Game Options -Main Menu Items

CONTROLS:

The keyboard controls your character's movement (legs), inventory, and crystal activations.  The mouse controls the turning, view, and weapons' firing.

Default settings:

W|A|S|D or I|J|K|L	Move Forward / Strafe Left / Back / Strafe Right
Hold Shift	Toggle Run / Walk
Caps Lock On	Always Run
Mouse	Turn & look Up / Down / Left / Right
Middle Mouse / Z	Hold for Zoom View
Item Controls:
Mouse Left Click	Use Left Hand Gun
Mouse Right Click	Use Right Hand PDA / Gun
E or O or `	Reload Guns that need it
7,8,9,0	Use Crystal
P	Use Special Power
Inventory Controls:
3,4,5,6	Switch Gun to Left Hand
Hold R + 3,4,5,6	Switch Gun to Right Hand
Hold Del + 0-9	Drop Gun or Crystal
Menu Controls:
Spacebar	Choose Menu Item
Mouse Wheel/Arrows	Next/Previous Menu Item
Esc	Main Menu

All settings can be customized including the mouse sensitivity.  The mouse can be inverted vertically.

 

CAMERA:

Since Ancient Galaxy uses a 3rd person perspective, the camera's position is behind the player character's head but you can further modify its placement vertically (low, middle, high, top) and horizontal (left, center, right, smart).

The Smart Camera setting is an aggressive active camera setting designed to increase your immersion sensation.

Furthermore, you can adjust the camera's proximity to the player character's head/shoulders by choosing the Camera Zoom Level: close, medium, and far.

 

AUDIO:

Ancient Galaxy provides basic stereo sound. You can optionally adjust stereo panning and separate music volumes as well as the master volume.

 

VIDEO:

Supports all DirectX 9 compatible video cards with at least 256 MB of memory.  Integrated graphic display chipsets, such as Intel, should work but will be slow (for these systems it is strongly recommended to use lower resolutions without anti-aliasing).

Resolution: Ancient Galaxy provides standard display options ranging from 800x600 to 1280x1024.

Anti-aliasing: the more samples the greater the removal or distortion artifacts.  Anti-aliasing can be turned off (recommended for integrated graphic chipsets), 2 sample rates (2xAA) can be applied, as well as 4 sample rates (4xAA).

Brightness: also known as gamma, can be adjusted to affect how everything appears.

 

REVERT PROGRESS / GAME PROGRESS SAVES:

Your game progress will continually be automatically saved without requiring consideration. Additionally special save points throughout the game will also be recorded in case you would want to Revert Progress.

 

GAMEPLAY DIFFICULTY:

There are three setting available at the bottom of the main menu which take effect instantly.  The default is Normal.  The other choices:

Easy: reduces the damage you receive by 50% and increases the damage your weapons do by 80%.  It also improves the auto-aim feature of your guns by 35%.

Hard: increases the damage you receive by 100% and decreases the damage your weapons do by 75%.  It also decreases the auto-aim feature of your guns by 50%.

RPG Player Character Skills

Player Characters have 4 primary skills.  The player manages these skills and improves them based on play style and predicted need.  Each of the 4 primary skill controls many sub-factors.  The sub-factor ranges and improvement rates vary by the race/clone type.

Skill Points are assigned by completing levels and occasional and can be assigned for scanning special objects.  Your character levels up in the Skill Training Station.

The four primary skills each have subcomponents.  Some subcomponents are the same for the player regardless of clone type / species; others, identified by the red asterisk, are specific to the species / clone type...i.e. they will change as you change clones.  Further, all skill values except those that govern inventory slots, are randomly generated for each character within its species perimeters.

 

_* = Affected by the Player Character's race / clone type.  Shield Skill variables are the same for those species that are compatible with its technology.

 

Vitality *:

Increasing this skill improves your physical attributes, including health, healing rate, aiming accuracy, and resistance to damage knockback.

Health Points (d) *

Represents the damage your character can sustain before dying.

