# Star Fighter 3000 Pilot's Manual

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## - Using the Desktop Interface -

This version of Star Fighter 3000 runs under the Window Manager, allowing you to return to the desktop at any time to continue with other work. You can even play the game in a window, whilst other applications continue to run in the background! Interactive help is provided on all aspects of the desktop interface, and in most cases this should be sufficient.

### The Icon Bar

When you run the game its application icon is installed on the icon bar. Clicking SELECT on this icon will open the main game window, whilst clicking ADJUST will open the Choices dialogue box.

The icon bar menu provides the following options:

Info
  Leads to a window giving information about the program.
Help...
  Opens this user manual.
Choices...
  Opens the Choices dialogue box.
Quit
  Quits the application.

### The Main Window

The main window displays the same graphics that you would see in full-screen mode. Mouse clicks (except for MENU) and key presses are passed on to the game, though the latter only when the window has the input focus. The window will gain the input focus when you click on it - to get the input focus without side-effects hold down the Shift key when clicking.

If the mouse is being used for flight control then the pointer will be hidden and all mouse clicks (including MENU) will be claimed by the game. You can free the pointer by pressing F12 to remove the input focus from the game window; this will also suspend the game if configured to do so.

A pane attached to the bottom of the window displays the current speed of the game in frames per second (FPS). Adjacent to this figure, a slider provides a visual indication of whether the game is running slower than the configured speed. This pane can be shown or hidden using the Choices dialogue box.

The game window provides a menu:

Full screen
  The game takes over the entire screen, removing the distractions of window furniture. Multi-tasking is suspended when not in the desktop, which allows the game to run much faster. You can return to the desktop by pressing F12.
Suspend
  Ticking this option will pause the game and free up CPU time for other tasks. Suspension of the game is total, and thus distinct from the in-game pause facility (which allows continued control of camera views, for instance). You can configure the game to suspend itself automatically when it loses the input focus (see 'General options').
Scale view
  Leads to a dialogue box, which allows you to change the extent of the game window so that it takes up more or less space on the desktop. Either enter a percentage scale in the writable field, use the adjuster arrows, or select from one of the standard scales.
Screenshot
  Leads to a standard save box from which you can drag a file icon to a directory display or type in a complete file path. The game's current screen display will be saved to this location as a Sprite file.
Choices...
  Opens the Choices dialogue box.
Help...
  Opens this user manual.

### The Choices Dialogue Box

This dialogue box is split into several pages in order to keep it to a manageable size. Use the radio buttons down the right-hand side of the window to control which page is displayed.

The 'Cancel' button discards all changes. The 'Set' button confirms any changes and configures the game appropriately. The 'Save' button acts like 'Set', with the addition that it writes the new configuration to file so that it is remembered next time the game is run.

You can keep the dialogue box open by clicking any of these buttons with ADJUST rather than SELECT. This is particularly useful with 'Cancel', to reset the dialogue box from the internal configuration.

#### a) General options

Speed limiter [Value]
  This is the minimum time interval between frames, in centiseconds. Reducing this value should speed the game up (if the computer is fast enough); increasing it should slow the game down (and free up CPU time for other tasks). The 'Slow', 'Medium' and 'Fast' speeds available from the configure menu correspond to values 5, 4 and 3. In full screen mode, the frame rate is also restricted by the monitor refresh frequency (typically between 1 and 2 cs per frame).
Suspend when focus lost [Off / On]
  If enabled, the game will be suspended when the main window loses the input focus. This can prevent a potentially fatal loss of control whilst playing the game in the desktop.
War backdrop for menu [Off / On]
  Turning the backdrop off should make the in-game menus more responsive on slow computers.
Big ships launch missiles [Off / On]
  A-T-A missile launch from big ships and space stations was broken in earlier versions of the game and hence has not been thoroughly play tested. You may wish to disable this option if a mission seems unreasonably hard.
Lasers hit bonus coins [Off / On]
  In earlier versions of the game, lasers would hit any bonus coins in their path. The default is now for lasers to pass straight through, but you can restore the original behaviour by setting this option.
Reset view when hit [Off / On]
  If enabled, the view will automatically be reset to the player's spacecraft (as though f9 had been pressed) whenever it is hit by incoming fire.
Rotate objects on map [Off / On]
  If enabled, ground objects on the map are drawn in 3D and rotate continuously. If disabled, the map is drawn as a static 2D plan view.
Flight controls [Keys / Mouse / Joystick]
  Use these radio buttons to choose the type of user input device to be used for the principle flight controls (roll, dive, climb, thrust and fire). When mouse or joystick control is configured, you can still use the keyboard for other commands (e.g. to control camera views and formations).

