STAR GLADIATORS II v1.5                   CopyRight (C) 1997-2001 Kris Asick
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NOTE:
        All instructions can be found in the game itself. Simply use the
        arrow keys to move around the main menu and spacebar or enter to
        select options.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
        * 486/DX2 @ 50 Mhz, Recommended Pentium @ 90 Mhz or faster.
        * 640 kB RAM
        * 64 K+ EGA/VGA Graphics Card
        * A few hundred kilobytes of hard drive space recommended. Can also
          be run from a floppy disk if so desired.

THE HISTORY OF THE STAR GLADIATORS EXTREME UNIVERSE:
        SGX is the official gladitorial combat league for starfighters and
        warships. It first began in 2201. The idea behind the league was to
        recycle ship parts and use perfected instant-transport technology to
        prevent pilots from dying in battle. Basically, each pilot would have
        his ship built days before the battle by automated computer design
        systems, and would then fight in it, but some pilots prefered to
        bring in their own ships with their own devices and special
        abilities.
        At first, the league was named Star Destroyers Extreme, but for
        numerous reasons the name was changed to Star Gladiators Extreme.
        SG2 takes place during the inital stages of the SGX tournaments, when
        most everyone in the tournament was flying basic premade ships and
        not custom jobs.

HOW TO SET UP THE GAME TO BE PLAYED:
        The first thing you need to do is check your framerate and adjust
        your delay modes accordingly. Here's how to do this:

        DELAY MODE: This has three settings:
                Delay_Timer: This mode would be reliable if it would go 35
                FPS and not 18. If anyone can fix this up, let me know.
                Delay_WaitLoop: The least reliable mode. Running the game in
                this mode garauntees there will be slowdown, however on some
                systems that don't support Delay_VSync, you may need to take
                this route. The higher the delay value, the slower it goes.
                Delay_VSync: The most reliable of the modes. If during this
                mode you get sudden jumps of speed try increasing the delay
                time a notch.

        Now you have to adjust your DELAY TIME so that the framerate gets as
        close to 35 FPS as possible. Now, the menu is ONLY for reference
        since the game actually uses LESS processing time. (On purpose.) So
        make sure to turn on the framerate ticker and make sure you get your
        mid-game framerate close to 35 FPS as well.

        Next, read the instructions and check to keyboard controls. This is
        important because you obviously need to know how to move and shoot,
        right? Remember that you can change any keys you don't feel
        comfortable with to ALMOST any key on the keyboard, with the
        exception of SHIFT, ALT, CTRL, WINKeys, ESC, CAPS/NUM/SCROLL LOCK,
        PAUSE, and PRINTSCREEN.

        The controls are as follows:
                UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT: Movement
                FIRE: Shoot your selected weapon
                STOP: Stops your movement
                < > WEAPON: Cycles your selected weapon
                < > WLEVEL: Changes your selected weapon's level of power

        NOTE: NUM LOCK on the keyboard will affect the number pad's keys,
        so make sure you either leave NUM LOCK on or off when setting up the
        keyboard controls. (The default controls assume you'll leave NUM LOCK
        on.)

        Now you're ready to start a new game!

STARTING A NEW GAME:

        You will be given a menu with the following options:

        SCORING MODE:
                POINTS: In this mode, players get points for the amount of
                damage and the number of times they kill their opponent.
                FRAGS: In this mode, players only get points for kills.

        POWERUP RESPAWN RATE:
                Basically, the number of frames that must go by before a
                powerup can be spawned. 35 = 1 Second.

        DEATHLOSS MODE:
                ONE LEVEL: Whenever you die you lose one level of power to
                all of your equipped weapons.
                SELECTED: Whenever you die you lost your currently selected
                weapon entirely.
                ALL: Whenever you die you lose ALL of your weaponry.
                NONE: You do not lose any weapon power when you die.
        NOTE: You cannot lose past level 1 of your main weapon on your ship.

        SKILL LEVELS:
                BEGINNER: Your shields are doubled and all you have to worry
                about is flying and shooting. You can only use up to Level 2
                weapons though.
                STANDARD: The same as beginner except shield levels are at
                their normal levels and you can use up to Level 3 weaponry.
                ADVANCED: Adds energy levels to the mix and lets you use up
                to level 4 weapons.
                ELITE: Adds both energy and heat levels, and lets you use
                all 5 weaponry levels. (Assuming you can upgrade something to
                that level of power.)

        MAXIMUM SHOTS:
                The number of shots each player may have in the air at any
                one time. Be warnned that unless you should NEVER adjust this
                value unless all other attempts to get your framerate up to
                35 FPS fail.

