				  LUNAR TICKS
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"Lunar Ticks", this document and all ideas stated within it are
Copyright (C) Terraform Software Systems 1996. All rights reserved.

AUTHOR(S) : T.Groth, L.Dillon


Basic Synopsis.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Lunar Ticks is an arcade-strategy game, viewed top-down, where the aim
is to take control of various moons by building your own mining force
whilst paying off 'The Company' who lent you your setup capital, and
eliminating the other players (up to 8 computer/human players). This
game can be played alone against computer, but is designed to be played
with other people via a modem or IPX network.


Rough outline.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

This refers to the commercial version (provisional name LUNATICKS - GALAXY),
Light version (provisional name LUNATICKS - SOLAR SYSTEM), and BBS version
(LUNATICKS) differences listed in later section (Version Differences).

Up to 8 players (either human or computer) can take part in each game. A
zone for game is selected from a stock of zones. The commercial version
will have 5 zones (with 5 levels + 2 hidden levels per zone), Stone
Zone, Alien Machine Zone, Crystal Zone, Organic Zone, and Tartan
Territory.

Each zone is 6 times wider, and 6 times taller than the playing screen
(or in total, 36 times larger than the screen). Each map will be truly
unique, and will not use the building-block style system many other
games use, thus allowing a great deal of detail to be added.

Each player has their own "Tick" (blood sucking type) space craft. There
will be a choice of 8 to choose from, each grabs objects in a different spot,
other than that they will be identical in behaviour / characteristics.

As well as this, each player has a manufacturing base that converts 'ore
resource' into various items. (This base is immortal, but has an efficiency
rating - the lower the rating, the more time it takes to make an item, and
the longer it takes to process new ore - Rating is reduced by the base being
hit by weapons fire, and increased by manufacturing upgrade units for it).
These items are things like Tick upgrades, consumables, weapons etc (see
"manufactured items").

Initialy, the base has one efficency pod, of a possible maximum of
three. These can be either destroyed by enemy fire or added to by the
player to get the base running up to three times faster than it's initial
rate with only one. Malfunctioning item occasionally occur (these turn up as
LEMONS) depending on reliability setting.

To manufacture an item the manufacturing unit requires ore (you are given 6000
units initially).

Extra ore must be obtained by mining. Each player has "Cutter Orbs" (3 are
initially provided) that mine the rock and extract the ore. These must be towed
out to mining site and collected when they are full. Different types of rock
have different hardness, and contain different ammounts of ore. In good
rock, an orb might take seconds to fill, in bad rock, it could take
several minutes. Other players can steal your orbs for themselves, and place
their orbs in your mining areas.

When dropped onto a rock surface, a cutter orb will sink up to about
half it's depth into the rock. It will then start 'eating' into the
rock, forming a tunnel. All minable rock is removed in it's path. The
orb will stop when it is filled with ore, it encounters indestructible
rock, or it is picked up by you or another player. Full orbs have a flashing
green light in their centre. When an orb stops (full/hard rock) it backs out 
to where it was dropped or fired and waits for collection.

When a full orb is collected it must be dropped or propelled into a Catch Zone
surrounding the orb 'in' funnel of base for processing (processing time is 
dependent on efficiency) and is spat out orb 'out' funnel. You can have as many 
orbs as you like, but base can only process 5 at any time - extra orbs will not 
be accepted until some have been processed.

Pressing fire while holding an orb, empty or full, will propel the orb in the 
current direction. This can be used for setting orbs to mine a rock face or 
"shooting" them at the factory Catch Zone for processing once full.

In order to move/place items, the player must pick them up with their ship and
fly them to their new location. You can only carry one item at a time, and
cannot fire when doing so. Pressing fire will 'use' some items (see
"manufactured items". Ship Upgrades just 'add on' to ship and improve its
performance. Player starts with 3 "ticks", but more can be manufactured (VERY
VERY expensive). 


Manufactured Items.
-------------------

Your manufacturing base can make various items, these are divided into various
classes, each taking various amounts of ore and time to make.

