RocketElite

By Douglas Beck, Copyright 2001.

Special Thanks for your advice and council: Jacco Bikker (Phantom), Terence Goggin (Dr. CE), Fredrik Malmer (Weeboo Author), Matthew Murray (WialyDiody, Beta Tester), Charles Peach (Cheerleader), and Cynthia Beck (Unwavering Support).

The Story

In the early 1960’s during the height of our nation’s space program, it was decided that NASA’s best researchers would begin corroborating in secret with our military’s finest aeronautic scientists.

40 long years of arduous research and development culminated in the first interstellar spacecraft carrier. This man-made fortress could deliver a small fleet of versatile pod fighter ships anywhere in our solar system.

Enhancing the Earth’s protection, Performing covert operations, Exploring the previously unknown...

In tandem with the development of spacecraft and equipment, training of our best fighter pilots, marines, and astronauts began. Through years of training, heroes emerged from these most select individuals. They would be the chosen ones. Their names forged in history as the ... RocketElite

Single Player

The gameplay in RocketElite is quite simple: acquire powerups, destroy opposition, make planet landings, and achieve mission goals. Playing through the game is relatively straight-forward, but mastering the game takes skill and practice.

Ship Control

Where other games may have had a "rotate" & "thrust" type button, that functionality is combined into one motion. In RocketElite, you simply point on the screen and the ship will rotate and point directly where you are pointing with the stylus. But at the same time, the ship uses the distance of the stylus from the ship to linearly control how hard the ship will fire it's rockets. In a sense you can control the ship with very small amounts of control, or you can blast with maximum force to get yourself out of a bad situation. It may take some learning for some people, but it's a superior way to control not to mention perfectly suited for the handheld devices with touch screen technology.

Landing

Your pod ship is capable of landing anywhere on the playfield that is perfectly flat. To land, simply point your ship straight up and slowly descend onto a landing pad. The amount of points you receive will depend on the width of the landing surface and how close to the center you landed. In addition, it is possible to make a "3-point" landing, to do this you land more like a traditional airplane would. You have to be landing from right to left and pointing your ship off to the left. 3-point landings are more difficult but will yield a higher score.

Ship Upgrades

Your ship has 5 systems that can be upgraded: Weapons, Shields, Fuel, Tractor Beam, and Defense. To view the current status of your ship upgrades, press up on the gamepad. A description of each ship system upgrade is listed below:

Fuel System | Upgrading the Fuel System will increase the total amount of fuel your ship can carry.
Shield System | Upgrading the Shield System will increase the total energy the shield system can store. Effectively increasing the total amount of damage your ship can take.
Tractor Beam | Upgrading the Tractor Beam will increase the strength and range of the tractor beam.
Weapon Upgrade | Upgrading the Weapons System improves weapons range, guidance, damage capability, and weapon configuration.
Defense Upgrade | Upgrading the ship's Defense System will reduce the amount of damage taken from enemy weaponry. In addition it will improve the effectiveness of all the ships defensive capabilities and technologies.

Acquiring Powerups

During gameplay there plenty of powerups that you will find. To obtain these items you will need to bring them aboard your ship. The normal approach to obtaining these items is to fly over them and use your tractor beam to bring them onboard. A second approach that uses less fuel, although more dangerous, would be to fly down and touch the object directly with your ship. In cases where it's not obvious how to acquire a particular powerup, more creative approaches must be discovered.

Inventory

Many items you pickup during gameplay are not used immediately. They will be stored within the ship. These items are shown along the bottom of the screen. The item ready for use is highlighted while the others are dimmed out slightly. To use a particular item, simply press the "use" button and the item will be used. In some cases the item is used up, in others it remains onboard. Also, if you have more than one of the particular item, the number is shown next to the item in the inventory.

To select a different item there are three main approaches: #1. Press left or right on the gamepad to select other items in your inventory. #2. click on the item with your stylus. #3. Use up the item currently selected and the ship will automatically select another item.

