PANDORA INSTRUCTIONS

THE PLOT:The generation ship 'PANDORA' was
conceived by the British research team
Maincore Computer Development in colaboration with a
group of eminent European scientists in the latter
half of the twentieth century.

It carried a mixed crew of humans and droids, and was
designed to support life indefinitely whilst it
drifted through the unchartered territories of space,
seeking out alien life forms of a greater
intelligence than Man. The ship was controlled by a
seventh generation computer, PANDORA, after which the
spacecraft had been named.

PANDORA'S design brief was to surpass the
capabilities of any other computer past,
present or future. During it's
construction, a major component, the bio-rhythmic
stabilisers, could not be tested under alien
conditions. PANDORA'S research team were of the
opinion that de-stabilisation of this component could
lead to pseudo aggressive tendencies, resulting in
contravention of the computer's operational
directives. However, it was thought that it was very
unlikely that this condition could occur.

It is now the 22nd century and PANDORA has been
roaming space for almost 200 years and Maincore's
monitioring team has discovered that rather than
roaming deeper into space, PANDORA is rapidly making
it's way back to Earth.

PANDORA'S imminent return to Earth has made frontpage
headlines in every journal. PANDORA'S current
intentions are still not known, and neither are the
contents of it's cargo hold.

YOUR MISSION

Your mission as an inter-galactic salvage operator is
to board and investigate PANDORA. If anything
untoward has happened, the success of your mission
will be gauged by the number of alien artifacts
salvaged and return to Earth for analysis.

GETTING STARTED

To begin your mission, press your fire button.
Upon entering the spaceship PANDORA, you will see
that the screen is split into two main sections - the
play area which takes up approx two thirds of the
screen (it is here that your character, guided by the
joystick, will pick up objects, trade and fight with
the inhabitants of the spaceship) and the character
status display panel, which occupies the lower third.

GAME INTERACTION

All game interaction is controlled through the
joystick and the spacebar. The joystick is used to
move your character through four points of the
compass (N,E,S,W) whislt the spacebar is used to
access you inventory.

THE DISPLAY PANEL

The HOLDING window displays the object that you are
currently holding in your hands. If this window is
empty, it signifies that you are not holding
anything.

The CHAR window shows the name of the character
nearest to you.

The CARRYING window displays the name of the object
that the character displayed in the CHAR window is
carrying.

The BACKPACK window lists the objects contained
within your backpack, and this is part of your
inventory. This window can only be accessed in
INVENTORY mode.

The POCKETS window displays the contents of your
pockets and these are also part of your inventory.
Again, this window can only be accessed in INVENTORY
mode.

The DEAD CHAR window displays the inventory of the
dead character that you are currently standing over
whan you select INVENTORY mode.

The STATUS window describes your health at any given
time. The text in this window is also colour-coded so
that white is the strongest followed by yellow,
turquoise, green and finally red which signifies the
weakest condition. Your overall health goes from
MIGHTY to HIGH to POOR, then finally to DIRE.

The DIST window shows a numeric value which is
rapidly decreasing to zero, informing the player of
PANDORA'S distance from Earth's orbit.

The FIGHT windows appear during a fight, and are
explained under the section entitled 'fighting at
close range with hand held weapons'.

At the bottom of the screen there is a message
display line. This relays information from the
characters or other sources to you during the game.

Througout the course the game, certain actions will
cause extra windows to appear temporarily over the
display panel. These message windows inform you of
the outcome of a critical action, such as trading,
and will warn you if a message on the message display
line is important.

Certain actions will cause quotations to appear over
the gameplay window. These quotations are mearly
light-hearted and they do not affect the game (or do
they ?!).

MOVING OBJECTS FROM YOUR HANDS TO YOUR BACKPACK OR POCKETS

In order to perform an exchange of objects between
whatever you are holding and whatever is in your
backpack or pockets, you must first enter INVENTORY
MODE by pressing the spacebar.

INVENTORY MODE is signalled by the disappearence of
the HOLDING window and the appearence of an arrow
pointing to the top line of your backpack window. In
inventory mode, the players character will not
respond to joystick input - instead the arrow pointer
will move accordingly.

To swap an object between your hands and wherever the
inventory arrow is pointing at, simply press the
fire button on the joystick. If you are not holding
anything and the slot where the arrow is pointing is
empty then nothing happens.

If you are holding an object and there is nothing
where the arrow is pointing, the object will be moved
from your hands to the slot that the arrow is
pointing at, whether it be backpack or your pockets.

If you are not holding anything and the arrow is
pointing at an object in your inventory, the object
will be placed in your hands. If there are objects in
both your hands and the position the arrow is
pointing at, there positions will be swapped.

To enter or exit INVENTORY MODE, press the space bar.

TAKING OBJECTS FROM DEAD CHARACTERS

If you are standing over a dead character, you will
be able to access the dead characters inventory as
well as your own - thereby being able to obtain
objects from any character (provided you kill it
first, or somebody else has done it for you !) -
without giving anything in return. It is possible to
give objects in your possesion to dead characters. If
you enter INVENTORY MODE while standing over a dead
character, you may swap an object between your hands
and the dead character, as well as your backpack and
your pockets. The objects are swapped in the same way
as described in the section 'moving objects to ...'.

