numbers should be learned as fast as possible.

Number  Significance
1.5     Current Outpost version
2       Minimum number of turns it takes for a tile to be constructed
4       Maximum number of mining levels at any one location
12      Maximum number of turns it takes for a tile to be constructed
30      Outer tile distance limit for a colony
100     Colonists fed by AgriDome each game turn
100     Warehouse capacity
100     University life
150     Seed Complex collapse
200     Upper limit of Occupancy Percentage before morale drops
200     Fuel Cell life in a robot
200     Lower morale limit before colonists defect to rebel colony
1000    Smelter capacity


COLONISTS
*  Colonists cannot survive on the surface of any planet, and must
be housed in Underground Residences, after initial housing in the
Seed Complex.

*  Colonists will perish at an alarming rate shortly after landing on a
planet unless provided air from a CHAP and food from an
AgriDome.

*  Do not despair when, after a turn, you see the dreaded "Colony
[X] has lost [#] Colonists". Once you are up and running with
multiple Underground Residences, and other birth-rate enhancing
tiles, the chances are that a net colonist gain was achieved on the
turn.

*  AgriDomes feed only 100 people per turn. If big chunks of your
population start dying, see if you have enough AgriDomes.

*  Not enough colonists to do that new research project?  You can
release people from other locations by shutting down a factory for
awhile ("Pause"), or bulldozing structures no longer needed.


TURNS
*  Run a lengthy Multiple Turn only after careful consideration of
the consequences. If your Seed Complex is scheduled to destruct
in 25 turns, running a Multiple Turn greater than that value might
very well result in the total destruction of your colony. Run
Multiple Turns in intervals of 5-10 until you get the hang of what
might befall the colony.


RECYCLING
*  Bulldozing buildings after creating a SPEW creates MPG, which
helps replace the resources lost from mines no longer operating.

*  Building many residences, even residences that may be
unoccupied for a lengthy period of time, results in the generation
of a single MPG per residence per turn, so long as a SPEW has
been constructed in the colony.


DESTRUCTION
*  Never self-destruct a robodigger near valued structures.

*  Free up space in the colony by bulldozing structures that have
been destroyed or are no longer producing.


TRUCKS
*  In Beginner mode, movement of resources via Truck and other
means is automatic. In other modes, automatic trucking can be
selected if the player wishes.


CONSTRUCTION
*  Except for Command Centers, Colonist Landers, and Cargo
Loaders, all tiles must be placed on bulldozed terrain.

*  Impassable terrain can be used only by self-destructing a
robodigger. All structures within the immediate proximity of the
self-destructing robodigger are destroyed.

*  Do not stretch your power, resources, and people too thin, unless
you wish to stand idly by and do nothing but watch the beautiful
Outpost graphics.


PRODUCTION AND USE
*  Underground and Surface Factories produce robots, building
materials, and luxuries. Without Warehouses to hold these items,
they will never become available for use by the colony.

*  Increase your Smelters and Storage Tanks to accommodate
rapidly producing mines.

*  Unless your resources are stretched thin, you can't have enough
of all commodities and structures, which can be used for trading
purposes.


MORALE
*  Never underestimate the importance of morale. Extremely low
morale (under 200) for several turns running will result in
defections to the Rebel Colony. If such low morale lasts long
enough, your colony will become a ghost town, ending the game.

*  Don't be surprised if some rebels find your leadership attractive
and come on over to your colony, if high morale is sustained for
some time.


LONGEVITY
*  Some tiles or structures have a limited life. For example, the Seed
Factory will commit seppuku after about 150 turns. Anticipate
and plan for replacements before the destruction of any tiles.


DISTRIBUTION
*  Production alone will not cut it. Storage Facilities (Warehouses,
Storage Tanks) must be built in parallel to production, along with
distribution structures (Commercial Facility, Robot Command).


CHAPTER 11 - PROGRESS AND STATUS INDICATORS

OUTPOST SCREENS
An efficient and effective colony administrator needs to receive and
consider constant feedback on the progress of the colony as it goes
about its day-to-day existence. Without feedback, critical decisions
cannot be made with any reasoned judgment, and the Outpost
player will assuredly be "flying blind". While this might make for
some exciting developments, it is safe to say that the excitement
will be all negative and detrimental to the welfare of the colony.

After every single or multiple turn, the player should consult the
two most critical progress and status indicators:  the Executive
Summary Report (single-click the colony's Command Center, or
the AI's Master Reports button), and the Tile Picker List.

In addition to these indicators, every structure you build has a
status, which can be reviewed at will for its contents and effect on
the colony. A simple left-click will bring up a status on every tile or
facility that has been placed. An equally simple right-click will
identify any tile, including terrain, and enable resource transit, or
help. Two other AI Master Reports provide invaluable information
on your labs and factories.

The importance of the administrator continually and regularly
monitoring the colony's progress through these screens cannot be
overemphasized. To assist you, we present actual sample screens
you can view during game play, as well as an explanation of their
contents. (Screen shots not available in .TXT file version of
documentation.)

Access to the Master Reports gives you the most efficient method
for changing current research in your labs, changing current
production in your factories, and monitoring colony resources. To
access a master report, click once on the chrome ball AI icon in the
lower left corner of the main game screen. From the AI interface
that appears, select the Master Reports button, which will list the
following reports:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY REPORT
This provides comprehensive data on the status of your colony.
More than any other screen, the Executive Summary Report
provides instant insight into what has been done, and a clue to what
must be done next. A good way to get a feel for what the report
contains is to read the tutorial in Chapter 9.



MASTER LABORATORY REPORT

The Master Laboratory Report gives a complete recital of all
working laboratories, including the Underground Laboratories and
the Surface Hot Labs. One added benefit to this screen is that you
can change the research being done at a lab directly from this
screen.


MASTER FACTORY REPORT

Master Factory Report gives a complete recital of all working
factories. You can change the items being produced at factories
directly from this screen.


KEEPING AN EYE ON MULTIPLE SCREENS
Outpost lets you open many windows at a time. For example, one
helpful technique is to open the key four or five structure windows
that are of importance at any particular juncture in the game. Align
them in the main window.

After you are satisfied with this window's arrangement, run a turn,
and watch the changes. Warehouses will restock, Storage Tanks
will fill up, the Robot Command Center will become operational,
etc.


TILE PICKER LIST

Everything an administrator can conceivably accomplish in building
and improving on the colony requires some combination of the
following three factors: power, resources, and people. After
running a turn, Outpost analyzes the entire colony's assets and the
physical layout of the colony. Calculating all con-ceivable
combinations, the Tile Picker list displays only those possible
actions or tiles that will be available to the player on the ensuing
turn.

For example, if the colony has no bulldozed terrain adjacent to a
tube, no structures can be built in the next turn, so none will appear
in the Tile Picker list. If all your Robots are busy working, none will
show up on the list.

Sometimes "None Available" appears on the list. This is not necessarily
bad or discouraging, just an accurate reflection of what you can, or
rather can't,  do on the next turn.





TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Technical assistance is only a phone call away. Direct your inquiries
to the Technical Support department if your question is about
hardware and software compatibility specific to Sierra games (e.g.
sound card configuration or memory management). For our 24-
hour automated Technical Support, call [phone]. If you
prefer, you may request assistance by facsimile; the U.S. fax
number is [phone].

U.S. Technical Support:

Sierra On-Line, Inc.
Technical Support
P.O. Box 85006
Bellevue, WA 98015-8506

Main: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
8:15am - 4:45pm PST
Monday through Friday

U.K.  Technical Support:

Sierra On-Line Ltd.
4 Brewery Court
The Old Brewery
Theale, Reading, Bershire
RG7 5AJ UNITED KINGDOM

Main: (44) 1734-303-171
Fax: [phone]
9:00am - 5:00pm
Monday through Friday

France Technical Support:

Sierra On-Line
Parc Tertiarie de Meudon
Immeuble "Le Newton"
26 rue Jeanne Braconnier
92366 Meudon La Foret Cedex
FRANCE

Main: (33) 1-46-01-4650
Fax: [phone]
7 jours sur 7 de 9h α 21h

German Technical Support

Main: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Montag bis Freitag von 9h bis 19h

On-Line Services
Sierra BBS: U.S. [phone]; UK (44) 1734-304227
Call Sierra's own BBS with your computer modem and browse our
technical knowledge database, get game hints on-line, or down-load
game patches and other files. Set your communications program to
8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity (8-1-N). Modem speeds from
1200-14.4 bps are supported.

CompuServe: Join with other Sierra game enthusiasts on-line in
Sierra's own Forum (GOSIERRA).

America Online: Type the keyword SIERRA to visit our Forum
on AOL.

DIRECT SALES/INFORMATION
Sierra On-Line, Inc.
Direct Sales
P.O. Box 3404
Salinas, CA93912

For Direct Orders:
Main: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
24 hours a day, 7 days a week

On-Line Sales
CompuServe:     GOSI(CServe Mall)
        GOSIERRA(Sierra BBS)

HINT LINE
Sierra On-Line, Inc.
Attn: Hints
P.O. Box 53210
Bellevue, WA 98015-3210

For automated phone service call 1-900-370-5583. Calls are $.75
per minute.  In Canada call 1-900-451-3356. Calls are $1.25
(Canadian). You must 18 years or older, or have parental
permission to use this service.

Or, you can order most Sierra Hint Books by calling Sierra's Direct
Sales during regular Pacific Standard Time business hours. You can
also find Hint Books at better software retailers and select
bookstores.


SOFTWARE PIRACY ANNOUNCEMENT

IT IS ILLEGAL TO MAKE UNAUTHORIZED COPIES OF THIS SOFTWARE

This software is protected under federal copyright law. It is illegal
to make or distribute copies of this software except to make a
backup copy for archival purposes only. Duplication of this
software for any other reason including for sale, loan, rental or gift
is a federal crime. Penalties include fines of as much as $50,000 and
jail terms of up to five years.

Sierra supports the industry's efforts to fight the illegal copying of
personal computer software. Report copyright violations to:
    The Software Publishers Association
    1101 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 901
    Washington, DC 20036
This manual and the software described in this manual are
copyrighted. All rights are reserved. No part of this manual or the
described software may be copied, reproduced, translated or
reduced to any electronic medium or machine-readable form
without the prior written consent of Sierra On-Line, Inc., 3380
146th Place SE, Suite 300, Bellevue WA 98007.

RESPONSIBLE PARTIES
    Designer/Project Manager        Bruce Balfour

    Lead Programmer                 Dan Brotherton

    Art Designer                    Jon Bock

    Programmers                     Randy MacNeill
                    Michael Lytton

    Artist                          Richard Powell

    Team QA                         Ken Eaton

    Mascot                          Bud the Bug

    Music                           Jay Usher
                    Mark Seibert

    Sound Effects                   Neil Grandstaff
                    Richard Spurgeon
                    Kelli Spurgeon

    Manual Writers                  Peter Spear
                    Ronald Wartow

    Manual Designers                Nathan Gams
                    Lori Lucia




APPENDICES

WARNING
The information in the Appendices gives more detail than you may
want to see unless you are looking for hints.


APPENDIX 1 - NEW FEATURES HELP
What follows is the Help button text for the many new features in
Outpost 1.5. This gives the seasoned Outpost player instant
reference to some of what's new in this version.

TRANSIT INFORMATION-MANUAL TRUCKING
This is where you assign your Trucks to delivery routes starting
from a specific tile (building). The starting point for the Truck route
is the tile name listed at the top of the window. Truck route
information is given in the large box on the left, marked Route.
The three buttons on the right are Delete Route, Delete Leg, and
Add Leg.

If you highlight a route in the Route box, then click on Delete
Route, the entire route will be removed and your Trucks will no
longer make deliveries to that destination. Delete Leg allows you to
remove only the last destination in the route. Add Leg allows you
to create a new destination at the end of the current route. When
you select Add Leg, your cursor will change to one that says: ôGo
Here.ö  Click the Go Here cursor on the building or road tile you
want to use as your trucking destination. The name of the selected
tile is added to the Route list. Keep doing this until you have
selected the final destination for the Truck route. All Trucks
assigned to this starting location will follow this one established
route. There is no need to list routing legs twice for multiple
Trucks.

The Trucks will follow a specific path that you establish, then keep
using that path for round trip deliveries until you reassign them
elsewhere or remove that route. If you want your Trucks to move
faster by following an existing dirt or paved road, you must click
the Go Here cursor on the last tile of each straight section where
the road curves. Otherwise, they will start taking shortcuts over
rougher terrain, which will slow them down. Note that the Go Here
cursor can only create a path to buildings or to terrain tiles that
have been bulldozed or paved, so you can't Add a Leg to a regular
terrain tile.

Either before or after you establish a route using the above method,
you should select the Trucks button at the bottom of the routing
window to assign Trucks to that route. Remember, all Trucks
assigned to the starting location will follow the established route
from that location.

If you're satisfied with your route and Truck selections, click on the
OK button.

ASSIGN TRUCKS
This is where you make use of your inactive or stored Trucks
starting from a specific tile (building). The starting point for the
truck route is the tile name listed at the top of the window. The
number of inactive Trucks in the warehouse is shown as the number
Available. The number of active Trucks currently assigned to
delivery routes is shown as the number Assigned. Click on the up
and down arrows beside the Assigned category to put more Trucks
in action, then click on the OK button.

TRANSFER LOCAL ASSETS
This is where you choose an asset stored at this location and move
it somewhere else in the same colony. The tile location where the
goods are stored is shown at the top of the window. Choose an
asset to transfer on the left by using the up and down arrows and
highlighting the name of the item. The number of those items
available to be moved is shown on the right in the Quantities
section. Choose the number of items you wish to Move, using the
up and down arrows on the right, then click on OK. If you change
your mind, select Cancel.

ROBOT COMMAND
This is where you keep track of the robots controlled by a specific
Robot Command facility (each of which can control 10 robots).
Other information contained in this report shows you how the
Robot Command itself is doing. The top of the report tells you the
name of the Robot Command facility. You are also shown the
Functional Status of the building, whether Operational or Idle; the
condition of the staff required to operate the Robot Command; the
number of robots currently available and controlled by that facility;
and the number of robots controlled by that facility which are
actively assigned to tasks. For more specific information on what
the robots are doing and where they are, click on the Details
button.

