QuickStart
This quickstart guide aims to get you started on Astra as quick as possible!
Starting the game
The game defaults to 800x600 32-bit colour fullscreen, and if your video card complains about that then
run Config.exe and select something new (or if you want to increase res and/or run it windowed).
Widescreen is not supported but it most likely works fine anyway.
Once the game starts, I highly recommend players sit through the tutorial. The game mechanics probably
takes a bit of time to get used to.
Then, after the tutorial is finished, you may wanna run through the controls for the players.
You do not need to remember any other players controls, just the one you are controlling.
Then press ESC to go back to the main menu, and choose Start. You will go to the stage start screen.
Press F2 to increase the stage (Tutorial stage is stage 0, once u finished that you get stage 1.).
When you beat a stage, the next stage unlocks. When you beat all the stages in the max difficulty unlocked,
the next difficulty is unlocked. There is no real limit to how high the difficulty can go, so now grab
some frields together and see how high difficulty you guys can take on!
HotSeat Multiplayering
Both players must know their own controls; Then, select Start from the main menu, and multiple
players may join with their FIRE button. Press F5 to start and go!
You may notice with a lot of players, hotseating can get both squashy and practically infeasible.
Plugging in extra USB keyboards can help. I also recommend using GamePads, with the freeware program
called JoyToKey here.
Network Multiplayering
Version 1.50 now has full network support!
To start a multiplayer game, just choose Start from the main menu, and start how would you normally
play a singleplayer or hotseat game. A singleplayer game automatically starts a LAN server.
To join that game, you must first have another computer networked to the first, over LAN, WAN or internet.
Then, you must also know the hostname and/or IP address of the first computer. To get the IP address,
go Start, Run, type in cmd and press ENTER. then type in ipconfig and press ENTER. It should tell you
your IP address if you do this on the first computer.
Once you know that, go to the second computer and select Join from the main menu. Choose your starting
job, change IP from "localhost" to the hostname or IP address of the first computer, and decrease rate
to something lower than the host's rate.
Client netrate should be lower than server rate, as this works better. lower rate value = more bandwidth taken
= better response / smoother.
Then choose connect and you should be in the game!
Note that instead of ESC pausing here, ESC on the joining computer would disconnect completely. Players may
join/rejoin games at any time. Also note that the server may have HotSeat and networked players
at the same time, but you may not have hotseat on connecting computers.
Gameplay
Every player has their own energy bar, which can be used for attacks. It acts both as ammo and health,
as the energy bar can affect the power/radius of your shots, provide special powers, and also
keep you alive. You die when your energy bar goes to zero.
Players try to defend the central tower. An enemy smashing into it will do lots of damage
to every player on the map. Some enemies can't smash into the tower.
When certain enemies touch you, your spaceship turns coloured instead of white. When this happens,
your spaceship is taking damage. Some enemies drain energy faster than others, so watch out!
There are three calsses to choose from. Vindicator, Avenger and Guardian.
Vindicator is a versatile class spaceship, and is armed with a lazer a booster and a minigun. The lazer
is slow, but does not consume any energy. The minigun consumes energy per shot, and the more energy the
player has the more faster the minigun shoots, and thus the more faster energy drains. Vindicator is
invaluable against low-healthed , medium to large sized enemies. Vindicator's machine gun, when
concerntrated on one enemy, is the strongest non-special attack in the game (damage/time-wise).
Avenger is an offensive class spaceship. It is armed with a lazer,a railgun and an particle cannon. The
lazer is the same lazer from Vindicator. The railgun shoots a straight beam that goes through anything,
and does large amounts of damage to everything it hits. Avenger moves slightly slower then vindicator.
It is also the class that can hit the most damage in a single shot, with its special power. Avenger is
powerful in situations where the enemies have a large amount of health but need to be dealt with quickly,
or when there are obstacles on the map and important enemies hidden behind or even inside them.
Guardian is a defenside class spaceship. It is armed with a short range and long range artilery, a shield
and an overdrive. The short ranged artilery is the guardian's main source of attack, and is very good
against clumped groups of medium-healthed enemies. The artilery does constant damage regardless
of the player's energy status, but the size of the blast increases dramatically dependant on the energy
bar. Long range artilery is good for emergency cases where some enemy is far away and needs to be killed
quickly. The guardian special attack, when used when the energy bar is NOT on full, will generate
an invincibility shield around the spaceship. When the energy bar IS on full, it will release a massive
blast with big cooldown time, while using up all of your energy bar.
There is no one class thats better, you should switch as the need arises. You may switch classes
when your energy bar is full.
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