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10 <title>Super Star Trek</title>
14 <firstname>David</firstname>
15 <surname>Matuzsek</surname>
18 <firstname>Paul</firstname>
19 <surname>Reynolds</surname>
22 <firstname>Tom</firstname>
23 <surname>Almy</surname>
26 <firstname>Stas</firstname>
27 <surname>Sergeev</surname>
30 <firstname>Eric</firstname>
31 <othername>Steven</othername>
32 <surname>Raymond</surname>
37 <para>Super Star Trek 2K is issued under the BSD license. Nothing in
38 this license grants or purports to grant any rights with respect to
39 the trademarks, copyrights or other property of the originators of
40 Star Trek or their successors in interest. We recognize and support
41 their right under the Berne Convention to recover damages for any uses
42 of this program which compromise their legitimate interest in
43 protecting their copyrights and trademarks or unjustly enrich
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81 Produced For Your Enjoyment
98 SST2K polishing and historical research by
103 <chapter><title>Introduction</title>
104 <para>The Organian Peace Treaty has collapsed, and the Federation is at war
105 with the Klingon Empire. Joining the Klingons against the Federation
106 are the members of the <quote>Romulan Star Empire.</quote> As commander of the
107 Starship U.S.S. Enterprise, your job is to wipe out the Klingon
108 invasion fleet and make the galaxy safe for democracy.</para>
110 <para>Your battleground is the entire galaxy, which for convenience is
111 divided up into eight rows of eight quadrants each, like a
112 checkerboard. Rows are numbered from top to bottom, and columns are
113 numbered left to right, so quadrant 1 - 8 would be in the upper right
114 hand corner of the galaxy.</para>
116 <para>During battle you will be concerned only with those enemies that
117 occupy the same quadrant as yourself. Quadrants are divided up into
118 sectors: ten rows of ten sectors each. Sectors are numbered in the
119 same way as quadrants, so the sector in the upper right corner is
120 sector 1 - 10. You have a short-range scanner which allows you to
121 look at the entire quadrant in a single display.</para>
123 <para>Enemies recharge during your absence. If you leave a quadrant
124 containing a weakened enemy, when you return to that quadrant he will
125 be strong again. Also, each time you enter a quadrant, the positions
126 of everthing in the quadrant (except your ship) are randomized, to
127 save you the trouble of trying to remember where everything in the
128 quadrant is. Notice that this refers only to the positions of things
129 in the quadrant—the numbers of each kind of thing are not changed
130 (except for black holes and the Super-commander, which move around
131 the galaxy). If you kill something, it stays dead.</para>
133 <para>The Romulans are not as serious a threat to the Federation as the
134 Klingons. For one thing, there are not as many of them. For
135 another, the Romulans are not as treacherous. However, Romulans are
136 not to be trifled with, especially when you are in violation of the
137 Romulan Neutral Zone.</para>
139 <para>There are two kinds of Klingons: Ordinary Klingons, which are
140 bad enough, and Klingon Commanders, which are even worse. Commanders
141 are about three times stronger than ordinary Klingons. Commanders are
142 more resistant to your weapons. Commanders can move about during
143 battle while Ordinary Klingons stay put. And finally, Commanders have
144 a thing called a <quote>long-range tractor beam</quote> which they can
145 use, at random intervals, to yank you away from what you are doing
146 into their quadrant, to do battle with them. There is also a special
147 commander, called the <quote>Super-commander.</quote> This character
148 is so bad he is reserved for the Good, Expert, and Emeritus games.
149 Fortunately, there is just one Super-commander in a game. In addition
150 to the undesirable traits of Commanders, he can move from quadrant to
151 quadrant at will, seeking out and destroying your starbases and any
152 helpful planets he runs across. He also has a spy planted aboard your
153 ship, giving him valuable information about your condition. Using
154 this information, he can do dastardly things like tractor beam your
155 ship when you are in bad shape. And once you've been tractor beamed
156 by the Super-commander —</para>
158 <para>But the advantages are not all on the side of the enemy. Your ship
159 is more powerful, and has better weapons. Besides, in the this
160 galaxy there are from two to five starbases, at which you can stop to
161 refuel and lick your wounds, safe from phaser attack or tractor
162 beams. But you had best not dally there too long, since time is not
163 on your side. The Klingons are not just after you; they are
164 attacking the entire Federation. There is always a finite <quote>time
165 left,</quote> which is how much longer the Federation can hold out if you
166 just sit on your fat behind and do nothing. As you wipe out
167 Klingons, you reduce the rate at which the invasion fleet weakens the
168 Federation, and so the time left until the Federation collapses may
169 actually increase. Since Klingons are the main threat to the
170 Federation, the Romulans do not figure into the <quote>time left.</quote> In
171 fact, you need not kill all the Romulans to win. If you can get all
172 the Klingons, the Federation will abide forever, and you have won the
175 <para>Space is vast, and it takes precious time to move from one place to
176 another. In comparison, other things happen so quickly that we
177 assume they take no time at all. Two ways that time can pass are when
178 you move, or when you issue a command to sit still and rest for a
179 period of time. You will sometimes want to do the latter, since the
180 various devices aboard your starship may be damaged and require time
181 to repair. Of course, repairs can be made more quickly at a starbase
182 than than can in flight.</para>
184 <para>In addition to Klingons, Romulans, and starbases, the galaxy
185 contains (surprise) stars. Mostly, stars are a nuisance and just get
186 in your way. You can trigger a star into going nova by shooting one
187 of your photon torpedoes at it. When a star novas, it does a lot of
188 dammage to anything immediately adjacent to it. If another star is
189 adjacent to a nova, it too will go nova. Stars may also occasionally
190 go supernova; a supernova in a quadrant destroys everything in the
191 quadrant andmakes the quadrant permanently uninhabitable. You may
192 <quote>jump over</quote> a quadrant containing a supernova when you
193 move, but you should not stop there.</para>
195 <para>Supernovas may happen spontaneously, without provocation. If a
196 supernova occurs in the same quadrant you are in, your starship has an
197 <quote>emergency automatic override</quote> which picks some random
198 direction and some random warp factor, and tries to throw you clear of
199 the supernova. If the supernova occurs in some other quadrant, you
200 just get a warning message from starfleet about it (provided, of
201 course, that your subspace radio is working).</para>
203 <para>Also a few planets are scattered through the galaxy. These can
204 sometimes be a great help since some of them will have <quote>dilithium
205 crystals,</quote> which are capable of replenishing the ship's energy
206 supply. You can either beam down to the planet surface using the
207 transporter, or take the shuttle craft <quote>Galileo</quote>.</para>
209 <para>Finally, each quadrant will contain from zero to three black
210 holes. These can deflect or swallow torpedoes passing near them. They
211 also swallow enemy ships knocked into them. If your ship enters one
214 <para>Star Trek is a rich game, full of detail. These instructions are
215 written at a moderate level—no attempt has been made fully to
216 describe everything about the game, but there is quite a bit more
217 here than you need to get started. If you are new to the game, just
218 get a rough idea of the kinds of commands available, and start
219 playing. After a game or two you will have learned everthing
220 important, and the detailed command descriptions which follow will be
221 a lot more meaningful to you.</para>
223 <para>You have weapons: phasers and photon torpedoes. You have a defense:
224 deflector shields. You can look at things: long-range scanners,
225 short-range scanners, and a star chart. You can move about, under
226 warp drive or impulse power. You can also dock at a starbase, rest
227 while repairs are being made, abandon ship, self destruct, or give up
228 and start a new game.</para>
230 <para>The Klingons are waiting.</para>
233 <chapter><title>Starting the Game</title>
234 <!-- This chapter is new in SST 2K -->
236 <para>The program will ask you some setup questions. You can give it
237 command-line arguments that will be treated as answers. Any token
238 may be abbreviated to a unique prefix.</para>
240 <para>The first question concerns whether you want a regullar,
241 tournament, or saved game. For discussion, see the <link
242 linkend="freeze">description of the freeze command</link>.</para>
244 <para>The second question will concern the length of the game.
245 Longer games include more enemies.</para>
247 <para>The third question will set the game's difficulty level.
248 You should probably start out at the novice level, even if you are
249 already familiar with one of the other versions of the Star Trek
250 game—but, of course, the level of game you play is up to you. If
251 you want to start at the Expert level, go ahead. It's your funeral.
