Instructions
This game involves tactical and strategic combat in space. Your cruiser
is equipped with missiles and lasers for weapons along with shields and flares
for defense. Advanced vectoring radar displays, a sophisticated transparent
heads up display, artificial horizon and afterburner are also provided. This
new version has excellent graphics and sound.
Requirements
This game requires a 286/12MHz or better (20 MHz recommended), VGA
graphics, a mouse, DOS 3.3, 310k available memory and at least a 720k floppy
drive.
Instrument Display
There are two types of instrument displays: a panel display and a heads
up display or HUD. On the panel display to the right there are five
horizontal bars, they are:
LASR - Your laser strength.
SHLD - Your shield strength.
VLCY - Your velocity.
ACCL - Your acceleration.
FUEL - Your current fuel.
Directly below:
Count of unracked missiles and missile racks.
Count of unracked flares and flare racks.
There are three circles in the middle of the screen, they are:
Left - 2 dimensional radar. Objects above you are orange 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 orange. Also, if
a cruiser or acceleration mine is pointed in the same direction as
your cruiser the vector will point up, otherwise it will point down.
Objects are displayed as follows:
Bases - solid triangles.
Cruisers - vectors.
Acceleration Mines - small blinking vectors
Missiles - blinking dots.
Flares - dots.
Middle - The small circle between the radars is the artificial horizon.
Your roll and pitch are displayed as arcs.
On the right are the:
SCORE - In a strategic game the count of enemy cruisers and bases destroyed
is given. In a tactical game the count of enemy cruisers destroyed
is given.
ALARM - Whether the alarm is set or not.
The instrument display provides 3 flashing warnings around the crosshairs,
they are:
Missile - This indicates that a missile is locked onto your cruiser. This
is to the lower left of the crosshairs.
Mine - This indicates that an acceleration mine is locked onto your
cruiser. This is just to the left of where the missile warning
appears.
SR - This indicates that star refueling is not taking place because you are
outside the star system. This is to the upper right of the crosshairs.
Heads Up Display
The second type of instrument display is the HUD. This display gives you
a wider field of vision along with being transparent so you can see your
targets better. The velocity, acceleration and fuel indicators have been
moved to the right and the score and alarm are not displayed. Also, the
artificial horizon is not solid. All of the colors that were used on the
panel display have carried over. The only new colors are the colors of the
radar circles and the new artificial horizon.
Tactical Version
The tactical version involves pure combat. The game will start with the
enemy cruisers within your radar range in a variety of patterns.
The five patterns are:
Dispersed Attack - cruisers are in random positions.
Lateral Attack - cruisers surround you and are roughly level with you.
Frontal Attack - all cruisers are in front of you.
Flanking Attack - 3 cruisers attack from the front, while one of three
flanking attacks occurs:
1 - 2 cruisers attack your right flank.
2 - 2 cruisers attack your left flank.
3 - one cruiser attacks your right flank while the
other attacks your left.
Spherical Attack - 3 cruisers surround you laterally, with one above and
one below you.
Normally, each time you return to the menu screen, the game cycles to a
new pattern. However, if you want to play a specific version type:
d - Dispersed Attack
l - Lateral Attack
f - Frontal Attack
k - Flanking Attack
s - Spherical Attack
Strategic Version
In the stategic version you fight a strategic war against enemy cruisers
and their bases. The game begins with each side having three bases which are
protected by acceleration mines. The enemy begins with 5 cruisers spread
across their bases. All bases can build new mines and enemy bases can build
new cruisers to replace ones that are destroyed. The enemy employs a wide
variety of strategies such as attacking your bases, setting traps and defend-
ing its bases to accomplish its objective of destroying your cruiser. Your
objective is to destroy all 3 enemy bases.
Star System
The game takes place in a system of stars. The system is circular al-
though most of the stars are located in a narrow horizontal plane. Any
cruiser within the system is able to continuously absorb 50 units of fuel
from the surrounding stars. This method is called star refueling. 50 units
of fuel is enough to maintain 2/3 of your normal engine acceleration.
Weapons Racks
Missiles and flares must be racked before they can be fired. It takes a
certain amount of time after you fire to rack a new one. The count to the
left on the instrument displays is the number that are available to replenish
the racks.
Radar
All cruisers, bases and acceleration mines have radar of the same range.
This range extends in a sphere around the object. There is one exception to
this range. Whenever a missile or acceleration mine is locked onto a target
it will be able to track it even if it goes beyond this range because its
homing radar is of greater range than its searching radar. This most often
happens when acceleration mines fire at targets only in their bases radar
range.
