Star Control 3 Hyper Melee Demo MANUAL.TXT September 20, 1996 ********************************** *** Use the UP and DOWN arrow *** *** keys to scroll this text *** *** file and ESC key to return *** *** to the menu. *** ********************************** STAR CONTROL 3 (TM) HYPER MELEE DEMO MANUAL ------------------------------------------- For technical help, or information on installing and running Star Control 3, please consult the README.TXT and HELP.ME files. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Introduction II. Quick Start III. Using Star Control 3 IV. Title Screen V. Hyper Melee A. Hyper Melee Configuration Screen B. Remote Play C. Fleet Setup Screen D. Fleet Selection Screen E. In Melee IX. Changing The Melee Universe X. Customer Service XI. Legal Mumbo Jumbo ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the STAR CONTROL 3 Hyper Melee Demo. This playable demo includes the fast action Hyper Melee star ship combat from the giant STAR CONTROL 3 adventure game. In this demo, you can choose from 7 distinctive star ships and play against the computer, or against a friend on a single computer or over a modem, serial link, or IPX network. In the full game you will be able to choose from 25 wildly different ships in Hyper Melee combat. In the full STAR CONTROL 3 adventure game you'll have hours of intense negotiations with 24 different alien races with full speech and photo-realistic alien animations. The full game also has glorious SVGA animated introduction and cut scenes and the complete quest to save the universe from its dire fate. For the most up-to-date information on installation and configuration of Star Control 3 Hyper Melee Demo, please consult the README.TXT file. Take Control! Get Star Control 3 and explore a whole universe of excitement and adventure. Available September 1996 at stores everywhere or call 1-800-245-7744 to order or for more information. See you in the stars! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- QUICK START ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copy the SC3MELEE.EXE file to a SC3MELEE subdirectory on your hard drive. Run the SC3MELEE program and then the SETSOUND utility from the SC3MELEE subdirectory. Run the MELEE7 program to play the game. Once the game is up and running, you can delete the SC3MELEE.EXE file to regain hard some space on your hard drive. For more detailed instructions, check out the RUNNING STAR CONTROL 3 section of the README.TXT file. To get help on how to use the game, press F1 from the Hyper Melee Configuration Screen. To find the name of an icon, hold the pointer over it for a moment without pressing any buttons. For more detailed instructions, check out the USING STAR CONTROL 3 section. Have fun! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- USING STAR CONTROL 3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Most choices in Star Control 3 are made with the mouse. The icons on the right side of the screen control most functions in the game. ACTIVATE AN ITEM OR MAKE A CHOICE: Put the mouse pointer over the item or icon and click the left mouse button. This is referred to as "Click the item". EXIT A FUNCTION OR CANCEL A CHOICE: Click the right mouse button or press the Escape key. This is referred to as "Right Click the item". GET MORE INFORMATION ABOUT AN ITEM: Hold the mouse pointer over the item or icon and don't click any buttons. After a moment, information will be displayed relating to the item or icon. This is referred to as "Scanning the item". USE THE KEYBOARD: The keyboard can only be used to make certain choices. The Escape key cancels or interrupts an action. While saving, loading, or exiting the game, the keyboard is used to confirm your choice (Press Y for yes and N for no.) In Hyper Melee, the keyboard may be used to control star ships in arcade space combat or to configure the user's view of the battle. GET HELP: Press F1 on the Hyper Melee Configuration Screen to get information on how to play Hyper Melee. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE SCREEN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The icons on the right side of the title screen perform these actions, in order from top to bottom: START HYPER MELEE: Click the Hyper Melee icon to go to the Hyper Melee Configuration Screen. Hyper Melee is fast action arcade starship combat. Each player chooses a fleet from 7 different starships. In the full version of Star Control 3, each player will have 25 wildly different starships to choose from. In battle, each player chooses a ship from his fleet and faces off in a series of one-on-one combats, until only one fleet remains. START ADVENTURE GAME: Not available in the Hyper Melee Demo. In the full version of Star Control 3 the Adventure Game puts the player in command of the League of Sentient Races' exploration and colonization mission to the Kessarri Quadrant. There, the player engages in exploration, negotiation, and arcade space combat