

                       FIRETRACK
                          for
             - BBC B with sideway ram 16K -
              ----------------------------

 THE STORY
 ----------
 At   the   start   of   this  (22nd)  century,  the  'Oirate
 industrials'  funded  and  built the Asteroid Belt colomies,
 only then to break away from Earth.
 Negotiations  collapsed,  and  the  'Pirate  Wars'  began  -
 Earth's attacks on the colonies' central trading route still
 continue. This is the  Fire Track, spanning the eight mining
 worlds, separated by CommSpaces, areas  of space filled with
 discarded communication hardware - space junk.
 In  principle, each world is based  on  of  four  designs  -
 'Baseworld', Dustworld', Iceworld' and Mallworld' - although
 there is some variation within each of these design types.
 Worlds are  individually  driven  by  nuclear  power plants,
 disguised as 'eyes' within the 'Devil Rock'  at  the  end of
 each  colony.  Destroying these plants throws the settlement
 into darkness: you  must  then  re-attack in the blackout to
 prevent   the   machine-building  mechanisms  reconstructing
 everything.
 Variable  defence  levels  have been observed throughout the
 worlds including two instances  of  total  abandomment - you
 need only fly over abandoned worlds once to wipe them out.
 A  routine  mission  ?  We're afraid not.  Military  reports
 indicate a 'White Light' opening  out  somewhere  within the
 Fire Track. It's vital that we find it  before  the  pirates
 harness  its astronomical power - it could be developed into
 a colossally  dangerous  weapon.  You  are  one  of  the few
 security-cleared  ex-military  personnel open for Fire Track
 pilot selection. With  your  experience  -  and  a specially
 modified  HatchFighter  - we believe that you can  find  the
 White Light. Flying the Fire Track has always been difficult
 enough - it may well be that Earth itself is now at stake.

 THE GAME
 ----------
 You start each  mission  with a team of three HatchFighters.
 Fly across the colonies knocking  out the power nodes - (+),
 power junction - (x), and computer  centres  -  (?). Finally
 destroy  the  Devils  Rock's  eyes to claim your bonus. This
 starts at 50 creds, adding  50  more  for  each (+) that you
 hit, and doubling it for each (x). These are added up in the
 order they were hit in.
 (?)s  are  the computer centres. Earth Council will allocate
 you an extra  team member if you can destroy at least ten of
 these. Escape from CommSpace,  and they will again award you
 an  extra HatchFighter, if you  only  have  one  team-member
 remaining, this will restore your team-size to three.
 Of the  eight  worlds  in  the  FireTrack, it is possible to
 access the fist three directly - see game options below. The
 remaining worlds can only be reached by escaping from Shail.
 Once a section is mastered (that is,  you  finish it with at
 least three team-members intact), your computer will skip to
 just  beyond  there on the next mission, retaining your team
 and all your creds, unless you re-enter the FireTrack at one
 of  the  early  worlds  by  pressing  the  relevant  key  as
 indicated in the options chart below.
 
 GAME CONTROLS
 -------------
 Joysticks       Left      Right     Up      Down      Fire
 ------------------------------------------------------------
 Keyboard 1       Z          X       :         /       RETURN
 Keyboard 2     CAPSLOCK   CTRL      [         *     UPCURSOR
 
 GAME OPTIONS
 -------------
 Options - Freeze - No sound - Music only -  Sfx only - Sound
 ------------------------------------------------------------
             f0        f1          f2           f3        f4

 Option - B&W - World 1 - World 2 - World 3 - Abandon mission
 ------------------------------------------------------------
           f5     f6(*)     f7(*)     f8(*)      ESCAPE

 (*) = + CTRL  before game start with SPACE.

 To unfreeze press SPACE: To flip between black and white and
 colour, hold the B & W key down as you start playing.

 PLAYING TIPS
 ------------
 While gaining experience,  do not try to shoot at everything
 in sight. Hold back  to  give yourself room to move and fire
 and concentrate more on shooting at  defences  you  need  to
 shoot  at  in  order  to  escape.  Later  on,  more  complex
 techniques will be needed to tackle the semi-chaos and chaos
 worlds.  As you gain in confidence, try starting on worlds 2
 or 3 (Delan or Shail). Holding the fire key down fast-fires:
 you won't  really  need this until later, but you can use it
 anyway. On empty worlds,  stay towards the top of the screen
 and concentrate on hitting the (+) and (x) formations.

                     ---------
                        ES
                      -------
   Space.
