GRAVITY TIPS Typed in by SIDEWINDER. Edited by PARAISTE. THE ARCADE GAME As well as the usual requirements for success in an arcade game, fast reactions and good hand-eye co-ordination, GRAVITY requires you to think strategicallly as well. For example, in the use of the remote craft available to you. Never forget that when you are under pressure a couple of drones properly used can often take the heat off long enough to get the job done and run away. Drones are cheap, expendable and commonly available so you can always buy more. If your flagship is ever destroyed while you have unlaunched drones on board then you have made a mistake. They are good at their jobs, but make sure that you keep your distance when they are operating as they have a tendancy to get a little trigger happy and may end up shooting you accidently. This is unfortunately very often fatal. Stay out of their way and if they survive the encounter they'll return for docking later. Upon entry to a system I would suggest you release at least two drones, with one running Flyfree and the other running Interdict. Flyfree will attempt to polish of any Outies currently present and then return to protect your scout while Interdict will orbit the singularity to await the appearance of any Outie fleets, an occurence more frequent towards the End Game. When you come to consider the possibility of writing your own DDPs I would suggest that, as a matter of priority, you write a program to pursue and eradicate any Outie engineers in the system. Before I wrote such a program it was only too common that while I was engaged by Outie warships an Outie engineer would sneak in and collapse the sun. Thus necessitating the waste of a RED that I could ill afford. MISSILES Using missiles properly requires you to thoroughly understand all the capabilities and quirks of the individual missile sub-systems. Make sure you don't ever attempt to use missiles on Outie craft below the size of a bomber. The smaller Outie craft are manoeuverable enough to continually dodge and out-run even homing missiles. If you are using the Shafter warhead, don't use missiles on any Outie craft within four squares of your position. The gravitational field that the Shafter generates will almost certainly catch your scoutcraft too and then it's goodnight sweetheart. Free flying missiles are only really useful against the very largest Outie ships, Control/Engineering platforms and Carriers, although enough to take out a cloud of Swarmers, if they are bunched closely enough. The other crucial skill in the arcade section is the proper use of the radar displays, remember that you may shoot Outies before they appear on the grid. If you can learn to shoot them by estimating their position from the radar before they appear on the grid, then they are less likely to get you. TACTIC AND LOGISTIC SKILLS It is essential that your ships are equipped adequately to suit all stages of the game. As the game progresses the Outies will begin to seed more and more systems with Varsings Generators. So by this stage you will require a Black Globe generator which is the only real defence you have against them. You cannot rely on constantly dodging them and failing to dodge them is invariably fatal. I would also suggest that as soon as possible you buy yourself a Meson Cannon to replace the Nova Gun in slot 1 (Move the Nova Gun to slot 4 then, when you've launched missiles, it will shuffle up to be accessible by the second fire button). As a personal preference why not replace the Orion Drive in the second slot with a Russard Ramjet as soon as possible, since Orion is rather clumsy and slow. STRATEGY The strategic part of the game effectively occurs in three stages and is necessary to comprehend how these stages are differentiated and when you will need to change your tactics to suit. 1: COLONISATION At the beginning of the game you will need to establish five or six colonies otherwise you will not have enough revenue to begin the hunt for Outies in earnest. This may often be achieved merely by following the orders given by StarCom. Establishing colonies using the flagship allows you to keep to the limited budget you have at the beginning of the game for other things. Remember Flagship missions are free! Also at this stage try and keep your collapsar jumps as short as possible. The further you jump the longer it takes and the more time elapses, the further the Outies will be able to expand. This is also the best time to interrogate the cube. Make a note of any singularities you come across. At this early stage in the game there should not be very many so your chances of discovering the Outie home base are significantly better they will be at a later stage. 2: THE HUNT FOR THE OUTIES Assuming that you have'nt had the good fortune to find the Outie home base in stage 1 (rare but not unknown) we now begin the hunt for real. In stage 2 you should use most of your budget on Explore orders. The sooner you find the Outie home base the longer you will have to get them before they get you. When considering where to explore I would suggest that you start at the sector furthest away from StarCom and move in a logical order towards your base. You should also begin sending your scouts to those systems you noted during stage 1 which had singularities instead of suns at their centre. There is a very good chance one of them is home base. As you discover Outie colonies you may find it worthwhile to take them over. If you can keep the Outie budget low, you will slow them down. If you find an Outie fleet always take it out. If your arcade skills are up to it try doing it yourself to free your other scouts for exploration and conquest. 3: REMOVING OUTIE HOME BASES Once you have found an Outie home base the game is by no means over. More often than not I have lost in the attempt to take over but here are a few useful pointers. Firstly, if you have enough Scouts left, it's a good idea to send in five or six to soften up the Outie defence forces. Immediately after issuing these orders establish in your Tool Tubes 3 RED's set to 'GAS IGN'. When two or three of your marauding fleets have arrived in a system go there yourself. Head towards the second singularity in the system shooting anything you have to but avoiding as much trouble as possible. If in doubt run away. When you reach the second singular hover just outside the event horizon and wait until an Outie comes to get you. Shoot him and immediately drop a RED. Run away (on no account fall into the singularity). Should this fail the first time you fortunately still have two RED's preprogrammed so try again. If you should happen to lose StarCom to the Outies it is still possible to recolonise the system and re-establish StarCom but it is often very difficult. Once the Outies have discovered StarCom they will pile in all available fleets. This does however mean that it is possible at this stage to win the game merely by defending StarCom and destroying every Outie fleet that appears. Indeed if you have allowed the Outies to expand too successfully this may be the only way of winning. End.