to decide the fate of all sentient life in the galaxy. LOAD SAVED ADVENTURE GAME: Not available in the Hyper Melee Demo. VIEW CREDITS: Not available in the Hyper Melee Demo. QUIT GAME: Click the Quit icon to exit the game to the operating system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HYPER MELEE ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HYPER MELEE CONFIGURATION SCREEN ------------------------------- SETUP PLAYER 1: Use top 5 icons. SETUP PLAYER 2: Use second 5 icons. START A BATTLE: Once all human players have picked a fleet, click the Fight icon and go to the Fleet Selection Screen. RETURN TO TITLE SCREEN: Click the Quit icon. Setup Player Options: SET HUMAN/COMPUTER PLAYER CONTROL: Click the first of five icons. CHOOSE YOUR FLEET: Click the fifth of five icons and use the Setup Fleet Screen. If you choose Human Control: KEYBOARD CONTROL: Click the Keyboard icon (second of five icons). SETUP KEYBOARD: Click the highlighted Keyboard icon. Follow on-screen instructions. Press keys for: Rotate Left, Rotate Right, Thrust, Fire, and Special Ability/Secondary Weapon. Click OK to accept the new keys or RESET to accept the default key definitions. Choose carefully to avoid assigning multiple functions, or functions from both players, to the same key. JOYSTICK CONTROL: Click the Joystick icon (third of five icons). CALIBRATE JOYSTICK: Click the highlighted Joystick icon. Follow the on-screen instructions. MOUSE CONTROL: Click the Mouse icon (fourth of five icons). SETUP MOUSE: Click the highlighted Mouse icon. Follow on-screen instructions. Click the Relative or Absolute controls for Thrust and Rotation. Click OK. If you choose Computer Control: SET STANDARD COMPUTER PLAYER: Click the second of five icons. SET GOOD COMPUTER PLAYER: Click the third of five icons. SET AWESOME COMPUTER PLAYER: Click the fourth of five icons. REMOTE PLAY: ----------- STARTING A NETWORK GAME: Run Star Control 3, then click on the Hyper Melee icon inside the game. From the Fight Setup menu, select REMOTE PLAYER by clicking on the Player 2 icon until the REMOTE PLAYER symbol appears. Choose the NETWORK PLAY icon (not MODEM or SERIAL) from the icons below the REMOTE PLAYER icon on the screen. STARTING A MODEM GAME: Run Star Control 3, then click on the Hyper Melee icon inside the game. From the Fight Setup menu, select REMOTE PLAYER by clicking on the Player 2 icon until the REMOTE PLAYER symbol appears. Choose the MODEM PLAY icon (not NETWORK or SERIAL) from the icons below the REMOTE PLAYER icon on the screen. Click on the same icon again to choose the correct COM port and baud rate. If someone calls you, using Hyper Melee to connect with your modem, leave the ANSWER radio button highlighted and click OK. If you are dialing another number, highlight the DIAL radio button, type in the correct phone number, and press OK. When done, back to DOS and restart if you want to play again. STARTING A SERIAL GAME: Run Star Control 3, then click on the Hyper Melee icon inside the game. From the Fight Setup menu, select REMOTE PLAYER by clicking on the Player 2 icon until the REMOTE PLAYER symbol appears. Choose the SERIAL PLAY icon (not NETWORK or MODEM) from the icons below the REMOTE PLAYER icon on the screen. Click on the same icon again to choose the correct COM port (usually COM Port 2). When done, back to DOS and restart if you want to play again. FLEET SETUP SCREEN ------------------------------- DECIDE HOW LARGE A BATTLE WILL BE: Human players mutually decide how many points of ships to choose. Each player should watch the Fleet Point Totals to stay within those limits. These limits are maintained by the honor system so players can easily handicap one player against another. If players are evenly matched, give each player the same number of points. If one player is much better than another, give the opponent an extra 100 points in ships to balance out the battle. Choose ships for both fleets and then begin the battle. CHOOSE SHIPS: Click on one of the 7 ship icons in the Ship List. In the full game, you can place the pointer over the up and down arrows to scroll the list and reveal all 25 ships. Choose ships until you have reached your mutually decided upon point limit. REJECT SHIPS: Click on the ship picture in the Fleet Window. COMPARE FLEET STRENGTH: Compare the point total for Player 1's fleet with the point total for Player 2's fleet. SAVE FLEET: Click the Save A Fleet icon. This option lists the description of all saved fleets. Click on [New Save File], type a description, and press ENTER to create a new saved fleet. Click on an old saved fleet, type a description, and press ENTER to replace it with the current fleet. If there are more saved fleets than will fit on one screen, move the pointer to the top or bottom of the screen to scroll the list. LOAD FLEET: Click the Load A Fleet icon. This option lists the description of all saved fleets. If there are more saved fleets than will fit on