Damage sources include falling large distances, traps, drowning, lava, etc.

Health Regeneration Rate (DPS) *

How many Health Points (fraction) per second your character heals.

Water Affinity (DPS) *

How many Health Points (fraction) per second your character heals while touching water.

Walking Speed (m/s) *

The speed the character walks in meters / second.

Running Speed (m/s) *

The speed the character runs in meters / second.

Aiming Rate (sec) *

The seconds it takes to return back to 100% of your accuracy. Moving, taking damage, and discharging your weapons increases jitter, reducing your accuracy.

Movement Penalty % *

The reduction to your accuracy while you are moving.

Fear Factor Penalty Threshold (% health) *

The percent of Health Points remaining when your character begins losing accuracy due to the fear physical trauma causes.

Fear Factor Penalty (% accuracy) *

Maximum possible reduction to your accuracy when health has fallen below the Fear Factor Penalty Threshold.

Fear is a bright yellow bar that grows as your health lowers appearing in opposition to your gold colored accuracy bar.

The lower your health falls below the Fear Factor Penalty Threshold, the greater this penalty.

Poise Health Threshold (% health) *

The percent of Health Points remaining when your character begins getting knocked back and arrested when taking damage.

Poise Recovery Rate (sec) *

Maximum possible seconds it takes to recover from incoming weapons knockback arrest damage, when your health falls below Poise Health Threshold.

The lower your heath from the Poise Health Threshold, the slower this rate.

Hit Recovery (s) *

Seconds you're arrested when your shield is down and you are struck by weapons fire.

Aim Speed (s) *

Seconds for your maximum accuracy to return after moving, switching weapons, or being struck when your shield is down.

 

Shield Tuning *:

Tuning your shield to be more efficient allows it to absorb more damage, recharge faster, and begin recharging quicker once hit.

Shield Health Points (d)

Maximum number of Health Points your shield can absorb before temporarily going down.

Shield Recharge Delay (s)

Seconds between your shield being struck and when it begins recharging.

Shield Recharge Rate (DPS)

Amount of points per second your shield gains while recharging.

 

Weapons Skill:

Greater Weapon Skill allows you to manufacture and use higher DPS weapons with lower reload time penalty.  Higher Weapon Skill allows also you to carry more weapons with you.  Once Weapon Skill reaches 5, you can wield a gun in each hand rather than always having the PDA in your right hand.

Weapons Handling (DPS)

The damage per second weapon rating your character effectively uses.

If Weapon Handling DPS is lower than a weapon's DPS, then your reload / recharge penalty increases reducing the weapon's effective DPS for you.

Weapons Manufacture (DPS)

The maximum DPS weapon rating that can be created.

Weapons Capacity

Slots available on your character for weapon and tool inventory.

Reload Penalty (sec)

When your Weapon Handling DPS rating is lower than a weapon's DPS, this is the second penalty added to your weapon's reload or recharge time for each level your Weapon Handling skill is below that weapon's DPS, effectively reducing the weapon's DPS for you.

This penalty is applied for each DPS level beyond your skill.

Accuracy Left Hand % *

Your character's ability to keep the gun in his left hand pointed steadily at your target.

Accuracy is reduced while moving, taking damage, and discharging your weapons.

Accuracy Right Hand % *

Your character's ability to keep the gun in his right hand pointed steadily at your target.

Accuracy is reduced while moving, taking damage, and discharging your weapons.

The ability to wield a weapon in your right hand starts at skill level 5.

 

PDA Skill:

The higher the PDA Skill, the better the strength of the Clones, Stones and Crystals you can create.  Higher Skill also increases your PDA's capacity to carry DNA, Crystals (slots), and Atomized Elements (hg).  DNA is extracted from corpses but degrades quickly after death.

Stem Cell Capacity

How many units of scanned Stem Cells you can carry in your PDA at once.  These Stem Cells can be used to upgrade clones to more advanced units.

Composite Metals Capacity (hg)

The maximum hectograms of Composite Metal your character can carry.  Composite Metals are used to increase the DPS of weapons you manufacture.

