NAME : ShockWave
TYPE : Doc, Frequently Asked Questions
VERSION :
PRODUCER :
Submitted by :
DATE : 11:00 04-05-97
PLACE : http://www.cheat.dk
E-MAIL : cheat@cheat.dk
-------------------------------------

The WWW page contains even more stuff: screenshots, reviews of the game, etc...

Here we go!

------------------------
1 - SECRETS IN THE GAME
------------------------

1-1) EXPLANATION OF THE FUNNY LIGHTS IN THE COCKPIT
---------------------------------------------------

By Philippe Tarbouriech <ptarbouriech@ea.com> from Electronic Arts,
one of the Shockwave designers:

- The green light going up and down on the left of the cockpit
represents the number of pieces being loaded from the CD-ROM.

- The little colored dot on the lower right that changes color is an
indication of memory fragmentation... (I am sure it will help with
gameplay :)

- The graph on the left is the frame rate : number of VBL per frame.

- The graph on the right is the number of actors in the simulation/8,
every 8 frames.

1-2) ELVIS IS IN SHOCKWAVE!
---------------------------

Info from Oliver Wade <owade@ea.com>

Q: Has anyone seen Elvis in Shockwave. He's very small but he's in
there!

A:You have to blow up the octagonal shaped moon base at the
beginning of level 10.

If you fly back over it you'll see a very small Elvis jumping up
and down, trying to get rescued (you can't rescue him). This was
my only (very small) contribution to Shockwave and I just wondered
if anyone had seen it.

1-3) SHOCKWAVE ROLLS POSSIBLE!
------------------------------

How to Roll:

Just keep the LEFT button pressed and press left or right on the
paddle.

Are the rolls useful ?

Chuck McGinley <mcginley@ll.mit.edu> wrote:

I have found that when I do a barrel roll through the mine fields
that are with the AA towers I avoid the mines. This also includes
the mines surrounding the refueling drone in the congo mission. I
hope these mines are not surrounding thed rones for the rest of the
game.

1-4) SHOCKWAVE SECRET MISSION #11: "MILK RUN"
---------------------------------------------

Info extracted from Matt Brown's (<mattbro@microsoft.co>) review of Shockwave.

Mission #11: "Milki Run"

Somehow I managed to "corrupt" one of my saved games in such a way
that I could play a secret mission (#11) called "Milk Run". I won't
give anything away, but I will say that there are plenty of goofy
little jokes, as well as a suggestion that there is something else
hidden in the game that I haven't found. The same bogus saved game
also let's me practice any of the ten actual missions. Cool.

I can get to the secret level by reloading my bogus saved game, but
I'm not sure how I created that entry in the roster in the first
place. If anyone figures it out, I'd be interested to hear how it's
done.

Last Update! Info from Tim Brengle (Electronic Arts)

Info sent to me by Tim Brengle <tbrengle@ea.com>.

As far as I know, there aren't any codes which get you there. When you
complete the game by finishing Mission 10, the final credits roll,
etc. If you look back at your saved game after this, it will indicate
that your current mission is 11, and you can go fly "Milk Run" by
restoring and starting.

Ok, here is a short description of this mission:

Info from a message by William Langford <William@cris.com>

I'm new to Usenet, and I tried to send this message out yesterday, so if you've
seen it before, I apologize.

Anyways, I haven't seen anybody post about this yet, so here goes. I finished
Shockwave last night, and after watching the credits, I noticed the game roll
right over to the opening intro. So, I aborted the intro and went to the main
menu. I then went to the roster screen and selected the pilot with which I had
just completed the "final" level (level 10). I was surprised to see the mission
name "Milk Run" on the main menu screen. I scratched my head and pressed start.

The mission seemed to start normally, until a picture of a face popped
up where the mission map usually appears, and the ICE started talking
backwards. When the cockpit shields withdrew, I was greeted by a
landscape of what seemed to be BEANS. This odd landscape was dotted
with giant milk carton and bean cans. I flew close to a milk carton
and saw the words: "Milk. It does a mission good." Also, windmills
were flying around shooting beans at me. I did manage to complete this
mission, but was only treated to the same end game again.

