CyberStrike Documentation 1.0 QUICK OVERVIEW (2/3/93) Welcome to CyberStrike, GEnie's most exciting and easy-to-play multiplayer game. CyberStrike has been designed with a few basic concepts in mind: Simple to learn, fun to play, and challenging to master. In CyberStrike, you control a walking CyberPod. You can turn this two-legged armored machine in every direction to look around, up and down, and walk about the CyberCity. It can go everywhere: Up ramps, down streets, through tunnels, and can even jump over obstacles. And it has weaponry which can be used to destroy enemy CyberPods. The only thing your CyberPod needs to keep going, is power. There are no bewildering stats to learn about, and no complicated armor and weapon charts to decide from. In fact, the only resource you need to worry about, is power. You use power to move, power to shoot, and power to stay alive. When you run out of power, your CyberPod will be destroyed, but don't worry, you'll get another one! Power is obtained from a power grid, by means of power relay towers stationed throughout the CyberCity. The closer you are to a power relay tower, the more power you can get from it. The further away you are, the less effective it is, but you can fix this by requesting a new tower at your current location. Building a network of towers throughout the CyberCity is the key to a good strategy. There's one tiny problem though: Enemy teams are also trying to establish a network of their own power relay towers (they can't use yours), and will probably blow up your towers wherever they can. This is the primary conflict of CyberStrike: Control of the CyberCity. If you'd like to get right into the game, we recommend you read Sections 2.2 (RUNNING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME) and 7.0 (QUICK REFERENCE CARD). If you'd like the full details, read all of the sections in order. 2.0 RUNNING THE SOFTWARE This section covers the hardware requirements for playing CyberStrike, and how to get the software up and running on your computer, such as how to set up the sound driver and start the software for the first time. 2.1 HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS The minimum hardware requirements for playing CyberStrike are: 386SX/20MHz MINIMUM 2 Meg of RAM Hard Drive space: at least 2 Meg VGA graphics Recommended for play (but not required) are: 33 MHz speed Minimum of 2400 baud modem Joystick Sound Blaster or Sound Blaster Pro sound card (most sound cards are supported) 2.2 RUNNING IT FOR THE FIRST TIME This section covers details about configuring your computer to run the software, and then walks you through the procedure to login to the CyberStrike chamber for the first time. 2.2.1 SETTING THE SOUND DRIVER If your computer has a sound card, CyberStrike will probably support it with great digital sound effects. However, in order to use sound, you must first download the CSOUND.EXE file from the CyberStrike software library. This self-extracting archive contains the digital sounds, sound drivers, and instructions on setting up sound for your computer. See Section 12.0 for a list of supported sound drivers so you can decide if you want to download this file or not. 2.2.2 STARTING THE CYBERSTRIKE SOFTWARE Once the software has been loaded onto your hard drive, make sure you are in the correct directory, and type CS to start it up. When you first do so, you will be presented with a settings window for customizing the software to your computer. On-screen instructions in the settings window will tell you how to manipulate the controls. Special things to pay attention to are the COM port setting, the baud rate, and your local GEnie node number and User ID. Once you've set those correctly, press the ESC key to exit the settings window. NOTE: If you have a mouse, it will not function until after you have configured the settings, because the CyberStrike software at that point will not know which COM port controls your modem, and which one controls your Mouse. But as soon you set the COM port and press ESC, the mouse should work normally. Now all you have to do is press the F1 key, or use the mouse to click on the big "Logon to GEnie" button, and CyberStrike will dial GEnie and log you on. If you don't see the button, or the left-hand button says something else than "Logon to GEnie", you probably just need to reconfigure something in your settings screen. If you need help, check the troubleshooting section (11.0) at the end of this manual for detailed suggestions on what could be causing the problem. Note: If you are dialing a 9600 baud line, those modems do not require that HHH be typed upon connect. The CyberStrike logon script is designed such that it will correct for this problem, and log you in anyway. At this point, you will be at GEnie's page 1 banner menu, and the buttons at the top of your screen will change to reflect this. Simply press F1 again (or click on the big "Go to CyberStrike" button), and you will be whisked into the CyberStrike chamber. (CHAMBER FE) PHONE ENTRY NOW ALLOWS * The Chamber FE now allows you to specify a * in the phone number. This will let you use the "*70," prefix to disable call-waiting service. 2.2.3 CYBERSTRIKE CHAMBER Before you enter the chamber for the first time, you will be prompted for a callsign. Once you choose a callsign, it's yours permanently (unless you decide to start an entirely new CyberPod). After you've chosen a callsign, you'll be in the CyberStrike chamber, which is a simple "chat" environment. To get into the actual game from there, press the F1 function key. The chamber has many other functions, which you can learn about in Section 9.0 (CHAMBER COMMANDS), but for now, let's get right into the game! TERMINAL MODE OPTION SCREEN While in the Chamber of CyberStrike, you can press F2 to reach an options menu which can issue many commands for you. As of this release, the Options menu does NOT support mouse clicks as the rest of the menus do. Use the function keys indicated instead. 2.3 ENTERING THE GAME As you leave the chamber (by pressing F1 or typing /PLAY) to enter the CyberCity, your display will change to show the 3-D environment you're entering. Your CyberPod, with you in it, will be literally dropped into the city from the sky. Once you land, you'll then be able to drive your CyberPod around the city, and wreak havoc as you see fit. Notice as you enter the CyberCity, that the team color you are on is prominently displayed at the top of your screen. Remember this, because you don't want to shoot your own teammates! CyberStrike has four teams, colored red, green, blue, and black. Each team can have up to four people, for a total of 16 CyberPods in each city. But remember, each CyberPod is being controlled by a real person! 3.0 A STEP-BY-STEP TUTORIAL (2/15/93) This section describes basic CyberPod commands, such as how to move the CyberPod, how to look around, how to communicate, and what you should do on your first time out. 3.1 MOVING AROUND Your CyberPod is controlled with both the joystick and a keyboard. If you do not have a joystick, then you may use the numeric keypad keys to simulate what the joystick does, but this is much more difficult to control than the joystick. Throughout this manual, the documentation will assume that you have a joystick. 3.1.1 JOYSTICK MOVEMENT CyberStrike automatically calibrates your joystick when you enter the city. Be sure that your joystick is centered as you leave the chamber to play a game, or the joystick won't be calibrated properly. After you've landed, it is a good idea to swirl your joystick around a couple times, so that the software can see its full range (everyone's joystick is different). To move, simply push forward on the joystick to go forward, pull back to cause your CyberPod to back up, and push left and right to turn. You should realize that your CyberPod is a giant mechanical walking tank, and is thus very heavy. You will notice that it takes time to accelerate, decelerate, and change your rate of turn, because of the large mass of your CyberPod. Most new players have a tendency to overcompensate when trying to aim, because they don't take this into account. With practice, this will become easier. Button 1 on the joystick is used to fire your main weapon. Button 2 is used to jump. 3.1.2 KEYBOARD CONTROL To move your CyberPod with the keyboard, use the numeric keypad. Make sure NUM LOCK is on. Pressing 8 will accelerate you in a forward direction, and pressing 2 will start you moving backwards. 4 and 6 will let you turn. You can also use 7 and 9 to turn while accelerating, and 1 and 3 to turn while backing up. Unlike the joystick, you do not need to keep pressing the 8 key (forward movement), to keep moving. To stop your pod, press the 5 key. Your main weapon can be fired with the space bar, or the 0 key on the numeric keypad. Press the "J" key to jump. 3.2 LOOKING AROUND You can look up and down, or left and right of your current position. For example, it's possible to move due north while keeping an eye out for what's happening to the west. To look up and down, use the "+" and "-" keys on the numeric keypad. Pressing the key on top (the "-" key) will tilt your view upward, and pressing the "+" key will move your view downward. You can tell how far up or down you're currently looking by watching the horizon indicator on the left side of your screen. To re-center your CyberPod's view, use the numeric "*" key. The left and right arrow keys can be used to look to your left and right. Again, if you want to re-center your CyberPod's view, use the numeric "*" key. 3.3 ORIENT YOURSELF The first thing you should do is determine which color team you're on. If you're not sure, press "T" to see a list of who's on which team and then press "T" again to toggle back to communication mode. Each team has a certain amount of power it receives from a network of power relay towers. The amount of power you are receiving is displayed by a horizontal bar graph on the right side of your dashboard. For example, if you are on the green team, you will be most interested in the size of the green bar; the bigger it is, the more power you are receiving. The inverted triangle image in that same area of the dashboard is a measure of how much power is in your CyberPod's storage cell. As you use up power, this indicator will shrink. If it gets too low, a flashing "CAUTION" message will appear. The trick is to make sure you always have enough power coming in, to offset the power you are using. Power is used by moving, firing, and by other onboard systems in your CyberPod. Also, a great deal of power can be used up suddenly if you are hit by enemy fire. In the heat of battle, it is very easy to lose track of how much power you are expending, and you could end up your own worst enemy, so always keep an eye on that triangle indicator! In order to increase the amount of power you are receiving, you must move closer to one of your team's power relay towers. Remember, power relay towers belonging to other teams use a different wavelength, and are generally of no use to you. When no towers are available where you want them, you can send a message requesting that air support drop one at your location, by pressing the ENTER key. Your team's A-12 Guppy pilot will respond with an acknowledgement to your request, if a drop can be made. As soon as possible, the air support will fly to your location, and air-drop the power relay tower. Make sure you get out of the way before it gets there! TOWER REQUEST MULTIPLIER COST Requesting a power relay tower drop now costs 1 multiplier point! This change can affect a lot in the way you may play. Because of the inter- relationships between towers, territory, multiplier and score, finding the true "best strategy" is going to get even more obfuscated...or, as I like to say...interesting! With bigger teams you can spread the cost around a little. If you are playing solo, it's going to take more brain power to play off your multiplier against a tower. There is probably a lot that can be said on this subject...but I'll leave that to players who want to write strategy guides. Truth be told, towers were always supposed to cost something, but it was left out to facilitate testing. This should have been implemented sooner, but better late than never. Note: A Mega-Tower request will also cost 1 Multiplier. This brings the total cost to 4 Multiplier points. 