AD LUNAM v0.1
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Welcome to AD LUNAM, a simulation/management game for the 48K ZX Spectrum where you are put in charge of the space program of either the United States or the Soviet Union. It is the spring of 1955 and your aim is to send a citizen of your country on the Moon within 20 years.

Each year you are allocated an amount of funds. These will be needed to research and build materials and structures and train your pilots. Expenses will be higher as the space program goes on, so you will need to receive more funds. The only way to increase the yearly fund amount is to increase your prestige. This can be done by completing research on new materials and, especially, performing successful missions. Inconvenients and failures will decrease your prestige instead.

PLEASE NOTE: This is an experimental version of the game, made for evaluation purposes. It is intended to give users an overall idea of what the final product will be. Several features are still incomplete or have not yet been implemented, and bugs may be present.

Choose your nation
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At game start you have to choose the nation you wish to work for, between the United Stated and the Soviet Union. Press 1 for the former and 2 for the latter.

Differences in gameplay are mainly related to the materials. Generally speaking, American materials are more expensive but also more reliable (at least on paper!), and their rockets are less powerful than those of their counterpart. Soviet rockets have a higher payload but their spacecrafts tend to be heavier and less reliable than American ones, and need more testing "on the field" as a result.

Americans and Soviets, when played by the computer, might also choose different paths in order to conduct their research, especially when planning how to reach the Moon.

Main menu
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The game time is divided in turns of 3 months each. During each turn you are able, most of the times as long as you have the funds to do it, to perform various actions. All of them are accessed through the main menu.

In the main menu, as in many of the game's other sections, you will be presented a list of options. Press the number corresponding to the desidered option to choose it.

Information
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Shows the current funds and prestige and a record of your missions, including milestones (see "Missions").

Research
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Research and development of new material. To start a research program you must have the funds to pay for the prototype and for at least one technician. Building a prototype is more expensive than ordering an already, even not fully, researched material.

The name of each material is given between parenthesis (American/Soviet).

Satellite/probe:
- Earth orbit satellite (Explorer/Sputnik)
- Lunar orbit satellite (Ranger/Kosmos)
- Lunar probe (Surveyor/Lunik)

Manned spacecrafts:
- 1-seat capsule (Mercury/Vostok)
- 2-seat capsule (Gemini/Voskhod); can carry an 1-seat lunar module to the Moon
- 3-seat capsule (Apollo/Soyuz); can carry a 2-seat lunar module to the Moon
- 4-seat reusable mini-shuttle (XMS-2/Spiral); can carry a 2-seat lunar module to the Moon; can be relaunched if not heavily damaged during a mission
- 4-seat lunar craft (Jupiter/LK-700); lands directly on the Moon

Lunar modules:
- 1-seat LM (LM-1/LK)
- 2-seat LM (LEM/LKM)

Rockets:
- Light (Atlas/R7): a low-cost carrier for lighter spacecraft
- Medium (Titan/Proton): a medium carrier which can carry a manned capsule
- Heavy (Saturn/N1): a carrier with a large payload, suitable for lunar missions
- Super (Nova/UR-700): the most powerful and expensive rocket, needed to send a lunar craft to the Moon
- Booster/Auxiliary stage: can be attached to every carrier rocket except super ones, in order to increase the payload

Other:
- EVA suit: needed for space walks and manned lunar missions
- Service modules A/B: must be attached to 2/3-seat capsules on lunar missions
- Docking module: needed to connect a lunar module to another spacecraft

Materials have the following specifications:
- Initial cost for the prototype; payed only at project start; produces an usable and researchable prototype
- Cost per unit; payed for every unit manufactured 
- Cost per technician; how much should you pay each technician working at the project
- Maximum amount of efficiency reachable through R&D only
- Maximum amount of efficiency reachable
- Mass
- Quantity of material in stores
- Current R&D
- Current efficiency

Rockets have a further specification:
- Payload: the maximum total mass that it can carry.

To research and develop new material, choose it first, then choose how many technicians you want to work on this project for this turn. You can only reach a certain maximum amount of efficiency through R&D. To further increase the efficiency to the maximum available for that material, you must employ it in an actual mission. Every successful mission will increase it to a further 1%.

Materials
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Visualize your materials and order new ones, provided that you have researched them first, even not to the maximum.

Press 1 to see a list of materials. Numbers on the right indicate the quantity, prototype cost, cost per unit and current efficiency of each one of them. You can also see the current amount of funds.

Press 2 to see your current orders.

In the materials list screen, press 1 to order a piece of material. Choose the number on the left of the material's name and then confirm or cancel your order.

Pilots
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Pilots are needed for manned flights. There are a total of 15 pilots available. They are recruited in groups of 5 at a time and must be trained before being sent into space. You can train a pilot in an ability each time. Abilities are divided into basic and advanced and need a basic and advanced training center respectively, which you must build (see "Structures").

Basic abilities:
- Capsule piloting (CP): needed for the capsules
- Extra-vehicular activity (EV): needed for every kind of EVA
- Docking (DO): needed for lunar missions with lunar modules

Advanced abilities:
- Advanced piloting (AP): needed for the lunar modules, shuttle and lunar craft
- Endurance (EN): needed for lunar missions

The status (ST) can be one of the following:
- A: Available
- T: Under training
- M: Chosen for a mission
- I: Injured

Deceased pilots are not shown on the list.