Can somebody post a confirmation of this level, so that I know I'm not
hallucinating? I strongly recommend that you check this one out.

Great game! Keep up the good work!
William

Enrique Conty <conty@MCS.COM> adds:

Yup. My theory is that ICE has gone nuts, and what you see is ICE's scrambled
representation of what's outside your ship. Notice the faces of the developers
popping up in the map as you fly along.

Jason Cross <jsncross@freenet3.scri.fsu.edu> says:

Yup! That's cool! And photos of the designers pop up periodically. If you pause
and "give up" you can see the ending again anyway. And ICE says some very
strange things, like, "quick, turn around, no, sorry, wrong way." It's going in
the survival guide!

Some cheats on that mission:

Text by Jesse Fuchs <jmfuchs@unix.amherst.edu>:

On this level everytime you press the stop button the radar is
refreshed and you can see all of the units that normal fade in and
out.

1-5) ARE THERE CODES IN SHOCKWAVE ?
------------------------------------

>From Philippe Tarbouriech <ptarbouriech@ea.com> from Electronic Arts, one
of the Shockwave designers.

Yes, there are codes, you can get powerfull laser, smart bomb, ... and
several other goodies.

The codes are entered when you pause the game. Try to find them
yourself for the moment...

------------------------------------
2 - HOW TO PASS THE DIFFERENT LEVELS
------------------------------------

2-1) HERE IS THE OFFICAL SOLUTION TO THE LEVEL 3 (LOS ANGELES)
--------------------------------------------------------------
By Laurent Benes from Electronic Arts, the guy who designed most of the levels:

Introduction :

OK guys, I saw many many articles about the mission 3 in ShockWave. Far more
than I ever thought it was possible when I was working on this mission.
Actually, don't blame me too much, I was not the only one to work on this
mission. The real problem seems to be these two fast ground vehicles in Burbank
that run away on the left. I didn't do that, I even slowed them down. After a
lot of testing many people wanted to remove them and I insisted to keep that
because I thought that in the mission 3, it was time to put the player in
trouble. Actually, it seems that it was too much trouble !!!

I am sure that at least, I brought a huge satisfaction to every
ShockWave player who finaly succeed the mission 3 !!

Here is the official solution :

There are 5 objectives in this mission :

Las Vegas: Destroy all aliens here in order to get your first objective
done. You have 20 aliens to destroy there. (3 Tripods - 5 Collectors - 7
Scouts - 5 Interceptors).

Riverside: Destroy all aliens here in order to get your second objective
done. You have 25 aliens to destroy there. (4 Tripods - 7 Collectors - 3
Scouts - 5 Interceptors - 3 MobileAA -1 HeatSeeker - 2 Swarms). You must
also destroy the 4 powerCells but NOT the prison.

Pasadena: Destroy all aliens here in order to get your third objective
done. You have 19 aliens to destroy there. (3 Tripods - 3 strong Tripods
- 2 Collectors - 3 Interceptors - 2 MobileAA -5 HeatSeeker s- 1 Swarm).
You must also destroy the 4 powerCells but NOT the prison.

BurBank: Destroy all aliens here in order to get your fourth objective
done. You have 20 aliens to destroy there. (6 strong Tripods - 3
Collectors - 3 Interceptors - 4 MobileAA - 3 HeatSeekers - 1 Scout).
!!!!! Be careful here because 2 MobileAA quickly try to escape on the
left of the path. If you are not fast enough in the beginning of this
objective, you may not be able to destroy them.

Los Angeles: Destroy all aliens here in order to get your fifth
objective done. You have 15 aliens to destroy there (5 Scouts - 4
strong Tripods - 6 Swarms). You also have to destroy a fast moving new
craft called Cobras (their number depends on your performance on the
first objectives). You have to destroy 12 PowerCells in order to free
3 prisons. Finally, you have to be careful with the satellite dishes.
Don't destroy more than 1.

