Vega Strike 0.2.9.4 Celeste

Vega Strike 0.2.9.4 Celeste

Vega Strike is a 3d OpenGL Action RPG space sim for Windows/Linux that allows a player to trade and bounty hunt in the spirit of Elite.

You start in an old beat up Wayfarer cargo ship, with endless possibility before you and just enough cash to scrape together a life. Yet danger lurks in the space beyond.

*2) New Features*

Python Scripting Upgraded various for-pay missions and the basic missions

Quests And News Linked the local happenings to gameplay challenges and

cash opportunities

Surpluses and Shortages Trading is now affected by the live news model

Rendered Bases To Explore Beautifully rendered bases to explore--but

there's more than meets the eye

Locals to converse with The bartender always has the latest news for j00

Trading with the enemy It's always profitable to run the front lines,

selling pricey weapons to evil Aera, or running back high tech bionics

for terran research!

Music Player A music player is now included in vega strike...it can play

midis, ogg, or mp3... just dump the files into music/ and edit the

playlists in .vegastrike

Ingame Map A map of the local sector may be accessed with Shift-M. Sure

accurate maps are expensive, but this one should be well worth whatever

you didn't pay

Installer/Uninstaller Allows players to easily install OpenAL and VS

Autoupdater Keeps the player up to date and allows players to restore

edited versions

Splitscreen Multiplayer Coop gauntlet with a friend or blow him to

shreds--even trading and exploration i spossible in this mode!

Save Games Having persistent gameplay over multiple sections is possible

Large Star System Size Vegastrike engine has been upgraded to use double

precision floating values so that realistic system size is possible

Communications/Orders Allows the player to contact neutrals and taunt

enemies. Wingmen can be ordered.

Autopilot Lets the player quickly go from one zone of combat to another

Trading Lets players run guns to make money

Missions for cash Players can now contract out for spare cash

Ship Upgrades Don't like your ship? buy a new one or get some better

weapons or engines!

Missiles Missile can lock on to their targets and track them with ease

ECM systems err...almost ease

Autotracking Weapons Guns may be updated to seek to their targets

Tractor beams Small pieces of cargo may be taken into a hold. look for

these when a large cargo-laden ship has exploded

Energy Removing Guns Leech energy down to nada on their targets

System Damage Hud displays flicker and weapons blow off...

maneuverability decreases and many more horrible things happen when you

get damage... don't get damage

3d Cockpits With accurate lighting and damage effects these cockpits add

a whole new dimension to vegastrike

* 3) Tutorial -- Starting a New Game -- Making a few Credits *

To start a new Vegastrike game, click on the Vega Strike Launcher from

the Start Menu.

Click on "New Game"

Type in the save game you wish to save to when you choose save at a base.

Click "ok" and Vegastrike should launch. Be patient while it generates

BSP trees for the system. This will only happen the first time.

You will find yourself at the controls of an old starship known as the

wayfarer. You may wish to read the introduction story for some

information about how you got to where you are sitting.

Your wayfarer has an old, out of date, targetting system. You will need

to face the targets on your radar before you can necessarily target them.

Press t a few times to survey your surroundings. Locate a planet named

Agricultural:Arnemetia by turning and pressing 't' consecutively until

you see it in your right hud. Then press shift-A to turn on autopilot.

This will move the camera into pan- mode and speed up time until your

ship has arrived near your target.

When you exit Autopilot you _may_ encounter pirates, Aera, or other

unfriendlies. If this is the case you perhaps should turn your ship,

press p a few times to pick the targets in front of you, and engage

them! They should not be difficult at this stage of the game, so they

should be easy kills.

If your "AUTO" Light is on, however, you know that you are home free.

Your radar, however does not give an indication of starships intent

towards you, so you must be cautious until you can afford a better one.

