Documentation Project

Rationale

The aim of this project is partly that the game should be clearly documented for my own purposes, and also that I should share my knowledge with other people. Thus anyone can write utilities for use with the game, if they feel so inclined.

The secondary reason for the project is that the game manual and packaging, now out of print, should be preserved for future Star Fighter 3000 players. This would particularly apply to those playing the game on emulators in the future.

Having a game manual in electronic format also has the advantage that it may be indexed (which it is) and searched in a text editor. The text may be read on screen without player digging out their game box. This is particularly applicable now that the floppy disc no longer needs to be inserted for copy protection validation.

Available documents

File formats (for authors of game editors)
Printed manual
File structure (only of interest to hackers)
Reserved
Level passwords
Hidden bonuses
Cheat codes
Compression format

The level passwords and hidden bonus lists are both comprehensive, having been automatically generated.

Latest release

30th August 2020

Changes since last release

Corrected the maximum number of ground object triggers in a mission file from 256 to 64.
Corrected the description of the target information points count at offset 3876 in a mission file.
Corrected the description of big ship motion at offset 30 in a mission file's ship definition.
Documented ground object trigger types 0 and 7 in a mission file.
Corrected the scale of ground object trigger coordinates.
Corrected the description of the start-docked byte at offset 23 in a mission file.
Corrected the description of all laser/missile/fighter launch probabilities.

Download

You can download a 35 KB Zip archive containing all six of the above documents. Also available is a 54 KB Zip archive containing a StrongHelp manual, APCS veneer, and test programs demonstrating use of the relocatable module that is used to play sound effects and music.