NAME

SYNOPSIS

nighthawk [options]

DESCRIPTION

It all started when I was in year 10 (1987). A friend of mine gave me a copy of Paradroid on a cassette tape (that was the common media for C-64's among my friends at the time), and that was it!, I was hooked.

Nighthawk was named after the second ship (level) of the original game. It was extremely difficult to get to this level. If you could slate the Paradroid level AND Nighthawk level (let alone the other dozen levels), you were very good, and would have been highly regarded among the governing pimply faced C-64 evanglist aristocrary at my school (BTW, does anyone know the full set of ship names in the original game?).

(Nb/ Here is a bit of useless but interesting trivia for you. Adrian Bridgett, the Debian maintainer for this distribution noted to me that Paradroid was also very similar to Quazatron for the Z80 Spectrum, one of his favourite games. There's also an Amiga variation, and the acclaimed Paradroid-90 on the Atari-ST).

In October 92 (during the end of my degree I was doing at the time), i attempted to write a Messydos PC game like this, but didn't have enough technical knowledge about real time programming and PC's etc. Four years later, in October 96, started working on this game. Over a period of a year, I worked on it on and off, to produce 1.0 that was released in December 97.

Nighthawk has been exclusively written for the Unix/Linux X-Windows GUI, and have choosen it because it's the most popular, stable, and oldest GUI. Also, X-windows games are now very fashionable. Some say that Linux/Xwindows is the game developers preferred choice! (i think I read that in the Walnut Creek 1998 catalogue?), but I won't go that far yet anyway ;).

NIGHTHAWK - PARADROID CHAPTER II - THE RESCUE FROM VEGA

...However, we have depatched a Class 002 Paradroid. Improved over the 001 class, the 002 will teleport to each ship and annihilate all droids.

GAME PLAY

You start out as a 002 Paradroid. In the original game, you controlled a 001 Influence device. They differ in the way they control their hosts. The 001 droid was basically a helmet that fitted over the host droids head, and could control it for a certain length of time. The 002 droid however actually transfers it's programs over to the new host, effectively 'becoming' it, and destroying the old host it occupied.

There are good and bad points to this. The good point is that you can occupy the host droid for an unlimited length of time, the bad point is that you are stuck with the new hosts weaponry, speed and shields.

OPTIONS

	 -h         Display (this) help
	 -c<d>      Start at a given ship (0-9)
	 -m         Use sound effects and music

Music ('-m') options:
	  -p<d>   No of Patterns alloc
	  -s<d>   Sampling rate
	  -S<d>   Stereo    (S1=Stereo,S0=Mono)
	  -P<d>   Precision (P8=8 bit,P16=16 bit)
	  -f<d>   Frames
	  -F<d>   Frame Fragment size
	  -x<d>   No of FX channels

KEY SUMMARY

	cursor keys - move
	left click  - fire
	right click - panic fire
	space       - activate (lift, computer, boost)
	t           - toggle transfer mode
	h           - toggle headsup mode (off by default).
	s           - display status
	p           - pause
	q           - quit

MOVEMENT

To move around the ship, you must use the lifts (these look like squares with a cross through them, you normally start on one). To use a lift, move over it and press space. A map of the ship will appear, showing all the lifts and a square dot which represents your droid. Press up or down to the level you want to go to, and then press space to exit the lift.

ATTACKING

The spin speed of a droid indicates how charged the shields of the droid are. At full spin, the droid is fully charged. When a droid has less than 1/4 shields green lights flash, and when they have less than 1/8 shields red lights flashes instead. To recharge shields, move over a recharging point (they have swirly bits in them) and press space.

TRANSFERRING

During the negotiations a bar will appear - the green part represents your droid and the blue bar represents the enemy droid. The relative amounts of these bars will change as the droids battle each other. When the bar has turned one color, that droid wins. The negotiation will be broken off if the two droids move too far apart.

As a general rule, don't negotiate with a droid that is more than two classes above you - e.g if you are in a 423, negotiating with a 606 is okay, but a 713 will probably kill you.

STATUS

	shields=10      you have 10 shields left
	droids=9        there are 9 droids left to kill
	002 d 107       002 droid destroyed 107 droid
	002 h 423(8)    002 droid hit 423 droid (has then 8 shields left)
	600 captured    started negotiating with 600 droid
	lost contact    stopped negotiations (droids move too far apart)
	boost=15(+3)    shields were reacharged by 3 to 15

COMPUTERS

	Type    -  droid number
	Name    -  title of the droid
	Entry   -  "negotiation" skills
	Height  - 
	Weight  -  can it 
	Brain   -  intelligence of the droid
	Arm     -  weapon (armament)
	Shield  -  current and maximum number of shields
	Speed   -  how fast the droid can move
	Attack  -  agressiveness of the droid

SCORING

	Recharging shields   -10
	Hit droid            entry level
	Destroyed droid      25 x entry level
	Transferring         50 x entry level

You get points for hitting/destroying a droid even if it was another droid that did the shooting!