3 when you buy the module (well none if you find it!), and then 1 to use it. The cost takes place when the guppy acknowledges the drop. If the Guppy does not, or is unable, there is no cost. INCREASED SURVIVABILITY The maximum power your CyberPod can store has been increased by 50% (this is true of MegaCell as well) which will increase survivability. In addition the extra power defrays some of the "impact" caused by network delays bunching up hits. This can have a big impact on play, so take some time to get used to it! 3.3.1 GRACE SHIELD When you first enter the game, don't worry about other players immediately attacking and blowing you up. Any time you get a new CyberPod, either from entering the game or because your old one was destroyed, you get a "Grace Shield" which lasts for two minutes. While the shield is up, your CyberPod cannot be destroyed, and so it gives you a chance to look around and dodge any snipers that may be waiting for you (this probably won't be a problem in the training city though). The Grace Shield will last for two minutes, UNLESS you take some offensive action. This could mean dropping a mine, launching a grenade, or firing at least four times. If you do any of those, your shield will terminate prematurely. VISIBLE SHIELDS When you are shooting another CyberPod who has shield on, you will be able to tell because the hits will give of a characteristic blue spark not normally seen when your laser blot hits something. But perhaps the oddest thing about shields is that they can cause a very bizzare visual distortion around the pod. You will be able to see this if you are within 300 feet of a pod that has shield on. This visual distortion can, in it's own right, confuse a CyberPilot who is not use to it...perhaps just long enough so he won't start firing when he should have! Note: Due to network delays, the exact moment when a shield goes on or off is not represented by this visual effect, so don't use it as "proof" of something. It's there mainly for your reference, but it's not an exact science. GRACE PERIOD ENHANCEMENT AND CHANGES Some changes have been made to the grace period you receive when you first enter a game and after a death. A) No Power Drain With this version, your CyberPod will not lose power while being protected by the grace shield. This will give you time to counter enemy megatowers and leech capability. The grace period duration has been extended to 4 mins from 2 mins. C) Range Limitations Your grace shield will expire immediately if you leave a 3x3 city block area around your home starting corner (in other words, the corner you start in, and every city block touching it is safe). If you leave this area, y our grace shield will expire regardless of the remaining duration. GRACE SHIELD MODIFIED Although you still get the 4 min grace shield when you enter or return from a death, this shield will go off if you shoot, drop a mine or throw a grenade. I've got it set so you can shoot up to 4 times before it will go off prematurely...this is in case you hit the fire button by mistake. The idea here is that you can have the 2 min grace, but once you start shooting...you are on your own. This also solves the problem of having grace after RESUMING from a disconnect. It wouldn't necessarily be fair to deny a grace shield in that case because they may have only had say High Jump or something. With this system, you can come back in but the second you go into offensive mode you forfit the rest of your 2 min grace. SHIELD INDICATOR IMPROVEMENT Whenever you have a shield activated, you will now get a small gauge of how long the shield will last. This appears as a shrinking line below the word SHIELD on the HUD (heads up display). When the line shrinks to nothing, the shield expires. This gauge will show up whenever a shield has 30 seconds or less left. So you won't see it with the Grace shield until it gets near its time to run out. In addition, the line (which is normally green) will turn RED when it has dropped to allow a shot to fire. While it is red, you are vulnerable to shots, mines and grenades...about 50% will get through the shield at full strength during this time. The red indicator makes it easier for you to get a feel for this vulnerability. SHIELD FIX A bug where if you activated a shield while you were still under your 2 min grace shield, when the grace shield expired so did your regular shield. This has been fixed. SHIELD REDESIGN Shields were somewhat too powerful for their own good. Play could and did degrade into shield wars at times. For this reasoon, the shields have been re-engineered to rever them to their intended purpose of being a last resort DEFENSIVE measure, usually to cover an escape. 1) The duration of the shielding is now dependent on your highest expansion bay level. The progression is: Lvl 3 30 4 25 5 20 A 15 Note: Level "A" features are still pending implementation, but you progress to level "A" none-the-less. 2) The Shield will still make your pod invulnerable to damage as before, EXCEPT if you are firing your main weapon. The shield cannot repel incoming laser bolts and allow outgoing by its very nature, so if you are firing, the shield drop momentarily to allow your shot to pass. Because it takes a little bit to re-establish the coverage, this period of time makes you vulnerable to shots again. About 50% of the shots hitting you will make it through the shield if you are firing. This includes mines and grenades...so don't be surprised that if you fired right around when one of these goes off you have a 50% chance of bearing the completely brunt of the blast!!! This change will accomplish two things: First, the duration change will make it so you must rely on shield less and less as you move up in experience (as seen by your highest bay level earned). As you make it to higher modules, there are other things you can do to protect yourself. Secondly, the firing change now puts more emphasis on shield as a defensive escape measure rather than the quasi-riskless attack mode it was before. 3.4 COMMUNICATING You can send messages to other CyberPods in the city. If you want, you can send a message which will only be seen by those on your team, or you can send a message which all the other CyberPods will see. Sending a message follows a convention used by most multiplayer games, so is easy to remember: Just type an apostrophe (') followed by what you wish to say, and then press RETURN. This will send a message which all CyberPod pilots in the city will see. To send a message which will only be seen by those on your team, use the reverse-apostrophe (`) instead. 3.5 FIRING This is fairly straightforward. Line up your crosshairs on your target, and press button #1 on your joystick (or the space bar or numeric "0" key). This will fire a projectile at 400 ft/second, which has a range of 600' (a CyberCity block is 600' x 600'). There are expansion modules which can affect your range and rate of fire. Most objects take several shots to kill, so you'll need to keep the crosshairs centered. But don't lose track of your power level (the inverted triangle). Each shot takes power, and if you run out of power, your CyberPod will be destroyed. To help you keep track of this, the crosshairs will turn red if your power goes below 25%. Keep in mind that the crosshairs are calibrated for relatively level firing. If you start to fire sharply up or down, they may not be adjusted properly, so you may need to "eyeball" it. 3.6 DETAIL LEVEL You can control the amount of detail that is visible through your viewscreen. For example, how far off in the distance you can see, and the amount of detail used to draw close-in objects. Having a high level of detail may slow things down, so, depending on how powerful your computer is, you may find it advantageous to switch between different detail levels while you play. When you start out, you are in normal detail mode, which means you can normally see for a distance of two city blocks, and objects are drawn with their normal level of detail. To toggle objects to a simpler form, press the "o" key. To toggle the distance you can see, press the "D" key. The modes are as follows: Combat 1 city block Normal 2 city blocks Extended 3 city blocks To toggle to a setting of more detail (being able to see further), press the "D" key. To toggle back to less detail press "Shift-D". Move around and experiment with the different detail settings, until you find a speed that you're comfortable with. You can always toggle back to Combat mode when speed is critical, and then back up to Extended mode when you're looking around for new targets. 3.7 EXPANSION MODULES You can supercharge your CyberPod by adding special expansion modules. These will look like small multi-sided objects on the ground, with a flashing colored beacon on top. Sometimes you'll find these modules just lying around, but you can also purchase them, and have them air-dropped to you. To pick one up, walk over to it and press the "P" key, and your CyberPod will attempt to install it. Each module has a distinct purpose or benefit that it gives you. For example, one module will allow you to shoot faster, another allows you to hide from enemy radar, while another will give you additional weapons. Modules can improve the handling of your CyberPod, give you better armaments, affect your environment, give you better defensive capabilities, and many other interesting abilities. Enhancing your CyberPod with expansion modules can be vitally important to survival on the battlefield. For example, in advanced CyberCities which have weather and day/night cycles, it will be essential to have an InfraRed module so you can see in periods of darkness. There is a wide variety of modules, at five different levels. When you start off, your CyberPod can only pick up a maximum of four level-1 modules, but as you gain more points, you can pick up more, and increasingly powerful modules. The details of how this works are explained below, but are not really needed to play. If you see a module, just walk over it and try to pick it up by pressing the "P" key. If you have the appropriate expansion bay capacity, the module will be installed. For more details on modules and what to do with them, read Section 5.0, MODULES AND EXPANSION BAYS. 3.8 RADAR In the center of your dashboard is your radar display, showing the location of interesting things in your area, such as power relay towers and other CyberPods. It is color-coded, so is fairly easy to read: for example, power relay towers for the green team will appear as small green dots, as will the green team's Guppy aircraft. CyberPods appear as large dots of their team's color. White dots refer to neutral objects, such as Sentinels or Tower Munchers. Loose modules, however, will not appear on radar. Be aware that some modules will give a CyberPod "Stealth" capabilities, which can render you invisible to radar. The range of the radar display can be changed by pressing the "R" key. Pressing "R" will increase its range, and to decrease it, press "Shift-R" (hold down the shift key, and press "R"). The maximum range of the Radar is 2000 feet; however, there is a MKIII Radar Module which can increase that to 4000'. ELECTRICAL STORM INTERFERENCE Due to a horrific blunder attributed to the incompetence of the military contractors who designed the standard radar system installed on most CyberPods, these devices are generally unreliable during an electrical storm. The Mark III radar upgrade fixes this problem, in addition to its other benefits. 