Altair-III : Flythrough and FAQ
This is for the storygame Altair-III : Search And Rescue which you can find here.
Several people asked for a walkthrough of Altair. This is more of a flythrough - we'll look at the flight sim part of the story, since the conventional parts are fairly straightforward, and I have an aversion to giving away clues - I instinctively feel that people should work it out themselves! But if you've already tried a few times and still want to improve your score, here we go. We can have a look at what to do at Sagan too, since it's sunny today and I feel generally well-disposed to everyone.
Ideally I would add some screenshots. I might get round to that another day.
This is a long read, so the TL:DR people can give up right here! ;)
A couple of notes on the branching & choices in the story:
The beginning has a few choices:
- Your confidence level in operating the spacecraft (1 to 4) - see text on that page for how that affects gameplay.
- Are you physically strong, intuitive or charming?
- Did you spend your money on something useful, send it to your family, or keep it?
These two will affect some outcomes, and provide a few advantages here and there, but there's not one choice that guarantees either a success or a failure in the finale. There's another way to do that, which we can go into later. First, the flight sim!
(There are also choices to make if you visit the Station's little store, but don't fret that too much. It's mainly window-dressing, but not all.)
1. Starting off:
I recommend choosing level 1 or 2 on the first page 'Introduction'. Level 2 will allow the very best ending. I'll go with level 2 here.
Once you reach the flight deck of the Xenon-400, I recommend this sequence of actions:
- Orbital Nav: orient yourself. We are in the green dot (Altair Station) and we want to get to the red dot (Sagan Platform) that's orbiting the planet. Get to know the data display on the right, showing MET etc. 'Monitor' tells you which spacecraft we're monitoring. The Monitor Switch cycles through the 3 choices. See the Apogee and Perigee of the Sagan. This is important to keep an eye on. As the Apogee dips closer to 100km, it's approaching the point of no return and will soon burn up & be lost. The Altitude of course tells you how far up it is at this moment. It may be swinging upwards or downwards in its elliptical orbit. If you watch it for long enough (try this later) you'll see the altitude change.
- Radar. See that we're still docked to the station. Click Undock and note that the dV (difference in velocity between us & the station) changes from 0 to 1 m/s, since we got a little spring-loaded push as we undocked.
We can't engage our main thruster or use autopilot until we're at least 500m away from the station (this goes for the Sagan Platform too). So we can use the RCS Translate REV button to accelerate gradually backwards. Since I couldn't make the CYS site run in real time, we use the 'Continue' button to advance in time. If you want to speed things up, use the 'Cycle Time' button to speed things up, but watch out that you don't lose track of time. Return it to 1 sec for essential maneuvers and thruster burns.
- Experiment with the other Radar buttons if you like - Magnif +/-, RCS translate & rotate.
- Finally we're 500+ metres from the station. Time for some speed! Strap in!
2. Engage Autopilot
While using the Autopilot, remember that fuel gets used and time passes. (The Autopilot code for fuel & time isn't that accurate, so it approximates these. I tried to make it fairly realistic, but not give AP users an advantage)
If you choose to use the autopilot, there are 3 stages to travel from Altair to Sagan:
- Synch orbit with Sagan Platform - this gets you into a similar orbit to your target, but not necessarily close to it.
- If Sagan's altitude is currently less than 100km, the Autopilot's risk-aversion algorithm decides it can't perform this maneuver and you have to wait for Sagan to climb back out of the edge of the atmosphere. Use the Monitor button on the Navigation screen.
- Approach Sagan Platform - this puts you within a few km of the Platform. It's time to start watching your altitude. If you dip too far below 100km, bad things (or one particular bad thing) can happen!
- If the AP fails to approach or synch: wait a while and let Sagan move around the planet a little. The software's having trouble finding a way to get close. Then try again.
- Dock with Sagan Platform - at last! We've arrived!
3. Taking Manual Control!
This is where the excitement starts. We're out of the hazard range of Altair Station and ready to set up our first thruster burn.
First, READ THE FLIGHT MANUAL from cover to cover! Make sure you have some idea of the 3 main control screens - Navigation, Ship Status/RCS, and Radar. A few basic pointers:
- the Nav screen shows a top-down view of the planet which DOES NOT MOVE or rotate in any way while your ship moves. So the Longitude data on your dashboard on the right shows how far around the circle you are, with zero being the 'three o'clock' position and 90 degrees being '12 o'clock'. Sorry if that seems backwards, but it's the simplest way to use the x & y axes I'm calculating things from.
