The Story So Far

You are in charge of a remote asteroid refuelling base, vitally important to Earth's space exploration program. Deep below the base lie four giant silos, each containing millions of litres of liquid oxygen.

So far your tour of duty has been uneventful - but suddenly you become aware of an alien spacecraft in orbit high above. It has detected your presence and is about to send down drones to plunder your fuel supplies - unless you cn zap them first. Your only defence is a powerful laser cannon. It's fast, deadly and uses a mirror to angle your fire power in any direction. Muttering "No free gas for Ganymede!", you hurtle to the controls, eager to destroy the drones and pulverise the pirates!

How long can you hold out before your defences crumble?

Playing The Game

The first screen displayed is the title page - press any key to continue. The next screen allows you to specify the keys for Fire, Go Left and Go Right. Press the key you want to use as each option is displayed in turn on the screen.

Pressing the joystick fire button in response to any of the options will let the computer know that you will be using the joystick.

Next you can choose how loud you want the sound effect to be.

1. Keyboard control
   Press the key you selected for Go Left and repeat this to decrease the volume setting - the Go Right key will increase it. When you have selected the right level, press the Fire key to register it, and start the game. If you press any other key, you will be taken back to the start of the option sequence and you can redefine your keys - useful if you've changed your mind or made a mistake!
2. Joystick control
   To decrease the volume, you must move the joystick to the left and then return it to neutral, repeating this action until you have reached the sound level you want. Moving the joystick to the right and then into neutral will increase the volume. The Fire button starts the game.

If the program is left unattended, it goes into autoplay. Use the BREAK key to return to the title page.

Movement of Cannon

The Go Left or Right key (or corresponding joystick movement) will cause the cannon to move in that direction until:

1. another key is pressed, or
2. the Fire key/button is pressed

Your laser cannon is automatically replenished with energy whenever it is connected to the energy bank at the extreme left of the screen. The energy level indicator shows how much energy remains to you - as this level falls, your laser beam becomes shorter and slower.

When the drones penetrate the plasti-steel roof of the base, they start to build fuel siphons on the top of each silon. The screen flashes to warn you this is happening and you see the top of each silo changing colour in turn. When all four silos have been covered, you lose a life. You have three lives in each game.

The drones attack in waves. Advanced players will encounter a wave of high-speed super-drones at the end of each level. If you manage to survive this, you progress to the next level - the screen changes to a different colour combination and the level number changes on the display. The time check shows how long you've lasted!

Score

You gain higher scores as you go further into the game. At the first level the drones are worth ten points each, at the second, twenty each, and so on. Bonus points are awarded for hitting a drone near the top of the screen and also for hitting drones in the advanced attack wave at the end of a level.

Strategy

Move your cannon for greater fleixibility and more points. It is impossible to zap all the drones by staying in one place - by the energy bank, for example. Move out to fire at a sharper angle and get yourself a bigger score.

The highest score so far is given at the start of the game. If you manage to beat this, you can enter your own name. You are allwed up to fifteen characters and can use DELETE if you make a mistake. Press RETURN to register it.

N.B. Pressing BREAK will restart the game! Pressing CTRL-BREAK clears the memory and returns you to BASIC.

Loading

Tape: CHAIN"" (RETURN)
Disc: Hold SHIFT and tap BREAK to boot disc

Game Authors

Game Written by John Colin, Program by Jon Malone and Graphics by Mike Masters