DEATHSCAPE ========== THE WARZONES OF TERRA For 200 years the SOL FEDERATION and the VARG EMPIRE have used a futuristic gladiatorial pit, known as the DEATHSCAPE, to settle political disputes. According to the rules, each side can only use 1 combatant at a time. Now, the treacherous VARGS intend to send hundreds of ships into the arena. You have been chosen to enter the DEATHSCAPE and destroy the VARG fortresses inside, piece together the code needed to lower the VARG Motherships' cloak-shield and finally destroy it! SPECIAL FEATURES ★ VERY FAST ARCADE ACTIOIM/STRATEGY ★ 3D GRAPHICS ★ MUSIC BY BEN DALGLEISH ★ SOUND FX BY TONY CROWTHER **SECURITY DATA** Now that it transpires the VARG’s are going to ignore the Mars Peace Summit it is my duty as chief DEATHSCAPE monitoring officer to disclose that you have been chosen for this vital mission. To help you, we will issue you with the very latest Zarquon C.A.M. III multi-role fighter and we will send in a control ship to monitor your progress and activate all targetting and warning devices. Good luck, the future of the FREE systems is in your hands... **TRAINING DATA** ZARQUON C.A.M. III MULTI-ROLE FIGHTER. This is a small but formidable fighter, fitted with four rapid fire plasma cannons and up to eight target seeking missles (TSMs). The ship uses an advanced "fly-by-wire" system, with control priority being given to the on screen digital sight. This is an improvement on the earlier fixed-sight C.A.M. II, as now more accurate targetting is possible. All Zarquon craft are fitted with two powerful shield generators as well as the two high density fuel tanks. Because of the dimensions of the ship however, much of the monitoring has to be carried out by the control ship, as large on board computer systems are not possible due to the bulky Rolls Royce ion displacement engines. The control ship is also responsible for the following functions . . . Coordinating re-fueling, shield replenishment and weapons transfer when flying near exploding fuel dumps, generators and fortresses respectively. This is achieved by a sophisticated energy and matter transference device located on the underside of your craft. The ship is also responsible for deciphering the VARG code and generating the "colour scoring" (a graphic representation of your mission so far.) Should your control ship ever be attacked, you will have the option to teleport out of the grids and be required to defend it with it’s on board plasma cannons. Unfortunately, due to the sporadic nature of the teleport devices energy cells, re-materialisation inside the control ship is not always possible, so you may have to recharge your fuel supply. Once you have teleported successfully, the display will change and show a view out of the cockpit of the control ship. The energy is registered in six vertical bars - should three or more of these bars fall to zero, then the ship will be destroyed and your mission terminated. Succeed in defending the ship and you will be teleported back into the grids at the place you last were, with your missile quota increased by two. You also receive one extra missile each time you destroy a fortress. C.A.M. III console. (For further information see relevant section in "Game data".) Your console uses a multi-visual format to display all the information necessary to the mission and to the control of your ship. Each of the console "windows" provides a different part of the information needed to fly the C.A.M. III successfully. One word of warning, when viewing the console, do not forget to keep an eye on the top portion as more often than not the scrolling text window provides vital assistance, particularly in combat. Other information which should not be ignored is provided by the proximity indicators. If any of these squares turn red, it means you are flying too close to a tunnel wall, either vertical or horizontal, in which case immediate evasive action must be taken. One final word as regards to training not all the grid is actually territory, there are neutral zones (which largely contain fuel dumps and generators) and zones belonging to the SOL FEDS. Remember this as you fly through the grids, as you don’t want your superiors thinking you’ve gone ‘rogue’ and thus terminating your mission prematurely. **GAME DATA** The main gameplay is essentially split up into two sections, one of navigation and the other of combat. Both are equally important to the completion of the game and both require the same amount of skill and perseverance. There are ten levels in the grids and a player can choose which one he or she wishes to start at. Level one is mainly for beginners who want to get the hang of flying their ship before tackling any dangerous opposition, and level ten is for people who are tired of life or enjoy being frazzled by hordes of merciless alien drones. The other two sections to the game are the Mothership "intemission", which occurs when the control ship is attacked, and the VARG Mothership screen, which is the finale of the game and only happens when you have ten blue squares in your Varg window (see "colour scoring"). There are five different types of alien drones, and each type has it’s own particular attributes. Also, there are fuel dumps, generators and fortressess, which are stationary objects in the grids. Each of these is a considerable navigational hazard, and under certain circumstances must be destroyed in order to continue playing the game. For example, ignoring a fuel dump when your energy is low is not a good idea. VARG DRONES AND ASSORTED DEATHSCAPE HARDWARE. Fighters: These nasty wedge shaped craft will always fly in a spiral formation from the tunnel centre. Class III fighters are officially labelled as "super-deadly". Scouts: Nearly always approach from behind and dodge in front of you for a while, maybe firing a few shots before disappearing down the tunnel. They nearly always precede fighter or interceptor attacks and are impossible to catch once they have started to accelerate. (So don’t waste fuel trying.) Bombers: Only dangerous from above, these slow but sturdy ships will