Hints :

On Las Vegas, if you don't destroy any civil building, then you get two
bonuses:
Your first Refueler is going to be full, else it's going to be
partial. This first Refueler is not visible on your radar
because a tripod is exactly at the same position.
An extra Refueler in Riverside, far on the left of the path,
invisible on the radar.
You need to protect the Atomic Power Plant form the Collectors walking
towards it (else you're probably dead) and also save the 6 close towers
from the tripods. If you save them, then you get an extra Refueler far
on the left of the path in Los Angeles.

After Pasadena, in the Refinery region, you have a partial Refueler
(invisible on your radar) on the right of the path.

To destroy a Swarm, just shoot the immobile one.

--
--Laurent Benes (lbenes@ea.com)

2-2) HERE IS A WALKTHROUGH OF ALL THE LEVELS BY FAMOUS PEOPLE FROM THE NET!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

By David Liu <davidliu@husc8.harvard.edu>, George Cifrancis
<gc3@infinet.com>, James A. Squires <jas@kaiwan.com>, Walter Horat
<walter_horat@rasterops.com> and Castellan
<dlericks@mailhost.ecn.uoknor.edu>.

COMMENT n TIPS:

Level 1:
~~~~~~~~

Use missiles on scouts (the red dots on radar), guns on ground
crawlers. At the end, you will meet an alien control center with a LOT
of firepower. Start far far away, hold B when your gunsight locks on,
fire 2 missiles, turn 180 degrees, afterburn out, and repeat. Takes
about 3 passes this way.

(Be careful, you can shoot down your own missiles!)

Level 2:
~~~~~~~~

Significantly tougher. Save missiles for the green bow-tie shaped
interceptors; shoot scouts and ground units. Although lots of
fighting, no real catches in this level.

Level 3 (LA):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are the five objectives:

You get 1 mission goal for clearing out vegas of aliens.
You get 4 mission goals for clearing out 16 energy pods surrounding 4
prisons.

This totals 5, your required number. If you finish with less than 5 points, you
get a "pat on the back speech" and then get booted back to square one.

Back to David Liu's comments:

This one is a KILLER. However, it really becomes much easier as you practice.
You start in Vegas, and end up in L.A. Save missiles for (in order)

Interceptors shaped like a Y
Interceptors shaped like a bow tie (green)
Scouts

You MUST MUST conserve missiles and lasers. If you miss even one or two aliens
(actually, i believe you get a buffer of ONE alien in the first few areas of
mission 3), you may have to restart.

Your objectives are the four power cells surrounding the dark
pyramidal prisons. DO NOT shoot the prisons. Each power cell takes
exactly 8 shots. Also, you must kill the round circular yellow balls
that surround the prisons.

TIP#1:

You need only kill ONE of the balls per nest. Lure the others away, and
afterburn away. THE "FAKE" YELLOW BALLS WILL DISAPPEAR AFTER CHASING YOU
BRIEFLY. This leaves you with ONE yellow ball only per cluster. It takes 13
shots to kill.

About 2/3 of the way into the mission, you will come across a green force field
fence composed of green balls. head SLOWLY towards the edge. If you've killed
all aliens up to that point, the field should disappear. I don't think shooting
the alien fence posts has anything to do with the forcefield. If you try to
cross the forcefield before deactivation, you will automatically perish.
(However, you can cheat by temporarily going off path around the fence).

TIP#2:

There are several "hidden" REFUELING DRUMS, not all of which appear on
radar. As you approach a group of large rectangular prism-shaped
buildings, look for a "cloaked" refueling drum on your right
side. This one restores health totally, but not guns or fuel.

You also must take out the command center, a VERY fast and VERY beefy
yellow flying machine. Takes about 20 shots. Dont try missiles; it can
out turn and out run them.

You get 1 mission goal for clearing out Vegas of aliens You get 4 mission goals
for clearing out 16 energy pods surrounding 4 prisons. This totals 5, your
required number. If you finish with less than 5 points, you get a "pat on the
back speech" and then get booted back to square one.

Secret refueling drone:

Just coming from <pbardis@uoft02.utoledo.edu>:

There's also a "secret" refueling drone on level 3. At some point towards the
end, the alley widens way out (just wider than your radar), then takes a fairly
sharp turn. At the very very tip of the point of this turn (the outside of the
turn), there's a drone.