3.9 DYING If you lose a battle with another CyberPod, step on a mine, or perhaps just wander too far from your team's grid, and run out of power -- Boom! Your CyberPod is blown into thousands of tiny pieces, and all you can do is watch helplessly as the modules you've collected go bouncing off onto the ground for someone else to pick up. But don't worry, the game's not over for you. You'll be able to watch as your viewpoint flies up and away from the smoking remains of your last CyberPod, into a new one waiting for you back in the relative safety of a city block which your team still controls. In a moment, you're safely installed into a new CyberPod, and once again will be dropped into the city from above, from where you can plan your revenge! Remember that whenever your CyberPod is blown up (or when you first enter the game), your new CyberPod will have a temporary grace shield installed. This shield will last for four minutes, or until you start taking offensive action again. 3.10 MULTI-FUNCTION DISPLAY The left side of your dashboard consists of the multi-function display. The default setting is Communications Mode, but it can have several different functions, depending on which mode it is in: 3.10.1 STRATEGIC MAP DISPLAY To get a high score, your team wants to control as many of the "valuable" city blocks of the CyberCity as possible. The Strategic Map display shows the relative value of each city block on an 8x8 grid, and how many each team controls. Each city block represents a block of terrain which is 600' across. In other words, the entire CyberCity is 4800' wide. Pressing the "S" key will display your strategic map. Here you will see the different valued city blocks alternately being outlined in different colors. There are four different levels of value, each worth the following number of points: POINT VALUE OF BLOCK COLOR -------------------- ---------------- 1 Green 2 Yellow 5 Orange 10 Red The strategic map will also show your own location, indicated by a white dot. If you have a special reconnaissance module, you will also see the location of your opponents on this map. Hollow squares on the map indicate unclaimed city blocks, and filled-in squares indicate which team currently controls them. If more than one team controls a city block (known as "disputed"), the city block will be multi-colored. 3.10.2 SCORE DISPLAY This display (accessed by pressing the "U" key) will show a breakdown of how many of the different-valued city blocks your team owns, and how many total points this is worth. You will also see your current score multiplier, and the resulting total number of points per second you are currently earning. Additionally, this display will show you how many seconds until your multiplier increases, and how many points until your next expansion bay will upgrade. At the bottom of this display is a graph showing how close you are to a bay upgrade or downgrade as a result of kills and deaths. For more details, see the Section 6.0, SCORING. For now, the first thing you should check out is your current multiplier. This number affects three very important things: The rate at which your score increases, the types of modules you can purchase, and how quickly you can request a new power relay tower. Each time you successfully request a tower, it will cost you one multiplier point. And modules in the training city can be purchased at a cost of one multiplier point each. In more advanced CyberCities you can purchase more powerful modules, for a higher multiplier cost. You multiplier will increase over time: for example, it will go up from a value of 1, to 2, in 15 seconds, and after several minutes have gone by, will probably be up to a value of 4. 3.10.3 MODULE SUBSYSTEM Pressing "M" will take you to the Module Subsystem. From this display, you can purchase new modules, learn details about your currently loaded modules, eject modules from your CyberPod, or activate certain modules. For more details on modules, see the Section 5.0, MODULES AND EXPANSION BAYS. 3.10.4 COMMUNICATIONS MODE This is the default display, and you can return to here from the other displays by pressing the ESC key. It is here that you can read messages sent to you by other CyberPods, and see other informational messages, such as when the Guppy responds that it has received your request for a new power relay tower. If you are not in Communications Mode, but a communication has come across, a "MESSAGE" indicator will light up on the bottom left corner of the Heads-Up Display (HUD). 3.10.5 TEAM DISPLAY Pressing "T" will bring up the Team Display, which shows you who is on which team, and how to identify them. Each CyberPod is painted with the battle-colors of its team, and also has a unique colored stripe on the side of its legs, which identify exactly who it is. For example, if you were on the red team, you might have a CyberPod which was red with a blue stripe, and you could see that one of your opponents had a yellow CyberPod with a red stripe on the side. 3.11 WHAT TO DO AFTER THE TUTORIAL At this point, you should have all the basic tools you need to play CyberStrike: You can login to the game, move your CyberPod around, shoot, and check out what's going on in the CyberCity. From here on, your strategy is up to you, and your teammates. If you'd like to quit so you can read more of the documentation, press Shift-Q to exit back to the chamber. If you'd like to try working on some game strategy, here are some tips: Start by checking the Strategic Map (press the "S" key) and see how much of the CyberCity your team currently controls. You may wish to start by heading for an "unclaimed" block and requesting that your team's guppy drop a power relay tower there, so your team will get points for it. Or maybe you'd like to wander around and look for something to shoot: Check your radar display for moving targets nearby, and keep an eye out for non-aligned targets, such as the rotating sentinels. Different people will enjoy different aspects of the game: Some may like to concentrate on expanding the team's grid, others may like defending high-value city blocks, while others will want to go out for dogfights so they can add points to their battle counter and advance their module bays quickly. Whichever technique you prefer, or if you like to do a bit of all of them, have fun! If you'd like more details about the other aspects of CyberStrike, then read on.... 4.0 WHAT "ELSE" IS OUT THERE? This section describes some of the other inhabitants of the CyberCity (you didn't think it was just CyberPods, did you?) and how to tell where they are, and what to do about them. 4.1 AIRCRAFT If you look up into the sky, you'll probably see some aircraft crisscrossing above you. These are the A-12 Guppy VTOL aircraft (Vertical Takeoff and Landing). They can rotate their engines downward and stop on a dime. Each team has a Guppy for air support. These aircraft will fly in and drop new power relay towers, deliver modules that you have purchased, and can play a combat role if you have the appropriate module. 4.2 POWER RELAY TOWERS The power relay towers will be the most common things you see. These are tall slender towers, with a horizontal rotating beam on top. The closer you are to one of your own team's towers, the more power you can draw from it. Power Relay Towers can be destroyed by shooting at them and blowing them up, however there are other factors which affect their vulnerability, such as a "Harden" module. There is a special kind of tower called a "MegaTower" which outputs twice as much power as a normal tower, and also cancels power on enemy wavelengths, making itself very difficult to attack. MegaTowers also take twice as many hits as a normal power relay tower. They are similar in appearance to normal power relay towers, but have a different type of rotating beam on top, and are therefore easy to recognize. 4.3 SENTINELS Another denizen you might see is one of the Sentinels. These are floating, rotating machines which hover over one stationary spot, and have no allegiance to anyone. You will find that they have a tendency to shoot anything that moves, and will ask questions neither earlier nor later! Although difficult to destroy, they are killable. 4.4 TOWER MUNCHERS Keep an eye out for other inhabitants of the cyber landscape such as the Tower Munchers. These spidery-looking constructs love to swoop down and eat towers, consuming their power and physical structure in one big slurp! Tower Munchers tend to have behaviors that are unique to different CyberCities. Generally, they tend to go after the towers of the team that controls the most of the city (the reason for this is something the Munchers have never divulged). In the more advanced CyberCities, the Munchers can be much more aggressive, and themselves be one of your most tenacious enemies. You can shoot at Munchers to discourage them from eating power relay towers, and can sometimes even destroy them. There is also a module which can "immunize" your power relay towers, causing them to be very unappetizing to the roving Munchers. 5.0 MODULES AND EXPANSION BAYS This section describes the module subsystem, and the CyberPod's bays for holding the various modules. A CyberPod's bay capacity is an important part of the game, as it directly affects how many modules you can pick up, and how powerful they can be. 5.1 MODULE SUB-SYSTEM While in your CyberPod, pressing "M" will toggle the Multi-Function Display to show your Module Sub-System screen. From here, you can purchase new modules, or eject ones you already have. You can also get information about how a module works. Some modules can only be used once and must be activated, or must be turned on and off for optimum results. You can do all this from the module Sub-System. Your CyberPod has nine possible module expansion bays, each of which can be a different level. An expansion bay can upgrade or downgrade to a different level depending on how well you are doing in CyberStrike. The better you do, and the higher your score, the higher your Expansion Bays will upgrade, and the more often you die, the more likely they will be to downgrade. More details on bay upgrading and downgrading can be found below. 5.1.1 MODULE DISPLAY When you first access the Module Sub-System, this is what you might see: 1 1 Fast Turn (I) Info 2 1 (A) Activate 3 + 2 Mega Shot (E) Eject 4 2 (P) Purchase 5 - 3 Phalanx 6 1 2 Rocket Pack 7 3 8 4 9 X ^ ^ ^ ^ | | | | | | | ------ Name of Module | | | | | -------------- Level of that Bay | | | ---------------- Status of Module | ------------------ Bay Number The symbols representing a module's Status are defined as follows: (blank) This module is activated automatically - This module needs to be toggled on and off, it is presently OFF + This module needs to be toggled on and off, it is presently ON 1 This module can be activated one time only. Bay levels can be 1-9, A, or X. An "X" means that there is no bay in that position yet. An "A" means "Automatic." Automatic bays have several advantages. One is that they can hold a module of any level. Another is that, if you wish to purchase a module, you do not have to wait for it to be air-dropped to you -- it will show up automatically if you have an "A" bay available. 5.1.2 MODULE INFO Pressing "I" will allow you to get information on one of your current modules. Select the Bay Number representing the module you're interested in. 5.1.3 MODULE EJECT Pressing "E" will list your modules and allow you to choose which one you'd like to have ejected. Select the Bay Number which is currently holding the module you want to drop. This will cause the module to be ejected from your CyberPod into the immediate vicinity, where it will bounce around a bit. Once it stops bouncing, you can always position your CyberPod over it and try to pick it up again. 