CODENAME MAT II - 

YOUR TASK

You are Mat, the pilot of the Earth's most advanced combat ship, the
Centurion II, and you are the sole manned ship holding out as long as
possible against the Myon onslaught in order to defend the Energy Grid.

The Karillium mines on Vesta get their energy from the star Calest via a
grid of satellites. Energy is transferred through each complete row of
satellites and the amount transferred is determined by the most damaged
satellite in the row. The amount of Karillium mined is directly
proportional to the energy transferred by the grid. The longer you hold
out the more Karillium will be mined. When all four satellite rows are
broken, energy transfer will be zero, life support systems will fail,
the miners will leave and the game will end.

At the end of each attack wave you will have the chance to repair
damaged satellites and move others to complete broken rows. Make your
moves wisely!

You are the only person who can defend the Vesta, however you are
totally safe; if your ship is destroyed you will be teleported to
safety.

LOADING INSTRUCTIONS

LOAD ""

GETTING STARTED

On loading the game, you become Mat, looking out of Centurion II's
cockpit, ready for action to protect the satellites, by destroying the
Myons, which is only possible if your ship is in good operational
condition and therefore protected. Select the Defensive Shields (press
D), Safety Mechanism (press F) and Target Computer (set to auto, press
T).

If you now turn your screen to the Quadrant Grid Chart (press Q) you
will see a grid of 24 satellites. Centurion II is the flashing cross,
the Myon ships are the dots which in the first wave are grouped in
fleets of three. If you are within a quadrant which has a Myon fleet in
it, your status will become red (showing that you are in danger of
attack). You must counter attack, which is explained in a moment. If you
are not within a Myon occupied quadrant, you may either wait (and
familiarise yourself with the controls) whilst Myons 'home in' on you,
or Warp towards them (see on).

Combat

If Status is red, prepare for combat.

Turn on the Battle Computer (press B). This will show you the locations
of the Myon ships On the left of the screen is the Range Meter, the red
section indicates when the Myon ship is within your main vision, as it
approaches, the needle will fall. By pressing A, the Battle Computer
will switch to each attacking Myon ship, showing you which is nearest.

If all the Myon ships are out of range of the meter, go to top speed
(press 5) and then press A continuously until one ship shows that it is
nearer to you than the others.

Having selected the nearest one, you must manoeuvre until it is in front
of you (it is yellow if it is in front and blue if behind), so rotate
the Centurion until the Myon ship is yellow and in the centre of the
Battle Computer screen.

If a Myon ship is shown in the red section of the range meter, it will
be within you main sights and shooting at you, you must therefore enter
combat using the fire button to destroy it. However, if the Myon ship is
still further enough away from you to be in the green area of the range
meter you must maintain at least 30% speed until it nears the red
section, when you must assess you ability to combat at cruising speed
(30%) or less (decelerate by pressing 1 or 3). Combat at zero speed is
not recommended, although it may be worth trying whilst familiarising
yourself with the gameplay.

You have two weapon tyhpes, plasma or laser, lasers use more energy by
you may find them easier at first. (Press E to swap).

Once you have destroyed the first ship select the next nearest one
(press A) and repeat the attack. Once three ships are destroyed your
status may return to yellow (or green if you have some damage), or stay
red if another group of Myons have closed in.

If red, attack.

If green, damage sustained will have been reported on the information
screen at the bottom of the Dash Board. As this is a 'quiet period',
practice putting your Droids (robotic mechanics) into use by using the
Damage Report (press M). You will see a list of your equipment and
percentage next to each. This is the percentage damage inflicted on each
system, continue press M for further reports. Assess the worst damage or
the most important item and put the Droids to use (see on for further
instructions). You have two Droids and may use both on one item, or one
on two different items.

If yellow, practice warping, as this is vital to the game play,
especially in later waves.