ROBOT DETAILS
This is where you get information on what the robots are doing and
where they are. The Robot Command facility that controls this
particular set of robots (up to 10) is shown at the top of the report.
You are also shown the details on each robot: the type of robot, the
remaining amount of life in its Fuel Cell, and where that robot is
currently active (unless it's idle and waiting to be assigned to a
task).

MONORAIL
Appropriate research must be completed before the Monorail
System becomes available, at which time the Monorail tiles will
show up in the Tile Picker (selection) window at the top center of
the main game screen.

A Monorail System has five basic components: the Monorail
Station, the Monorail Power Transformer, the Monorail (track), the
Monorail (track) Intersection, and the standard Tube connecting the
Power Transformer to a colony.

The Monorail Power Transformer can be built only at the end of a
Tube connection. The colony supplies life support, power, and the
workers to operate each Monorail section.

Monorail (track) tiles connect to Monorail Stations. Monorail
Stations can be placed only next to a Monorail Power Transformer
or a Monorail (track) tile only. No tube is required to connect a
Power Transformer or Monorail (track) to a Monorail Station. The
only tube required for a Monorail System is the one that connects
the Power Transformer to the colony.

A Monorail (track) or a Monorail (track) Intersection can be placed
next to a Monorail Station or another Monorail (track) only.

When a complete Monorail System has been established between
two stations, and the power/resource connections have been made,
the Monorail line will become active.

Note that if two separate Monorail lines become connected, a single
train, instead of two, will make the complete circuit. For routing
purposes, when trucking is manual, the two Monorail Stations are
treated as legs of a truck route.

MACROMANAGEMENT
The Macromanagement interface allows you to do two things:
sneak buildings into the rebel colony if you have an active trade
agreement with them, and assign artificially intelligent computer
managers to the administration of your secondary colonies.

Assigning an AI to research in a laboratory is done through the
research menu. This menu can be reached by clicking on a laboratory
building, or through the Master Reports button in the main AI interface
(reached by clicking on the chrome ball icon in the lower left corner
of the main game screen).

BUILD IN REBEL COLONY
If you have an active trade agreement with the rebel colony, and a
Trade Mission has been built for you there, you can sneak more
buildings into the rebel colony. This is not necessary for your
survival, but it can be used to your advantage. If you want to
prepare the rebel colony for the day when you take over its
operation, you will have several buildings of your own choosing
already built there. If you want to undermine their economy by
building structures that will sap their resources, you have that
capability. You will not be allowed to build a factory or other
obvious structures because shipping and storage operations would
immediately trigger too much attention from the authorities in the
rebel colony.

The drawback to building in the rebel colony is that they will
eventually notice what you're doing if you build several structures
there. When they do, they will probably break the trade agreement,
preventing you from trading with them or building additional
structures in their colony. They will also take over ownership of any
new buildings you created in their colony.

The Build in Rebel Colony button shows you a text list of buildings
you can sneak into the rebel colony. Highlight a building type by
clicking on it, then select the OK button to confirm your decision.
The building will be constructed in the normal amount of time, but
it will use the resources of the rebel colony for construction and
maintenance.

ASSIGN AI TO COLONY MANAGEMENT
If you have completed the research leading to AI Managers, you
will then have the option of assigning a few of your new artificial
intelligence personalities to the management of your secondary
colonies. These new AI managers are not as powerful as your
primary AI assistant, so they are assigned to a specific colony and
instructed to build structures that will allow that colony to
specialize. For example, you may want the AI manager to build an
agricultural colony that will stockpile food, which you can then
Truck or Monorail to your main colony unless you want to use it
for trade.

You will still need to check on the progress of your AI managers;
they are primarily concerned about the colony systems and the
orders you have given them, so the humans living in the colony get
less attention. You are still responsible for the colony infrastructure
and keeping the colonists alive.

When they first appear, you may find that your AI managers are not
exactly following the instructions you have given them. In some
cases, you may find that an AI instructed to build an agricultural
colony is building a sea of Communications Towers instead. If you
see this situation, or if you want to slow down the use of resources
by that colony, click on the Deassign AI button. Odd structures are
built by unstable AI managers. Appropriate research into AI
personality problems will stabilize your managers.


APPENDIX 2 - RESOURCE PRIORITIES FOR STRUCTURES
When there aren't enough resources to keep all of your colony
structures operating, certain structures have higher priorities than
others. The following is a list showing how limited resources are
allocated to established structures, starting with the most important
buildings and working down to the least important.

1.      Nanotechnology Facility
2.      Solar Power Receiver Array
3.      CHAP
4.      Smelter
5.      Warehouse
6.      Agricultural Dome
7.      Command Center
8.      Tokamak Fusion Reactor
9.      Geothermal Power Facility
10.     SPEW
11.     Storage Tank
12.     Mine
13.     ResidentialUnit
14.     Robot Command
15.     Communication Tower
16.     Hot Laboratory
17.     Red Light District
18.     Park
19.     Recreational Facility
20.     University
21.     Medical Facility
22.     Monorail Power Transformer
23.     Monorail (track)
24.     Mass Driver
25.     Trade Mission
26.     Underground Laboratory
27.     Surface Factory
28.     Police Station
29.     Underground Factory
30.     Commercial Facility
31.     Administration Building
32.     DIRT
33.     Monorail Station
34.     Spaceport
35.     Terraforming Facility


APPENDIX 3 - PLANET CLASSES
With rare exceptions, the planets in Outpost are based on existing
bodies in the solar system, since these are assumed to be
representative of planetary types that would naturally form in other
suitable star systems. When you select a planet to colonize, you are
presented with planetary statistics gained by your probes. You
should consider these statistics carefully before you make your
decision. However, if this information seems hard to understand,
you can use the following list to compare your potential planet with
similar planets in our solar system.

MERCURY
Equatorial diameter (Earth = 1) 0.38
    In kilometers   4,878
Mass (Earth = 1)        0.055
Rotation period 58.6 days
Surface gravity (Earth = 1)     0.38
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun (Earth = 1)    0.387
Solar energy received (Earth = 1)       6.6
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade)       350 (day), -170 (night)
Principal atmospheric gases     Helium trace
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) 4.25

VENUS
Equatorial diameter (Earth = 1) 0.95
    In kilometers   12,104
Mass (Earth = 1)        0.815
Rotation period 243 days, retrograde
Surface gravity (Earth = 1)     0.91
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun (Earth = 1)    0.723
Solar energy received (Earth = 1)       2.2
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade) 450 (surface), -23 (clouds)
Principal atmospheric gases     Carbon dioxide, nitrogen
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) 10.36



EARTH
Equatorial diameter     1.0
    In kilometers   12,756
Mass    1.0
Rotation period 23.94 hours
Surface gravity 1.0
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun        1.0
Solar energy received   1.0
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade)       22 (average)
Principal atmospheric gases     Nitrogen, oxygen
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) 11.18

