x122 Star Raiders: by Lou DuChez The Story: A fleet of invading warships is passing through your space sector, destroying everything in its path. You are the lone defender of the sector, piloting a craft with warp drive, advanced defensive shielding, a weapons system with lock- on potential, and long-range and short-range scanners. Your mission is to destroy the invaders before they can destroy you or any of your three star bases. The Game: As you play the game, you will be looking out the ship's main view screen, where you will see enemy ships randomly moving up and down, left and right, near and far (if they happen to be in view). You have crosshairs to use as a torpedo sight; when an enemy is in the middle of the sight, the hairs will switch from white to red to indicate a weapons lock. A torpedo fired while you have a lock will follow the ship targeted. (Without a lock, you really don't have much chance to destroy anything but the nearest enemies.) The concentric boxes at the bottom middle of the screen comprise your short-range sensor: each dot in the sensor represents an enemy ship (blue dot = "enemy is far away", red dot = "enemy is extremely close"). If the dot is within the inner box, the ship is visible on the view screen. Flanking the box are four indicators: an "M" (indicating that your short-range map is functioning), a "T" (to indicate that your torpedos are functioning); an "S" (if your shields are working); and a digit to indicate how many enemies are left in the sector. Keys: Imagine that your ship is controlled by an aviator's joystick. That's how to use the numeric keypad: "Up" to head down, "Down" to head up; "Left" to go left and "Right" to go right. (Notice that the objects on the screen will go opposite of those directions.) You may also use the diagonal keys for combinations. "Ins" fires your torpedo; "Del" calls up your long-range map (see "Warping" below). Notice that you can do all your fighting one-handed, so the other hand will be free to eat with or talk on the phone. You can "Pause" or "Unpause" the game with the "P" key. "Q" is your self-destruct / "Quit" button. 2 Damage: Enemies can fire torpedos at you only when they are on the view screen, and only when they don't already have a torpedo flying at you. (Tip: they usually choose to fire when they are changing course.) You may dodge a torpedo by maneuvering it off the screen; if you don't see it explode, it didn't hit you. If you are hit by an enemy torpedo, the bottom of the screen will flash red, and your torpedos, short-range map, or shields might go out. If your torpedos go out, your crosshairs disappear (and the "T" goes blank). When you lose your short-range map, the "M" disappears, and the short-range map "freezes". When your shields go out, the blue bars on the sides of the view screen disappear (as does the "S"), at which point you are eminently destructible (assume a 20-25% chance of destruction on any hit). All this damage may be repaired by docking with a base (see below). Warping: To enter "Warp", first you need to display your long-range map (by hitting "Del"). A matrix of numbers and symbols will appear, each repre- senting a space sector. A number indicates how many enemy craft are in the sector; a dash indicates an empty sector; and a "B" represents a base sector. The sector you are currently in is displayed in red, and there will initially be a white box around it. To move to another sector, move the box to another sector and hit "Ins"; a mediocre swirling effect will follow for about 10 seconds, indicating that you are in hyperspace. (To get back out of "Map" mode without warping, just hit "Del" again.) The Fleet: The fleet starts at the upper left of the screen and proceeds to the lower right. Each ship in the fleet is bent on getting to the lower right of the screen; if one of your bases happens to be in the way, it gets destroyed. (So your two bases on the sides are relatively easy to protect; just clip off the "wings" of the invading fleet.) Your presence affects fleet movement: no enemy ships can move into or out of the sector you are in at the time the fleet advances. So enemy ships will try to move around you, going towards the edges of the screen if they can. (So you can sometimes be responsible for destroying your own base by forcing enemy ships to go around you and plow through base sectors.) When a base is destroyed, the computer will alert you by making your screen flash red as if you had yourself been hit (although you take no damage). 2 Docking: Warp to a base sector; you will see a white circle (your base) approach and draw away repeatedly. To dock, you must get the base in the middle of your sight when it is at its closest range (note: even if your torpedos are out, you will have crosshairs while docking, so you will be able to steer). Once you have docked, the base stops moving, all damage is repaired, and you may resume the fight. Scoring: Basically, the more of them you destroy, the more points you get (2 points per enemy). You get 20 points for each surviving base, and an additional 20 if you yourself survive. Each time you dock costs you 5 points. You also get a bonus if the fleet moves quicker than every 80 seconds (5 points for each 10 seconds quicker) or a deduction of they move slower (5 points for every 10 seconds). Parameters: When you start RAIDERS.EXE, you are given a light-bar menu that will let you change the fleet speed (10 seconds per move to 200 seconds per move) and the maximum number of enemies per sector (from 1 to 9). The defaults are 80 seconds per move and a maximum of 6 enemies per sector. You may also enter parameters from the command line: to set the fleet speed to 75 seconds and the maximum number of enemies per sector to 7, type RAIDERS R75 E7