Warp

Assuming you choose to warp, you must first select the compass bearing
of your travel and your warp factor. The warp controls are explained in
the detailed operating instructions. You then warp (press W) and off you
go.... If you have selected too high a warp factor, you may still be in
a warp situation when your status becomes red, and can abort the warp by
pressing Shift W. On becoming stationary after your warp check the
Quadrant Grid Map (press Q) to ascertain your new position.

DETAILED OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS

Centurion Controls

Kempston joystick, Interface II or a Cursor Joystick may be used.

Direction and Fire (use only when not using a Joystick):

6	Left
7	Right
8	Up
9	Down
0	Fire

Ion Engines

1	Decelerate
2	Accelerate
3	Decelerate to halt
4	Go to cruising combat speed (30%)
5	Go to full speed (NOT AVAILABLE WITH CURSOR JOYSTICK)

Other Controls:

W	Engage warp drive
SHIFT W	Abort warp
D	Defensive shields (on/off)
F	Safety mechanism (on/off)
T	Target computer (Auto/Manual/off)
E	Change weapons (Plasma/laser)
A	Change alien being tracked (use for Battle Computer and Target
	Computer)
H	Hold/restart program
SHIFT P	Save game
SHIFT O	Reload saved game

Small Screen Controls:

L	Long range scan
S	Short range scan
Q	Quadrant chart
B	Battle computer
M	Damage reports

Shields

The Centurion has four shields, one each on the front, back, left and
right sides. The status (on/off) of the shields is displayed on the
right of the control panel. Often a shield will flash on and off when it
is damaged, in such a situation you should keep the attackers on the
opposite side to the damage, as a hit on this side will result in the
destruction of the Centurion.

Safety

This simply reduces the chance of the destruction of the ship by human
error. If the front shield is down it will abort a warp and if a weapon
system is overheating it will disable the system. There are situations
however where it is best to have safety off!

Status

Will give one of four states

YELLOW		No damage and not under attack
GREEN		System damaged of malfunctioning but not under attack
RED		Aliens in quadrant
FLASHING RED	Centurion in danger of imminent destruction. This can be
		due to one of three situations:

		1. Alien in quadrant and one or more shields down.
		2. Weapon system overheating and in danger of exploding.
		3. Centurion travelling at warp speed with front shield
		   down (off).

Batteries

The Centurion has two banks of batteries, one on each side of the ship.
These are the ship's energy store. Energy is used to power the shields,
engines, weapons, etc. Watch your energy level carefully as it is very
dangerous to let it become excessively depleted, and as the batteries
take damage the maximum energy will fall.

Reactors

The Centurion has two nuclear reactors which feed energy to the
batteries. As the reactors take damage the speed at which they are
recharged will fall.

Battle Computer

This gives the range of the Myon tracked and its position relative to
the Centurion.

On the left of the screen is the Range Meter which shows you the
distance between the Myon being tracked and the Centurion. As the
distance decreases the needle will drop. The Red section indicates that
the Myon is within Combat range. A yellow ship indicates that the Myon
is in front of you and a blue ship that it is behind.

As you are under attack by a Myon Fleet it could be that the ship you
are tracking is not the closest to you. By pressing A the Battle
Computer will switch to each of the attacking ships indicating which is
nearest and therefore the one to track. When in combat some attack waves
will use cloaking devices that make them invisible, the Battle Computer
is the best way of finding and destroying them.

Target Computer

When operational, sights will appear in your main vision aiding your
combat with attacking Myons. There are two operational modes, Automatic
or Manual.

AUTOMATIC	This is best used when being attacked by more than one
		Myon at a time. When they close in on you, the sights
		will expand when the nearest Myon is within range of
		your weapons. (Note: As your weapons only shoot in a
		forward direction, Myons to either side or behind you
		will be ignored, even though they may be closer tahn the
		one in front.)

MANUAL		This is best usewd when being attacked by a single Myon,
		as the sights will expand only on the one Myon being
		tracked by the battle computer. It has the advantage
		that the sights will expand when the Myon is within
		distance of your weapons, but possibly to one side or
		behind you; and additional aid to your battle computer
		and short range scan.