MARS
Equatorial diameter (Earth = 1) 0.53
    In kilometers   6,794
Mass (Earth = 1)        0.11
Rotation period 24.62 hours
Surface gravity (Earth = 1)     0.38
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun (Earth = 1)    1.52
Solar energy received (Earth = 1)       0.44
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade)       -23 (average)
Principal atmospheric gases     Carbon dioxide, nitrogen
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) 5.02

JUPITER
Equatorial diameter (Earth = 1) 11.19
    In kilometers   142,800
Mass (Earth = 1)        318.0
Rotation period 9.84 hours
Surface gravity (Earth = 1)     2.69
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun (Earth = 1)    5.2
Solar energy received (Earth = 1)       0.037
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade)       -150
Principal atmospheric gases     Hydrogen, helium
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) 59.6

SATURN
Equatorial diameter (Earth = 1) 9.41
    In kilometers   120,000
Mass (Earth = 1)        94
Rotation period 10.23 hours
Surface gravity (Earth = 1)     1.19
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun (Earth = 1)    9.54
Solar energy received (Earth = 1)       0.011
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade)       -180
Principal atmospheric gases     Hydrogen, helium
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) 35.6

URANUS
Equatorial diameter (Earth = 1) 4.11
    In kilometers   52,400
Mass (Earth = 1)        14.6
Rotation period 17.9 hours, retrograde
Surface gravity (Earth = 1)     0.91
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun (Earth = 1)    19.19
Solar energy received (Earth = 1)       0.003
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade)       -210
Principal atmospheric gases     Hydrogen, helium
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) 21.3

NEPTUNE
Equatorial diameter (Earth = 1) 3.95
    In kilometers   50,400
Mass (Earth = 1)        17.2
Rotation period 16 hours
Surface gravity (Earth = 1)     1.19
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun (Earth = 1)    30.06
Solar energy received (Earth = 1)       0.001
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade)       -220
Principal atmospheric gases     Hydrogen, helium
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) 23.3

PLUTO
Equatorial diameter (Earth = 1) 0.18
    In kilometers   2,300
Mass (Earth = 1)        0.002
Rotation period 6.4 days, retrograde
Surface gravity (Earth = 1)     0.04
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun (Earth = 1)    39.52
Solar energy received (Earth = 1)       0.0006
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade)       -230
Principal atmospheric gases     Traces of methane and  carbon dioxide
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) 1.1

CERES ASTEROID
Equatorial diameter (Earth = 1) 0.074
    In kilometers   940
Mass (Earth = 1)        0.00017
Rotation period 9.08 hours
Surface gravity (Earth = 1)     0.01
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun (Earth = 1)    2.8
Solar energy received (Earth = 1)       0.43
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade)       -38
Principal atmospheric gases     None
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) Negligible

PHOBOS
Equatorial diameter (Earth = 1) 0.002
    In kilometers   22
Mass (Earth = 1)        0.000000018
Rotation period 0.32 days
Surface gravity (Earth = 1)     0.001
Mean distance (in astronomical units, or AU)
    from Sun (Earth = 1)    1.52
Solar energy received (Earth = 1)       0.43
Approximate mean temperature (Centigrade)       -50
Principal atmospheric gases     None
Escape velocity (kilometers per second) Negligible


APPENDIX 3 - RESEARCH TOPICS
Research is necessary to advance your civilization and survive. In
real life, you may be researching toward a specific goal, or you may
be doing pure research to see what you can learn. If you wish to
pursue a specific goal in Outpost, you should deduce what types of
research would logically lead you toward that goal. The following
research topic connections may give you more information than you
want to know about the structure of the research tree. Also note
that Surface Hot Labs must be built to see the sections of the
research tree that implement dangerous research topics.

Astronomy-Astrophysics
Astronomy-Basic Astronomy
Astronomy-Planetary Astronomy
Astronomy-Stellar Astronomy

Biology-Medicine
Biology-Medicine-Pharmacology
Biology-Medicine-Pharmacology-Alien Pharmacology
Biology-Medicine-Genetics
Biology-Medicine-Genetics-Genetic Engineering
Biology-Medicine-Genetics-Genetic Engineering-Agriculture 2
Biology-Exobiology
Biology-Plant Biology (Botany)
Biology-Plant Biology-Agriculture 1
Biology-Physiology
Biology-Physiology-Anatomy
Biology-Physiology-Comparative Physiology
Biology-Embryology
Biology-Immunology
Biology-Entomology
Biology-Ecology
Biology-Ecology-Alien
Biology-Ecology-AlienùAtmospheric
Biology-Ecology-AlienùTerrestrial
Biology-Ecology-Alien-Marine

Chemistry-Biochemistry
Chemistry-Physical Chemistry
Chemistry-Physical Chemistry-Metallurgy
Chemistry-Physical Chemistry-Materials Processing
Chemistry-Quantum Chemistry

Planetary Sciences-Meteorology
Planetary Sciences-Geography
Planetary Sciences-Geology
Planetary Sciences-Geology-Terrestrial Geology
Planetary Sciences-Geology-Terrestrial Geology-Tectonics and Earthquakes
Planetary Sciences-Geology-Terrestrial Geology-Mineralogy
Planetary Sciences-Geology-Terrestrial Geology-Vulcanology
Planetary Sciences-Geology-Mineral Resources
Planetary Sciences-Geology-Mineral Resources-Terrestrial Mining
Planetary Sciences-Geology-Mineral Resources-Extraterrestrial Mining
Planetary Sciences-Geology-Engineering Geology (Structural)

Mathematics

Computer Science-Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science-Artificial Intelligence-AI Managers
Computer Science-Artificial Intelligence-AI Personality Problems
Computer Science-Artificial Intelligence-Nanotechnology 1
Computer Science-Artificial Intelligence-Space Probe Intelligence
Computer Science-Artificial Intelligence-Robotics 1
Computer Science-Artificial Intelligence-Robotics 1-Airbots
Computer Science-Artificial Intelligence-Robotics 1-Repairbots
Computer Science-Artificial Intelligence-Robotics 1-Humanoid Workers
Computer Science-Advanced Processors
Computer Science-Systems Analysis
Computer Science-Systems Analysis-Efficiency Studies 1
Computer Science-Systems Analysis-Efficiency Studies 2

