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During
the expansion years of the first Empire the future was
bright, sparkling and hopeful. Mankind was in its foundling
years, suckling on the still plentiful resources the
universe had to offer. Planets were mined for their
ore content, stars tapped of their mighty energy and
the humans proliferated at a horrendous rate, easing
themselves into every corner of the cosmos.
But
that was a long lime ago and now, as the universe itself
is becoming old and decrepit, energy to feed the hungry
mouth of man is becoming harder and harder to find.
Atrophy and entropy are the rules of the day and hungry
aliens steal the energy previously given. Mankind is
getting scared . . .
After
a millennia of a technologically-based way of life,
evolution has seen to it that the human race can't survive
without the trappings of their mechanics. Day after
day countless tales of dead worlds, devoid of energy
but full of corpses, flood in via News Circ. Mankind
is getting very scared . . . and then The Plan is hatched.
Deep
within the abandoned carbon worlds of Gargos is a system
of planets that were mined to death by the extravagant
First Empire. Riddled with abandoned shafts the worlds
themselves are totally unfit for any sort of habitation
due to their severe instability. Still, in those days
valuable energy sources were treated with a blase attitude
that is now considered shocking. Within each of these
worlds lie the machinery and energy sources of the criminal
mining operations. The Plan is a stroke of genius.
There
are huge amounts of power locked within each of these
now defunct planets and it can be released by destroying
each of them in turn. As an extra benefit there is also
a power pod on each world that contains now very valuable
power. Destroying a planet is easy: just blast to destruction
the generator connected to the grid stabiliser holding
the shaft-riddled planet together. To make such an operation
feasible, the energy expenditure in taking the much
needed power source must be slight, so a corps of ex-navy
fighters were assembled and each given a one man craft
equipped with cannon, force field and las-leash. Fuel
was carelessly left behind on the planets and it can
be collected. There are also armament systems, which
are still operational, and for safety's sake they are
best destroyed.
Having
just been enlisted to work for the Planetbusting service,
understandably enough the easy jobs are handed to you
first. Your debut mission is the easiest since it's
only a strip mined planet that needs to be destroyed.
There is one armament primed and the generator and power
pod are on the surface: no underground navigation is
required. An in-ship scanner represents the outside
world in an angular and simplistic way. A representation
of your ship is constantly displayed in the middle of
the scanner and as the ship moves off towards the boundary
of the view, more planetary surface appears. Because
of the scanner's simplistic interpretation of the real
world, everything is seen as a two-dimensional side
scene.
The
ship supplied is a much advanced version of the famous
standard issue craft used by meteor miners (see Asteroids
for reference) and can spin through 360 degrees and
thrust in all directions. Controlled via a keyboard
interface, A and S rotates the ship and SHIFT activates
the engines. The space bar brings the multi-purpose
force field into action. This handy piece of equipment
has three functions depending on the surroundings. When
flying through mid air, booting the field into action
puts a shielding bubble around your machine. Any bullets
heading your way disintegrate upon hitting. Hovering
over a fuel dump (handily marked FUEL) and letting the
force flow, pulls fuel into your tanks. Once the dump
is exhausted it disappears from the scanner. Finally,
activating the shield whilst hovering over the power
pod (a small round object on a pedestal) instantly connects
the las-leash to the middle of the pod. Thrusting into
the air pulls the pod from the pedestal, away from the
ground. This is tricky though, since the pod's weight
and momentum also count and it's all too easy to plunge
into the ground, spinning end over end after a bit if
mis-applied thrusting. However, whenever the shield
is operative your fuel drains away at quite an alarming
rate, so use the equipment only when needed. No fuel
and the claws of gravity pull you downward into the
ground; there's nothing you can do.
To
complete a mission perfectly, both power pod and generator
have to be destroyed: a hefty reward in points is thrown
your way for this feat, but returning to the Planetbuster
Corps with just the pod means being sent to the next,
harder, mission. Blowing up the generator is quite easy,
though it gets tougher on later stages. It's well worth
going after the extra bonus; using the cannon mounted
on the ship's front end, just blast about a dozen shots
into the machine and the generator goes unstable and
starts to flash. Only ten seconds are given to vacate
before the planet explodes. Fly straight up and after
a couple of seconds a warp will take you and any cargo
in tow, back to corps base. The next mission is then
sent your way.
As
things go on, your job progressively gets harder and
harder: the armaments get nastier and more numerous.
If you leave a world without totally finishing a mission
then the sub-etha equipment is able to contact the next
planet you travel to, warning the defence systems of
your imminent arrival. The welcome you receive is not
nice, all guns within the caverns are now ablaze and
a lot of shield use is necessary. There are six types
of world and after completing the six, an arduous task
to say the least, they repeat but with added difficulty.
The first extra hazard encountered on the seventh sheet
is reverse gravity. After six sheets of a normal environment,
such a weird thing as inverse gravity can really freak
a pilot out; it's all too easy to crash hopelessly.
The strangest effect is that the power pod now balloons
upwards as soon as it is wire-leashed to the ship. On
the fifteenth sheet the landscape is totally invisible
except for when the ship's shield is activated.
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