Shareware Super Platinum 8

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Shareware Super Platinum 8 / Shareware Super Platinum 8.iso / mac / PROGTOOL / EUPHOR10.ZIP;1 / LW.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1993-06-24 | 10.6 KB | 239 lines

============ Language War ============ Object of the Game ------------------ It is the year 2393. The galaxy is dominated by the evil forces of the C empire. Programmers' minds are being enslaved to the C language. Your objective as commander of the Euphoria is to rid the galaxy of the 50 C ships and spread euphoria throughout the galaxy. 40 of these evil ships are regular (K&R) C ships, 9 are the more powerful ANSI C ships, and a single ship, lurking somewhere in the galaxy is the extremely powerful and terrifying C++. You will encounter other ships in the Galaxy as well. These are the BASIC ships and the Fortran ships, remnants of previous empires. While it is not your prime objective to destroy these ships, they will at times attack you and you will want to eliminate them. This is particularly true when they threaten friendly bases and planets. Moving the Euphoria through space --------------------------------- The galaxy consists of 49 quadrants arranged in a 7x7 grid. Due to the curvature of space, when you travel off the edge of the galaxy you will arrive in the quadrant on the opposite side. At any one time you can only see the action taking place in the current quadrant that you are located in. When you move past the edge of the screen you enter an adjacent quadrant. The ship moves at a certain warp speed from 0 to 5, and a certain direction as shown below. directions 3 4 | 2 | 5------+------1 | 6 | 8 7 To move at warp 3 in direction 2 you would type w 3 2 (or 2 w 3) i.e. entering a number from 1 to 8 by itself will set your direction. You cannot move in a fractional direction. Weapon Systems (in General) --------------------------- Ships fire phasors with a certain amount of input energy. The impact of the phasor diminishes with distance to the target but the enemy always loses more energy than was put into the phasor. A ship loses energy when it fires a phasor, whether the phasor hits or not. Torpedos pack a 4000 unit impact regardless of the distance to the target. A torpedo will be neutralized by a torpedo deflector, if one exists on the target ship. Weapons on board the Euphoria ----------------------------- The Euphoria comes equipped with conventional phasors and torpedos. It can carry up to 30000 units of energy, and must be refueled at either a base or a planet. It carries up to 5 torpedos and 3 torpedo deflectors, that can be replenished at a base only. These appear on your screen as +++++ and DDD. You can fire a phasor with any amount of input energy from 100 to 900 units. This input energy is deducted from the amount that the Euphoria has left. To fire a 900-unit phasor in direction 1.0 type: p 9 1 0 To fire a torpedo in direction 3.4 type: t 3 4 Exactly 1 decimal place is required on directions for weapons. (But you don't type the '.') Canceling a Command ------------------- To cancel a command, you can stop, part way through the command, and start typing a new one, or you can type 'x' which will clear the command display. Pausing the Game ---------------- To temporarily suspend the game type '@'. To resume type 'x'. Note: This is only allowed to answer a phone call, or go to the bathroom. You can also type control-c to abort the game. Know Your Enemy --------------- BASIC ships are sometimes at TRUCE and will probably not fire at you unless you fire first and break the TRUCE. Sometimes however they will spontaneously break the TRUCE and start firing. The BASIC ships have a deadly cloaking device that can make them invisible. When a BASIC ship is attacked, all other BASIC ships in the quadrant will fire back on the attacker. BASIC ships have torpedos and conventional phasors. The Fortran ships are very unpredictable and will shoot at anything, including other Fortran ships. They are the only ships that can enter the current quadrant at any position. Their phasors can travel through anything. C ships come in 3 different sizes. All have torpedos and conventional phasors. The regular ships have 4000 units of energy and 1 torpedo. A single torpedo is just enough to destroy them. A 900-unit phasor from not too far way will also do the trick. The ANSI C ships have 8000 units of energy and carry 2 torpedos. C++ has 16000 units of energy and carries 4 torpedos. Destroying ships ---------------- Any ship, including the Euphoria, is destroyed when its energy reserves reach 0. Enemy ships restore their energy when you leave the quadrant, so be sure to finish them off while you can. Bases and planets also regain their defensive energy when you leave the quadrant. Damage ------ 5 different subsystems of the Euphoria are subject to damage. On your screen, you will see an estimate of the time required to repair each subsystem. The engines will sometimes sustain partial damage and a recommended maximum warp speed will be posted. You may exceed this speed, but only