Composite Metals can be extracted from the mineral deposits you scan and are released when you scrap weapons.

Crystal Capacity

Slots available on your character for weapon and tool inventory.  Crystals with an effect duration remain in inventory spinning and shrinking until gone.

Primary Element Capacity (hg)

Maximum hectograms of the Primary Elements of Red/Heal, Blue/Amplify, and Green/Power your character can carry.

Secondary Element Capacity (hg)

Maximum hectograms of the Secondary Elements of Cyan/Stealth, Magenta/Drain, and Yellow/Shield your character can carry.

Tertiary Element Capacity (hg)

Maximum hectograms of the Tertiary Elements of Orange/Slow, Purple/Time, Sky/Beckon, Teal/Reveal, Lime/Fury, and Fuchsia/Absorb your character can carry.

 

_* = Affected by the Player Character's race / clone type.  Shield Skill variables are the same for those species that are compatible with its technology.

Characters & Clones

As an archaeologist, you are permanently equipped with a powerful PDA that translates languages, mines minerals, and harvests DNA from your encounters in order to make then use clones of the creatures you defeat along the way.

You also are equipped with a force field shield to protect you from things like incidental falling debris.

All players start the game by choosing their human archetype.

 

Characters:

Jharl, Foreman

Skill	Level
Vitality:	1
Shield Tuning:	1
Weapons:	1
PDA:	1

Special Power: Mirror Shield - Reflect shots back at the shooter.

 

Usar, Engineer

Skill	Level
Vitality:	0
Shield Tuning:	2
Weapons:	1
PDA:	1

Special Power: Double Time - Double speed reloading and shield recharge.

 

Krut, Scientist

Skill	Level
Vitality:	2
Shield Tuning:	0
Weapons:	0
PDA:	2

Special Power: Inner Calm - Harder to detect, resists fear, and takes half damage.

 

Wex, Security Guard

Skill	Level
Vitality:	0
Shield Tuning:	1
Weapons:	3
PDA:	0

Special Power: Sniper - Closer zoom, better aim, and damage bonus for head shot.

 

Clones:

These clones become available to you as you collect enough DNA from the enemies you defeat.  You will use your PDA to scan corpses to acquire the sequence of a species genome and collect stem cells.  Pointing your PDA at corpses and <right mouse click> scans and extracts DNA and/or Stem Cell samples.  However, DNA & Stem Cells quantities quickly degrade after death reducing the amount of viable DNA you can collect, so it is best to scan corpses as soon as you can.

Once you collect 100 DNA units of a species, you can become a clone of that type.  Stem Cells can be extracted from any species (once you have sequenced it) and used to create more robust clones of any species.

 

OHKI

A human-bat hybrid that can detect nearby creatures and see well in the dark.

Special Power: One-Way Shield - can shoot through a temporary personal impervious shield.

Slight Ohki
 

Normal Ohki

+2 to DPS Weapon usage & manufacturability over Slight
+15% Health and Health Regeneration Rate over Slight

Sturdy Ohki

+3 to DPS Weapon usage & manufacturability over Slight
+25% Health and Health Regeneration Rate over Slight

 

 

VIRAH

A tough goat-like creature with poor vision.

Special Power: Fast Reload

Durable Virah
 

Robust Virah

+22% faster movement: walking, running, recovering from being hit, and aiming speed than Durable.

Dominant Virah

+44% faster movement: walking, running, recovering from being hit, and aiming speed than Durable.

 

 

THOOG

A bipedal bovine with great toughness and poor vision.

Special Power: Shooting Zone – runs faster with higher accuracy.

Standard Thoog
 

Meaty Thoog

+25% faster movement and aiming than Standard.
+10% more Health than Standard.

Superb Thoog

+40% faster movement and aiming than Standard.
+15% more Health than Standard.

 

 

RYLLYTH

A mysterious humanoid slaver.

