Overview
This guide describes the basic game mechanics
Basics
If you have clicked on games in the main menu, you will get to the ship selection. At the moment there are two ships available. The Thunderhawk and the Viper. They differ in handling in the control due to their different inertia and in the placement of armor and shields. The Viper has one weapon point less. But that can change in the course of development.
Thunderhawk:
– lighter ship
– less armor
– more shielding energy
– three slots for projectile or energy weapons
– a slot for missiles / torpedoes
– Slots for projectile / energy weapons equipped with simple Gatlinggun at start
– Slot for missiles / torpedoes at start empty
Viper:
– heavier ship
– strong armor
– less shielding energy
– two slots projectile or energy weapons
– a slot for missiles / torpedoes
– Slots for projectile / energy weapons equipped with simple Gatlinggun at start
– Rocket / torpedo slot equipped with a medium weight unguided rocket
After you have made your choice, you start the game via return.
In the game, you’ll shoot aliens and asteroids for points accumulated shortly after the destruction of an asteroid or alien and added to your points account. So you do not have to pick these up. Asteroids / aliens can drop powerups when they are destroyed. You can pick these up. There are several types of powerups:
Multiplier powerups
A multiplier powerup directly affects how many points you get after shooting down an asteroid or alien. Each multiplier powerup has a specific value and this one will
multiplied by the points received and added to your points account.
There are currently multipliers with the values 1.5, 2, 3 and 4.
You can collect these multipliers indefinitely, which means that you can achieve high multiplier values overall. But they have a limited running time (a few seconds) within a level. If collected powerups are taken to the next level, they will be retained. The value of all accumulated and active multipliers is displayed as an overlay to the left of your spaceship.
Bonus point powerups
Bonus point Powerups are additional points that are added to your points account. They too are multiplied by any multipliers.
Weapon powerups
Your ship is weak in the beginning and with weapon powerups you will be able to reach higher levels.
They come in different designs for projectiles / energy weapons and missiles / torpedoes.
Schild powerups
Your shield energy is reduced by enemy hits or collisions with aliens or asteroids. With shield powerups you fill up the energy again.
Once you complete a level, bonus points will be credited to you. These are also calculated from your hit rate. The higher your hit rate, the higher your bonus points.
The blue bar indicates the shield energy.
The red bar indicates the armor.
If both are at 0 your ship is destroyed.
control
Viper Attack can be controlled via gamepad or keyboard. I recommend doing a gamepad.
The menu is controlled by mouse and keyboard.
Keyboard:
W – Forward
S – backwards
A – left
D right
or the cursor keys
Fire weapon 1 – left CTRL key
Fire weapon 2 – left alt button
gamepad:
Left / right – Horizontal axis [0]
Forward / backward – vertical axis [1]
Fire Weapon 1 – Button 0 (B)
Fire Weapon 2 – Button 1 (A)
Pause mode ingame – p
The assignment can be adjusted via the Config Dialog when starting the game.