at great risk of total engine failure that will take a while to fix. The Assembly Language space shuttle ----------------------------------- When the Euphoria is in imminent danger of running out of energy and being destroyed, you can elect to abandon ship and enter the Assembly Language shuttle. This small craft carries 5000 units of energy and 1 torpedo deflector. It can dock at a base or a planet for energy. You can get a new Euphoria-class ship if you dock with a base. Docking ------- The Euphoria must periodically dock at an energy source (base or planet) to replenish its supplies. Planets offer energy only. Bases offer energy, torpedos, pods, deflectors, and quick repairs to any subsystems of the ship that need it. To dock, you must bump the Euphoria into the energy source while traveling at WARP 1. Moving once at WARP 1 takes about 20 seconds. During this time you must be prepared to defend yourself and the base or planet from attackers. Bases can fire back at any ship that fires upon them, but they only have 3500 units of defensive energy, so guard them well. Planets have 3000 units of defensive energy to withstand attacks but will not fire back. Bases and planets have finite reserves of energy to give you. After docking a couple of times at the same energy source, you may notice that it has dried up, and has not given you the full amount of energy, torpedos etc. that you expected. It is time to find new sources. The Galaxy Scan --------------- Command 'g' will display a map of the galaxy, showing the numbers of C ships, planets and bases in any quadrant that you have visited. Typing 'g' again will restore the normal view. Sometimes your sensors will be damaged and you will not be able to view the galaxy scan. It will also show how many enemy ships are remaining, and you can find out if the BASIC ships are at TRUCE, are HOSTILE, or are CLOAKING (very HOSTILE). This scan is particularly important when your reserves are getting low and you are searching for an energy source. As you are viewing the scan the action is still taking place! Your ship is still moving and you can be struck by enemy fire - watch out! Tips ---- To win this game you must get totally involved in it. The game never waits for you. You must act quickly and decisively when there is an immediate threat to your safety. You must keep an eye on your energy reserves, and plan where your next docking will take place. Be aware when your deflectors have run out and you become vulnerable to 4000-unit torpedo blasts. Do not just fly around aimlessly, picking fights with whoever comes along. You need a plan! It is generally a good idea to focus on quadrants that contain energy sources, clearing out enemy ships, making them safe places to dock. Do not have a showdown with C++ until you are ready. It takes 4 torpedo hits or several medium-range phasor blasts to kill him. He will hit you with phasor blasts that are much stronger than you are used to from other enemy craft. From a tactical point of view you are safer to travel near the edge of quadrants, since you can quickly escape into the adjacent quadrant when you are in danger. When entering a new quadrant be prepared to immediately back out if you don't like what you see. Travel at WARP 4 most of the time. It is the most energy-efficient way to travel. WARP 5 is faster but burns energy at a very high rate. Only travel at WARP 5 when you are in extreme danger. When shooting at an enemy target you should first stop at WARP 0 or, if you are docking, move at WARP 1. You can shoot on the run, but it gets frustrating when you miss and waste your torpedo, or phasor energy. Enemy ships can enter your quadrant from neighboring quadrants. They tend to do so when your energy is low or you are moving slowly. You should anticipate their sudden arrival, especially when you are attempting to dock. Be prepared to act quickly, or your energy source may be blown out from under you, just before you dock with it. You will need some practice before you are skilled at typing in commands and aiming your weapons. Experts do not wait for a command to finish before typing in their next command. It may help to do a trial phasor using 0 units of energy to see what the correct direction is before you use energy on a real phasor. 0-unit phasors are also useful for finding cloaking BASIC ships. On rare occasions your enemy may be in a "blind spot" where he cannot be hit at any specified angle. In this case you must move the Euphoria slightly and try again. Do not use 900 unit phasors when something a lot less will finish off your enemy. Use torpedos when the enemy ship is far away. It is quite an achievement to win this game - even the experts lose more games than they win. If you think of a way of improving the game, by all means go ahead! The source code is yours. Better still, write your own game from scratch with much better graphics. Objects in the Galaxy --------------------- (facing right) =-O Euphoria :=- Assembly Language Shuttle >**O C >**8- ANSI C >**8= C++ :##=- BASIC >+- Fortran OOOO OOOOOO Planet OOOO <>-<> Base <>-<> Good Luck!