Utilities.
----------

Fuel canister - contains fuel for your Tick.
Batteries     - contains power for your shields and weapons.
Extra Ship    - an extra tick should you be destroyed
Efficency Module
              - improves the efficency of your manufacturing base
Stone Block   - chunk of rock to fortify things with.
Cutter orbs   - more orbs = more ore coming in, or just replace
                stolen/destroyed orbs.
Transporter   - automatically retrieves cutter orbs when full.


Consumables.
------------

These are used by player if being carried and fire is pressed.

Cargo Pod     - allows you to carry (but not use) upto other 4 items.
Poor Cloak    - become partially invisible. (harder to track)
Good Cloak    - become mostly invisible.
Phasic Cloak  - become totally invisible and pass through rock - ONLY LASTS
                FOR 30 seconds total.
After Burner  - high speed rocket booster
Dentist's Dream
              - big drill to allow your ship to drill through rock.
Rebound       - be a SUPA ball - bounce off walls without being hurt.
Thumper       - gives large acceleration with antimatter-loaded kick.
Jump Point    - used/made in pairs - allows you to warp between the two points,
                can be used by enemy too.
The Boppit    - large springloaded fist to punch enemy with.
The 2RBG (Really Really Big Gun)
              - ZAP! - watch for recoil - 6 shots only.
Tractor Beam  - attracts anything in your line of fire (useful for
                picking things up).
MAD Bomb      - Destroys ALL enemy units (including fighter and base
                upgrades) on screen, but also destroys your fighter.
LE BOMBE      - Micro Nuke.
Spy Camera    - allows you to peek at enemy.


Fighter upgrades.
-----------------

Triple fire   - 3 way laser.
Tail gun      - shoots out back.
Smart gun     - targets nearest threat.
Homing missile- chases nearest threat.
Power booster - bigger batteries for your tick (laser or shield).
Repulser      - causes anti-gravity well to push enemy objects away.
Bouncer       - lasers bounce several times from wall - BEWARE - can shoot 
                yourself.
Wing Blades   - spinning blades that follow you - cuts enemy objects on
                collision and blocks incoming fire.
Fighter Drone - tiny robots which hover around you and fire at nearest
                threat (a kind of multi-bot).
Target Comp   - displays a simple compass style schematic showing
                direction of nearest enemy.
Rapid Fire    - all ships lasers fire without needing to release trigger (ie
                automatic firing).

Defence units.
--------------

Defence units ONLY attack/affect enemy.

Mines         - goes off with a bang.
Drone Gun     - floats free or secures to wall - tracks and fires on enemy.
Smart Mine    - closes in on nearby enemy and detonates as close as possible.
Smart Drone Gun
              - floats after target and fires on it.
Gravity well  - sucks enemy in - can be placed ontop of each other to
                increase strength of well - BEWARE - Placing too many
                will cause a VERY descructive black hole to appear.
Saw Blade     - rips enemy apart.
Shield module - blocks weaponry, and allows only your ship to pass.
Drone Fighter - goes out and attacks any enemy objects near release point.
Sling gate    - gives tick massive speed boost in direction indicated.
Missile Base  - fires homing missiles at nearest enemy

MONSTERS!
---------

These little (?) nasties wander about and dissolve things (machinery and ore
pockets) just to be annoying. The number of monsters is configurable from
none to dense at game start (see Ecomonics). Although immortal, monsters are
attracted to large amounts of machinery/ore, and can be lured/scared away
with plasma fire, into someone else's way. Getting a monster away from your
base can be difficult. The monsters that will exist are:-

THE BOGEYMAN
        A ghost like spectre, which floats around. (Crystal Zone)

THE LONDON FOG MONSTER
        Big cloud that just 'consumes things'. (Stone Zone)

THE BRAIN
        As the name suggests. (Organic Zone)

THE DREADED BAGPIPE SPIDER
        As if bagpipes weren't bad enough. (Tartan Territories)

THE BORED
        An advanced alien race who fly through space trashing
        technology as they have nothing better to do. Their ship bears a
        striking resemblance to an industrialised Rubic's cube... (Alien
        Machine Zone)


Ship engineering.
-----------------
A tick has a single energy supply that powers both shield and weapons power.
When the tick hits (or is hit) by anything, energy is reduced. When energy is
exhausted, any further hits will destroy ship. If you have any spare ticks, or
enough ore to make one, you are reset with a new tick at manufacturing base 
(if one is made, ore store is reduced appropriately).

