Games PC STAR CONTROL II User Manual

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Table of Contents
Introduction 5
Starting the Game 25
Confirm System Requirements 25

Installing Star Control II 25
Start-up 26

Play Controls 27

Menu Controls 27

Keyboard Menu Controls 27
Joystick Menu Controls 28

Combat Commands 28

Default Keyboard Combat Controls 28
Joystick Combat Controls 29

Navigation 29

The Effects of Inertia and Gravity 29
Interplanetary Travel 30

Encounters in Interplanetary Space 31
Entering Planetary Orbit 31
Planet Types and Descriptions 31
“Pushing” Up into HyperSpace 33

HyperSpace Travel 34

Fuel Use in HyperSpace 34
Encounters in HyperSpace 35
Returning to TrueSpace 35

Ship Commands 35

Starmap 35

Alien Spheres of Influence 36

Using the Autopilot Feature 36
Scanning a Planet 37
Specific Scans 39

Mineral Scan 39

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Biological Scan 40

Energy Scan 40

Dispatching a Lander 40

Planet Surface Exploration 41

Lander Status Display 41

Returning to the Flagship 41

Gathering Minerals 41

Planetary Hazards 42

Collecting Life-form Data 43
Flagship’s Manifest 43

Checking Cargo 43

Using Devices 44

Ship’s Roster 44
Game Options 45

Saving a Game in Progress 45

Loading a Saved Game 45

Changing Game Settings 46

Changing Names 47

Quitting the Game 47

The Earth Starbase 47

The Starbase Commander 48

Transferring Minerals to the Starbase 48
Outfitting Your Flagship 48

Flagship Characteristics 49

Fuel 49

Flagship Enhancement Modules 49

Adding and Removing Modules 50

The Shipyard 51

Adding and Removing Crew 51

Combat Vessels 52
Leaving the Starbase 53

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Encountering Alien Races 54

Combat Sequence 54
Conversing with Aliens 55
Attacking Aliens 56

Combat 56

Selecting a Ship 56
The Battlefield 56
Navigating Your Ship in Combat 57

Collision with Asteroids and Planets 57
Ship Status Displays 57

Crew 57

Batteries 58
The Basics of Blasting 58
Victory and Defeat 59
Running Away 59
Analyzing Enemy Wreckage 60

Appendix I: Known Alien Races 61

Races in the Alliance of Free Stars 61
Races in the Ur-Quan Hierarchy 65

Appendix II: Play Tips for Star Control II 70

Maximizing Available Memory 70
Enhancing Game Performance 70
Solving Possible Conflicts with TSRs 71
Known Conflicts 71
Specifying Sound Card on the Command Line 71
Loading Problems 72
Garbled Graphics or Blank Screen 73
Graphic Adapter Fix 73
Booting Clean 73
Technical Support 76
Online Support 76

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Appendix III: Instructions for SuperMelee 77

Starting SuperMelee 77
The SuperMelee Main Screen 78
Creating a SuperMelee Team 78
Game Settings 79

Who Controls Each Team 80

Input Device 80
Computer Opponent’s Skill Level 80
Leaving Settings Menu 81
Saving and Loading SuperMelee Teams 81
Fighting in Melee 81

Picking Ships 81

Fighting a Battle 82

Winning SuperMelee 82

Replaying Melee with the Same Teams 82
Returning to the Team Edit Screen 82

Appendix IV: Keyboard Configuration Utility 83
Appendix V: Combat Vessel Descriptions 83
Appendix VI: Flagship Modules 98
Game Credits 101
Legal Mumbo Jumbo 102

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome aboard. Star Control II will take you on a far journey, a space
odyssey encompassing the realms of science-fiction and role-playing. This
epic adventure spans hundreds of light years, and evokes a history reaching
back over 250,000 years. As you travel out among the stars, your decisions
and actions will directly affect the destiny of 18 intelligent, star-faring species,
including the inhabitants of Earth. Star Control II is only in part a sequel to
Star Control, which focused exclusively on the strategy and tactics of the bitter
Ur-Quan Slave War (known by the philosophical as the Great Crucible of
Sentience). You need not have played the first game to enjoy this one.
However, if you have never fought a Star Control space-battle, you may wish to
practice with the SuperMelee game before facing enemy forces. The evil aliens
you will encounter are adept at the art of war, and unforgiving of weakness.
The history that follows details the critical involvement of Earth in the conflict
between the Alliance of Free Stars and the villainous Ur-Quan Hierarchy.
Study what happened, learn from the mistakes of those that went before.
Only in this way will you be prepared for the mystery, the intrigue and the
blazing action of Star Control II.

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In the Beginning

The time is in the year 2155. Yet the story begins over two centuries before, in
the 1930’s, a time when surface vehicles on Earth burned fossil fuels. It’s all
hard to imagine now, of course, getting from place to place in a dangerous
noisy machine with an engine that set fire to spurts of prehistoric goo. Makes
one shudder. Humans had another quaint oddity in those days; it was a little
box called a radio that transmitted a mindless mix of music and speech. The
radio was a harmless diversion, really, until the radio towers got taller and the
broadcasts got stronger. Until the transmissions began to pulse out into the
vacuum of space, riding electromagnetic waves throughout the universe. It
wasn’t long before the broadcasts from Earth reached distant stars, and sever­al alien races took notice of this new evidence of life on the far-off blue planet.
One of the species listening was the Ur-Quan, a life-form devoid of conscience
or character, a race genetically compelled to conquest. As early as 1940, the
Ur-Quan began to formulate sinister schemes to attack Earth. Other aliens,
meanwhile, benign species that wished only peace, lay plans to warn
Earthlings of the Ur-Quan threat.