Turn back to the large earth-like Agricultural planet and press t until

"Agricultural:Arnemetia" is in your right screen (If you miss it hit

shift-T to go back). press "0" to request docking clearence. A green or

red box should appear around your planet. A box turns red if it is

behind the unit or in a wall, and turns green if it is on your side of

the unit

With the onset of life-sized planets, you must spend a large chunk of

time to actually get near enough to the surface to dock, so you must

engage time compression.

press "+" until your speed is around 300, then hit F9 around 10-16 times

to speed time enough to quickly engage the dockin clamps. Around 300

seconds later (compressed as you have into about 10) you will be close

enough to dock. press 'd' and your comm screen will tell you if you have

success.

Once the comm screens say "Docking Operation Begun". You immediately

step out of your ship onto the planet.

The planet graphics themselves are not completed yet, but they are

underway--in the meantime you'll be presented with a computer interface

that allows you to conduct business with the planet.

Agricultural planets sell food, so peruse the cargo list and get food by

clicking on Natural Resources then "Food". Stock up with your cash. You

should be able to get enough Grain and Generic Food to fill your cargo bay.

Buy the food and then Click on the Save/Load button on the top right

Then go to the menu (where the cargo used to be) and click SAVE

You will get a confirmation dialog. Next time you run the Launcher you

should Open up your saved game to continue from where you left off. *

(If you click the LOAD button there, your current ship will be

destroyed, so you can hit semicolon to respawn and reload!)*

Click done on the bottom right. We have some nice foodstuffs, lets

deliver them to a base where they are needed.

You must undock with the planet. Undocking is somewhat unintuitive, so I

will go over it briefly here. The full text is below. You may only

undock from the starship you have targetted. If you somehow lost the

agricultural planet in the meantime you may not have undocked with it.

Make sure Agricultural planet is targetted, and press 'u' (or 'd' again)

to undock.

If you failed to undock, you will notice the game gets all jittery--this

is because your thrusters have to fight with the docking clamps to

turn... So just target the thing you were docked to and try again with a

'u'.

We want to run this food to a mining base. Lets try our good mining base

Draul Bisa--they're often in need of food with these pirates around, and

cut off trade routes.

Target Draul Bisa with 't', and then hit shift-a to get there.

Again you may encounter some enemies.... prepare to engage them!

When you reach a green guide box, press 'd' again to dock. You should

then press '0' to enter the base.

Once inside the base, you will se the docking screen, like before.

Except this time, you should click on SellMode to get a list of Items.

Browse through the Food categories like you did before. You should see

the same cargo that you bought back at the planet. Select both of them.

Notice that the prices are greater; you can sell them for more than you

bought them for! so click on the SellCargo button until all of your

cargo is gone.

By doing this, you get some cash for spending. You should maybe buy

something usefil with this money, like an afterburner to allow you to go

a lot faster. Go to UpgradeShip an select Engines. Then you will see

Light and Engine Enhancements Light. To get an afterburner, choose

afterburner_generic from the Engine Enhancements Light category. about

2700 credits should have immediately been deducted from your account and

you should immediately have an afterburner installed on your ship.

Make sure to go to the Load/Save button in the top right and click on

SAVE. Otherwise if you forgot you could go to the launcher and recover

your auto save to your game, but if you encounter an undesirable

situation, this could leave you with fewer options. We recommend saving

after conducing landing operations.

You can do missions as well to earn money. To find a list of missions,

go to the MissionBBS. The categories are listed by who offered the

mission or who you have to kill. Make sure not to take missions where

you kill someone you wish to be an ally of. Killing units of a given

race affects your relationship with them far more than merely taunting

them, so be careful who you choose to be your friends.

In the beginning it would be wise to take cargo missions and simple

scout and patrol missions. Make sure you select missions that occur "in

system"... many missions require you to jump out of system to complete

them, and you need at least 9000 credits to afford a jump drive.

This is one of the most important improvements you can get for your

starship. It will allow you to complete many more missions and explore a

better part of the galaxy.

If mission directions get lost in the battle chatter use page up and

page down to scroll through the messages and find the directions you

need to complete a mission.

