· : ¦ . _________ ________ _____________ ._____¦ | · __ / : ___________/ _ \ \ __ _ / | \ |____: : \_/ -A : \______ \ | \_ _: \_/ \_/ | \ ¦ | ¦ \_ ··D_ / / _/ | / |___/ \_ | : : | |_______/ `N· _/ \ \_________/ | \________/ ¦ |_____¦ ¦ | : \__________/ \ ¦ \_ : : \__________| \___________/ . · CRaZY GaNG . +--------------------------------+ K240 FULL MANUAL ================== TYPED BY SHARD - N&B CONTENTS -------- Playing the Game Finding Your Way Around This Manual Zone 001 - Tutorial Zone 002 - Colony Management Zone 003 - Spacecraft Construction Zone 004 - Spying Zone 005 - Fleets Zone 006 - Button Selection Panels Zone 007 - Terracorp and Sci-Tek Zone 008 - Hints Zone 009 - Background Zone 010 - Building Reference Section Zone 011 - Sci-Tek Zone 012 - Spacecraft Zone 013 - Hardpoint Weapons Zone 014 - Missile Warfare Zone 015 - The Enemy EPILEPSY WARNING ---------------- Please read before using this video game or allowing your children to use it. Some people are susceptible to epileptic seizures or loss of consciousness when exposed to certain flashing lights or light patterns in everyday life. Such people may have a seizure while watching certain television images or playing certain video games. This may happen even if the person has no medical history of epilepsy or has never had any epileptic seizures. If you or anyone in your family has ever had symptoms related to epilepsy (seizures or loss of consciousness) when exposed to flashing lights, consult your doctor prior to playing. We advise that parents should monitor the use of video games by their children. If you or your child experience any of the following symptoms: dizziness, blurred vision, eye or muscle twitches, loss of consciousness, disorientation, any involuntary movement or convulsion, while playing a video game, IMMEDIATELY discontinue use and consult your doctor. PRECAUTIONS TO TAKE DURING USE ------------------------------ Do not Stand too close to the screen. Sit a good distance away from the television screen, as far away as the length of the cable allows. Preferably play the game on a small television screen. Avoid playing if you are tired or have not had much sleep. Make sure that the room in which you are playing is well lit. Rest for at least 10 to 15 minutes per hour while playing a video game. CREDITS ------- Programming: Graeme Ing Graphics: Pete Daniels Game Design: Graeme Ing and Pete Daniels Music: Patrick Phelan SFX: Patrick Phelan and Neil Biggin Intro Programming: Michael Hart Intro graphics: Paul Green and Syd Franklin Produced by: Mark Glossop Manual Copy: Kai MacMahon and Graeme Ing Manual Design: Kai MacMahon, Edited by: Steve Mckevitt Manual Artwork: Dave Lewis and Alan Batson Voice of the Computer: Tracey Park Additional Help: Graham Stone, Kevin Dudley and Damian Hibbard Quality assurance: Simon Short, Robert Millington, Tony Howe PLAYING THE GAME ---------------- From Floppy disk: 1) Turn on your Amiga, 2) Insert disk 1 in your internal disk drive, (DF0:) 3) The game will automatically boot and run From Hard Disk: 1) Turn on your Amiga, 2) Wait for the Amiga to boot into Workbench 3) Locate the directory you have previously installed K240 into, (see "Installing onto Hard Disk" below) and double click on the K240 game icon, 4) The game will run. It is recommended that you install K240 onto a hard disk if you have one. The game will be easier to play due to do data and screens being loaded almost instantaneously. On Machines with more than half a Meg of chip ram K240 uses sampled speech to announce important events. This can cause excessive disk swopping on a single drive system. If you do not have a second drive, we suggest you disable the speech option from the Tetracorp screen. On the Floppy disk version, all saved games are made to the internal disk drive (DF0:), IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU HAVE A PRE-FORMATTED DISK FOR USE AS A SAVE-DISK BEFORE YOU BEGIN TO PLAY THE GAME! The save disk must be formatted in standard Amiga format. If you are unsure how to format a disk, follow the instructions given in the manuals that came with the Amiga. Each saved game requires approximately 180K of space. Apart from the save-disk, which will always be in DF0, K240 will recognise any of the game disks in any Floppy disk drive, internal or external. On the Hard Disk version, all saved games are made to the Hard Disk, in the same directory as the game has been installed. Installing Onto Hard Disk 1) Turn on your Amiga. 2) Wait for the Amiga to boot into Workbench. 3) Insert K240 disk 3 into any Floppy disk drive. Wait for the disk icon to appear on the screen. 