The Scrutiny of Earth Intensifies

From their strange worlds many light years away, both good and evil aliens
watched with growing interest as Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the
first human to orbit the planet in 1961. Less than a decade later, a tremor
swept through the advanced life-forms beyond the solar system as American
Astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin became the first men to tread Earth’s satel­lite moon.

Alien scrutiny of Earth intensified. Meanwhile, the fratricidal conflicts that
had scourged mankind since the species evolved continued unabated. The
Small War of 2015 came close to obliterating civilization on Earth when

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nuclear combat broke out between several Middle Eastern countries.
Fortunately the exchange was relatively small, limited to less than a dozen
warheads, and a global conflagration was narrowly avoided. Even so, nearly a
million people died. The terrible loss of life and the near-thing of a planet­wide Armageddon sobered heads of government around the world. The lead­ers of the industrialized nations and the Third World met at the United
Nations headquarters in New York and agreed to cooperate in an immediate
strengthening of U.N. authority. Within six months, the U.N. Security Council
had assembled a large Peace-Keeping Army and assumed worldwide control
over all weapons of mass destruction. “Mass-kill” devices were gathered up
from every country that possessed them. The weapons were then dismantled
and their components stored in huge subterranean bunkers that came to be
known as “Peace Vaults.” Simultaneously, the U.N. outlawed the sale of
smaller arms. It took nearly a decade to end all armed conflict on earth. Yet
the goal was finally achieved. Ten years after the U.N. summit, in 2025, the
Earth experienced its first year without war.
To ensure the total destruction of the arms trade, the United Nations prohibit­ed future weapons research, including the development of nuclear fusion and
fission technologies that might be adapted for bomb-making purposes. Laser
applications were also closely monitored to prevent the design of “Star Wars”
like weapons.

Despite these restrictions, science continued to
advance across a wide spectrum of disciplines, espe­cially in bio-technology. Brilliant Swiss Scientist Hsien
Ho combined the now-complete human genome map
with sophisticated genetic-engineering techniques and
perfected the artificial parthenogenesis – cloning – of
humans at the Zurich BioTeknik in 2019. Though the
clones were, to all external appearances, human, Hsien
Ho modified their genes so that they were not capable

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of producing offspring.
Meanwhile, a new religious order, known as Homo Deus, or “The Godly Men,”
was founded in the aftermath of the Small War and the emotional turmoil
caused by the destruction of the Holy Lands. Its charismatic founder, former
car salesman Jason MacBride, built his worldwide following on the thesis that
the Millennium was near. MacBride even predicted a specific date, March 11,
2046, when Heaven and Earth would join, and each devout person would be
elevated to a divine status. The movement captured the imagination of mil­lions of poor and disillusioned individuals worldwide. Within a few years,
“Brother Jason” was one of the most powerful and influential people on the
planet.

For most people on Earth, the following two decades were a golden time of
peace and prosperity. This was not the case for Hsien Ho’s now adult clones.
Seeing Ho’s creations as a threat to his “Godly Men,” Jason MacBride fought to
have the clones declared sub-human. Calling them “Androsynths,” or the “fake
men,” he used the vast resources of his Homo Deus organization to strip the
clones of their human rights. Sadly, as the years passed, the Androsynths
became little better than well-treated slaves.

Not unexpectedly, March 11, 2046 came and went without the arrival of Jason
MacBride’s promised Millennium. Citing a “lack of genuinely devout people,”
MacBride withdrew from public life and faded into obscurity, his power and
fortunes rapidly declining.

By the middle of the 21st Century, Earthlings had begun to colonize their solar
system. Planet orbiting factories led to lunar bases and soon there were min­ing and research outposts scattered across the Asteroid Belt. Yet the expan­sion of mankind into deep space was limited by the relatively slow speed at
which spacecraft could travel. Research began in earnest to develop a ship
that could warp toward distant stars faster than the speed of light.

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The Androsynth Rebellion

In retrospect, the Clone Revolt of 2085 was inevitable. Stronger, smarter and
more adaptable than normal humans, the Androsynths despised and deeply
resented their status as slaves. By the late ‘70’s there were
tens of thousands of Androsynths distributed across the
planet, many of them doing sophisticated scientific and
technological research. Then, in the spring of 2085, the
Androsynths staged a worldwide rebellion, throwing off
their chains with the help of a sympathetic human
underground.

The uprising had been exquisitely planned. Within 24
hours, the clones had captured nearly every space­flight facility on the planet. Androsynths working at
the centers had secretly fueled and readied over a
thousand spacecraft to carry their people off this hated
planet. Two days after the rebellion began, the freed clones
took over all orbital and lunar bases, leaving not a single Androsynth on the
face of the earth. “Star Control,” the recently established wing of the United
Nations’ military forces, made several attempts to evict the clones. Each time
the Star Control ships approached, the craft were burnt to ashes by colossal
MASER weapons that Androsynth scientists had fashioned out of formerly
benign energy broadcast units.

