FREE PROGRAM, written by Fottifoh, somewhere between 1996 and 2000. Send any comments to alex.tg@tiscalinet.it: I'd like to hear from you!!

It's an entartainment program, based on space travel simulation, using a tweaked 256-color display to travel players thought many kind of stars and their planets, none of which looks the same as another one. You can target and reach as much as 70 billion stars, jumping from star to star.

Well, the program's rather old, I started coding it in 1996, so its graphics may look simple. However, it's fully 3D, texture-mapped and shaded. You can also land on planets and explore their surface.

A PC using DOS or Windows, any version... oh, er... any versions above 1990... and definitely a Pentium processor. Least 100 MhZ I think. A mouse. That's all.

I still didn't figure out wether Noctis is a game or a simulator... um... there are no points to collect, no bad guys to kill, no particular things to do but exploring, so I think it's more likely a simulator... or - maybe - a senseless program, but seems funny so I don't even worry. As for what concerns the birth and evolution of this project, it was something "I wanted to try doing".

In the simulation, you're an undefined "being" (alien or human, you choose), travelling across heavens for no particular reasons, and using a special vehicle to do that. I've decided to call the vehicle "stardrifter", which stands to a starship exactly like a ship stands to a drifter.

What players were intended to do in the original project, was to survive, collecting food (haunting lifeforms) and fuel to continue their travel. Subsequently, the project had been abandoned and, now that I'm working again on it, I decided to stick this alpha version on my pages. Still your survival is automatic: don't worry about food. Just go.

Since four years ago, this little program kept me busy sometimes... and day after day, it got ever better. So, I mean, come back to its web page sometimes: there is a high probability that Noctis will keep updating again for long time...

Explore the galaxy. Give a name to unknown stars. You can also send me reports of things you've found on the planets (such as interesting mountains, craters, skies) and e-mail me your STARMAP file, so I can see how many new stars you have discovered and merge them with the "official" STARMAP provided on the site. Players reports may form a galactic guide, also, for other players to see. Not even I know what's on planets or where are the stars! There are no enemies, no missions to complete, there's nothing you MUST do, at all. For now, and definitely, relax and keep exploring...

Press the ESCAPE key.
Remeber: every time you quit, Noctis will save all data related to the simulation within a file called "Current.NCT". If you delete that file, you'll have to restart the simulation from the initial position.

Drag the mouse to turn left and right. Press and hold down right mouse button, then drag the mouse, to turn up and down.

Move the mouse forward and backward to walk in the chosen direction. Hold right mouse button down and drag left/right to strafe.

The stardrifter has an on-board navigation console, using which you can approach stars and planets in an easy way. The navigation console looks like a transparent screen superimposed to the drifter's front window. By double-clicking the RIGHT mouse button, you'll move in front of that screen. Then, if you keep the right button pressed and drag the mouse, you will be able to see and select the various areas on the screen. The console's main menu is placed on the left, while sub-menus are placed on the top of the console. To run an option, look straight at it, until it's highlighted by a frame, and hit the LEFT mouse button once. The following screenshot shows what I mean:

Select "Flight control drive" from the main menu, then "Set remote target" from the submenu (the submenu is the topmost line of the navigation console's screen). After doing this, you'll notice a small crosshair is following your movements. It always indicates a star. To fix the target, double-click the right mouse button. You can read informations about the targetted star on the main console's display (middle of the screen). To undo the selection and select another star, select "Set remote target" again. Once you fixed the target star, select "Start vimana flight" to get there.

First, remember: you can't reach planets around a certain star if you first don't reach that star. So, once you arrived in vicinity of a star, select "Set local target" to begin searching for planets. Planets will then be highlighted by a tiny square frame. Again, to fix the target, double-click the right mouse button. Once you selected a planet, "Set local target" will become "Start fine approach". By selecting it, the stardrifter will begin approaching the target planet.

The stardrifter has an all-surface lander, a small, spherical capsule, which is normally locked in the middle of the craft (it forms the panoramic cupola you can see in the picture below).



When you've got near to a planet, selecting "Deploy surface lander" from the "Flight control drive" menu, will show you a section of the planet's surface thought one of the monitors integrated in the left wall. Now you'll have to place in front of that monitor until a small light, above the monitor itself, will be turned on. From there, you can then use cursors' arrows to scroll the map. The surface is divided in 43,200 quadrants. The crosshair in the middle of the monitor shows the selected landing quadrant. Latitude and longitude of selected quadrant are shown by the H.U.D. (longitude goes from 0 to 359, latitude is renormalized and goes from 1 to 119, 60 being the planet's equator, 1 and 119 being the poles). It all looks like so:



To cancel the planetary map and the landing request, select "Cancel landing request". To effectively unlock the capsule and begin the landing procedure, press the ENTER key while in front of the surface map's monitor.