Physics-Aerospace
Physics-Aerospace-Wind Tunnels
Physics-Aerospace-Spacecraft Testing and Analysis
Physics-Aerospace-Orbital Space Stations
Physics-Aerospace-Satellites and Probes
Physics-Aerospace-Satellites and Probes-Meteorsat
Physics-Aerospace-Satellites and Probes-Comsat
Physics-Aerospace-Satellites and Probes-Solar Power Satellite
Physics-Aerospace-Satellites and Probes-Geological Penetrator Probe
Physics-Aerospace-Satellites and Probes-Weathersat
Physics-Aerospace-Satellites and Probes-Orbital Observer
Physics-Aerospace-Satellites and Probes-Interstellar Flyby Probe
Physics-Aerospace-Satellites and Probes-ULBI Probe
Physics-Communications
Physics-Communications-Harsh Environment Signals Processing
Physics-Communications-SETI
Physics-Orbital Mechanics
Physics-Electrical Engineering
Physics-Electrical Engineering-Robotics 2
Physics-Optics
Physics-Power Generation
Physics-Power Generation-Advanced Alternative Systems
Physics-Propulsion Systems
Physics-Propulsion Systems-Standard Propulsion
Physics-Propulsion Systems-Asteroid Miner
Physics-Propulsion Systems-Heavy Lifter
Physics-Propulsion Systems-Low Orbit Freighter
Physics-Theoretical Physics
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Antimatter
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Nuclear Physics
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Plasma Physics
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Superconductivity
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Quantum Mechanics
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Quantum Mechanics-Nanotechnology 2
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Quantum Mechanics-Nanotechnology 2
    Nanomachines
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Quantum Mechanics-Nanotechnology 2
    Nanomachines-Assembler
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Quantum Mechanics-Nanotechnology 2
    Nanomachines-Replicator
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Quantum Mechanics-Nanotechnology 2
    Nanomachines-Replicator-Construction
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Quantum Mechanics-Nanotechnology 2
    Nanomachines-Replicator-Medical
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Quantum Mechanics-Nanotechnology 2
    Nanomachines-Replicator-Mining
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Quantum Mechanics-Nanotechnology 2
    Nanomachines-Replicator-Terraforming
Physics-Theoretical Physics-Quantum Mechanics-Nanotechnology 2
    Nanomachines-Replicator-Food Production

Social Sciences-Economics
Social Sciences-Political Science
Social Sciences-Psychology
Social Sciences-Psychology-Trade Negotiation
Social Sciences-Psychology-Advanced Teaching Methods
Social Sciences-Sociology
Social Sciences-Sociology-Crowd Psychology
Social Sciences-Sociology-Industrial Sociology
Social Sciences-Sociology-Social Stratification
Social Sciences-Sociology-Cultural Change
Social Sciences-Urban Studies
Social Sciences-Urban StudiesùCity Planning
Social Sciences-Police Science

Humanities-Drama
Humanities-Fine Arts
Humanities-History
Humanities-Music
Humanities-Philosophy


GLOSSARY

AEROBRAKING - A technique for slowing the flight of a spacecraft
with atmospheric drag by descending into the upper levels of a
target planet's atmosphere until the craft has slowed enough to
maintain a stable orbit.

AI - The standard abbreviation for artificial intelligence. For a longer
definition, see "artificial intelligence".

AIRBOT -  Airborne robot.

ALPHA PARTICLES - Nuclear particles with a positive charge that are
ejected at high velocity from specific radioactive transformations.
These particles consist of two protons and two neutrons.

AMOR - Asteroidal objects that cross the orbit of Mars and approach
the orbit of Earth. Over short time scales of hundreds or thousands
of years, about 10% of the Amors have orbits that evolve into
Earth-crossing orbits. The first Amor class asteroid was 1221
Amor, discovered in 1932.

APOLLO - Asteroidal objects that cross the orbit of Earth. The first
Apollo class asteroid was 1221 Amor, discovered in 1932.
arc second. An arc of one second, 1/3600 of a degree of angle, is
less than the apparent diameter of a U.S. dime when viewed from a
distance of two miles, or the apparent diameter of a golf ball when
seen from a distance of five kilometers.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - AI. The goal of artificial intelligence
research is to produce computers that can think and learn in a
manner analogous to human behavior. This includes the ability to
apply known facts, combined with new information, common sense,
and guesses, to arrive at an appropriate response to a problem.
artificial intelligence personality. Your assistant in Outpost is a
computer with artificial intelligence. It has been provided with an
artificial personality to allow easier communication with humans.
asteroid. A large interplanetary object that has no characteristic
cometary coma or tail. The term includes dormant old comets
covered with dust that no longer have comas or tails.
astrometry. A method for detecting planets in other star systems
by watching for periodic changes in a primary star's position caused
by the presence of a nearby Jovian planet.

ATEN - Asteroidal objects with orbits that lie mainly inside Earth's
orbit. The first Aten class asteroid discovery was 2062 Aten,
located in 1976.

AU - Astronomical unit. The average distance from the Earth to the
Sun, equal to about 92.9 million miles.
bioengineering. The application of engineering principles to
biological or medical science. This includes such things as
construction of artificial organs.
biosphere. The portion of a planet's atmosphere, ground, and
water where life can flourish. On a typical planet, the biosphere is
located far away from fast food restaurants and used car
dealerships.

BIOTERRAFORMING - The use of genetically engineered plant life, such
as blue-green algae, to make an Earth-type environment on another
world.

BLACK DWARF - Superplanets, such as Jupiter or Saturn, that are too
far away from their primary star to shine by reflected light.
brown dwarf. Planetlike objects with masses up to 85 Jupiter
equivalents and cool temperatures in the 120 to 2,000 degree
Kelvin range. The size of a brown dwarf falls between gas giant
worlds and small stars. This term was coined by Jill Tarter, a
prominent astronomer in SETI research.

CALCULUS OF VARIATIONS - This mathematical technique is used to find
the optimum path between two fixed trajectory endpoints.
Typically, this calculation assumes zero initial and final velocities
with minimum time trajectories. Propulsion parameters can vary to
minimize cruise time and increase fuel costs, or to lengthen cruise
time and minimize fuel requirements.

CAMBRIAN - The paleontological/geological 100-million-year period
that began about 600 million years ago and was characterized by an
explosive growth of marine life, primarily the invertebrates.
carbonaceous minerals. Minerals that are rich in carbon
compounds. A carbonaceous chondrite is a class of sooty black
asteroid known to be loaded with carbon compounds.

CCD - Charge Coupled Device. An electronic detector that is
several times more sensitive than photographic equipment in
capturing images of weak astronomical light sources, such as
asteroid movement against background stars.

CHAP FACILITY - Closed Habitat Atmospheric Production facility,
where breathable gases are produced for the colony's contained
atmosphere.

CHEMICAL FRACTIONATION - The selection process that determines the
composition of an individual planet during its formation.
comet. A small body consisting of frozen gases and dust in orbit
around the Sun. As it nears the Sun, its surface material vaporizes
to form a large head, or coma, at the center of which lies a dark
nucleus where its mass is concentrated. In its powdered form, a
comet is handy for household cleaning.

CONSTANT PROPER ACCELERATION - A term used to describe the
throttling down of a rocket engine so as to maintain a constant
speed without further acceleration.

CONSTANT PROPER THRUST - A term used to describe rocket
acceleration performed at a constant full throttle, maintaining a
uniform fuel consumption rate.

CRYOBIOLOGY - The study of the effects low temperatures have on
biological processes.

CRYOPROTECTIVE AGENTS - Used to protect cell membranes and organs
before freezing. Agents such as glycerol are infused into biological
tissues to replace the extracellular water that would expand when
frozen.

DEORBIT - A deorbit maneuver drops a spacecraft out of orbit toward
the planet's surface.

DIRT - Disaster Instant Response Team. The DIRT facility houses this
team, which is intended for rapid response to disasters and emergencies
in a colony.