After two months of futile strikes on the Androsynth strongholds with conven­tional weapons, the U.N. leadership decided to use the means of mass
destruction stored in the Peace Vaults. Yet before the nuclear bombs and
laser rays could be reassembled, Star Control scoutships watching the orbiting
bases reported an amazing sight. Eight of the largest space stations were
accelerating out of Earth orbit, heading towards the periphery of the solar sys-

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tem. The Androsynths had somehow modified the huge space-stations for
flight, including the recently finished StarLight Hilton.

Though Star Control chase ships were never able to catch the space-stations, a
ten thruster ore freighter on its way home from an Asteroid Belt mining base
with a hold full of titanium was able to make a high-V interception of the rag­tag fleet. As the freighter pilot approached the fleeing space-stations, they
suddenly began to glow with a bright energy field that spun around the ships
with blazing speed. According to the pilot’s recorded testimony, a “great red
hole” over 500 meters across appeared in front of the space-stations. As he
watched in disbelief, the stations flew into the hole one by one and vanished
in a starburst of white lights. When the last of the Androsynth strongholds
had disappeared, the hole collapsed rapidly inward, imploding finally to
nothingness.

Over 30 years would pass before humans encountered the Androsynths again.

Aliens Contact Earth

In 2112, the largest and most remote space installation, Ceres Base, was built
on the 700 kilometer-wide asteroid of the same name. Three years later, Ceres
Base would be the site of mankind’s first official contact with an alien life-form
– the crystalline Chenjesu. The alien vessel suddenly appeared out of
nowhere, a scarlet flash of light announcing its presence as it took up a posi­tion 3 kilometers above the asteroid. Almost immediately, the alien ship
began broadcasting this message:

People from Earth: We are the Chenjesu. We mean you no
harm. We come in peace with an urgent message. Heed
these words: there is a horde of conquering warriors
advancing toward your solar system from deep space. They

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are called the Ur-Quan. They know you are here. They will
make slaves of you as they have made slaves of a thousand
races across the galaxy. They will enslave both our species,
Chenjesu and Human, unless we stop them now.
We are not alone in our struggle. There are others who will
fight with us against the Ur-Quan. Together – in an alliance
with the remaining free stars – we may yet turn back the
enemy, defeating the Ur-Quan and its Hierarchy of Battle
Thralls.

We beseech you to join us, for we desperately need your
help. But we do not have much time. What is your answer?

For over a week, the answer from Earth was stunned silence.

The Alliance of Free Stars

The Chenjesu representatives were patient. Beings of vast intellect and per­ception, they understood the psychological shock their sudden appearance
had on the inhabitants of Earth, a people who, amazingly, had never before
had contact with a species other than their own. The aliens remained in the
solar system for several months, conferring with the political, military and sci­entific leaders of Earth. Meanwhile, the Chenjesu’s starship transported U.N.
observers through HyperSpace to visit several worlds that had been attacked
by the Ur-Quan and their Hierarchy of Battle Thralls. The sad evidence of
wholesale slaughter and devastation, and the accounts of dazed survivors,
proved that the Chenjesu account was true. On August 1, 2116, Earth joined
the Chenjesu and their other allies – the Mmrnmhrm, the Yehat, the Shofixti,
and unofficially, the Syreen – to form The Alliance of Free Stars.
Following formal ratification of the pact by the United Nations, Star Control

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was placed under the direct authority of the Alliance Command Council.
The Chenjesu expected Earth to play a major role in the Alliance, both as
combatants and suppliers of war material. Even though Earthlings were tech­nologically primitive, their civilization had thousands of huge modern factories
and millions of skilled workers able to manufacture both munitions and
spacecraft. The tens of thousands of thermonuclear weapon components
stashed away in the Peace Vaults were an additional bonus which surprised
even the Chenjesu.

On the day following Earth’s formal induction into the Alliance, an alien race
known as the Ariloulaleelay appeared, landing first on the Earth’s moon. They
transmitted a request to meet with Alliance representatives, and a delegation
of human and Chenjesu diplomats journeyed to the lunar surface to establish
contact. The Arilou explained that they too were threatened by the Ur-Quan
and had come to join the Alliance of Free Stars. Alliance headquarters was
consulted, and soon afterwards the Arilous were welcomed into the coalition.
Although the Arilou were extremely secretive – being unwilling to discuss even
the locations of their homeworlds – they provided additional strength to the
Alliance. This strength was to be tested almost immediately.

The Course of the War

There were many great battles between the Alliance of Free Stars and the Ur­Quan and their Hierarchy of Battle Thralls. Both the Alliance and the
Hierarchy built hundreds of asteroid forts all across the spiral arm of the
Galaxy. Only a small fraction of these fortified positions, and the colonies and
mining bases that surrounded them, survived the fighting.

As the war spread, new alien races were drawn into the conflict until finally
there were 14 separate species at war. On the Alliance side there were the
Earthlings, the Chenjesu, the Yehat, the Mmrnmhrm, the Ariloulaleelay, the
Syreen, and the Shofixti. Fighting with the Ur-Quan were the Mycon, the

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Spathi, the Androsynths, the VUX, the Ilwrath, and the Umgah.
By 2134 it was becoming clear to both sides that the Ur-Quan and their
Hierarchy of Battle Thralls were slowly but surely winning the war.