4) Double click on the K240 disk icon. 5) Double click on the "Install K240" disk icon. 6) Follow on screen directions. FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND THE MANUALS ----------------------------------- This manual comes in three distinct sections. a) Tutorial: K240 is a complicated game. Once you are familiar with the basics it is actually quite straightforward to play. The tutorial forms a painless introduction to the basic elements of the game, and gives you an idea where to start. We strongly advise that you follow it. b) Main Reference section: This explains in detail all of the game. It is divided into sections so that you can easily find out about any subject. It is not necessary to read this part of the manual before you commence play; you can refer to the sections when you need them; but it is worthwhile skimming through it so that you are familiar with what you can do in the game. A hints section is included to assist you if you are unsure of how you should go about developing your mining colony. c) Technical section: This contains technical details on the various weapons, spacecraft, alien races etc, as well as some notes on Imperial history. The bulk of this material is for background only, and is not necessary to play the game, but an understanding of these technical details may help you to develop better strategies. ZONE 001 : TUTORIAL ------------------- This section of the manual is designed as a full tutorial. Over the following pages you will be taken step by step through the initial parts of the game. The more complex aspects of the game will be easier to understand when you have this basic knowledge. For a painless introduction to the game, we strongly advise you to follow this tutorial. Because you will be playing a proper game during the tutorial (Alien level 1 in fact) events are bound to happen that are not documented here. The most noticeable of these will be windows that pop up to report certain events. For now if any message window appears that is not explained by the tutorial, simply ignore it and click with the left mouse button on the Exit button that will appear in a little box beside the message window. The message will go away and you can continue with the tutorial. THE MAIN ASTEROID VIEW SCREEN ----------------------------- When you start the game select your language by picking the appropriate flag. When you reach the Tetracorp screen click on "END" to begin Alien Level one. You will now find yourself looking at your initial asteroid, on the Asteroid View Screen. Before we go any further let`s take a look around this screen. In the centre is a 3-D representation of your asteroid showing rocky terrain and the sole building in your colony (A Colony Preservation Unit in green.) In space above the asteroid is the transporter ship that you used to reach Sector K240. At bottom right is a building icon. This indicates which of the many buildings is currently active for construction. You`ll see how it`s used when we look at Colony Construction in a moment. Below it is a blue button. This is explained in the section of the manual about "Time Saving Techniques". Below that is the status line. Messages will appear here from time to time but usually it flashes between two important pieces or information: a) your money in Imperial Credits b) The date in the format: E2.yyy.dd Where E2 marks the 2nd Millennium AD, yyy the year and dd the day. Each year has 100 standard Imperial days. The game begins in E2.380.01, which is the year 2380 AD. USING THE MOUSE --------------- Before we go any further, lets look at the 3 different mouse modes as it is important that you are in the correct mode for an operation. a) Hand: This is the default mode used for most operations. Whilst in this mode you can click on the asteroid to construct buildings and click on buildings to obtain information. b) Arrow: This is the Ship Selection mode. In this mode you can ONLY click on any of your spacecraft (or Orbital Space dock) to obtain information about them and control them. You can perform no other function. You enter this mode by clicking on the Ship Mode button (see later), or pressing the "S" key. Do so again to return to the normal "hand" mode. c) Bomb: This is the demolish Mode. In this mode you can ONLY demolish your buildings should you desire to do so. Simply click with the left mouse button over any building to destroy it. You enter this mode by clicking on the demolish Mode button (see later) or pressing the "D" key. Do so again to return to the normal hand mode. You carry out most operations by clicking with the Left mouse button, eg selecting ships, selecting buildings, clicking on the asteroid, clicking on buttons, etc. Clicking the right mouse button anywhere on the screen brings up one of the several Button Panels. A different button Panel appears for each different screen. Some buttons also lead to other Button Panels. Most buttons are explained in the appropriate section in the manual but there is a separate card provided which identifies the purpose of