INTRODUCTION ============ It is Stardate 8412.35. The news has just come in that the uneasy truce with the Klingon empire has erupted into full-scale war. The Klingons and Romulans have formed an unholy alliance and have taken over the Sagittarius sector of the Federation. Only you, commander of the starship Enterprise, can save the galaxy from the dreadful Klingon-Romulan menace. Thus begins another chapter in the continuing saga of Federation history. Your mission, should you decide to accept (dare you decline?) is to rid the galaxy forever of the terror of the Klingons and Romulans. Only you and a few remaining starbases stand between them and total domination. You must captain a new and completely rebuilt Enterprise against the awful forces ranged against you. Although your ship is many times more powerful than any one of theirs, still, their sheer numbers and determination may win the war. Can YOU save the Federation? Are you skilled and daring enough to try? Hundreds of worlds and countless beings are depending on you and your crew. Good luck! THE GAME ======== This game simulates those dreadful days, and is currently used by Starfleet Command to train new recruits in battle strategy and tactics The game can be played on a fairly simple level (10-15 minutes long, unless you are totally inept) or at a very complex level requiring long range strategic decisions and taking many hours and sessions to complete. One of the nice features is that it can be played on any type of terminal, CRT or hardcopy, running at any speed. The program rates your performance and will promote you for success and will demote you for failure. There is a built in help facility (type ? at any time during the game) that should be used frequently at first, as the help files contain some material that is not mentioned here. The game can be saved at any points and restarted later (there are some built in protections to prevent using this feature to cheat, so don't try). Page 2 THE ENTERPRISE ============== As advertised, you are placed in command of the starship Enterprise, and must destroy all the Klingons and Romulans that have invaded this sector of the galaxy in a limited amount of time. The Enterprise has been completely rebuilt, with many improvements, but unfortunately has not been tried in battle since then, so you may find circuits blowing out at crucial moments (call Field Service). You have at your disposal the normal phasors and photon torpedos, as well as tractor and repulsor beams, enhanced scan and tracking displays, and autopilot to keep you on course, a shuttlecraft to explore planets, and transporters to beam troops to enemy vessels and capture them for your own use. THE GALAXY ========== The galaxy is represented as an N by N matrix of quadrants (N is user selectable from 2-10). Each quadrant is displayed as a 10 by 10 matrix of points. Distances are measured in astronomical units, one a.u. being defined as the distance between two dots on the quadrant display. Thus each quadrant is 100 square a.u.s. Each point in the quadrant is assigned an x and y coordinate ranging from 0.5 to 10.49999... (although, due to the limitations of the display, all objects appear to be on integer coordinates). Within the galaxy, there will be a variable number of starbases at random locations. Starbases are friendly ports that can be used to refuel and repair damage or just to escape from enemy attacks. The enemy ships can destroy a starbase but usually not without a long siege. All action involving the Enterprise takes place in only one quadrant at a time. If you leave a quadrant and later reenter it, everything will be 'reset' to new positions and with its original status. If you attempt to leave the galaxy, you will encounter a space-time warp that will damage the ship, but may send you back (or forward) in time. Page 3 MOVEMENT ======== Unlike some other simulations, every object capable of motion has a speed and bearing, and will keep moving in a straight line until its course is changed. Changes in speed and bearing are not instantaneous; you have to accelerate or decelerate to the desired speed (so moving objects changing bearing will follow a curved path). Bearings are given in the 0-360 degree range, with 0 being to the right, 90 being straight up, etc. The unit of time is the starminute (100 starminutes equals 1 starday or stardate) and the measure of speed is a.u.s per starminute (au/stm). In order to engage the enemy, you must be travelling at speeds of less than 1.0 au/stm (warp 1). Your short range sensors will not even work at higher speeds. Remember that you continue to move along your previous course until you change your velocity (at 0.5 au/stm it would take you 20 starminutes (turns) to cross one quadrant). Also remember that changes do not take place instantaneously. For instance, the Enterprise normally accelerates at the rate of 0.25 au/stm/stm and turns at the rate of 45 degrees/stm. When you are travelling at any speed greater than or equal to warp 1, you are not in normal space, but in hyperspace. When travelling in hyperspace, you cannot see where the enemy is, but neither can they see you, so they won't be firing at you. If your warp drive is damaged, your impulse engines will take over, although they cannot be used to accelerate you beyond 0.55 au/stm (so you can't use them to escape into hyperspace). THE ENEMY ========= Unlike some other simulations, the enemy does not just sit still and let you take pot shots at them. They constantly move around and are even programmed to dodge your torpedos. Klingons will always shoot at you with phasors, and Romulans only with photon torpedos (they can calculate interception courses, so be careful). Klingons can range all over the quadrant, but Romulans 'hop' around on integer coordinates only. They are not in the habit of getting out of your way if you approach too closely (you will take heavy damage if you collide with one). At certain levels, they are allowed to move from quadrant to quadrant regardless of where any action is taking place. Usually, they will move to attack your undefended starbases, and can destroy them if you don't come to the rescue soon enough. Also, at certain levels, there will be invisible (cloaked) Romulans. If you capture one of them, you will capture their cloaking device and all the remaining invisible Romulans Page 4 will 'materialize' and your ship will become invisible to them (for a time). FACILITIES ========== You have at your disposal some of the most advanced weaponry of the Federation. Your phasors are excellent close range weapons capable of firing in a forward or rear direction. Photon torpedos (you carry 15 on board) will destroy any enemy ship upon contact. Repulsor beams can be used to push away menacing Klingons. You can use your transporters to beam troops over to enemy vessels, and if you capture them, you can control them with your communications and have them fire at other enemy! As a last resort, you can even blow yourself up in a blaze of glory and take any enemy that were in the same quadrant along with you to Valhalla. You have a variety of scans and displays available: a short range scan showing the entire quadrant, a long range scan showing the contents of surrounding quadrants, a galactic scan that shows all the long range scans to date and also the locations of all surviving starbases. There are tracking and bearing reports for planets, enemy vessels and torpedos, and nucleonic storms. Damage reports can tell you where to send your damage control crews for maximum efficiency. A status report will give you a general summary of the game and tell you what technological discoveries you have made on other planets, while the ship/s computer can provide information on black holes in the quadrant or shuttlecraft round trip time, among other things. Propulsion is accomplished via your warp or impulse engines. You can use emergency power if you warp drive is undamaged (changes course at twice the normal rate). If the warp drive is damaged, your impulse engines will automatically cut in. Only one word of warning: if you take 3 hits on your warp engines without repairing them in between, your ship will blow up. You have a shuttlecraft that can be used to explore new planets and perhaps come back with some discovery that will help you in your battle. You have an autopilot that will maintain your course in the face of the gravitational attraction of any black hole(s) in the quadrant. Communications allow you to request information from your starbases or control vessels that you have captured. Page 5 HOW TO PLAY =========== When you type the command to run the game, the program will ask you for your last name. You may enter whatever you wish, up to 16 characters (case is irrelevant). It will then ask you for a password (again, up to 16 characters). The program maintains a record of activity and rank for each player, encoded so other players cannot tamper with it. You should use the same name and password each time you play. For security reasons, you should probably use a different password than the one with which you sign onto the computer. Next, you are asked whether or not you want the game rated. Type a ? at this point to get a description of the rating system. The program will then ask for the game parameters desired (level of play, galaxy size, number of enemy). Again, type ? to get more information. Finally, you will receive a statement of your mission, and will start the game with a short range scan of the quadrant you are currently occupying. At this point, you are advised to go through the help facility and list the help available on every command. You can and probably should make use of this help facility the first few times you use each command, as there may be some options not readily apparent from the command prompt. We will not bore you with notes on strategy and tactics; it's much more interesting to discover them for yourself, and even the designer of the game may have overlooked a few tricks (no!). You can save the game at any point and resume it at a later time. By the way, it IS possible to make it to Fleet Admiral. It only took the designer 168 games. ENTERING COMMANDS ================= Whenever you see the "COMMAND>" prompt, you should type in the number of the command you wish to execute. Typing a carriage return instead will simply mark the passage of time (1 starminute). Typing a question mark will access the help facility. Commands are entered as numbers, currently ranging from 1 to 25. A brief description of the commands is given below. At any point during the entering of a command or any of its parameters, you may type a pound sign ("#") to cancel the entire command and return to the "COMMAND>" prompt. This does not involve any loss of game time. 1. Change course - You will be asked for a new course and bearing. Warp drive will be used unless damaged. Page 6 2. Emergency course change - May be used only if warp drive is undamaged and runs the risk of damaging it. You get twice the normal acceleration but at three times the energy cost. Good for avoiding that planet you were going to crash into. 3. Fire phasors - You will be asked for a direction and an amount of energy to use. You can fire phasors in either a forward or rear direction. Works best if you are pointing in the general direction of the target (or directly away from it). 4. Fire photon torpedos - You may give orders to fire up to 9 torpedos in one command, but only one will be fired each starminute. You must give a bearing for each torpedo, but the actual bearing and speed will be the vector sum of the ship's velocity and the torpedo launch velocity at the time of launch (normal torpedo launch velocity is 0.4 au/stm). You can also use this command to cancel any outstanding torpedo orders given previously. 5. Repulsor beams - These are used to push away Klingons that are getting a little too close for comfort. You must specify which Klingon and the amount of energy to use. Try pushing them out of the galaxy! 6. Tractor beams - The sole purpose of these is to pull in and dock with a ghostship (derelict vessel that may contain useful energy and/or torpedos). The amount of energy required is calculated automatically. Your shields must be down before you can do this. 7. Transporters - Your ship comes completely assembled (batteries not included) with 400 crew and 400 assault troops. The troops may be used to attempt to capture enemy vessels for your own use. Klingons and Romulans will have defensive forces ranging from 75 to 250, and Romulans are better fighters than Klingons. It takes about 120-150 sent over to capture a Klingon and about 50 more for a Romulan. Invisible Romulans (if you can find them) may take 3-400 troops to capture, if you can do it at all. Once you capture an enemy ship, it becomes yours to move and fire as long as you remain in the same quadrant. Be sure to beam your troops off before destroying captured enemy vessels. When a ship becomes yours, it will become immune to both yours and the enemy's fire! If captured enemy vessels are allowed to drift out of the quadrant, they are automatically recaptured by the enemy. 