5.1.4 MODULE ACTIVATE Some modules need to be toggled on and off, or can only be used once. You will see these modules marked with a "-" "+" or "1" in their Status Column. To activate or toggle these, press the "A" key in the Module Sub-System, followed by the Bay Number of the module you wish to affect. There is a quicker method to activate modules, which is especially useful in combat. Simply press a number on your keyboard (not the numeric keypad), and it will toggle the module in the corresponding bay number. For example, if you have an InfraRed module in Bay #4, you can press the "4" key on your keyboard to toggle it on and off. QUICK MODULE ACTIVATION CyberStrike already supports the "one-touch" method of activating a module (pressing 1 through 9 on the keyboard). But this still requires you to figure out or remember which bay the module you want is in. At those critical times during combat, this can be a deadly delay! To solve this, CyberStrike now assigns various function keys so that they will automatically find the appropriate module (if it is installed) and activate it. Here is the current key mapping: Defensive/Counter-Measures F1 Shield F2 Reserve Power F3 Rocket Pack F4 Teleport <--- Not yet implemented as of V1.04 Offensive F5 Grenade F6 Mine F7 Tri-Shot (on/off toggle) F8 Air Support Request 5.1.5 MODULE PURCHASE You can purchase new modules, by trading in a portion of your current score multiplier. To purchase many modules, or very powerful modules, you will need a high multiplier. In general, if you have a multiplier of 4, you could purchase four level-1 modules, or one level-4 module. You do not have to use up your entire multiplier at once, and can purchase modules at any time that you have a sufficiently high multiplier. Be aware that prices of modules, and their availability, may vary according to which CyberCity you are currently in. Also, the price may vary by demand, and the number of players currently playing CyberStrike. Popular modules may be difficult to obtain, and will therefore have a high "multiplier" price. To purchase a module, first enter the module subsystem by pressing "M", then press "P" to enter the purchasing screen. Modules come in several different levels, so you will need to choose which level of module you're interested in, by pressing that number. Then you will get a list of the available modules of that level. In the lower right-hand section of your multifunction display, your current multiplier will be listed. Once you choose which module you would like to purchase, this will send a signal to your team's Guppy aircraft, just as if you had requested a power relay tower. So be careful to only request a module if you know you can wait around in that area for a minute or two! Once you've requested the module, it's a good idea to back up a bit from your previous position, so you can watch for the module's arrival. Eventually you will see the Guppy arrive, and it will airdrop your module to you. Then simply move your CyberPod over to the module and pick it up normally. Note that you must have a bay that's high enough for the module you wish to purchase. Also, the list of modules you can purchase may be dependent on the CyberCity you are in. Cities do not always carry the same modules. Each CyberCity has its own price structure, so prices for modules, and level of modules available, may vary. PURCHASE DELAY When you purchase an expansion module via. the module sub-system, you must wait until the A12 Guppy Pilot responds before you can make another purchase. If the Pilot doesn't hear your request, you can purchase within 10 seconds. MULTIPLIER AND MODULE PURCHASE CHANGES The rate at which the multiplier increases has been reduced from a 15 second base, to 5 seconds. Thus, to go from a multiplier of 1 to 2 takes 5 seconds, and from 2 to 3 takes 10 seconds. This makes a ***HUGE*** difference in how long it takes to re-equip your CyberPod. In fact, it doesn't take much time at all. The Module Mania Nights helped us learn a lot about which things are fun in CyberStrike. Waiting for modules is not one of them. Still, there are times when just "giving modules away" would detract from the game. For example, if you can acquire mines and grenades like water, then it really creates a frustrating play environment. And some of the more powerful items should cost a little more so you can make a cost/performance decision on your weapon load. But pretty much all "base-line" stuff should be easy to get. And the multiplier should be allowed to grow, instead of hovering around zero all the time. This makes it more valuable for score (even more so now, as explained in the section on the Bounty System and Module Storage). With this version, modules are each individually priced. Most stuff costs just 1 multiplier point (like MegaShot, RapidFire and all the major base-line stuff). Some others cost 2, 3 and a couple cost 4 multiplier points. Basically everything is a lot less expensive and the "currency" of multiplier points is more plentiful. Note that the costs of items and their availability can vary from city to city. Items which are not available have a price of NA which stands for NOT AVAILABLE. This can mean an unimplemented module (of which there are only a few), or it is a unique rule for that city. For example, we could have a city that doesn't allow shields, grenades or mines if people wanted to play under those unique rules. MODULE SPECIAL DELIVERY FEATURE (Note: This change has been in effect for a couple weeks prior to this software release, but is mentioned here for completeness) A change to the module delivery system has been made. Under the new rules, whenever you purchase a module in your home corner it will arrive immediately. This is logical, since this is your home territory. The A12 Guppy will still be needed for module deliveries that are made away from your home corner. The area where immediate deliveries occur is the city block which represents your team's home corner, and the ones just outside of the city that surround it. The following illustrates: RR GG RR######GG # = City blocks that require A12 guppy delivery ######## R = Red team immediate delivery zone ######## G = Green team immediate delivery zone ######## B = Blue team immediate delivery zone ######## K = Black team immediate delivery zone ######## ######## BB######KK BB KK The module will fall from the sky 100 feet above where you are standing and about 20 feet in front of where you are facing at the time you request it. ENEMY NO-DROP ZONE A 3x3 city block area around an enemy starting corner (inclusive) is now a no-drop zone. You cannot request tower drops in an enemies' no-drop zone. If you try, you will recieve "Unable, bad drop point." response from your A12 Guppy Pilot. A12 GUPPY DELIVERY IMPROVED The A12 Guppy will now deliver modules and towers a little better. The maximum speed the Guppy can achieve when flying to a drop zone is now faster (300 ft/sec up from 200 ft/sec). Also, when the A12 can drop a group of modules in the same spot, it will do so in a single batch instead of re-orienting on the same spot before the drop. 5.2 MODULE BAYS Each CyberPod has 9 bays for holding expansion modules. There are 5 different levels of modules, and a bay must be high enough to hold a module before you can pick it up. When you start, your bays will look like this: 1 1 1 1 X X X X X Four of your CyberPod's bays will be at level 1, which means they can pick up level 1 modules. The other 5 bays will be inactive. In other words, you would be able to pick the first four level 1 modules you ran across, but wouldn't be able to pick up anything else. In an actual game, though, your bays will continually be upgrading, which will allow you to pick up other modules. A module can only be picked up (or purchased) if an empty bay exists to hold it, which is of an equal or higher level. In other words, a level 2 module could be picked up if you had a bay that was level 2 or higher. A level 5 module could only be picked up if you had a level 5 bay, or an "Automatic" bay. While you are playing, many factors will contribute to upgrade (and downgrade) your bay capacity. For example, as soon as you get 1000 points, one of your inactive bays will be upgraded to level 1. This will probably happen within the first few minutes of playing the game, and you don't need to do anything special for it to happen. 5.2.1 UPGRADING BAYS The following chart shows the number of points required to upgrade your lowest bay to the next highest level: Upgrade to: Each time you earn another ------------------------------------------- Level 1 1,000 Level 2 10,000 Level 3 100,000 Level 4 1,000,000 Level 5 10,000,000 Level A 100,000,000 Note: An inactive bay ("X") is treated as level 0. Level A means "Automatic," which was discussed previously. The amount of points towards an upgrade are saved between games. 5.2.2 BAY CONFIGURATION LIMITS The minimum possible configuration for any CyberPod, is to have four bays at level 1, and 5 inactive: 1 1 1 1 X X X X X The maximum possible configuration is to have all 9 bays at "Automatic" level, but this is very difficult to obtain: A A A A A A A A A Your bay configuration is carried over from game to game. If you log off with four level 3 bays, and five level 2 bays: 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 That's the same configuration you'll have when you next logon to play CyberStrike. 5.2.3 DOWNGRADING BAYS Some things can happen in CyberStrike which will cause one of your bays to downgrade by a level. Usually this is because you are being blown up more often than you are killing other CyberPods, though that's only an approximate way to judge. Just killing another CyberPod may not be enough -- It has to be a fair or "earned" kill. Also, kills vs. deaths is not an exact ratio, but is judged by the relative power of the attacker and victim, and is recorded via the battle marker (explained below). 5.2.4 MODULE STORAGE CELLS So many modules, so few bays! What to do? Well now there is something you can do! CyberPods now come equipped with storage bays where you can stash unused modules until you need them. Cool, huh? But there is a catch! You must upgrade your CyberPod to get these storage bays. This is based on your rank. Starting at Plant Life, you will get access to your first storage bay. Then, every rank thereafter you will get one more storage bay up to a total of nine. When you do have storage bays, using them is pretty straightforward. First you access the module sub-system (the "M" key) and you will see a couple more options. The following illustrates: ------------------------------------------------ 1 1 Fast Turn [I] Info 2 1 [A] Activate 3 + 2 Mega Shot [E] Eject 4 2 [P] Purchase 5 - 3 Phalanx [S] Store 6 1 2 Rocket Pack [R] Retrieve 7 3 [Esc] Quit 8 4 9 X ------------------------------------------------- The "[S] Store" and "[R] Retrieve" options (which only appear if you have at least one storage bay, Plant Life ranking or better) let you store a module you currently have installed or retrieve one from storage. Press "S" to store a module. You then will be asked which to store, press the number of the bay and that module will be put in storage. To Retrieve, press "R" and then a list of your storage bays will be displayed. Press the number of the one you want to retrieve and it will be installed in an available bay. Of course some restrictions apply: 1. You can only store modules you have in a bay already. Which means you must pick it up first. Storage moves a module from an active bay to a storage bay. 2. You can only retrieve a module already in storage. And to do so, you must have an available bay of the appropriate level. The retrieval display also shows you the levels of the modules. Retrieval moves a module from a storage bay to an active bay. 3. Some modules you can only have one of, such as High Speed. Having one in storage will prevent you from picking one of these up even though it is not in an active bay. 4. Modules in storage do NOT function. They are simply stored. You must install them (retrieve) before they can be used. 5. When you blow up, modules in storage go-a-flying just like other modules. You do NOT retain modules in storage between games. This is just a supplemental system to the current Bay system. Note: The crash-recovery /RESUME feature is rather blind to where your modules are. So, when you /RESUME, your modules will flow over into storage in a somewhat random way. It will fill your active bays first, then any extra ones will go into storage. Before you head out, check your bays and storage to make sure they are in the right order. You can check what is in storage by doing a Retrieve but then hitting escape (the ESC key) instead of selecting a module to retrieve. 5.3 LIST OF CURRENT IMPLEMENTED MODULES An asterics (*) denotes a module that can only be used once and then is lost. A plus (+) denotes a module that can be turned on and off. The number following the module name is the cost of the module to purchase. 