SCORCH.DOC

                            Scorched Earth 1.5



                        - The Mother of All Games -


























                  Copyright (c) 1991-1995 Wendell Hicken


Scorched Earth                                                       page 2


                             Table of Contents

          Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
          Scorch Quick Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
          Choosing Players . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
              Human-Controlled Players . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
              Computer-Controlled Players  . . . . . . . . . .  7
              Tank Icon Selection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
          Playing the Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
          Tank Control Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
          Controls available:  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
          Moving your Tank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
          Inventory Panel  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
          Buying Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
              Selling Items  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
          Equipment List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
              Available Weapons  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
              Standard Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
              Earth Destroying Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
              Earth Producing Weapons  . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
              Energy Weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
              Available Accessories  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
              Guidance Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
              Defense Systems  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
              Miscellaneous Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
          System Menu  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
              Reassigning Players  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
              Reassigning Teams  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
              Saved Games  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
          Customizing Scorch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
              Brief Summary of On-screen Controls  . . . . . . 37
              Main Menu  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
              Sound Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
              Hardware Menu  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
              Economics Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
              Physics Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
              Landscape Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
              Play Options Menu  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
              Changing the Talking Tanks . . . . . . . . . . . 48
              Weapons Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
              Archaic Options  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
          Simultaneous Mode  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
          Synchronous Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
          Being a Team Player  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
          Registering Scorch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
          Index  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Scorched Earth                                                       page 3

Introduction

Scorched Earth is a simple, yet exciting artillery combat game, based on an
auspicous history of artillery games.  Most of the options are very
intuitive, and you can begin playing with only a little bit of information.
Then, when you are interested, you can poke in the dimmer recesses of the
manual for more information and options (or just ignore it altogether!)

If you want to get started right away (and don't we all?), skip to the next
section for a Quick Start.  Note that Scorched Earth uses the full 256
colors available on a VGA monitor, and will not run on anything less (i.e.
Hercules, MDA, CGA, EGA, PGA, etc.)  If you don't have a VGA, you'll have
to find a friend who does.

The following is a list of files that are distributed/created by Scorch. If
you are missing any of these files (except SCORCH.MKT), then you have an
incomplete copy of Scorch!

     Filename       Purpose/Description
     --------       -------------------
     FIX.BAT        Utility to remove bad .cfg files
     ORDER.FRM      Registration form
     README         Last minutes changes and updates
     SCORCH.CFG     Scorched Earth Configuration File
     SCORCH.DOC     Scorched Earth Documentation
     SCORCH.EXE     Scorched Earth, The Game
     SCORCH.ICO     Scorched Earth Icon for Microsoft Windows
     SCORCH.MKT     Market Price Database (automatically created)
     SCORCH.PIF     "Program Information File" for starting
                    Scorched Earth from Microsoft Windows 3.1
     TALKXX.CFG     Comment Files used for Talking Tanks
     *.MTN          Scanned mountain ranges


Scorched Earth                                                       page 4

Scorch Quick Start

So, you want to play Scorched Earth...OK, here's whatcha gotta do:
Start Scorched Earth by copying everything into a subdirectory of your
harddisk, like c:\games\scorch, or by putting it all on a floppy disk. Now
type SCORCH (and then hit <Enter> for all you novices. :-) )

You are now looking at a Shareware message. Take the time to read it and
let it bother your conscience just a little bit. Don't worry, there's
nothing subliminal in the message. (Trust me!) Hit any key, and you will be
looking at the opening screen.  For the first game, we'd like to make a
couple of changes to Scorched Earth's normal default settings. Here's how
ya do it:

With the mouse, click on Sound, or press O.  Then press F for Flight Sound
2 times. (or click twice) so that it says POS. If you go past it, just
click a couple extra times, till it comes back.  Now press ESC, or click
anywhere outside the dialog box.

Now click on Physics, or press Y.  Then press W 2 or 3 times till it says
Random.   Now press ESC, or click anywhere outside the dialog box.

Now click on Play Options, or press T.  Then press T again (or click on
Talking Tanks) until there is a check mark in the box. This means ON.

Now click on Economics, or press E.  Then press C (or click on Computers
Buy) to turn this option off. This will give you a little advantage while
you're learning.  Now press ESC, or click anywhere outside the dialog box.

If you have a slow system, you might want to go to the hardware menu and
set the firing delay to a smaller number. The best thing is to play it
once, and see how fast it is, then adjust it to suit your system. If the
system seems to be going too slow, just decrease this number.

If you want, save these defaults by selecting "Save Changes". You can
always retype them later, or get rid or them later, at your discretion.
Now, click on Start, or press S, and start the game.

The screen will turn red (every player has his or her own color).  The
computer will display a window which says "Player 1".  Type your name and
press ENTER.  For now, ignore the tank icons across the bottom.  Click on
the Done button or press 'D'. (A second ENTER will also work here).

Next the screen will turn green, and display a new window.  If you have a
friend, type in his or her name like you did for yourself.  Otherwise,
you'll want to select a computer foe.  To do this, click on the picture of
a computer in the lower left, or press TAB (you might need to press ESCAPE
first, to let the computer know you won't be typing in a name).  The screen
will change to list the different types of Computers available.  The
opponent types are all explained later in this manual. For now, choose
Moron by pressing M or clicking on the word "Moron.'  That should give you
a chance to learn the ropes.  Then press the Done button, or ENTER. (The
computer will choose its own name.)


Scorched Earth                                                       page 5

                        Scorch Quick Start cont...

Now the computer will generate a random Scorched Earth background. A player
will be chosen at random to go first, and then play will proceed from left
to right. If the computer went first, you have already been fired upon.
Get revenge!

To fire, select fire-power, by using the up and down arrows, or putting the
mouse over it (at the top left of screen) and pressing the left or right
button to increase or decrease power. Do the same with angle, using the
left and right arrows, or putting the cursor on it and using the mouse
buttons. Now press space bar, or both mouse buttons at once! Boom!

That's basically how it goes. You can keep shooting till you get the other
tank(s). If you're having trouble, start over, and set the Trace option to
ON, so that all your missiles leave a colored track. The screen will get
messy, but it's much easier to figure out where you shot.
After you kill a tank, you have the option to buy weapons, based on how
much money you made. Money you don't spend will be saved until later. Try
buying a Baby Nuke. Then, before you fire the next time, press TAB, or
select your weapon by clicking the left or right mouse button on the top
right corner of the screen. Sit back and watch the fun. The tank control
panel is activated by pressing T or left-clicking on a player's name. Here
you can work the guidance and defense systems.
At any time, hit Alt-S or F1 for the system menu, which will let you exit
the game, switch players, or kill everyone! Most of all, just experiment,
and ... have fun!


Scorched Earth                                                       page 6...