252 The Emeritus game is strictly for masochists.</para>
254 <para>The fourth question, new in SST2K, sets your game options. A
255 blank answer or 'fancy' enables all SST2K features. The option
256 'plain' approximated the original CDC 6600 FORTRAN game from UT Austin
257 and disables a number of features: Tholians, planets & dilithium,
258 Thingies shooting back, deep-space-probes, Klingon ramming and
259 movement, time-warping through black holes, death-ray
260 upgrade. inhabited worlds. The option 'almy' approximates Tom Almy's
261 C translation from 1979, disabling Thingies shooting back, base
262 shields, time-warping through black holes, and inhabited
266 <chapter><title>How To Issue Commands</title>
268 <para>When the game is waiting for you to enter a command it will
275 <para>You may then type in your command. All you have to remember for each
276 command is the mnemonic. For example, if you want to move straight up
277 one quadrant, you can type in the mnemonic (case insensitive)</para>
283 <para>and the computer will prompt you with</para>
289 <para>Say you type in <quote>manual</quote>. The computer then responds</para>
292 X and Y displacements-
295 <para>Now you type in <quote>0 1</quote> which specifies an X movement of zero and a Y
296 movement of one.</para>
298 <para>When you have learned the commands, you can avoid being prompted
299 simply by typing in the information without waiting to be asked for
300 it. For example, in the above example, you could simply type in</para>
306 <para>and it will be done. Or you could type in</para>
312 <para>and when the computer responds with the displacement prompt, you
319 <para>and it will understand.</para>
321 <para>You can abbreviate most mnemonics. For <quote>move</quote>, you can use any
328 <para>successfully. For your safety, certain critical commands (such as to
329 abandon ship) must be written out in full. Also, in a few cases two
330 or more commands begin with the same letter, and in this case that
331 letter refers to a particular one of the commands; to get the other,
332 your abbreviation must be two or more characters long. This sounds
333 complicated, but you will learn the abbreviations quickly enough.</para>
335 <para>What this all boils down to is:</para>
338 <listitem><para>You can abbreviate practically anything</para></listitem>
339 <listitem><para>If you forget, the computer will prompt you</para></listitem>
340 <listitem><para>If you remember, you can type it all on one line</para></listitem>
343 <para>If you are part way through entering a command and you change your
344 mind, you can cancel the command by typing -1 as one of the
345 parameters, with the exception of the manual move command.</para>
347 <para>If anything is not clear to you, experiment. The worst you can do is
348 lose a game or two.</para>
351 <chapter><title>List of Commands</title>
353 <sect1><title>Short-Range Scan</title>
357 Shortest abbreviation: S
358 Full commands: SRSCAN
363 <!-- This is new in SST 2K -->
364 <para>If you are using the screen-oriented interface, this command is
365 suppressed; instead, a short-range scan will always be present on the
368 <para>The short-range scan gives you a considerable amount of information
369 about the quadrant your starship is in. A short-range scan is best
370 described by an example.</para>
374 1 * . . . . R . . . . Stardate 2516.3
375 2 . . . E . . . . . . Condition RED
376 3 . . . . . * . B . . Position 5 - 1, 2 - 4
377 4 . . . S . . . . . . Life Support DAMAGED, Reserves=2.30
378 5 . . . . . . . K . . Warp Factor 5.0
379 6 . K . . . . . * . Energy 2176.24
380 7 . . . . . P . . . . Torpedoes 3
381 8 . . . . * . . . . . Shields UP, 42% 1050.0 units
382 9 . * . . * . . . C . Klingons Left 12
383 10 . . . . . . . . . . Time Left 3.72
386 <para>The left part is a picture of the quadrant. The E at sector 2 -
387 4 represents the Enterprise; the B at sector 3 - 8 is a starbase.
388 There are ordinary Klingons (K) at sectors 5 - 8 and 6 - 2, and a
389 Klingon Commander (C) at 9 - 9. The (GULP)
390 <quote>Super-commander</quote> (S) is occupies sector 4 - 4, and a
391 Romulan (R) is at 1 - 6. An uninhabited planet (P) is at sector 7 - 6
392 (if it were inhabited, it would display as a '@'). There are
393 also a large number of stars (*). The periods (.) are just empty
394 space—they are printed to help you get your bearings. Sector 6
395 - 4 contains a black hole ( ).</para>
397 <para>The information on the right is assorted status information. You
398 can get this alone with the STATUS command. The status information
399 will be absent if you type <quote>N</quote> after SRSCAN. Otherwise
400 status information will be presented.</para>
402 <para>If you type <quote>C</quote> after SRSCAN, you will be given a
403 short-range scan and a Star Chart.</para>
405 <para>Short-range scans are free. That is, they use up no energy and no
406 time. If you are in battle, doing a short-range scan does not give
407 the enemies another chance to hit you. You can safely do a
408 short-range scan anytime you like.</para>
410 <para>If your short-range sensors are damaged, this command will only show
411 the contents of adjacent sectors.</para>
415 <sect1><title>Visual Scan</title>
419 Shortest abbreviation: V
422 <para>A visual scan is made in a particular direction of three sectors
423 in the general direction specified. This takes time, and Klingons can
424 attack you, so it should be done only when short-range sensors are
429 <sect1><title>Status Report</title>
433 Shortest abbreviation: ST
436 <!-- This is new in SST 2K -->
437 <para>If you are using the screen-oriented interface, this command is
438 suppressed; instead, a full status report will always be present on the
441 <para>This command gives you information about the current state of your
442 starship as follows:</para>
446 <term>STARDATE</term>
448 <para>The current date. A stardate is the same as a day.</para>
452 <term>CONDITION</term>
454 <para>There are four possible conditions:</para>
458 <listitem><para>docked at starbase.</para></listitem>
462 <listitem><para>in battle.</para></listitem>
466 <listitem><para>low on energy (<1000 units)</para></listitem>
470 <listitem><para>none of the above</para></listitem>
476 <term>POSITION</term>
478 <para>Quadrant is given first, then sector</para>
482 <term>LIFE SUPPORT</term>
484 <para>If <quote>ACTIVE</quote> then life support systems are functioning
485 normally. If on <quote>RESERVES</quote> the number is how many stardates your
486 reserve food, air, etc. will last—you must get repairs made or get to
487 a starbase before your reserves run out.</para>
491 <term>WARP FACTOR</term>
493 <para>What your warp factor is currently set to.</para>
499 <para>The amount of energy you have left. If it drops to zero, you die.</para>
503 <term>TORPEDOES</term>
505 <para>How many photon torpedoes you have left.</para>
511 <para>Whether your shields are up or down, how strong they are
512 (what percentage of a hit they can deflect), and shield energy.</para>
516 <term>KLINGONS LEFT</term>
518 <para>How many of the Klingons are still out there.</para>
522 <term>TIME LEFT</term>
524 <para>How long the Federation can hold out against the
525 present number of Klingons; that is, how long until the end
526 if you do nothing in the meantime. If you kill Klingons
527 quickly, this number will go up—if not, it will go down. If
528 it reaches zero, the federation is conquered and you lose.</para>
533 <para>Status information is free—it uses no time or energy, and
534 if you are in battle, the Klingons are not given another chance to hit
537 <para>Status information can also be obtained by doing a short-range scan.
538 See the SRSCAN command for details.</para>
540 <para>Each item of information can be obtained singly by requesting it.
541 See REQUEST command for details.</para>
544 <sect1><title>Long-Range Scan</title>
548 Shortest abbreviation: L
551 <!-- This is new in SST 2K -->
552 <para>If you are using the screen-oriented interface, this command is
553 suppressed; instead, a long-range scan will always be present on the
556 <para>A long-range scan gives you general information about where you are
557 and what is around you. Here is an example output.</para>
560 Long-range scan for Quadrant 5 - 1
566 <para>This scan says that you are in row 5, column 1 of the 8 by 8 galaxy.
567 The numbers in the scan indicate how many of each kind of thing there
568 is in your quadrant and all adjacent quadrants. The digits are
569 interpreted as follows.</para>
575 <entry>Thousands digit:</entry>
576 <entry>1000 indicates a supernova (only)</entry>
579 <entry>Hundreds digit:</entry>
580 <entry>number of Klingons present</entry>
583 <entry>Tens digit:</entry>
584 <entry>number of starbases present</entry>
587 <entry>Ones digit:</entry>
588 <entry>number of stars present</entry>
594 <para>For example, in your quadrant (5 - 1) the number is 316, which
595 indicates 3 Klingons, 1 starbase, and 6 stars. The long-range
596 scanner does not distinguish between ordinary Klingons and Klingon
597 command ships. If there is a supernova, as in the quadrant below and
598 to your right (quadrant 6 - 2), there is nothing else in the
601 <para>Romulans possess a <quote>cloaking device</quote> which prevents
602 their detection by long-range scan. Because of this fact, Starfleet
603 Command is never sure how many Romulans are <quote>out there</quote>.
604 When you kill the last Klingon, the remaining Romulans surrender to
605 the Federation.</para>
607 <para>Planets are also undetectable by long-range scan. The only way to
608 detect a planet is to find it in your current quadrant with the
609 short-range sensors.</para>
611 <para>Since you are in column 1, there are no quadrants to your left. The
612 minus ones indicate the negative energy barrier at the edge of the
613 galaxy, which you are not permitted to cross.</para>
615 <para>Long-range scans are free. They use up no energy or time, and can be
616 done safely regardless of battle conditions.</para>
619 <sect1><title>Star Chart</title>
623 Shortest abbreviation: C
626 <para>As you proceed in the game, you learn more and more about what things
627 are where in the galaxy. Whenever you first do a scan in a quadrant,
628 telemetry sensors are ejected which will report any changes in the
629 quadrant(s) back to your ship, providing the sub-space radio is
630 working. Spock will enter this information in the chart. If the radio
631 is not working, Spock can only enter new information discovered from
632 scans, and information in other quadrants may be obsolete.</para>
634 <para>The chart looks like an 8 by 8 array of numbers. These numbers are
635 interpreted exactly as they are on a long-range scan. A period (.) in
636 place of a digit means you do not know that information yet. For
637 example, ... means you know nothing about the quadrant, while .1.