Captain Burton’s Discovery

On March 16, 2134, Star Control Captain I. Burton, a highly respected 28-year
old female Earthling, was leading a task force of heavy cruisers on a deep
recon into what was believed to be a friendly sector near the Zeeman-Vela star
cluster. Burton was brilliant and beautiful, with wide-set deep blue eyes, a
white even-toothed smile and silky straw- colored hair. She also had a figure
that turned heads, even aboard a warship hurtling through deep space. She
had just taken a navigational star fix when the ships from Earth were suddenly
ambushed by an elite force of Androsynth Guardian combat vessels. The
Androsynth ships had been modified for
extended blazer mode, giving them
increased speed and range. The task force
was cut to shreds and only Burton’s vessel, the
Tobermoon, escaped immediate destruction.
Knowing the Tobermoon could not outrun the
Guardian ships, Captain Burton engaged in a des­perate ploy to save the ship and crew. Fear crin­kling the corners of her deep blue eyes, she warped
her craft toward the heart of Zeeman’s Star, a nearby supergiant sun. She had
a desperate plan, a last ditch ploy she prayed would confuse the pursuers’
sensors. The bridge crew began to panic as heat in the cabin climbed to oven­like temperatures. Two enlisted men finally broke under the pressure and
came for Burton, terror in their eyes and sweat pouring down their faces. But
the captain had guts as well as beauty. She drew her sidearm and held the
mutineers off, gaining the precious minutes she needed. Finally, the cabin
temperature now nearing 150 degrees Fahrenheit, she judged they were close
enough to the titanic star for her plan to work. As the Tobermoon’s outer hull

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began to liquify, Burton jettisoned the ship’s entire stock of nuclear missiles
and detonated them. From the Androsynths’ perspective, the vessel they were
chasing had exploded when it flew too close to the superhot sun.

As the Androsynth task force warped out of the system, a severely damaged
Tobermoon slowly emerged from its hiding place behind Zeeman’s Star.
Burton ordered a damage report. As she’d suspected, the craft sustained
severe damage. Worse, the ship’s engineers informed her they couldn’t make
repairs without a planetfall on a world with a breathable atmosphere. Like
most supergiant stars, Zeeman did not have any Earth-like planets in orbit
around it. The Tobermoon limped through space for almost a week before
Hyper-Radar reconnaissance located a hospitable planet orbiting the dwarf
star Vela. The planet was called Vela II, and it proved to have both an oxygen
rich atmosphere and deposits of metal ore the humans could refine and use
to repair their ship.

After a successful landing, Burton ordered the engineers to begin repairs. She
sent the rest of the crew off to explore their surroundings. It was only pure
chance that a young ensign chose to enter an unremarkable cave in a nearby
hillside. What he found within the cave was the most remarkable discovery of
the century – a huge underground installation, the size of a small city, built in
the distant past by an extinct race known only as the Precursors. The cave was
massive, over 2500 meters long and averaging 50 meters from floor to ceiling.
Off the main tunnel were countless side passages and hidden niches, almost
all crammed with futuristic equipment and hundreds of long-dormant robots.
Halfway down the main gallery, a deep crevasse sliced across the tunnel floor,
evidence of a tremendous prehistoric earthquake that had offset the adjoining
walls by more than ten meters. Over the centuries, water trickling into the
cave from the planet’s surface had carried countless minute traces of calcium
carbonate that settled out as lime. As the limestone sediment built up, the
deposits covered much of the Precursors’ wondrous machinery with a smooth

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coating called flowstone that was now five to ten meters thick in places.
Artifacts of this powerful and technologically advanced alien species had been
found in every quarter of known space. Yet this was the first time an entire
Precursor base had been discovered. Captain Burton recognized that the
wealth of advanced technology could bring the Alliance victory over the Ur­Quan – but only if scientists could be brought to Vela II to study the fantastic
find.

Realizing that the surrounding region of space could fall under the control of
the enemy at any time, Burton accelerated repairs to the Tobermoon and rock­eted back to Earth at emergency warp speed to report her findings to her
superiors at Star Control. Within a week, the Tobermoon was on the return leg
to Vela II, crammed full of hastily assembled scientific equipment and experts
on both the Precursor’s civilization and their advanced xenotechnology.

Expedition to Vela II

The most respected but least liked Precursor expert in the expedition to Vela II
was Professor Jules Farnsworth. The professor was well known for his formida­ble intellect and his extensive knowledge of the Precursor civilization. Though
recognized as a great mind, Farnsworth was also widely disliked for his flam­boyant egotism and rude impatience with peers who did not hang on his every
word. The man was simply impossible to work with for anyone with a mod­icum of self-respect.