every button. Try it now: Click with the right mouse button. The Asteroid Screen Button Panel appears with 3 rows of three buttons. Notice the button in the bottom right. This is the Exit button and clicking on it takes you back to the game. Every button Panel or information window has an Exit button and in each instance it will resemble the return key on your computer. Note also, that whilst any information window or button Panel is visible on the screen, the game is paused so take as long as you like. THE ASTEROID FIELD SCREEN ------------------------- Let`s have a quick look at this before we continue. This and the Main Asteroid View Screen will be the screens you will use most. From the Asteroid View Screen bring up the button Panel as shown above (Click the right mouse button.) The centre button will take you to the Asteroid Field Screen. Click on it now. Your starting asteroid is the one rotating with a little green dot an it. The green dot indicates that the asteroid is owned by you. Those with a red dot belong to the enemy, and those without a dot are uninhabited and free for the taking. Around your asteroid is a small black circle. The rest of the screen is grey. Grey indicates uncharted space, and you only know about ships and asteroids within the black circle which marks the extent of your sensors. At the start of the game it is likely that the only asteroid you know about is your own, though there are one or two others visible. There are two ways you can discover more asteroids: a) Sensor Range: If any asteroids move into your sensor range (the black circle) then they will become visible. You can extend the range of your sensors by building a Sensor Array and by colonising other asteroids. b) Scout Ships: You can instruct Scouts to head into uncharted space and Discover new asteroids outside your sensor range. Other information will be laid over this screen at various points in the game but these will be explained later. Below your asteroid is the acronym PAFW. This is a status summary of your asteroid and will appear below all asteroids owned by you. It is used as a quick means of seeing which of your colonies needs attention. P Power supplies A Air supplies F Food supplies W Water supplies A green letter indicates that all is well. An orange letter indicates that you are using more than you are producing on that asteroid and will be using up your surplus. A red letter indicates that you are producing none at all and are existing (or maybe not!) off surpluses alone. Time to do something!. These factors are explained more fully a little later in the tutorial. In the section about the Colony Summary Window. Finally, at the bottom right is the date/money indicator. Notice that the mouse pointer is now an orange cross hair. Let`s return to your asteroid now and look at building it up a bit. Click with the right button to bring up the Button Panel. Notice that this is a different button Panel to that on the Asteroid View Screen since it has functions applicable to this screen. Notice again that the bottom right button is the Exit button. The bottom left button will take you back to the Asteroid View Screen. Click on it now. CONSTRUCTING A COLONY --------------------- We`re now going to construct a small colony an our starting asteroid to give you a feel for colony construction. As already mentioned, you begin with a single CPU. There are a range of buildings available to you and more are available for purchase from the Sci-Tek Corporation. You select the building you want from the Engineering Window. As we showed you earlier click the right mouse button to bring up the main Button Panel. You access the Engineering Window by clicking on the button at bottom left. Click there now. The Engineering Window ---------------------- You can browse through the buildings available by clicking on the Left and Right arrow buttons. Have a look now at whats available. The later section on buildings gives more detailed information about each building. Since we are operating a Mining Colony let`s get things started. Cycle to the "Mine" building. Click on the Exit button to select this building. As you return to the main Asteroid View Screen, notice that the Mine building graphic appears at bottom right reminding you of your selection. Until you select another building every time you click on the asteroid you will build a Mine. Find a piece of flat land on the asteroid and click there with the left mouse button, to build. Notice the error message? Good. We have not yet allocated any funds to the Engineering Section. To do this, bring up the Button Panel and click on the Information button (middle top). This in turn brings up another Button Panel. Click on the Financial Funds button top-right) You are now in the Financial Funds Window. Before we proceed we`ll explain how this works. Financial