638 menas you know it contains a base, but an unknown number of Klingons
641 <para>Looking at the star chart is a free operation. It costs neither time
642 nor energy, and can be done safely whether in or out of battle.</para>
645 <sect1><title>Damage Report</title>
649 Shortest abbreviation: DA
652 <para>At any time you may ask for a damage report to find out what devices
653 are damaged and how long it will take to repair them. Naturally,
654 repairs proceed faster at a starbase.</para>
656 <para>If you suffer damages while moving, it is possible that a subsequent
657 damage report will not show any damage. This happens if the time
658 spent on the move exceeds the repair time, since in this case the
659 damaged devices were fixed en route.</para>
661 <para>Damage reports are free. They use no energy or time, and can be done
662 safely even in the midst of battle.</para>
665 <sect1><title>Move Under Warp Drive</title>
669 Shortest abbreviation: M
670 Full command: MOVE MANUAL <displacement>
671 MOVE AUTOMATIC <destination>
674 <para>This command is the usual way to move from one place to another
675 within the galaxy. You move under warp drive, according to the
676 current warp factor (see <quote>WARP FACTOR</quote>).</para>
678 <para>There are two command modes for movement: MANUAL and AUTOMATIC.
679 The manual mode requires the following format:</para>
682 MOVE MANUAL <deltax> <deltay>
685 <para><deltax> and <deltay> are the horizontal and vertical
686 displacements for your starship, in quadrants; a displacement of one
687 sector is 0.1 quadrants. Specifying <deltax> and <deltay>
688 causes your ship to move in a straight line to the specified
689 destination. If <deltay> is omitted, it is assumed zero. For
690 example, the shortest possible command to move one sector to the right
697 <para>The following examples of manual movement refer to the short-range
698 scan shown earlier.</para>
701 Destination Sector Manual Movement command
706 (leaving quadrant) M M 0 .2
709 <para>The automatic mode is as follows:</para>
712 MOVE AUTOMATIC <qrow> <qcol> <srow> <scol>
715 <para><para>where <qrow> and <qcol> are the row and column
716 numbers of the destination quadrant, and <srow> and <scol>
717 are the row and column numbers of the destination sector in that
718 quadrant. This command also moves your ship in a straight line path
719 to the destination. For moving within a quadrant, <qrow> and
720 <qcol> may be omitted. For example, to move to sector 2 - 9 in
721 the current quadrant, the shortest command would be</para>
727 <para>To move to quadrant 3 - 7, sector 5 - 8, type</para>
733 <para>and it will be done. In automatic mode, either two or four numbers
734 must be supplied.</para>
736 <para>Automatic mode utilizes the ship's <quote>battle
737 computer.</quote> If the computer is damaged, manual movement must be
740 <para>If warp engines are damaged less than 10 stardates (undocked) you can
741 still go warp 4.</para>
743 <para>It uses time and energy to move. How much time and how much energy
744 depends on your current warp factor, the distance you move, and
745 whether your shields are up. The higher the warp factor, the faster
746 you move, but higher warp factors require more energy. You may move
747 with your shields up, but this doubles the energy required.</para>
749 <para>You can move within a quadrant without being attacked if you just
750 entered the quadrant or have been attacked since your last move
751 command. This enables you to move and hit them before they
755 <sect1><title>Warp Factor</title>
759 Shortest abbreviation: W
760 Full command: WARP <number>
763 <para>Your warp factor controls the speed of your starship. The larger the
764 warp factor, the faster you go and the more energy you use.</para>
766 <para>Your minimum warp factor is 1.0 and your maximum warp factor is 10.0
767 (which is 100 times as fast and uses 1000 times as much energy). At
768 speeds above warp 6 there is some danger of causing damage to your
769 warp engines; this damage is larger at higher warp factors and also
770 depends on how far you go at that warp factor.</para>
772 <para>At exactly warp 10 there is some probability of entering a
773 so-called <quote>time warp</quote> and being thrown foward or backward
774 in time. The farther you go at warp 10, the greater is the
775 probability of entering the time warp.</para>
778 <sect1><title>Impulse Engines</title>
782 Shortest abbreviation: I
783 Full command: IMPULSE MANUAL <displacement>
784 IMPULSE AUTOMATIC <destination>
787 <para>The impulse engines give you a way to move when your warp engines are
788 damaged. They move you at a speed of 0.95 sectors per stardate,
789 which is the equivalent of a warp factor of about 0.975, so they are
790 much too slow to use except in emergencies.</para>
792 <para>Movement commands are indicated just as in the <quote>MOVE</quote> command.</para>
794 <para>The impulse engines require 20 units of energy to engage, plus 10
795 units per sector (100 units per quadrant) traveled. It does not cost
796 extra to move with the shields up.</para>
799 <sect1><title>Deflector Shields</title>
803 Shortest abbreviation: SH
804 Full commands: SHIELDS UP
806 SHIELDS TRANSFER <amount of energy to transfer>
809 <para>Your deflector shields are a defensive device to protect you from
810 Klingon attacks (and nearby novas). As the shields protect you, they
811 gradually weaken. A shield strength of 75%, for example, means that
812 the next time a Klingon hits you, your shields will deflect 75% of
813 the hit, and let 25% get through to hurt you.</para>
815 <para>It costs 50 units of energy to raise shields, nothing to lower them.
816 You may move with your shields up; this costs nothing under impulse
817 power, but doubles the energy required for warp drive.</para>
819 <para>Each time you raise or lower your shields, the Klingons have another
820 chance to attack. Since shields do not raise and lower
821 instantaneously, the hits you receive will be intermediate between
822 what they would be if the shields were completely up or completely
825 <para>You may not fire phasers through your shields. However you may
826 use the <quote>high-speed shield control</quote> to lower shields,
827 fire phasers, and raise the shields again before the Klingons can
828 react. Since rapid lowering and raising of the shields requires more
829 energy than normal speed operation, it costs you 200 units of energy
830 to activate this control. It is automatically activated when you fire
831 phasers while shields are up. You may fire photon torpedoes, but they
832 may be deflected considerably from their intended course as they pass
833 through the shields (depending on shield strength).</para>
835 <para>You may transfer energy beteen the ship's energy (given as
836 <quote>Energy</quote> in the status) and the shields. The word
837 <quote>TRANSFER</quote> may be abbreviated <quote>T</quote>. The
838 ammount of energy to transfer is the number of units of energy you
839 wish to take from the ship's energy and put into the shields. If you
840 specify an negative number, energy is drained from the shields to the
841 ship. Transfering energy constitutes a turn. If you transfer energy
842 to the shields while you are under attack, they will be at the new
843 energy level when you are next hit.</para>
845 <para>Enemy torpedoes hitting your ship explode on your shields (if they
846 are up) and have essentially the same effect as phaser hits.</para>
849 <sect1><title>Phasers</title>
853 Shortest abbreviation: P
854 Full commands: PHASERS AUTOMATIC <AMOUNT TO FIRE> <NO>
855 PHASERS <AMOUNT TO FIRE> <NO>
856 PHASERS MANUAL <NO> <AMOUNT 1> <AMOUNT 2>...<AMOUNT N>
859 <para>Phasers are energy weapons. As you fire phasers at Klingons, you
860 specify an <quote>amount to fire</quote> which is drawn from your
861 energy reserves. The amount of total hit required to kill an enemy is
862 partly random. but also depends on skill level.</para>
864 <para>The average hit required to kill an ordinary Klingon varies from 200
865 units in the Novice game to 250 units in the Emeritus game.
