XOP Ultra (c) Christopher Emirzian

E-mail : udderdude000@hotmail.com
Web    : http://rydia.net/udder/prog/xop/

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Main Menu

Set 1/Set 2  : Switches between set 1 and set 2 course.
Start Game   : Starts a new game.
Score Attack : Brings up the Score Attack screen.
Extras       : Brings up the Extras screen.
Options      : Brings up the Options screen.
Scores       : Brings up the highscore listings.
Credits      : Shows the XOP cast and crew.
Quit         : Quits XOP

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Controlling XOP

XOP will set the first joystick it finds as your control by default.
If it doesn't find a joystick, it will use the keyboard.
Even if the joystick is being used, the keyboard controls will still be useable.

Keyboard controls

Arrow Keys=Up, Down, Left, Right
Z=Fire 1
X=Fire 2
C=Fire 3

ESC=Return to Main Menu
Screen Shot=F12

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Playing XOP

When you start the game, you can choose two secondary weapons.
Each weapon has several stats.

Power  : The amount of damage the weapon will do.
Range  : The area you can cover with the weapon. 
Target : The reccomended target for the weapon.  Single weapons work best against single 
         enemies like bosses.  Multi weapons work best against large groups of 
         smaller enemies.  Mixed weapons work against both types.
Type   : The weapon's shot type.  Impact shots will collide with enemies and explode.
         Pierce shots will pass through enemies.

Bots: Four simple drones that move around your ship and fire when you do.
Velocity Cannon: Shoots a small bomb that explodes in five shots.
Spread Laser: Shoots continously in an arc.
Missiles: Goes straight forward, explodes.  Whee.
Implosion: High-powered gravity beam that surrounds an enemy and crushes it.
Plasma Stream: Rapid stream of plasma that shoots through enemies.

During the game, you control your ship and attempt to survive the onslaught of enemies and
firepower coming at you from all sides.

Fire 1=Primary, secondary fire

Fires your primary and currently selected secondary weapon.
If there are any ground enemies infront of your ship, this will fire green bombs.
If there are any enemies behind you, this will fire a small backshot.

Fire 2=Reflect shield

The reflect shield creates a shockwave that reflects enemy bullets, making them move in
the opposide direction and harm enemies.  You get 3 uses of this per life.

Fire 3=Swap secondary weapons

You can swap between your two secondary weapons with this.

Fire 4=Speed Boost

You will move faster while this button is held down.

DAL: 

When you destroy some enemies, they'll drop DAL coins for you to grab.
For every DAL you grab, the amount of points you get from them increases.
You can see the DAL combo in the lower right corner of the status bar.

Proximity Bonus:

If you destroy an enemy close to you, you will get more points for killing them.
The higher your DAL combo is, the more points you'll get from the proximity bonus.

Rapid Kill Bonus:

Destroying many enemies quickly in rapid succession will give more points.

Completing a level:

Once you defeat the stage boss, you will go to the end level screen.
Here, you'll get bonuses based on stage performance.

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Score Attack

In Score Attack mode, you can play any level in XOP with 5 lives.
There is one highscore for each level.

BOSS is the Boss Attack mode, where you fight all the bosses in a row.
Your DAL combo will not reset after defeating a boss.

Levels EX1 and EX2 are bonus levels only accessable from Score Attack.

In EX1, all of the enemies from the main 8 levels attack you at once.
There's also a new boss and midboss to face off against.

In EX2, the minibosses are back, and they're pissed!  Tired of their status
as second hand baddies, they've upgraded themselves and are now just as 
deadly as the bosses, if not more so.  Watch out for the new boss at the end!

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Game Modes

XOP has several alternate game modes.

In Normal mode, scraping bullets raises a multiplier up to 4.0x.

In Maniac, your ship moves twice as fast, as do all the enemy bullets.
Enemies fire less in this mode.

In Massacre mode, there are twice as many enemies, but you get much more firepower.  Woohoo!
Bosses/minibosses will cycle their attack patterns much faster.

In Absorb mode, Reflect Shields are replaced with an Absorb attack on a 12 second timer.
The Absorb affects all bullets within a screen of your ship.
Each time you use it, enemies will fire faster, up to 2 times faster.
Enemies will also release revenge bullets when they die.
There are twice as many enemy bullets, as well!
You are locked to using the Bot and V.Cannon weapons.

In Chain mode, you score by chaining enemies and using Power Circles.
Reflect Shields are replaced with a Power Circle which increases your firepower.
Using a Power Circle costs 70 from your chain count.
Enemies killed while you are inside the Power Circle give 20x points!
Shots inside the Power Circle also slow down.
You are locked to using the Laser and Missle weapons.
There's also shots constantly coming from the center of the screen.  Watch out!