Funds Window ---------------------- You have 5 different budgets to manage: Money - spare cash not assigned to any budget Construction - used for constructing buildings Vehicles - used for constructing spacecraft Intelligence - used tor financing spying Missiles - used for constructing missiles The number at the far right gives the amount allocated to each budget. There are also 3 bar charts for each budget. Green - Each block = 5,000 credits (heading is "5k") Orange - Each block = 100,000 credits (heading is "100k") Red - Each block = 1,000,000 credits (heading is "1M") To add some money to a budget simply click somewhere on the appropriate line, under any of the three columns. So if you click on the VEHICLES line between the 5K and 100K headings you will add one or more blocks of 5,000 credits. Clicking between 100K and 1M will add one or more blocks of 100,000 credits. The further to the right you click the more blocks you will add. To fine tune the amount, click and hold down the left button and drag it either left or right - this will add or remove a block. Go ahead and experiment, its easier to use than to describe! To remove some money from a budget click and drag left to remove one or more blocks. Notice that all money is given to or taken from the Spare Cash line (called MONEY) at the top, so you cannot directly move money from one budget to another, you have to delete it from one budget (making it spare cash) and then add it to another budget. If you are trying to add money to a budget and nothing is happening, its probably because you have no spare cash and you`ll have to reduce another budget first. Continuing our tutorial return all your money to the Spare Cash line at the top. We need to put some money into CONSTRUCTION so add some in by clicking on the CONSTRUCTION line. Anything over 100,000 Cr should do for now. Add the lot if you like. If during the rest of the tutorial you find that one of your budgets has run out, simply return to the Financial Funds Window and allocate some more money. Now exit from this window (using the "exit" button) and return to the game. Construction ------------ You can now build some Mines by clicking on the asteroid. Build 2 or 3 Mines. Notice that scaffolding appears as your men begin work. If you click on the scaffolding with the left mouse button and hold the button down you will be told what is being built and how many days until completion. Go back to the Engineering Window and move on a few buildings until you come to a Storage Facility. Exit the store and build a Store on your asteroid. You may want to build a couple of Solar Generators too, to ensure you have enough power. Interrogating Buildings ----------------------- If you click on an existing building with the left mouse button it will be identified. Certain buildings also pop up information or control windows. As an example click on one of your finished Mines. There is no information window for a mine just it`s name at the bottom of the screen. Click on the Store and you are presented with a listing of all the ore being held in your Stores at this time. For further details see the entry on Stores in the buildings section. We suggest that you now construct a few more buildings on your asteroid and when they are built, click on them to see what information you can obtain. For now simply exit any information windows and refer to the Buildings section for more details. Build what you like but we suggest the following: 4 or 5 Solar Generators Command Centre Weapons Factory Decontamination Filter Medical centre 2 or 3 Mines 2 or 3 Deep Bore Mines Storage Facility Sensor array Tactical Mode ------------- If you were having difficulty locating a flat piece of land to build on there are two ways around this: The first is to rotate the asteroid around so you can see behind existing buildings. To do this bring up the main Button Panel. Click on the middle left button which will take you to the Asteroid Control Button Panel. There are two yellow arrow buttons. Clicking on them will rotate the entire asteroid left or right by 90 degrees. A quicker way of doing this is to use the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard. Notice how the Transporter in orbit rotates as well since you are viewing the entire asteroid from another viewpoint. The other method to assist you is the Tactical Mode. Bring up the main Button Panel and then the Asteroid Control Button Panel just like above. The bottom left button (a blue cube) toggles the tactical mode on and off. Solid box with "N" indicates normal mode Outline box with "T" indicates tactical mode. The button will not take effect until you exit out of the button panels (Later we`ll show you a quicker way to access buttons!) Notice that when you exit the button panels all the buildings and terrain have disappeared to be replaced