PsL Monthly 1994 January

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NOVA STRIKE 2.1 Nova Strike is a space flight simulation combat game. The object of the game is to develop the flying skills and tactics necessary to destroy all the enemy ships. You are given only one ship which has superior performance and weapons to accomplish this. Among the changes in this new version are: improved radar range, better flight stick response and support of the mouse buttons. This game requires a 286 or greater, 240k available memory, VGA graphics and a mouse. BEGINNING OF GAME When game begins all ships will be positioned near one of their bases. Each side has three bases. The position of these bases are randomly chosen each game. Only one of the three bases will begin the game with its location known to the opposing side. The other two are secret until a ship from the opposing side comes within radar range of them. DIFFICULTY LEVELS There are 2 difficulty levels. The levels correspond to the number of enemy ships per base when the game begins. The second level is geometrically harder than the first. Level 1 - 3 enemy ships. Level 2 - 6 enemy ships. PRACTICE GAME This game allows you practice. For this the beginning of the game is altered so that you begin near two enemy ships and one of their bases. The purpose is to allow you to practice using the weapons before playing a real game. Remember that this game begins with you at a favorable advantage since the enemy ships are both in front of you and relatively close to each other. Fighting 2 ships at once will be much more difficult in a real game. OUTCOME The object of the game is to destroy all the enemy ships. When either your ship or all enemy ships are destroyed the game will end, unless there are missiles in flight. If so, the game will continue only until they detonate. If your ship was destroyed during this time, your keyboard and mouse will be frozen. The game can end in a win, lose or draw. If you win the game you will get a message in the upper left hand corner of the screen saying that all the enemy ships were destroyed. You may continue to fly until you hit the Esc key. INSTRUMENT DISPLAY When game begins you will be positioned directly behind one of your bases and your instrument display will be on. On the right there are five horizontal bars, they are: VLCY - Your velocity. ACCL - Your acceleration. SHLD - Your shield strength. LASR - Your laser strength. FUEL - Your current fuel. Directly below: MISSILES - Your current count of missiles. There are three circles in the middle of the screen, they are: Left - Top down radar. Objects above you are red and objects below you are green. Right - 3 dimensional radar. You are given a three dimensional perspective of where an object is in relation to your viewpoint. Objects in front of you are green and objects behind you are red. On both radars bases and ships are displayed constantly while missiles blink. Middle - The small circle between the radars is the artificial horizon. Your roll and pitch are displayed as arcs. LOCK - If a missile has a lock on your ship the word "LOCK" will appear below the artificial horizon. Finally, on the right there are: STAR REFUELING - If you currently within the star system this will be on and you are continuously gaining 25 units of fuel. DIFFICULTY - The difficulty level of this game. REMAINING BASES - The remaining enemy bases. REMAINING SHIPS - The remaining enemy ships. COMBAT MODE - Whether the combat mode is on or off. ALARM - Whether the alarm is on or off. FLIGHT OVERLAYS At all times your flight stick, the small square and the flight stick home, the small cross are displayed. WEAPONS OVERLAYS There are two types of crosshairs. One has horizontal and vertical lines and the other is a circle with a dot in the center. If you have a laser lock on a target a small box will appear around the target. If you have a missile lock on a target a small circle will appear around the target. If you have no missiles this circle will not appear. If you have a lock on a ship or a base it will display that targets shield strength below it. TACTICAL OVERLAYS When tactical overlays are on, bases and ships are designated by triangles and circles respectively in the following conditions: Your bases are displayed as green triangles unless they are known to the enemy, then they are blue. Once you have discovered an enemy base it will be displayed as a red triangle. When a base is fairly close to you the triangle will not appear. Enemy ships will have a circle around them, this aids in acquiring the ship quickly if it is very small. If the circle is blinking it means that the ship is out of your radar range and in the radar range of one of your bases. When a ship is fairly close to you the circle will not appear. STRATEGIC OVERLAYS Strategic overlays will display a map of the entire system. Bases will be displayed the same as in tactical overlays. The location and direction of ships are displayed as small vectors. Your ship is yellow and enemy ships are orange. You can change the magnification of this map and also toggle the shield strength of your bases and any enemy bases in your radar range. PERFORMANCE Enemy ships have the same maximum acceleration and velocity as your ship under normal acceleration. However, they do not have afterburners which allow you to double your maximum acceleration and velocity. You need to be familiar with these terms: "maximum normal acceleration" - The maximum acceleration you are capable of without the afterburner. "maximum normal velocity" - The maximum velocity you are capable of without the afterburner. "maximum acceleration" - The maximum acceleration you are capable of with the maximum normal acceleration set and with the afterburner on. "maximum velocity" - The maximum velocity