As you travel 'space dust' moves by you -well, it's called space dust for the sake of realism, but the effect is of stars shooting past. Other craft may also appear and depending on their make, they may or may not be hostile. In general, unless you are near a space station, it's a case of shoot first and ask questions of the floating mass of space debris later. While you're near a space station take the time to get the feel of your ship and to understand the instrument display. Your controls are left and right roll, which spin you on your axis. and climb and dive which do just that. The roll controls are tough at first but once mastered provide excellent movement - to actually bank left, you must first roll left and then pull joystick back to climb (or roll right and dive). You can use either a joystick or the keys. For flying though most 64 owners will feel more at home with the joystick. The instruments at the bottom of the screen indicate your forward and rear shield strength, fuel, cabin and laser temperature, altitude above a planet, number of missiles, speed, orientation and energy. The shields and energy are affected by hits on your ship and if you fire your own laser too much it will overheat and fire less rapidly. The most complicated instrument is the flight grid scanner which indicates where objects are around you and is vital in the middle of dogfights with other ships. It indicates whether a craft is above or below you and in front or behind you and whether it should be in view of your forward scanner.

Fighting the Elite Once you do get involved in a fight there are several things to remember and numerous ways of killing and being killed. To start with you are equipped with a pulse laser and four missiles. Additional weapons you can buy are beam lasers, military lasers, energy bombs and mining lasers. You can also buy extra defensive equipment - an ECM system, fuel scoops, escape capsule, extra energy unit, docking computers and galactic hyperdrive. All of these can be bought at planets with the appropriate tech level. The most handy are military lasers which will blast virtually any ship with a couple of hits, an energy bomb which destroys every ship in your immediate vicinity and an ECM system which destroys incoming missiles. Lasers can be mounted on all four sides of the ship but you'll mostly use the front firing ones. All of these are very expensive though and will take a while to get, but once acquired they can be devastating. Even with such power the same basic combat rules apply, either kill your enemy by getting on his tail fast as possible before others arrive. Or if the odds look too great, try and run by making a hyperspace jump.