
------------------------------------
Strange Adventures in Infinite Space
              v1.6
           User Manual
------------------------------------

Created by Digital Eel - http://www.digital-eel.com/

Official Website: http://www.digital-eel.com/sais/

Read mods.txt for information on modifications

Last Updated - October 2020.

------------------------------------
          Changes In SAIS
------------------------------------
(New in 1.6.3)
 - Updated physfs to 3.0.2 - this should fix the "PhyFS failed to
   initialise: (null)" error some users get.

(New in 1.6.2)
 - Fixed a bug preventing mixed case text input.

(New in 1.6.1)
 - HighDPI display support for Retina display macs (and hopefully
   all other platforms).

 - Now correctly uses linear filtering when rescaling the window
   if available - this produces a much smoother easy on the eyes
   appearance than the nearest rescale used previously. This looks
   a LOT better to me on highDPI and high resolution displays.

   - Pixel Perfect will turn the filtering off to give you that crisp
     pixel perfect look if that's what you want.

(New in 1.6.0)
 - SAIS GPL has few internal behavioural changes (mostly around mod
   handling), but should play exactly the same as the 1.5 release.

 - Make use of writable local directories for scores and config (and
   screenshots).

 - Support rescaling to native resolution full-screen including pixel
   perfect scaling.

 - Allow the main window to be resized on the fly. Doesn't redraw
   whilst you're resizing (yet), but it will once the resize is complete.

(New in 1.5)
- Fixed starmap movement varying based on processor speed.

(Changes In SAIS 1.4 Patch)
- Changed combat retreat to turn off if all enemies flee.
- Fixed being able to sell non-salable systems to klakar (in mods).
- Fixed a crash bug in failed escape from LVC.
- Fixed fleeing behavior if all explored systems are destroyed.

(Changes In SAIS 1.3 Patch)
- Added a tutorial mode to help beginning players.
- Added a "Launcher" front end for selecting mods.
- Star map view will now display modified player ship sprites.
- Some changes in fighter AI.
- Fixed a bug in sprite loading that wouldn't load some .tga's.
- Fixed a potential memory leak in game uninitialization.

(Changes In SAIS 1.2 Patch)
- Added a mod browser and two example mods (flakgun and eelfarm).
- Added sprite frame loading capability.
- Moved most of the text into strings.ini file for modifiability.
- Slightly changed damage model for micrometeorite gun.
- Changed combat movement to allow drifting with broken thrusters.
- Fixed occasional duplicated enemy fleets.
- Fixed a crash bug involving fighters with beam weapons.

(Changes in SAIS 1.1 patch)
- Added a magnifier lens for greater accessibility.
- Added an optional large trading screen.
- Sardion optimizer now replaces your combat computer.
- Starmap now defaults to player ship after finding a new ally.
- Fixed "hunt" and "hire" buttons appearing when they shouldn't.
- Fixed a bug when fleeing from combat without a star drive.
- Fixed AI behavior if player is cloaked in the first combat.

------------------------------------
            Background
------------------------------------

In the 22nd century, colony ships were programmed to search
for earthlike planets along trajectories calculated to visit
stars with the best likelihood of habitable worlds. One such
ship with its crew and passengers in deep cryosleep traveled
over 2300 light years before a suitable planet was found.

Hope is a temperate world located in the Glory system on the
edge of a vast nebula some refer to as the Purple Void. The
nebula is unique in that it contains many unusual star types
and other interesting phenomena.

Over 100 years have passed since the colonists first arrived.
It is a new beginning of deep space exploration. Technology 
has improved and mankind is no longer dependent on slow 
cryoships and robot probes. This is the setting of Strange 
Adventures In Infinite Space.

------------------------------------
             Main Menu
------------------------------------

The main menu consists of five buttons: Start Game, Combat
Simulator, Settings, High Scores and Quit. Their effects are
quite self-explanatory.

Combat Simulator lets you stage a battle against simulated AI
opponents. Feel free to practice until you feel comfortable 
with the interface and controls. More on the Simulator later.