866 Commanders normally require from 600 (Novice) to 700 (Emeritus). The
867 Super-commander requres from 875 (Good) to 1000 (Emeritus). Romulans
868 require an average of 350 (Novice) to 450 (Emeritus).</para>
870 <para>Hits on enemies are cumulative, as long as you don't leave the
873 <para>In general, not all that you fire will reach the Klingons. The
874 farther away they are, the less phaser energy will reach them. If a
875 Klingon is adjacent to you, he will receive about 90% of the phaser
876 energy directed at him; a Klingon 5 sectors away will receive about
877 60% and a Klingon 10 sectors away will receive about 35%. There is
878 some randomness involved, so these figures are not exact. Phasers
879 have no effect beyond the boundaries of the quadrant you are in.</para>
881 <para>Phasers may overheat (and be damaged) if you fire too large a burst
882 at once. Firing up to 1500 units is safe. From 1500 on up the
883 probability of overheat increases with the amount fired.</para>
885 <para>If phaser firing is automatic, the computer decides how to
886 divide up your <amount to fire> among the Klingons present. If
887 phaser firing is manual, you specify how much energy to fire at each
888 Klingon present (nearest first), rather than just specifying a total
889 amount. You can abreviate <quote>MANUAL</quote> and
890 <quote>AUTOMATIC</quote> to one or more letters; if you mention
891 neither, automatic fire is usually assumed.</para>
893 <para>Battle computer information is available by firing phasers manually,
894 and allowing the computer to prompt you. If you enter zero for the
895 amount to fire at each enemy, you will get a complete report, without
896 cost. The battle computer will tell you how much phaser energy to
897 fire at each enemy for a sure kill. This information appears in
898 parentheses prior to the prompt for each enemy. Since the amount is
899 computed from sensor data, if either the computer or the S.R. sensors
900 are damaged, this information will be unavailable, and phasers must
901 be fired manually.</para>
903 <para>A safety interlock prevents phasers from being fired through
904 the shields. If this were not so, the shields would contain your fire
905 and you would fry yourself. However, you may utilize the
906 <quote>high-speed shield control</quote> to drop shields, fire
907 phasers, and raise shields before the enemy can react. Since it takes
908 more energy to work the shields rapidly with a shot, it costs you 200
909 units of energy each time you activate this control. It is
910 automatically activated when you fire phasers while the shields are
911 up. By specifying the <no> option, shields are not raised after
914 <para>Phasers have no effect on starbases (which are shielded) or on
918 <sect1><title>Capture</title>
922 Shortest abbreviation: CA
923 Full commands: CAPTURE
926 <para>Ask a Klingon To surrender.</para>
928 <para>The Subspace Radio is needed to ask a Klingon if he will kindly
929 surrender. The weakest Klingon from the ones in the quadrant is
930 chosen. The probability of surrender is a function of that Klingon's
931 remaining power, our power, etc.</para>
934 <sect1><title>Report</title>
938 Shortest abbreviation: REP
941 <para>This command supplies you with information about the state of the
942 current game. Its purpose is to remind you of things that you have
943 learned during play, but may have forgotten, and cannot otherwise
944 retrieve if you are not playing at a hard-copy terminal.</para>
946 <para>You are told the following things:</para>
949 <listitem><para>The length and skill level of the game you are playing</para></listitem>
950 <listitem><para>The original number of Klingons</para></listitem>
951 <listitem><para>How many Klingons you have destroyed</para></listitem>
952 <listitem><para>Whether the Super-Commander has been destroyed</para></listitem>
953 <listitem><para>How many bases have been destroyed</para></listitem>
954 <listitem><para>How many bases are left</para></listitem>
955 <listitem><para>What bases (if any) are under attack; your subspace radio
956 must have been working since the attack to get this
957 information.</para></listitem>
958 <listitem><para>How many casualties you have suffered</para></listitem>
959 <listitem><para>How many times you have called for help.</para></listitem>
962 <para>This same information is automatically given to you when you start to
963 play a frozen game.</para>
966 <sect1><title>Computer</title>
970 Shortest abbreviation: CO
973 <para>This command allows using the ship's computer (if functional) to
974 calculate travel times and energy usage.</para>
977 <sect1><title>Photon Torpedoes</title>
981 Shortest abbreviation: TO
982 Full commands: TORPEDO <NUMBER> <TARG1> <TARG2> <TARG3>
985 <para>Photon torpedoes are projectile weapons—you either hit what you aim
986 at, or you don't. There are no <quote>partial hits</quote>.</para>
988 <para>One photon torpedo will usually kill one ordinary Klingon, but it
989 usually takes about two for a Klingon Commander. Photon torpedoes
990 can also blow up stars and starbases, if you aren't careful.</para>
992 <para>You may fire photon torpedoes singly, or in bursts of two or three.
993 Each torpedo is individually targetable. The computer will prompt
994 you, asking for the target sector for each torpedo. Alternately, you
995 may specify each target in the command line.</para>
997 <para>Photon torpedoes cannot be aimed precisely—there is always some
998 randomness involved in the direction they go. Photon torpedoes may
999 be fired with your shields up, but as they pass through the shields
1000 they are randomly deflected from their intended course even more.</para>
1002 <para>Photon torpedoes are proximity-fused. The closer they explode to the
1003 enemy, the more damage they do. There is a hit <quote>window</quote> about one
1004 sector wide. If the torpedo misses the hit window, it does not
1005 explode and the enemy is unaffected. Photon torpedoes are only
1006 effective within the quadrant. They have no effect on things in
1007 adjacent quadrants.</para>
1009 <para>If more than one torpedo is fired and only one target sector is
1010 specified, all torpedoes are fired at that sector. For example, to
1011 fire two torpedoes at sector 3 - 4, you type</para>
1014 PHO 2 3 4 (or) PHO 2 3 4 3 4
1017 <para>To fire torpedoes at, consecutively, sectors 2 - 6, 1 - 10, and 4 -
1024 <para>There is no restriction to fire directly at a sector. For example,
1025 you can enter</para>
1031 <para>to aim between two sectors. However, sector numbers must be 1 to 10
1035 <sect1><title>Dock at Starbase</title>
1039 Shortest abbreviation: D
1042 <para>You may dock your starship whenever you are in one of the eight
1043 sector positions immediately adjacent to a starbase. When you dock,
1044 your starship is resupplied with energy, shield energy photon
1045 torpedoes, and life support reserves. Repairs also proceed faster at
1046 starbase, so if some of your devices are damaged, you may wish to stay
1047 at base (by using the <quote>REST</quote> command) until they are
1048 fixed. If your ship has more than its normal maximum energy (which
1049 can happen if you've loaded crystals) the ship's energy is not
1052 <para>You may not dock while in standard orbit around a planet.</para>
1054 <para>Starbases have their own deflector shields, so you are completely
1055 safe from phaser attack while docked. You are also safe from
1056 long-range tractor beams.</para>
1058 <para>Starbases also have both short and long range sensors, which you can
1059 use if yours are broken. There's also a subspace radio to get
1060 information about happenings in the galaxy. Mr. Spock will update the
1061 star chart if your ask for it while docked and your own radio is dead.</para>
1064 <sect1><title>Rest</title>
1068 Shortest abbreviation: R
1069 Full command: REST <NUMBER-OF-STARDATES>
1072 <para>This command simply allows the specified number of stardates to go
1073 by. This is useful if you have suffered damages and wish to wait
1074 until repairs are made before you go back into battle.</para>
1076 <para>It is not generally advisable to rest while you are under attack by
1077 Klingons or Romulans.</para>
1080 <sect1><title>Call Starbase for Help</title>
1087 <para>[Originally, this command was called <quote>HELP</quote>, but
1088 these days that might be misconstrued as an attempt to browse built-in
1089 documentation! In some later versions it was CALL.]</para>
1091 <para>When you get into serious trouble, you may call a starbase for
1092 help. Starbases have a device called a <quote>long-range transporter
1093 beam</quote> which they can use to teleport you to base. This works
1094 by dematerializing your starship at its current position and
1095 re-materializing it adjacent to the nearest starbase. Teleportation
1096 is instantaneous, and starbase supplies the required energy—all
1097 you have to do is let them know (via subspace radio) that you need to
1100 <para>This command should be employed only when absolutely necessary. In
1101 the first place, calling for help is an admission on your part that
1102 you got yourself into something you cannot get yourself out of, and
1103 you are heavily penalized for this in the final scoring. Secondly,
1104 the long-range transporter beam is not reliable—starbase can always
1105 manage to dematerialize your starship, but (depending on distance)
1106 may or may not be able to re-materialize you again. The long-range
1107 transporter beam has no absolute maximum range; if you are in the
1108 same quadrant as a starbase, you have a good chance (about 90%) of
1109 re-materializing successfully. your chances drop to roughly 50-50 at
1110 just over 3 quadrants.</para>
1113 <sect1><title>Abandon Ship</title>
1120 <para>You may abandon the Enterprise if necessary. If there is still a
1121 starbase in the galaxy, you will be sent there and put in charge of a
1122 weaker ship, the Faerie Queene.</para>
1124 <para>The Faerie Queene cannot be abandoned.</para>
1127 <sect1><title>Self-Destruct</title>
1134 <para>You may self-destruct, thus killing yourself and ending the game. If
1135 there are nearby Klingons, you may take a few of them with you (the
1136 more energy you have left, the bigger the bang). It is possible to
1137 win this way, if you kill off your last adversaries with the blast.</para>
1139 <para>In order to self-destruct you must remember the password you typed in
1140 at the beginning of the game.</para>
1143 <sect1><title>Quit Game</title>
1150 <para>Immediately cancel the current game; no conclusion is reached. You
1151 will be given an opportunity to start a new game or to leave the Star
1152 Trek program.</para>
1155 <sect1><title>Sensor-Scan</title>
1159 Shortest abbreviation: SE
1162 <para>Utilizing the short-range sensors, science officer Spock gives you a
1163 readout on any planet in your quadrant. Planets come in three
1164 classes: M, N, and O. Only class M planets have earth-like
1165 conditions. Spock informs you if the planet has any dilithium
1166 crystals. Sensor scans are free.</para>
1169 <sect1><title>Enter Standard Orbit</title>
1173 Shortest abbreviation: O
1176 <para>To land on a planet you must first be in standard orbit. You achieve
1177 this in a manner similar to docking at starbase. Moving to one of
1178 the eight sector positions immediately adjacent to the planet, you
1179 give the orbit command which puts your ship into standard orbit about
1180 the planet. Since this is a maneuver, a small amount of time is
1181 used; negligible energy is required. If enemies are present, they
1185 <sect1><title>Transporter Travel</title>
1189 Shortest abbreviation: T
1192 <para>The transporter is a device which can convert any physical object
1193 into energy, beam the energy through space, and reconstruct the
1194 physical object at some destination. Transporting is one way to land
1195 on a planet. Since the transporter has a limited range, you must be
1196 in standard orbit to beam down to a planet. Shields must be down
1197 while transporting.</para>
1199 <para>The transport command is used to beam a landing party onto a planet
1200 to mine <quote>dilithium crystals</quote>. Each time the command is given the
1201 landing party (which you lead) moves from the ship to the planet, or
1204 <para>You are advised against needless transporting, since like all
1205 devices, the transporter will sometimes malfunction.</para>
1207 <para>The transporter consumes negligible time and energy. Its use does
1208 not constitute a <quote>turn</quote>.</para>
1211 <sect1><title>Shuttle Craft</title>
1215 Shortest abbreviation: SHU
1218 <para>An alternate way to travel to and from planets. Because of limited
1219 range, you must be in standard orbit to use the shuttle craft, named
1220 "Galileo". Shields must be down.</para>
1222 <para>Unlike transporting, use of the shuttle craft does constitute a
1223 <quote>turn</quote> since time is consumed. The time naturally
1224 depends on orbit altitude, and is equal to 3.0e-5 times altitude.