After that, you'll immediately take place in the middle of the capsule. The capsule will then be sealed with fire-proof materials, will be unlocked and pulled towards selected quadrant on the planet's surface. Your sight will look black during this quiet procedure. Upon reaching higher atmosphere, a small window will open in the middle of the capsule, so that you can take a look to the ambient outside: now, you see, the capsule has no engine, so if the planet has an atmosphere, turbolence may rotate the capsule for a while. Don't worry...

After touchdown, since a set of airbags is pumped up to minimize hurts due to the high speed impact, the capsule may bounce a few times on the ground. When it stops, the capsule will finally open and you'll be able to walk on the planet's surface on your own. You're allowed to move upto 3 miles away from the capsule. If you needed to run, hold down left mouse button. Have a nice exploration...

When you want to get back on the stardrifter, simply re-enter the capsule: it will be automatically lifted up and locked again in the middle of the spacecraft. Since surface quadrants are usually very large, the capsule is equipped with a little laser beacon, to help you in finding it again in case you moved very far from the landing spot. Following picture shows the capsule and indicates what's the laser beacon.

The HUD shows informations about the names of currently targetted star and planet. Also it gives current distance from the star (L.Y. = light years) and from the planet (in DYAMS, where 1 DYAM = about 70 million kilometers, approximately half the way between Earth and Sun).

The HUD also shows what's the onboard computer currently doing, and its error signals. Here's a detailed list of most common messages:

IDLE
The onboard computer is currently doing nothing...

TRACKING
Navigation around a planet or a moon proceeds by tracking the movements of the said aster, either by fixed-point chase or high orbit.

CONFLICT
The stardrifter's onboard computer is a SYMES (synchronous multi-event system) machine, and it can perform many different tasks at the same time. This error status is asserted when you attempt to execute two tasks that cannot be performed at the same time. Example: trying to start the Vimana engine while scoping for lithium. You first have to shut down the lithium scope.

TGT-REMOTE
The onboard computer is awaiting for selection of the remote target (a star).

TGT-LOCAL
Like above, but awaiting for selection of the local target (planet or moon).

NEED RECAL
The interplanetary drive system needs RE-CALIBRATION. You have to start the vimana engine, in order to approach the local star at the distance where the flight control system places its reference point. Re-calibration is usually needed when you halt the fine approach to a planet, before having effectively reached that planet, because there will be no reference points at all if you stop in the middle of the interplanetary space, and the drive system will just get confused. A typical sympthom of a situation where you should re-calibrate is reading the distance from the local star being not 0.00 LY: unless you were around a very, very far planet, the distance from the star when the star is in sight can't *absolutely* raise the LY indicator, not even by a hundredth of LY.

CONFIRM
You've just confirmed an operation.

TGT REJECT
You've just rejected the local target (de-selected a planet).

IMPOSSIBLE
You have asked to land on a planet which has no solid surface, such as a gas giant or a substellar object.

SURFACE
You're selecting the place where to land.

ERROR
Generic error status. Asserted in case you make something that's obviously wrong, like trying to land on a planet while there are no planets around!

READY/ACQUIRED/ASSIGNED
Generic status to signal that an operation completed successfully.

REMOVED
States you've removed the label for a planet or a star.

INT. ERROR
Internal error: it's a bug, and should never happen. It has no solution.

PROMPT
The computer's prompting you for something. For example, appears while you have to write down the names for stars and planets.

TOO CLOSE
You're trying to destroy a planet with the fationic cannon, but you're too close.

CANCELLED
You have cancelled an operation which needs your confirmation.

SIGNAL
You have activated the emergency call (help request).

UNSUITABLE
You have tried to scope for lithium, but no lithium's there.

FCS: READY
The Flight Control System informs you the Vimana engines are ready. It appears when a block of lithium (a block equals one gram) has been successfully injected for nuclear resonance. Some times while travelling, the FCS reactor needs some time for injecting resonsance into a new block of lithium, and if it needs too much time, the Vimana engine will turn off. At that point, if it reads "FCS: READY" you just have to re-start the engine. If, otherwise, it reads "NO POWER", you're in trouble, because there's no more lithium in your reserve. You'll then have to ask for help.

TGT FIXED
The target (either local or remote) has been acquired.

NO TARGET
There are no local targets (planets and other minor bodies). Some stars DO NOT HAVE planets: it happens...

NO TARGETS
There are no known stars around.