        MAXIMUM PARTICLES:
                Affect the game graphically by producing damage sparks and
                shockwaves when you die. The higher the value, the cooler
                these affects look.

        NUMBER OF STARS:
                Number of stars that scroll by in the background.

        SHOW FPS:
                When you are first setting up the game it is important to
                leave the framerate ticker on so you can adjust the speed of
                the game to get as close to 35 FPS as possible.

        Now the game will ask for the first player's name and will ask him/her
        to choose a ship. On the next screen you will see a box full of ships
        and a graph of stats to the side. Note that there can be up to 256
        ships, if you want to select more ships simply move the selector off
        the right or left sides of the ship selection box. After the first
        player chooses a ship, the second player enters his/her name and
        chooses their ship.

        Before hitting enter to select a ship though, you may want to check
        the AI setting. If you want the player chooseing the ship to be AI
        controlled, or otherwise, hit the F8 key to toggle the AI for the
        ship on and off. The AI in this game is nothing short of tough to
        play against, and short of selecting weapons instantly he plays by
        all the same rules.

PLAYING THE GAME:

        When a game starts you will see the two ships in opposite corners
        with their names beside them, and status bars for each player on the
        side of the screen. When the game action commences, start hitting
        your keyboard keys!

        NOTE: Because of the way QuickBASIC handles keyboard keys you can NOT
        hold keys down as this will prevent other keys from responding
        correctly. If you want to move left, for example, simply push your
        left key once and release, and you will keep moving left. If you want
        to fire rapidly you have to hit your fire key rapidly. Players who
        hold down keys WILL be humiliated!
        PROGRAMMERS NOTE: The keyholding routines assume 35 FPS, so they will
        not detect key holding correctly should you play at a much slower
        framerate.

        Now reading your status bars is easy. First you have your blue bar,
        Shield Levels. If this bar ever blacks out, you die. Plain and
        simple. On Advanced and Elite skill you will also have a yellow bar
        for your Energy Levels. When you fire a weapon, it will drain energy.
        If you run out of energy you will not be able to get much firing done
        until it recharges some or you switch weapons. Then, on Elite skill
        you have a red bar for your heat levels. Firing weapons builds up
        heat, and should this bar ever go full red your reactor will go
        critical and explode! Dying in this way makes you lose points so be
        careful!

        NOTE: When you die from running out of shields the particle shockwave
        from the explosion is blue. If you die from overheating, it's red.

        Lastly you have your weapon selection indicators. A powerup symbol,
        showing you what weapon is selected, a set of boxes and a colored
        bar. The bar indicates how many levels of power are available and the
        colored boxes indicate what level of power you have selected. To
        change the weapon use your WEAPON < > keys, and to increase or
        decrease your level of power use your WLEVEL < > keys.

        NOTE: When you select a weapon the game automatically chooses its
        highest level of power. The only reason you would want to use a lower
        level of power is if you need your energy gauge to fill back up or
        your heat gauge to zero out. Upgraded weapons are generally more
        heat/energy efficent per amount of damage than their lower leveled
        versions. (Even if only by a tiny amount.)

        During the game powrups will appear. Most are weapon powerups but a
        few are not:

        BLUE SHIELD: Restores 50% of shield levels.
        YELLOW BOLT: Maxes out energy levels.
        RED FLAME: Nullifies heat levels.
        SUPER POWERUP: An S with a bolt in the midle. This very rare powerup
                       gives you all wepons and restores all your levels of
                       power.

        When both players agree the game should end simply hit ESC. A final
        screen will be displayed with the players stats and a declaration of
        the winner. After a few seconds you will then be able to hit any key
        and return to the main menu.

        NOTE: If no hits or scoring was done in the game before ESC was
        pressed the score-tallying screen will be skipped.

WEAPONRY:

        This is a list of weapons in the game:

        BULLET: The bullet gun fires shots straight forwards and uses an
        equivalent amount of both energy and heat.

        SPREADER: Each level of power increase the number of shots fired.
        Slightly more heat efficent than energy.

        LASER: A powerful weapon that uses incredible amounts of energy and
        builds up almost no heat.

        PLASMA: Like the laser, only builds up lots of heat and uses very
        little energy.

        XENON: Fires a narrow spread of shots that do acceptable amounts of
        damage. Energy dependant.

        STAR: Like a shotgun. The higher the level, the more shots that are
        spread forwards randomly. Builds up a little more heat than uses
        energy.

        FLAMER: A powerful bolt of flung forwards that builds up even more
        heat than the plasma and uses even less energy.

        MIRROR: Bounces shots off the sides of the arena. Uses excesive
        amounts of energy.

        TRACER: Tracer shots do small amounts of damage but track ships at
        all angles making them harder to dodge. Builds up slightly more heat
        than uses energy.