zig-zag down the floor of the tunnel to trick you before flying upwards. K-craft: Suicide ships - they will try to mesmerise you with eratic forward and backward movements before ramming your ship at it’s weakest spots. Interceptors: Used in the defence of fortresses, they can also ambush you at junctions. These are the most dangerous ships you will encounter and should be avoided wherever possible. One useful fact about the Varg drones is that they only attack from the front because the exhaust from your engines scrambles their targetting devices. Fuel dumps: Due to the volatile liquids they contain, these are very easy targets for your missiles. Transference of the superheated fuel to your tanks is performed by the control ship. Generators: These, when destroyed, provide the energy required by the replenish your shields. Fortresses: The function of fortresses is two-fold. One is to monitor the conflicts within the grids, and the other is to defend against "unreasonable enemy activity". When destroyed their function is also two-fold. Varg fortresses provide not only extra missiles, but also a fraction of the Motherships’ cloaking-shield code. Needless to say, blowing them up is no easy task. Finally there are the meteors: the shattered remains of asteroids that have collided with the grids. These lumps of rock are highly unpredictable as they bounce off the tunnel walls and are a major navigational hazard. Upper junction indicators will flash when approaching a junction. Text window: displays various messages and your score so far, when called up by hitting a key. Shield indicator: Shows the strength of your ships’ shields, with a separate indicator for the left and right of the screen. Proximity indicators: Change from green through orange to red, and tell you if you are dangerously close to a tunnel wall or safe from fricition damage. Varg window: This displays your "colour scoring" and works like this... Initially, all the sixteen squares are coloured dark grey, but are changed when you perform certain functions. You get a RED square when you hit single ships in any one attack wave, and also when you hit meteors. ORANGE squares are acquired when you destroy fuel dumps, YELLOW when you destroy any attack wave completely. You get a PURPLE square for detroying generators and BLUE, the highest scoring square of all, occurs when you destroy Varg fortresses. These blue squares will always remain on your screen as they also represent fractions of the Varg code, whereas the other squares may be re-coloured due to lack of space. Each colour represents a numeric value and your total can be displayed as such by pressing the appropriate button. T-bar: This is your speed indicator and is operated by one of the console hands. The higher up the screen the hand goes, the faster ship travels. Button banks, these two banks, enable the player to operate special functions, such as calling up the grid map and disarming weapons etc... The console hands operate these buttons in response to key presses by the player when he/she selects any of the functions available. Tunnel window: It’s function is two fold. To display exactly where your ship is in the tunnel. Joystick: A straightforward display showing movement of the target sight in relation to the players joystick movements. TSM window: This simply shows how many target seeking missiles you have in your weapons bank. Grid window: Displays an overhead view of the Deathscape grid in your immediate vicinity, and is useful for finding fuel dumps etc... using the pop-up large scale map. It will also show a silhouette of whatever drone is attacking you, and is a helpful aid to combat. Fuel display: This is like the shield display, split into two bars and shows how much fuel you have in both your fuel tanks. Each tank is independently controlled, so if you continually fly to the left of the tunnel your left tank will be emptied faster, and vice-versa for the right. THE VARG MOTHERSHIP. This is essentially a floating city in space and manufactures all the robot drones you will encounter on your mission. Due to it’s sheer size, it must be hit by at least four missiles, aimed at the fusion reactor housings. Once the disruptor beam generators have been activated you will have a short time limit to complete this before you are destroyed. However with more than four missiles it is possible to disable this function. It is also possible to destroy the danger of the ship, to stop more drones attacking you. With a full complement of missiles, a complete victory over the Varg Mothership is possible. Plasma cannons however, are only effective against attacking drones as the Motherships’ shields are too strong for them to penetrate successfully. There are ten levels to the grid which may be accessed by use of the junctions. Most junctions have only left or right exits, which when the junction indicators flash, means you must pull very quickly over to the left or right and hold your position there, or you will miss your turning. There are junctions which allow you to go up or down and these may be found by locating them on your grid map. the grid map also shows the locations of fuel dumps, fortresses and generators. The direction in which you are flying and your position is shown by the flashing figure on the map. There are eight buttons on your console which are activated by using the numeric keys 1-8. 1. Music/sound effects 5. Automatic score update 2. Abort from VARG Mothership 6. Autofire mode 3. Grid map 7. Teleport to control ship 4. Missiles 8. Teleport to VARG Mothership Speed is controlled by the function keys on the Commodore and User defined keys on the Amstrad and Spectrum. NB You cannot break free of the tunnel to face the VARG Mothership until you have collected all 10 pieces of code from the destroyed fortresses. Your on board computer will signal completion of code by displaying a Blue Z on your colour score screen. **END OF DATA - GOOD LUCK** TO LOAD: SEE LABEL BY "TAG" AND PETE JAMES © 1987 STARLIGHT SOFTWARE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (P) 1987 ARIOLASOFT UK LTD.