DRYDOCK - A traditional term meaning a dock that can be kept dry
during the construction or repair of ships. In space, there's no
problem keeping a ship dry, but the drydock has to support a
construction and repair crew in the weightless vacuum of their
work area.

ECOSPHERE - A region in space, near a star, where suitable planets
can have surface conditions compatible with the origin, evolution,
and continuous existence of land life. Humans can survive the
surface conditions on a planet within a stellar ecosphere.

ELEVATION MAP - The Site Map screen in Outpost can be toggled to
show the false color topographical Elevation Map, indicating the
four relative heights of terrain shown on the Site Map.
emergence behavior. A biological and philosophical theory used to
describe simple systems of interlocking processes that generate
unpredictable results of a higher order.

ESCAPE VELOCITY - The speed that an object must acquire to escape
from the gravity of a planet.

FALSE COLOR - A method of applying colors to a normal image to
make details more apparent.

FINISHING - Part of a fabrication process that refines a basic shape
into its final form, as with a finished machine part.

FUEL CELL - A battery cell that continuously changes the chemical
energy of a fuel and oxidant to electrical energy. Fuel Cells power
Outpost robots and can be manufactured in your factories.

FUMAROLE - A hole in a volcanic region that emits vapors and hot
gases, such as steam. This is a very handy sort of hole to find, since
you can build a geothermal plant on top of a fumarole to generate
power.

GAS GIANT - Large, non-terrestrial planets composed primarily of
gaseous and liquid hydrogen. In the solar system, the gas giants are
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. This type of planet is also
called Jovian.

GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT - A geostationary orbit. This relates to an
artificial satellite that orbits above a planet's equator at the same
speed as the planet rotates so that the satellite effectively stays in
the same place.

GREENHOUSE EFFECT - The trapping of infrared radiation by gases in a
planet's atmosphere, raising the surface temperature.

HIBERNATION - A slowed metabolic state that allows animals to sleep
without food for days or weeks. This is also the state entered by a
computer game development team right after it finishes its current
project.

HOSTILITY LEVEL - As used in Outpost, this is the rating of a planet's
relative environmental hostility with regard to humans. As used in
computer game development, this is the level of animosity that the
team feels toward the game designer as a project nears completion.

HYPOXIA - Oxygen deficiency in the blood, cells, or tissues.

ILLUMINANCE - As used in Outpost, this is the quantity of radiation a
planet receives from its primary star. The habitability of a planet
depends on this quantity of radiation. It also determines how useful
solar powersats will be at a particular planet.

IMPACTORS - Celestial bodies, such as comets or asteroids, that strike
a planetary surface.

JOVIAN - See "gas giant".

KAO - The Kuiper Airborne Observatory, a civilian C-141 Starlifter
aircraft operated by NASA-Ames Research Center. A popular
platform for astronomy since it's able to fly above most of the
water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere with its infrared telescope.
Among its many successes, the KAO was used to discover the rings
of Uranus.

KINEMATICS - A branch of dynamics that deals with aspects of
motion apart from considerations of mass and force.

KUIPER BELT - A belt of comets orbiting the Sun just beyond the
orbit of Pluto. This comet reservoir was postulated by astronomer
Gerard P. Kuiper in 1951 and its existence is supported by recent
discoveries.

LAWBOT - Police robot.

LIGHT YEAR - The distance over which light can travel during one
Earth year. Used as a unit to express the distances between stars.
One light year equals 0.306 parsec. The velocity of light is about
186,000 miles per second.

LUMINOSITY - A measure of the total radiation emitted by an object.
The ratio of the amount of light that would reach us from a star to
the amount that would reach us from the Sun if both the star and
the Sun were at the same distance from us.

MACROMANAGEMENT - Strategic management of the overall
operations of a complex system, such as a corporation or a colony,
without getting involved in the smaller, tactical management issues.

MASS DRIVER - An electromagnetic rail gun. Used to launch buckets
of resources off a planetary surface and into space for use in space
manufacturing or as reaction mass for starships.

METEOR - A flash of light visible as an object passes through a
planet's atmosphere and burns up as a result of frictional heating.
These objects are no larger than motes of dust.

METEORITE - A natural object of extraterrestrial origin that survives
passage through a planet's atmosphere to strike the planet.
meteoroid. A natural object in interplanetary space that is smaller
than about 30 feet in diameter. Larger objects are called asteroids.

MICROBOT - A very small robot.

MOTHERSHIP - See "starship".

NANOTECHNOLOGY - The thorough, inexpensive control of the
structure of matter based on molecule by molecule manipulation;
the products and processes of molecular manufacturing.

NEA - A Near Earth Asteroid passes within the orbit of Mars and
approaches Earth. Asteroid 433 Eros, discovered in 1898, was the
first NEA to be identified. Amor and Apollo asteroids are both
NEA categories.

OORT CLOUD - region extending more than 100,000 AU from the
Sun, where perhaps a trillion cometary nuclei are thought to reside.
optical interferometry. An astronomical technique, used in the
search for extrasolar planets, that requires widely separated optical
telescopes to make use of the interference pattern of light waves
coming from closely spaced points in the sky. The greater their
baseline, or separation, the better the resolution.

ORBITAL INSERTION - A spacecraft maneuver that places it in a stable
orbit around a celestial body, such as a planet.

PHOTOLYSIS - The breaking up of a chemical compound by the action
of radiant energy, especially light.

PHOTOMETRY - An astronomical technique used to detect variations
in a star's luminosity caused by the alignment of a companion
between the star and Earth, eclipsing the star.

PHOTOSYNTHESIS - The formation of organic chemical compounds
from water and the carbon dioxide of the air in the tissues of green
plants exposed to light.

PLANETARY ECOSYNTHESIS - The process of making an Earth-type
environment on another world. Also known as terraforming.

PLANETFALL - The landing of a spacecraft on a planet.

POWERSAT - Solar power satellite placed in geosynchronous orbit.
Uses solar photovoltaic cells to collect a star's energy and convert
it to centimeter-length microwaves for power beaming to ground-
based receiver arrays (rectennas).

PRIMARY SHAPING - Part of the fabrication process that involves
turning a raw material into the approximate size and shape of an
intended machine part. Casting and powder processing are two
primary shaping methods that show promise for space
manufacturing.

PRIMARY STAR - The massive body (a star) around which another
body (a planet) is orbiting.

RAD - A measure of exposure to ionizing radiation, equal to 100 ergs
of energy per gram of absorbing material.

RECTENNA - Solar power receiver array. Receives the centimeter-
microwave power beam generated from an orbital powersat.
refactory. Denoting an element or compound that vaporizes at high
temperatures, such as uranium, calcium, and aluminum. Also
refractory.

REGOLITH - The layer of dust and fragmented rocky debris, produced
by meteoritic impact, that forms the uppermost surface on planets,
satellites, and asteroids.

REMOTE SENSING - Any technique for investigating an object from a
distance.

ROBODIGGER - Robot digger. Creates the underground chambers and
tunnels for your colonists so that they can spend most of their time
in safety underground.

ROBODOZER - Robot bulldozer. Prepares terrain for building
structures.

ROBOMINER - Robot miner. Digs vertical shafts, locates ore,
establishes mines.