one screen, move the pointer to the top or bottom of the screen to scroll the list. Click on a saved fleet to load it. REJECT WHOLE FLEET: Click the Reset Fleet icon. RETURN TO HYPER MELEE SETUP SCREEN: Click the Done icon. FLEET SELECTION SCREEN ------------------------------- Once a battle begins, each player chooses a ship from his fleet and faces off in a series of one-on-one combats until only one fleet remains. CHOOSE A SHIP: Click on a ship picture in the Fleet Window on the left side of the screen. The opponent in the next battle, if known, is shown as an icon on the right side of the screen. RECONFIGURE: Click the Exit icon to go to the Hyper Melee Configuration Screen. IN MELEE ------------------------------- In Hyper Melee, the controls are as simple as possible, just turning, thrusting, and firing. But finding the right strategy for each of the 25 ships with their wildly varying weapons and abilities, is a blast. Default Controls: Player One Player Two Left (left arrow) C Thrust (up arrow) V Right (right arrow) B Primary Weapon CTRL X Secondary Weapon/ ALT Z Special Ability Player 1's race, crew, ship, and hits are displayed on the top left of the screen. Player 2's race, crew, ship, and hits are displayed on the top right of the screen. The following keyboard commands are available in Hyper Melee: RECONFIGURE: Press the ESCAPE key to go to the Hyper Melee Setup Screen. NORMAL SPEED / LIGHTNING MODE: Press F4 to toggle between playing at normal speed or in hyper-fast lightning mode. ISOMETRIC VIEW / OVERHEAD VIEW: Press F5 to switch views. ISOMETRIC VIEW STAR PLANE: ON / OFF: Press the F6 key to toggle the star plane in isometric view. OVERHEAD VIEW SCROLLING: CONTINUOUS / JUMP: Press the F7 key to toggle scrolling in the overhead view. ZOOMED VIEW / COMPLETE VIEW: Press the F8 key to toggle the zoom level. ORDER AGGRESSIVE COMPUTER ATTACK: Press the F9 key to make the computer-controlled ships attack aggressively for a short time. Use this to break up long fights where the computer-controlled ships are acting too defensively. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Changing The Melee Universe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There are a number of experimental parameters you can change to modify the universe in the melee demo. You can modify the size of asteroids and planets, change gravity, or make the demo run at eye-blurring speeds. These modifications are all experimental. In a few systems, some of these parameters may make the game unstable, cause delays, or even cause it to crash. Use only those parameters that work well on your system. You can make temporary changes to the melee universe by adding these modifiers as command line parameters after the MELEE7.EXE program. For example, if you wanted to play a single game where the planet was half size but had double strength gravity, you would launch the game by typing: Example: MELEE7 PLANET_SCALE=50 GRAVITY=8 You can make these changes permanent by adding them as new lines in the LEGEND.INI file. Use the DOS EDIT program or the Windows 95 NOTEPAD program to edit the LEGEND.INI. If you wanted to permanently double the number of asteroids and halve the size of the gravity well you would add the following lines to the end of the LEGEND.INI file: Example: ASTEROIDS=10 GRAVITY_THRESHOLD=200 None of these modifiers work in a remote game. Do not make permanent changes to your LEGEND.INI file if you intend to use remote play. The parameters you can add to the melee demo are: FAST Makes melee run as fast as your computer will process it, even faster than lightning mode. On many computers, this will probably be too fast to have fun controlling the ships by hand, but is good for quickly testing one fleet against another when both are under computer control. ASTEROIDS=X X= 0 to 50, Default is 5 Modifies the number of asteroids in the universe. However, each asteroid requires memory, so higher numbers may make the game unstable on some systems, especially if you also use the ASTEROID_SCALE modifier to make them bigger than normal. ASTEROID_SCALE=X X = 1 to 400, Default is 100 Modifies the size of the asteroids in the game. 100 = 100%, or normal size. When you change the scale of the asteroids, the program must reprocess the asteroid art, so you may see some delay when loading. Also, the larger the asteroids are the more memory they take up. Higher numbers may make the game unstable on some systems, especially if you also use the ASTEROIDS modifier to increase the number in the universe. PLANET_SCALE=X X = 1 to 250, Default is 100 Modifies the size of the planet in the game. 100 = 100%, or normal size. When you change the scale of the planet, the program must reprocess the planet art, so you may see some delay when loading. Collisions with a scaled planet may seem slightly off in the isometric view, but they are correct in the overhead view. Also, the larger the planet is, the more memory it takes up. Higher