- Here you'll see circles of small dots leading from our ship and the Station & the Platform, showing their projected orbits if they don't use thrusters to change their speed or direction. As we do our thruster burn, ours will become an ellipse, a squashed circle. We want our orbit to descend towards the Sagan's orbit and almost touch it. We also want to arrive at that altitude not too far away from the Sagan - not around the other side of the planet from it. So that depends on the size & direction of our burn as well as the timing.
- The little orbital dots are spaced 1000 seconds apart. So if you can see your target's orbit dots, you can estimate if you're going to intercept it.
- The Status screen shows two main things: how the ship's systems are doing in %, and which direction the ship is pointing.
- Systems: if you see a Status Alert when you're looking at a different screen, come to Status and find out what the alert is for. If it's serious enough you will need to get out of your seat and repair it yourself, or ask Jallen to do it (she is only qualified to repair 2 or 3 systems though). If the main engine integrity and tank pressure are not at 100%, you won't get maximum performance out of the main thruster. The other systems aren't so critical until they're down to maybe 60,70 or 80% - I forget exactly. But the best pilots will always strive for perfection! 100% is best.
- Direction, or 'Attitude'. Yes, now you know what the 'Attitude' angle means on the dashboard. We start pointing at zero degrees at Altair. 'P' and 'R': read the Navigation page in the manual to understand these. If we point the ship at the 'P' and thrust, we'll be speeding ourselves up and WIDENING our orbit, further away from the planet. So we want to point the ship at or close to the 'R', so our burn slows us down and we drop closer to the planet. OK? Faster = bigger orbit, slower = smaller orbit.
- So point the ship at the Retrograde marker. Note that as you move around the planet, the P and R markers move, but your ship won't rotate unless you tell it to.
- MAIN ENGINE data: check that the engine is still OFF. The 'Main engine ignite/cut' switch controls that. First, use the Main Engine Thrust buttons to increase the 'throttle' to 100%. Hint: When you're at 0% thrust, use the 'Thrust -' button once and you'll skip to 100%.
LET'S LIGHT THAT CANDLE!
- You can experiment and fly around the planet, hope for the best, but if you are trying to reach the Sagan asap, you need to know how to time your burn so you'll end up close to it. You can learn by trial and error or... spoiler alert...
...
...
...
------- Spoiler alert: --------
From up at the Altair Station's orbit, if you do an accurate burn to the Sagan, wait until the Sagan is roughly the other side of the planet from you. Use a higher Cycle Time with Continue to save yourself a long wait - but watch it carefully or you'll overshoot.
------- end of Spoiler alert --------
...
...
...
OK, so we set up the deceleration burn.
- check that the ship is still pointing Retrograde.
- check that the main engine is set to light up at 100%
- check that the Cycle Time control is at 1 sec to begin with
- Click Main Engine Ignite! then click Continue as few times and see what's happening to your velocity, fuel etc.
- If you still feel in control, increase Cycle Time to 10 sec & click Continue once more.
- Go to Nav screen. As you click Continue a few more times you'll notice your orbit prediction path start to dip towards the planet.
- You might dare to go to Cycle Time = 100 sec, but don't spam that Continue button now!
- How do we know when to cut the main engine? We want our Perigee (lowest point in orbit) to decrease to maybe 10 or 20km above the Sagan's Apogee. So, use the Monitor on Nav and see what perigee you're aiming for. Sagan should have an apogee of about 6300km. Remember, apogee & perigee are distances from the planet's CENTRE! The planet is 6000km in radius, so subtract 6000 from the apogee & perigee to see the actual altitude.
- In my game right now, Sagan's apogee is 6302km, and I got my perigee so far to 8799km. I will cut my Cycle Time to 10 sec and Continue until the perigee is 6374km. Pretty close! now I cut the main engine.
- Remember, the apogee & perigee don't show me how far up I am RIGHT NOW - look at altitude for that. They are more of a prediction of where the ship will go if you cut the thruster.
- If you've slipped up and your perigee is now too low, don't worry. Just:
- Cut thrust
- Turn the ship to face Prograde & check that Cycle Time =1
- Ignite the thruster; use Continue until the perigee is back where you want it
- Cut that thrust and relax!
If you are feeling extra confident, you can also try atmospheric braking! It saves you some fuel. But I won't cover that here. Just don't try to dig too deep into the atmosphere, or BAD THING will happen.
- So now I'm drifting down towards the planet, swooping effortlessly like a hawk onto its prey... Watch your white dot descend along its path.