1225 Shuttling uses no ship energy.</para>
1227 <para>You should use the same travel device going from the planet to the
1228 ship as you use to go from the ship to the planet. However it is
1229 possible to transport to the planet and have the Galileo crew come
1230 and pick your landing party up, or to take the Galileo to the planet
1231 and then transport back, leaving the shuttle craft on the planet.</para>
1234 <sect1><title>Mine Dilithium Crystals</title>
1238 Shortest abbreviation: MI
1241 <para>Once you and your mining party are on the surface of a planet which
1242 has dilithium crystals, this command will dig them for you.</para>
1244 <para>Mining requires time and constitutes a <quote>turn</quote>. No
1245 energy is used. Class M planets require 0.1 to 0.3 stardates to mine.
1246 Class N planets take twice as long, and class O planets take three
1247 times as long.</para>
1249 <para>Dilithium crystals contain enormous energy in a form that is readily
1250 released in the ship's power system. It is an excellent idea to mine
1251 them whenever possible, for use in emergencies. You keep the
1252 crystals until the game is over or you abandon ship when not at a
1256 <sect1><title>Load Dilithium Crystals</title>
1260 Shortest abbreviation: CR
1263 <para>This is a very powerful command which should be used with caution.
1264 Once you have dilithium crystals aboard ship, this command will
1265 instruct engineering officer Scott and Mr. Spock to place a raw
1266 dilithium crystal into the power channel of the ship's
1267 matter-antimatter converter. When it works, this command will
1268 greatly boost the ship's energy.</para>
1270 <para>Because the crystals are raw and impure, instabilities can occur in
1271 the power channel. Usually Scotty can control these. When he
1272 cannot, the results are disastrous. Scotty will use those crystals
1273 that appear to be most stable first.</para>
1275 <para>Since using raw dilithium crystals for this purpose entails
1276 considerable risk, Starfleet Regulations allow its use only during
1277 "condition yellow". No time or energy is used.</para>
1280 <sect1><title>Planet Report</title>
1284 Shortest abbreviation: PL
1287 <para>Mr. Spock presents you a list of the available information on
1288 planets in the galaxy which are potential dilithium sources. Since
1289 planets do not show up on long-range scans, the only way to obtain
1290 this information is with the <quote>SENSORS</quote> command.</para>
1293 <sect1 id="freeze"><title>Freeze</title>
1298 Full command: FREEZE <FILE NAME>
1301 <para>The purpose of the FREEZE command is to allow a player to save the
1302 current state of the game, so that it can be finished later. A
1303 plaque may not be generated from a frozen game. A file with the
1304 specified <file name> and type '.TRK' is created (if necessary) in
1305 the current directory, and all pertinent information about the game
1306 is written to that file. The game may be continued as usual or be
1307 terminated at the user's option.</para>
1309 <para>To restart a game created by the <quote>FREEZE</quote> command,
1310 the user need only type <quote>FROZEN</quote> in response to the
1311 initial question about the type of game desired, followed by the
1312 <file name>.</para>
1314 <para>NOTE: A <quote>tournament</quote> game is like a frozen game,
1315 with the following differences. (1) Tournament games always start
1316 from the beginning, while a frozen game can start at any point. (2)
1317 Tournament games require only that the player remember the name or
1318 number of the tournament, while the information about a frozen game
1319 must be kept on a file. Tournament games can be frozen, but then they
1320 behave like regular frozen games.</para>
1322 <para>A point worth noting is that 'FREEZE' does not save the seed for the
1323 random number generator, so that identical actions after restarting
1324 the same frozen game can lead to different results. However,
1325 identical actions after starting a given tournament game always lead
1326 to the same results.</para>
1329 <sect1><title>Request</title>
1333 Shortest abbreviation: REQ
1334 Full command: REQUEST <ITEM>
1337 <!-- This is new in SST 2K -->
1338 <para>If you are using the screen-oriented interface, this command is
1339 suppressed; instead, a full status report will always be present on the
1342 <para>This command allows you to get any single piece of information
1343 from the <STATUS> command. <ITEM> specifies which
1344 information as follows:</para>
1350 <entry>Information</entry>
1351 <entry>Mnemonic for <item></entry>
1352 <entry>Shortest Abbreviation</entry>
1356 <row><entry>STARDATE</entry> <entry>DATE</entry> <entry>D</entry></row>
1357 <row><entry>CONDITION</entry> <entry>CONDITION</entry> <entry>C</entry></row>
1358 <row><entry>POSITION</entry> <entry>POSITION</entry> <entry>P</entry></row>
1359 <row><entry>LIFE SUPPORT</entry><entry>LSUPPORT</entry> <entry>L</entry></row>
1360 <row><entry>WARP FACTOR</entry> <entry>WARPFACTOR</entry><entry>W</entry></row>
1361 <row><entry>ENERGY</entry> <entry>ENERGY</entry> <entry>E</entry></row>
1362 <row><entry>TORPEDOES</entry> <entry>TORPEDOES</entry> <entry>T</entry></row>
1363 <row><entry>SHIELDS</entry> <entry>SHIELDS</entry> <entry>S</entry></row>
1364 <row><entry>KLINGONS LEFT</entry><entry>KLINGONS</entry> <entry>K</entry></row>
1365 <row><entry>TIME LEFT</entry> <entry>TIME</entry> <entry>TI</entry></row>
1366 <row><entry>BASES LEFT</entry> <entry>BASES</entry> <entry>BA</entry></row>
1372 <sect1><title>Experimental Death Ray</title>
1379 <para>This command should be used only in those desperate cases where
1380 you have absolutely no alternative. The death ray uses energy to
1381 rearrange matter. Unfortunately, its working principles are not yet
1382 thoroughly understood, and the results are highly
1383 unpredictable.</para>
1385 <para>The only good thing that can result is the destruction of all
1386 enemies in your current quadrant. This will happen about 70% of the
1387 time. Only enemies are destroyed; starbases, stars, and planets are
1390 <para>Constituting the remaining 30% are results varying from bad to
1393 <para>The death ray requires no energy or time, but if you survive, enemies
1394 will hit you.</para>
1396 <para>The Faerie Queene has no death ray.</para>
1398 <para>If the death ray is damaged in its use, it must be totally replaced.
1399 This can only be done at starbase. Because it is a very complex
1400 device, it takes 9.99 stardates at base to replace the death ray.
1401 The death ray cannot be repaired in flight.</para>
1404 <sect1><title>Launch Deep Space Probe</title>
1408 Shortest abbreviation: PR
1409 Full command: PROBE <ARMED> MANUAL <displacement>
1410 PROBE <ARMED> AUTOMATIC <destination>
1413 <para>The Enterprise carries a limited number of Long Range Probes. These
1414 fly to the end of the galaxy and report back a count of the number of
1415 important things found in each quadrant through which it went. The
1416 probe flies at warp 10, and therefore uses time during its flight.