Performance
All cruisers have the same maximum acceleration and velocity under normal
engine acceleration. However, only your cruiser has an afterburner which
doubles your acceleration and gives you 25 percent more velocity. Also, your
cruiser is more manueverable than enemy cruisers.
Laser and Missile Locks
To fire your lasers or missiles you must have a lock on a target. Your
laser and missile locks extend for the same angle from your line of sight.
Also, only your lasers have the ability to lock onto missiles and acceleration
mines. Enemy missile locks extend for an angle from their line of sight while
laser locks are line of sight. Although you never lock onto your bases or
flares, they can still interfere with you getting a lock on something behind
them. Also, there is a certain minimum distance that a cruiser or base needs
to be in front of you to get a lock while you can get a lock on a missile or
acceleration mine nearly point blank.
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. Try firing just before you expect to get a lock.
Laser and Shield Energy
Your cruiser automatically exchanges energy between lasers and shields for
maximum survivability. Enemy cruisers do not have this ability. 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.
Fuel Consumption
Fuel is used for acceleration and to regenerate shields and lasers. Your
cruiser carries twice the fuel that enemy cruisers do and is able to consume
fuel at more than twice the rate. Any cruiser that runs out of fuel outside
of the star system will gradually lose its shields until it is destroyed.
Afterburner
Only your cruiser has an afterburner, which injects fuel into the exhaust
system to generate extra acceleration. Using the afterburner doubles your
acceleration and increases your velocity 25 percent. However, this additional
acceleration requires double your normal fuel consumpution for the engines.
To use the afterburner you must have at least one unit of normal acceleration.
Collisions
If cruisers collide with each other they cause 1 unit of damage to each
others shields. If enemy cruisers collide with either themselves or you, they
will maneuver out of the collision. You do not collide with bases.
Alarm
Using the alarm will alert you to the presence of enemy cruisers that enter
your radar range. It enables you to cruise without having to constantly look
at your radar screens for enemy cruisers. It does not alert you to enemy ac-
celeration mines since these make a loud sound when fired. The alarm cannot
be reset until your radar is clear of enemy cruisers.
Flight Overlays
At all times your flight stick and the flight stick home along with the
left and right boundaries are displayed.
Weapons Overlays
Weapons overlays consist of the crosshairs, border, missile lock, laser
lock and targets shield strength.
Crosshairs help frame the area in which you get a laser or missile lock on
a target. There are three types of crosshairs available.
The border helps frame the screen and instrument displays. It can be
turned on and off. The panel and heads up displays have seperate borders.
If you have a missile lock on a target a circle will appear around the
target.
If you have a laser lock, 4 lines will appear around the target. If you
have both a laser and a missile lock on the same target only the missile lock
is displayed.
Whenever you have a lock on a cruiser or a base it will display that
targets shield strength below and to the right of it.
Tactical Overlays
When tactical overlays are on, cruisers, acceleration mines and bases will
be highlighted in the following ways:
Cruisers will be highlighted with 4 diagonal lines. The lines will blink
if the cruiser is out of your radar range. This will happen when it is in
radar range of one of your bases or acceleration mines but not you cruiser.
Acceleration mines will be highlighted with 3 lines.
Bases will be repesented with triangles. Yours are green, the enemies are
red.
When you get very close to cruisers and acceleration mines the overlay
will not be displayed. When you get within radar range of a base the overlay
will not be displayed.
Strategic Display
The strategic display shows the location of bases, acceleration mines and
cruisers. Bases are solid triangles, yours are green and the enemies are red.
Cruisers are large vectors, yours is bright green and the enemies are bright
red. Acceleration mines are small blinking vectors, yours are bright green
the enemies are bright red.
Colors
Bases and cruisers are given random colors each game. They can be red,
blue, green or violet. The color given to a base carries over to its
acceleration mines. The color of enemy laser fire is derived from the
cruisers color. Also, the color of an explosion is derived or partially
derived from the cruiser, base, or mine color. Enemy missiles oscillate in
color between red and green but always explode in red.