Clicking Settings allows you to change the sound volume and
turn some details and other options on an off.

The High Scores button, unsurprisingly, toggles the high score
list.

------------------------------------
        Starting a New Game
------------------------------------

When you start the game, you're presented a screen where you
can change several game settings to customize your adventure.

Naming Yourself
---------------

By default, the names of the captain (yourself) and the ship
are randomized each time you play the game. You can click on
either name to change it. On the right side of the name there
is a small padlock icon that you can lock or unlock. When 
locked, the name will be saved so you can use it in subsequent
games.

Weapon and Difficulty Settings
------------------------------

Underneath the names are weapon settings. You can choose from
three different sets of guns, to suit different styles of play.

You can set the difficulty level either by changing the amount
of nebula and hostile aliens, or using the slider at the 
bottom. Higher difficulty level will boost your score, if you
can deal with the extra enemies and harder navigation.

------------------------------------
             Star Map
------------------------------------

The Star Map screen is your main interface to the game. This
is where you explore the universe and manage your starships.

Note: You can view a comprehensive HELP screen by pressing F1.

Taking up most of the screen is the Star Map. It displays the
entire sector, roughly 7.5 parsecs across; the overlaid grid
lines are one parsec, or 3.26 light years apart. 

On the left side of the Star Map, you can see a silhouette of
your spacecraft and all the systems and weapons installed. If
you have allies, you can select and view them by clicking on
the small ship icons in the top left corner.

Below the ship display is a list of all the items in your
cargo hold, and a window that shows information about the star
system you have selected on the Star Map.

Time
----
 
The current date is visible in the upper right corner of the
Star Map.  You can click on the date to advance it, if you 
ever need to.

Time passes in the game as you play it.  Each time you move 
from one star to another, repair a ship, install a new ship 
system or wait for an event, a number of days, weeks, months
or even years will pass. Ship repairs may take a few days. 
Navigating through a four parsec nebular clump may take years,
even with the best star drive.

Space Terrain
-------------
 
Black holes exert terrible gravitational forces upon objects 
which pass too close. A few black holes may be known to you
at the start of the game. These are visible on the star map as
spinning purple vortices. Others are hidden and you will
discover them during the course of your voyage.
 
Traveling through the Purple Void nebula, resembling purple
clouds of varying shapes, will slow your ship down to the speed
of light making exploration difficult within its boundaries. 
Some star drives available in the game will allow you to break 
these and other rules of space travel, however.

Exploration
-----------

You can click on any star system on the map to select it for
exploration. When a star is selected, you can see a green 
dotted line from your current location to the selected system,
along with the distance and estimated travel time. You can
then move by pressing the ENGAGE button that appears next to 
the star.

Star systems are distributed realistically, usually 1-3 parsecs
apart. In other words, it would take 3 or more years to travel
from star to star at the speed of light. Fortunately, star 
drives allow a starship to travel many times faster. In most
cases you'll be counting days, not years, as you move from one
star to another.

Several things may occur when you arrive at a destination star.

Alien Contact
-------------
 
You may meet an alien patrol guarding the planet and any 
discoveries to be made there. A decision must be made whether
to encounter the alien force or not.  A radar screen pop-up 
will advise you of the numbers and relative ship sizes of the 
defending patrol.

If you click "avoid" Your starship will automatically leave 
the system and head for the closest previously explored star 
or, in some unusual situations, a nearby unexplored one.

If you click "engage" one to three things can happen. First, 
if the alien has never beet met before (in each particular 
game) you will see a First Contact pop-up which is a factoid
about that alien's appearance and demeanor. Second, you will 
see an Alien Vidcast pop-up which is always some kind of 
message from the alien captain. Third, the star map view is 
replaced by the tactical view and starship combat takes place.
 
Aliens can be hostile, neutral or peaceful, but always have
their own distinct personalities when you meet them. Common 
sense judgement will tell you whether you should engage the 
opposition or not.