New this week (July 15 1994) A complete walkthrough of level 3:

Text by Castellan <dlericks@mailhost.ecn.uoknor.edu>:

I've noticed a lot of conflicting reports on how to beat LA in Shockwave, so,
after playing this stage thoroughly and pausing to determine the number of
mission goals completed, here is *exactly* how to do it.

1/5: Clear Las Vegas completely.
2/5: Clear Riverside completely (get ANY and ALL escaping aliens,
afterburn if nnecessary - there are almost always a few of them ahead on
the radar that you can't see trying to escape). Take out the power cells
around the prison.
3/5: Clear Burbank completely. Pursue and destroy any escaping aliens.
4/5: Take out the power cells on the prison in Pasadena.
5/5: Take out the power cells on the three prisons in LA.

I kept getting 4/5 because I was NOT getting the escaping aliens at RIverside.
Blast through the fighter cover with afterburners and get to the end of
Riverside ASAP, and take out ALL ground vehicles. Then pick off the fighters.
Sure, you'll take some damage, but if you off a few interceptors as you burn
toward the escaping aliens, you'll be in good shape. This also applies to
Burbank.

Bad things: Destroying the reactor, destroying the actual prison facilities,
destroying 40% of the radar dishes (or more).

To get through the force field easily, just afterburn and barrel roll through
it. Works *perfectly*.

On a side note, is anybody else impressed with the sprawling variety of enemies
in this game? I'm only on mission 4, and I count:

7 different types of flying craft.
3 different types of tank.
3 different types of walkers.
A multitude of special craft (command posts, command fighters, pods,
transports, etc...)

Back to David Liu's original message:

Level 4:
~~~~~~~~

A very nice idea. You are doing a search and rescue mission for one of
your fellow pilots (the annoying female one...wish I could just let
her die so she'll stop talking to me during missions). This one has
FABULOUS graphics (southern england), rolling hills, and FIVE NEW
TYPES of aliens.

(Normally i don't like revealing hint publically [TE's level select an
exception], but since this game is so very challenging and demanding on the
precision and coordination depts, i have no qualms now)

To finish level 4, you must

1.Kill all the bird-like transport ships at start
2.kill all transport ground vehicles in the next area
3."Pass through" the area with "a great number" of aliens: TRANSLATION:
Kill most of em, including the ground transports and birdies.
4.Clear the next area for the British military and your rescue ship.

At the end, you see the following arrangement of Bad Guys (tm):

x x

x x x
1 23 4 5

Kill 3 with guns only

Kill 5 with guns only

Kill 4 with missiles only

Each time, you must fire for a second, then RETREAT and turn around
and repeat.

Shockwave is the finest game to come out for the 3do. Simply amazing.

David

Level 5:
~~~~~~~~

George Cifrancis:

Listen carefully to ICE, always do what she tells you to do. On 5 as I
recall (I am on 8) you must destroy all the radars. Keep in mind they
don't show up on YOUR radar screen so you must do a visual search for
them. This is especially important when you nail the ones in the
water! You need to sweep the whole area! I think there are at least 4
radars that are away from everything else so you must hunt for
them. If ICE tells you that you missed some, you might as well start
over. As a matter of fact whenever ICE says you missed ANYTHING, there
is a good bet that you missed an objective and you might as well start
over. On the prison barges that ICE tells you to hit the lead ship, I
believe it is the ship furtherest away as you come up on it. If ICE
says you missed it or killed people, start over you, funked
up. Obviously don't sink the Kennedy or let it be sinked and kill that
tower that comes out at the end.

James A. Squires:

There are two key objectives in level 5:

1.Hit all those damn radar sites.
2.Get all four 'Special Targets'(I know three of 'em, who knows the third?)

First key objective:

Goal 1/5: The radar sites before the lava pit (land based).
Goal 2/5: The radar sites over water.
Goal 3/5: The radar sites just after getting goal 2/5 (water).
Goal 4/5: Get all 4/4 Special Targets.
Goal 5/5: Get the Boss at end (piece of cake - for Cadet).