Enemy Conflict

Apparently not everyone in our solar system is on your side. If you come up against resistance, there are many successful approaches. One of the most effective approaches is to simply select a weapon in your inventory (assuming you haven't used them all up), and fire it in the direction of your opponent. Depending on the strength and defense of your other opponent, it may take more than one shot. There are other approaches to conflict, and that will be left to the gamer to discover.

Level Scoring

Once a level is completed successfully, your score for that level is summarized on the "Level Complete" screen. It will show your total score as well as the your score for that particular level. Keep in mind that you can post your high scores to this web page. Go to the "Who are the RocketElite?" to see other players scores and for more information on how to post your scores.

Jump Gate

Rather than the typical Load/Save options that you would find in most games, RocketElite has something similar called the Jump Gate. The Jump Gate is simply a way for you to start on any level that you have already played. The Jump Gate is updated with level, ship upgrade information, lives left, and ship fuel/shield levels whenever a player reaches a new level. If you reach a level in a better situation than you have in the past, the Jump Gate will update with your improved information (ie. say for example you made it to Venus with 4 extra lives instead of 3). Keep in mind that there is a separate Jump Gate for each difficulty setting. That means that just because you made it to Saturn on the easy difficulty setting doesn't mean you can switch difficulty settings and play Saturn on the hard difficulty setting. The only way you'll get to play Saturn on the hard difficulty setting is if you beat all the levels before Saturn with the difficulty set to hard.

There is an additional bonus. When you complete the entire regular game, a few additional levels for each difficulty setting will be accessible via the Jump Gate. Therefore, to unlock all the levels you will need to beat the game on all difficulty settings.

In addition, the Jump Gate will allow you to play custom levels either created or downloaded for use with RocketElite. Any additional levels stored in the Custom folder will be listed in the Jump Gate below the regular game levels. Simply click and play.

Difficulty Settings

There are 4 difficulty settings in RocketElite: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Insane. The game is designed so that playing the entire game on Easy is relatively easy. The game increases with difficulty up to the Insane difficulty level where only the most seasoned players are capable of completing all the levels.

Many things are affected when the difficulty settings are changed. Most notably, the fuel consumption increases with increased difficulty. This will force you to use fuel more efficiently and conserve it where possible. Your shield will discharge faster, forcing you to only use your shield reserves when it's really necessary. When landing, you will need to set your ship down softer and softer as you increase difficulty. You will find that on the insane difficulty setting it is very hard to land the ship even once. Also, when landing, on easier settings your ship does not need to be perfectly vertical. This is not the case as you increase the difficulty settings. Other aspects of the game are adjusted as well, but that is left to discover by the gamer.

Powerup Descriptions

Fuel | Picking this up will increase your ships fuel reserves. Once your ship is out of fuel, it will automatically use the Fuel powerup out of your inventory to fill your ship's fuel tanks to their max capacity.

Deflector Shields

This defensive weapon will be your main defense against enemy ships and from crashing into planet surface. Use this item to turn on your ships shields. Once engaged, the shield strength will gradually decrease as your shield energy is used up. Taking damage from enemies or crashing into the ground will cause the shields to drain as well. Once the shields are down, there is nothing to protect you. One side note: if your shield is completely destroyed from enemy fire, another is automatically used from your inventory to protect you.