UNLOCKING
The all-terrain capsule is being unlocked and you'll get to the surface as soon as possible...

PITCH-L/R
You're rotating the capsule...

SCANNING
The onboard computer is scanning the space around, to find known stars.

CALIBRATED
Local coordinates system's re-calibration process completed successfully.

DENIED
You have tried to remove the label for a star or a planet which is part of the official STARMAP.

SYSTEM RESET
This flashing message appears for a while during re-initialization of the onboard computer. Reset happens when, after the lithium reserve and main energy source (lithium resonance accumulators) dropped to zero, refuel is performed and the black-out is over. Also, a system reset can be forced by selecting an appropriate command in the "emergency" sub-menu. A reset cleans the configuration of the onboard computer, bringing navigation parameters, targets, preferences, and external devices, back to their initial state.

Select "Onboard devices" / "Navigation instruments" / "Starfield amplificator" to activate/deactivate it. It will make further stars visible and reachable with a single jump; the drawback is that it consumes little more lithium.

Select "Onboard devices" / "Navigation instruments" / "Local planets finder" to activate/deactivate it. It will drop a note on the console's main screen stating how many planets are present in current system. Again, energy consumption raises a little while it's active.

Select "Onboard devices" / "Navigation instruments" / "Drive tracking mode" to choose one of its options. "Fixed-point chase" will follow current planet from a fixed point above its surface, "Equatorial orbit" will orbit the planet at high speed, to show all of its surface. Manouvers also consume lithium.

Select "Onboard devices" / "Navigation instruments" / "Force radiations limit" to toggle it on/off. When active, this tool will automatically avoid high radiation fields especially in vicinity of stars. You may turn it off if you're curious to see how stars look like when you get very near to them. It's not dangerous for life support inside the ship, but sometimes few strongly charged particles may hit computer's connections, occasionally causing little troubles.

Select "Onboard devices" / "Life support" / "Internal light ON-OFF" to toggle it on/off. The internal light may be turned off when you're near enough to a star. Remember to turn it on when a planet eclipses that star. Or, you may simply leave it always on... power consumption is minimal, and also it's automatically turned off while in emergency.

Select "Onboard devices" / "Galactic cartography" / "Label star as...", type the name where the cursor blinks, then select "Assign star label". Why should you give names to stars? Well, the name will be used to acknowledge the star in the future. Keep reading and you will see...

Select "Onboard devices" / "Galactic cartography" / "Label planet as...", and then proceed as explained in the above paragraph...

Select "Onboard devices" / "Galactic cartography" / "Show targets in range": this is the first thing I suggest you to do when you start using your stardrifter. It will pop up a list with the names of upto 50 of the nearest stars. By using the cursor arrows, you can scroll the list. When you hit the ENTER key, selected star will be assumed as a remote target for the interstellar drive.

The Parsis galactic coordinates system is explained in detail if you take a look to the technical reference guide. While you're in the cartography sub-menu, the status display shows your actual coordinates. Here's an example showing coordinates for a star called "Lyonesse"...


Let's say, when you set the remote target to a specific point in space, you can jump to an arbitrary distance, providing you have enough lithium. Unfortunately, the system can't manage more than 120 grams of lithium, and they'll never be enough. Consumes raise at exponential ratio when trying to get thousands light years away. A simple example: if you select "Set target to Parsis" and type in 999999999; 999999999; 999999999 you'll be trying to travel for about 80,000 LY in a single Vimana jump. If, at that point, you really try ("Start Vimana flight"), you will be burning out your entire reserve, no matter how much lithium you had. But the SM Goes module is here to help. You can search for stars and planets coordinates throught the SM Goes module. This is how to use it:


In the example, I've searched for star "Miracle" by typing:
      SM -C:MIRACLE
and then pressing enter in the Goes command net display.
The outlet display, to the right of the command display, reads the coordinates for Miracle. See this:


So you see, now if you go to the onboard computer console on the front screen, you select "Set target to Parsis", and type in these coordinates, you'll be targetting a point very near to Miracle. Of course, since Parsis units aren't precise enough, by flying to the spot you won't really find Miracle. BUT you'll be certainly near enough to see Miracle in the list of nearby targets. From there, you can perform the last, little jump to get around that star.

The SM Goes module also supports for some other syntaxes on the command line, and typing SM alone (SM then enter) will present a list of them:
      SM

SM -L
COMPILES A FULL TREE-LIST OF STARS AND PLANETS

SM -S
LISTS ALL LABELED STARS

SM -P:starname
LISTS ALL PLANETS AROUND starname

SM -C:range
FULL LIST WITH PARSIS COORDINATES FOR EACH STAR WITHIN "range" QUADRANTS FROM ACTUAL POSITION. range IS A NUMBER. HIGHER VALUES TAKE LONGER TO CALCULATE: YOU SHOULD NORMALLY SET range BETWEEN 10 AND 50.