Remember back in 'cake-walk' level 3, Los Angeles (why save it?), when
you would hit the prison power supplies, and your special monitor
would beep and say: "OK-GOOD-BETTER-PERFECT"?

Well, it does that on level 5, but very quickly the message is gone
(like we have lots of time to study the Heads Down display). I'm a
little shaky on the order, I know 3 of 4, but not the 4th (I got it,
but don't know when/what it was - HELP).

Here's my best shot:

ST 1/4: The Black Thingy in center of lava pit (you'll get hammered
there)
ST 2/4: Odd "prison ship" in first convoy (ICE is not quite right)
ST 3/4: Odd "prison ship" in second convoy.
ST 4/4: (need help here)

Anyway, *I'm* done with those damn islands!

Walter Horat:

The solution to level five is:

Get all of the hidden radar units. When ICE tells you that you should
be looking for radar, do it. The units are not visible on your radar
screen... You will get a message telling you whether or not you have
killed all of the radar or not. If you miss any, there goes a mission
objective. There are 4 radar areas.

This will score 4/5 goals.

The fifth goal, and the one that took me about 15-20 plays of level 5
to figure out is to SAVE THE PRISONERS ON THE BARGES!!! When ICE tells
you to pick off the lead barges, you have to kill the AA towers
positioned around the barges, the fast moving cruisers that flank the
barges, and the LEAD BARGE of each convoy. This is the barge that is
FARTHEST from you, as the barges are moving in the same direction that
you are.

You can sink the friendly planes; I have a hard time keeping them from crashing
into me. Except that you feel guilty for doing it, it wont prevent you from
solving the level.

I haven't gotten off of the level by sinking the aircraft carrier, but you seem
to be able to score your mission goals whether or not it lives.

To kill the bad boy at the end of the level, keep turning in circles around the
same position as your refeuling tanker, letting a missle loose as soon as you
have it in your gunsights and turn and fly away before it can hit you too many
times. It takes between 3-6 missiles to kill it, as your missiles are
occasionally shot down...

Good luck!

Now, I have to get off of level 8! Damned evil gravity sucking things!!!

Secret refueling drone on level 5:

>From Jeff TJ <jefftj@aol.com>:

There is a refueling drone that doesn't show up on your radar. It appears with
112 clicks remaining on the far right side of your flight area.

level 6:
~~~~~~~~

The only thing ICE cares about besides killing the final boss is to
destroy all the excavators. Each excavator takes one LONG LONG stream
of lasers, or one NUKE and about 5 seconds of lasers, or TWO NUKES and
about 1 second of lasers. Even though ICE tells you not to trash the
city as you kill the last boss (who is easy since he has a pea shooter
for a weapon), you CAN get by if you crunch say 4 buildings or so.

Just don't try levelling the city.

level 7:
~~~~~~~~

David Liu writes:

Same as level 6, but there are green energy cylos that support the alien eggs.
These must be destroyed.

The best way I've been able to find for killing the command post in the middle
of Mission 7 (mine was on WINGMAN, however, so this may or may not be
applicable):

1.Take out the left green/grey pylon.
2.Turn around, and approach the right pylon slowly.
3.Just as you get within laser range to axe the pylon, three interceptors
(red dots on radar) should approach.
4.The key is to coax one of the red dots into COLLIDING WITH THE COMMAND
POST!

Just make sure the command post is BETWEEN you and the interceptor. The
command post is so bulky, that the interceptor will easily hit it and
explode if you manuver appropriately, lining up the interceptor and
post.

5.This does two Good Things. It destroys the interceptor (which only takes
3-4 hits anyway but packs an offensive wallop), and it does TWO MISSILE
HITS worth of damage on the command post. Another 2 missiles and 3 laser
hits (on Wingman level) finishes off the command post.

In general, one can easily lure the red dots away from big dangerous
bosses and pick them off one by one. Often the red dots have a
circling pattern, and the most distant point in their path places them
at risk of being hit by your lasers but keeps you safe from the boss
ahead. It's just a matter of figuring out the range of the boss's
weapons and the range of your lasers.

