you want to start at the Expert level, go ahead. It's your funeral.
The Emeritus game is strictly for masochists.</para>
-<para>The fourth question, new in SST2K, sets your game options. A
-blank answer or 'fancy' enables all SST2K features. The option
-'plain' approximated the original CDC 6600 FORTRAN game from UT Austin
-and disables a number of features: Tholians, planets & dilithium,
-deep-space-probes, Klingon ramming and movement, time-warping through
-black holes, death-ray upgrade, inhabited worlds. The option 'almy'
-approximates Tom Almy's C translation from 1979, disabling base
-shields, time-warping through black holes, and inhabited
-worlds.</para>
+<para>The fourth question, new in SST2K, sets the wayback machine. A
+blank answer enables all SST2K features. Given a year, it will disable
+features not implemented in that year or earlier. The year
+'1973' approximated the original CDC 6600 FORTRAN game from UT Austin.
+Here is a mapping of years to features:</para>
+
+<variablelist>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>1974</term>
+<listitem><para>Planets and dilithium mining</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>1979</term>
+<listitem><para>Tholians and their webs, supercommanders.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>1980</term>
+<listitem><para>Deep-space probes.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>1981</term>
+<listitem><para>Bad guys do tactical movement.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>1982</term>
+<listitem><para>Bad guys can ram you.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>1997</term>
+<listitem><para>Death ray gets an upgrade.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>1998</term>
+<listitem><para>Automatic generation of self-destruct password.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>2004</term>
+<listitem><para>Upgraded shields for bases, and chance of time-waeping through a black hole.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>2005</term>
+<listitem><para>Our ship is bracketed in the chart/</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>2006</term>
+<listitem><para>Logic for inhabited worlds and Klingon captures.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>2007</term>
+<listitem><para>Automatically update the long-range scan when displaying the chart.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>2010</term>
+<listitem><para>Use color in interface.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>2013</term>
+<listitem><para>Defeated Klingons can be captured.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>2014</term>
+<listitem><para>The cloaking device.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>2019</term>
+<listitem><para>Consistent dot-filling in the galaxy chart.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+<varlistentry>
+<term>2023</term>
+<listitem><para>Alphameric coordinates.</para></listitem>
+</varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+
+<para>Some caveats apply. The development history of this game is obscure; some
+years of introduction have had to be guessed, and we have chosen guesses to
+make support as many interesting wayback options as possible. Some options
+are not affected by the wayback setting - notably, the TUI interface is always
+available even though it wasn't written until 2005. Some early features,
+notably "clockface" course setting, couldn't be reconstructed.</para>
</chapter>
<chapter><title>How To Issue Commands</title>
10 . . . . . . . . . . Time Left 3.72
</screen>
-In fancy mode, the display will use letters for Y coordinates.
+<para>In fancy mode, the display will use letters for Y coordinates.</para>
<screen>
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
<para> If your game is in "fancy" mode, there ia a way to input
coordinates that avoids any need to remember thet the Y coordinate
comes first. Y values may be given as lowercase letters starting with
-a = 1. So for example:
+a = 1. So for example:</para>
<screen>
a1 = 1 - 1
f2 = 6 - 2
</screen>
-The previous move xommand could be expressed as
+<para>The previous move xommand could be expressed as</para>
<screen>
m a c7 e8
<para>to aim between two sectors. However, sector numbers must be 1 to 10
inclusive.</para>
-<para>In fancy mode, you can write "PHO 3 2 6 1 10 4 7" as
+<para>In fancy mode, you can write "PHO 3 2 6 1 10 4 7" as</para>
<screen>
pho 3 b6 a10 d7
</screen>
-Fractional Y coordinates are not supported.
+<para>Fractional Y coordinates are not supported.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1><title>Dock at Starbase</title>