you are capable of with the maximum normal acceleration and the afterburner on. LASER AND SHIELD ENERGY Energy is automatically moved between the shields and the lasers as needed. For example, whenever the shields are below 100 percent they will transfer laser energy to get them back up to 100 percent. If you try to fire the lasers and there isn't enough laser energy, the energy will be taken directly from the shields. SHIELDS Both ships and bases have shields. However, only ships have shields that can regenerate. Shields take damage from missiles, lasers and in the case of ships, collisions. Bases have stronger shields than ships . Bases take only one half the damage that a ship would take to its shields from weapons. Once either takes damage that takes the shield strength below 0, they are destroyed. Ship shields are regenerated by consuming fuel. LASER AND MISSILE LOCKS Your laser and missile locks extend for a certain angle from your line of sight and can even lock onto enemy missiles. The lasers of enemy ships extend for a much smaller angle and they cannot lock onto your missiles. You must have a lock to fire a weapon. Although you never lock on your bases, they can still interfere with you getting a lock on something behind them. Also, there is a certain minimum distance that a ship or base needs to be in front of you to get a lock while you can get a lock on a missile nearly point blank. The range to get a lock is half your radar range. Note: Your weapons will not fire if you had a tenuous lock. That is, you did not have a lock the next time around when the keyboard or mouse command was processed. LASERS All ships have lasers. It takes eight units of energy to fire your lasers and each shot causes ten units of shield damage. Enemy lasers take four units of energy to fire and cause five units of shield damage. Also, enemy ships can fire their lasers at only one third the rate your ship can. Lasers are regenerated by consuming fuel. MISSILES Your ship can carry up to 5 missiles, while enemy ships can only carry up to 3 missiles. Once fired they will home in on their target even if another ship or base comes between them and their target. Only if they lose a lock on the target or if the target is destroyed before the missile reaches it will a missile try to acquire a new target. Missiles can fly only a certain amount of time after which they detonate. When missiles detonate they cause damage to any ship or base near them regardless of what the target was. Enemy missiles cause between 0 - 35 units of damage while your missiles cause between 0 - 70 units of damage depending on how well they intercept a ship. Other than destroying them with your lasers, the best way to limit the damage caused by a missile to have a high velocity and pull up or down before they hit. Also, flying towards the missile creates a very high closing speed and makes it harder for it to get a good intercept. One other way is to outrun a missile. This can usually only be done at maximum acceleration. Note: Often when you fire missiles they appear to fly off the screen. This is because they are out of your field of vision, they are still homing in on their targets. Also the damage mentioned above from lasers and missiles is to the shields of ships. Bases will take less damage. FUEL CONSUMPTION Fuel is used for acceleration and to regenerate shields and lasers. Your ship carries twice the fuel that enemy ships do and is able to consume fuel twice as fast if necessary for normal acceleration and regeneration of shields and lasers. The amount of energy that goes towards regenerating your lasers and shields is your maximum fuel consumption minus the fuel required for your normal acceleration. Using the afterburner does not affect this formula. Also while you are in the star system you will gain 25 units of fuel which is enough to maintain 25 percent of your maximum normal acceleration. Be careful not to run out of fuel outside of the system or you will be stuck. A maximum fuel load is approximately enough to get you from one end of the star system to the other and back twice without using the afterburner. RADAR All ships and bases have radar of the same range. While bases cannot attack an enemy ship, they do transmit the position of an enemy ship. For example, if enemy ships are within the radar range of your base but not your ship it will be displayed on the strategic display and tactical overlays. COLLISIONS If ships collide with each other they cause 1 unit of damage to each others shields. If enemy ships collide with either themselves or you they will maneuver to break off the collision. You do not collide with bases. BASES Bases are represented by two horizontal triangles. Both are gray on the outside but yours are green on the inside and the enemies are red. Bases are passive, they cannot attack and you cannot collide with them. They are used to refuel and rearm. They do have radar which allows any ship on its side to know the exact location of a ship from the opposing side whenever one comes into its radar range. Since bases do not move once a ship from the opposing side comes within radar range its position is known from then on. DOCKING To dock with a base you need to fly towards the center of it at about 1/2 your max normal acceleration. When inside it your velocity will be slowed down to 1/5 your max normal velocity and your shields will flare green. You will replenish your missiles and fuel. However, if you have any missiles in flight when you are docking you can replenish your missiles only up to the number of missiles that are not in flight. You cannot fire weapons when you are docking and you cannot dock at an enemy base. COMBAT MODE Toggling combat mode on will set your maximum normal acceleration and turn the afterburner on, set the mouse