SEED FACTORY - An automated unmanned manufacturing facility. It
consists of perhaps 100 tons of the right set of machines, tools, and
teleoperated mechanisms to permit both production and useful
output and reproduction to make more factories. In Outpost, the
Seed Factory lands on a new planet to prepare the way for human
landings.

SELF-REPRODUCING AUTOMATA - Machines that reproduce themselves.
This idea originated with John von Neumann.

SIM - Simulation, or simulated life form. The digital inhabitants of a
mathematical simulation such as Outpost are often called sims. A
strategy simulation game may also be called a sim.

SITE MAP - In Outpost, this is an orbital view of a landing site on a
planetary surface. Some potential mining locations, as well as the
locations of your colonies, are indicated on this map.

SLOW SLEEP - In Outpost, the decreased metabolic state of suspended
animation in which the colonists travel during their interstellar
voyage.

SOLAR FLARE - A sudden, violent release of magnetic energy in or near
the Sun's photosphere that often sends great amounts of radiation
and highly accelerated charged particles into interplanetary space.
Flares are unpredictable, last from a few minutes to an hour, and
emit high energy protons that constitute one of the most serious
hazards of spaceflight.

SPECKLE INTERFEROMETRY - A mathematical image reconstruction
technique that improves optical and infrared images by removing
atmospheric interference. At infrared wavelengths, scientists have
detected dim companion stars using speckle interferometry.
spectroscopy. The study of the light emitted from a body (its
spectrum).

SPEW FACILITY - Sewage processing and environmental waste
facility. This is where materials in a colony are recycled.
spysat. Spy satellite. The orbital observer satellite performs this
function.

STARSHIP - A generic term for spacecraft capable of making
interstellar voyages.

SUPERCONDUCTOR - Various metals that exhibit a complete
disappearance of electrical resistance, usually at temperatures near
absolute zero.

SUPERPLANET - A gas giant planet with a history similar to Jupiter or
Saturn, both of which might be considered small members of the
superplanet family.

SUSPENDED ANIMATION - The biological state in which metabolic
functions are stopped through deep-freezing, with the intent of
reviving the person in the future.

TELEOPERATOR - A device that allows action or observation at a
distant site, by a human operator, through a mechanical or
computer interface.

TELEPRESENCE - The ability of a human to sense and affect a remote
environment through mechanical means.

TERRAFORMING - The process of making an Earth-type environment
on another world. Also known as planetary ecosynthesis.

TILE MAP - In Outpost, the diamond-shaped terrain map that
dominates the main tile screen. This is where the colony structures
are built.

TILE PICKER - The top center window in the main Outpost tile
screen. This is where spacecraft that are available for landing, and
structures that are available to build, are displayed.

TOKAMAK - The preferred device for generating power from nuclear
fusion. The word tokamak is the Russian acronym for "toroidal
magnetic chamber".  The first success of a tokamak device was
announced in Moscow in 1968.

TRAJECTORY - The flight path of an object, such as a starship, a rocket,
or a thrown beer can, through space.

TROJAN ASTEROIDS - Asteroids located near the two stable Lagrangian
points of Jupiter's orbit.

ULBI PROBE - Ultra long baseline interferometer.

VLBI PROBE - Very long baseline interferometer.

VOLATILES - Elements or compounds with low melting temperatures,
such as water, ammonia, potassium, and sodium.

VULCANISM - A general term for the geological processes in which
crustal movements are accompanied by the generation of heat and
gases, often with the violent ejection of cinders and lava.

WEATHERSAT - Weather satellite.

WHITE DWARF - A member of a class of small, dense, white-hot stars
of low luminosity.

WIMP - Weakly interacting massive particle, a hypothetical
subatomic particle able to travel freely through matter.

WIREFRAME - The basic structural frame of a graphic model intended
for 3-D rendering.


Limitations on Warranty

UNAUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIONS:  SIERRA WARRANTS ONLY THAT THE PROGRAM WILL
PERFORM AS DESCRIBED IN THE USER DOCUMENTATION.  NO OTHER ADVERTISING,
DESCRIPTION, OR REPRESENTATION, WHETHER MADE BY A SIERRA DEALER, DISTRIBUTOR,
AGENT, OR EMPLOYEE, SHALL BE BINDING UPON SIERRA OR SHALL CHANGE THE
TERMS OF THIS WARRANTY.

IMPLIED WARRANTIES LIMITED:  EXCEPT AS STATED ABOVE, SIERRA MAKES NO
WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THIS PRODUCT.  SIERRA DISCLAIMS ANY
WARRANTY THAT THE SOFTWARE IS FIT FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE NINETY (90) DAY DURATION
OF THIS LIMITED EXPRESS WARRANTY AND IS OTHERWISE EXPRESSLY AND SPECIFICALLY
DISCLAIMED.  SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON HOW LONG AN IMPLIED
WARRANTY LASTS, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

NO CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES:  SIERRA SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL,
CONSEQUENTIAL OR OTHER DAMAGES, EVEN IF SIERRA IS ADVISED OF OR AWARE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. THIS MEANS THAT SIERRA SHALL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE
OR LIABLE FOR LOST PROFITS OR REVENUES, OR FOR DAMAGES OR COSTS INCURRED AS
A RESULT OF LOSS OF TIME, DATA, OR USE OF THE SOFTWARE, OR FROM ANY OTHER
CAUSE EXCEPT THE ACTUAL COST OF THE PRODUCT.  IN NO EVENT SHALL SIERRA'S
LIABILITY EXCEED THE PURCHASE PRICE OF THIS PRODUCT. SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW
THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE
ABOVE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

YOU ARE ENTITLED TO USE THIS PRODUCT FOR YOUR OWN USE, BUT MAY NOT SELL OR
TRANSFER REPRODUCTIONS OF THE SOFTWARE, MANUAL, OR BOOK TO OTHER PARTIES IN
ANY WAY, NOR RENT OR LEASE THE PRODUCT TO OTHERS WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN
PERMISSION OF SIERRA.  YOU MAY USE ONE COPY OF THE PRODUCT ON A SINGLE GAME
MACHINE, COMPUTER, OR COMPUTER TERMINAL. YOU MAY NOT NETWORK THE PRODUCT OR
OTHERWISE INSTALL IT OR USE IT ON MORE THAN ONE GAME MACHINE, COMPUTER, OR
COMPUTER TERMINAL AT THE SAME TIME.