It wasn’t long before both his fellow scientists on the mission and Captain
Burton rued the decision to bring Farnsworth along, for the professor did little
but complain during the voyage from Earth to Vela II. Yet, as irksome as he
was, Professor Farnsworth proved his worth almost immediately upon his
arrival at the Precursor installation. Within hours he located the base’s deacti­vated central control computer. While the professor worked feverishly on the
ancient aliens’ computer, Captain Burton received a fateful message from the

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Star Control High Command.
As feared, the Ur-Quan had smashed through the defensive lines drawn
between the Mira and Indi constellations. Star Control reconnaissance ships
reported that a large Hierarchy task force was hurtling toward the Vela star
system. Captain Burton was ordered to evacuate all personnel from Vela II
and return to Earth immediately. Burton’s heart beat like a hammer in her
chest as she read the rest of the message. Star Control was paranoid that the
Precursor’s advanced technology would fall into the hands of the hated Ur­Quan. To prevent the Hierarchy from obtaining these ancient secrets, Burton
was ordered to install nuclear devices throughout the Precursor installation.
Once the Tobermoon was in orbit, she was to set off the weapons and destroy
the entire complex.

The non-military members of the Vela II research team were stunned by the
order. Destroy the most significant discovery of the century? It was unthink­able! Professor Farnsworth was especially distraught for he was in the middle
of several critical research projects that promised to unlock ancient Precursor
technical secrets. In an uncharacter-istic display of courage, Farnsworth
offered to remain behind, promising to detonate the nuclear bombs if the Ur­Quan found the Precursor caves. The majority of the other scientists and engi­neers also asked to stay on Vela II and continue their research. Finally,
Captain Burton was persuaded that saving the treasure trove of advanced
Precursor technology was more important than obeying a direct order from the
High Command. Still, she didn’t trust Farnsworth to det­onate the nuclear bombs should the Ur-Quan land.
She decided the only logical thing to do was
to remain behind herself.

On August 11, 2134 Captain Burton
gave over command of the Tobermoon
to First Officer Chi, with orders to

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leave the star system immediately. He was to return to Earth at best speed
and brief the High Command on the expedition’s desperate attempt to save
the Precursor installation. Chi promised to return with a relief party and sup­plies as soon as the Ur-Quan attack was repulsed. After the Tobermoon had
lifted-off, the team quickly moved all their equipment deep into the cave sys­tem and obscured all signs of their presence from the planet’s surface. Now, if
an Ur-Quan reconnaissance ship scanned the terrain, Vela II would appear
uninhabited. The weeks turned into months as Captain Burton and her team

of 200 waited for the return of the Tobermoon.

Marooned

After six months in the caves, food reserves grew critically

short and Captain Burton imposed strict rationing. Professor

Farnsworth found a data bank in the computer memory describing Vela
II’s flora and fauna. Burton felt her spirits soar as Farnsworth pointed out sev­eral plants and animals that could be harvested for food. The most likely
sources of meat were the red-brown Libixx, animals that looked like winged
rabbits, and the six-legged Ortogs, 2,000 pound beasts with pendulous udders
that resembled a cross between a cow and a lizard. Both had cell structures,
internal organs and flesh remarkably similar to mammals on Earth. The
Precursor data also indicated that several plant species – especially the giant
blue-flowered Iccamullon – had the same proteins, sugars and starches as
crops humans had been raising for centuries. Captain Burton assigned teams
to hunt wild animals and harvest food plants, allowing them out of the caves
only under cover of dark for the first year they were there. Then, gradually as
the years passed, the marooned Earthlings grew confident they were safe from
discovery by the Ur-Quan on this out-of-the-way little planet. They began to
see themselves as colonists and most moved out of the caves to settle on the
surface. Still, with Captain Burton prodding them, the humans remained cau­tious, building camouflaged houses and planting crops in purposefully chaotic
patterns. Eventually they gave their planet a name: Unzervalt. It meant, sim-

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ply, “our world.”
Ten years slipped past, marked by the deaths of a dozen colonists from acci­dents or old age, and the birth of 42 children. Several of the scientists had
now become full-time farmers. Others fabricated old-fashioned bullet-firing
rifles and disappeared into the Unzervalt wilderness, appearing months later
clad in Ortog skins and bursting with tales of strange landscapes and even
stranger life-forms.

Farnsworth’s Breakthrough

After more than a decade of hard work, Professor Jules Farnsworth announced
with con-siderable fanfare that he had finally succeeded in unlocking the
secret of the Precursor Control Computer. Without Captain Burton’s permis­sion – indeed without even knowing what would happen – Farnsworth com­manded the computer to initiate its prime function. The resulting near-disas­ter almost got the professor put in the stockade.

Suddenly, the immobile machinery within the cave roared to life. Huge elec­trical arcs shot between massive electrodes, incinerating a wooden storage
shack. Robotic vehicles began tearing across the cavern floor along pre-pro­grammed paths – paths which led them right through several man-made
buildings. A 30 meter tall crane-like machine detached itself from one wall
and swiftly rolled through the cave, nearly crushing a group of panicked scien­tists. It was a miracle that no one was killed in the ensuing chaos as humans
fled the caves in terror.

The next day, robotic vehicles emerged from the cave, and cut down a nearby
forest. They levelled the ground, covered the surface with some kind of metal­lic plastic, and then returned to their cave.