speed to alternate speed for combat and remove bases from the radar screens. When you toggle it off your mouse speed and radar screens will be back to normal but it is left to you to decide what new velocity you want to set. AFTERBURNER Your ship has an afterburner, enemy ships do not. Using the afterburner doubles your maximum acceleration and velocity from what normal acceleration can provide. However the additional acceleration it generates requires twice the fuel that the engine consumes at its normal maximum acceleration. To use the afterburner you must have at least one unit of normal acceleration. When the afterburner is on your velocity and acceleration bars will be missing the middle line. This means that the scale has been doubled. Also, whenever you toggle off the afterburner the middle line will reappear for the acceleration but if the velocity is too high to be displayed on the normal scale the velocity will continue to be displayed on the higher scale until the velocity decreases to the maximum normal velocity. STAR SYSTEM The game takes place in a system of stars. The system is circular although most of the stars are located in a narrow horizontal plane. It is here that all bases are located. The stars are not active in any way except as a frame of reference when flying and continuously supplying 25 units of fuel to any ship within the system. SOUND There are different sounds for firing missiles, firing lasers, exploding missiles, exploding ships, collisions and the alarm. The maximum distance to hear any of these sounds is twice your radar distance except the sound of a collision. You will only hear this sound if your ship collides with an enemy ship. ALARM Using the alarm will alert you to the presence of enemy ships or bases that come in your ships radar range. It also will alert you to enemy ships in radar range of your bases. It enables you cruise without having to constantly look at your radar screens or strategic displays for attack or newly discovered enemy bases. It also warns you if you have come within range of a previously known enemy base which you were trying to skirt around. STRATEGY Your basic strategy should be to fight only 1 or 2 ships at a time and then get away as fast as possible before other ships can arrive to engage you. Destroying bases will force enemy ships to refuel more often. Destroying all of them will severely weaken them since they cannot replenish missiles and fuel. Without being able to refuel at bases, enemy ships will gain fuel only from the stars and be forced to spend most of their time cruising at very low velocities. Destroying bases is more helpful on the second difficulty level. TACTICS If you are trying to escape a ship or get out far enough in front of him so you can turn around and attack, jink up and down and left and right in a random order. This will make it difficult for him to get laser lock on you. This is more effective if you start jinking before the enemy ship starts firing since by then it can match your movements fairly well. When enemy ships are attacking your bases the tactical and stategic overlays will display their location and you can often attack and destroy them before they can turn around and fire their weapons at you. This assumes that you can reach them before they leave the bases radar range or destroy the base. To outrun a missile you usually need to be flying at your maximum velocity and directly away from the missile. Note: The above information on strategy and tactics are only suggestions. It is up to you develop the strategy and tactics needed to win. MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION If you are playing this game on a floppy disk make sure you have a backed it up on another disk. Do not play from your only copy. When you come up with a configuration that you like (colors, mouse speeds, etc.) and have saved it "x", its a good idea to make a backup copy of the configuration file "cnf". For example "copy cnf cnf.bak". When enemy ships attack your bases they use their lasers only, they never use their missiles. You should spend most of your time flying at your maximum velocity. While using the afterburner to achieve this will decrease your maximum range, it will speed up the game and help you survive an unexpected encounter with an enemy ship. Try to detonate a missile soon after it is fired. This will cause damage to the ship that fired it. Try to avoid running out of fuel. If you do and you are in the star system your will receive enough to maintain up to 25 percent of your maximum normal acceleration but this would leave you extremely vulnerable to attack with little fuel for velocity and/or regeneration of lasers and shields. When you're upside down, objects will rotate towards you from the opposite direction on the 2D radar. Occasionally when you have a base lined up on the visual display and you switch to the strategic display the vector repesenting your ship appears to be a little off. This is because the end points of the vector rotate in a very small group of pixels. FILE SAVING You can save games and the configuration. Filenames can be from 1 to 8 characters including the letters (a-z), numbers (0-9), and the underscore. Letters are displayed as upper case even though caps lock is off. On the disk the program will add the extension ".21" for the version of the software. You may save as many files as you wish but the directory list can only list the first 100. You can also save the configuration which are the defaults you are allowed to change such as colors on the instrument display and the mouse speed. From then on whenever you begin a new game you use the new defaults. MOUSE The mouse controls your flight stick. Moving the mouse backward increases the pitch, moving it forward decreases the pitch. Moving it to the right rolls to the left, and moving it to the left rolls to the right. You can control both the speed of the mouse and whether the change is arithmetic or geometric. Also, the default for the software is to read a 3 button mouse. If your mouse has only two buttons you must change the configuration. The left mouse button fires the missiles, just press and release it. The middle mouse button(the right on a two button mouse) fires the lasers, keep it pressed down as long as you want to fire. KEYBOARD COMMANDS q - Set acceleration to 0. 