*********
                         *Captive*          Part 1
                      ****************
                      *by James Judge*
                      ****************

Ok, due to the cry for help by Sue on behalf of some SynTax
readers, I'm trying to put together a small guide for the first
two missions for Captive. I've already played them through once,
but I just didn't bother to map anything. Now, with a host of
crayons and reams of squared paper, I'm finally putting everything
together for your eyes only. There are a few hints I wrote in
issue 25, 26 and 27, but most of the content of those will be
repeated somewhere in here.

I'm now playing the game on the PC (thanks Sue) so that's what
I'll be mapping the game with. I don't think there will be any
differences between the different formats (apart from the obvious
visual and sonic ones) as the ST and PC versions are laid out
identically for the bases I've done so far on the PC. So, if there
are a few differences between what I've mapped and your ST or
Amiga version put it down to the fact that there ARE a couple of
small differences. If, on the other hand, you're playing the PC
version then put it down to my stupidity. Hopefully there won't be
too many mistakes on my part and if there are they'll only be
small...

The format I will try and use for the guide will be to map two or
three bases each issue and have a small commentary for each one,
pointing out new features, pieces of kit and monsters as we go
along. I'll also digress some hints throughout the course and give
you some of my preferred strategies that seem to work.

@~I've had to split the files so it will take a bit longer to
@~cover the info ... Sue

Anyway, onto the first mission. Oh, a little aside - most people
like to call the first mission 'mission 0' and the first base of
each mission 'base 0'. I find this pretty pointless, so I'll be

calling the first base 'base 1' and so on to 'base 10' then we'll
have the space station of 'mission 1'. Sorted.

Before you get started on a mission you need to activate your
droids and assign them names (I tend to call mine Alpha, Beta,
Gamma and Delta). To do this go to the inventory and select the
microchips that you find there. Place them on the little brain
icon and you'll be transported to a keyboard where you can tap in
their names. Do this for each droid. Now, look at everyone's
statistics. You'll soon see that three have similar Wisdom scores
and one is particularly weak in that area. Wisdom is important
because it denotes how much experience a droid will get, so a low
Wisdom will mean a low experience point total. I find that this is
only important for the first mission, or at least until base seven
or eight as this droid will be lacking significantly when it comes
to making him/her a leaner, meaner fighting machine.

The only way that you'll be able to have a well balanced party and
overcome this is to change chips whenever you assign experience
points (XPs). The XPs are given to the body, NOT the chip. This
means that if Alpha has 1000 XPs and Gamma only has 500 we'll be
able to use Gamma's 500 and then replace Alpha's personality chip
for Gamma's using the inventory screens. Then if we go to Alpha's
stats screen (Alpha will now be called Gamma, but it is Alpha's
body and XPs that we're using) we'll be able to bump up Gamma's
stats with Alpha's XPs. Good or what?

Another thing to do is to give your front two characters Tindron
armour.  At the start only one of the front characters will have
Tindron so using the four-way inventory screen swap two droids'
armour around. We do this because the front two droids will be
doing all the fighting and, so, they will soak up most of the
damage.

That's it for setting up your droids. Now all you have to do is
locate the planet Butre (it'll be the flashing one), zero in on it
and then get the Swan to orbit it. Finally click on the landing
pad and select LAND...

------------------------------------------------------------------

            ************************************
            *Mission 1, Base 1 - Butre (8W 72N)*
            ************************************

This base is really, really easy and if you can't complete it
without help you may as well format the disk now, you haven't a
hope in hell.  It is basically there to give you a gentle ease
into the game and get you used to the controls and show two of
your main opponents for the first couple of bases. It also gives
you chance to get some much needed experience and some rudimentary
weapons (as well as some money).

There is only one level in this base. The first shop is due north
of the entrance, through a couple of roller-walls. On your way
look out for the cupboards in the walls which house some money
bags.

On your way to the shop you'll come across two sets of opponents,
a group of nine little Goblins and some vicious Plant Poppers.

The PPs nearly always come in groups of four and are slow to
move. They attack rarely and do little damage. But they take quite
a few hits, especially in the second base.

The little goblins are cannon fodder. They move quicker and attack
faster than the Plant Poppers, but they are dead easy to kill. The
best way is to find a power outlet, click on it with your pointer,
aim at the blighters and let rip - none should survive your
blasting and this goes for nearly all the groups of Goblins that
you'll come across in the game.

The only other monster you'll come across in this base is the
technician who guards the password to the computer. He's dressed
in a white lab-coat and doesn't attempt to attack you. Until you
attack him, that is.  His head then expands and he goes
hell-for-leather to try and kill you.  I call him Brains. He's a
pretty mean customer for low-level droids and should be kept away
from in the first couple of bases. There's an easy way to kill him
in base two, but for now either drop a mine in front of him or
attack him long-range with balls and power sparks. Trapping him
(as well as all other monsters, come to mention it) in a door is
also a good method, but you may just suffer a few hits before he
bites the dust.

On this level there are a number of things you should buy, and you
should be able to get all of them as long as you sustain little or
no damage and sell all the maps and messages you collate. First
off is eight balls. Give two to each droid and, along with the
front two's fists, you will have no problems (especially if you
use power outlets!). Also you need some Optics and Dev-Scapes.

From the Dev-Scapes get the basic variety (an Anti-Grav that lets
you walk on the ceiling) and from the Optics get mark 2 and 4 (a
root finder to find your way back to the ship and a radar that'll
give you warning of where monsters are lurking). Apart from that
just kill, kill, kill and then explode the generators.