- Keep an eye on your fuel level and ship's systems. I hear that there's a nasty band of dust and debris down at about 4000km altitude and it can cause some hull damage occasionally.
- use the Cycle Time carefully & don't overshoot. We need to be back at Cycle Time = 1 as we get close to the perigee, because we're going to do another big burn at that point. What will happen if we don't do another burn? I'll let you find out.
- I'm watching my white dot approach the red (Sagan) dot. The Nav screen shows the distance between us. My apogee is still 6374 (or about 374 km altitude) and my altitude is 401 km. The Sagan is 450km from me. That's pretty close. If it's further than that, you can still make it, but it's easier if the Sagan is behind you in its orbit because it is moving faster around the planet and will catch up.
- I'm on Cycle Time = 1 and edged down to an altitude of 389km. That's close enough to do the next burn. If you do a big burn too far away from your perigee you might not end up with such a neat circular orbit and you'll have to watch how your apogee & perigee are changing.
- Braking Burn when you are very close to your perigee:
- On Status screen, think: Do you need to slow down, or speed up? You have a lot of kinetic energy from dropping down from Altair's high orbit, so you're moving VERY FAST!
- Point the ship at Retrograde, check Throttle is at 100%, and IGNITE!
- Careful with Cycle Time again. Our aim here is to REDUCE our APOGEE to roughly the same as our perigee, then cut the thrust.
- When the apogee gets nearly as low as the perigee, you might see the perigee starting to decrease. CUT THRUST NOW!
- OOPS! I was pointing at the 'P', not the 'R'! - Cut thrust, turn around to the 'R', ignite. Hopefully you caught it in time and still have enough fuel!
- WHAAAT?? My apogee and perigee just disappeared! - Don't worry toooo much... Quickly do a Prograde burn (at Cycle Time = 1 or 10, say) until you get the perigee back above 6100km. Sometimes the flight computer can't compute the apogee & perigee because they are too low.
- Something went wrong? If your apogee or perigee are too low or too high, you probably still have time to fix them.
- Perigee is below 6100km? Do a Prograde burn until it increases to about 6120 or a little above the Sagan's apogee. Ignore your own apogee for now.
- Apogee is too high? once you've fixed the perigee, wait until you're at your lowest altitude - at perigee - then do a gentle retrograde burn. Apogee should end up at around 6200 or a little more. If you're still far from Sagan, leave it higher than that and you can wait until Sagan catches up with you.
- Something else went wrong!!! Sorry, you're on your own, pal. Just read the manual and sing a happy song. If the cabin starts getting reeeally hot, it must be the AC acting up, right? If all else fails, just start pushing random buttons and hope for the best. It probably won't help at all, but it will keep you busy until the ship disintegrates around you.
- If you've done your braking burn and you're still very far from Sagan: Adjust your apogee until it's maybe 6200 to 7000km (depending on how far away Sagan is still) and wait for it to catch up to you. If Sagan is AHEAD of, and BELOW you, and you don't want to wait until it crawls all around the planet to catch up with you, then you could get dangerous and either:
- adjust perigee and apogee until both are BELOW Sagan's orbit, but just a little less than 100km. This is obviously dangerous. A few more kms down and you'll start burning up. But if you get it right, you should start catching up. If the ship starts slowing down alarmingly, it's time to do a BIG prograde burn and get out of there, if it's not too late.
- aim directly for Sagan (or, if it's out of sight around the planet, aim for just above the curve of the planet) and ignite the engine. Keep burning and adjusting your direction until you can see you're catching Sagan. Then cut the engine and drift. Repeat this, until you're close enough that you need to brake to prevent overshooting Sagan. This is a tricky maneuver! You could quickly run out of fuel if you're on one of the higher flying skill levels. You can use the radar when you get within 1000km.
4? 5? Approaching Sagan:
This can be the hardest part sometimes.
Remember that both the ship & Sagan are orbiting the planet, constantly being pulled in to its gravity and constantly (we hope) moving so fast that they miss the planet. A lower orbit that's roughly circular takes a shorter time to circle the planet than a higher orbit. A more elliptical orbit that dips down and rises high will drop in a curve towards the planet on the way down (it's falling) and slow down on the way up (it's being attracted towards the planet by gravity).
You can separately adjust the two components of your movement (your vector) - the part that's parallel to the planet's surface and the part that's 'up or down'. Try this perhaps on the Radar screen at a magnification where you can see the planet's surface, or use the Status & Nav screens together - they show you the same up/down/left/right orientation, whereas the Radar screen always shows the ship pointing at the top of the screen & the universe rotates as you rotate the ship.