        OMEGA: Fires shots that track the opponent ship horizontally. The
        higher the level the better the tracking. Uses more energy than
        builds up heat.

        FUSION: The most powerful weapon in the game. (Fully leveled will do
        80% more damage than fully leveled lasers and plasma cannons!) The
        bolts from this weapon are slow but massive. While it uses equal
        amounts of energy and heat it does it in large quantities.

        *ION: Fast beams of energy fly forwards doing large amounts of
        damage. Uses a lot of energy.

        *PSYCHO: Fires average damage pulses that track YOUR ship
        horizontally! Useful for sneaking side impacts on the opponent. Uses
        equal amounts of energy and heat.

        *MFLAMR: Fires FIVE flamer bolts in a spread! As you can image, this
        weapon builds up massive amounts of heat.

        NOTE: *'ed weapons only have one level of power as they are special
        and do not appear often at all.

SHIP EDITING:

        Sooner or later you're gonna want to make your own ships, so here's
        a run down on how it works. First you need to select a ship already
        made to be edited, or select an empty slot to make a new ship in.
        Lets assume the later.

        So you've selected an empty slot, now what? Well, the ship will be
        given a random name and the X will be cleared. Now you must draw the
        ship! To do this, use the arrow keys to move the cursor, the < and >
        keys to select the color of pixel to plot, (can select from 16
        different colors), and then spacebar to plot the pixel.

        But TWO pixels have been plotted! Why is this? Because of SYNCMODE!
        Sync Mode mirrors your pixel plotting horizontally so as to easily
        produce symetrical ships in minutes! Should you desire to do
        something not symetrical, simply hit F8 to turn it off, or on again.

        NOTE: While sync mode will help you create a centered ship
        horizontally be VERY CAREFUL that you center your ship in the box!
        The hit detection routines WILL be thrown off if you do not leave the
        same amount of space on the sides of the ship or the same amount of
        space above and bellow the ship!

        Advanced pixel ploting can be done by using the 0 key (num pad 0 with
        NUM LOCK on recommended) to erase points instantly without having to
        switch the color to black.

        Then, once you've got a nice lookin' ship, hit the W and S keys to
        cycle through the stats on the side. If you're building a new ship
        each stat should already have its absolute minimum number of points
        applied. Simply use the A and D keys to decrease and increase the
        stats to your liking. Note that you will NOT be able to save a ship
        that uses too many points. Likewise, you shouldn't save a ship until
        you've use up all your points.

        Then simply hit F1 to give the ship a new name, (I seriously doubt
        you'll want to use the randomly given name), then hit F10 to save
        the ship!

        NOTE: UNTIL you hit F10 to save none of the changes you make will be
        permenant. Should you hit ESC and hit Y to discard changes the ship
        you are editing will revert back to its previous condition.

        Now, should you care to delete any of the ships in the database, hit
        the DEL key when selecting a ship. BE WARNED: once a ship is deleted
        it can NOT be restored! (Thus why the game asks if you're sure you
        want to delete the ship or not.)

ARENA CODE OF CONDUCT:

        * No player shall hold down keyboard keys as this will cause game
        slowdown and will detract from the level of fun.

        * Players should not play at radically different skill levels.

        * The delay speed should be set to an appropreate speed to make the
        game both fast and playable. 35 FPS is the speed the game was
        designed to be played at.

        * All players should play to have fun. No slackers, lamers or sore
        losers should play this game. Abide by this code of conduct at all
        times.

TROUBLESHOOTING:

        Q: The game plays too fast!
        A: Try adjusting the delay modes as described above in the How To Set
           Up The Game section.

        Q: The game plays too slow!
        A: See above.

        Q: Why is it I can't increase my level of power with this weapon?
        A: If you're using a normal weapon you need to grab powerups for that
           weapon to get access to higher levels. Your skill level will
           ultimately determine your maximum weapon level, and will grey out
           the boxes of levels you cannot access at all. Non-Standard weapons
           (ION,PSYCHO,MFLAMR) are single level, thus cannot be leveled up or
           have their level of power selected.

        Q: I can't type my entire name in!
        A: Ship names are limited to 20 characters. Player names are limited
           to 16 characters.

        Q: I got an error! What do I do?
        A: Read ERRORS.TXT and figure it out from there.

        Q: I'm getting a "Holding Down Keys" message mid-game. What's going
           on?
        A: You are NOT allowed to hold keys down in the game because of the
           way QuickBASIC's keyboard routines work. Simply tap keys.