by colour coded squares. You can now see every part of the asteroid and selecting a site to build upon is easy. You can also click on buildings to obtain information just as you can in normal mode. The various colours represent the following features: Light Grey - Flat land Dark Grey - Terrain unsuitable for building Light Blue - Buildings Red - Landing Pads White - Buildings protected by a Screen Generator Green - Asteroid Virus deposits Dark Blue - Anti Virus deposits We`ll explain some of these later. A quicker way of changing between normal and tactical mode is to press the SPACE key on the keyboard. Tutorial Conclusion ------------------- You should now have an understanding of the basics of the game: How to access button Panels, view your asteroid, access the asteroid Field Screen, select and build a building, manage your budgets, and so on. The rest of the manual is a reference section and will explain the important features of the game in depth. We would recommend that you read the reference sections. In the order they appear, as they have been structured in such a way as to be chronologically correct ie they appear in the order that you are going to need them in. ZONE 002 : COLONY MANAGEMENT ---------------------------- Your prime directive is to extract and sell as much ore as you can but the most successful and productive mining colonies all rely upon a strong and stable colony infrastructure. It is vital to regularly monitor the colonies on all your asteroids and to keep them running smoothly. There are four main aspects to successful colony management: a) Population b) Security c) Life Support d) Power a) Population Though many parts of your mining equipment are robotic,the robots usually only undertake the tasks that are most dangerous to human life. Human employees are required for many important duties and to oversee and control the robots. To support the mining and technician employees there is an entire Service Industry offering training, relaxation and participation in other leisure activities. Shifts are long and hard and as a result Tetracorp encourage their employees to play hard too. Procreation is outlawed on mining colonies for safety reasons but your colonies will slowly grow in population as your personnel department entices more men and women out from the Home Worlds. The more successful and smoother running your colonies the easier recruitment becomes. In general your population will grow slowly to fill all avaiable living space so you can directly control your population by building fewer or more Living Quarters. The Colony Summary Window (see below) indicates the number of surplus employees you have. These are employees available for backup roles and to operate alternate shifts with technical employees. For stability attempt to keep the surplus positive but not too high. If the surplus is negative then your employees are stretched and may be working double shifts to complete necessary work morale will deteriorate. If your surplus is too high, boredom can effect those not currently working and trouble can break out. b) Security Morale can fluctuate quickly on a mining colony. Spaces are cramped and employees work and play with the same faces day in and day out. Tempers can flare, fights are commonplace and employees are quick to anger at management failures. There would be mutiny every day were it not for your dedicated and highly paid security team. Security will keep your employees under control but only if their presence is large enough. Each Security Centre can easily manage 150 employees and often many more but don`t stretch your security too thin or you are inviting big trouble. You will be issued with reports when (if?) trouble breaks out but don`t wait for these reports monitor the Security status in the Colony Summary Window (see below) c) Life Support Each asteroid colony must be self sufficient and that means producing its own Air, Food and Water. Each employee uses 1 unit of each every day so it is necessary to produce at least as many units per day as you have employees but it is also wise to produce and store a surplus. Initially each asteroid colony begins with a single Colony Preservation Unit (CPU) which provides living space, power, air, food and water but only for a limited population and time. (see description of the CPU in the Buildings section) To back up the CPU you need other support buildings. BUILDING PRODUCES Life Support AIR Hydroponics FOOD Hydration Plant WATER In addition Environment Control continues where the CPU left off by storing all three of the above in vast quantities. The Colony Summary Window (see below) details how much of each resource you are producing, using and storing, so monitor it often and keep production ahead of population growth. More information is given for each of the above buildings in the