So, for example, if your ship is falling too rapidly relative to Sagan, point the drive directly at the planet and ignite until you stop falling. If you're overshooting Sagan, point the drive at Sagan and ignite until you've nearly matched its speed. If you're falling out of orbit - low perigee - point the ship's nose Prograde and ignite until you're out of danger. With some practice you can pilot this thing like a pro.
Ideally, you dropped from high orbit to an orbit close to the Sagan's apogee, with Sagan lower than you and catching you up. As it approaches, you perform small retrograde burns to lower your perigee and apogee to match Sagan. If the burns seem too sharp, try decreasing your throttle from 100% to say 50%, and always start a burn on Cycle Time = 1 sec for a while.
When you get within a few hundred km, you can use the Radar screen. Here you still want to keep an eye on perigee now and again, but don't be alarmed if it slides below 6100km a little, as long as you're still in control. use Cycle Time = 10 or 100 sec when you're still far from Sagan, just to see how it's moving relative to your ship. Then decide how to intercept. You want to gradually match its movement - its direction and speed - while moving closer. For example, if Sagan is at top left of the Radar screen and moving down to the right, I want to rotate until it's maybe in the lower left quadrant and looks like it's going to pass ahead of me from lower left to top right. Then I'll do a burn until the Sagan's movement relative to me is slower. When it's moving roughly towards me, I'll rotate until it's behind me. I'll do some burns to match Sagan's speed gradually - not wanting to shoot away from it or allow it to pass me. When it's getting close, I'll increase radar magnification and do it all over again, until we're within visual range.
Remember that when we're closer than 500m we can't use the main drive anymore, for safety reasons, so make sure the relative speed - the dV figure - is no larger than about 20 or 30 m/s when this happens. The RCS thrusters are small and can only change our speed by 1m/s every second. So if Sagan is approaching me from behind at about 30m/s at 500m, and I use the RCS FWD thruster once every second, I can just about match speeds before it flies past me.
Avoid collisions!
5? 6? Tips for docking:
- It just so happens that both Sagan and Altair Station have their main docking ports pointing the same direction. If you rotate until Attitude is 0 degrees, you'll find you're lined up nicely to dock. (If you're not pointing straight, the docking clamps won't engage.)
Then you can use all 4 RCS thrusters to edge in slowly. Your speed relative to Sagan must be no higher than about 1.5m/s.
The 'distance to Sagan Platform' on the radar screen is the straight-line distance from your ship to the CENTRE of Sagan, not to the docking port. Sagan is about 50m wide. So when you get very close, rely on visual to drift gently towards the GREEN docking port.
- Watch for the DOCK button to appear on the Radar screen controls. Hit it when it appears and you'll be locked on.
- Then you can leave the Flight Seat and stretch those aching muscles.
---------- SO I'M ABOARD THE SAGAN PLATFORM. NOW WHAT? ----------------
------ SPOILER ALERT - ONLY READ ON IF YOU HAVE GIVEN UP AFTER SEVERAL ATTEMPTS ------
There is one basic choice at first: Do you want to rescue the scientist or the engineer first? Jallen will follow your lead and look for the other one. It doesn't make a huge difference in the end which you try for first.
- The Scientist:
If you went for the engineer first, it may not be immediately obvious how to reach the scientist. We'll get back to that.
There are two ways to get the professor out from behind her locked door:
#1: Get that locked bulkhead door open. This is only possible if you chose a certain way near the beginning of the story. Then it's quite straightforward. But never fear, there's #2:
#2: Talk to the professor - listen to her - try to understand why she would be so stubborn and not want to leave. Try to find an alternative route to get her out. Has the Sagan only got one airlock? OK, so you've found the alternate route. Congratulations! Has the professor brought along her cumbersome baggage too? Even better!
When you're back in the ship with Jallen and the Prof, you have a choice to go back for the engineer. Of course you won't. It's too dangerous! Seriously, check your perigee, because things could get very hot in the cabin if you hang around too long.
- The Engineer:
Tomas the engineer is a very stubborn chap. If you try to give him orders, do you think he'll meekly obey? Try it. Just try it.
Found a way to at least get in the door? Good, that's helpful. So do your best to understand the man & ask questions, despite the tick-tocking deadline. It might not soften Tomas up, but at least you'll see why he's not going to desert his post.
OK, if you haven't given up on him yet, and you want to help him, you'll have to listen carefully to his stream-of-engineering-consciousness as he tries to find a way to fix his main engine's computer. At some point you can decide to take the physical approach and escort Tomas off the ship, or cooperate with him. Note, if you haven't made a habit of pumping iron, you most likely won't be able to win the wrestling match. And if you have, and you do, don't expect him to cooperate too much after this.