In Death mode, enemies fire much faster and have more dense shot patterns.
You are locked to using the Plasma and Implosion weapons.
Killing enemies with Implosion will give 25x points.
Using a Reflect Shield cuts your DAL counter in 1/4 instead of half.
DAL Coins are auto-collected in this mode.

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Extras

The Extras menu allows you to play and record demos, and change various game options.

Record a Demo: Allows you to record a demo.
Record a Score Attack Demo: Allows you to record a score attack demo.
Play a Demo: Allows you to play back a demo

Simulate Lag: Turns simulated lag on and off.  Simulated lag slows the game down when there are
a lot of objects on the screen at once.  Turning this off makes the game much more challenging!

Show Music Info: Turns music info on and off.  When on, every time a new track plays,
you can see the title and artist at the bottom of the screen.

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Options

Sound       : Controls sound volume.  When set to 0, sound is disabled.

Music       : Controls music volume.  When set to 0, music is disabled.

Control     : Lets you set the control to joystick or keyboard.

Skill       : Chooses default skill level.

Game Mode   : Chooses default game mode.

Ship Speed  : Chooses default ship speed.

Explosions  : Chooses amount of explosions and shrapnel generated by destroying enemies.
              You can reduce the amount of shrapnel generated, or turn up the explosions
              to ridiculous amounts!

Screen Res  : Allows you to change the screen resolution.

Scanlines   : Turns scanlines off or on.

Configure Controls : Lets you set keyboard/joystick buttons.
Test Resolution : Tests the currently selected screen resoltion.
Save Options : Saves the options you've set.  These are reloaded every time you start XOP.
Load Options : Loads the options from disk.
Set Default Options : Sets the options to the XOP defaults.

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Configure Control

This screen lets you change your button and direction input.

Set Default : Sets default keyboard/joystick configuration.
Set X-Arcade Defaults : Sets default configuration for X-Arcade sticks.
Change Speed Boost To Focus/Change Focus To Speed Boost: Switches Speed Boost to Focus.
Focus slows your ship down when you hold it.  This is more similar to other shooters
which have a button that slows your ship down instead of speeding it up.

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Increasing your survival rate

XOP is a challenging game, but there are ways to become better and more skilled!
Don't let those enemies get away with clobbering you repeatedly .. toast em all!

Use a gamepad: Even if it's a cheap pad with 4 buttons, it will still be better than
using your keyboard.

Ship's hit area: Your ship's hit area is very tiny, taking up a 2x2 pixel area in the
center of your ship.  Use this to your advantage - let bullets travel right through you, 
squeeze through narrow gaps in bullet patterns, but never let them touch the center!

Use the right weapon: Use Multi type weapons when attacking large groups of enemies to 
kill more of them quickly.  Use Single type weapons when attacking bosses to kill them faster.

Reaction time: Alot of the skill of the game is to be able to react quickly to incoming
fire.  Think up your strategies quickly, or you'll be toast before long!

Skill levels: If you are initally discouraged by XOP's difficulty, try playing on some of 
the easier skill levels and work your way up.

Never give up: It can take alot of practice to get good at a game like XOP .. if at first
you don't succeed, try try again ;)

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Increasing your score

There are several ways to get a better score in XOP :)

Grab more DAL: The more you grab, the higher your DAL combo will be.
When a boss/miniboss dies, all the enemy shots on the screen will turn into DAL.
Use this to your advantage!  Kill them when the screen is flooded with shots!

Kill enemies closer: You get a bonus for killing enemies that are closer to you.  This also
makes it easier to grab DAL.

Kill enemies in groups: You get a bonus for killing enemies in very rapid succession.
Blow them all away at the same time!

Shoot larger enemies/bosses up close: The closer you are to a large enemy while shooting at it
the more points you'll get.

Avoid Reflect Shielding: Every time you use a reflect shield, your DAL combo is cut in half.  Ouch!
Only use it if you are in trouble.

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Command Line Options

-nosound
  Disables sound.

-nomusic
  Disables music.

-nojoy
  Disables joystick detection.

-res X
  Sets screen resolution, replace X with 0,1,2 or 3

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History

XOP 2002
- Initial shareware release.
- Released as freeware in 2006.