As for distributing the optics, this comes down to power
management. At the moment none of your droids have the battery
power to keep any plug ins going for a long amount of time without
regular charging. Later on in the mission, when you are offered a
wide range of chests, you'll be able to worry less about power.
But at the moment it should be pretty much in the forefront of
your mind. Remember that your leader (the droid with the crown)
takes more power because he is the one giving you visual signals
(and he does all the picking up and throwing of objects). Also he
should be in your back row and, so, only have a human body at this
point. The two front droids take a bit more power, even though
they have better chests. This is because of the fact that they do
most of the fighting. So, give the radar to your fourth droid (as
he has no real power drains and can keep this going constantly)
and the remaining two to your front two droids. Later on you'll be
giving a visor and vision corrector to your leader, so his socket
won't be wasted.

One little note about the distribution of weapons. Only your front
two can use hand to hand weapon (such as fists, knuckle dusters,
power gloves and sword). The back two, if they try to use these

items, will just hit the front two in the back. The back two can
use any ranged weapons, though.

Whenever you come across a new type of weapon in a base I'll
explain what it is, how to use it and what skill ratings you need
to use the weapons. To sum everything up I'll include a little
table which shows the weapon name, the ammunition it uses, what
skill it uses and what level you need to be at to use it. The
first weapons will be Knuckle Dusters and Battle-Gloves. These use
the Brawling Skill. Personally I don't bother with them much. I
only bring my droids' Brawling skills up to the 9 level. This is
adequate to use any of the Knuckle Dusters that are given to you
in the cupboards around the first base, but I find using your
fists and balls (as well as power points and doors) perfectly good
enough until you get to the next base where you can start using
the next type of weapons, Swords.

The Ability Table for Brawling goes like this:


                  *****************************
                  *Amount*Weapon        *Ammo *
                  *****************************
                  *00    *Unskilled     *-----*
                  *01-08 *Fist          *-----*
                  *09    *Knuckle Duster*Basic*
                  *10    *Knuckle Duster*#2   *
                  *16    *Knuckle Duster*Super*
                  *17-24 *Battle Gloves *     *
                  *****************************

You can see that each ability is split into three weapons. Here we
have Fists, Knuckle Dusters and Battle Gloves. Then each weapon is
split into eight sections where the lowest score (ie 17 for Battle
gloves) will allow you to use the Basic variety of that weapon as
well as all other weapons below the score (ie if you had a score
of 17 you'd be able to use the Basic Battle Glove as well as all
the Knuckle Dusters). The next score lets you use #2 of that
weapon (ie 18 for #2 Battle Gloves) and so on until the highest

score for that weapon where you'll be able to use the Super
variety (ie 24 for Super Battle Gloves).

A warning now about doors. You can't get trapped in any doors
(yet) so won't suffer any damage that way. But, in this level (and
further bases) there are shimmering blue doors that slide into the
ceiling. These reflect anything you throw or fire at them, so
don't fire loads of sparks, when you face a door of this type, at
an enemy to have him flake out after the second shot - you'll have
a couple of shots returned to you and this is needless damage.

The same goes for the balls. These suckers bounce for quite a
while against walls (good to test out the stereo sound effects,
though) and so make sure you don't find yourself in a situation
which sees six or seven balls bouncing back at you - this is yet
needless damage, that your droids don't need to sustain.

One last thing for this level - get used to using the keypad for
extra-quick movement. In later levels you will need to be able to
run and shoot at the same time and using just the mouse makes that
impossible and makes your survival chances far less. You may as
well practice on the early levels when a few mistakes don't really
matter...

*************
*The Map....*
*************

The format for the maps will become more regular as the series
goes on. At the moment I can't plan for everything I want to
include, so just keep an eye on the key to see whether I change
and symbols (I'll try not to).

The '*'s denote some form of cupboard. I've shown them in the
corridor so you know at least which corridor sections to go to
instead of which wall sections to look at. Also I've NOT shown
power outlets. It's pretty pointless as they are pretty regular
and if there are any sections that may need some careful power
management I'll point it out.

In further maps I may add X and Y co-ordinates as the bases do get
significantly large as we progress through the game. From about
base 4, mission 1 they stay constant until the space station and
then increase in size after that.

Oh, and I'll also show which way is north. In the game you can get
a device called a magna-scan that shows which way is true north
(as well as clearing your vision from fire hits). But, I won't be
using this true north and, instead, assign the direction you face
after entering the base to be north.  This seems to be the way
that most people think of north in Captive and it helps me when
I'm consulting my maps on paper while writing the guide. You can,
of course, add true north to the maps if you want, but all the
directions given in this guide will be to my north, not the
game's.

Everything else is self-explanatory. The Main Door Combination is
the lock to the door which you enter and exit the base, follow the
number order to open the door. Other 'iris' doors that are present
from base two onwards are opened in the same way. I won't print
the combinations for these as they can be easily cracked by
picking up a dice, putting it in a droid's hands and then
activating it (as you would do with a weapon).  It'll then show
you which button to press first. Repeat and you'll get the second
button and so on...

All the computer and Naitan door passwords are listed, so you
shouldn't have any problems with them. In the larger bases that
may have a lot I'll include the co-ordinates of the appropriate
door, so you don't have to keep typing in every combination (a
thumb-rule, though, is that if you find a door-man (guy in blue
whose head expands after you hit him) he'll drop a password and
that will be (75% of the time) to a near-by door).

PS - You can contact me for specific help on this game at my usual
     address (33 Chidley Cross Road, East Peckham, Nr. Tonbridge,
     Kent, TN12 5BX).  I've now got lists of all passwords, eight
     way and sixteen way switches up to and including the Space
     Station of Mission 3 as well as passwords for Missions 4, 5
     and 6. Also you can distribute this file and subsequent
     Captive guide files to all your friends and enemies. I plan
     to put everything on a disk when I've completed it all and
     put it into the Public Domain.

@~To be continued next issue














                              - o -