1417 Results are reported immediately via subspace radio and are recorded
1418 in the star chart.</para>
1420 <para>The probe can also be armed with a NOVAMAX warhead. When launched
1421 with the warhead armed, the probe flies the same except as soon as it
1422 reaches the target location, it detonates the warhead in the heart of
1423 a star, causing a supernova and destroying everything in the
1424 quadrant. It then flies no further. There must be a star in the
1425 target quadrant for the NOVAMAX to function. </para>
1427 <para>The probe can fly around objects in a galaxy, but is destroyed if it
1428 enters a quadrant containing a supernova, or if it leaves the galaxy.</para>
1430 <para>The target location is specified in the same manner as the MOVE
1431 command, however for automatic movement, if only one pair of
1432 coordinates are specified they are assumed to be the quadrant and not
1433 the sector in the current quadrant!</para>
1435 <para>The Faerie Queene has no probes.</para>
1438 <sect1><title>Emergency Exit</title>
1442 Shortest abbreviation: E
1445 <para>This command provides a quick way to exit from the game when you
1446 observe a Klingon battle cruiser approaching your terminal. Its
1447 effect is to freeze the game on the file 'EMSAVE.TRK' in your current
1448 directory, erase the screen, and exit.</para>
1450 <para>Of course, you do lose the chance to get a plaque when you use this
1454 <sect1><title>Ask for Help</title>
1458 Full command: HELP <command>
1461 <para>This command reads the appropriate section from the SST.DOC file,
1462 providing the file is in the current directory.</para>
1466 <chapter><title>Miscellaneous Notes</title>
1468 <para>Starbases can be attacked by either commanders or by the
1469 <quote>Super-Commander</quote>. When this happens, you will be
1470 notified by subspace radio, provided it is working. The message will
1471 inform you how long the base under attack can last. Since the
1472 <quote>Super-Commander</quote> is more powerful than an ordinary
1473 commander, he can destroy a base more quickly.</para>
1475 <para>Inhabited worlds can be attacked, enslaved, and forced to
1476 build more Klingon starships. They will send out a distress call
1477 by subspace radio when they are attacked, and you will lose contact
1478 with them when they are enslaved.</para>
1480 <para>The <quote>Super-Commander</quote> travels around the galaxy at
1481 a speed of about warp 6 or 7. His movement is strictly time based;
1482 the more time passes, the further he can go.</para>
1484 <para>Scattered through the galaxy are certain zones of control,
1485 collectively designated the <quote>Romulan Neutral Zone</quote>. Any
1486 quadrant which contains Romulans without Klingons is part of the
1487 Neutral Zone, except if a base is present. Since Romulans do not show
1488 on either the long-range scan or the star chart, it is easy for you to
1489 stumble into this zone. When you do, if your subspace radio is
1490 working, you will receive a warning message from the Romulan, politely
1491 asking you to leave.</para>
1493 <para>In general, Romulans are a galactic nuisance.</para>
1495 <para>The high-speed shield control is fairly reliable, but it has been
1496 known to malfunction.</para>
1498 <para>You can observe the galactic movements of the
1499 <quote>Super-Commander</quote> on the star chart, provided he is in
1500 territory you have scanned and your subspace radio is working.</para>
1502 <para>Periodically, you will receive intelligence reports from
1503 starfleet command, indicating the current quadrant of the
1504 <quote>Super-Commander</quote>. Your subspace radio must be working,
1507 <para>Each quadrant will contain from 0 to 3 black holes. Torpedoes
1508 entering a black hole disappear. In fact, anything entering a black
1509 hole disappears, permanently. If you can displace an enemy into one,
1510 he is a goner. Black holes do not necessarily remain in a quadrant.
1511 they are transient phenomena.</para>
1513 <para>Commanders will ram your ship, killing themselves and inflicting
1514 heavy damage to you, if they should happen to decide to advance into
1517 <para>You can get a list of commands by typing
1518 <quote>COMMANDS</quote>.</para>
1521 <chapter><title>Scoring</title>
1523 <para>Scoring is fairly simple. You get points for good things, and you
1524 lose points for bad things.</para>
1526 <para>You gain—</para>
1529 <listitem><para>10 points for each ordinary Klingon you kill,</para></listitem>
1530 <listitem><para>50 points for each commander you kill,</para></listitem>
1531 <listitem><para>200 points for killing the <quote>Super-Commander</quote>,</para></listitem>
1532 <listitem><para>20 points for each Romulan killed,</para></listitem>
1533 <listitem><para>1 point for each Romulan captured.</para></listitem>
1535 <para>100 times your average Klingon/stardate kill rate. If you lose
1536 the game, your kill rate is based on a minimum of 5 stardates.</para>
1539 <para>You get a bonus if you win the game, based on your rating:</para>
1540 <para>Novice=100, Fair=200, Good=300, Expert=400, Emeritus=500.</para>
1544 <para>You lose—</para>
1547 <listitem><para>300 points for each inhabited world you destroy,</para></listitem>
1548 <listitem><para>200 points if you get yourself killed,</para></listitem>
1549 <listitem><para>100 points for each starbase you destroy,</para></listitem>
1550 <listitem><para>100 points for each starship you lose,</para></listitem>
1551 <listitem><para>45 points for each time you had to call for help,</para></listitem>
1552 <listitem><para>10 points for each uninhabited planet you destroyed,</para></listitem>
1553 <listitem><para>5 points for each star you destroyed, and</para></listitem>
1554 <listitem><para>1 point for each casualty you incurred.</para></listitem>
1557 <para>In addition to your score, you may also be promoted one grade in rank
1558 if you play well enough. Promotion is based primarily on your
1559 Klingon/stardate kill rate, since this is the best indicator of
1560 whether you are ready to go on to the next higher rating. However,
1561 if you have lost 100 or more points in penalties, the required kill
1562 rate goes up. Normally, the required kill rate is 0.1 * skill *
1563 (skill + 1.0) + 0.1, where skill ranges from 1 for Novice to 5 for
1566 <para>You can be promoted from any level. There is a special
1567 promotion available if you go beyond the <quote>Expert</quote> range.
1568 You can also have a certificate of merit printed with your name, date,
1569 and Klingon kill rate, provided you are promoted from either the
1570 <quote>Expert</quote> or <quote>Emeritus</quote> levels. You may need
1571 print the certificate to a file, import it into your word processor,
1572 selecting Courier 8pt font, and then print in <quote>landscape
1573 orientation</quote>.</para>
1574 <!-- The plaque used to require an 132 column printer. Stas changed that. -->
1577 <chapter><title>Handy Reference Page</title>
1579 <literallayout format='linespecific' class='monospaced'>
1580 ABBREV FULL COMMAND DEVICE USED
1581 ------ ------------ -----------
1582 ABANDON ABANDON shuttle craft
1583 CA CAPTURE subspace radio and transporter
1585 CO COMPUTER computer
1588 DEATHRAY DEATHRAY (none)
1589 DESTRUCT DESTRUCT computer
1592 FREEZE FREEZE <FILE NAME> (none)
1593 I IMPULSE <MANUAL> <DISPLACEMENT> impulse engines
1594 IMPULSE AUTOMATIC <DESTINATION> impulse engines and computer
1595 L LRSCAN long-range sensors
1596 MAYDAY MAYDAY (for help) subspace radio
1598 M MOVE <MANUAL> <DISPLACEMENT> warp engines
1599 MOVE AUTOMATIC <DESTINATION> warp engines and computer
1600 O ORBIT warp or impulse engines
1601 P PHASERS <TOTAL AMOUNT> phasers and computer
1602 PHASERS AUTOMATIC <TOTAL AMOUNT> phasers, computer, sr sensors
1603 PHASERS MANUAL <AMT1> <AMT2> ... phasers
1604 TOR TORPEDO <NUMBER> <TARGETS> torpedo tubes
1606 PR PROBE <ARMED> <MANUAL> <DISPLACEMENT> probe launcher, radio
1607 PROBE <ARMED> AUTOMATIC <DESTINATION> launcher, radio, computer
1610 R REST <NUMBER OF STARDATES> (none)
1612 S SRSCAN <NO or CHART> short-range sensors
1613 SE SENSORS short-range sensors
1614 SH SHIELDS <UP, DOWN, or TRANSFER> deflector shields
1615 SHU SHUTTLE shuttle craft
1617 T TRANSPORT transporter
1618 W WARP <FACTOR> (none)
1620 L. R. Scan: thousands digit: supernova
1621 hundreds digit: Klingons
1622 tens digit: starbases
1624 period (.): digit not known (star chart only)
1626 Courses are given in manual mode in X - Y displacements; in automatic
1627 mode as destination quadrant and/or sector. Manual mode is default.
1628 Distances are given in quadrants. A distance of one sector is 0.1 quadrant.
1629 Ordinary Klingons have about 400 units of energy, Commanders about
1630 1200. Romulans normally have about 800 units of energy, and the
1631 (GULP) "Super-Commander" has about 1800.
1632 Phaser fire diminishes to about 60 percent at 5 sectors. Up to 1500
1633 units may be fired in a single burst without danger of overheat.
1634 Warp 6 is the fastest safe speed. At higher speeds, engine damage
1635 may occur. At warp 10 you may enter a time warp.
1636 Shields cost 50 units of energy to raise, and double the power
1637 requirements of moving under warp drive. Engaging the high-speed
1638 shield control requires 200 units of energy.
1639 Warp drive requires (distance)*(warp factor cubed) units of energy
1640 to travel at a speed of (warp factor squared)/10 quadrants per stardate.