Phase Shield | The Phase Shield is capable of partially phasing your ship out of existence. Once you engage your Phase Shield, most enemies will not be able to detect your presence. There are trade-offs however, it is hard to control your ship when you can not see it. So use this powerup wisely.
Repulsor Array | The Repulsor Array is capable of leveraging the force of an enemy or it's weapons against itself. Essentially, you can deflect enemy rockets away or enemy ships away from your ship. Different enemies and weapons are effected differently.
LASER | The LASER is a simple light amplification weapon. This game does little damage, but can be quite useful in some situations. As the LASER is upgraded through the ship weapons upgrade, it becomes notably more powerful.
Rockets | Rockets are a versatile weapon for use with your pod ship. Initially they are dumbfire rockets with poor propulsion. With the proper ship upgrades, these rockets have excellent guidance and propulsion systems and can even track invisible targets.
Mass Driver | The Mass Driver is a powerful weapon that accelerates a small projectile to extremely high velocity giving this weapon excellent range and destructive power.
Electron Beam | The Electron Beam is a weapon designed to short circuit enemy ships. One very nice thing about this weapon is that the enemy will take damage so long as he is contained within the Electron Beam area.
Voltaic Pulse | The Voltaic Pulse is another weapon that is capable of wreaking havoc on enemy electrical systems. This weapon expands in all directions when fired from the pod ship eliminating any need to aim. All that's necessary is that the pilot gets close enough to the enemy ship before creating the Pulse.
Bombs | Bombs are relatively straight-forward. They are slow moving unpropelled dumbfire bombs. Although with the proper upgrades, they can deliver an unprecedented amount of explosives.
LAS | Short for Landing Assist System. This ship system will show the pilot his altitude (number shown on right side of ship) and his vertical velocity (number shown on left side of ship). The vertical velocity number will turn red when the ship is dropping too fast to make a successful landing. In addition, the LAS will also highlight the landing surface once you get within range of it.
RADAR | The RADAR is another ship system. The RADAR, when engaged, will display a zoomed out view of the playfield along with flashing dots. Dots flashing white are powerups and Dots flashing red are enemies. This system is excellent for locating enemies or powerups as well as helping reveal the landscape.
Ship Upgrades | Your ship has 5 systems that can be upgraded: Weapons, Shields, Fuel, Tractor Beam, and Defense. To view the current status of your ship upgrades, press up on the gamepad. A description of each ship system upgrade is listed above.

There are many other powerups found within the game. These are left to the player to locate.

Game Design

This game and it's rules were ultimately designed to make the game fun and challenging at all player skill levels. In addition, the score system is designed to reflect players skill level and not dumb luck. If you feel there are things that could be improved, post your feelings to the Forum section, and your ideas may be rolled into the game.

Infrared Multiplayer Deathmatch

RocketElite is capable of playing a Multiplayer Head-to-Head Deathmatch via the infrared port. Any single player level can also be played as a multiplayer level.

To begin a multiplayer game, select "Multiplayer Mode: On" from the Options Menu. You may also want to select a win condition such as "50 kills" or "20 minutes" from the Options Menu.

Once the Multiplayer Mode is enabled, you may see a message that says "Align Devices". That is a warning to let you know that the device is not receiving a signal from another player. Once both players have enabled Multiplayer Mode and their infrared ports are facing one another the warning message will disappear.

Then to start a game, both players need to go to the Jump Gate and select the level they would like to play on.

Rules

All weapons, ship systems, and defensive weapons are available in the multiplayer game environment.

All levels are designed with multiplayer spawn points and multiplayer powerup locations.

The only way to exit a level and proceed to the next level is by the exit condition specified in the Options Menu such as "100 kills" or "20 minutes".

Once a level is complete, the players scores are tallied. Players receive points for killing the other player, for upgrading their ship, and for grabbing powerups. Players lose points for killing themselves.

The score is shown as two numbers. The first is the number of times they've killed their opponent and the second is the number of times they've killed themselves.

Camping is allowed although a player on the move will be more successful. Also, if you kill someone camping something enough times, it is likely that they powerup they are camping will become completely covered with debris.

The game is designed to spawn players far enough apart that cheap spawn kills will be kept to a minimum.

All items respawn after a given respawn time. This respawn time varies from item to item and level to level.

Tractor Beams are disabled. This is primarily to improve the network game performance. It also rewards good pilots. To compensate, some powerups may float in the air to make them easier to obtain. Although the best powerups are usually located in a "hard to reach" area.

Multiplayer Mode

After playing RocketElite deathmatch, you will most likely scratch your head and say, "I didn't realize that was possible on the Pocket PC." It truly recreates the classic deathmatch experience. The deathmatch powerup respawn times and ship weapons and defenses have been carefully balanced to make for an exciting game experience.