Bronzed from the Vela sun, her straw-colored hair pushed up under her com­mander’s cap, Captain Burton led a squad of volunteers back into the caves on

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a cautious reconnaissance mission. Inside the main cavern, the squad came
upon the robots assembling the spine of a huge ship – a starship! Although
the robots clearly knew the humans were there, turning to focus benign scan­ners on the volunteers several times, they obviously did not consider the
Earthlings a threat. Captain Burton decided it was safe for humans to return
to work in the caves, so long as people kept out of the robots’ way.

Days later an abashed Farnsworth was finally coaxed back to the Precursor
Control Computer to continue his research. Almost immediately, the profes­sor discovered two significant facts. First, the construction process would
soon transition out of the caves and assembly of the starship would continue
on the planet’s surface. Second, as far as Farnsworth could tell, the construc­tion was going to take a long time.

The “long time” that Farnsworth predicted turned out to be nearly a decade.
The colonists grew accustomed to the framework of a great starship looming
above their tiny village. Day after day, a hundred robots moved across the sur­face of the vessel, welding and fitting, assembling and fabricating.

Then one day, without warning, the construction robots stopped work and
returned underground. They assumed their original positions in the cave and
shutdown completely. The cave was exactly
the way the research team had first
found it – silent, motionless. A flus­tered Professor Farnsworth frantically
asked the Control Computer for an explanation,
and got an immediate answer. There were not
enough raw materials left to finish the vessel,
nor were there suitable substitutes any­where on the planet. A week of tests
by Burton and her team proved the ship

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was complete enough to blast off from the surface of Vela II. But it would
have to cruise slowly through HyperSpace, lightly armed, and with only
enough room for a skeleton crew.

There was another problem. The controls for the vessel were not designed for
humans. It became obvious from the interior layout of the starship that the
Precursors were giants, and seemingly not bipedal. Levers were almost
impossible to move, three people were required to actuate a single switch,
and the chairs, beds and other furnishings were better suited for a wooly
mammoth than a human.

Some kind of automated control system was needed. After mulling over the
problem for several days, Captain Burton decided that the only answer was to
remove the Central Control Computer from the cave and configure it to run
the ship. Surely Professor Farnsworth knew enough about the Precursor com­puter system to give it whatever commands were necessary to take the ship
back to Earth. Despite vehement protests from Farnsworth, the Captain
ordered the Precursor’s computer installed in the vessel. After 20 years
marooned on Vela II, the colonists were at last ready to return to Earth.

Or were they? Pressed to begin programming the computer, Farnsworth broke
down and admitted he didn’t have the foggiest idea how to do it. It turned
out he had never understood the incredibly complicated system. Instead, for
years he had secretly employed the natural computer talents of a precocious
young genius. This gifted child, now a young man, had been born on
Unzervalt – the son of an officer from the Tobermoon and a Research Team
engineer. Each night, after Farnsworth left the Control Computer console, the
young boy had crept into the caves and tinkered with the computer. Within a
few months, the child had established a rapport with the computer far beyond
anything Farnsworth had accomplished. When the Professor discovered the
boy’s nocturnal activities, he used gifts and phony promises to win the child’s

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confidence, then talked the young genius into activating the entire complex.
This time, the Captain did throw the Professor into the stockade.

Then Burton called the young man into her office and proposed a plan. She
would command the starship, and he would serve as pilot, acting as the inter­face with the starship’s Precursor computer.

With trepidation, you accepted.

The Return to Earth

After 3 months of intensive crew training, Captain Burton felt it was finally
time to leave Unzervalt. You weren’t so sure, weren’t entirely comfortable with
your new role as a starship officer. Burton listened as you expressed your
doubts, then put an arm around your shoulders and re-assured you. You’d
make a fine pilot. She’d trust a ship to you any time.
Besides, all the plans were set. The two of you would
lead the return to Earth, and once there send back a
rescue ship for the colonists left behind. If necessary,
Burton vowed, you would fight your way through the
forces of the Ur-Quan Hierarchy.

You, above all, will remember that trip, for during the
journey you went through a rite of passage. You left
Unzervalt a boy and soon found yourself forced to be a
man – to lead bravely and boldly and wisely. Think
back. Do you recall the exhilaration of blasting off from
the tiny planet where you were born – and the sheer terror later? Three days
out, as you approached the perimeter of that cursed Oort Cloud, you found
the Tobermoon – derelict and tumbling through space. The deep burns along
her hull were mute evidence she’d seen combat. And lost. The discovery was,
of course, a great shock to Captain Burton. Unconsciously she chewed her
bottom lip, and for the first time her handsome face showed the awful strain

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of the past twenty years. She’d been engaged to Captain Chi. Through two
decades she’d clung to the hope she’d see him again, kept alive the dream
they’d shared of marriage and children and a life together. Now the dream
was shattered. She knew he was gone, even though there was no body to
mourn over. Strangely, there were no bodies at all on board. And most of the
important ship systems were intact. Do you remember how Burton wondered,
tears brimming in her blue eyes, if Officer Chi and the other crew members
had been taken prisoner? How her words conjured up a picture in your mind
of the Earthlings being tortured – their ordeal provoking mirth in the soul-less
Ur-Quan. With a few days work, the engineers brought the Tobermoon back to
life. What came next changed your life forever. With Captain Burton the only
one aboard qualified to pilot the Earth Cruiser, you were put in command of
the Precursor starship. Admit it. Standing on the bridge – those epaulets the
grieving but bravely smiling Captain Burton pinned on gleaming from your
shoulders – you felt proud, sure of yourself. Hey, truth be told, at that
moment you thought you were invincible.