Level 8:
~~~~~~~~

I don't remember who posted this:

Mission Objectives:

1.Get all eggs in silos 1 & 2.
2.Get all eggs in silos 3 & 4 (I have made it through without getting the
flaps, so they aren't an objective).
3.Get all the landing pads (step 21).
4.Kill the spider-like machine.

In this mission it has been determined that the Aliens have made silos
(tunnels) that go to eggs they have stored underground. It is
imperative that you destroy the eggs. This means you'll have to fly
into the small silo entrance which is protected by a force field and
maneuver through the tunnel and blast all the eggs.

This is how the mission goes:

1.Turbo past the heavily armored tanks.
2.Kill bird-like machines and the ground monster while using afterburners.
3.Lure away the fuzzy balls and kill the fixed one.
4.3 missiles takes out the excavator.
5.Laser the 3 tanks.
6.Missiles and lasers on anti-aircraft batteries (do this in multiple
passes, one missile per pass) I get 3 out of the 4 and then stay to one
side.
7.Turbo past enemies on ocean with lasers killing what you can. Note that
it is possible to just use afterburners from step 5 to step 9 with
lasers shooting what you can, but you'll take a lot of damage.
8.Destroy walkers on land (1 missile each).
9.When the refueling drone comes into view destroy the gravity pad in front
of it aiming low so as not to hit the drone. Then take out the walker.
Also get the other two ground things past the drone before refueling.
10.Refuel! (finally) Come in from the side and don't worry about the air
mines.
11.Take out landing pads and birdlike machines at the silos (I usually also
get the ones just past the first silo or else they'll blast you when you
come out. To enter the silo, make sure the targetting indicators are
centered on the entrance.
12.Get the eggs in the tunnel and get at least one of the flappers with
lasers. There are 2 silos in this area, so don't forget the second one.
Refuel afterwards (might want to fly a little forward and kill some
stuff).
13.Blast the incoming fighters and two walkers before being sucked in by the
gravity pad. Shoot the pad with lasers and turbo back. Do the same with
the other gravity pads and fighters. If you are trapped by a pad uses
lasers firing down to destroy it.
14.Destroy the Juggernaut with missiles (7 missiles) flying multiple passes.
Sometimes the enemy fighters fly into the big juggernaut, but otherwise
you'll have to get them with lasers.
15.Also kill the battle fortress just past the refueling drone before re-
fueling (also 7 missiles). Don't get too close to this guy! Refuel.
Things get harder after this point.
16.Next are the heavily armored fighters (this is a real dogfight). It is
easier to fight them over flatter ground because they stay a certain
height above the ground all the time. If you are not an expert
dogfighter, you may want to turbo past this area (ICE's comments seem to
indicate the game designers assumed you'll have to).
17.Two more silos are next. These are the ones with the killer flaps at the
entrance and exits. Laser the flaps on entrance and exit. You can get
through if you concentrate your fire on the bottom one and have enough
shields and time it just right and use turbos and get lucky and are damn
good at it and... I have tried doing a barrel roll through them (can't
roll in the tunnels) and I've tried blasting the exit point before
entering the tunnel with no effect. If you make it past this point you
will probably win.
18.Beware of the Juggernaut when coming out of this tunnel. Kill it and
don't forget about the other silo! Refuel.
19.More gravity pads and fighters.
20.Get ALL of the landing pads in the next area.
21.There is a BIG spider-like machine with heavy firepower near you next
refueling drone. I have killed it without needing to refuel, but beware
of the gravity pad near it. Getting trapped by that pad could be the end
for you.

<pbardis@uoft02.utoledo.edu> writes a Hint about level 8 (Congo):

It appears that you have to shoot everything in the tunnels, including
those flapping fishbone obstacles. I finished that level a few times
with less 4 objectives met and I know I wiped out all of the eggs in
the tunnels and got the other outside objectives. I couldn't finish
the level until I went back and got every last cuttlefish thingy in
the tunnels.

On the upside, on these subsequent tunnel passes, you get to afterburn
thru the tunnels until you get to the last couple of fishbones and the
afterburning trip thru the tunnels is pretty spectacular, with just
the right amount of banking to make it look neater than TE tunnels!

Correction by <wemagor@fms0.cca.rockwell.com>: No, those aren't objectives. I
finished without destroying all of them. Trouble is, you almost have to kill
them or they'll kill you. You probably got some- thing you missed the other
time. ICE will tell you almost right away if you didn't get all the eggs.

Level 10:
~~~~~~~~~