SM -C:name range
FINDS COORDINATES FOR name PROVIDING IT'S WITHIN range QUADRANTS FROM ACTUAL POSITION. e.g. SM -C:FENIA 15

SM -E
EPURES STAR MAP FROM DELETED OBJECTS.

Last option has no pratical effects: well, whenever you remove the label from a star of from a planet, it's like throwing a file in the "recycle bin". Each label takes 32 bytes within the STARMAP.BIN file, and selecting option E will physically delete removed labels, therefore shortening the file a little.

Curiosity: what's there at Parsis 999999999; 999999999; 999999999?
Nothing at all. Huge void. It is not possible to get there. Theoretically, it's possible to get at 999999999; 0; 999999999 so that the Y coordinate would be zero or quite near to zero. Raising Y to 999999999 is not possible because you'd get in the galactic halo, outside the galactic plane. In the halo there are too few and distant stars to "connect" repeated jumps. Yet, you could travel for some further hundred LY if you had enough lithium, but at a certain point you'd be unable to move further. And who, then, would bring you back to a "reasonable" position?

Forces onboard computer to perform a reset.
If you experiment some troubles in computer's delay, which are possible because of bugs AND of high radiation particles messing up internal circuitry signals, here's rather a safe way to bring the computer back to normal operation.

Select "Onboard devices" / "Emergency functions" / "Send out help request" to use it. That's a really needed tool: after a few jumps from star to star you'll be missing fuel. Stardrifters use little quantities of lithium to travel (by stimulated vibrations in lithium's nuclear forces which, as everyone certainly know, can amplify movements throught void space upto a factor of over five billions). You will have to ask for help whenever your reserve reachs zero grams. A similar stardrifter will approach you as soon as it detects your request, refueling your drifter immediately... However, this is an emergency call and will take some time to be answered. It's your last chance to get back in businness. Normally, you should scope lithium by approaching CLASS SIX stars. Keep reading for further infos on scoping lithium...

Select "Onboard devices" / "Emergency functions" / "Scope for lithium" to use it. It will work only if there are enough lithium ions around. Normally, these ions are found around some invisible stars (which are anyway highlighted by the onboard computer), remnants of oldest stars which have no more nuclear fuel and long time ago exploded as Novae. The onboard computer defines such "fossile" stars class 6 stars. They constantly emit lithium ions around, along with other heavier elements, by "squeezing" their external layers due to the effects of the 5th interaction, which works as some sort of "reverse gravity". Other elements are discharged by the stardrifter, apart from oxygen and nitrogen useful to build breathable air inside the stardrifter itself. Now, ions are electrically charged atoms and can therefore be collected by magnetic fields triggered from long distance. There can be two kinds of ions for lithium: Li+ and Li++. Only one of those can be used for Vimana interstellar flight: Li+. It means that some 50% of the stars in class 6 may result unsuitable for scoping lithium. Keep trying, and when you find a suitable star, mark it by ASSIGNING A LABEL TO IT: this will allow you to easily target the star in case your lithium reserve should drop very low, and you couldn't waste a lot of lithium in the search for a suitable star. Even some class 5 stars could be used for scoping lithium: that's because class 5 are the "dwarf substellar objects". While the other stars destroy lithium as a consequence of their nuclear reactions, class 5 stars are unable to destroy their lithium, because they are not enough powerful. It's rather improbable that such dwarf stars would be suitable for scoping...

Just clears the status messages given by the onboard emergency devices.

Allows taking a quick look to how the selected planet (or moon) appears, from the line of sight given by your actual position. It serves the purpose of evaluating how interesting may the target be, before deciding to waste lithium to reach it.

Noctis can take space snapshots in BMP format: whenever you see a place you found somewhat beautiful, if you hit the asterisk (*) key on the numeric keypad, the scenery will be saved in an image file called "FOTO.BMP". You can then re-open that scenery from any painting tool you like, providing it can read standard Windows bitmaps (BMP files).

Stardrifter's "roof" outside the cupola also provides life support. You can hop on it by standing in the middle of the ship and pressing the CURSOR UP key (arrow up). To get back down, go throught the cupola.

Just click to open this TECHNICAL REFERENCE MANUAL.
You'll find extended descriptions of the Noctis Galaxy, its stars, planets, historical background, and also, what you can do and what you cannot do.