5 - Toggle afterburner. w - Set acceleration to maximum. e - Fire lasers. r - Fire missile. t - Toggle strategic display. a - Decrease acceleration. z - Toggle instrument display. s - Increase acceleration. x - Save configuration. d - Decrease magnification. c - Restore default configuration. f - Increase magnification. v - Toggle shield strength. g - Toggle combat mode. b - Toggle tactical overlays. F1 - Toggle alarm. F2 - Toggle sound. Esc - to quit, save game and quit or resume game. Pause key will halt the game, hit the spacebar to continue. The following keys change the configuration: 6 - Cycle instrument display color. y - Cycle radar center color. 7 - Cycle text color. u - Cycle velocity color. 8 - Cycle increment color. i - Cycle acceleration color. 9 - Cycle top of horizon color. o - Cycle shield color. 0 - Cycle bottom of horizon color. p - Cycle laser color. - - Decrease delays. [ - Decrease mouse speed. = - Increase delays. ] - Increase mouse speed. h - Cycle fuel color. n - Cycle missile lock color. j - Cycle crosshair type. m - Cycle ship overlay color. k - Cycle crosshair color. l - Cycle flight stick color. . - Decrease mouse combat speed. ; - Cycle flight stick home color. / - Increase mouse combat speed. ' - Cycle laser lock color. \ - Toggle number of mouse buttons. F7 - Toggle mouse changes. F8 - Reverse mouse buttons(if left handed). F9 - Cycle border color. F10 - Cycle border type. More detail: 6 CYCLE INSTRUMENT DISPLAY COLOR This changes the color of the instrument display. You are prevented from changing the color to either top or bottom horizon color. 9 0 CYCLE HORIZON COLORS When cycling these colors you are prevented from changing them to the color of the instrument display. d f CHANGE MAGNIFICATION This changes the magnification of the strategic display. The three lowest settings magnify in respect to the center of the star system, the rest in respect to your ship. v TOGGLE SHIELD STRENGTH With this on you will see the shield strength of your bases and any enemy bases in your ships radar range. - = DELAYS Setting delays will slow down the game. You may use this if the game runs to fast for your liking. The default is 0. If your system is 20 Mhz or faster you may wish to use this. m CYCLE SHIP OVERLAY This is the color of the circle that surrounds and enemy ship when tactical overlays are on. [ ] . / CHANGING MOUSE SPEED Changes the rate the roll, pitch and yaw change in regard to your flight stick. The minimum value is 5 and the maximum is 25. The default is 15 for the mouse combat speed and 10 for the normal mouse speed. MAJOR CHANGES FROM VERSION 2.0 Radar range has been doubled. Energy is automatically exchanged between the shields and lasers as neaded. You can use the mouse buttons to fire the weapons instead of the keyboard. Enemy ships have improved lasers and better combat maneuvering. In combat mode you can now lock on enemy bases. Some improvements to the graphics and sound. Improved flight stick response. The farther you move the flight stick from its home position the greater the rate of change. You can also change back to the older arithmetic response with F7. Fixes sound and graphics problems on some computers that were caused by bios differences. ---- Read the instructions for all the changes. ---- FILE ERRORS If you get an error reading a file the program will abort. Most likely cause is that a file is missing. Also the file could be corrupted or had the permission changed. If you get an error writing a file the program will abort. Most likely cause is that there is not sufficient room on the disk. Also the file could be corrupted or had the permission changed. TECHNICAL SUPPORT If you are a registered user of this software and have a problem or a question, fill out the technical support form, file "tech.frm" and send along with a stamped self-addressed envelope to: Nova Strike Software 240 Tiki Drive Merritt Island, FL 32953 You may print out this form using the DOS print command. NEW VERSIONS You can always find the most recent version of this software on Compuserve. It will be on the IBMNEW forum under general fun and games. Simply browse for the keywords NOVA and STRIKE. DISTRIBUTING THIS SOFTWARE You are free to pass the UNREGISTERED version of this program around. This includes posting it on bulletin boards and shareware distribution lists. Please remove any previous versions of this program, these are: Nova Strike 1.0 - released as self-extracting file "ns10.exe" Nova Strike 2.0 - released as self-extracting file "nova20.exe" and zip file nova20.zip The above file names are only the names they were released under by me. These could have been changed by others. If you are a shareware distributor please write me to let me know that you are adding it to your shareware distribution list. This will put you on my mailing list for upgrades and new programs. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES This software is licensed solely on an "as is" basis. No warranties, either express or implied, are made by the developer with respect to the software, its merchantability, or its fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the quality and performance is with the licensed user of the software. Copyright (c) 1992 Michael Kline All Rights Reserved