<wemagor@fms0.cca.rockwell.com> writes:

Just turbo through most everything. Once I got to the mother ship I
killed the first big thing (at the edge of the ship) with
missiles. After that, I didn't kill hardly anything. I just tried to
run-like-hell! There are several refueling drones above the mother
ship (3 or 4 I think). Stay fairly close to the center (I was just to
the right of the trough).

There's another hint I could give, but that much should get you
farther. I don't want to give away the whole thing...

Q: ICE said that all of the things on the ship's surface are organic
parts of the whole and no shot will be wasted then...this doesn't mean
I have to wipe out everything sticking out of the ship, does it?

A: No, you don't. I thought that too, but it's just too damn hard with all the
things firing on you. Like I said, just run like hell until you reach some-
thing significant.

Q: Is there one main thing at the end of this level--I see there's
only one objective, but even just trying to get by and shoot only
what's dogging me still gets me overburdened.

A: Ah, very observant.

James A. Squires:

When you get up on the Mudder ship, (killing of course that decoy drone),
immediatly kill the two strange flower like objects that home in on you (and I
think there is a second set shortly following).

Dodge and outrun everything else, then look in the left trench for a
drone. Zoom to it, because you'll be under attack and low on
shelds. As soon as you leave, take out the robot guys with missles
(and I think you can go back for refuling again...).

Skip the tunnel (tho it looks very cool).

If my info is way off, tell me, and I'll refly it and update my info.

There is two ways I know of to kill da brain...

1.Kill all bad guys around the brain site. Then take your time picking off
the brain - don't run into it, make multiple passes.
2.Kill the bad guys that bug you, then fire missiles from the outside of
the brain's pit. (You should know this trick by know... The
missile-locking radar can 'see-thru' ground, and the missile will
'terrain-follow' to hit the target - just don't target the wrong
target).

Good luck!

-JAS

-----------------------------------------
3 - HELPS, TRICKS AND GENERAL STRATEGIES
-----------------------------------------

text by David R. Liu <davidliu@case.ai.mit.edu>

I almost think Shockwave should get an FAQ...

It's a little on the tough side...but the missions get SO much better in terms
of enemy graphics, terrain graphics, enemy and terrain variety, weapons, and
mission creativity as you progress through the game up to the 10th level on the
moon (!) that I thought perhaps posting a Shockwave tips list might help some
netfolks get farther in this excellent title.

BTW, all this info was obtained from playing at the Wingman (default)
difficulty; not all may apply if you are on Cadet or Ace difficulty.

General Tips

Remember that each refueling bay is good for usually TWO refuels. On
occasion, the fuel drone gives you only one refuel, and occasionally you
get three. So the strategy I use is to hunt for a fuel depot, check my
red bar, and if I still have 15% strength or so, I kill everything I can
within the vicinity of the fuel depot. Then I fuel up and leave. If I'm
lower than 15% coming into the bay, I fuel immediately, then kill
everything (with LASERS, not missiles which are harder to get on refuel)
then FUEL AGAIN.

Several fuel bays are HIDDEN from radar. There are two in LA, I believe,
that are cloaked. In mission 6 (Utah/Monument Valley), there is one on
the left side of your path at the second excavator site, then later on
your right side.

The amount of fuel you get from refueling seems to be negatively
correlated with the amount of DAMAGE (civilian and building damage) you
do. If you are reckless (or if you just don't like the way a building
looks and blow it to smithereens) then you are likely to be shortchanged
the next time you fuel.