Long Range Scan

This becomes vital when the Battle Computer is Malfunctioning.

This is looking down at the Centurion and the Quadrant it is in, showing
Myon ships, plasma bolts and satellies relative to the Centurion (the
central point). No indication is given of vertical positioning (although
a Myon ship may appear directly in front of you it could be above or
below its indicated position, however this can be assessed by vertical
movement of the Centurion.

Short Range Scan

This is the same as the long range scan except instead of showing the
whole Quadrant it magnifies the space around the Centurion (when the
Long Range Scan shows the Myon Ships to be very close, they will be
within the range of the Short Range Scan). This is very useful in
helping to avoid being hit when in combat with several Myons.

Quadrant Chart

This shows the status of the satellite energy grid, the position and
number of Myon fleets (showing the number of ships within the fleets)
and the position of the Centurion. Satellites start off white, however
as they are attacked by Myons they will take damage and their colour
will darken to yellow, cyan, green, magenta, red and then destroyed.

Warp

Warp engines are used for travel between Quadrants. Before use, the
couse computer must be programmed with the required distance and angle.
Shields must be on before using warp as without them the Centurion can
be destroyed in collisions with small dust particles in space whilst
travelling at high speeds. The same danger will be faced if the front
shield is damaged.

Programming Warp

When the Quadrant Chart is on the screen the Warp distance and angle can
be set.

The Warp Factor (distance) is between 0 and 6 (moving from one satellite
to the next is one warp factor, if moving diagonally remember to allow
for the extra distance). The angle is a compass bearing between 0 and
359 degrees.

The cursor is moved left and right between the Warp factor and Angle
using keys CAPS SHIFT & Z. The number overlaid by the cursor can be
changed by using keys X (minus) and C (plus). To scroll through numbers
keep key pressed.

Damage Report and The Droids

The Centurion has two droids which can be commanded to repair damaged
systems. However during repair the system being damaged is disabled and
will not function.

The Damage Report shows the percentage damage taken by each system,
which systems are disabled and which systems are being repaired by the
droids.

A disabled system is indicated by an asterisk to the left of the
percentage. To the right of the percentage are two cursor positions
which can be filled by Droid 1 (D1) or Droid 2 (D2) when selected to
repair that system. The cursor can be moved about on the damage reports
as follows:

CAPS SHIFT	Left
C		Up
Z		Right
X		Down
V		On first column (left of %): Enable/disable system (Not
                if Droid repairing).
		On second column (just to right of %): call Droid 1 to
		repair system.
		On third column (far right): call Droid 2 to repair
		system.

If a system has failed it will be shown with an asterisk to the left of
a percentage of 000. If a Droid has been damaged the other may repair it
and as long as the damage is not heavy, the damaged Droid may continue
to repair another system.

End of Wave

At the end of an attack wave you will have time to repair the Centurion
and damaged satellites. Although it is vital to have a functioning ship,
it is also important to repair (or move) satellites as a missing one
from a horizontal row of the grid will stop the whole of that row
supplying energy to the Karillium mines. When all four rows are broken
energy will cease and the game will be over.

You are able to move satellites into a broken row with the use of the
cursor.

As you move to higher attack waves, the Myons will damage the Satellites
quicker.

Think very carefully about your moves as this may ultimately determine
how long you last.

Saving Game

You may save your progress through the game at any point. Connect your
cassette recorder to the computer (as instructed in the Sinclair Manual)
with the leads correctly wired to record a program. Start the cassette
player recording on a blank cassette. Then press CAPS SHIFT P and saving
will start.

To load a saved game, you must first of all load the main program then
swap cassettes to the one with your saved game. Then with the game
playing press CAPS SHIFT O and press play on the recorder. Your game
will then load.

Licensed exclusively from DOMARK Ltd.
© 1989 BUG BYTE, 12-18 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4JS.
