<!ENTITY sst-site "http://catb.org/~esr/super-star-trek/">
<!ENTITY retro "http://catb.org/~esr/retro/">
]>
+<!--
+Copyright by Eric S. Raymond
+SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-clause
+-->
<book>
<bookinfo>
<title>Super Star Trek</title>
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,
-Thingies shooting back, 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 Thingies shooting back, 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>
+<para>In fancy mode, the display will use letters for Y coordinates.</para>
+
+<screen>
+ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
+ a * . . . . R . . . . Stardate 2516.3
+ b . . . E . . . . . . Condition RED
+ c . . . . . * . B . . Position e1, b4
+ d . . . S . . . . . . Life Support DAMAGED, Reserves=2.30
+ e . . . . . . . K . . Warp Factor 5.0
+ f . K . . . . . * . Energy 2176.24
+ g . . . . . P . . . . Torpedoes 3
+ h . . . . * . . . . . Shields UP, 42% 1050.0 units
+ i . * . . * . . . C . Klingons Left 12
+ j . . . . . . . . . . Time Left 3.72
+</screen>
+
+
<para>The left part is a picture of the quadrant. The E at sector 2 -
-4 represents the Enterprise; the B at sector 3 - 8 is a starbase.
-There are ordinary Klingons (K) at sectors 5 - 8 and 6 - 2, and a
-Klingon Commander (C) at 9 - 9. The (GULP)
-<quote>Super-commander</quote> (S) is occupies sector 4 - 4, and a
-Romulan (R) is at 1 - 6. An uninhabited planet (P) is at sector 7 - 6
+4 (or b4) represents the Enterprise; the B at sector 3 - 8 (or c8) is a starbase.
+There are ordinary Klingons (K) at sectors 5 - 8 (e8) and 6 - 2 (f2), and a
+Klingon Commander (C) at 9 - 9 (i9). The (GULP)
+<quote>Super-commander</quote> (S) is occupies sector 4 - 4 (d4), and a
+Romulan (R) is at 1 - 6 (a6). An uninhabited planet (P) is at sector 7 - 6 (g6)
(if it were inhabited, it would display as a '@'). There are
also a large number of stars (*). The periods (.) are just empty
space—they are printed to help you get your bearings. Sector 6
<para>and it will be done. In automatic mode, either two or four numbers
must be supplied.</para>
+<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:</para>
+
+<screen>
+ a1 = 1 - 1
+ c5 = 3 - 5
+ f2 = 6 - 2
+</screen>
+
+<para>The previous move xommand could be expressed as</para>
+
+<screen>
+ m a c7 e8
+</screen>
+
<para>Automatic mode utilizes the ship's <quote>battle
computer.</quote> If the computer is damaged, manual movement must be
used.</para>
<literallayout>
Mnemonic: CAPTURE
-Shortest abbreviation: CA
+Shortest abbreviation: CAPTURE
Full commands: CAPTURE
</literallayout>
<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>
+
+<screen>
+ pho 3 b6 a10 d7
+</screen>
+
+<para>Fractional Y coordinates are not supported.</para>
+
</sect1>
<sect1><title>Dock at Starbase</title>
<para>Switch from tty to curses interface. Mainly useful for
debugging, when continuing a replayed game.</para>
+</sect1>
+<sect1><title>Option setting</title>
+
+<literallayout>
+Mnemonic: OP
+Full command: OPTIONS
+ OPTIONS SET
+ OPTIONS CLEAR
+</literallayout>
+
+<para>Set or clear feature flags. With no argument, list feature flags. The verbs SET and CLEAR
+are available to set or clear a list of feature flags following on the line. Mainly useful
+for development and improving test coverage.</para>
+
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter><title>Miscellaneous Notes</title>
T TRANSPORT transporter
W WARP <FACTOR> (none)
CU CURSES (none)
+ OP OPTIONS (none)
L. R. Scan: thousands digit: supernova
hundreds digit: Klingons
things, notably a job change and the birth of his first
child.</para></listitem>
-<listitem><para>c.1977 — Tom Almy translates the UT FORTAN
-version to PDP-11 FORTRAN.</para></listitem>
-
<listitem><para>21 September 1978 — This was the date on the
-first version Tom Almy saw, on which he based his later C
+first FORTRAN version Tom Almy saw, on which he based his later C
translation.</para></listitem>
-<listitem><para>1979 — Marc Newman adds Tholians, black holes,
+<listitem><para>1979 — Marc Newman adds Tholians,
super-commanders, and Emeritus mode.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>1995-1996 — Tom Almy translates his FORTRAN
<listitem><para>9 October 2006 — Translation to
Python.</para></listitem>
-<listitem><para>22 February 2017 — Color added.</para></listitem>
+<listitem><para>1 March 2017 — Color added.
+Cloaking device and capture command added from BSD (via Almy's
+2013 version)</para></listitem>
+
+<listitem><para>25 March 2019 — At long last, chart entries are
+uniformly dot-filled. (Suppressed in the plain and almy
+interface styles.)</para></listitem>
+
+<listitem><para>25 August 2023 — Coordinates optionally in
+alphameric mode, e.g "b3" rather than "2 - 3". (Suppressed in the
+plain and almy interface styles.)</para></listitem>
+
</itemizedlist>
projects / super-star-trek.git / blobdiff