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Your Mission

You are the Captain of the Dreadnaught, a corvette class starship. Your vessel is part of the Commonwealth Navy fleet, which has been laying siege to a system in Tau-Ceti space for some months.

The siege of the Midway system is about to collapse and the fleet is being withdrawn. However, the Navy has a covert observation platform in the system and the personnel on board need to be evacuated urgently.

Your mission is to oversee the evacuation operation. To succeed all the station personnel have to be safely evacuated. Three unarmed troop-carrier vessels have been dispatched to carry the personnel to safety.

In the course of the mission you should protect the base and the support vessels from enemy attack. You have been assigned two wing-vessels to assist you. There is also a fighter docked to the base, which you may be able to make use of.

Enemy ships may try to prevent the evacuation.

Key Guide

A key summary is displayed in the game when you pause it (press P), but to view a guide now click here.

Workstations

There are four workstations, accessed by pressing the shortcut keys F1 – F4. Click on the titles below to get a detailed explanation. We’ll be giving most detail on the NAV view in this guide, as this is the most general purpose workstation of the ship.

CMD – (Command Workstation) – F1

Used by the Captain to read briefings, documents, study the starmaps and remote-pilot other ships. This is the default view whenever you start a mission.

NAV – (Navigator Workstation) – F2

Used by the navigator to pilot the ship and perform basic dogfighting.

WEP – (Weaponry Workstation) – F3

Used by the gunner to perform advanced tactical and combat maneuvers.

ENG – (Engineering Workstation) – F4

Used by the engineer to review and prioritize repairs.

Game options

Pressing SHIFT + O during the game will bring up a list of options. Some have slider bars, others are on/off toggles and others allow you to select between several features.

 
Brightness (Slider) Alters the game's brightness (Software only)
Ambient Light (Slider) Alters the amount of background lighting.
Background Nebula (On/Off) Switches on/off the nebula graphics.
Animated 3D closeups (On/Off) Turns off the small moving 3D images of spaceships that you get during radio calls.
Detail cut-off point (Slider) Adjusts the distance where more detailed models appear
Auto detail cut-off (On/Off) Lets the computer manage the detail levels automatically (3Dfx only)
Radio chatter (On/Off) Turns on/off the background radio chatter.
Control type (Joystick / Keyboard) Turns on or off joystick control
Joystick second axis (Yaw/Roll) Allows you to switch joystick control between Yaw / Roll
Joystick hat (Contact / Lateral / View) Lets you select the function of the joystick hat.
Starfield Blur (On / Off) Turns on or off the 'streaky' stars.
Missile Trails (On / Off) Turns on or off the missile smoke trails (3Dfx only)
HiDef Shapes (On / Off) Turns On / Off the High-definition ships (3Dfx only).
Note: You will have to quit the demo and restart it for this option to take effect.

Hints and Tips

Click here to view some general and mission specific hints and tips.

Next Section: CMD Workstation Overview

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