Starmaster FAQ version 1.0 (C) 2003 William Ornt Table of Contents ----------------- 0. Legal Info 1. Introduction 2. Gameplay 3. Maps (coming soon) 4. Endgame/Scoring 5. Strategy 6. FAQs 7. Credits Legal Info ---------- This FAQ is Copyright (C) 2003 William Ornt. At the current time I am giving GameFAQs and _only_ GameFAQs permission to post/publish my FAQs. Please do not e-mail me asking for permission to reprint this as it will not get a response. If you find this FAQ on another site (with or without this disclaimer) please let me know where it is posted, and I will deal with them personally. 1. Introduction --------------- Welcome to my Atari 2600 Starmaster FAQ! Recently I was taking a look through the library of information on GameFAQs and found that, to my surprise, nobody had written a FAQ on Starmaster, one of my all-time favorite Atari 2600 titles! So, I decided I would go ahead and take up the challenge of writing a FAQ for this game -- especially since there are still many Atari 2600 fans such as myself out there. :) 2. Gameplay ----------- In Starmaster, you control a ship and defend your four starbases from enemy starfighters. When you first turn on the game, you will see your ship drifting through space (the entire game is done from a first-person view) and the Mission & Attack Control Computer (MACC, for short) at the bottom of the display. By changing the Black & White/Color switch on the game console, you can switch between the space view, and the galactic chart (a radar that displays your location and the locations of the starbases and enemies.) To choose a level at the beginning of the game, go to the galactic chart and press the game select button. The top line of the MACC display will show a letter designating the skill level; when you have the level you want to play, press the reset button to start the game. The MACC display shows several important things: (E, L, W or S): Difficulty level. Also displays your score at end of game. W: Warp calculator. Displays how much energy will be used when travelling from your current location to the selected sector (100 units per space). S: Stardate. Increments by one every several seconds. Shows how long your game took -- is deducted from your score at end of game, so play fast! E: Energy. Starts at 9,999 units. Is deducted as you travel through space (1 unit every couple seconds), as you warp (100-1,000 units per warp), when you are hit (100-500 units per hit) and when you fire your laser (100 units per shot). If it reaches zero, the game ends. D: Damage. Displays letters indicating damaged component(s) of the ship. The full MACC display is only seen when viewing the galactic chart. At other times only Energy and Damage are displayed. Each of the four levels varies in speed, length, and difficulty: Level # Enemies Meteor/Missile Speed --------------------------------------------------- (E) Ensign 9 Base speed (slow) (L) Leader 17 1.5 x Base speed (medium) (W) Wing commander 23 2 x Base speed (fast) (S) Starmaster 31 2.5 x Base speed (fast!) The enemies always begin in the same places and in the same groupings each time you play on the same skill level. Enemies can be found in groups of one to four, designated by one to four dots in a sector of the galactic chart. A bow-tie shape represents the starbases, and a + shows your location. The map is a 6x6 grid. You always stay in the same spot on the chart until you use your warp drive to move to another sector. Bring up the galactic chart, and use the joystick to select the sector you want to go to (a hollow + sign shows your selection). Press fire, and you'll begin warping to that sector. The color of the MACC panel will change to signify the sector you are going to (or the sector you are in when you are not in warp mode): Color What's in the sector ----------------------------------- Red 1 or more enemies Blue A starbase Green Nothing! On your way to the sector you selected, meteors will fly towards you. You can avoid them by moving so they go off the end of your screen. If one hits you, you will lose between 200 to 500 energy units, and your ship might be damaged. You can also destroy the meteors with your laser, but each shot of your laser cannon uses 100 energy units, so you're better off dodging them instead. When you reach the sector, what happens next depends on where you went: Enemies - If you went to a sector with enemy ships, they will appear and attack you one at a time. You never fight more than one ship at a time, even in sectors with multiple ships. The enemy starts out far away, and eventually will move closer to your ship and back again. The enemy ships shoot missiles, which basically are the same as meteors except they glow the same colors as the enemy ship. Just like meteors, you can dodge them or shoot them with the laser, and will lose energy and possibly be damaged if one hits you. The object is to hit the enemy with the laser. One hit with the laser is all that is needed to destroy a ship. It is easier to hit the enemies when they are closer to you, but it is also harder to avoid their missiles that way as you'll have less time to react. Enemies can be hit even when they're far back but you'll have to aim carefully to do so successfully. Also it is useful to note that the enemies only change the direction they are moving when they reach the edge of the screen, although you can turn with your joystick to keep them off the end of your screen for a moment (they can't attack you while not on the screen). You can still bring up the galactic chart in mid-battle, and warp away from the sector if necessary. The enemy can still attack while you are viewing the chart, so you should be as fast as possible if you do this. Once an enemy is destroyed, if there are more left in the sector, the next one will come to attack. If not, the MACC display will turn green, and you can bring up your chart to go to another sector. Starbases - If you take damage or are running low on energy, you need to dock with a starbase. The base will move around in the same pattern as enemies, but does not attack. (You can shoot the laser at it, and it won't harm the base, but there's really no reason to.) To dock with the base, keep it on the screen so when it is as close as it gets to your