The swarm aliens RUN OUT OF GAS. That is, you can lure them into chasing
you, then do a U-turn, and use afterburners. They'll just perish trying
to chase you. Simple. No ammo wasted. Each swarm has one mother alien
which is an immobile sphere, and takes about 13 laser hits to kill.
Up to mission 4, it is conceivable that you can destroy every alien you
ever see on radar. Around mission 5 and on, this becomes impossible. So
the new strategy is to listen carefully to your specific instructions,
take out exactly what you need to kill (and surrounding threats which
pose an immediate danger), then GET OUT and move to the next waypoint.
Sure it's wussy and chicken-hearted...but you DO want to see levels 10
and 11 (the secret Milk Run level), right? :) Fortunately, fewer of the
mission objectives in the later levels are "Kill Every Alien in the
Area" as was true in Los Angeles (mission 3).

Notes on specific levels

Level 3: You can actually complete ALL your objectives and pass the
mission even if you blow up a prison. I've tried the experiment (not
on purpose...) Just be sure to get all the power cells.

Level 4: The 5 big big guns you meet just before the end are really annoying.
They are arranged like this:

2 4

1 3 5

Take out 3 first, with guns only if possible, then 5 with guns, then 4 with
missiles, then afterburn down the right side of the corridor. To kill each gun,
approach it from outside it's range, shoot guns or missiles for no more than 2
seconds once your gunsight turns red, then pull a quick U-turn and escape with
burners. Repeat.

Level 5: The lava pit has three really annoying buggers inside. I've never
bothered killing the REALLY FAST two green dot mobile ground guns. The red dot
in the center of the lava pit, however, i always kill. So destroying all three
is not necessary to completing the mission, een though ICE implies this.

Level 6: The only thing ICE cares about besides killing the final boss
is to destroy all the excavators. Each excavator takes one LONG LONG
stream of lasers, or one NUKE and about 5 seconds of lasers, or TWO
NUKES and about 1 second of lasers. Even though ICE tells you not to
trash the city as you kill the last boss (who is easy since he has a
pea shooter for a weapon), you CAN get by if you crunch say 4
buildings or so. Just don't try levelling the city.

David

-----------------------------------------
4 - EXPLANATION OF THE SAVE GAME FEATURE
-----------------------------------------

Read this and you will not loose your saved games!

text by David R. Liu <davidliu@case.ai.mit.edu>

Here's how I think the Shockwave save game process works:

You start off with 3 attempts, indicated by the 3 green boxes in a virgin
pilot's record screen. Every time you complete a mission, you get another green
box. If you:

1.fail either by giving up or dying, you lose a green box.
2.get to and live through the end of the mission, but have less than x/x
objectives met (failed to complete one or more mission ogals) then you
don;t lose any green boxes, and get to try again.

HOWEVER, if you are misfortunate enough to lose ALL your green boxes, you have
no more attempts left and then you are given an option:

STOP ends your game period, no save game, no advanced level you worked
all night to reach, nothing.

PAUSE continues your saved game from a score of ZERO.

Thus, if you see the flatline FMV where you die and you accidently hit STOP a
few times, you will likely axe your game without realizing it.

If you are careful about pressing PAUSE and STOP at appropriate times, i don;t
think anyone will have problems with lost saved games. I've only lost one saved
game, and that was from killing the power of the 3do during a mission.

I don't think there IS any save game bug:

Shockwave is strict-- no argument there-- and if you try to cheese it
by cutting the power before you resolve your current sortie then you
lose your record. However, everything else makes sense. You can't
simply keep banging on stop or pause and expect nothing to
happen. There is a screen after you exhaust all your attempts which
says EXPLICITLY that if you press STOP, you will lose your game
forever. So if some impatient and frustrated user hits his stop button
10 times during his death scene, the buffer simply causes him to
trigger the "RESTART" (lose your game) option rather than the continue
option.

In fact, several of the so called "BUGS" in this game are not bugs at all but
people who have failed to read the manual or understand how this admittedly
complex game functions.

I'll be surprised if anyone shows me a REAL BUG that truly cannot be prevented
by some good common sense in Shockwave.

David