So take a mission, take off, and prepare to meet your destiny!

*4) Saving and Loading*

There should be a program named "Launcher" in the vegastrike directory

or start menu. This will give you a list of choices:

Select mission button This allows you to select which mission vegastrike

will start the next time you press one of the keys below it. Most

missions do not involve save games and will ignore those options,

however the default, in the mission/exploration folder will indeed

ustilize the save games you specify. If you ignore this option you begin

in the standard trading/bounty hunting mission.

Start a new game button Start a new game in the Vegastrike universe. You

start with a dinged up old wayfarer and head from the vega sector with

the hope of finding profit and adventure on the frontier. To begin

afresh you must choose a new saved game.

Load game button This opens up a saved game you had finished playing

before. To save you must dock at the base and click on the save/load

button and choose the save option. /NOTE that if you choose the LOAD

button from a base IN GAME, your ship will be destroyed so you can press

respawn (semicolon) and continue where you last saved from!/ This is not

quite as intuitive as we would have hoped :-(.

Recover autosave button This button allows a player to recover their

most recently played game into the selected save game upon next run. If

the player quits or the player docks, and then dies, it will restore to

the last saved position.

Launch last savegame button Use this button to launch Vegastrike with

from a saved game or mission. If you do not choose a mission, you will

start in the standard trading/bounty hunting mission.

Launch no savegame button This button allows you to launch the selected

mission without using a saved game.

Help button This will print tis on a help window.

Exit launcher button exits the launcher.

*9) Docking to a Planet or a Capship*

If you wish to earn money, you will need to know how to dock.

First of all, plabnets without a type on them on the right vdu are

inhabitable and do not have any cargo on them.

Myplanet

But if it has a type on it on the right vdu, feel free to dock to it!

industrial:Myplanet

If you wish to get clearence to land at the base or planet, you must

communicate that you wish to land by pressing the '0' key.

In order to dock to starships, you must press 'd' and to undock, press

'd' again or press 'u'.

Once docked at the planet or base, you may press '0' again to leave your

starship and enter the base.

See the next 5 sections for more information about the bases.

*10) Accepting Missions*

You must accept missions to earn money. The first step is to click on

the "Mission BBS" button. This will give you a list of mission

categories. You will then need to click on the category name

There will be missions to attack targets in the Attack categories.

In the Neutral category, there will be neutral missions like patroling,

escorting and scouting.

Finally, the Confed, Aera, Pirate, Rlaan or Retro categories will give

you missions to diliver cargo, search for contraband or escort ships to

other places.

Once you have bought the missions, you may check your cockpit screen to

see the instructions for the missions.

When you have completed them, your credits will immediately be added to

your account.

*11) Trading Cargo*

You may buy cargo at the base that you are docked to.

To find the list of cargo, use the Buy Mode button. When you click on

it, you will most likely find a list of categories. (If you don't, then

the planet or capship that you are docked at doesn't sell cargo.)

After browsing through the categories, you should select the Cargo that

you want to buy.

The selected item will be blue, with the name and the quantity in the

base in parentheses.

Jade (3)

On the right side of the screen, there will be the item, the price, the

mass and the volume.

Jade

Price: 124.83

Mass: 0.01

Cargo Volume: 1.00

To buy it, simply click the "Buy Cargo" button at the bottom.

Different planets or bases will have different prices and quantities for

groups of items. For example, Mining Bases will have cheaper minerals.

After buying cargo, you may want to go to a planet that is in need of

that cargo. When you are done docking at that planet, you may go the

Sell Cargo screen.

In the sell mode, you will see the same categories, except only those of

the items that you bought. Find your item again and click on it. Notice

that the price has changed, but everything else has stayed the same.

Click The "Sell Cargo" button if you wish to sell it, and you will

immediately be rewarded with your credits.