ship, it is over the X in the middle of the screen. When you do so, any damage to your ship is repaired and your energy is refilled to 9,999 units. Then you can head back to attack more enemy ships. Damage - As mentioned earlier, the ship might be damaged if you are hit by a meteor or enemy fire. (Not all hits will result in damage - you will hear a warning signal if it does.) There are four different types of damage, each signified by a different letter on the bottom row of the MACC display: (L) Laser destroyed. Since you can't attack the enemy, you should go to a starbase and have it repaired. (S) Shield destroyed. By far the worst damage you can take. If you take any more hits before getting it repaired, your ship is destroyed and the game is over. (W) Warp engine damage. Doubles the energy required to warp from one sector to another. Really not so bad unless you're low on energy. (R) Radar destroyed. The galactic chart still displays your location and the starbases' location, but not the enemies. Unless you want to waste valuable time guessing what sectors the enemies are in you should get it repaired. Protecting starbases - The enemy ships move around the map as you play. The enemies in the sector you are currently in or warping to will never move, but enemies elsewhere will be moving around. When they are in a sector adjacent to a starbase, they are attacking it. The more enemies there are around a base, the faster it will be destroyed. When a base is destroyed, you see an explosion (regardless of how far away the destroyed base is) and it is removed from your galactic chart. 3. Maps ------- (Will be here in next revision of this FAQ.) 4. Endgame & Scoring -------------------- The game ends when one of three things happens: (1) You destroy all the enemies (good), (2) Your energy level reaches zero (bad), or (3) You are hit while your shields are destroyed (also bad). To see your score, bring up the galactic chart. The number at the top of the MACC display (next to the letter indicating the difficulty level) is your score. The game calculates your score as follows: If you successfully complete the mission by destroying all the enemies, you receive a bonus depending on the difficulty: Level Bonus ------------------ Ensign 3,100 Leader 4,300 W. Cmdr. 5,700 Starmaster 6,900 Next, you receive 100 points for each enemy destroyed, regardless of whether the mission was successful or not. Then, 500 points are deducted for each starbase that was destroyed, 100 points are deducted for each time you docked at a starbase, and 1 point is deducted for each stardate. Back in the day, Activision promoted many of its games by giving away patches to players who sent in pictures showing their best scores, and Starmaster was one of these games. By reaching a target score at each level, players could send away to receive these patches. The target scores for Starmaster are: Level Goal ------------------ Ensign 3,800 Leader 5,700 W. Cmdr. 7,600 Starmaster 9,000 Pictures of these pataches are available at http://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/activision_patch_page.html? PatchName=Starmaster%20&ImageName=StarmasterSupreme and http://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/activision_patch_page.html? PatchName=Starmaster%20Chevrons&ImageName=StarmasterChevrons (remove the spaces in the above links) Activision no longer makes these or gives them out, but I guess you could print out the pictures and pin them to your shirt when you've earned the right to. :P 5. Strategy ----------- Starmaster is one of those games where there really isn't a single best strategy, but there are some things you should obviously do. If there are several enemies surrounding a starbase, attack them first. If not, go for the enemies closest to your current location, since you want to save your energy and dock as few times as possible. When your shields are damaged, go straight back to your base and get it repaired. Since you took a hit to get that damage, you really can't think that you'll be able to avoid taking any more hits. Don't dock too early if you don't need to, but save enough energy to destroy the ships in the sector you go to. You should have at least 500 energy per enemy, after warping, plus several hundred more to get back to a base. If you aren't sure, you're better safe than sorry. Dodge the meteors on Ensign and Leader levels. On Wing commander and Starmaster levels, you may have to destroy some of the meteors with the laser because they can't be avoided due to the speed. Try to get the enemies while they're far away. It's tough, but you'll be less likely to get hit than if you let them come right up to you. Finally, if you play on an emulator, try pressing up and down at the same time. The screen will move WAY up and down repeatedly as you do this, essentially guaranteeing that you'll dodge the meteors and enemy fire. (OK, that's kind of cheating, but hey...) 6. FAQs ------- Q: What do the different explosion colors mean? A: Red explosions occur when you destroy an enemy, and blue explosions happen when you destroy a meteor or enemy missile. Yellow explosions mean either you were hit, or a starbase was just destroyed. Q: Why is the MACC display flashing yellow? A: This means you have below 1,000 units of energy remaining and should probably go back to a starbase. Q: All four starbases got destroyed, now what? A: Now you probably lose, since you can't refuel or repair anymore. Q: How come the colors change when I leave the game on without playing? A: That's a "screen-saver" type feature built into most of Activision's Atari 2600 titles. I dunno how effective it is at protecting your TV screen, since all the same images stay in the same places, but it's fun to watch everything turn weird looking colors. 7. Credits ---------- Besides myself (WilliamPorygon), I'd like to thank everyone else who made this FAQ possible: - CJayC, for posting this on his site - AtariAge.com, for the pictures of the Starmaster patches - Atariguide.com, for the original instructions from the Starmaster game - All the dedicated Atari 2600 fans out there ^_^ Feel free to contact me through my e-mail or the GameFAQs boards with any questions, comments, or anything else you may want to say regarding my FAQ.