2/15/2024 Playing SpaceGame2 Playing the game for the first time: Begin by opening a command line or prompt and going to the directory where the game is installed. Run "java spacegame2" to see the Usage message: ****************************************************************************** SpaceGame2 by Jim Lewis 2/15/2024 ****************************************************************************** To play a new game: java spacegame2 -s skilllevel [ -name player ] Where skilllevel is a number between 1 and 10 player is the name of the person playing (optional) Levels 1-3 have a small galaxy. Levels 4-6 have a medium galaxy. Levels above 6 have a full galaxy, an occasional Doom Ship, and a Dark Quadrant. Level 10 contains a surprise or two, loading a saved game is disabled, and you must convert the Dark Quadrant. Also, in order to get the bonus you cannot lose any planet. This level is very, very hard to beat. However, if you do win and it shows the Bonus numbers on the console see the section in the SG2-playweb.txt file on winning the game for a chance to receive $500. Yes, it is really that hard! To play a saved game: java spacegame2 -f filename#.dat Optional but highly recommended: Another Java app is provided which will allow you to easily track which of your ships have stopped moving (i.e. no destination). It is run like this: java sgdest Place the sgdest window where you can see it easily. Note that you do not need to monitor the Java console for this one. If you have previously played the game you should copy the *.dat and SG2-console.txt files to another directory first or delete them. The files won't be overwritten, however, as the next available filename in the sequence is used. The game will start up on your screen. Be sure to have the Java console where you can see it as you play. A note about sound: Due to the limitations of base Java the game does not actually make any sounds. However, it does create a file named "playsounds.txt" which can be read by another app or script. The contents of the file is a single number, see the file "playsounds.sh" for more information. If you have any issues getting this to work on your system please email me. ---- Okay, now on to the actual game play. You are the player and your ships are labeled with a "T" (unless you have used the -name option). The aliens are labeled by the first letter of their names. Note: If you invoke this option for best results use a name of 8 characters or less, and do not use a name that starts with A, B, O, S, or X as the alien races begin with those letters. Here is the basic game operation. Note that nothing "moves" until a GO button is clicked on or Enter is pressed. Note that the GO buttons are GO, 10, 50, the G key, and Enter. - To set a destination, click on a player ship and then click in the quadrant where you want the ship to go. For example, when the game is first started you will see a ship and a planet. Click on the ship, then the planet, and press GO (or 10, or 50). The ship will go and eventually colonize that planet, and it will become your home planet. - To move your ship between quadrants first click on a ship, then on the Navigation/Long Range Scan grid click on the quadrant you desire. The view screen will now show the contents of this quadrant, or black space if it has not yet been visited. Now click on the space in that quadrant where you want the ship to end up, i.e. its destination. Note that this can be a planet. - The Navigation/Long Range Scan (LRS) grid shows the contents of each visited quadrant. The numbering scheme is a triplet, the first digit is the number of player ships, the second is the number of planets (either 0 or 1), and the third is the number of aliens. Note: If there are a lot of ships the display may get a little cluttered. You can press the middle mouse button on a quadrant in the LRS to display its contents. - There is an exception to the above, if there is a 9 in the planet digit that means the Dark Quadrant has been discovered. Normally you don't want your ships to go in there. However, you can convert the Dark Quadrant by self-destructing your ships when in there to convert it to a normal quadrant (needed to win Level 10). - In most cases the alien ships always fire first. To fire back, first click on your ship and then press T. All alien ships in range will be destroyed. You can also fire by pressing the left and then right mouse buttons. - To colonize an unnamed (uncolonized) planet set the destination by clicking on your ship and then clicking on the planet. When your ship reaches the center of the planet it now becomes one of yours and the name will reflect this. A new ship will be created every 200 time units, or 150 if it's your home planet. - Pressing the middle mouse button on a ship, a player planet, or on a quadrant in the Long Range Scan (LRS) will show its status. Pressing it on a cloaked alien ship will decloak it. - To conquer an alien planet you must first destroy all of the alien ships of that race in that quadrant. Then get close to or on the planet, select your ship, and then right click on the planet. If in range press the B key to bomb the planet and the planet name will disappear. This is now an uncolonized planet. Be sure the ship destination is set to the planet as stated above or else it will not colonize the planet. - Watching the shield status on your ships is very important. Note that the shields regenerate a bit after every move. Use this to your advantage. Also, when a ship is combined with another ship it now regens at twice the rate. This is cumulative and can make a ship very powerful. See "Combine count:" on the ship status display (middle mouse click). - You can change the course of a ship at any time. Just follow the steps above. If you press M and then select a player ship it will stop moving. You can also use this to cancel moving it. - When a (non-sentry) ship has reached its destination a message will appear stating this. Be sure to keep track of which ships are no longer moving as getting your ships out quickly is crucial to game play. Use the sgdest app provided to facilitate this. - On the main screen when the "New ship:" value reaches 0 a new ship will be created. This will show up as a green line on the sgdest display. - Use Convoy Mode to set more than one ship at a time to a destination. To activate, first press the C key. Now select a ship and set it to the desired destination as stated above. Then click on any other player ships you also want to set. You can pick as many as you want and they will all travel to that same location. Press a GO button when done, or C again to cancel out of Convoy Mode. - After a type 1 player ship has been in existence for more than 2000 time units you can recharge its shields by centering it on a player planet. Just select its destination to be a player planet and when it arrives the shields will increase by 1000 times the Combine Count. - Use Combine Ship Mode to combine (or merge) a ship with another one. First put the ships close to each other, press W, and then click on one