Universe

For 200 years the people of Axia, the central planet in a cluster of colonies known as the Local Group, have relied on spacecraft from Earth for economic support. The spacecraft, propelled by Earth’s prized Hyperspace Booster, arrive regularly at Axia, carrying Earth’s latest technological advances and trained personnel. These shipments from Earth are strictly one-way, because the Local Group does not have a Hyperspace Booster. Earth has been dispatching the ships based only on her faith in the colonists’ ability to survive. Four months ago, the expected ship did not arrive. The colony has been caught in a wave of desperate concern and wild speculation, for without Earth’s assistance, technological deterioration is certain. Fifteen days ago, evidence of a second Hyperspace Booster, lost somewhere in the Local Group, surfaced. Discovery of this second Booster would mean a fortune for those who found it, and would renew contact with Earth; failure to find the Booster would mean the eventual destruction of the colonies. You and your colleagues have decided to search for it. Your search takes you through a multitude of star systems and planets, using true three dimensional flight, orbits, and orbital transfers. But your voyage will not be free. You must earn money to maintain spacecraft and crew. You will need to use your ship for passenger transport, mining, trading in exotic goods, or, for the desperate, piracy. You may need to defend yourself, for there are others who are eager for profit and power. You will have to construct the spacecraft most suited to your endeavor and decide what is needed to survive in deep space while contending with unknowns. This real time game, with hundreds of kilobytes of data, features intelligent enemy ships and total control of on-board facilities such as computers, high-resolution scanners, weapons, assault capsules, ore processors, orbital shuttles, rescue pods, and much more. Using high-resolution graphics (editor note: for its day), and more than 30 custom displays—Omnitrend’s Universe allows you to experience the life of a starship captain in search of the lost Hyperspace Booster. New in this release: An all new manual, lovingly restored by the original author and publisher in the original 8.5"x11" format... including the Complete Products Guide. This is not mereley a scan of the original, but a clean new layout authentic to the original. The program has been recompiled from the original Pascal source code, and includes a few bug fixes that remained from the previous version 1.4 release from 1987. The word-lookup "copy protection" has been removed. Now published directly by Omnitrend Software, Inc., the original publisher of the game from 1983.