        Q: But that's what I am doing, just tapping keys!
        A: It's possible your framerate is too low, or that your keypresses
           are registering more than once, or any number of reasons. Whenever
           the keypressing message appears mid-game it's because for six
           frames straight, (about .15 seconds), the same keyboard key was
           registered in every frame without any others being pressed. Look
           into it and figure out for yourself what's up because it ain't my
           game if your framerate is normal. (It's physically IMPOSSIBLE to
           hit any button more than once every .05 seconds.)
	A: If you are in Windows, it also may be possible some background
	   processing just occured, in which case you may wish to either run
	   the game in DOS mode or try closing some open applications.

        Q: Where's the sound effects?
        A: There are none.

        Q: You know, it's not really quite fair when I play on Elite skill
           level and my friend plays on Standard. He can fire consistantly
           with ultra-powerful weapons while I'm stuck with energy and heat
           levels!
        A: Turn the scoring mode to points. Elite players get double the
           damage points and nearly four times the frag points as a Standard
           player.

        Q: My shots keep disappearing on me!
        A: You're overflowing the shot buffer. Increase your maximum number
           of shots.

        Q: But it's already at 50!
        A: Then stop holding down keys :P

        Q: The AI is impossible to beat!
        A: No it isn't. If you really need to gratify yourself agains the AI
           here's a chart to help you determine the strongest and weakest AI
           players:

           POWERUP RESPAWN RATE:
                100 or less: AI will grab many powerups, makes gameplay
                             harder.
                200 or more: AI will be stuck with low leveled weapons, makes
                             gameplay easier.

           DEATHLOSS MODE:
                One Level: AI will be average.
                Selected: AI will switch to least powerful weapon when its
                          shields are low. AI will be MUCH harder.
                All: AI will be weaker.
                None: AI will be harder.

           SHIP STATS:
                Low Shields: AI will be easier.
                High Shields: AI will be harder.
                Excesively good Energy or Heat: AI will be harder.
                Balanced Energy/Heat: AI will be average.
                Bad Energy and Heat: AI will be weaker.

        Q: I STILL can't beat the AI! It must be cheating!
        A: Here's something you might want to try. Put BOTH players on AI
           mode. One with the ship you're flying, the other with the other
           ship, and let them duke it out. If your ship begins to lose by a
           mile, then maybe it says something about your ship? Otherwise,
           just keep trying. The AI is VERY tough.

        Q: Can I make a ship that doesn't use all allocated points?
        A: Yes, but short of killing the AI why would you want to?

        Q: How many ships can I have?
        A: 256.

        Q: Why QuickBASIC?
        A: The original SG2 was made in QuickBASIC over four years ago. My
           original plan this time around was to just add a nicer interface
           and reuse the old code. Upon looking at the old code I suddenly
           saw how old it really was (I was still using the LET command!!!)
           and ended up redesigning the whole thing. Not only did it boost
           the speed, but it's a much better game now too.

        Q: What's the RES option do on the main menu?
        A: There was a 640x350 res version of SG2 at one point in time. I was
           planning on adding support for that mode, but then decided against
           it, at least, for now. I may add hi-res support later on.

DISCLAIMER:

        Star Gladiators 2 is provided AS IS and no garauntees are made that
        the software will run on your system, nor is the author, Kris Asick,
        responsable for any damages caused by the misuse of the software. The
        game may freely be modified as the user sees fit, however, modified
        versions of the game may not be distributed. Only the original ZIP
        file with original documentation may be re-distributed. The source
        code is provided under the same rules as above.

CREDITS:

        Programming, Concept, Graphics, AI:
                Kris Asick (Gemini)

        Beta Testing and Ship Designs:
                Kris Asick, Eric Shepperd, James Bone,
                Lou Mancilla, Jason Gill

TECHNICAL INFORMATION:

        The game was programmed in pure QuickBASIC code on a Pentium3 running
        at 600 Mhz, and was tested on both that system and a 486DX2/66 Mhz
        system. Due to the size of the game it was required that I split the
        source code into two separate modules, thus the source code can no
        longer be used in QBasic (since it doesn't support multiple module
        programming.) (Remembering that QBasic and QuickBASIC are two seperate
	programming environments!)
        Originaly, SG2 was very weak, with a non-user-friendly interface and
        very difficult controls. I reprogrammed SG2 because I felt it could
        be a MUCH better game, and low and behold, v1.5 kicks the crap out of
        any previous versions.
        There is not a shread of assembler/machine code/interupts in the
        source code. No external libraries. No special features. Just nearly
        4,000 lines of pure BASIC code.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST:

        Should you desire to contact me, Kris Asick, for whatever reason,
        you can try one of these two routes:

         E-Mail: gemini@pixelships.com
        WebSite: http://www.pixelships.com

        NOW GO PLAY THE GAME ALREADY!