Outcome
Both the tactical and strategic games must be played to their finish for
an outcome to be determined. The possible outcomes are:
Tactical Game
Your cruiser survives and destroys:
5 enemy cruisers Decisive Victory
3 enemy cruisers Marginal Victory
Your cruiser is destroyed and destroys:
5 enemy cruisers Tactical Victory
4 enemy cruisers Marginal Victory
3 enemy cruisers Enemy achieves a Marginal Victory
2 enemy cruisers Enemy achieves a Tactical Victory
< 2 enemy cruisers Enemy achieves a Decisive Victory
Strategic Game
Your cruiser survives and destroys:
all 3 enemy bases Decisive Victory
Your cruiser is destroyed and destroys:
all 3 enemy bases Tactical Victory
2 enemy bases and Tactical Victory
10 or more enemy
cruisers
2 enemy bases Marginal Victory
1 enemy base and Enemy achieves a Marginal Victory
10 or more enemy
cruises
1 enemy base Enemy achieves a Tactical Victory
No enemy bases Enemy achieves a Decisive Victory
Note: Whenever one of these outcomes occur, the game will end except under
the following conditions:
If a missile or acceleration mine is locked on a target the game
will continue.
In a strategic game if you have destroyed the last enemy base and
there are enemy cruisers in your radar range you must destroy or outrun
them for the game to end.
Changing the Configuration
This game allows the user to customize the game by changing options such
as colors on the instument display, speed of the game, mouse buttons, type of
crosshairs, etc. You may change these options during a game by hitting the
appropriate key. To make your changes permanent you must type F9 to write
these changes to the configuration file. Finally, there is the F10 key which
restores the default configuration to the current game.
Demos
This game comes with two demos. The first one is of a tactical game and
the second one is an attack on a defended enemy base that occurs during a
strategic game. They are meant to show some basic examples of manuevering
your cruiser in combat, locking onto targets and firing your weapons, using
the flares, reading your radar displays, etc. These demos can be changed in
only one way: they will match the speed of the game as set in your
configuration file.
Miscellaneous Information
The mouse can be set so that you can use any combination of the mouse
buttons to fire the missiles and lasers. First, use the F5 key to tell the
program whether you have a 2 or 3 button mouse. Second if it is a 3 button
mouse and you are left handed use the < key. This allows you to use the 2
buttons on the right rather than the left. Third, to reverse the functions
of the buttons use F6. The quickest way to test what you have selected is to
type f from the menu screen to get a frontal attack pattern.
If you want to regenerate the shields and lasers quicker, you can turn off
the afterburner. This will nearly double the rate at which the shields and
lasers build but will harm your cruisers performance.
When attacking an enemy base make sure you give priority to taking out its
acceleration mines. Just one of these can destroy your cruiser.
Although there are keyboard commands to fire the missiles and lasers it is
better to use the mouse buttons to do this. They allow simultaneouse firing
of both weapons and don't store old commands like the keyboard buffer does
when the keys are hit too quickly.
In a tactical game should the enemy cruisers lose contact with you they
will return to the center of the star system. You can use the strategic
display find this. This situation very seldom happens.
When you get a missile lock on a cruiser the tactical overlay will not
appear. When you get a laser lock on an acceleration mine the tactical over-
lay continues to appear to help you differentiate it from a missile.
Occasionally the vector repesenting your cruiser on the strategic display
will appear a little off from what you are seeing on the screen. For example,
you are flying towards a base and on the strategic display your cruisers
vector is angled a little to the left or right of it. This is because the end
points of the vector rotate in a very small group of pixels causing a loss of
precision.
When a variety of sounds are occurring at the same time you will hear the
sound occuring closest to you.
No two games are exactly the same. In stategic games the locations of the
bases are randomly generated each game. In tactical games the positions of
the cruisers are completely random or slightly random depending on the
pattern.
This program was developed on a NEC PowerMate 286 Plus running at 12MHz
(0 wait states), 640k memory, built in VGA graphics and a Logitech mouse.
Problems
If you have problems running this software try the following:
If you aren't reading the mouse buttons correctly, the problem is most
likely the button assignment. A two button mouse should have the button
assignment LR. A three button mouse should have the button assignment LMR.
Set the mouse driver for these.
If your running from a DOS shell, reboot the computer and run the program
directly from DOS.
Remove any TSR's other than the mouse driver before running this program.
Systems that have a turbo mode should be run in turbo mode.
This game must be played with the Caps Lock off.
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.
If you move the flight stick more than a few pixels past the right or left
boundaries you will be upside down. If move the flight stick to touch or move
past the left or right edge of the screen it will appear at the corresponding
opposite side. This allows you to roll 180 degrees.
You can change the rate of angle changes your mouse causes, whether it is
a 2 or 3 button mouse, reverse the mouse buttons and whether you are right or
left handed.
The left mouse button fires the missiles, just click it. The right mouse
button fires the lasers, keep it pressed down as long as you want to fire.