1641 Impulse engines require 20 units to warm up, plus 100 units per
1642 quadrant. Speed is just under one sector per stardate.
1646 <chapter><title>Game History and Modifications</title>
1648 <sect1><title>Origins</title>
1650 <para>The original Star Trek seems to have been written by Mike
1651 Mayfield at the beginning of the 1970s. His first version was in
1652 BASIC for a Sigma 7 in 1971; in 1972 he rewrote it in Hewlett Packard
1653 BASIC. The source is included in the SST2K repository. In January
1654 1975 it became part of the DECUS library under the name <ulink
1655 url='http://www.trailing-edge.com/~shoppa/decus/110174.html'>SPACWR</ulink>.</para>
1657 <para>While some people claim to have recollections of playing Trek
1658 games in the late 1960s, the earlier ones seem actually to have been
1660 <ulink url='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!'>
1661 SPACEWAR</ulink>, the earlier space-combat game on the
1662 PDP-1. Mayfield <ulink
1663 url='http://www3.sympatico.ca/maury/games/space/star_trek.html'>wrote
1664 in 2000</ulink> that he invented the Trek-style galactic grid, and the
1665 evidence seems to back that up. Some of the confusion probably stems
1666 from the fact that Mayfield's original and several early descendants
1667 were distributed under the name SPACWR.</para>
1669 <para>Many different versions radiated from Mayfield's original; most
1670 of the ones in BASIC are descended from a SPACWR version that David
1671 Ahl published in <citetitle>101 BASIC Computer Games</citetitle>,
1672 July 1973. This was a port of Mayfield's version obtained from the HP
1673 Contributed Programs library. </para>
1675 <para>Our SST2K is descended from a Taurus BASIC program by Grady
1676 Hicks dated 5 April 1973. This does not appear to have been derived
1677 from Ahl's SPACWR. The header says "GENERAL IDEA STOLEN FROM
1678 PENN. U.", and the game has several features not present in SPACEWR:
1679 notably, the Death Ray, ramming, and the Klingon summons to surrender.
1680 And, of course, it predates Ahl's book. The source is included in the
1681 SST2K repository.</para>
1683 <para>Dave Matuszek, Paul Reynolds et. al. at UT Austin played the
1684 Hicks version on a CDC6600, but disliked the long load time and
1685 extreme slowness of the BASIC program. (David Matuszek notes that the
1686 Hicks version he played had a habit of throwing long quotes from
1687 Marcus Aurelius at the users, a feature he found intolerable on a TTY
1688 at 110 baud. It must, therefore, have been rather longer than the one
1691 <para>The Austin crew proceeded to write their own Trek game, loosely
1692 based on the Hicks version, in CDC6600 FORTRAN. Most of the code was
1693 written in 1973-1974. At that time, the game was just called "Star
1694 Trek"; the "Super" was added by later developers. In the rest of this
1695 history we'll call it the "UT FORTRAN" version.</para>
1697 <para>Dave Matuszek reports that the UT FORTRAN codebase he worked on
1698 in 1973-1974 was like Mayfield's original and most later versions in
1699 BASIC, in that it used used polar coordinates (a clockface angle
1700 and a distance) for manual navigation.</para>
1702 <para>Tom Almy writes: "I've received further information that the
1703 black holes, Tholian web, Super Commander, and Emeritus mode were
1704 added by Marc Newman."</para>
1706 <para>At the time the UT FORTRAN source was last translated to C it emitted
1707 the message "Latest update-21 Sept 78". Thus, it actually predated
1708 (and may have influenced) the best-known BASIC version, the "Super
1709 Star Trek" published by David Ahl in his November 1978 sequel
1710 <citetitle>BASIC Computer Games</citetitle>.</para>
1712 <para>This 1978 "Super Star Trek" had been reworked by Robert Leedom
1713 and friends from (according to Leedom) Mayfield's HP port. There is
1714 internal evidence to suggest that at least some features of Leedom's
1715 SST may have derived from the UT FORTRAN version. In particular, Dave
1716 Matuszek recalls implementing command words to replace the original
1717 numeric command codes during 1973-1974, a feature Leedom's SST also
1718 had but the 1973 and 1975 SPACWRs did not.</para>
1720 <para>One signature trait of the UT FORTRAN game and its descendants
1721 is that the sectors are 10x10 (rather than the 8x8 in Mike Mayfield's
1722 1972 original and its BASIC descendants). The UT FORTRAN version also
1723 preserves the original numbered quadrants rather than the
1724 astronomically-named quadrants introduced in Ahl's SST and its
1727 <para>Eric Allman's BSD Trek game is one of these, also descended from
1728 the UT FORTRAN version via translation to C. However, the mainline version
1729 (now SST2K) has had a lot more stuff folded into it over the years
1730 — deep space probes, dilithium mining, the Tholian Web, and so
1734 <sect1><title>Tom Almy's story</title>
1736 <para>Back in (about) 1977 I got a copy of the Super Star Trek game for
1737 the CDC 6600 mainframe computer. Someone had converted it to PDP-11
1738 Fortran but couldn't get it to run because of its size. I modified
1739 the program to use overlays and managed to shoehorn it in on the 56k
1740 byte machine.</para>
1742 <para>I liked the game so much I put some time into fixing bugs, mainly
1743 what could be called continuity errors and loopholes in the game's
1744 logic. We even played a couple tournaments.</para>
1746 <para>In 1979, I lost access to that PDP-11. I did save the source code
1747 listing. In 1995, missing that old friend, I started converting the
1748 program into portable ANSI C. It's been slow, tedious work that took
1749 over a year to accomplish.</para>
1751 <para>In early 1997, I got the bright idea to look for references to
1752 <quote>Super Star Trek</quote> on the World Wide Web. There weren't
1753 many hits, but there was one that came up with 1979 Fortran sources!
1754 This version had a few additional features that mine didn't have,
1755 however mine had some feature it didn't have. So I merged its features
1756 that I liked. I also took a peek at the DECUS version (a port, less
1757 sources, to the PDP-10), and some other variations.</para>
1759 <para>Modifications I made:</para>
1761 <para>Compared to original version, I've changed the
1762 <quote>help</quote> command to <quote>call</quote> and the
1763 <quote>terminate</quote> command to <quote>quit</quote> to better
1764 match user expectations. The DECUS version apparently made those
1765 changes as well as changing <quote>freeze</quote> to
1766 <quote>save</quote>. However I like <quote>freeze</quote>.</para>
1768 <para>I added EMEXIT from the 1979 version.</para>
1770 <para>That later version also mentions srscan and lrscan working when
1771 docked (using the starbase's scanners), so I made some changes here
1772 to do this (and indicating that fact to the player), and then
1773 realized the base would have a subspace radio as well — doing a
1774 Chart when docked updates the star chart, and all radio reports will
1775 be heard. The Dock command will also give a report if a base is under
1778 <para>It also had some added logic to spread the initial positioning of
1779 bases. That made sense to add because most people abort games with
1780 bad base placement.</para>
1782 <para>The experimental deathray originally had only a 5% chance of success,
1783 but could be used repeatedly. I guess after a couple years of use, it
1784 was less <quote>experimental</quote> because the 1979 version had a 70% success
1785 rate. However it was prone to breaking after use. I upgraded the
1786 deathray, but kept the original set of failure modes (great humor!).</para>
1788 <para>I put in the Tholian Web code from the 1979 version.</para>
1790 <para>I added code so that Romulans and regular Klingons could move in
1791 advanced games. I re-enabled the code which allows enemy ships to
1792 ram the Enterprise; it had never worked right. The 1979 version
1793 seems to have it all fixed up, but I'm still not overly happy with
1794 the algorithm.</para>
1796 <para>The DECUS version had a Deep Space Probe. Looked like a good idea
1797 so I implemented it based on its description.</para>
1799 <para>I imported CAPTURE from BSD Trek.</para>
1802 <sect1><title>Stas Sergeev's story</title>
1804 <para>I started from an older Tom Almy version and added features I had
1805 seen in other mainframe variants of the game, I wrote a screen-oriented
1806 interface for it based on the curses library.</para>
1810 <para>The Space Thingy can be shoved, if you ram it, and can fire back if
1814 <para>The Tholian can be hit with phasers.</para>
1817 <para>When you are docked, base covers you with an almost invincible shields
1818 (a commander can still ram you, or a Romulan can destroy the base,
1819 or a SCom can even succeed with direct attack IIRC, but this rarely
1823 <para>SCom can't escape from you if no more enemies remain (without this,
1824 chasing SCom can take an eternity).</para>
1827 <para>Probe target you enter is now the destination quadrant. Before I don't
1828 remember what it was, but it was something I had difficulty using.</para>
1831 <para>Secret password is now autogenerated.</para>
1834 <para>Victory plaque is adjusted for A4 paper rather than 132-column greenbar
1838 <para>Phasers now tells you how much energy needed, but only if the computer
1842 <para>Planets are auto-scanned when you enter the quadrant.</para>
1845 <para>Mining or using crystals in the presence of the enemy now yields
1846 an attack. There are other minor adjustments to what yields an attack
1847 and what does not.</para>
1850 <para>Ramming a black hole is no longer instant death. There is a
1851 chance you might get timewarped instead.</para>
1854 <para>"freeze" command reverts to "save", most people will understand this
1855 better anyway.</para>
1858 <para>Screen-oriented interface, with sensor scans always up.</para>
1862 <para>My changes got merged into SST2K in 2005.</para>
1865 <sect1><title>Eric Raymond's story</title>
1867 <para>I played the FORTRAN version of this game in the late 1970s on a
1868 DEC minicomputer. In the late 1980s Dave Matuszek and I became
1869 friends; I was vaguely aware that he had had something to do with the
1870 original Star Trek game. In October 2004, sitting in Dave's living
1871 room, we got to talking about the game and I realized it would make a
1872 great exhibit for the <ulink
1873 url='&retro;'>Retrocomputing Museum</ulink>.</para>
1875 <para>A few quick web searches later we found Tom Almy's page. We
1876 downloaded his code and Dave verified that that it was a direct
1877 descendent of UT Super Star Trek — even though it had been translated
1878 to C, he was able to recognize names and techniques from the FORTRAN
1879 version he co-wrote.</para>
1881 <para>This game became an open-source project; see the <ulink
1882 url='http://developer.berlios.de/projects/sst/'>project
1883 site</ulink>.</para>
1885 <para>After I launched the Berlios project, Stas Sergeev contacted me.