5.3.1 LEVEL 1 MODULES High Speed (1) - Allows cyberpods to move twice as fast. High Jump (1) - Allows cyberpods to jump three times as far. Fast Turn (1) - Allows cyberpods to turn twice as fast. Recon (1) - Allows cyberpod's strategic map to show other team cyberpod locations Rocket Pack *(1) - Sends cyberpod rocketting through the city a distance of 6 city blocks Repair (1) - Repairs all friendly towers within 1 city block Long Shot (1) - Allows cyberpods to shoot twice as far. Infra-red (1) - Allows image enhancement for improved vision in fog and darkness. Resonator (1) - Allows cyberpod to gain extra power from nearby friendly cyberpods which also have resonators. 5.3.2 LEVEL 2 MODULES Immunize *(2) - Makes all towers within 1 city block immune to munchers for 30 minutes. Rapid Fire (1) - Allows cyberpod to shoot at double speed. Priority *(1) - Allows cyberpod module purchase to receive priority over team-mate module purchases. Reserve Pwr *(1) - Restores cyberpod's power to 100%. Weather *(1) - Alters the current weather conditions. Mine *(2) - Drops a IFF Proximity Mine which explodes when an enemy is near. Call Muncher*(1) - Calls a muncher to the current location Harden *(1) - Makes all friendly towers within 1 city block able to take twice as much damage before exploding. 5.3.3 LEVEL 3 MODULES Mega Tower *(2) - Makes a call to the guppy for a mega tower. Teleport *(1) - Teleports cyberpod to a random location. Stealth (1) - Makes cyberpod invisible to enemy radar. Phalanx +(2) - Computer controlled gun on top of cyberpod which will shoot at nearby enemy cyberpods. Mega Shot +(1) - Allows cyberpod shots to be twice as powerful, but cost twice as much energy when used. Tri-Shot +(2) - Allows cyberpod to shoot three shots (at three times the power cost), one normal shot, one shot 5 degrees right, one shot 5 degrees left. Shield *(2) - Creates a shield around the cyberpod which can absorb a set amount of damage. Power Enhnc (2) - Doubles power input to cyberpod. Mine Sweep *(2) - Explodes all enemy mines in 1 city block. Grenade *(2) - Grenades may be thrown in the direction the cyberpod is facing, doing damage equal to a mine at the impact point. 5.3.4 LEVEL 4 MODULES Liberator *(5) - Explodes all enemy towers within one city block. Air Support *(3) - Calls the guppy to drop a grenade on the current location. Missile *(3) - Fires a missile in the direction the cyberpod is currently facing. Descrambler (2) - Allows cyberpod to convert 25% of enemy tower energy to energy usable by cyberpod. Performance (2) - Combination of High Speed, Fast Turn, and High Jump. Interceptor (3) - Does something. Call Sentinl*(1) - Calls a sentinal to the current location MK III Radar (2) - Radar with double range and ability to see stealthed cyberpods. 5.3.5 LEVEL 5 MODULES Leech (4) - Allows cyberpod to drain energy from nearby enemy cyberpods nad use the drained energy. Cloak +(3) - Advanced stealth, hides cyberpod from MK III Radar, but has high power costs. Blaster +(3) - Combination of Rapid Fire, Long Shot, and Mega Shot. Mega Cell (1) - Allows cyberpod to hold twice as much energy as maximum. Raise Value *(5) - Increases point value of city block. Lower Value *(1) - Decreases point value of city block. Drone +(1) - Allows cyberpod to view city through movable invisible drone. Deflector (2) - Cuts damage Cyberpod takes in half. VERSION CHANGE The number of storage bays you have at your disposal is now in no way related to your score or ranking. Instead, each individual city has a certain number of storage bays that will be available. This amount is a constant, and is part of the 'rule set' for that city. Generally, the higher level cities have more storage bays, but this is not always true. For example, there are a couple cities with level 3 and level 4 bay maximums with no storage bays (for those who want to play without them). A couple of the level 5 cities have 9 storage bays for some real interesting play. This rule change will probably not be the last for storage bays, but it will solve the major "sore spot" that has been caused by the previous rules. Remember, your score no longer matters as regards storage bays, but your score does affect your ranking (naturally) and your bay levels. MINESWEEP RANGE EXTENDED The Mine Sweep module now has twice the effective range. This brings the range to a 600-foot radius. IMPROVED PHALANX MODULE The Phalanx module has been made more powerful. The phalanx will now fire 1 shot per second. In addition, it will fire megashots if you have a MegaShot module turned on or a Blaster module. In such case, the power consumption is commensurately higher. Note that the Phalanx is an external device, and it sits outside of your Pod's shield area. So if you have shield on, the Phalanx can fire without it affecting your shield! This can make it a very deadly weapon. AIR SUPPORT MODULE IMPLEMENTED I love firepower, so I made Air Support really wild! This module is now working. All you have to do is activate it in a spot where you want it to rain steel and then get the heck out of there! Your A12 Guppy will then proceed on a fire-mission to that exact spot. When it arrives it will launch a volley of high-explosive cluster bombs which will saturate the area in a huge burst. You should be at least a city block away by this point! As you know, A12 Guppy aircraft are immune to fire, so you can't shoot them down. But you can defend against this by normal means, such as shield, deflector, MegaCell, etc. Air Support is a level 4 module, and it is one of the more expensive ones. Since the enemy must actually GET to the spot where they want the plane to drop its ordnance, that also requires them to really WORK to use it against you (and you may have moved on by then anyway). But make sure you coordinate with your team-mates or you will be blowing up your own guys! TRI-SHOT MODIFIED The projectile spread on the tri-shot module has been tightened to a +/-5 degree arc rather than +/- 15 degree arc. This angle is accurate for near horizontal firing. GRENADE FLIGHT DYNAMICS MODIFIED The rate at which a grenade moves has been increased somewhat. This means you can throw it farther. :) DRONE MODULE ACTIVATED The Drone Module now works (lvl 5). Currently, if you have a drone module installed you are given the ability to pilot a remote drone around the city and use it for surveillance. You can't fight with the drone, but it can give you a heck of a view! When you have a drone module installed, the drone is always ready. There are two ways of using it. You can switch your VIEW to the drone so you see through its remote camera while still controlling your CyberPod, or you can transfer your control to the drone and control it. With the drone module installed, press the V key to toggle between a view from your CyberPod and the drone. It initially starts right above you. A drone doesn't move unless you fly it somewhere. While in drone view mode, the compass and radar are relative to the drone and not your CyberPod. Keep in mind that you (as a pilot) are still in the CyberPod so sounds will be based on things that happen near you, not the drone. If you get shot while in drone view mode, the picture will cut out for a instant. This occurs because of the sudden drain on energy, but it is also useful for letting you know there is a problem and you need to switch back. If you have sound on, its always easy to tell when you are getting shot! Pressing the SHIFT-V key will toggle between controlling your CyberPod or your drone. If you are not in drone view mode, it is automatically turned on when you switch to drone control. In drone control, your joystick (or keyboard) controls now fly the drone around. They work about the same way, except that the drone can fly and hover on a dime. To go up and down pitch your view up or down and then push forward on the joystick to move in that direction. Level off and look back down. You can also fly backwards, so you can pitch down and pull back on the joystick to watch an area. Your drone moves FAST, so take it easy. If you run into something you will simply bounce off of it...no harm. The drone is invisible to other CyberPods. You can see it as an elongaged black object, but there everyone else will be completely unaware of it. This is the preliminary version of the drone. More enhancements and usage requirements will be added to improve the concept. For now, though, it is a good tool for extending your information gathering capabilities. LEECH MODULE The Leech Module (Lvl 5) is now implemented. Remember though, two enemies with a Leech cancels each other out. :) MODULES SAVED If you lose carrier and return in time to resume a game, your modules are also saved so you won't lose them. 6.0 SCORE This section concerns the details on scoring. This is all taken care of automatically, so is not required reading for the beginning player, but experienced players will probably want to learn the nuances of this system. There are two types of score you should be concerned with: One is your total point score; and the other is your battle marker, which affects your expansion bay upgrades and downgrades 6.1 POINT ACCUMULATION Points are gained every second you are in a CyberCity, but the amount of points you earn per second depends greatly on how well you and your team are doing. The points you earn are based on a formula involving which CyberCity blocks your team currently controls, and a multiplier which increases over time. As a general rule of thumb, the more of the CyberCity that your team controls, and the longer you play, the faster your score will increase. 6.2 BOUNTY REWARDS You know, it isn't often when you are able to kill Stryker. It seems he should really be WORTH something besides bragging rights if you manage to waste him. Well now he will be! A new BOUNTY system has been added to CyberStrike. The concept is pretty simple: For every second a Pilot is in a game, a bounty of 10 points is put on his (or her) head. This continues to accumulate until the Pilot dies, at which point it is reset back to zero. Someone who is REALLY good at staying alive, like Stryker (and a dozen or so others out there), will accumulate some TREMENDOUS bounty values. To claim these points, all you have to do is PARTICIPATE in the killing of that CyberPod. Participation means that you "dinked" them (hit him with a shot) within 20 seconds of his death. In fact, the great thing about this is, that EVERYONE who dinked the person will get the reward... or, in other words, this rewards combined-arms...teamwork. Of course you don't get points if the CyberPod was on your team. This reward is independent of the logic for who is rewarded the Kill, and it does not have to be an Earned Kill. The Bounty at the time of death is multiplied by your multiplier and then added to your score! In the higher level cities, especially with the new multiplier rules, this can be a SUBSTANTIAL point award. And points apply towards rank, which applies towards storage bays. It all adds up! At anytime you can press the "B" key to see the current bounty totals on each CyberPod. It is formatted exactly like the Team display, and in fact, you can press "B" and "T" to toggle between the two to get a feel for the color-combination of the CyberPod you want to go after. The display will show all the CyberPods and their bounty values. If the figure gets over 9999 points, it will be displayed in thousands, such as 11k which means 11000+ points. One of the numbers will be flashing. This is the guy with the highest bounty on another team, and indicates the CyberPod you can kill for the most points. If two or more CyberPods have the same bounty, it is basically random which will flash. 