You need 2 turn for basic training and 3 for advanced training. An injured pilot will need 2 turns to recover.

Abilities are expressed by a number going from 1 (worst) to 9 (best). An ability can be trained multiple times until it reaches the maximum.

Structures
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Structures are needed to perform certain tasks.

Launch pads will let you launch rockets. You can have a maximum of 3; one is already built at game start. If you have at least one launch pad available, you can allocate it to a mission. They are always chosen automatically according to their status. E.g. if you have two launch pads and launch pad 1 is unavailable, you can always plan a new mission, which will start from launch pad 2.

If a rocket or booster explodes during liftoff the launch pad will be damaged and will be restored in 2 turns.

Training facilities are the places for training your pilots. A basic one is already available at game start. You must build an advanced facility in order to train advanced abilities as well.

Assembling facilities put all the materials together for each mission. A large assembling facility is necessary to employ heavy and super carrier rockets.

Laboratories have the purpose of conducting research. Advanced spacecraft - lunar modules, shuttle, lunar craft - require an advanced lab to be researched. The advanced labs will also provide a bonus to your research, as if you had one free technician in addition to those you assign to each project.

On selecting this option, you will be presented a list of structures, together with their status. If a structure has not yet been built, its cost is shown instead. Enter the number of the structure you wish to build and, if you have enough funds, you will be shown the number of turns necessary for it to be built. Press 1 to confirm or 0 to cancel.

Missions
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Here you can plan a new mission and review your scheduled missions. You can only plan a new mission if there is at least one launch pad available. Scheduled missions will be carried out at the end of the turn.

Press 1 to plan a new mission. You will be asked:
- which spacecraft you want to fly;
- your destination;
- the rocket carrier you wish to use, and if you wish to add boosters/auxiliary stages;
- if the spacecraft can be manned (except for 1-seat capsules) and your destination is not a moon landing, you will be asked if you wish to perform an EVA. If yes, an EVA suit will be added to the mission's material. 1-seat capsules do not allow for EVAs, while moon landing missions require EVA suits by default;
- if the spacecraft can be manned, you will be asked if you wish to add a crew. Spacecraft can be remote controlled for testing purposes, but you must actually send people on the moon to win the game! Select your pilots, provided they are available and have been trained accordingly.

Some missions are marked as "milestones". They will give you a prestige bonus if you accomplish them before your opponents, while if the other side manages to successfully complete them before you, your prestige will decrease. They are six:
- Artificial satellite in Earth orbit
- Manned Earth orbital flight
- Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) in Earth orbit
- Artificial satellite in lunar orbit
- Probe landing on the Moon
- Manned lunar orbit flight

They will also give a -6% efficiency penalty each to your mission if you do not achieve them in that order before attempting a more complex mission. For instance, if you attempt to send a satellite in lunar orbit without performing all of the three previous missions (even not as a first time), you will suffer an efficiency penalty of -6 * 3 = -18%.

Save/Load
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[Not implemented in this version]

End turn
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Ends the current turn and carries out the scheduled missions, if any.

For each mission, you will have to press a key in the mission control screen as every step is reached. Each mission is composed by a variable number of steps, from a simple earth orbit satellite launch, to the manned lunar mission. If everything goes right, the material employed will increase its efficiency of a further 1%, until the maximum is reached. Your prestige will also increase.

Should there be any problems during the flight, they can be more or less serious, depending from the efficiency percentage of the affected material. Higher percentages will decrease the chances of malfunctions. If the flight is manned, your pilot(s)'s abilities could also help preventing malfunctions. For instance, a pilot with a high capsule piloting skills can avert a problem with his spacecraft, or make it less serious. In this case you will have the choice to carry on with the mission, at the cost of a slight decrease in the affected material's efficiency and your prestige, or call it back to Earth.

Under the worst circumstances, crew members can be injured or even killed. This means that the mission must immediately return to Earth, even if its objectives have not yet been reached. Such events will also negatively affect the efficiency percentage of the material involved and your prestige.

A malfunction can occur after a mission's goals have been reached. It can still be considered accomplished if the problem is not serious and you decide to continue. If a crew member is injured or dead, it will be regarded as "partially accomplished". Notice that to win the game, your pilots must return from the Moon unscathed - even if you perform a successful lunar EVA, you won't win if a malfunction occurs later and one of your pilots is injured or dies. You will win if the malfunction does not harm your pilots.

If a malfunction occurs during the early stages of a mission, e.g. if the rocket fails to lift off or even explodes, the mission will always be regarded as a failure.

After this phase, a secret service report will appear, in order to let you understand which direction your opponents are following. Be careful though, sometimes they can be misleading.

If the year ends, you will receive a message from the government, reflecting their perception of your performance.

At the end of this part of the game, you might receive some unexpected news. Some could have a positive impact on your endeavor. Some, on the other hand, might hinder your efforts.

The game then goes back to the main menu, unless it's the spring of 1976, in which case, you lose. You will also lose, of course, if your opponents manage to walk on the Moon and come back successfully.