#### b) Display options

Initial display mode [Full screen / In a desktop window]
  Use these radio buttons to choose whether the game starts in full-screen mode or in a window on the desktop. (If the game starts in full-screen mode then you will still be able to return to the desktop by pressing F12.) You must save the configuration for this option to take effect.
Screen mode [320 × 256 / 320 × 480 / 640 × 480 / 640 × 512]
  Click on the adjacent pop-up menu icon to choose the resolution of the screen mode used when the game takes over the whole screen. VGA monitors may not be able to display the game's native resolution of 320×256. Alternative resolutions require an extra scaling step.
Scale mouse pointer [Off / On]
  If enabled, the game's mouse pointer shapes will be scaled when appropriate. This option affects display in a desktop window or in full screen mode with 480 lines. You may wish to disable it to avoid pointer shapes being cropped at larger scales or in screen modes with small eigen factors (this is a video hardware limitation).
Display frame rate [Off / On]
  If enabled, the current speed of the game will be displayed in a pane attached to the bottom of the main window.
Initial scale [Value]
  This is a percentage scale to be applied to the main window when the game is first loaded. Click on the button below to insert the current scale into the writable field. You must save the configuration for this option to take effect. To change the current scale, instead use the 'Scale view' dialogue box.

#### c) Graphics options

Detail level [Very low / Low / Medium / High / Very high / Max / Custom]
  This controls the quality of graphics rendering in the game. You can select from one of a number of pre-set detail levels (which correspond to those in the in-game menu) or else select 'Custom' and change the individual settings yourself. Choosing a pre-set detail level will update the sliders to show the new values. 'Custom' detail will automatically be selected if you change any of the sliders.
Texture map detail [Very low / Low / Medium / High]
  You can select from a number of texture mapping algorithms, each of which gives a different trade off between accuracy and speed.
Objects plot distance [Slider]
  The distance beyond which no objects are plotted.
Objects height cut-off [Slider]
  The height above which no ground installations are plotted.
Hills & clouds cut-off [Slider]
  The height above which no objects are plotted (not even mountains or clouds).

#### d) Sound options

Sound enabled [Off / On]
  Allows you to completely disable all sound output from the game.
4 channels / 8 channels
  Use these radio buttons to select the maximum number of simultaneous sounds to allow. Mixing 8 channels of 16 bit linear sound is quite CPU intensive, so it is only recommended for more powerful machines (e.g. StrongARM).
Volume [Slider]
  Allows you to set the volume of game sound output with finer accuracy than the pre-set levels available in the in-game configure menu. The volume does not change as you drag the slider; to hear the new volume level you must ADJUST-click the 'Set' button.
Play game music [Off / On]
  Allows you to disable the game music, for instance to listen to an audio CD instead.
Sound effects [Mono / Stereo / Reverse stereo]
  Stereophonic sound effects require more calculation than monophonic effects, so you may wish to disable them to obtain better performance on slower machines. You should select 'reverse stereo' if your speakers are the wrong way round.

#### e) Key definition

This window lists the keyboard controls used by the game, all of which may be redefined (except for return to desktop, which is always F12). The current key definitions are displayed down the right-hand side, adjacent to their function name.

Click SELECT on one of the displayed keys to redefine it - the icon will be highlighted to show that it is awaiting your input. You may press any key except F12. When a key press has been recorded the highlight will move on to allow rapid definition of multiple keys. You can de-select the highlighted icon by ADJUST-clicking on it.

The flight control keys may only be used when neither mouse nor joystick control is enabled.

(Note: Users with a non-UK keyboard configured will see only key numbers rather than key names. Foreign keyboard layouts may be defined by adding a suitable message file to the !Star3000.Keyboards directory.)

#### f) Mouse options

Intercept mouse driver [Off / On]
  To allow mouse control in the desktop without disrupting other applications, the game intercepts low-level communications between the mouse driver and OS kernel. If you disable this then the game will revert to more conventional methods, but mouse control will only operate in full screen mode. This option is not available on RISC OS 3.1 machines.
Sensitivity [Slider]
  The sensitivity of flight control using the mouse can be configured from low (takes a long time to react) to high (reacts quickly, but can be difficult to control). A slider allows finer adjustment than selecting one of the pre-set levels from the in-game menu. Control sensitivity is also affected by the configured mouse pointer speed unless mouse driver interception is enabled.
Auto-centre controls [Off / On]
  With auto-centring enabled the flight controls will gradually return to a neutral position when mouse movement ceases.
Mouse buttons
  Configuration of mouse buttons works on the principle of tying actions to buttons. A display field shows the action currently configured for each mouse button. To choose from a list of available actions, click on the adjacent pop-up menu icon. Some actions replace the flight control keys ('Fire weapon', 'Thrust') whilst others give access to commonly used commands. 'Change weapon' cycles through your available weapon systems (skipping any that have been exhausted) so that you don't have to reach for the keyboard in the heat of battle.

#### g) Joystick options

Port number [Value]
  Some interfaces support more than one joystick, which are then identified by a number from 0 to 255. Usually you should configure the port number to 0.
Switched/Analogue
  Use these radio buttons to specify whether your joystick is of the switched ('Atari') or analogue ('PC') variety. The flight controls should still work but may behave strangely if you configure the wrong type of joystick.
Calibrate joystick
  Click this button and follow the on-screen instructions to calibrate your analogue joystick to return its full range of values. This will only work if your joystick software supports Acorn's calibration SWIs.
Joystick buttons
  This is similar to the configuration of mouse buttons. Up to eight joystick buttons are supported, and you can choose an action to tie to each. For more details see 'Mouse options'.

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