Note: you should NOT go the "upgrades" or "starships" categories if you

want to buy a ship or upgrade it UNLESS you wish to have a starship or

upgrade in your cargo hold.

*12) Upgrading and Downgrading your Ship*

If you want your ship to get better (so you can do more missions and

kill harder enemies), you will have to eventually upgrade your junky ship.

You must click on the "Upgrade Ship" button to get a list of possible

upgrade categories. Browse through them until you find a good Upgrade

that you need.

The screen will look similar to the cargo section, with the name and the

quantity in parentheses. If you click "Buy", you may see one of many things:

If the computer says that the ship may not entirely fit on your ship, it

is saying that not all of the upgrade may be used. For example, if you

add fuel to your ship and you have only used up half of a fuel item, it

will say that the fuel may not fit. You usually should just click Yes.

It may also ask you which mount to place the gun, missle or turret on.

Mounts with brackets [] on are empty mounts. Select which mount to put

it on.

Laser

[LIGHT MEDIUM HEAVY ]

ImageRecognition

Here you could put another laser or beam in the LIGHT MEDIUM HEAVY mount

because it can hold those categories.

Downgrading works the same way. If you need to earn more money, just

click the Downgrade button. It will give you a list of caregories of

items on your ship.

When you have the item that you wish to sell, make sure that you have

selected the best item in that category. For example, you may have an

"engine_level_0" and an "engine_level_1" in the list you should

downgrade the engine_level_1 if you want to get more money out of the item.

*13) Buying a new ship*

Buying a ship is simple, if you have enough money. Just go to the Ship

dealer and select the ship that you want.

The ships ending with ".blank" are blank ships. You will have to buy

upgrades to put on them before they are flyable.

The wayfarer.begin may also be listed; it is the same ship that you

started with.

There are a very few ships without these endings that come pre-equipped

without those endings. You can buy those ships and then you will not

have to put upgrades on.

You should sell all of your upgrades and/or cargo before buying a new

ship; they will get trashed if you don't.

*14) Briefings and News (Experemintal)*

Briefings and news have not been added yet. They will come in next release.

*15) Interstellar Warp Transit (Jump Drive)*

Most starships come equipped with a warp drive. Unfortunately they can

only be used at large singularities in the space-time continuum. Your

computer signals these points by placing glowing blue balls in those

areas. Their relative size indicates how small a starship must be to fit

through the jump point.

To engage a jump drive, position your ship inside and press 'j'.

Regulations state that starships should be stopped before jumping--

disasters have resulted from starships travelling at any great speed

into a jump point.

You do not come equipped with one at the beginning, so you must do

missions to earn enough money to buy one.

*16) Time Compression / Autopilot*

Often interstellar travel requires going great distances. To facilitate

this, we have provided time compression. Press F9 to increase time

compression to get where you're going. Press F10 to drop out of time

compression. F10 will happen automatically if enemies are nearby.

If going towards a big object, like a planet, you may autopilot there by

pressing Shift-A.

*17) Match Velocity Key*

In space all speeds are relative...Flightrgroups can be travelling at

great velocity with respect to a surrounding sun yet appear to be idly

drifting into space. A player may instruct his computer to match

velocity of a starship by pressing the 'home' key on the keypad. This

will set '0' to be the speed of that starship. Backspace will assure

that your ship is stationary relative to the other starship (unless it

accelerates faster than you and is accelerating).

To stop matching velocity press the 'end' key on the keypad.

*18) Tractor Beam*

A tractor beam is just like a normal beam weapon except that it exerts a

small force upon its target. If the target is small relative to your

ship or is a chunk of cargo, holding a tractor beam on it will cause the

cargo to come towards you and eventually enter your hold. It is almost

impossible to tractor cargo that is moving with respect to your ship, so

the suggestion is to press 'home' to match velocity with the cargo, and

then to press backspace to stop... this will allow one to pick up cargo

with ease.

*19) ReSpawn*

If you sadly lose your life in combat you may respawn by pressing ';'

(Player 2 can respawn with '.' )

A new starship will be created for you by Bob.

