Introduction

An exciting and realistic space ship landing simulator.

Prologue

You are the captain of the space ship Falcon, returning home from an exploratory flight deep into outer space. You have made some fantastic discoveries - like the intelligent gas-based lifeforms of planet X9E13 - and you're itching to tell the world about them.

But you used a little too much fuel on visiting that interesting red and green throbbing planet with yellow clouds and a strange race of radioactive dwarfs. As you approach the outer limits of the solar system, you realise with horror that you're not going to make it to Earth. Your fuel is running out - rapidly!

There is only one chance - Mars is between you and Earth. If you can get there, you can refuel at the Earth Space Agency's outpost on that planet. It will then be only a short hop home.

Mars comes into view and you will have just enough fuel to land - but it will be a tight squeeze. The ESA post comes on the scanner and it's time to begin your landing procedure.

It's a tricky job - landing without much fuel to play with - you have to look everywhere at once. Keep your eye on the velocity, or you'll burn up, but watch the motors don't get too hot. And you must keep on course or you'll end up carrying that fuel a long way.

Keep a balance between fuel use and overheated motors, and descending too fast for your heat shields.

There goes motor three! Can you land on just two?

Game Objective

Land successfully. To do this, you must have a downward velocity of less than 10 m/s and the blue cross must be inside the target circle.

Screen Display

At the left of the screen is the scanner with a target sight. The yellow arrow shows wind direction.

The Burn Level Indicator shows the burn rate of your rocket motors on a scale of 0-9. This is equivalent to deceleration, rather than thrust, and can be set using the number (or function) keys. 0 is off, 9 is maximum deceleration, 5 will keep your velocity constant.

The Velocity Meter shows your downward speed in m/s.

The Motor Condition Indicator shows the condition of your motors: blue = ok, yellow = hot, red = critical and black = burnt out. Reducing the burn rate will allow the motors to cool.

The Temperature Gauge. Above 5000 degrees C you will burn up.

The Fuel Gauge is calibrated in kgs.

The X and Y Velocity Meters show your horizontal velocity relative to the ground.

The Altimeter gives your altitude in metres.

Thrust provided by the motors is shown in kgs (This is automatically adjusted to compensate for reduced weight due to fuel loss).

There are six Warning Lights with two-letter labels: GR, red = ground proximity warning; OH, red = overhead imminent; FL, yellow = fuel low, red = fuel out; PO, yellow = power limited, red = no power available; MO, yellow = motors overheating, red = damage imminent; DI = direction of motion (up/down).

The Digital Clock shows time elapsed.

Game Controls

Note: For horizontal travel, hold down the arrow keys to fire the lateral motors. The arrow corresponds to the direction of thrust (not the resulting direction of travel).

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CHAIN"" (RETURN)