PLACING OBJECTS ON YOUR SHUTTLE

To the left of your start position there is a
cargo shute. If you stand next to the shute whilst
pressing the fire button, the item you are carrying
will be deposited via the shute into the shuttle
which took you to PANDORA.

TRADING OBJECTS

One of the most important facets of PANDORA is the
concept of trading, since without trading objects,
the player will be unable the game.

If another character has a liking for a particular
object within the game and has made this clear
through the message display line at the bottom of the
screen, you can initiate a trade with the character,
providing you are carrying the object they want, by
pressing the fire button when you are close to the
character.

If the character successfully trades objects with
you, a message to this effect is given and the object
you have traded appears in your holding window. If
this event does not occur the obviously the character
does not want to trade with you at the moment.

TAKING OBJECTS FROM PLINTHS

If you move your character against a plinth (e.g a
shelf or table ) that appears to contain an object
and you are not holding another another object in
your hands, the object is automatically removed from
the plinth and appears in your HOLDING window.

Conversely, if you move your character against an
empty plinth whislt holding an object that is
designed to fit on the plinth, the object will be
placed upon it.

ACCESSING COMPUTER TERMINALS

Pushing your character against the side of a computer
terminal will allow you to access the terminal, as
long as you have some identification (I.D). Moving
away from the terminal will close the terminal down.

FIGHTING AT CLOSE RANGE WITH HANDHELD WEAPONS

This aspect will seem to many to be the most
important part of the game, and certainly during the
first few plays it will appear to be a very
accessible and appealing pursuit.

Here is a brief insight into the mechanisms of
combat.

A fight will ensue in any of the following
situations:

1) If you collide with a character and either of
you are holding a weapon.

2) If you collide with a character and neither of you
are holding a weapon. This results in a fist fight.

3) If you cross the path of a character who wants the
object you are holding more than it wants to like
you.

The outcome of hand to hand combat depends very much
on the weapon you holding at the time, your skill at
pressing the fire button, as well as the status of
your character when entering the fight.

If you are NOT holding a weapon, or the weapon has no
effect against your opponent, the blow is assumed to
be struck with your fists.

Weapons possess different attributes which affect
strike rate and efficiency. The strike rate refers to
the speed at which you can deliver a blow. For
example: An Iridium mace has a slower strike rate
than your fists, which in turn have a slower strike
rate than a shock whip.

Efficiency describes the power of a weapon, a mace
for example will have greater efficiency than your
fists.

During a fight two windows appear over the disply
panel: the window on the left contains a moving
coloured bar - this is a measure of your strike rate.

Pressing the fire button at the point just before the
bar changes colour allows the player to deliver a
blow with maximum efficiency, thus inflicting maximum
possible damage. The weapon you are using directly
relates to the severity of the blow.

Pressing the trigger a fraction too early will
administer a strike with half the full effect, and
pressing it far too early will cause the blow to
miss. If you wait too long and allow the bar to
change colour you will over strike the opponent,
making a wild swing, missing your opponent completley
and losing your balance. Missing by this margin means
you will have to wait for the bar to start again, and
in effect, this waiting time would be similar to the
time taken to recover your balance. The faster the
strike rate of the weapon you are holding, the
quicker ypu will return to your fighting stance.

The display in the second window consists of a green
and red bar which indicates your oponents stamina,
and you will notice that a correctly struck blow
will reduce the length of this bar. When the bar is
in the red zone, your opponent will be very weak and
it will take very little effort to kill your
adversary.

Characters themselves have skill and attribute
levels. The drunkard, for example, has a low skill
factor compared to that of a combat droid, who in
turn gets more blows in with full strength than the
drunkard. A combat droid is probably much more
skilled than you are, so beware !!!

NOTE FOR ST USERS

The strength of your opponent can be gauged from a
window very similar to your own STATUS window. Upon
on striking an exact blow, rather than a bar
decreasing in length, you will be informed of your
oponents strength in the form of words ranging from
from high to dire.

USING FIREARMS

Another form of combat is that of using firearms. If
you are holding a firearm, press the firebutton to
operate it. It is not possible to use a firearm
during close range combat. If you attempt to do this,
the player will strike a blow with the firearm, as
described in the section ' fighting at close
range...'.

HINTS

1) you must have an I.D card to move
anywhere within the ship.

2) In any of the four security areas marked by Greek
letters, a valid security pass with the neccessary
security clearence or higher is needed to avoid
unwarrented fights with patrol guards.

3) Any specific force field may be penatrated
once the correct I.D is held.

4) One force field protects the escape transporter
that will beam you back to your shuttle. On reaching
this point you will (perhaps) have completed the
mission.

N.B Atari ST users are given the option to adjust the
distance that the screen scrolls when your character
moves towards the screen boundary. Pressing the '+'
key on the numeric keypad will increase the amount by
which the screen scrolls, and pressing the '-' key
will reduce the amount by which the screen scrolls.

This hack & document was brought to you by ITAL MAN
and 007 (he read, i typed !!).

29/05/88 at 2.37 am (time for bed).


** Cracked by A-HA on the Amiga 24/07/88 **
** Docs transferred to AmigaDos using Dos-2-Dos **