Your confidence didn’t last long, did it? With the Tobermoon leading the way,
you and Burton pushed your ships out into HyperSpace – the parallel dimen­sion where distances are fantastically compressed and interstellar travel feasi­ble. Blazing white flashes surrounded your vessels and everything took on a
crimson hue. Something up there wasn’t right. Remember? Your body felt
like it was in a vise and your head was spinning. You fought for control, forc­ing yourself to focus on the soft voice of Captain Burton radioing a command
from the Tobermoon: “Set course for Earth.”

A day later – you think it was a day, but now, looking back, you can’t be sure –
a sinister shadow began following you through HyperSpace. It moved fast,
real fast. Within a couple of hours it had approached close enough to interact
with your ship’s hyperdrive field, pulling you both back into TrueSpace. At
close range, the enemy ship looked like a pair of spinning red globes sur-

23

rounded by a crackling energy field. Some kind of glowing rod or energy beam
connected the red globes. The alien craft built up speed rapidly as it zeroed in
on the starship you commanded. Burton saw the attack coming and signalled
you to warp out of the area immediately. A moment later you watched on
your command console monitor as the Tobermoon flashed away on a trajecto­ry to intercept the alien ship. As you pushed up into HyperSpace, you saw a
crackling bolt of energy lance out from the alien vessel and strike the
Tobermoon. Burton’s craft wobbled violently, then veered off on an erratic
course in the general direction of Unzervalt. The Alien craft was apparently
satisfied with disabling the Tobermoon, for the strange ship made a 180
degree turn and rocketed at warp speed toward deep space.

Once your starship reached HyperSpace, you radioed the Tobermoon, only to
learn that Captain Burton had been killed by the alien’s unexpected attack.
You felt sick to your stomach. Then you wanted to punch the bulkhead. You’d
been half in love with Burton, you knew that now. Life stunk!

Captain Burton’s death left you in full command of the mission to find Earth.
You navigated the Precursor starship back on your original course, your mind
swirling with all that had happened. A terrible doubt overtook you, gnawing at
the edges of what had always been your strong self-confidence. Could you
pull this off? You, a son of Unzervalt, born in a cave, raised on Ortog milk and
Libixx meat. You, a man who’d never set foot in a university, never had formal
space flight training beyond the crash course from Burton? You’d taught your­self everything, learning from reading computer programs and watching how
engineers and scientists did things. The question ate at you now; had you
been both a good teacher and a good student? Good enough at both to pre­pare you for the awesome task that lay ahead? Time would tell.

And time did tell. Five days after the alien attack you arrived at a stellar vortex
leading out of HyperSpace. Your scanner showed the vortex spiralling down

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to a brilliant yellow star. You knew at once that this was the great star that
had given life to your ancestors, the star your Earthling progenitors called the
Sun! You warped down out of HyperSpace and took a navigational fix. You
were just beyond the orbit of the ninth planet of the yellow star. Earth was
the third planet out from the Sun. With all thrusters on, you can reach the
blue planet in two days. A horrible thought flits across your mind. Had the
Ur-Quan broken through the Alliance defense lines and attacked your ances­tral home? Was there devastation? Had the cities been obliterated by
nuclear weapons and the survivors left irradiated mutants, genetic freaks
roaming the ashen landscape like primal apes? You’ll know in 48 hours.

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STARTING THE GAME

It shouldn’t take much more than 5 minutes to install the game and begin
playing Star Control II. Although we salute the expression of free will, you
will get started faster if you follow the steps below.

Confirm System Requirements

• An AT-class IBM-PC compatible computer with a hard drive and 2x
speed CD-ROM drive is required. A 20 MHz 386 machine or better is rec­ommended. If you have a slower machine see Appendix II.

• Star Control II supports VGA and MCGA graphics only.

• You will need at least 580,000 bytes of low DOS memory available
when you start the game.

• You will need at least 9.2 megabytes available on your hard disk if
you want to play Star Control II from your hard drive rather than play off
the CD-ROM.

Installing Star Control II onto your hard drive

Star Control II can be installed on your hard disk. Here’s how:
1 Turn on your computer.
2 Insert the Star Control Collection CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive
(usually D or E).
3 In DOS, a DOS Window, or MS-DOS mode, make a directory for the
game on your hard drive (usually C). Change to the root directory by typ­ing CD\ <Enter>.
4 At the DOS prompt, type MD STARCON2 <Enter> to create the
“STARCON2” directory.
5 Change to your new directory by typing CD\STARCON2 <Enter>.
6 At the new prompt, type COPY D:\STARCON\STARCON2\*.* <Enter>,

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where D is the name of your CD-ROM drive. This will copy the game from
your Star Control Collection CD-ROM to your hard drive, and install Star
Control II on your C drive, in a directory called C:\STARCON2.

After you launch the game, you will be presented with choices:

• Start New Game: The game starts at the very beginning, prompting
you to enter your captain’s name.

• Load Saved Game: You are presented with a list of saved games to
choose from. If you change your mind and want to start from the begin­ning, press the Spacebar.