6.2 MULTIPLIER Aside from the number of CyberCity blocks your team currently controls, you also have a personal multiplier which affects your score. Your multiplier is directly tied to your own performance, and is not affected by anything which your teammates or opponents may do. Your multiplier will always start at 1, and increase over time. The higher your multiplier, the more points you will accumulate, and the better modules you can purchase. The multiplier takes the normal score you were earn per second (which is determined by the CyberCity blocks which your team controls) and multiplies it by the value of the multiplier. For example, if your team controls sufficient CyberCity blocks to be earning 32 points per second, and you have a multiplier of 5, you will instead be earning 160 points per second. As you can see, the higher your multiplier, the faster your score will increase. And since your multiplier increases over time, you will find that you get more point value the longer you play a game. Your multiplier will reset at the beginning of every game, so if you quit, it will be reset to 1 the next time you play. There are two things which affect your multiplier: It will go UP over time, and DOWN when you use it to purchase modules. The intervals at which it will increase are as follows: Multiplier Time until Increase ---------- ------------------- 1 5 seconds 2 10 seconds 3 15 seconds 4 20 seconds 5 25 seconds ...etc... The formula is: Time to increase = (multiplier * 15 seconds) You can see the number of seconds remaining until the next multiplier increase by looking on the Score Display, by pressing the "U" key. There is a maximum multiplier attainable, which will be dependent on the CyberCity you are playing in. Some cities will have a higher maximum than others. INITIAL-DROP AND POST-DEATH MULTIPLIER MINIMUM When you enter a city for the first time, or after you have died in combat, your Multiplier will be set to the maximum module level allowed in that city (if it is not already higher). Therefore, if you are in a city that allows up to level 4 modules, and you die with less than a Multiplier of 4, it will be set to 4. This will help you get up to "speed" faster. This does not apply to /RESUME. 6.3 CONTROLLING CITY BLOCKS Your second-by-second score increases according to a formula involving the CyberCity blocks which your team controls, and a multiplier. Your team is considered to control a CyberCity block if you have at least one power relay tower there, and no other team has towers there. If a CyberCity block has no power relay towers in it, no one gets points for it. If a CyberCity block has towers from two or more different teams in it, no one gets points for it either. This determination is very fluid, and updated second by second, which makes for a very fast-paced game. Just because you control a CyberCity block now, doesn't mean you'll still have it a few seconds from now! Cities are always broken down into an 8-by-8 grid of city blocks. Some city blocks are worth more than others, and you can tell which are which by looking at your strategic city map. The blocks which are outlined in different colors have the following values: POINT VALUE OF BLOCK COLOR -------------------- ---------------- 1 Green 2 Yellow 5 Orange 10 Red 6.4 BATTLE MARKER The Battle Marker is an indication of how well you are doing, based on your deaths and earned kills (defined below). It can go up or down (actually it moves left and right), and its position can have an effect on your module bays, and how quickly they upgrade or downgrade. As a general rule, your battle marker INCREASES when you get an earned kill, and DECREASES when you die. Generally it will stay in the range of -5 to +5. If your battle marker equals the level of your minimum bay, then that bay will upgrade by one, and the battle marker will return to zero. Example: You have five level 1 bays, and four inactive bays: 1 1 1 1 1 X X X X You then get an earned kill on an opponent's CyberPod. This increases your battle marker to +1, which triggers one of your inactive bays to upgrade to level 1: 1 1 1 1 1 1 X X X The battle marker then drops back down to zero. If your battle marker goes negative, and equals your highest bay level, that bay will downgrade by 1. Example: You have six level 3 bays, and three level 2 bays, and the battle marker is zeroed: 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 You then die from lack of power. This decreases the battle marker to -1. Through an extraordinary run of bad luck, you die twice more without getting any earned kills, and this drops the battle marker down to -3. At this time one of your level 3 bays will downgrade to level 2, and the battle marker will re-zero: 2 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 NOTE: You may have enough stored points to automatically re-upgrade your bay, even if the battle marker downgrades it. So you may see a bay downgrade, and then immediately re-upgrade itself to its previous level. 6.5 DEATHS This is very simply defined. It doesn't matter if you died because someone blew you up, or a Sentinel got you, or you just got too far from one of your team's power relay towers. When you run out of power, your CyberPod blows up. This counts as a death. Of course you'll immediately be moved to a new CyberPod though, so you can get right back into the fray! 6.6 EARNED KILLS You can try to blow up any CyberPod that crosses your path, of course. But only "earned" kills will affect your battle marker. An earned kill is defined as follows: Any situation where your victim's HIGHEST bay is equal to, greater than, or one less, than your own LOWEST bay level. Here are some examples: Think of each CyberPod as being rated by the lowest and highest of its Expansion Bays. In other words, these CyberPods would be rated as follows: Player Bays Low High --------------------------------------------------- Clueless 1 1 1 1 X X X X X X 1 Slasher 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 Jumper 6 6 6 9 5 5 5 3 5 3 9 CyberWarrior A 9 9 9 9 9 9 7 9 7 A Jumper, with a low bay level of 3, could only get earned kills for anyone with a high bay of 2 or more. CyberWarrior, with a low bay of 7, could get earned kills for anyone with a high bay of 6 or more. To cross-reference the examples above, Clueless could kill anyone and get an earned kill. Slasher could also kill anyone on the list for credit. Jumper could kill Slasher, or CyberWarrior, but would get no credit for killing Clueless. CyberWarrior could kill Jumper for credit, but would gain no bonus by killing Slasher or Clueless. This system is designed to credit you only for winning a battle against another Cyber pilot whose skill is similar to your own (or better). Because any type of death will have a negative impact on your battle marker, you will find engaging in combat with lesser-skilled players means you are undertaking a needless risk of a bay downgrade, because there is no chance for you to improve your battle marker position. After playing for a little while, you will realize which players are in your general skill range, and which you should probably leave alone. 7.0 QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE (2/15/93) ENTER Key : Requests power relay tower Space Bar : Fires / : Toggles Fine Turn Mode C : Toggles Heading Display from degrees to Compass directions J : Jump R : Expand radar range Shift-R : Decrease radar range D : Increase detail on screen display Shift-D : Decrease detail o : Toggle object detail level (complete/simplified) P : Attempt to pick up module V : Toggle between CyberPod view and drone view (requires module) Shift-V : Toggle between control of CyberPod, and drone control Shift-Q : Quit the game, and return to the chamber. Multi-Function Displays (Re-pressing the key, or pressing ESCAPE, will toggle you back to communications mode). M : Module subsystem S : Strategic Map Display T : Team display U : Score display ' : Send a message on open channel (everyone in game sees it) ` : Sends message on closed channel (goes to your team only) Arrow Keys: Up: Look up 45 degrees Down: Look down 45 degrees Left: Look left 90-degrees from current position. Right: Look right 90-degrees from current position. Numeric Keypad: --------------------------------------- | | / | * | - | | NUM | Fine | Center | Look | | LOCK | Turn | View | Up | |---------------------------------------| | | | | | | 7 | 8 | 9 | | | Left | Forward | Right | + | | Forward | | Forward | Look | |------------------------------ Down | | | | | | | 4 | 5 | 6 | | | Left | Stop | Right | | | | | | | |---------------------------------------| | | | | | | 1 | 2 | 3 | | | Left | Reverse | Right | ENTER | | Reverse | | Reverse | | |-----------------------------| Request | | | | Tower | | 0 | . | | | Fire Weapon | Pick Up | | | | Module | | --------------------------------------- 8.0 DESCRIPTION OF SCREEN DISPLAY ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Heading Indicator | | | | | | | | | | OUTSIDE VIEW | | | | | | Suspension | | Indicator | | | | |-*-| | | | | | | _ _ | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | | | -SCORE- | | | | ................ | | Multi-Function Display | . . | Power . Power . | | | . . | Input . Indicator. | | | . . | ===== . . | | | .. | == . . | | | | ====== . . | | | RADAR | ==== . . | | | | .. | | |----------------- | | | | | | Bays 1 1 1 1 X X X X X | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- There are only a few sections of the screen that require additional explanation. The largest portion of the display, the outside view, is what you see through the canopy of your CyberPod. Your CyberPod projects certain images onto the canopy plexiglass itself, which superimpose over the objects seen outside. This is called a "Heads-Up Display" (HUD), and it allows you to keep your eyes on the action. 8.1 SUSPENSION INDICATOR The actual structure of the CyberPod is a two-legged robot. It therefore "walks" across the CyberCity, up ramps, and through tunnels, and can also jump. Usually it can move wherever you wish to go, but sometimes it might get itself into a situation where it gets stuck, such as where you're trying to go up a ramp, and one leg is on the ramp, while the other isn't, or if you get too close to a wall, and one leg gets "wedged" and can't move. You can see a graphic representation of this by looking at the suspension indicator, in the lower right-hand corner of the HUD. If one leg is stuck, a red slash will appear across it on the indicator. You will also hear an alarmed beeping sound, telling you that the CyberPod is stuck. If this happens, usually the best thing to do is to let go of the joystick, and then carefully try to extricate yourself. Gently pull backwards on the joystick, to back away from the problem, or try turning left or right to get away from the wall. When the red slash disappears, you'll know you're "clear" and can move again. 8.2 POWER INDICATORS By far the most important part of the display is the inverted power triangle. As long as it is completely lit up, your CyberPod is at full power. If it starts dropping, though, be careful what you're doing. You may need to call in another power relay tower immediately, and conserve energy until it arrives, or else head back to a better part of your team's grid. You can tell how strong the grid is in your area, by looking at the Power Input Bar Graph. Each bar on the graph will represent the strength of one team's grid, so look for your team's color to see how close you are to a good source of power. In general, you cannot tap into another team's power relay towers, but you can use the bar graph to see how solid their grid is in the same area. 8.3 BAY INDICATORS These indicators will give you continual updates on the capacity of your CyberPod's Expansion Bays. If the bay is empty, the number that is displayed in each indicator shows the highest-level module which that bay is capable of holding. An "A" means Automatic, and can hold any module. An "X" means the bay is not currently active, and cannot hold any modules. If the bay has a module installed, it will light up with that module's icon. 9.0 CHAMBER COMMANDS (2/15/93) While in the chamber, before entering the actual CyberCity, there are some commands you can use to get information about what to do next. To get a complete list, type /HELP. 9.1 /STATUS COMMAND This command will give you a list of everyone that is currently playing CyberStrike, and where they are. You may remember that each CyberCity can have up to 4 teams, with 4 members on each team. But this does not mean that only 16 people can play CyberStrike at one time! There can be several cities at once, with different teams playing in each CyberCity. 