Special Power: Alarm - summon nearby units to your location

Lenient Ryllyth
 

Tough Ryllyth

Alarm Special Power 33% longer, 15% stronger, and recharges 33% faster than Lenient.

Profound Ryllyth

Alarm Special Power 67% longer, 25% stronger, and recharges 50% faster than Lenient.

 

 

AAKASH

A young bipedal lizard whose physiology is incompatible with shield technology.

Regenerates health faster in water.

Special Power: Shield Overload - shorts-out nearby shields.

Immature Aakash
 

Developed Aakash

+15% more Health than Immature.

Mature Aakash

+25% more Health than Immature.

 

 

LHITHISH

An amphibian with physiology is incompatible with shield technology.

Rapidly regenerates health in water.

Special Power: Invisibility - become invisible to enemies.

Immature Lhithish
 

Developed Lhithish

Regenerates Health 25% faster than Immature.

Mature Lhithish

Regenerates Health 40% faster than Immature.

 

 

YSARA

A corrupted version of the Lhithish also with physiology incompatible with shield technology.

Rapidly regenerates health in water.

Special Power: Fear - reduce accuracy of enemy aim.

Minor Ysara
 

Stock Ysara

Special Power: Fear 50% longer than Minor.

Major Ysara

Special Power: Fear 50% longer than Minor and detects nearby beings.

 

 

ANDROID

A tough machine incompatible with shields.

Special Power: Paralyze - freeze opponents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hit & Shield Point Summary of Racial Averages:

Speed Summary of Racial Averages:

Spaceship

You will acquire a spaceship to use as a home base to launch your missions, reconstitute a clone of your character if you should get into trouble, create crystals, manufacture weapons, improve your skills as you acquire more experiences, and create new clones of the species you extract DNA from.

Weapons and Equipment Crafting Bench:

The mid-ship starboard side of your spaceship contains a weapons and equipment crafting workbench allowing you to make unlimited amounts of equipment and the weapons you scrap in the Analyzer.  Your Weapons Skill only partially governs your ability to create weapons using this Bench: it indicates the highest DPS weapon rating you can create using your Bench; but, in order to create a weapon, you will need to have Analyzed an existing one.

If you have additional Composite Metals -acquired from scanning mineral deposits and scrapping weapons- you may add them to the weapons you make which will increase its DPS by increasing your reload speed.

5 hectograms	= 10% faster reload time
10 hg	= 20% faster reload time
15 hg	= 30% faster reload time

Scrapper & Analyzer:

When you deposit a weapon into the Analyzer, it reverse engineers weapons as it disintegrates them.  Scrapping a weapon provides you with its Composite Metals and its schematics.  As long as your Weapons Skill is high enough, you will be able to make unlimited amounts of the weapons you've reverse engineered by scrapping.

 

Crystal Crafting Bench:

The mid-ship port side of your spaceship contains a crystal crafting bench.  Once you find a particular color crystal, you can always create a fragment of that type -assuming your character has enough Crystallography Skill to have knowledge of its family (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary).  Plus using the minerals you've collected with your PDA, you will be able to make stronger Effects depending on your PDA Skill level.

Fragments are the weakest form you can create, followed by a stronger purer Stone, and then a powerful pristine Crystal form.  The higher purity, the greater the cost and the greater the duration and/or intensity of the effect.

Fragment Cost: 0 Composite Metals hectograms

Stone Cost: 5 hg

Crystal Cost: 8 hg

Scrapper:

Just scraps Stones and Crystals into their mineral components allowing you to free up an inventory slot if you need to.

 

Cloning Tank:

Once you collect enough DNA samples, using your PDA's scanning feature, you can clone and inhabit a body of that species.  This provides you with all of its abilities –and a very effective disguise.

Collecting more DNA can unlock more advanced clones of a particular species.

Within this lab, your skills and inventory will transfer to your new body but physical characteristics like speed, field of view, and health will vary based on the species.

Skill Training Station:

This station allows you to improve your Skills by using the Unassigned Skill Points you gain by completing a mission.  Skill Points are maintained if you switch bodies using the Cloning Tank and their effects are scaled to the new clone species you choose.