of the ships. Now middle click on the other ship. If successful, the ships will merge and the remaining ship will now have the shield power of both. This is very important when battling a strong planet or ship. - To combine all ships press W twice, left click on a ship and then middle click. All ships in range will be combined and will have the Combine Count of all of them. - F5 can be pressed to toggle the auto-combine ship feature. When activated, when two player ships occupy the same spot they will auto-combine. Use this with caution as this operation cannot be undone (see below). - In order to keep the sgdest display from becoming too cluttered you can set a player ship to be a sentry by pressing S and then clicking on the ship. This will remove it from the sgdest screen. To remove the sentry status on the ship just repeat the procedure. Note that a sentry ship can still move, however, when it reaches its destination a message and sound will not occur. Also, when a moving ship is made a sentry it will stop moving. - As mentioned above, nothing moves until a GO button or G is pressed. This advances the game forward by 1 time unit. To advance up to 250 units press the G key. The game will always stop when a message is displayed and so you will not miss anything. - The other GO buttons, 10 and 50, will move that many time units, or until a message appears. This is really helpful and keeps you from having to click as much. - In some cases, after a GO button is pressed the message "Ship x has not fired back! Press U to clear." will appear. This either means that a player ship really has not yet fired back, or that the game is not sure which player ship fired. Try firing any other player ships near where this has occurred. If that still does not clear the message then press U. - If the Red or Yellow Alert is annoying you on a particular move you may turn it off in that quadrant by clicking on it. - Be aware that a player ship can enter a quadrant and then be immediately destroyed by an alien ship if it's in range. This can be confusing and might even look like a bug, says me who spent 2 hours once trying to figure out what the hell happened! - A Doom Ship can also appear in a random empty quadrant from time to time and do not act the same as the other ships. They are also very powerful. Note: An empty quadrant is one which has just stars. No ships, no planet, and is not the Dark Quadrant. - The aliens have also been known to cross into quadrants at random, and they may also jump right on top of your ship at the boundaries. Remember that you can still shoot them by following the steps above. Also, you cannot shoot your own ships so don't worry about that. Advanced Options and Features: - It can sometimes become annoying when you have a lot of planets and they are constantly creating new ships. You can automate the ship destination by first pressing N and then the middle mouse button on your planet. Now left click where you want the new ships to go. You can change this at any time by repeating the process. - You can set all of the active Auto-Nav settings for each planet by clicking the quadrant and location you want and then pressing D three or more times. - You can set the Auto-Nav in specific quadrants like this: Set the destination as usual, then press A. Now select in the LRS/Nav each quadrant you want to set. Press GO to continue. - You can set every non-sentry ship to a specific location by clicking on the location and then pressing X three times. - In some cases, like when converting the Dark Quadrant, you may need to set a ship to self destruct. This is done by pressing the F4 key three or more times in a row, then selecting the ship. Be careful, as this action cannot be undone. - You can use F5 to toggle the player ship self-combine feature on and off. - A player ship with over 2200 shield power can spin off a new ship. Press F6 three or more times then select the ship. The new ship will be underneath the parent ship and have 100 shield power. The parent ship will have its shields reduced by 200. - Press 3 to see the Planet Details screen on the console. - Press 4 to toggle the alien ship alert for the current quadrant. When set a message will display when the number of alien ships changes in that quadrant. - Press 5 to toggle the "Ship is idle" messages on/off. - Press 6 to show a list of the planet names on the console. - When 2 or more player ships occupy the same location it can be hard to select the one you want. Try pressing 7 when this occurs. - To change the destination of player ships that are already enroute press 8, and then click on the quadrants with planets that you want changed. Press GO when done. - Press 9 to show the "Quadrant Details" screen. - You can label an unvisited quadrant by first clicking the middle mouse on an alien ship. Then click on the desired quadrant in the LRS and press L. You can also press L to cycle through these choices: E for Empty, DQ for Dark Quadrant, NDQ for not the DQ, and the next press will erase any previous label. Note that you, the player, is labeling these. If you get it wrong ... Counters: A 10 TU counter can be set in each quadrant by pressing F11. Pressing F11 again will increase the counter by 10, and pressing F12 will decrease the amount by 10. The Up and Down arrow keys will increase/decrease the counter amount by 1. F9 will add 100 to the current counter. F10 will set the quadrant counter to the New ship value if there is an alien planet in the quadrant, and half the value if there is a Player planet. The Delete key resets the counter to 0. Files: Every time a move is made a pgame#.dat file is created. These files can be used to start a game over from a recently played point, similar to a take back move feature. Also, an sgame#.dat file is created every 250 time units. If you encounter a problem during game play please send me these files. All Java console messages are written to the file "SG2-console.txt". This file is opened for append so be sure to move or erase it before starting a new game. You can load any game .dat file and the game will resume at that point. This can be used to play a game over again from a previous time unit. Note you cannot restore a game on Level 10. Attempting to edit a saved game file to gain an advantage will result in a file checksum error and the game will abort. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Winning the game: You win after you have colonized all of the planets, destroyed every alien ship, and have visited every quadrant. The order you do this in makes no difference. In Level 10, in order to win you must also convert the Dark Quadrant, and in order to get the bonus you cannot ever lose a planet. The aliens win if they colonize all of the planets and destroy all of your ships. The Level 10 Bonus: If you find a way to win (including the bonus) please let me know. Zip up all of the .dat files, SG2-console.txt, and screenshot(s) of the main screen AND the Java console showing the Bonus numbers. If everything checks out I will send you $500.00! Jim Lewis jim@jklewis.com