*20) Ordering Wingmen*

If you are in a mission with more than 1 ship in your flightgroup you

may order them to do certain things.

Press shift-F to have them form on your wing and follow you through jump

points

Press shift-D to have them attack your target

press shift-H to have them attack the object attacking you

Press shift-B to release them from the above orders

Wingmen are fickle and may not always obey your commands. They will

inform you if they do or not.

*21) Communications with Friends and Foes*

When flying in space one may wish to engage in casual conversation with

nearby starships.

Target a starship and press a number key to communicate with the ship.

Conversation topics are generally ordered from nice (low numbers) to

threatening (high numbers), however you may wish to change your vdu to

comm mode (press 'v' to cycle to it) in order to see exactly what you

will say to your target.

If you choose particularly menacing taunts, the target may get angry and

attack you instead of its current target.

Likewise often one can use the comms to restore relationships with

hostile people.

Be careful as the local authorities may choose to scan your ship for

contraband. If you refuse to fly straight during this process you may be

attacked!

*22) Transfer Command*

if you wish to transfer command to another starship, simply press '[' to

switch over. This is useful if you have died and do not wish to upset

the blaance. The AI that took over for the ship you left will attack

your previously targetted unit, be it friendly or enemy. You can use

this to in effect give orders to friends.

*23) Turrets*

Turrets do not begin with their own AI at all times. To toggle the AI of

your turret, you must press 'o'. Pressing this when your turret is off

will turn on your turret and tell it to attack your target. Pressing o

again will turn off your turret and make it sit idle.

Turrets can be told to attack your target. do this by pressing

'shift-P'. once they attack your target you may switch your target and

they will continue to attack the target you told them to.

Press ']' to physically go to a turret.

Press ']' to return to cockpit again. Another press of ']' will get you

to your next turret, and so forth.

Like with Transfer command, the AI of the turret will attack your

previously targetted object when you leave the turret.

*24) Single-Player Controls*

esc Quit

Arrow keys Flight Sim style turning (you can also use the keypad arrows)

\ full throttle

backspace zero throttle

=,+ accel

- decel

enter fire missile

space Fire Guns

backspace stop

tab Afterburners

j engage interstellar warp drive (use at clear blue balls)

*,ins Spin Right

/,del Spin Left

~ shelton slide while holding key

y match speed

t target

p target nearest to center of screen

h target enemy targetting you

n target nearest target

Shift-T reverse cycle through targets

l lock your target so that it will not switch

m change active missile

g change active gun

shift-M De/Activate Inflight Map

v switch targetting computer mode to navigation mode and then view mode

w switch left targetting cpu

c cloak

Shift-W shift weapons computer mode to damage mode

Shift-S next music track

F1 toggle cockpit

F2 left cockpit

F3 right cockpit

F4 back cockpit

F5 Chasecam

F6 Panning Cam (s,a,w,z pan)

F7 Target Cam

F8 Strange Cam

F9 Increase Time Compression

F10 Reset Time Compression

F11 Zoom in

F12 Zoom out

a,d,w,z pan ghost cam

; respawn -- use after death to recreate your starship

[ switch ships in battle (use to control allies)

] switch to a turret onto your ship

Shift-A autopilot to the target

a autopilot to the target

Shift-P target enemies for your turret

Shift-N Turret Nearest Target

Shift-! Suicide

Shift-| Pause

page down Scroll VDUs down

page up Scroll VDUs up

home Set Velocity Frame of Refrence

end Reset Velocity Frame of Refrence

Shift-F Tell wingmen to form up

Shift-B Tell wingmen to stop forming up

Shift-H Tell wingmen to help you out

Shift-D Tell wingmen to attack targetted starship

1-9 Communicate to your allies

0 Request clearence to land

Shift-E Eject

Shift-Z Eject cargo

, and . Change Sound Volume

< and > Change Music Volume