XOP 2008
- Added multiple highscores for each skill level and game mode.
- Added skill level selection box after speed select box.
- Added controller configuration menu.
- Added simulated lag setting.
- Removed in-game tutorial.
- Removed awards and extra menu award restrictions.
- Removed random enemy and random shot extra modes.
- Removed slow game speed mode (50fps).
- Removed randomness from enemy shots, movement, appearances, DAL coin drops.
- Increased power of player weapons and reflect shield.
- Using reflect shield now cuts DAL combo in half.
- Added proximity bonus and rapid killing bonus.
- Speed Boost button now gives a constant speed increase, instead of a short boost.
- DAL coins move towards player when close.
- Enemies can no longer collide with the player.
- Reduced difficulty of level 7,8.
- Removed second wave.
- Added Insane skill level.
- Enemies fire slower, instead of removing bullets on lower skill levels.
- Score attack lives reduced to 5.
- Various bug fixes, etc.

XOP 2010
- Improved shot generation for Sludge and Maniac modes.
- Fixed Easiest/Very Easy/Easy skill levels.
- Reduced difficulty of Insane skill level.
- Removed screen shaking effect.

XOP Ultra
- Redesigned Demo record/play menu.
- Added automatic demo recording.  Not saved if player pauses or continues.
- Added display for skill/mode to score attack and highscore.
- Added mode select to weapon select screen.
- End game bonus added to tally screen.
- Added Absorb, Chain and Death modes.
- Added ship speed option to Options menu.
- Added Focus option to Configure Control menu.
- Removed accuracy bonus, sludge mode, easiest skill, Frame Rate setting.
- Player can now take one extra hit before dying on Very Easy.
- Insane skill level renamed to Crazy.
- All levels now start with DAL counter based on skill level.
- V.Cannon changed to fire a small bomb that explodes in player shots.
- Player bombs now shoot at angles and have a larger radius.
- Removed weight from secondary weapons.
- Speed boost changed to percentage based effect.
- Dying reduces DAL combo to 1/4 value instead of 0.
- Scraping bullets now raises a multiplier for the DAL counter, up to 4x.
- Shooting larger enemies up close now gives more points.
- DAL coins created when a large enemy is killed now have 2x the attraction radius.
- Most enemies now drop more DAL coins.
- All bosses/midbosses now self destruct.
- Bosses/midbosses that self destruct no longer create DAL coins.
- Reflect shields grabbed when player has 5 reflect shields now gives more points.
- Changes to all boss/midboss shot patterns and some enemy shot patterns.
- Levels 1,3,6,8 changed to Set 1 levels 1,2,3,4.
- Levels 2,4,5,7 changed to Set 2 levels A,B,C,D.
- Level 1: Revamped background art, floating blocks now destroyable.
- Level 2: Redesigned midboss shot patterns.
- Level 3: Added new background art, Removed enemies after midboss, redesigned midboss/boss shot patterns, new stage music.
- Level 4: Redesigned midboss/boss shot patterns, enhanced boss music.
- Level A: Added new enemy, level scrolls faster, new stage music.
- Level B: Revamped background art, removed maze segments, added new shot patterns to midboss/boss, new boss music.
- Level C: Added new background art, Moved big tank fight, added new enemy, redesigned midboss/boss shot patterns.
- Level D: Revamped background art, Cruisers now attack from above, gnashers now killable, added new enemy, redesigned midboss shot patterns.
- Level EX1: Redesigned, has level layout instead of random enemies.  Added midboss.
- Level EX2: Removed midboss 5/6, redesigned mine enemy, redesigned midboss/boss shot patterns, new boss music.
- Added bonus level, accessable if Set 1 or Set 2 is completed without using/losing a total of more than 2 bombs/lives.
- Added intro.

XOP Ultra Fix 1
- Fixed intro looping bug.
- Fixed issue with bonus level not loading properly.
- Fixed issue with bonus level requirements.
- Fixed issue with player positioning in level A in boss rush mode.
- Fixed issue with lack of music in level 2 in boss rush mode.
- Fixed issue with level 4 miniboss appearing in boss rush mode.
- Fixed issue with counterstop in Absorb mode on Set 2, Master skill.
- Absorb mode enemy rank now 50% lower.
- Absorb mode bullets firing bullets now fire 50% firing rate at all times.
- Absorb mode revenge bullets are now blue.

XOP Ultra Fix 2
- Fixed demo playback issue with score attack demos.

XOP Ultra Online Highscore
- Added online highscores for specific difficulty/mode/set combinations.

01 - Expert Original Set 1
02 - Expert Original Set 2
03 - Expert Maniac Set 1
04 - Expert Maniac Set 2
05 - Expert Massacre Set 1
06 - Expert Massacre Set 2
07 - Expert Absorb Set 1
08 - Expert Absorb Set 2
09 - Master Chain Set 1
10 - Master Chain Set 2
11 - Expert Death Set 1
12 - Expert Death Set 2

- Added ability to save Extra settings.
- Added Smooth option.
- Added ability to browse highscore tables by using directional inputs.
- Removed Beginner skill.