You have a power meter and a fuel meter. Main power can be restored by picking
up batteries. Fuel can only be restored with fuel pods. When you have
exhausted fuel, you cannot thrust (unless you have an Afterburner or Thumper)

Shooting at rock will destroy a small portion of the rock face. This can
be used to burrow down to a richer mineral vein to place your cutter
orbs, or to dig into and behind your enemys defences.

Game control.
-------------

The game has reasonable AI for computer players to give a single player
extensive gameplay (the player may choose a personality for each computer
player - this varies skill/tendencies of CPU players). The players are also
available in Multi-Player games for increased gameplay.

In all multi-player games, there is a person (Player #0) who will set up the
game parameters (number of human players, number and type of computer
players, game zone+level, environment characteristics, etc). In serial / modem
/ network games, this will be the 'host' machine.

If a player is killed in a multi-player game, and more than one player
(human or computer players) remains in the zone, they can start over (ie
continue current zone but have all posessions revert to 'new game'
level) or they can become a spectator, and simply watch the progress and
outcome of the game. This will give them something to do until everyone
else has finished, and are ready for another zone/level. Also, it will
be possible in network games for a person to simply be a spectator,
without actually playing the game at all. Thus, even if all eight player
nodes are busy, they can watch and wait until a new game starts which
they might join (NOTE: spectators will be able to log in at anytime,
(spectator insert call to host), but they cannot become a interactive
player. Only players that have been killed and opted for spectator until
end of game can re-join when a new zone/level is attempted).

Completing level
----------------

A level is completed by a human player entering a wormhole or all human
players being eliminated. Wormholes are either A) created when a human
pays off debt (note ANY human player can access it - not just the player
that created it), and appears at a random location, or B) hidden
entrances to secret levels.


Economics
---------

To adjust the game parameters the economics menu is provided (to player 0 in
serial / network games) on game startup. On this menu you can adjust:-

Tech level      - availability of items (all available on maximum technology,
                  few on minimum technology)
Ore Quality     - high = more or per load, low = less ore per load
Item Cost       - high = expensive items, low = cheap items
Reliability     - Number of lemons produced (0-50%)
Monster Rate    - number of monsters (0-10)
Debt Level      - amount of advance from credit company
Collection Time - Number of seconds between debt collector arrivals (1-10
                  minutes).
Control mode    - toggle between intertial (hard) and gravitic (easy)


Player Config
-------------

To adjust the CPU player configurations and set up players name (only player 0
can set up CPU types in serial / network games - others can only set name)


DETAILED OUTLINE
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FORMAT
------

IBM CD-ROM only, Total CD installation with only config and cache swapout files
in CDTEMP directory on HDD (HDD installation space = 128K Max). 4Megs total
memory is required.


Special version differences
---------------------------

Ticks
-----

8 Ticks are only available in Commercial version, 4 in Light, 2 in BBS.
Unavailable ticks will have an 'Order Me!' overlay in selection video clip.
(NOTE : CPU players will still have access to all Tick types).


Zones/levels
------------

Light has 2 Zones (Stone and Crystal) with 7 normal levels (Complete
Stone Zone, 2 levels of Crystal Zone), and 3 hidden levels (2 Stone, 1
Crystal).

BBS Version will have 2 levels of Stone Zone only.


Network support
---------------

Light supports only Modem/Serial link. BBS has no network support.


Installation
------------

BBS version is capable of HDD installation.


OTHER
-----

BBS Version will have a 15 Minute Nag screen that will last for 5 seconds and
re-appear on a n/2 ratio from that point on increasing in duration by 1 second
each time - this ensures game is uncontinueable after 25-30 minutes. All video
clips will be replaced by 'stills' and 'slide shows' where applicable. An exit
blurb (with slide show) will explain features of two CD formats.

Initial release will be Windows 95 compatible (within DOS 7.0 only), Windows
95 specific (ie runs inside windows) version will be released at later date
(yet to be specified) with optional ability to run within a window with WIN-G
installed (for 320x200x256 within-a-window support).