 
Planet Discovery
----------------
 
You will most often discover a planet in orbit around the star.
Knowledge of new planets is profitable information and will be
tallied in your favor when the mission is complete. Temperate 
planet awards are higher than the awards you will receive for 
more rugged or inhospitable worlds.  Also, temperate worlds 
are the most likely to harbor life,  Finding and bringing back
alien lifeforms is another lucrative pursuit for your 
consideration. On many planets you can also find useful or
valuable items that are added to your cargo.

Occasionally when you explore a planet, no items will be found.
Instead, an event may occur. Events include stellar anomalies,
special discoveries and shipboard crises.

Cargo Hold
----------

When you find an item during planetary exploration, it will 
appear in your Cargo Hold. Its contents are displayed in the 
large "box" on the left side of the Star Map, below the ship 
display. If you click on the name of an item stored in your
Cargo Hold, its description will be displayed.
 
There are various types of items you can find, either by 
trading with aliens or exploring planets.

You may find a valuable, useful or harmful alien device or 
artifact.  Clues as to their usage are found in the item 
description and legend lore and are usually easily understood.
Many are simply considered as "treasure". If a device can be
activated, this is done by clicking the small square icon
on the left side of its name.

Weird lifeforms may be captured and held in stasis cages in the
cargo hold.  Lifeforms are valuable and will be "cashed in" at
the end of the game.  Dangerous or tenacious lifeforms may
require many days to track and capture.

Weapons and other ship systems can be installed on board your
starship by clicking on the arrow icon next to its name. If an
ally is selected, the item is considered a gift to the allied
captain. It will only be accepted if the ally can use it.

Systems installed on your ship can be uninstalled and returned
to your Cargo Hold by clicking the small X icon next to them
in the ship display window.

Note: installing a system takes a variable amount of time based
on its relative technology level and complexity. 

Systems
-------

There are four main components that a starship requires to 
function properly and stand up to the rigors of deep space
exploration.

A star drive propels your ship through deep space (the "empty"
area of space between each star) at many times the speed of
light. The default plutonium fission star drive operates at 
6x the speed of light, for example. A better star drive will
allow you to explore a larger area of space in less time.
 
A thruster (commonly referred to as "thrusters") is used for
tactical maneuvering in combat. The default chemical rocket 
thrusters function well enough, but better thruster technology
will give your ship even more speed and maneuverability during
space battles.
 
Secondarily, thrusters will allow a ship to move at 
approximately the speed of light in deep space. Too slow for
exploration but useful in some emergency situations.
 
Shields are your main defense against weapon hits in combat.
Shields take damage first, absorbing weapon hits before they 
can damage, or destroy, the hull of your starship. The default
structural integrity shield affords minimal protection in 
combat. Better shields absorb more damage and recharge faster.  

Weapons
-------

Weapons can be installed in the two weapon hard points, or 
slots, of your explorer: forward and port (left), and forward 
and starboard (right). As starship weapon systems automatically
fire you'll notice them utilizing fire arcs in interesting ways.

There are three categories of weapons. 
 
Missiles include guided missiles and torpedoes with medium to
long ranges and varying damage strength. They are most useful
against large and slow targets. Missiles can be confounded and
knocked off course by ECM (electronic counter measure) devices.
 
Projectile weapons are starship guns that fire metallic slugs
or bolts of super-heated plasma. Their firing rates, ranges
and damage vary widely. Your standard chainguns belong in this
category, and offer a good defense against smaller enemies.
 
Beam weapons emit searing beams of light, electricity or 
charged particles at short to medium range and have varying 
damage strengths, depending on the type. The accuracy of beam
weapons can be greatly improved by finding and installing 
a combat computer.

Other Ship Systems
------------------

Combat computers improve the accuracy of your weapons, except
for missiles that have their own guidance computers. You start
the game without a computer, but you can often find one or 
trade for one.

Electronic Counter Measures, or ECM devices confound incoming 
missiles and make them miss their targets. Again, your ship is
not equipped with such systems at the start of the game.

