X-Git-Url: https://jxself.org/git/?p=super-star-trek.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=sst-doc.xml;h=411da291171f1a8705deafe528ee99d7c560d7be;hp=fe24ebc74c273f2274b050efb9e8e5688d6c256a;hb=ca9de456d928ab8f7ef95f2fa03aeab2b3161d97;hpb=c5b4cba0782b02223a1064273a782b845ce089aa diff --git a/sst-doc.xml b/sst-doc.xml index fe24ebc..411da29 100644 --- a/sst-doc.xml +++ b/sst-doc.xml @@ -229,6 +229,37 @@ and start a new game. The Klingons are waiting. + +Starting the Game + +The program will ask you some setup questions. You can give it +command-line arguments that will be treated as answers. Any token +may be abbreviated to a unique prefix. + +The first question concerns whether you want a regullar, +tournament, or saved game. For discussion, see the description of the freeze command. + +The second question will concern the length of the game. +Longer games include more enemies. + +The third question will set the game's difficulty level. +You should probably start out at the novice level, even if you are +already familiar with one of the other versions of the Star Trek +game—but, of course, the level of game you play is up to you. If +you want to start at the Expert level, go ahead. It's your funeral. +The Emeritus game is strictly for masochists. + +The fourth question, new in SST2K, sets your game options. A +blank answer or 'fancy' enables all SST2K features. The option +'plain' 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), +approximating the original CDC 6600 FORTRAN game from UT Austin. The +option 'almy' approximates Tom Almy's C translation from 1979, +disabling Thingies shooting back, base shields, and time-warping +through black holes. + How To Issue Commands @@ -303,7 +334,7 @@ complicated, but you will learn the abbreviations qGuickly enough. You can abbreviate practically anything -If you forget, the computer will proompt you +If you forget, the computer will prompt you If you remember, you can type it all on one line @@ -1220,7 +1251,7 @@ in the galaxy. Since planets do not show up on long-range scans, the only way to obtain this information is with the SENSORS command. -Freeze +Freeze Mnemonic: FREEZE @@ -1497,12 +1528,6 @@ print the certificate to a file, import it into your word processor, selecting Courier 8pt font, and then print in landscape orientation. -You should probably start out at the novice level, even if you are -already familiar with one of the other versions of the Star Trek -game—but, of course, the level of game you play is up to you. If -you want to start at the Expert level, go ahead. It's your funeral. -The emeritus game is strictly for masochists. - Handy Reference Page @@ -1621,9 +1646,10 @@ intolerable on a TTY at 110 baud. It must, therefore, have been rather longer than the one we have.) The Austin crew proceeded to write their own Trek game, loosely based on the Hicks version, in CDC6600 FORTRAN. At that time, it was just called "Star Trek"; the -"Super" was added by later developers. +"Super" was added by later developers. In the rest of this history +we'll call it the "UT FORTRAN" version. -At the time the UT FORTRAN source was translated to C it emitted +At the time the UT FORTRAN source was last translated to C it emitted the message "Latest update-21 Sept 78". Thus, it actually predated (and may have influenced) the best-known BASIC version, the "Super Star Trek" published by David Ahl in his November 1978 sequel @@ -1648,7 +1674,7 @@ descendants. Eric Allman's BSD Trek game is one of these, also descended from -FORTRAN Star Trek via translation to C. However, the mainline version +the UT FORTRAN version via translation to C. However, the mainline version (now SST2K) has had a lot more stuff folded into it over the years — deep space probes, dilithium mining, the Tholian Web, and so forth. @@ -1656,7 +1682,7 @@ forth. Tom Almy's story -Back in (about) 1977 I got a copy of this Super Star Trek game for +Back in (about) 1977 I got a copy of the Super Star Trek game for the CDC 6600 mainframe computer. Someone had converted it to PDP-11 Fortran but couldn't get it to run because of its size. I modified the program to use overlays and managed to shoehorn it in on the 56k @@ -1723,7 +1749,7 @@ so I implemented it based on its description. Stas Sergeev's story I started from an older Tom Almy version and added features I had -seen in mainframe variants of the game, I wrote a screen-oriented +seen in other mainframe variants of the game, I wrote a screen-oriented interface for it based on the curses library.