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  **