9.2 /CITY COMMAND This command lists all the CyberCities available for play. 9.3 /PLAY COMMAND The easiest way to play, is just to press the F1 key. This will issue the /PLAY command, which will put you into the first available CyberCity appropriate to your skill level, on a random team. However, you can also use the /PLAY command to choose which CyberCity you want to go to, and which color team you would like to play on. For example, if you want to play on the green team in City B (assuming that there's room for you), you would type /PLAY B GREEN. Just typing /PLAY with no options (or pressing the F1 key) will send you into a CyberCity based on your ranking. The higher your rank, the more advanced the CyberCity you will enter. When you first start out, you will enter the cities on the Training Planet. These cities limit your play options (such as which modules are available), so you can learn the ropes more easily. As you progress to more advanced CyberCities, you will have to deal with things such as weather variations, day/night cycles, and changes in power relay tower output. But higher CyberCities will allow you to reach a higher multiplier value, and purchase more powerful expansion modules. WHERE DOES /PLAY SEND YOU? When you do a simple /PLAY with no options (or press the PLAY button) then CyberStrike will send you into a city based on your ranking. The higher your rank, the more advanced the city you will enter. You can override this by specifying a particular City such as /PLAY C. When you first start out you will enter the cities on the Training Planet. These cities limit your play options (such as what modules are available) so you can learn the ropes easier. As you move to more advanced cities you will have to deal with weather variations, more advanced modules, normal or low power tower output and so on. But the good news is that the more advanced cities have higher maximum score mutlipliers. This makes **ALL** the difference in the amount of score you can make. Also, more advanced modules can completely change the dynamics of play...believe me! DISCONNECT RESUME The disconnect recovery is now fully implemented. If you should lose carrier, for any reason...a crash, network problems, whatever, you can relogon and resume your game. When you log back in you must then type /RESUME to go back into the game you were in. When you use /RESUME the following will be maintained from when you disconnected: 1) Your game score 2) Your multiplier 3) Your installed modules To take advantage of this, you must log back in within 10 minutes of the disconnect. Once in the Chamber you then have 1 minute to type /RESUME. If you wait too long, then you cannot /RESUME. A couple important notes: First, your game score and multiplier may be off by tad depending on when the disconnect occured. If it was a Back-End crash, then this may happen. If it was on your end (the FE or node) then it will probably be pretty exact. In no case, however, do we guarantee that it will be perfect...just close! If the software was shut down, and stays closed (say there was a GEnie outage) and you cannot get back within the alloted 10 minutes then you will lose your game state. There is really nothing we can do about this, but we didn't want to scrap the whole idea just because of this possibility. Lastly, this RESUME option will *NOT* appear if you disconnect while in the middle of a battle. In other words, if the back-end thinks you hung up to avoid an eminent death, you will not be offered the RESUME option. This determination is somewhat crude, and we will refine it over time. If you lose carrier legitimately, but the back-end can't tell it has to assume it was an attempt to avoid a death by default. Unfortunately, this is the best we can do at this point. One thing to understand is that although this feature is designed as a convienence, if it should not work exactly as expected the best we can do is try to improve on it. We can't award you points or multiplier or anything based on what it "should have done", but please do report problems so we can improve upon it. 10.0 OBTAINING A GENIE ACCOUNT If you have a friend that would like to try playing CyberStrike, and has the minimum hardware requirements, here is how they can get a GEnie account: Have them set up their modem for half duplex (local echo) at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud. Then dial toll-free, 1-800-638-8369, and upon connection, enter HHH. At the U#= prompt, type SIGNUP and press . They should have a major credit card or their checking account number handy. The signup routine will then query them for account information, and they should be able to logon to GEnie with their verified account within a couple business days. To speak directly to GEnie Client Services, dial 1-800-638-9636. 11.0 TROUBLESHOOTING (2/15/93) This section contains a list of some possible problems which you might encounter while trying to run the software or play CyberStrike. If this section is not helpful to you, but you are at least able to enter the CyberStrike chamber, then please look for help there, such as from a Simutronics representative or Cyber Strike Operator (CyberOp). If no one is readily available, please leave Feedback to Simutronics from the CyberStrike menu at page 1380, and we will reply as soon as possible. 11.1 TROUBLE LOGGING ON The following are some suggestions to deal with possible problems while logging on: 11.1.1 HOW TO STOP THE LOGON SCRIPT If there is a problem logging on, the logon script may not recognize that there was a problem. To abort the logon, simply press the ESC key. 11.1.2 SPECIAL LOGON PROCEDURES If you require a special logon procedure, you may edit the LOGON.SCR file to include any additional steps that may be required. 11.1.3 NO MENU BAR One of the options in the settings window is called Easy Menu. If this option is not on, then the big menu bar at the top of the screen will not appear, and F1 will not log you on either. To correct this, press Alt-S to access the settings window, and toggle the Easy Menu option to "on". 11.1.4 WRONG MENU BUTTONS APPEAR The CyberStrike Front End uses the modem's Carrier Detect line to determine whether it is on or offline. When online, a different set of buttons will appear at the top of the screen. Some modems are configured so that the Carrier Detect line is either always on, or its meaning is reversed. If this is the case with your modem, then the CyberStrike Front End will not work until you correct the modem's settings. See your modem manual for more information. The file INIT.CS included with CyberStrike contains a set of startup commands that are executed immediately when you run CyberStrike. The default for this file contains a line which outputs a special sequence of characters that the CyberStrike chamber can recognize, in order to resynchronize the Front End software with the Back End. After this, however, you can place any modem commands that you need to initialize your modem to work with CyberStrike. For example, the included INIT.CS file contains AT&C1, which is the general standard for turning on the Carrier Detect line on most modems. You can add other options if necessary, into this file. 11.2 MEMORY PROBLEMS CyberStrike requires a lot of memory to run. In general, you should have at least 580K of free conventional memory and 1 Meg of EMS or XMS memory. The most difficult challenge is to free up conventional memory, since almost everything uses it. If you are having difficulty freeing up sufficient memory, please leave CyberStrike Feedback to ask for assistance. 11.2.1 UMB SUPPORT CyberStrike now frees up additional memory by taking advantage of the Upper Memory Blocks (UMB) memory. This is the memory that DOS 5.0/6.0 and QEMM386 like to put TSRs, device drivers and DOS into because it is ABOVE the 640K conventional memory area. Depending on your setup there is usually some memory left unused up there, and in some case a LOT of memory unused up there. If any can be found, CyberStrike will now put some of its data into the UMB. To do this (under DOS 5.0 or 6.0) you need DOS=HIGH,UMB in your CONFIG.SYS or have your UMBs managed by a memory manager such as QEMM386 or HIMEM.SYS (which is automatic if you use these utilities). You don't have to do anything special, but you should be aware of this so that you can make a modification if necessary to your configuration. Once done, there will be additional memory for CyberStrike to use. 11.3 JOYSTICK PROBLEMS As soon as you enter a CyberCity, CyberStrike will test your joystick to calibrate its center position. It is important that when you go into a CyberCity, you leave your joystick centered until your CyberPod lands. Once this happens, swirl the joystick around once or twice, so CyberStrike can see the full range of your particular joystick. If your joystick seems to pull to the left or right unexplainably, there are three possible reasons: (1) Your joystick was calibrated incorrectly. Simply quit back to the chamber and then come into the game again to recalibrate. (2) Your joystick is plugged into a game port that is not adjusting for the speed of your computer. The only solution to this is to either adjust the settings on your game card, or to get a better game card suitable for the speed of your machine. (3) If you are using sound on a non-DMA-based sound card (Direct Memory Access), then every time a digital sound is played the horrendous CPU time required will interfere with the joystick timing and cause your CyberPod to pull to the left or right very consistently. The only thing you can do about this is (a) get a better sound card, such as a Creative Labs sound Blaster, which uses DMA technology; (b) unplug your joystick and use keyboard control instead, or (c) disable sound entirely. The reason this happens with CyberStrike and perhaps not with some of your other games, is because CyberStrike uses digital sounds rather than the tinny FM-synthesis sounds that other games use. REVERSING JOYSTICK OPTION Some players have expressed an interest in having the joystick work a tad differently. One alternate way it can work is that as you begin to reverse direction, your turn direction flip/flops. This is how it works in a car. By default the joystick control does not do this, and it works such that if you have the joystick right, the CyberPod will always turn right regardless of the forward/backward direction (this is called fly-by-wire mode). By pressing SHIFT-E you can toggle between these two flavors of controlling the CyberPod. Why SHIFT-E? Cuz all the good keys were taken, that's why! I'll work this in as a settings switch in a future release. This also affects keyboard control the same way. One note: This is still a "fly-by-wire" design because the joystick's forward/back position determines the reversing, not if the CyberPod is actually moving in that direction yet. This has the best feel of the two. An actual "car" style would not work since the turn rate would have to be modified by the speed as well. In this simulation the CyberPod actually turns by changing the orientation of it's steps, not due to the angle of a wheel touching the ground. ADJUSTABLE JOYSTICK DEADZONE Because joystick and game ports vary a tremendous amount, CyberStrike now has an adjustable "deadzone". This is the area that is considered not moving or turning (joystick centered). Even when your joystick is at rest, it still is sending slight movement and turn information. The "deadzone" is the percentage of joystick movement that is ignored. The default is 10%. This may seam like a lot, but it isn't because of the nature of the way the joystick works (it's non-linear). To adjust this deadzone, simply press the # key (shift-3) to cycle through the various settings. It can be set as high as 35% and as low as 5%. What you want to do is get it to where your joystick is responsive, but doesn't "wander" when you are trying to sit still. Using a larger deadzone will decrease responsiveness but make it easier to sit still. An additional fudge has been made to the joystick so that if you move greater than 70% of the way to the right or left, it will "snap" to a 100% requested turn rate. In general, once you begin to turn that fast you really intend to turn at your maximum rate. This simply causes your CyberPod to begin accelerating somewhat faster a tad bit sooner in the extreme turns. 