Other more rare and exotic systems and devices exist in the 
game but you'll need to find them and experiment with them 
yourself.

------------------------------------
          Starship Combat
------------------------------------

Many of the aliens you will meet during your Strange Adventures
are hostile, and have to be defeated in combat before you can
explore the planet they are guarding.

You can practice combat against simulated opponents by using
the Combat Simulator, accessible through the Main Menu.

Note: You can view a comprehensive HELP screen by pressing F1.

The layout of the Combat screen is similar to the Star Map. 
Most of the screen is used by the Tactical View. This window
displays the positions of your ships and the enemies, and any
weapon fire between them. It is also used to control the
movements of your own and allied ships.

Ship Display
------------

In the top left corner you can see a Ship Display window 
somewhat similar to the one in the Star Map screen: it displays
a silhouette of your ship or an ally you have selected, along 
with a list of its systems. 

On the left side of the silhouette, the red vertical bar shows
the hull integrity of the ship. Should this reach the bottom,
the ship will explode. Hull damage normally can't be repaired
during combat.

On the right side, if you have a shield system installed, you 
will see a blue bar displaying the strength of your shield. 
When this meter drops to zero, your hull can be damaged by 
enemy fire. Shield strength usually recharges over time.

Below, the list of ship systems is color-coded depending on
the condition of each system. Green color means the system is
undamaged. If it gets slightly damaged, but not enough to
affect its functions, the system is displayed in Yellow. Red
means the device is critically damaged and only works part of
the time. If a system turns Grey, it is out of commission and
may be permanently destroyed.

When the systems on board your ship get damaged during combat,
your crew scrambles to repair them on the fly. This is not
always true when it comes to your allies, however, and if
a system is grayed out it will require extensive repairs that
have to wait until after the battle.
 
The Action Buttons
------------------

The four buttons are for special actions which a captain may
take during combat. The grayed out buttons are unusable until
certain conditions arise in the game.
 
One button, Retreat, is never grayed-out and is always usable. 
While in combat simply click on this button to attempt to 
retreat. If your explorer can outrun the enemy you will return
to the Star Map View. Your starship will automatically leave 
the system and head for the closest previously explored star 
or, in some unusual situations, a nearby unexplored one.

Target Display
--------------

Below the Action Buttons, this window shows the name, type or
class of the currently selected target. This can either be an
enemy you're attacking, or a friendly ship you're following.

When you target a ship, you will see its silhouette and the
bars displaying its shield (blue) and hull integrity (red). 
No information about its ship systems is displayed except that
its weapon hard points, thrusters and star drive are 
represented by red, orange and yellow symbols, respectively. 
If any of these indicators turn gray, the enemy's ship system 
has been destroyed.
 
Tactical View
-------------

The Tactical View not only displays everything, it is also used
for giving orders to your ships. 

At the bottom left corner of the Tactical View are combat speed
controls. You can click on these icons to pause or speed up the
game, or return it to its normal pace. Additionally you can 
press SPACE to quickly pause and resume combat.

Note: Orders to ships may also be given while combat is paused. 

Giving orders is as simple as two mouse clicks. Select a 
friendly ship (either your explorer or one of your allies) by
either clicking it on the Tactical View or using the icons in
the Ship Display window. Then click anywhere within the 
Tactical View. You will see a green dotted line extending to 
that point. The selected ship will then move to that position 
at its best speed.

If you click on an enemy ship, the selected ally will try to
attack that enemy. If you click on a friendly or neutral ship,
the ally will simply follow it.

Orders may be changed at any time by repeating this simple 
procedure.
 
There are a two special features available when giving orders 
that can be very helpful: Waypoints and Formation.
 
If you click on a friendly ship, and then click on an enemy 
ship and drag the cursor across the screen, you will notice 
that a Waypoint will be left behind. Instead of moving directly
to its targeted enemy ship, your ship will move to the way 
point first, then turn and proceed to the target. After an
"attack run" it will return to the waypoint and repeat. This
is especially useful if you have allied fighters.
 