Keyboard Commands
This game must be played with the Caps Lock off. Only a few of the keys
that change the configuration are upper case and you can Shift to select
these.
t - Toggle tactical overlays.
r - Fire missile.
e - Fire lasers.
w - Increase engine acceleration.
q - Decrease engine acceleration.
g - Toggle instrument display.
f - Toggle afterburner.
d - Set engine acceleration to maximum.
s - Set engine acceleration to 0.
a - Toggle alarm.
v - Fire flare forward.
c - Fire flare backward.
Space Bar - Toggle strategic display.
F1 - Quick instructions.
F2 - Instructions.
F3 - Toggle sound.
F4 - Combat Hot Key, sets engine acceleration to maximum and turns afterburner
on. Also, sets the HUD or panel display (change using the " key), and
turns off the strategic display.
Esc - To quit.
The following keys change the configuration:
F5 - The program needs to know if you are using a 2 or 3 button mouse. For
example, if you have a 3 button mouse you can use the middle button to
fire instead of the right one.
F6 - Reverse mouse buttons. Reverses the left and right buttons.
F7 - Decrease angle changes. Decrease the angle changes caused by the flight
stick.
F8 - Increase angle changes. Increase the angle changes caused by the flight
stick.
F9 - Save configuration. Save current configuration to the configuration
file so that whenever you begin a new game you will use the new values.
F10 - Restore default configuration. Restore all defaults to the current
game.
y - Cycle radar center color.
u - Cycle velocity color.
i - Cycle acceleration color.
o - Cycle shield color.
p - Cycle laser color.
6 - Cycle instrument display color.
7 - Cycle top of horizon color
8 - Cycle bottom of horizon color.
There is a restriction in changing these colors. You cannot change the
instrument display color to either the color of the top or bottom of the
horizon and vice versa.
9 - Cycle above color.
0 - Cycle below color.
These are the colors used on the 2d and 3D radar displays. The above
color is the color that objects are when they are above you in the 2D radar
and behind you on the 3D radar. The below color is the color that objects
are when they are below you on the 2D radar and in front of you on the 3D
radar.
[ - Increase speed of game.
] - Decrease speed of game.
: - Show maximum speed that game can run. Use this to find if your computer
can match the speed that you set.
The [ ] keys set the speed by limiting how fast the that the game runs.
You can set any speed between 120 - 220. The lower the number the faster the
game runs. The default is 170. If your computer cannot match this speed, it
will run as fast as it can up to this speed. You can check how fast your
computer can run this program by typing the : key. This tell you the maximum
speed that your computer can run the game at - this value may vary slightly
each time you check it, but will give you a good approximate value.
" - Toggle the type of instrument display the combat key sets.
h - Cycle fuel color. n - Cycle missile lock color.
j - Cycle crosshair type. m - Cycle laser lock color.
k - Cycle crosshair color. , - Cycle shield strength color.
l - Cycle flight stick color. . - Cycle border color for panel display.
; - Cycle flight stick home / - Toggle border for panel display.
and boundary color. > - Cycle border color for HUD display.
? - Toggle border for HUD display.
Y - Cycle radar circle color on heads up display.
U - Cycle artificial horizon color on heads up display.
I - Cycle strategic display color.
O - Cycle star refueling warning color.
P - Cycle text color. This is the color of the text on all the screens except
the instructions.
{ - Cycle missile warning color.
} - Cycle mine warning color.
H - Cycle missile color.
J - Cycle flare color.
K - Cycle score color.
L - Cycle alarm color.
N - Cycle default starting instument display. The default is to start a
tactical game with the HUD and a strategic game with the panel display.
You can change this to any combination you wish.
M - Toggle equalization of speed. Normally, a tactical game is slowed down
to match the speed at which a stategic game runs which is slower.
However, this can be turned off.
< - Left or right handed mouse. If you have 3 mouse buttons this allows you
to use the 2 right buttons rather than the 2 left buttons.
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.nv3" and send along
with a stamped self-addressed envelope. You may print out this form using the
DOS print command. Please make sure that you have read the instructions
thoroughly before doing this.
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.
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.
Demo Mode
This game can be set so that it automatically cycles between the two
demos. Just type "nv3 sound" or "nv3 nosound". The "nosound" argument will
suppress the sound only when the demos are automatically played. At any time
while demos are playing the user can type "Esc" to go the menu screen and
select an option. When the user has finished, the program will revert to
automatically cycling between the two demos.
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.
Trademark Acknowledgments
Logitech is a registered trademark of Logitech Corporation.
NEC and PowerMate are registered trademarks of NEC Corporation.
Copyright (c) 1992-1993 Michael Kline
All Rights Reserved