BOOKS AND NASA REPORTS
Allen, Joseph P. with Russell Martin. Entering Space: An
    Astronaut's Odyssey (New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1984).
Asimov, Isaac. Frontiers: New Discoveries About Man and His
    Planet, Outer Space and the Universe (New York: Plume, 1991).
Asimov, Isaac. Isaac Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of
    Science & Technology (New York: Avon Books, 1972).
Averner, M. M. and R. D. MacElroy (eds.). On the Habitability of
    Mars: An Approach to Planetary Ecosynthesis. NASA SP-414
    (Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space
    Administration, 1976).
Beatty, J. Kelly and Andrew Chaikin (eds.). The New Solar System
    (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Sky Publishing Corporation, 1990).
Berman, Louis and J. C. Evans. Exploring the Cosmos (Boston:
    Little, Brown and Company, 1977).
Black, David C. The Detection and Study of Other Planetary
    Systems, Technical Summary of a Report to the Solar System
    Exploration Committee. NASA-Ames Research Center, August, 1981.
Boden, Margaret. Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man (New
    York: Basic Books, 1977).
Cheney, Margaret. Tesla: Man Out of Time (New York: Dorset
    Press, 1981).
Cheston, T. Stephen and David L. Winter (eds.). Human Factors of
    Outer Space Production (Boulder, Colorado: American
    Association for the Advancement of Science, Westview Press, 1980).
Clarke, Arthur C. The Hammer of God (New York: Bantam
    Books, 1993).
Comins, Neil F. What If the Moon Didn't Exist?: Voyages to
    Earths That Might Have Been (New York: Harper Collins, 1993).
Connors, Mary M., Albert A. Harrison, and Faren R. Akins. Living
    Aloft: Human Requirements for Extended Spaceflight. NASA SP-
    483 (Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space
    Administration, 1985).
Derrick, William L. et al. Psychological, Sociological, and
    Habitability Issues of Long Duration Space Missions. Department
    of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, USAF Academy. NASA
    Contract number T-1082K. Johnson Space Center, Houston,
    Texas, 1985.
Dickinson, Terence. The Universe...and Beyond (Buffalo, New
    York: Camden House Publishing, 1992).
Dole, Stephen H. and Isaac Asimov. Planets for Man (New York:
    Random House, 1964).
Drexler, K. Eric. Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of
    Nanotechnology (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1986).
Drexler, K. Eric and Chris Peterson, with Gayle Pergamit.
    Unbounding the Future: The Nanotechnology Revolution (New
    York: William Morrow and Company, 1991).
Feynman, Richard P. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (New
    York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1985).
Finney, Ben R. and Eric M. Jones (eds.). Interstellar Migration and
    the Human Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
Flexner, Stuart with Doris Flexner. The Pessimist's Guide to
    History (New York: Avon Books, 1992).
Freitas, Robert A., Jr. (ed.). Advanced Automation for Space
    Missions, 1980 NASA/ASEE Summer Study on the Feasibility of
Using Machine Intelligence in Space Applications. University of
    Santa Clara, Technical Summary, 1980.
Freitas, Robert A., Jr., and Patricia A. Carlson. Computer Science:
    Key to a Space Program Renaissance, 1981 NASA/ASEE Summer
    Study on the Use of Computer Science and Technology in NASA.
    University of Maryland, Technical Report 1168, 1981.
Gleick, James. Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman
    (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992).
Hartman, Edwin P. Adventures in Research: A History of Ames
    Research Center 1940-1965. NASA SP-4302 (Washington, D.C.:
    U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970).
Hartmann, William K, Ron Miller and Pamela Lee. Out of the
    Cradle (New York: Workman Publishing Company, 1984).
Heiserman, David L. Exploring Chemical Elements and their
    Compounds (New York: McGraw Hill, 1992).
Heppenheimer, T. A. Colonies In Space (New York: Warner
    Books, 1977).
Heppenheimer, T. A. Toward Distant Suns (New York: Fawcett
    Columbine, 1979).
IIT Research Institute. Missions to the Asteroids. Report number
    M-5. NASA Contract number NASr65(06). Lunar and Planetary
    Programs, National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
    Washington, D.C., 1964.
Jastrow, Robert. Journey to the Stars: Space Exploration,
    Tomorrow and Beyond (New York: Bantam Books, 1989).
Kerrod, Robin. Living in Space (New York: Crescent Books, 1986).
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Translated by George Bull.
    (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1961).
Mallove, Eugene F. and Gregory L. Matloff. The Starflight
    Handbook: A Pioneer's Guide to Interstellar Travel (New York:
    John Wiley & Sons, 1989).
Mason, Robert M. and John L. Carden (eds.). Controlled
    Ecological Life Support System. NASA Conference Publication
    2232, Washington, D.C., 1982.
Moore, Patrick. Exploring the Earth and Moon (New York: W. H.
    Smith Publishers, 1991).
Moore, Patrick. Stars and Planets (New York: Exeter Books, 1987).
Morrison, David. Exploring Planetary Worlds (New York:
    Scientific American Library, 1993).
Murray, Bruce (ed.). The Planets (San Francisco: W.H.
    Freeman and Company, 1983).
Nilsson, Nils J. Principles of Artificial Intelligence (Palo Alto,
    California: Tioga Publishing Company, 1980).
Oberg, James E. and Alcestis R. Oberg. Pioneering Space: Living
    On the Next Frontier (New York: McGraw Hill, 1986).
Oleson, Mel et al. Regenerative Life Support Research/Controlled
    Ecological Life Support System Program Planning Support
    (Transportation Analysis). NASA contract NAS2-11148, Ames
    Research Center, California, 1982.
O'Neill, Gerard K. The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space
    (New York: William Morrow, 1977).
Pohl, Ira and Alan Shaw. The Nature of Computation: An
    Introduction to Computer Science (Rockville, Maryland: Computer
    Science Press, 1981).
Regis, Edward. Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman
    Condition: Science Slightly Over the Edge (Reading,
    Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1990).
Regis, Edward. Who Got Einstein's Office? (Reading,
    Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1987).
Sagan, Carl. Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980).
Sanford, John. Observing the Constellations (New York: Simon
    and Schuster, 1989).
Stevens, Lawrence. Artificial Intelligence: The Search for the
    Perfect Machine (Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey: Hayden Book
    Company, 1985).
Viking Imaging Team. The Martian Landscape (Washington, D.C.:
    National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1978).
von Neumann, John. Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata
    (Urbana and London: University of Illinois Press, 1966).
von Tiesenhausen, Georg. Management and Control of Self-
    Replicating Systems: A Systems Model. NASA Technical
    Memorandum TM-82460, February, 1982.
Webber, Bonnie Lynn and Nils Nilsson (eds.). Readings in
    Artificial Intelligence (Palo Alto, California: Tioga Publishing
    Company, 1981).
Wells, H.G. The Outline of History: The Whole Storey of Man
    (Garden City, New York: Garden City Books, 1920).
West, Edward et al. Textbook of Biochemistry (New York: The
    MacMillan Company, 1966).
WGBH Boston. NOVA:Adventures in Science (Reading,
    Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1983).
Wilford, John Noble. Mars Beckons: The Mysteries, the
    Challenges, the Expectations of Our Next Great Adventure in
    Space (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990).


REFERENCE PERIODICALS
The following publications provide a wealth of current information
on the space-related topics:

Astronomy, published by Kalmbach Publishing, 21027 Crossroads
    Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187
Final Frontier, published by Final Frontier Publishing Company, P.O.
    Box 534, t. Morris, IL 61054-0534
Omni, published by Omni Publications, P.O. Box 3026, Harlan, IA
    51593-2087
The Planetary Report, published by The Planetary Society, 65 N.
    Catalina Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91106
Sky & Telescope, published by Sky Publishing, P.O. Box 9111,
    Belmont, MA 02178-9111.