WEAPON TYPES

	                 Speed  Damage    
	Linarite         8      4         
	Crocoite-Benzol  10     10        
	Uvarovite        12     20        
	Tiger-Eye Quartz 9      50        

DROID TYPES

0xx - Prototype Class

These droids are prototype/ experimental class that vary in function considerably. Approach with caution.

1xx - Cleaning Droids

Mindless, slow, low shielded, unarmed droids that clean the ships. Harmless.

2xx - Logistic/Servant Droids

Again, brainless droids that do various tasks. These type can vary in shield and strength. This class is harmless as well.

3xx - Messenger Droids

Mindless, but very fast. Low shield rating, and are not armed.

4xx - Maintenance Droids

Designed to repair the ships. Vary in shield and speed ratings. Sometimes armed.

5xx - Medical Droids

These droids have a high entry level, and are difficult to crack. All of them are armed, but are not hostile. However, they will shoot at any droids that attack them.

6xx - Sentinel Droids

These droids 'guard' certain important area's of the ships like lifts, power bays and other droids. They vary in shield rating, speed and fire power, but all are armed and will attack. Approach with caution.

7xx - Battle Droids

This class of droid 'hunts'. When confronted, any will attack. They vary in speed, shield rating and weaponary, but all are extremely dangerous.

8xx - Crew Droids

These are armed droids that control the ship. These like the 5xx class are not hostile, but will become hostile to any droids that attack them. 8xx's are armed with Uvarovite lasers, and pack a rather powerful wallop.

9xx - Command Cyborgs

Each ship will have one of these. They command the ships. Extremely armed, extremely shielded, often very fast, and very deadly.

SHIPS

	Ship          Type               Difficulty
	-------------------------------------------
	Haldeck       Fleet Support      Very easy
	Seafarer      Cargo Vessel       Moderate
	Anoyle        Attack Frigate     Difficult
	Esperence     Battle Cruiser     Tricky/Very difficult
	Ophukus       Medical Frigate    Moderate (lots of 5xx's)
	Mearkat       Scout Ship         Tricky/Difficult
	Friendship    Destroyer Class    Tricky/Difficult (6xx's)
	Discovery     Scientific Frigate Difficult (lots of 8xx's)
	Zaxon         Battle Cruiser     Tricky/Very difficult (7xx's)
	Tobruk        Flag Ship          EXTREMELY difficult

To start at a particular ship, run nighthawk like this:

nighthawk -c<ship-number 0-9>

Note that the high score table will treat this as cheating.

GAME TIPS

Another good thing about friendly fire is that it's an excellent distraction. Any 6xx,7xx, 9xx droids involved in one, won't be concerned with you at all; they will be too busy blowing away their mate.

Always duck for cover when fired upon, and when you shoot a droid fitted with weapons, be ready to duck for cover. Don't just take it. Armed droids will always return fire immediately with an equal or greater rate.

Get into the habit of firing a 4-6 round volley, then ducking behind a wall, door, storage unit... or even another droid. 261's are excellent to hide behind. These droids are industrial cargo movers. Being heavy machinery, they have a very high shield rating and can buffer many laser blows. Medical Droids (5xx series) are another good example. Medical droids are armed but passive. They won't attack anyone unless fired upon. When an attack droid is firing at you, duck behind a medical droid. If the attacking droid hits the medic, then the medic will fire (one shot) back at the attacking droid (yet another 'friendly fire' example). The 599 Surgeon droids are fitted with the powerful Uvarovite lasers, and will cheerfully sodomise any minor class 6xx's or 7xx's that accidently attack it.

This game requires lots of lateral thinking. Simply blasting everything in sight is not going to get you very far (maybe the first and second ship if you're lucky). You have to rely on transferring to higher order droids inorder to conquer droids with more fire power than yourself or to go through walls. You have to shoot smart. Hostile droids will always attack with an equal or greater rate. With "head-on" shoot outs (that most newbies will tend to do), it's only a matter of who has the bigger shields and lasers who will win. Some droids are simply too risky to confront, like 799's, and 9xx's. It's far better to transfer to them through a wall (where you can't get shot at). In Ship "Zaxon" you are forced to confront 7xx's head on as there are so many of them.

On some ships, be selective with droids to destroy. You may need to transfer back through a wall inorder to return to the place you started.

As a general rule, if a 6xx is shooting at you, don't shoot back, instead duck for cover, even if you sustain some hits doing it. Don't stand your ground and fire back. However, with 7xx's & 9xx's, because of their unpredictable behaviour and rapid fire power, the above tactic may not work.

Nb/ that there is a systematic "nack" to completing the levels, and if people are having difficulty, i'll publish a guide on how to complete each level.

CONTACTS