If you have selected an ally ship, you can tell it to follow
your explorer in Formation by right-clicking anywhere near your
ship. The ally will try to maintain the same position relative 
to you. For example, if you right-click to the right of your 
own ship, the ally will move to that spot on your right side
and move along with you.

Weapon Fire
-----------
 
Each starship weapon has a different range.  You'll find short 
range guns (like the default explosive shell chaingun), medium
range beams, long range missiles, and more. Each weapon has its
own strategy and your explorer is particularly versatile in 
that it can carry and use two.
 
When your weapons are in range, they will automatically begin 
to fire at the enemy target. If the enemy you're attacking
is not within range, your weapons will automatically take
"opportunity shots" at any other hostile spacecraft.

Every weapon does a different amount of damage. You'll need to 
read the descriptions and experiment to find the weapon
combinations that work best for you.

End Of Combat
-------------

Starship Combat ends when one of the sides is destroyed or
manages to escape. If you are victorious, you'll return to the
Star Map screen, explore the planet and discover whatever
treasures it might have.

------------------------------------
            End of Game
------------------------------------

The game ends when you either return to Hope with your cargo
hold filled with goods, or die trying.

In either case, you're given a total score, or value of your
adventure. In addition to selling your cargo, You earn money
by discovering planets, alien races, black holes and allies
as well as winning in combat. If you take too long, a late
fee is subtracted from your total. 

If you die your score is cut in half. On the other hand, if 
you return safely, the game tells you what kind of career path
you'll end up on, with your new wealth and status.

------------------------------------
          Magnifying Lens
------------------------------------

For those of us with small monitors (or weak eyes), SAIS 1.1
includes a magnifier that can be toggled on and off at any
time during the game by pressing F2 or CONTROL (Ctrl). The
magnifier follows the mouse cursor and displays anything
underneath it at twice the size, making small text easier
to read.


------------------------------------
        Taking Screenshots
------------------------------------

Strange Adventures in Infinite Space allows you to take 
screenshots at any time by pressing F12. The images will be
saved in your save data folder (see below) in targa (.tga)
format, with names like "shot0001.tga".

------------------------------------
    Save Data Folder Locations
------------------------------------

As part of the changes in 1.6, SAIS now saves all savesates,
screenshots, and other data written by the game into a
user-specific folder.

On macOS, this folder is also the only location in which you can install
mods because of how the macOS security features work in recent versions.

On Windows, this folder can be found at %APPDATA%\FreeSAIS\SAIS  (If you
type that into explorer, Windows will expand that out to the right user
folder)

On MacOS, this folder can be found at ~/Library/Application Support/SAIS
(You can use the Go To Folder menu item in Finder with the path above).

On Linux, this folder can be fund at ~/.local/share/SAIS

------------------------------------
             Credits
------------------------------------

Digital Eel
-----------

Rich Carlson - Design, Sound, Art
Iikka Keranen - Design, Code, Art
Phosphorous - Art

Fearless Testers
----------------
James Ernest, Chris Laskowski, Kevin Matheny, Duncan McPherson, 
Joe Pallai, Richard Rouse III, John Slade, James Sterrett,
Brian Uhrig, Thom Wetzel

Moral Support
-------------
Sarinee Achavanuntakul, John Bye, Drew Cady, Rasmus Ekman,
James Fudge, John Keefer, Joerg Stelkens

Inspiration
-----------
John Butterfield, Fred Ford, Paul Reiche III, Gene Roddenberry,
A. E. Van Vogt

Special Thanks to
-----------------
John W. Taylor, Greg Combow, Hunter Johnson, Peter Hajba


------------------------------------

Copyright 2001-2002 R. Carlson, I. Keranen and Phosphorous.
All rights reserved.

This software is provided "as-is," without any express or implied
warranty. In no event shall Cheapass Games or Rich Carlson, Iikka
Keranen and Bill Sears, collectively known as Digital Eel, be held
liable for any damages arising from the use of this software
