Outpost(Apple) FAQ/Walkthrough version 1.0.0 by schultw.andrez@sbcglobal.net(anti spam spoonerism) Please do not reproduce for profit without my consent. You won't be getting much profit anyway, but that's not the point. This took time and effort, and I just wanted to save a memory of an old game and the odd solutions any way I could. Please send me an email referring to me and this guide by name if you'd like to post it on your site. ================================ OUTLINE 1. INTRODUCTION 2. CONTROLS 3. POINTS 4. STRATEGIES 5. CHEATS 6. VERSIONS/CREDITS ================================ 1. INTRODUCTION Outpost is one of those games I figured I'd never get through. It does loop at the end, but in case you are curious, here are the details on what happens. It's a pretty simple game and one that appeared, in simplified form, as a fine mini-game in Legacy of the Ancients. You have a square shaped outpost. It can fire from 4 sides. It can put up shields on any of 4 sides, but no 2 sides at the same time. Enemies can come from any of the 4 sides, too, and if they shoot you, they ruin your cannon on that side. If they hit you again, you die. After a set number of enemies, you have to face a death-star, which can take a chunk out of your diagonals. 3 out of any one, and you die. You also may overheat if you shoot too much. The strategy is pretty simple, but I figured, why not write about it. Maybe someone else played it and is curious how it ends. The whole space station breakup scene is pretty cool, really. I remembered it for a while. 2. CONTROLS Shielding Moving W I A S J K Z M 3. POINTS You get 40 points for each enemy you kill. You get 80 points for a hit on the death star. You get 40 points for killing it. You get a random amount from 1 to 40 points for each missile you zap. you get no points for a shield block. You get 80 points for hitting a death star and 40 for nicking it. At early levels it is possible to nick it then kill it. Extra life every 5000 points. Each early level has about 20-25 enemies, increasing to 30 and above for #7. Experimental evidence showed 1 consistently havng 18 and 2 22, but after that it got jumbled and the number bounced up and down. Level 1 is white Level 2 is red-orange Level 3 is orange Level 4 is gold Level 5 is green Level 6 is blue Level 7 is light purple Level 8 is dark purple. You keep cycling through level 8 until you die. 4. STRATEGIES Obviously you can use emulation to see where the next monsters will appear and whether they fire. Always make sure to have a shield. You may not even want it guarding your vulnerable side if no ship is there. If your vulnerable side must be exposed, be prepared to flip the shield. It can catch missiles pretty quickly. Unfortunately if you take one hit, you're in big trouble for the future. But don't feel you have to shield a side that isn't under attack. Even hanging on til the death-star is useful, as you can do quite a bit of damage--or on later levels avoid its damage twice. It can be hard to hit. The easiest strategy is to place a shield on the top or bottom and just ignore one of the ships. You should shoot a ship if possible after it hits a bunker, then place the bunker on the opposite side. It's easiest to detect left/right firing. So you should concentrate on that. To avoid heating up, try to deflect up/down missiles and shoot left/right if you get low. Left/right should always be picked off first. Try to shoot enemies in clumps if possible, and if one does let a missile go, you can always shoot it later. It will be helpless. Don't fire twice in the same direction with other ships around. Sometimes you have to watch out for if an enemy shot a missile, but no one enemy shoots two missiles. Often they sit around and are easy pickings. On later levels you may wish to have the safety rather than the forty points. Each level, the death star must be shot earlier. By level 7 you must shoot when its top is by the bottom of a gun port. It is moving fast enough, you can't get two shots. 5. CHEATS None known. ================================ 6. VERSIONS/CREDITS 1.0.0: sent to GameFAQs/Honestgamers 4/22/2009, complete. Thanks to the usual GameFAQs/honestgamers gang, current and emeritus. They know who they are, and you should, too, because they get/got some SERIOUS writing done. Good people too--bloomer, falsehead, Sashanan, Masters, Retro, Snow Dragon/Brui5ed Ego, ZoopSoul, War Doc, Brian Sulpher, AdamL, odino, JDog and others I forgot. OK, even Hydrophant in his current not-yet-banned message board incarnation. I am not part of his gang, but I want him to be part of mine. Thanks to the NES Completion Project for keeping it going and especially for Da Hui for pointing out this game to me. All you people at honestgamers, YELL AT ME if I forgot you and you deserve to be in there. I mean, it's partially because of HGWars I wrote this FAQ, and I want to add to this in the future.