So if you stick with Tomas's plan and use your head - and Jallen's - you'll eventually have a choice of three courses of action. If you only see two, then you're on Skill Level One. Sorry!
It's not hard to find the right choice. But if you choose wrong or right, Tomas appreciates your efforts and offers you something that will help later in the story. Take it!
Keep listening to Tomas (and reading carefully) as you find your way to save the Sagan Platform. There are at least two essential details.
- The Bodyguard Room:
So you're back at the atrium by the airlock, wondering what to do next.
Hmmm. So you need to spacewalk to the top of the Sagan to cut through the hull. Two problems:
- what to cut with. Does the Sagan have any tools? Or the Xenon? I bet you haven't really looked around the Sagan yet, have you? Does your ship have a toolkit somewhere? Look around.
- how to get out into the vacuum. After all, the Xenon is docked to the Sagan. Is there another way out? Surely the Sagan has more than one airlock! or do you need to undock the Xenon first? it's up to you!
- If you decide to undock and EVA out the ship's airlock, pause for thought first: You know by now that every time you undock, you get a small spring-loaded boost away from the docking port. You don't want the ship to drift away, do you? You do? You daring fool! You don't? So do something about it before you leave the Flight Seat. And keep your eyes on your suit HUD readout that tells you how far the ship is from the Sagan. It should remain at about 50m.
- So now you're out in the vacuum outside the Sagan Platform. Do you recall where the Bodyguard room is? Go that way.
- If you have the right tool, you can use it right here and get to work. It will be obvious if it's working, but it will take a few attempts to cut through.
- Eventually you can climb in through the hole. Take a quick look around. Get to work again!
- Finally you've cut into the cabinet. I hope you remember which cable to cut! At this point I don't think you can reach Tomas again to ask him. He's too busy.
- After that: Well, it takes a while for the Platform to restart its main drive and regain some altitude. You can hang around and monitor the Sagan's perigee, or explore the Platform, or undock and fly away. Don't worry, Jallen will always (somehow!) get aboard just in time. But Tomas won't join you. Just one minor thing: you can't use the 'Continue' button while docked - oops, I never thought of that. So undock and sit close by if you want to. But watch your perigee and altitude. Once the Sagan's perigee is something like 6200km it's stable for now and Tomas succeeded in stabilising the orbit. You can head home.
- How to rescue the professor after dealing with the engineer:
If you've tried to rescue the engineer (and failed or succeeded) then you'll want to check your altitude and maybe go back for the scientist. At first you may find there's no winning option and you'll find yourself standing in the atrium by the airlock, wondering where to go next. Sometimes your thought processes will produce a solution when you just try something, anything. First, explore the Sagan. In a locker you'll find something that looks useful. Perhaps it will get you through that grey bulkhead door to the professor? Of course, it's not very powerful, but it may give your brain the kick it needs to come up with another solution. Just think for a moment and see what pops up. See the section above on rescuing the scientist from here onwards.
97 - Returning to Altair Station:
- It's worth talking to Jallen and either of the 2 passengers you may have rescued.
- It's like getting to the Sagan but in reverse. Read the Manual.
- First, timing. Wait until the Station is somewhere above you but a little behind in its orbit.
- Do a Prograde burn until apogee is somewhere close to the Station's
- When you reach apogee, do another Prograde burn to raise your perigee
- Then close in on the station and dock. Simple, eh??
98 - Back at the Station:
Did Tomas give you something? Who could you show it to? Do this by 'use' when you're in the same room. It will help a lot.
Voting: If you did give the data chip to the right person in authority, you now have an option to tell people about what you found. This will help the vote.
Also, if the Sagan was rescued from its fiery fate, you and Jallen are heroes and at some point people might listen to what you have to say about Sirius & Destiny.
99: Other Scenarios:
Several things can go wrong on this little trip:
- you can run out of fuel. Don't worry, someone will *eventually* come and pick you up, as long as you aren't already heading for a fiery finale.
- you can get stuck on the Sagan if your ship drifts away or you crash it into the Sagan at a high but survivable speed. Then it's all up to you: if you can help Tomas repair the Sagan's drive, you may live. If not... well... you know.
- you can get too close to the planet and burn up
- you can get too far away from the planet and run out of fuel
- you can collide with the Station or the Platform. At least, usually there's big crash and a result, depending on how fast you were going. But I think there may be a bug in there somewhere.