1886 We worked together to merge in his changes.</para>
1888 <para>Modifications I've made:</para>
1892 I converted the flat-text SST.DOC file to XML-Docbook so it can be
1893 webbed. (That's what you're reading now.)
1896 The command-help code needed a rewrite because the flat-text form of
1897 the documentation is now generated from XML and doesn't have the
1898 easily recognizable section delimiters it used to. I wrote a script
1899 to filter that flat-text form into an sst.doc that's easy to parse for
1900 command descriptions, and changed some logic in sst.c to match.
1903 I've cleaned up a lot of grubby FORTRANisms in the code internals —
1904 used sizeof(), replaced magic numeric constants with #defines,
1905 that sort of thing. Later I translated the code from C to Python.
1908 I fixed a surprising number of typos in the code and documentation.
1911 All the game state now lives in one big structure that can be
1912 written to and read from disk as one blob. The write gives it an
1913 an identifiable magic number and the thaw logic checks for same.
1916 I made the internal pager work, and in the process got rid of a number
1917 of platform dependencies in the code.
1920 The HELP/CALL/SOS command is now MAYDAY.
1923 Status report now indicates if dilithium crystals are on board.
1926 At Dave's prompting, restored the Space Thingy's original elusive behavior.
1929 Clean separation of game engine from the UI code, improving Stas
1930 Sergeev's excellent work on the curses interface.
1934 <para>Here are some good pages on the history of Star Trek games:</para>
1938 <ulink url='http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek/'>http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek/</ulink>
1941 <ulink url='http://www3.sympatico.ca/maury/games/space/star_trek.html'>http://www3.sympatico.ca/maury/games/space/star_trek.html</ulink>
1944 <ulink url='http://www.cactus.org/%7Enystrom/startrek.html'>http://www.cactus.org/%7Enystrom/startrek.html</ulink>
1949 <sect1><title>Authors' Acknowledgments</title>
1951 <para>These are the original acknowledgments by Dave Matuszek and Paul
1954 <para>The authors would like to thank Professor Michael Duggan for his
1955 encouragement and administrative assistance with the development of
1956 the Star Trek game, without which it might never have been completed.</para>
1958 <para>Much credit is due to Patrick McGehearty and Rich Cohen, who assisted
1959 with the original design of the game and contributed greatly to its
1960 conceptual development.</para>
1962 <para>Thanks are also due to Carl Strange, Hardy Tichenor and Steven Bruell
1963 for their assistance with certain coding problems.</para>
1965 <para>This game was inspired by and rather loosely based on an earlier
1966 game, programmed in the BASIC language, by Jim Korp and Grady Hicks.
1967 It is the authors' understanding that the BASIC game was in turn
1968 derived from a still earlier version in use at Penn State University.</para>
1971 <sect1><title>References</title>
1973 <para>These are the original references by Dave Matuszek and Paul
1977 <listitem><para><citetitle>Star Trek</citetitle> (the original television
1978 series), produced and directed by Gene Rodenberry.</para></listitem>
1980 <listitem><para><citetitle>Star Trek</citetitle> (the animated
1981 television series), produced by Gene Rodenberry and directed by Hal
1982 Sutherland. Also excellent, and not just kiddie fare. If you enjoyed
1983 the original series you should enjoy this one (unless you have some
1984 sort of a hangup about watching cartoons).</para></listitem>
1986 <listitem><para><citetitle>The Making of Star Trek</citetitle>, by
1987 Steven E. Whitfield and Gene Rodenberry. The best and most complete
1988 readily available book about Star Trek. (Ballantine
1989 Books)</para></listitem>
1991 <listitem><para><citetitle>The World of Star Trek</citetitle>, by
1992 David Gerrold. Similiar in scope to the above book.
1993 (Bantam)</para></listitem>
1995 <listitem><para><citetitle>The Star Trek Guide</citetitle>, third
1996 revision 4/17/67, by Gene Roddenberry. The original writer's guide
1997 for the television series, but less comprehensive than (3) above.
1998 (Norway Productions)</para></listitem>
2000 <listitem><para><citetitle>The Trouble With Tribbles</citetitle>, by
2001 David Gerrold. Includes the complete script of this popular show.
2002 (Ballantine Books)</para></listitem>
2004 <listitem><para><citetitle>Star Trek</citetitle>, <citetitle>Star Trek
2005 2</citetitle>, ..., <citetitle>Star Trek 9</citetitle>, by James
2006 Blish. The original shows in short story form.
2007 (Bantam)</para></listitem>
2009 <listitem><para><citetitle>Spock Must Die</citetitle>, by James Blish.
2010 An original novel, but rather similar to the show <citetitle>The Enemy
2011 Within</citetitle>. (Bantam)</para></listitem>
2013 <listitem><para>Model kits of the Enterprise and a <quote>Klingon
2014 Battle-Cruiser</quote> by AMT Corporation are available at most hobby
2015 shops.</para></listitem>
2021 <appendix><title>Setting the Wayback Machine</title>
2023 <para>SST2K and its ancestors have a long history. One of the
2024 objectives of this project is to make that history available.
2025 Accordingly, here is a timeline of the development of SST2K and
2026 its ancestors, as closely as we can reconstruct it. Someday this
2027 may become the basis for a "wayback machine" switch that enables
2028 feature sets by year.</para>
2031 <listitem><para>1971 — Mike Mayfield's original BASIC Star
2032 Trek.</para></listitem>
2034 <listitem><para>5 April 1973 — Grady Hicks's BASIC version fot
2035 the Taurus.</para></listitem>
2037 <listitem><para>Summer 1973 — Dave Matuszek, Paul Reynolds, and
2038 the Austin crew begin work on the UT FORTRAN version.</para></listitem>
2040 <listitem><para>1974 — Dave Matuszek gets distracted by other
2041 things, notably a job change and the birth of his first
2042 child.</para></listitem>
2044 <listitem><para>c.1977 — Tom Almy translates the UT FORTAN
2045 version to PDP-11 FORTRAN.</para></listitem>
2047 <listitem><para>21 September 1978 — This was the date on the
2048 first version Tom Almy saw, on which he based his later C
2049 translation.</para></listitem>
2051 <listitem><para>1979 — Marc Newman adds Tholians, black holes,
2052 super-commanders, and Emeritus mode.</para></listitem>
2054 <listitem><para>1995-1996 — Tom Almy translates his FORTRAN
2055 port to ANSI C.</para></listitem>
2057 <listitem><para>1997 — Tom Almy finds the sources for UT
2058 FORTRAN on the Web and merges in features new since the 1978 version:
2059 EMEXIT, Tholian Web, improved death ray. He adds deep-space probes
2060 from the DECUS version.</para></listitem>
2062 <listitem><para>10 October 2004 — ESR starts hacking on Almy's C
2063 translation, de-FORTRANIZING the code. HELP/CALL/SOS becomes MAYDAY.
2066 <listitem><para>30 October 2004 — SST2K project started on
2067 Berlios.</para></listitem>
2069 <listitem><para>18 January 2005 — First changes merged in from Stas
2070 Sergeev. The curses interface is added.</para></listitem>
2072 <listitem><para>September 2006 — BSD features merged
2073 in. Inhabited-worlds features and weighted critical hits date from
2074 this time.</para></listitem>
2076 <listitem><para>9 October 2006 — Translation to
2077 Python.</para></listitem>
2079 <listitem><para>22 February 2017 — Color added.</para></listitem>
2083 <para>One as-yet unanswered question is when the code changed from
2084 distance/direction navigation to coordinate offsets. Dave Matuszek
2085 believes it must have been after he stopped working on the game in
projects / super-star-trek.git / blob