# The &kasteroids; Handbook

## Introduction

The objective of &kasteroids; is to destroy all the asteroids on the screen to advance to the next level. Your ship is destroyed if it makes contact with an asteroid.

## Your Ship

When your ship is first launched, it has only basic abilities: Turning, Thrusting and Shooting

In order to move your ship, rotate it to face the direction you wish to travel and press the thrust key. Of course the ship has momentum, so you will have to compensate when you select the angle of the ship. Thrusting uses fuel, so you should not use your thrusters more than necessary.

You have an unlimited amount of ammunition, so shoot away. Only limited number of shots can be active at once, though. If you repeatedly shoot and miss, you will find that you are unable to shoot until some of the shots have expired.

Your ship has a limited amount of fuel. When all the ship's fuel has been consumed it is unable to thrust anymore. This leaves you immobile, but not defenseless - you can still rotate and shoot.

Fortunately the asteroids occasionally release fuel when they are shot. Fly your ship into the fuel symbol to collect it.

Fuel Upgrade Fuel Upgrade

## Ship Upgrades

Occasionally when you shoot an asteroid a symbol will be produced. These symbols represent upgrades to your ship. Fly over the symbol to install it in your ship. The upgrades have a cumulative effect, up to a maximum of 5.

The improvements available are:

Brakes

- Brakes stop your ship as quickly as possible. The more brake upgrades you have the faster you can stop, with lower fuel usage.

Shields

- Shields absorb the collision with asteroids, but use a lot of fuel. You need at least two shield upgrades to survive a hit from a medium sized rock, and 3 to survive a large rock. You will also need to have enough fuel to maintain the shield during the strike.

## Controls

The key bindings are configurable via the Settings Configure Shortcuts... menu item.

The defaults are:

- Rotate Anti-Clockwise - Left Arrow

- Rotate Clockwise - Right Arrow

- Thrust - Up Arrow

- Shoot - Space Bar

- Shields - S

- Pause - P

- Brake - X

## Configuring &kasteroids;

&kasteroids; only has a few options, which can be reached from Settings Configure KAsteroids....

Start new game with `n` ships

- When you start a new game, you have ships in reserve, in case of an accident ;-). This specifies how many ships you have in total when the game starts.

Show Highscores on Game Over

- If selected, shows all of the highscores each time you finish a game, regardless of whether or not you achieve a highscore.

Player can destroy Powerups

- If selected, shooting a powerup destroys it. If unselected, the powerup remains, allowing you to still pick it up.

## Tips

Here are some tips that may help:

If you want to stop your ship, use the brakes rather than stopping manually. The brakes stop you faster, with less fuel usage.

Shields are expensive. They should be used as a last resort. Try to use your thrusters to avoid collisions when practical.

Avoid the edges of the playing field. It's more difficult to see asteroids approaching from the opposite side of the field.

## Menu Reference

### The Game Menu

&Ctrl;N Game New

- Starts a new game of &kasteroids;

&Ctrl;H Game Show Highscores

- Shows the High Scores for &kasteroids;

&Ctrl;Q Game Quit

- Quits &kasteroids;

### The Settings Menu

&Alt;S K Settings Configure Shortcuts...

- Brings up the Shortcuts Configuration dialog. This is a standard &kde; shortcuts configuration dialog, which you are probably familiar with. See controls for details of the default controls.

&Alt;S C Settings Configure KAsteroids...

- Brings up the configuration dialog for &kasteroids;. See config.

### The Help Menu

&help.menu.documentation;

## Credits

&kasteroids;

Copyright 1997 Martin R Jones mjones@kde.org

Documentation based on the original by Martin R Jones, currently maintained by Philip Rodrigues phil.rod@ntlworld.com

&underFDL; &underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &kasteroids;

&install.intro.documentation;

### Compilation and Installation

&install.compile.documentation;