Description
The Captain is on holiday and war with the Klingons has just broken out in sector 3. So, off you go with the rest of the crew of the Starship Enterprise to fight the demonic Klingons. Your reactions must be fast because the Klingons don't wait for anyone and have a disconcerting habit of exterminating sluggish starships. In this war you will be struggling for survival.
Running The Program
When the game is run, it asks for the difficulty level: 1 is easy and 9 is virtually impossible for a beginner.
After the message "ALL SYSTEMS GO", the screen will display a real time short range scan of the quadrant of the galaxy you are in. To the right of this is your information panel showing fuel levels, current position, shield levels, etc. Below this the message "SHIELD FAILURE" is displayed if the shield has been drained by continuous Klingon bombardment. The bottom part of the screen is reserved for your commands.
The battlefield is a galaxy 10 by 10 quadrants in size, each quadrant also being 10 by 10. The number of Klingons you have to destroy and the number of star bases for refuelling are set by the difficulty level at the start of the game.
You have the following commands available:
| F | Fire photon torpedoes. You will be told the number of torpedo banks that remain unfired and then asked for a direction (see below). This will be repeated until all banks have been fired or you type S. |
| M | Move Enterprise. You are asked for a heading (see below). |
| L | The long range scanner is activated until another key is pressed. It shows the amounts of stars, star bases and Klingons in the surrounding quadrants, under the heading "S", "B" and "K" respectively. |
| S | Asks for new value of shield power. If the number of Klingons is high, more shield power is required and this is deducted from the fuel level each second. |
| R | Repair damage to the Enterprise. Once started, this cannot be stopped until the repairs have been completed. While you are having repairs you are vulnerable to attack. |
| E | Press this to test whether you have killed all the Klingons and, if you have, it will end the game. |
| P | Panic button. Activates an emergency warp drive. |
While commands that ask for more information are being typed, the display will freeze. When you press RETURN on a line of data, for example a heading, the program will update the display to show what was happening while you were typing. When it has finished, your command will be completed. So you may have been killed while you were typing yet not be told until after you press RETURN.
Directions And Distances
A distance of 0.1 will move you to the next position horizontally or vertically. Also, a distance of 1 will move you a quadrant width horizontally or vertically. Headings are given in degrees. For instance, 0 is down, 90 is right, -90 is left and 180 is going up. Any angle between these can be used.
180
-90 * 90
0
Hint: If you get swamped by Klingons try shooting a star!
Carl Graham, EUG #31