11/2/2018 Playing Jim's Java SpaceGameII 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. Start a new game by running: java spacegameII Where skilllevel is an integer between 1 and 10. 1 is the easiest level and 10 is the hardest. 1 or 2 is a good first choice. 10 is pretty much impossible, but if you actually win be sure to let me know! To play an existing game run: java spacegameII sgame#.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 If you have previously played the game you should copy the *.dat 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. It is helpful to have the Java debug console where you can see it easily but it is not mandatory to play the game. Place the sgdest window where you can see it easily. Note that you do not need to monitor the Java console for this one. Your ships are the Terrans and the aliens are the Klingons and Romulans. Here is the basic game operation. Note that nothing "moves" until the GO button is (left) clicked on. More on that later. - To set a destination, click on a Terran ship and then click in the quadrant where you want the ship to go. - To move between quadrants first click on the ship, then click on the quadrant you desire on the Navigation/Long Range Scan grid. 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 Terran 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 a dark quadrant has been discovered. Try not to let your ships go in there. - To fire on an enemy ship, first click on your ship. Now press T or A to fire. All alien ships in range will be destroyed. - 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 once every 200 time units, or 150 if it's a home planet. - Pressing the middle mouse button on a ship or a Terran planet will show its status. - To conquer an alien planet you must first destroy all of the alien ships of that race in the quadrant. Then get close to or on the planet and right click on the planet. If in range press the B key and the planet name will disappear. Now set your ship destination to the planet as stated above in order to colonize it. Do not forget this step! - Watching your shield status on your ships is very important. Note that the shields regenerate a bit after every move. Use this to your advantage. - You can change the course of a ship at any time. Just follow the steps above. If you press M and then select a Terran ship it will it will stop moving. - 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 Terran ships you also want to set. You can pick as many as you want and they will all travel to that same location. - After a Terran ship has been in existence for more than 2000 time units it can recharge its shields by centering on a Terran planet. Just select its destination to be a Terran planet and when it arrives the shields will increase by 1000. - Use Combine Ship Mode to combine (or merge) a ship with another one. First put the ships next to each other, but not too close. Now press W and then click on one of the ships. Now middle click on the other one. If successful, the ships will merge and the remaining ship will now have the shield power of both. This is useful for when the aliens do the same thing. More on this below. - In order to keep the sgdest display from becoming too cluttered you can set a Terran 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 will NOT appear. - As mentioned above, nothing moves until the GO button is pressed. This advances the game forward by 1 time unit. To advance up to 250 units press and release the Spacebar and then click on the GO button. The game will always stop when a message is displayed and so you will not miss anything. Note, it is very easy to accidentally click GO when you didn't intend to. Get into a habit of using the Spacebar for best results. You have been warned :). Also see the Files: section below. - You may also use the G key as a shortcut for Spacebar and GO. - 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. Advanced Options: - 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 procedure. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. The aliens win if they take over all of your planets and destroy all of your ships. BTW, the aliens cheat. In particular they sometimes travel on top of each other in order to hide how many there are. Be aware of this and keep your eye on the quadrant contents via the Nav/LRS. The aliens also cloak a bit when over a planet. Watch for this. They also tend to uncloak into random quadrants from time to time. 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. There may be other ways they cheat that I haven't seen yet. If you encounter one let me know. Files: Every time a move is made a pgame#.dat file is created. The files are numbered and start over again after file 20. 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. These do not wrap and will keep being created until the game is over. If you encounter a problem during game play please send me these files. You can play any file and the game will resume at that exact point. This can be used to play a game over again from a previous time unit. Note: Attempting to edit a saved game file to gain an advantage will result in a file checksum error and the game will abort. Jim Lewis