Start-up

Follow these steps to start the game:
1 Make sure your computer is on.
2 Place the Star Control Collection CD-ROM in your CD-ROM drive.
3 If you have Windows, exit from Windows to DOS. If you have
Windows ‘95, restart in MS-DOS mode. If DOS is your operating environ­ment of choice, you should already be where you need to be.
4 Change to your CD-ROM drive by typing the drive name (usually D)
and a colon. Press <Enter>.
5 At the CD-ROM drive prompt, type STARCON <Enter>.
6 Choose Star Control II in the introductory menu. When you are
shown the picture of a star, hit the <Space Bar>.

If you have copied the game to your hard drive, exchange the following
steps for their equivalents above:
2 Since the game is on your hard drive, you don’t need the Star
Control Collection CD-ROM in the drive.
3 Follow Step 3 above.
4 From the root directory of your hard drive (usually C:) change direc­tories to the STARCON2 directory by typing CD\STARCON2 <Enter>.

27

5 At the C:\STARCON2> prompt, type STARCON2 <Enter> to launch
the game.
6 When you are shown a picture of a star, hit the <Space Bar>.

PLAY CONTROLS

Star Control II can be played entirely from the keyboard, or you can use a
joystick for most game activities. Joysticks are automatically detected and
calibrated at runtime, so keep your joystick centered and motionless until
the game begins.

Menu Controls

Many aspects of gameplay are accessed by a system of menus. Each
menu will list various options which allow you to give a command, select a
ship, pick a phrase, etc. To select menu items with the keyboard, use the
cursor arrow keys to highlight the item you want, then press Enter. In
some cases, when you pick a menu item, you will be given a new sub­menu of options. To leave a sub-menu and return to the previous menu,
press the Spacebar.

Keyboard Menu Controls

When selecting menu items, the joystick acts just like the cursor arrow
keys. Pressing Button #1 is the same as pressing Enter, and pressing
Button #2 is the same as pressing the Spacebar.

Button #1 selects the highlighted option, and Button #2 returns you to the
previous menu.

Joystick Menu Controls

Button #2

Button #1 ●

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Up

■

Left

Down

Right

Combat Commands

In combat, you can control your ships with either the joystick or the key­board. You can redefine the control keys with the separate program,
KEYS.EXE. The KEYS configuration will not be saved unless you are playing
the game from your hard drive. In the SuperMelee bonus game, there can
be two human players, and each uses a separate joystick or area of the
keyboard.

Default Keyboard Combat Controls

Keyboard #1 Keyboard #2
Use Special Power N 1
Rotate Counter-Clockwise M 2
Rotate Clockwise , 3
Thrust . 4
Fire Main Weapon ? 5

Joystick Combat Control

Up/Counter-Clockwise
Thrust & Rotate Counter­Clockwise

Button #2
Special Power

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(Up)

Thrust

(Up/Clockwise)
Thrust & Rotate Clockwise

●

■

(Clockwise)
Rotate Clockwise

Button #1
Fire

(Counter-Clockwise)
Rotate Ctr-Clockwise

NAVIGATION

The core of Star Control II is space flight, both in combat and exploration.
Whether you are traveling from planet to planet or from star to star, or
engaging in combat, the controls are the same. To go somewhere, you
rotate your ship in the direction you want to go, and then press the
Thrust key.

The Effects of Inertia and Gravity

When ships are navigating in Star Control II, they are under the influ-
ence of two physical forces; inertia and gravity.

Inertia is the tendency of an object in motion to remain in motion. All
moving objects have inertia, and the faster they go, the more inertia they
possess. When you let your foot off the gas in an automobile it slows and
comes to a stop because there are many forces of friction acting against
your motion, like air-resistance, the roughness of the road, and the car’s
mechanical parts rubbing against each other.

30

In normal space, these resisting forces of friction are virtually nonexistent.
Any object in motion (like a spaceship) will keep moving at the same speed
until something stops it. The only way for a spaceship to stop itself is to
turn in the direction opposite its line of travel and thrust until it comes to a
stop.

Gravity is the natural attractive force that exists between all objects. This
force is usually too small to be noticeable, unless an object is terrifically
massive – like a sun or planet. In Star Control II, the only situation in
which your ship will be affected by gravity is in space combat. As you
approach a planet, its gravity will begin to affect the course of your vessel,
bending your path toward the center of the planet.

Inertial ships can make use of planets’ gravity fields to achieve higher than
normal velocities by performing the Leyland Gravity Whip maneuver. To
use this trick, simply move past a planet, and while you are close to the
planet, thrust continuously without rotating your vessel. Then, as you fly
away from the world, stop thrusting and coast at high velocity.

Note: Use caution when performing this maneuver to avoid
striking planets, which can damage your vessel.

Interplanetary Travel

Interplanetary navigation is travel between planets within a single star sys­tem. The interplanetary navigation screen is represented as a sun sur­rounded by a number of planets, each situated on an ellipse describing its
orbital path around the sun. As you navigate your ship toward the center
of the star system, the view expands to show you a more detailed view of
the inner planets. When you approach a planet, the view will expand
once more, showing you a close-up view of the world, plus displaying any
moons which may be orbiting the main planet.