Buildings section. Remember also that the PAFW display on the Asteroid Field Screen provides a quick summary of the status of your asteroids. PAFW was explained in the tutorial pages. d) Power Clearly nothing can operate without power. The Buildings section of the manual details the power requirement of every building. There are several power production buildings and more efficient ones are available from Sci-Tek. Like Life Support it`s vital to use the Colony Summary Window and PAFW to monitor the status of power to each colony and keep production ahead of usage. Should you suffer power shortages some buildings will fail before others. In general the most vital buildings like Life Support and Hydroponics will fail last. To see which buildings have failed simply click on any power generating building and those buildings without power will be listed. RADIATION --------- Each asteroid has background radiation some higher than others. Radiation is expressed as a percentage. 0% means the radiation is immeasurable above the radiation given off from the local star. Any value of 50% or lower is acceptable but higher radiation is harmful and will result in sickness and even deaths amoungst your employees. Use Radiation Filters to provide them with the necessary protection. (see the description in the Buildings section). Factors that lead to high radiation values are the use of Nuclear missles extensive combat and the presence of rare ores such as Traxium and Nexos. When mining these ores you must be very careful to protect your employees using Radiation Filters. COLONY SUMMARY WINDOW --------------------- You can access this by clicking on any of the colony support buildings such as Living Quarters Life Support, Hydroponics and CPU etc. Remember that you must be in Normal (hand) mode. You can also access it via the button in the Asteroid View Screen Button Panel. This information gives you an important breakdown on the status of your colony on that asteroid. You are told your current population, your maximum population, the total space in all your Living Quarter) and Surplus Population. As explained above in Colony management try to keep the surplus a positive number to allow for growth but if you overpopulate your asteroid you risk running short of food, water and air. Keep an eye on the Radiation reading (see Radiation above). The most important part of the Colony Summary Window is the breakdown of Power, Air, Food and Water. You are told how much you are producing, how much is being used daily and how much is stored for later use. The colour codes give you an instant indication of which of these factors may need attention: Green - No problems Orange - The asteroid is using a commodity faster than it is being produced. Your reserves are being used up. Red - The asteroid is no longer producing a commodity and you are running entirely from reserves (or maybe none at all!) you must rectify the situation quickly! The Security line provides a summary of employee morale on the asteroid. If the message suggests that the asteroid is not secure you would be wise to construct another Security Centre. The final line reminds you which fleets are present at this asteroid. There are also some options available by using the supplied buttons: RENAME INVENTORY EXIT Clicking on RENAME allows you to rename the asteroid. You can personalise all your asteroids and give them a name that reflects their function, like MAIN MINE or ORE DEPOT or SPACE DOCK etc. Simply delete the existing name using the backspace key and enter your own name up to 15 characters. Clicking on INVENTORY will provide a detailed listing of how many of each type of building you have. The listing is broken down into pages - simply use the Arrow Buttons to cycle through the pages. ASTEROID MINING --------------- The purpose of your colony in sector K240 is to locate and extract ores for sale to Tetracorp and the Empire. The more you sell, the larger your profits and your fame in the mining fraternity. This section details how to mine ore, what to do with it, how to transport it and how to sell it. DISCOVERING ORE --------------- The first step is to locate asteroids rich in ore deposits. This Exploration Phase requires the use of one or more Scout Ships. To go in search of new asteroids dispatch the Scout with orders to Explore. For details of how to do this see the section on Controlling Spacecraft and pay particular attention to the subsection on Scouts. Each asteroid has different amounts of each type of ore. To determine which asteroids are the most abundant in ore you must use a Scout with the orders to Prospect for ore. Again see the section on Controlling Spacecraft. When the scout has examined the asteroid it will return to its departure asteroid and present you with an ore report. You can obtain this report at any time for any at