Inventory & Items

All player characters are permanently equipped with a PDA that translates languages, mines minerals, and harvests DNA from your encounters in order to make then use clones of the creatures you defeat along the way.

Most characters are equipped with a personal force field which can protect you from incoming weapons fire.  Some species have physiology that's incompatible with shield technology (Aakash, Lhithish, Ysara, and Robots).

Your primary inventory is displayed at the bottom of the screen represented by numbered slots corresponding to the keyboard.  The availability of these slots is governed by your Weapons and PDA Skill Level.

Slots numbered 1 & 2 are you left and right hands.  Until the player character attains Weapons Level 5, the right hand is permanently equipped with your PDA.

Your PDA also has its own capacities for storing the DNA, Stem Cells, Minerals, and Composite Metals.  All of these capacities are governed by your PDA Skill.  Each time your player returns to your spaceship with content within your PDA that content will be transferred to your ship's inventory.  This helps to keep your PDA from getting too full and preventing you from acquiring new resources.

If your character should die on a level, the resources your PDA collected will remain with your corpse.  Since a new character clone is created for you on your spaceship, it will be created without any of the inventory your last character had.  Once you return to the level, you should go back to corpse to retrieve all of its contents.  On the mini-map your clone corpse will be marked by a pulsing orange marker.  If you do not go back to your corpse to retrieve your items and scanned contents within your PDA, all of that inventory will be lost.

Weapons Skill:

This skill governs the amount of slot inventory you have plus at the 5th level you gain the ability to place a weapon on item into your right hand.

PDA Skill:

In addition to governing your mineral and DNA capacities, this skill manages your crystal inventory.

Crystal Magic System

There are special crystals that when activated produce a variety of effects.  The effects are categorized by their colors: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary.  The purity of the effects dictate the strength of the effect: Fragments are the weakest, Stones have moderate strength, and Crystals are the strongest.

Your PDA also can extract crystal elements from mineral deposits which can then be crafted into Fragments, Stones, and Crystals.  Composite Metals can also be found in most mineral deposits.  Once you have experience with a crystal element type and your PDA skill is high enough, you can make infinite Fragment amounts.  The higher purity, the greater the cost and the greater the duration and/or intensity of the effect.  These quantities come from your inventory of scanned elements and/or crystals you've scrapped.

Your PDA skill governs your ability to use more advanced and stronger crystal effect types.  Without training you can use Primary effect types, with more training, Secondary, then Tertiary.

Once you have a crystal in your inventory you can use it by pressing its slot number: <7, 8, 9, 0>

Most crystals' effects lasts for a set duration. An activated crystal will spin and shrink until it's gone to indicate the remaining time.

Pressing F3 displays details on your Crystal Element Inventory.

Primary:

Name	Description	Fragment	Stone	Crystal
Heal	temporarily increases your healing rate.	10 seconds + 50% heal rate	15 seconds + 100% heal rate	20 seconds + 250% heal rate
Power	temporarily adds extra damage to your weapons' shots.	15 seconds + 50% damage	18 seconds + 100% damage	21 seconds + 200% damage
Rescue	saves you from death by restoring health & your previous location when initially activated.	@ 15% health	@ 40% health	@ 75% health

 

Secondary:

Name	Description	Fragment	Stone	Crystal
Stealth	temporarily makes you invisible and undetectable to your enemies.	10 seconds	20 seconds	30 seconds
Shield	temporarily generates a shield preventing all weapons' fire.	15 seconds	18 seconds	21 seconds
Absorb	temporarily recharges your shield & health by converting incoming weapons damage.	10 seconds @ 15% health	12 seconds @ 20% health	15 seconds @ 30% health

  

Tertiary:

Name	Description	Fragment	Stone	Crystal
Slow	temporarily reduces enemy gun and shield recharge speeds.	22 seconds - 50% rate	26 seconds - 100% rate	30 seconds - 200% rate
Time	temporarily increases your speed while slowing others.	32 seconds +50% speed	40 seconds +100% speed	48 seconds +200% speed
Reveal	temporarily displays enemies (red) and secrets (purple) on the mini-map.	90 seconds	180 seconds	360 seconds
Fury	temporarily causes sentient life to fight each other.	15 seconds <20 meters	20 seconds <40 meters	25 seconds <80 meters
Beacon	temporarily produces a hypnotic pulse attracting sentient life to it.	15 seconds <30 meters	25 seconds <60 meters	35 seconds <90 meters
Drain	temporarily converts damage inflicted on enemies into health for you.	22 seconds @ 75% health	26 seconds @ 100% health	32 seconds @ 175% health

Weapons & Weapon System

Weapons have many variables governing their behavior and have been distilled to four:

Damage per Second (DPS)

There are two important components to this metric:

Your DPS (to use the weapon)

Weapon DPS (the weapon's potential)

Damage per Shot (D/Shot)

Damage per Volley (D/Volley)

The two components to this metric are actually the equation that creates the weapon's DPS, damage / duration:

D/Volley Damage (total damage a weapon can produce before pausing)

D/Volley Duration (it takes to unload all firepower including pausing)

Accuracy

Measures your ability to place your weapons fire where you to intend.

 

Weapon Families

You will find plenty of weapons in Ancient Galaxy.  After you scrap a weapon and if your Weapons Skill is high enough, you will be able to manufacture unlimited numbers of that weapon.  There are 7 families of weapons.

Firearms

Hand weapons that fire a physical bullet, includes pistols, revolvers, gauss, cannons, and machine guns.  Some handguns have more kickback than others causing the weapon's aim to move upward while firing.  All have a clip containing the bullets and will require reloading.

Lancers

Discharges a energy bolt and are named based on their bolt's type from Rho to Omega.  These weapons have little kickback and use an energy clip to store the bolts which requires reloading.

Reflexors

Discharges 2 to 4 energy balls in a burst.  These balls have the ability to reflect once off of objects allowing the shooter to potentially shot around obstacles.  These weapons discharge are rated based on their frequency with higher frequency causing more damage ranging from Kilohertz to Zettahertz.  These weapons do not have a clip but do require a brief recharge time between bursts. 

Higgs

Discharges a fiery bolt that explodes on impact causing an additional splash damage ranging from 3 to 7 meters.  Weapons come in pistol, blaster, and cannon varieties.  All use a clip requiring reloading.

Arcs

Lobs an bomb that only explodes if it is in proximity to a life form.  There are two varieties of Arcs, a Bomber which explodes causing splash damage throughout an area of 4 to 6 meter radius; and, a Beamer that when it explodes shoots out a single laser beam to hit a single target within its 4.5 to 6.5 meter radius area of effect.  Bombers use a clip of two bombs; Beamers do not have a clip but do need to recharge between uses.

Plasmas

Quickly discharges a single plasma ball which causes additional splash damage in a 1 to 2 meter radius and a relatively quick recharge time.  Weapons' strength is rated based on the discharges strength ranging from Kilojoule to Exajoule.

Spikers

Accurately discharges powerful energy particle spikes.  Weapons' strength are rated based on their particles' weight ranging from Photons to Atoms.  All use a clip requiring reloading.

 

Your spaceship is equipped with two important facilities to aid in the construction of weapons.  A Crafting Bench to make weapons (and other tools) and a Weapons Scrapper which disintegrates weapons, providing two benefits: it gives your Weapons Crafting Bench the schematics to reproduce the weapon and it yields Composite Metals which can make other weapons more powerful.

Composite Metals are found in weapons you destroy in your spaceship's Scrapper and in most mineral deposits you scan with your PDA.  Weapon reload speeds can be improved using additional Composite Metals:

5 hectograms	= 10% faster reload time
10 hg	= 20% faster reload time
15 hg	= 30% faster reload time

Scrapping a weapon already made on your bench yields no Composite Metals.  Only weapons you find on a level will have Composite Metals.