8. Communications - This is the means by which you control enemy vessels that you have captured. You can also use it to talk to your starbase(s). Page 7 9. Proceed - This command is used to pass time. Enter the number of starminutes you want the game to loop through. Be careful of entering large values if you are moving or there are enemy in the quadrant, as you won't be able to enter any commands until that amount of time has passed. 10. Truce - Use only if you are heavily damaged and can't take any more hits. The enemy will accept only if they are also in pretty bad shape. Damage repair occurs 2-3 times as fast during a truce (so does theirs). You cannot issue any change course orders or firing orders while a truce is in progress. The enemy will always honor truces that they accept. 11. Short range scan - Shows you the quadrant map plus pertinent information. This is your most basic and frequently used display. It happens automatically whenever you enter a new quadrant (at sublight speeds) or come out of hyperspace. 12. Long range scan - Shows you the contents of the immediately surrounding quadrants as a 4 digit number. Units place is the number of planets, a "B" in the tens place means there is a starbase there, 100's place shows the number of Klingons, and 1000's place shows the number of (visible) Romulans. 13. Galactic map - Shows the entire sector of the galaxy as built up from previous long range scans. If the enemy is moving between quadrants, distant parts of the galaxy may be out of date. Unknown territory is shown as "????", although it will always tell you where the starbases are located. 14. Status report - This shows the basic information available from your short range scan, but it can be done from hyperspace as well. Also shows any technological improvements found to date, or any unusual ship condition. 15. Tracking report - Can tell you the position and velocity of other moving vessels in the quadrant (Klingons, ghostships, or shuttlecraft), or the same for torpedos, or nucleonic storms. This is information that would not be available from the short range scan alone. 16. Plot bearings - Tells you the bearings from the Enterprise to any planets in the quadrant, and also to the starbase, if there is one. 17. Damage report - Reports on the amount of damage each facility has sustained. The damage is given in absolute terms, then as a MTTR (mean time to repair), which takes into consideration the percentage of crew allocated to repair that item and the number of crew members available for repair. Finally, it prints the percentage of crew that are currently assigned to repairing that item. Page 8 18. Damage control - With this command, you can assign different percentages of your crew to repair different items. You can have them all work on the most critical component for the particular situation in which you find yourself (for instance, repairing warp drive so you can get away from the enemy fast). The percentages you assign to each item remain in effect until another assignment is made, even after the damaged item is repaired. See the help available on this command for additional information on how repair crews are allocated. It's actually a lot simpler than it sounds. 19. Shuttlecraft - The sole purpose of the shuttlecraft is to explore the planets in a quadrant. What you may discover will not be mentioned here, but there are both good and bad things awaiting you out there. You can enter a list of planets to explore, order it to break off exploration and return to the Enterprise, or even order it to self-destruct if you think you've got something really dangerous you don't want brought on board. 20. Autopilot - The autopilot is used to maintain your given speed and bearing in a quadrant while counteracting the gravitational pull of any black hole(s) there. Without the autopilot turned on, your ship would start to drift towards a black hole, and you would be spending all your time issuing constant course corrections. You don't need the autopilot on when you are in hyperspace, and it uses 5 extra units of energy for every star minute left on. It cannot be used if the ship's computer is damaged. 21. Computer - Will perform 3 basic calculations for you: 1. Computes estimated shuttlecraft round trip time for a series of planetary explorations. 2. Computes the energy required to pull in a ghostship at that instant. 3. Will tell you where a black hole will bring you out if you are captured by its gravitational field. 22. Save game - Will "freeze" the game for resumption at a later date. Do not remove or modify the saved game file in the interim, or you may not be able to restart that game. You must replay it from the same directory that you started the game. 23. Shields - This command is used to add or subtract energy to or from your shields. You will want them up most of the time, as they are your only protection against battle damage. A hit with them down, or a hit greater than their current strength will always damage some item and kill crew and troops. Shields Page 9 do not protect your from collisions. 24. Clear screen - If some Klingon spy is looking over your shoulder and you don't want him to see what you're doing. 25. Self-destruct - Blows up the ship, taking everything else in the quadrant along with it. If you gotta go, you might as well go with a bang. HISTORY ======= This game was based on a game that I saw running on a DEC-10 at the University of Pittsburgh in 1974. I completely rewrote it for Univac 1108 in 1976 and greatly expanded and improved upon it. In 1984, I decided to do another complete rewrite (and expansion) for our VAX. This program is hereby placed in the public domain by the author. Sources are made available so that any bugs that creep in (of course there were none when this was released) can be eradicated at your site. However, those who have access to the source will have an advantage in playing the game, so don't leave it lying (spinning) around in plain sight, ok? Mike Shefler CONSAD Research Corporation 121 N. Highland Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15206 (412) 363-5500