the asteroids you have prospected, by clicking on the Geology button. The Ore Report simply details how much of each type of ore remains on the asteroid to be mined. The most common are shown at the top and the rarest at the bottom. ORE EXTRACTION -------------- To extract ore you must have one or more mines. There are three types of mine each mining a particular range of ores. The table below indicates which mines you require to mine particular ores by colour coding them: Selenium Red Red requires a mine Asteros Red Barium Red Crystalite Red Quazinc Orange Orange requires a deep bore mine Bytanium Orange Korellium Orange Dragonium Orange Traxium Green Green requires a Seismic Penetrator Nexos Green obtainable from Sci-Tek As well as providing adequate power for the mines you must build one or more Stores to hold the ore. Clicking on a Store building provides you with a listing of what ores you have in ALL the stores on that asteroid. Each mine extracts one unit of ore about every 8 to 16 days. You have no control over which units are extracted. The main thing to remember about mining is to keep it running smoothly and consistently. Here are a few other points to bear in mind: Make sure there is enough power for all mines. Keep a constant track on the population of your asteroid and try and maintain a positive surplus. Make sure you have enough storage space for the ore. ORE USAGE --------- What do you do with ore? 1) Use it for ship construction 2) Use it for missile construction 3) Sell it to the Empire (see later) This is a summary of most of the cases in the game when you wil need ore: ORE NEEDED FOR Selenium Explosive Missile, Scatter Missile, Assault Fighter, Combat Eagle, Scout Ship, Destructor, Terminator Transporter, Fleet Battleship Asteros Nuclear Missile, Powerplant Barium Area Explosive Missile, Anti Virus Missile, Spy Satellite Crystalite Vortex Missile, Assault Fighter, Combat Eagle Scout Ship, Destructor. Quazinc Napalm Missile, Hellfire Missile Bytanium Space Dock Korellium Stasis Missile Dragonium Space Dock, Terminator, Transporter, Fleet Battleship Traxium Virus Missile Nexos Mega missile SELLING ORE ----------- It is necessary to retain some ore for your own use but the remainder can be sold to Tetracorp and the Empire. The Empire offers prices for ore that vary each Imperial year. You may attempt to play the markets and wait for a high price before you sell ore but don`t speculate for too long or the price may drop again. To obtain the Imperial Ore Prices click on the Command Centre building. These are the prices that the Empire will pay for each unit of ore. Sometimes the Empire will guarantee prices for a number of years for a particular ore type that it needs badly. In this case the letter "H" will appear after the ore price to indicate that the price has been held. The number after the "H" indicates the number of years that the price is held for. The Prices window also indicates the number of days before the next Imperial Ore Carrier arrives at your colony. This is important because you can only sell ore when the Imperial Ore Carrier arrives. The Imperial Ore Carrier will always arrive at whichever of your asteroids has the most ore in its Stores. You can use this fact to ensure that you transport ore in from your other asteroids. Tetracorp recommends that you have a central asteroid that acts as a major storage depot and that all other asteroids regularly ship their ore to this depot. The Imperial Ore Carrier remains in orbit about your asteroid for a short time before returning to the Imperial Home Worlds. 5 days before it leaves the crew will radio down with the appropriate message. Click on the Imperial Ore Carrier (whilst in Ship Selection Mode) and you will gain access to the Ore Transfer Window. This lists all the ore you have in the asteroids stores and the contents of the Ore Carriers cargo bays. The current Imperial Prices are listed for convenience. To transfer ore to the Ore Carrier click over the name of the type of ore with the right mouse button. A quantity of ore will be transferred. This quantity depends upon which ore type you have selected. Since you usually have large numbees of the cheaper ores the transfer quantity is large. For rarer ores it is small. Ores marked as red 50 units at a time. Ores marked as orange 5 units at a time. Ores marked as green 1 unit at a time. If you change your mind you can unload ore from the Ore Carrier into your Asteroid Stores by clicking with the left mouse button. Note that you can only Unload ore that you have previously loaded: there is no way of buying ore from the Empire. You can access the Ore Transfer Window as many times as you like whilst the Ore Carrier orbits your asteroid. You will be paid for the ore when the Ore Carrier returns to the Imperial Home Worlds. END OF PART ONE -=- -=- -=- -=-