numbers may make the game unstable on some systems. GRAVITY_THRESHOLD=X X = 1 to 800, Default is 400 Modifies the radius of the area effected by gravity around each planet. Gravity is strongest near the planet and weakest at the edge of the gravity threshold. Some slower ships may be unable to break free of a large gravity well. GRAVITY=X X= 0 to 16, Default is 4 Modifies the strength of the average gravity within the gravity threshold. Gravity is strongest near the planet and weakest at the edge of the gravity threshold. Larger numbers may cause erratic behavior in the movement of ships. Some slower ships may be unable to break free of a strong gravity well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CUSTOMER SERVICE ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest technical support issues are listed in the HELP.ME file. Consult that document for the most up-to-date information on installation and known problems with the program. Please refer to the README.TXT file for the most up-to-date addenda to the manual. On-line Support: Accolade gives customer service, news, demos, technical support, and other information on the following on-line services: America On-line: Industry Connection, keyword: Accolade Compuserve: Game Publishers' A Forum, GO GAMAPUB Internet: techelp@accolade.com WWW: http://www.accolade.com Contact Us Directly: Accolade provides help by telephone Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm Pacific Standard Time. Call 1-408-296-8400 (voice) or 1-408-246-0231 (FAX). You may also write us at the following postal address: Customer Service Accolade, Inc. 5300 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 500 San Jose, CA 95129 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LEGAL MUMBO JUMBO ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Accolade and STAR CONTROL 3 are registered trademarks of Accolade, Inc. Copyright 1996, Accolade, Inc. All rights reserved. Created by Legend Entertainment and based upon characters created by and used under license from Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford. DOS 4GW Professional used under license agreement with Tenberry Software, Inc. Acrobat and the Acrobat logo are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated which may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Windows and Windows 95 are registered trademarks of Microsoft in the United States and/or other countries. WATCOM C++ used under license agreement with WATCOM, Inc. AIL 3.5 portions of the game code used under license agreement with Miles Design, Inc. General MIDI timbres for Yamaha OPL-2- and OPL-3-based sound cards were produced by The Fat Man TM and developed by K. Weston Phelan and George Alistair Sanger. (c) 1993, The Fat Man TM. 90 DAY WARRANTY Accolade, Inc. warrants for a period of 90 days from the date of purchase by the original purchaser of the Software that the recording medium on which it is recorded will be free from defects in materials and workmanship. Defective media which has not been subjected to misuse, excessive wear or damage due to carelessness may be returned during the 90-day period without charge. After the 90-day period, defective media may be replaced in the United States for $10 (U.S. dollars, plus 8.25% sales tax if the purchaser resides in California). Make checks payable to Accolade, Inc. and return to Accolade, Inc., Attn: Customer Service, 5300 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 500, San Jose, CA 95129. (To speed up processing, return only your CD-ROM. Please do not return collateral materials.) LICENSE AGREEMENT This computer software product (the Software) and user manual is provided to the Customer under license from Accolade, Inc. and is subject to the following terms and conditions, to which the Customer agrees by opening the package of the Software, user manual and/or using the Software. Granting of this license does not transfer any right, title or interest in the Software, or user manual to the Customer except as expressly set forth in this License Agreement. The Software and user manuals may not be copied for any reason. The Customer may not transfer or resell the Software or user manual. The remedies provided above are the Customer's sole and exclusive remedies. In no event shall Accolade, Inc. be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages with respect to the Software or the user manual. Except as provided above, Accolade makes no warranties, either express or implied, with respect to the Software or user manual, and expressly disclaims all implied warranties, including, without limitation, the warranty of merchantability and of fitness for a particular purpose. ********************************** *** Use the UP and DOWN arrow *** *** keys to scroll this text *** *** file and ESC key to return *** *** to the menu. *** ********************************** **********************************************************************