11.4 FRAME-RATE PROBLEMS If your computer runs at 20MHz or slower, you may experience a slower frame-rate than is desirable for play. The best thing to do is to adjust the CyberStrike detail level to the situation. Decrease it for close-in fights, and increase it only when you need to see things which are far away. Also, use the low "object detail" setting (press the "o" key). If the slow frame rate affects your aiming, you can toggle on a "fine turn" mode by pressing the "/" key. When this mode is on, the turning range will be reduced so you can better fine-tune your aim. Press the "/" key again to turn this mode back off. 11.5 SOUND PROBLEMS Included with the sound files download, is a file SOUND.TXT which contains complete instructions and troubleshooting for using sounds with CyberStrike. 11.6 NETWORK PROBLEMS 11.6.1 NETWORK DELAYS (WARPING) CyberStrike is played over a packet-switching network which gathers information from each Front End, sends them to a mainframe in another state where they are processed, and then sends them back over the network to your Front End. This roundtrip can take anywhere from one to several seconds to complete. Because of this, the position of other CyberPods on your screen will not be exactly accurate. This can depend on the amount of the delay, which can vary from day and/or node to node. This inaccuracy can cause the following undesirable effects: 11.6.1.1 WARPING This is when a pod seems to be moving in one direction and then suddenly "skips" off to one side or possibly even changes direction unexpectedly. Certain techniques are used to smooth out this effect but it will still happen. It should be understood that CyberStrike IS meant to play under these conditions and although a warp may unfairly change the tactical situation as you see it, on occasion, this problem will be seen or will affect everyone equally. Although we make every effort to minimize the effect of warping, you should expect that this will happen and that, on occasion, it may mean the other guy getting the upper-hand in a fight. 11.6.1.2 DELAYS Network delays come in several varieties. If the delays are starting to get really bad, it may be due to a slowdown on the network as a whole, or the Back End software is processing too slowly, or perhaps your own local node is reaching its maximum bandwidth. If these problems persist, Simutronics will attempt to rectify the problem by passing on reports of network problems to the appropriate engineers at GEnie. You should not, however, report minor network slowdowns as there is only so much that can be done in this type of environment. 11.6.1.3 DISCONNECTS Occasionally you will be disconnected from the network unexpectedly. When this happens, log back into CyberStrike as quickly as possible. If you return within 10 minutes, and then type "/RESUME" you will be placed back in the game you were playing (if there is space) with your score, multiplier, and modules intact. Every so often the Front End will report your current score situation to the Back End so that if you do disconnect, or crash, or even if the Back End software would crash, you will be able to use this /RESUME feature to get back into the game with minimal loss of points. It should be noted that this feature will not work if the disconnect occurs in the middle of a fight you are about to lose. So please do not attempt to hang up to avoid an inevitable death, thinking you can come back in with your score intact. It won't work. LOST CARRIER MODIFICATION Some player's have reported problems where their modem is somewhat "unstable" with the carrier detect line. It fluctuates off for a brief moment from time to time even though they are still online. The front end will shut down when this happens. But no more! You must lose carrier for a continuous 3 seconds before it will give up now. 11.7 CYBERPOD PROBLEMS This section covers possible problems which may occur as you try to move your CyberPod around, retrieve modules, and fire your weapons. 11.7.1 HELP! I CAN'T MOVE! If your CyberPod seems to be stuck somewhere (there is a red slash across one of the legs on the suspension indicator, and a rapid beeping sound), it has probably gotten one of its legs jammed somewhere, such as half on and half off a ramp, or wedged against a wall. Here are some things you can try to get yourself unwedged (watch the Suspension Indicator to see when the problem is cleared -- the red slash will disappear): (1) First, let go of the joystick, and then gently pull backwards, to try and back out of the situation. (2) Wiggle the joystick back and forth, and try to extricate the CyberPod. (3) Press the "J" key to try and jump out of the situation. 12.0 SUPPORTED SOUND DRIVERS All of the sound drivers on this list are supported by CyberStrike. However, if you are using a driver which is not DMA-based, the sound may interfere with the operation of your computer's joystick. You can still play CyberStrike with non-DMA-based sound drivers, but you may need to use keyboard control instead. This table lists the sound drivers which CyberStrike supports, and whether or not, to our knowledge, they are DMA-based. If you have a sound driver which is not on this list, or know whether any of the questionable ones are DMA-based, please let us know through CyberStrike Feedback at page 1380. SOUND DRIVER DMA-BASED? ----------------------------------------------------- AdLib Gold Yes AdLib or compatible No ATI Stereo FX Yes BigMouth, Talking Technologies Unknown Covox SoundMaster 1 Unknown Covox Speech Thing Unknown Covox Voice Master and SoundMaster II Unknown DigiSpeech DS201 Speech Adapter Unknown Echo 2, Street Electronics Unknown IBM Internal Speaker Background No IBM Internal Speaker, 1 bit No IBM Internal Speaker, Foreground No Lantastic Voice Adapter Unknown Life Size Enhancer Unknown MediaMaster or compatible Unknown ProAudio Spectrum, MediaVision Yes Sound Blaster or compatible Yes Sound Blaster Pro Yes Sound Source, Walt Disney Unknown Tandy 2500XL Unknown Tandy SL/TL Unknown Tandy TX/EX/HX/SX and PCJr Unknown Ultrasound Gravis (not supported yet) Yes 12.1 BREAKTHROUGH SOUND TECHNOLOGY If you use sound with CyberStrike (is there any other way to play?) then you already know we have some HOT digital sounds going. But, thanks to some cutting edge technology, developed by John Ratcliff (JWR), CyberStrike really pushes the envelope! (for you sound gurus, pun intended) CyberStrike can now play several digital sound effects, simultaneously, each with independent volume, stereo and pitch control. On IBM sound cards, which typically have but a single digital audio channel, this is quite an accomplishment. All of these effects, except stereo, work on all supported sound cards. Stereo requires a stereo sound card such as the PAS-16 and SoundBlaster Pro. Besides being really cool, this technology adds to your perception of the Virtual World (3-Space) you're wandering through. You will be able to hear battles waging and can tell by the volume if they are nearby or off in the distance. The stereo panning allows you to tell if that last explosion was to your right or your left. Pitch control lets CS adjust the sound of shots based on the Doppler Effect so you will get a sense of if a shot is coming at you or going away from you. Why haven't you seen this kind of thing in commercial PC-based games? Basically because it is very cutting edge. John Ratcliff is THE authority on PC Audio, and this technology will first appear in one of his games which unquestionably has the most awesome use of sound heard to date (and the graphics are spectacular too). But, luckily, you will all get a preview of this technology in CyberStrike! If you have a stereo sound card, you will get a lot out of this. The volume changes are one thing, but having left/right orientation on a sound can make a real difference! To get the most out of this, position your speakers a uniform and substantial distance to the right and left of you, and make sure you have the correct speaker on the correct side. Or, for optimum results, use stereo headphones! A couple things to note: Shots fired will have a slight pitch change based on their angle of fire relative to your location. Or, in other words, if they are coming at you they have a slightly higher pitch and if they are going away it is lower. This is the doppler effect. The change is subtle, but once you get good at hearing it you can determine a lot of critical information from these sounds. Also note that the sentinel firing sound is now completely different than normal shots. This is only fair. :) IMPORTANT SOUND NOTE: Sound now **REQUIRES** Expanded Memory. Before, either Expanded or Extended memory would work. You may be running CyberStrike with only HIMEM.SYS managing memory. This is an XMS memory manager and will not provide you with sound capability. To use sound you must use EMM386.EXE with HIMEM.SYS, or another memory manager such as QEMM386 (which, itself, provides HIMEM.SYS support services). So, your CONFIG.SYS should now have in it: DEVICE=C:\HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=C:\EMM386.EXE RAM DOS=HIGH,UMB ... or ... DEVICE=C:\QEMM386 RAM DOS=HIGH .. or some other memory manager configuration that supports EMM. Note: The parameters you specify to EMM386.EXE or QEMM386 may vary with your configuration. Check your memory manager documentation. 13.0 CAMPAIGNS (2/15/93) CyberStrike is played with a multi-campaign system. No matter when you are playing, you are participating in four different campaigns, and possibly one additional optional one: Campaign Cutoff (when winner is declared) ------------------------------------------------------ Daily Daily at 12 noon Weekly 12 Noon each Monday Monthly 12 Noon on the 1st of the month Yearly 12 Noon on the 1st of the year Tournament To Be Announced Because of the variety of campaigns, more people can be winners. For example, a big player may put in a lot of time to win the monthly campaign, but not necessarily win all of the daily or weekly campaigns--those would be open to individuals who like to play hard in shorter bursts. Winning a certain amount of campaigns in each category will apply towards prizes, such as free time online (this may not apply during beta testing). More information on prizes will be announced later. WINNING/LOSING AND CAMPAIGNS CyberStrike is played with a multi-campaign system. No matter when you are playing you are participating in 4 different campaigns, and possibly 1 additional optional one. These are the campaigns: Daily - Every day there is a winner (ends 12:00 noon) Weekly - Every week has a winner (ends 12:00 noon each monday) Monthly - Every month there is a winner (ends 12:00 noon 1st of month) Yearly - Every year has a winner (ends 12:00 noon 1st of year) Tournament - Special tournaments with announced start/end rules If being ranked highly in CyberStrike is the type of play style you enjoy, then you will find that you can win various campaigns. But, because of the variety of campaigns, more people can be winners. For example, a big player may put in a lot of time to win the monthly campaign, but not necessarily win all of the daily or weekly campaigns...those would be open for winning by individuals who play hard in shorter bursts. Winning a certain amount of campaigns in each catagory will apply towards prizes (mainly free time online). This feature is not activated for beta testing. 14.0 COPYRIGHT/TRADEMARK INFORMATION (2/15/93) CyberStrike Software (c) Copyright 1993, Simutronics Corporation. All Rights Reserved. No unauthorized use permitted. CyberStrike, CyberPod, and CyberCity are trademarks of Simutronics Corporation. 15.0 CREDITS (2/15/93) CyberStrike was designed by David Whatley Front End Programming: David Whatley, Mike Dabbs, and Tom Tayon Back End Programming: Tom Tayon Graphics and Sound: David Whatley Documentation: Elonka Dunin