Stunt Car Racer - Manual


It's 2008 and motor racing has taken a new turn...

                                DRIVING CONTROLS

Joystick in the usual port #1...
Steering        left/right
Accelerate      forward
Brake/reverse   back
Boost           fire

Once the car has started accelerating, you don't have to continue to push
forward on the stick.

Keyboard...
Steering                S/D
Boost+accelerate        RETURN  (hold down for boost, release for normal)
Boost+brake/reverse     SPACE
Brake/reverse           =
Quit race               ESC
Pause                   P
Unpause                 O

Redefining keys

During the game, pause and press F1. Type in the keys you want and unpause.
Different keysets are held for different players.

Auto Alignment

When the car is on a straight and you're not steering, it automatically
steers in the direction of the track.

Other controls.

In menus, use joystick or numeric keys to highlight an option and fire or
RETURN to select it.

Practice mode.

A practice session last 3 laps, after which the car will be repaired and
refuelled. More practice laps can be attempted if you want. If in SUPER
LEAGUE, the extra performance of your car applies in practice as well.


                                DASHBOARD

Lap indicator (bottom left)
Prefixed with 'L'' e.g. L2 is second lap.

Boost (next to lap)
Prefixed with 'B' e.g. B30 means 30 units left.

Seperation (below lap)
Shows distance between you and your opponent in metres.

Lap time/stopwatch
The flag indicator lights up when you are in the lead. Top right is a
display showing current lap time. Under this is the best lap time (for both
players). The stopwatch lights up if the best lap time is yours.

Speedometer
Speed shown in 10s of mph (so much for metric in 2008!). If speed is above
250mph, the speedo resets and reads from 0 again (add 200 to whatever it
shows).

                                OTHER FEATURES

Damage

1. Chassic cracks
A crack in the chassis occurs during hard cornering or landings. Should a
crack travel right across the chassis, the car is wrecked and out of the
race. Cracks are repaired after a race.

2. Stuctural damage
Severe impacts cause holes in the crossbar. Not repaired after races, and
if a crack reaches a hole it progresses at a faster rate. Only in division
4 do you get an undamaged car for each season.

Crane

The crane lifts you onto the track at the start of the race and whenever
you leave the track subsequently. Only press fire to release from the crane
when you're over the track!


                                RACING

SINGLE PLAYER LEAGUE

Objective

Become top driver in the first league and enter the Super League.

Super League

You can only enter this after becoming champion of division one. You can now
compete against the best drivers in another series of races, but with much
improved engine power and brakes.

Racing Seasons

A full season lasts six races; all permutations with all three drivers and
the two tracks. You only compete in four of the races. The driver at the
top of the division at the end of a season is promoted to the bottom of the
next division up. Abort a season by holding down F1 while selecting NEXT
RACE. REMEMBER! You are aborting the season, NOT leaving it temporarily!!

Practice Sessions

Use them or die, sucker!!

Points Awarded

        Win             2 points
        Best Lap        1 point

In the event of a draw at the end of a season, the player with the highest
number of won races will be promoted. If that's equal too, a random choice
is made! If you retire from a race or wreck your car, you lose. If both
players wreck their cars, the first wreck is the loser.


MULTI PLAYER LEAGUE

Driver's Championship

Up to eight playes can take part in the four racing seasons. Races are
conducted by each player racing against the computer.

Access to tracks

Since there is no promotion in multi player, access to tracks higher than
division four can only be made by saving games from single player when you
have made it to a higher division. If you're good enough to reach division
one in single player, you can play those tracks in multi player! Super
League tracks can also only be accessed in this way. Remember that if you
load higher tracks like this, the computer racers will perform just as they
would in those divisions!

Save Game

Player names, positions and points can be saved after each season and loaded
back at a later time to continue from that point (also applies in single
player). To distinguish between single and multi player saved games, prefix
multi player filenames with 'MP'. Once you've loaded a saved game, select
'START SEASON' to continue.

Restart Championship

To restart without having to re-enter everyone's names, select REPLAY. To
restart the whole game and return to single/multi player selection, hold
down F1 and select REPLAY.

Multi Player Racing Season

Consists of two rounds, one on each track. A round consists of each player
racing against a computer car. Usual point rules apply. Bonus points apply
like this:
        Best lap time (for human players)       1
        Best race time (for human players)      2
The computer car's times are ignored.

Quit the Season

Skip the remaining races in a round by holding down F1 while selecting to
continue on the next race fixture page. You then go to the end of track
bonus points screen. Individual races can be skipped by pressing ESC during
the race.

Hall of Fame

Contains the track and lap records and the names of the people who achieved
them. These can only be set in a real race, not in practice. Computer cars
never get onto the hall of fame, thank goodness.

Save Hall of Fame

Select SAVE and prefix the filename with 'HALL'.

Load Hall of Fame

Select LOAD and select the appropriate filename. If the hall of fame already
contains some records, only the better ones in the saved version are loaded.
In this way you could load more than one file to combine all the best records.

Load / Save

To go over the filenames again...

Single player           anything
Hall of Fame            HALLanything
Multi player            MPanything

Suggested filenames are DIV1, DIV2 etc. for different divisions or SDIV1 etc.
for super league. Press ESC to abort from saving/loading.
** NOTE: use a BLANK disk for Stunt Car Racer saves!!  You cannot use a disk
that already has something else on it!!  If you do, you may lose some of the
data on that disk!!  Do format the disk before you attempt to save to it,
though... **

Replay

This is effectively an UNDO option if you don't do as well as you expected
in a season. Only for cheats and cowards really...

Computerlink Mode

See, it pays having these 16 bit machines! Connect two STs with a null modem
lead (as in Populous and Falcon) and load the game on both computers.
Select COMPUTERLINK (the first machine to select becomes the MASTER and the
other the SLAVE. The master machine does all the selecting from menus.).
Now play as in Multi Player League!
If any machine locks up, press F5 to abort the link.


                                RACING TIPS

Overtake on straights! Use boost at the start and get as far ahead as you can
in case you crash. When leaving a bend, concentrate on the track ahead, not
the curve into it. On certain tracks, going as fast as possible is suicide...
for example, Stepping Stones and Rollercoaster- go too fast, and you'll go
too far over a jump and find yourself going off the track. On the other hand,
taking it nice and easy on a track like the High Jump will result in a blob
of strawberry jam half way up the support...!
In computerlink mode, you can barge the other player off the track by ramming
his car. You won't get away without damaging yourself, though! One really
flash trick is to crash off the track, and when being lifted back, release
yourself from the crane as the other player passes below. SPLAT...
