Since hopefully non-Yaroze people will someday play Decaying Orbit, they won't have the luxury of a readme.txt file. This online manual will hold the most up-to-date information about how to play the game. I will try to make it keep pace with the most recently released version. That means if you have an older copy, some things might not be the same as stated here. Currently the most recent version is the one released on the OPSM demo disc.

Press START to bypass any of these opening screens.

These are the default buttons for navigating menus. You may change these under CONFIGURATION -> CONTROL MENU -> MENU CONFIG.

Accept/OK
Cancel

• Single Player - Begin a new single-player game. (see submenu below)
• Multi Player - Begin a new multi-player game. (not supported yet)
• Introduction - View the game's opening sequence.
• Level Editor - Enter the game's level editor. Here you can construct your own Decaying Orbit level.
• Configuration - The same as the in-game pause menu. This allows you to change button configuration, sound options, enter cheats, or take screen shots. (see submenu below)
• Credits - The people involved in making the game.
• Exit - Leave the game.

• New Game - Start a new game from the beginning.
• Load Game - Load a previously saved game. (not supported yet)

• Control Config - Choose your controller type and button configuration (see submenu)
• Sound Config - Adjust sound effects & music volume and configure CD music (see submenu)
• Menu Config - Choose buttons for interfacing with menus (see submenu)
• Cheat Menu - Enter and enable/disable cheats (see submenu)
• Screen Dump - Take a screen shot (see submenu)

Depending on what controller you have connected, different entries in this menu will be active.

• Digital - If active, shows you're in digital mode
• Analog - If active, shows you're in analog (dual-shock) mode.
• Mode - Choose between three different analog modes:
  • Scalar - Turn by pressing left and right on the analog stick. Speed of turn depends on how far from center you push. Most similar to digital mode.
  • Polar - Up is the center position and pushing left or right from this turns left/right. Speed of turn depends on how far from "up" position you push.
  • Absolute - Push in the direction you want your craft to face. It will automatically rotate at maximum rate until it reaches that position.
• Left Thrust - Use the left stick to also control thrust strength (not supported yet)
• Right Thrust - Use the right stick to control thrust strength. The farther you push up, the more thrust. Button configuration is significantly different in Right Throttle Mode.
• Negcon - If active, shows you're using a neGcon. (not supported yet)
• Config - Configure the neGcon (not supported yet)
• Button Config - Change button configuration (see submenu)
• Test Controls - (not supported yet)

This is where you can change the buttons which perform game actions. Move down to the button you want to change and press the new button.

There are two "shift" buttons available to you. These are buttons which you press in combination with any other button. To change the shift buttons go to one of the top two lines and press a new button. All actions which use that shift button will change to reflect the new choice.

• SFX Vol - Change sound effects volume
• BGM Vol - Change CD audio background music volume
• CD Options - Change some options about CD audio playback (see submenu)
• SFX Test - Listen to all the in-game sound effects. (not supported yet)

Track order and current tack are shown at the bottom.

• Num Tracks - Allows you to tell the game how many audio tracks are on the CD (Yaroze libs do not allow auto-detection)
• Skip Track 1 - If active, inhibits playing of track 1 (useful to play music from game CDs)
• Random Order - Instead of playing sequentially, play in shuffle mode.
• Next Track - Advance to next track
• Previous Track - Go back to previous track

• Return - Go back to previous menu
• Accept - Choose a button which will be the primary input for menus.
• Cancel - Choose a button to cancel out of menus.

This option does not appear in the OPSM version since obviously those players don't have the necessary connection to their PC.

To take a screen shot you need to turn on logging in SIOCONS by pressing F5 and choosing a filename. Capture the screen as described below. Then close the log file (with either F10+F5 or just exit out of SIOCONS). Use the accompanying utility called log2raw to convert this to a RAW graphic file. You can then import the RAW file into a paint program and convert it to whatever format you like (the graphic dimensions are 640x480).

There are two methods for taking screen shots. The first is the Quick Snapshot which will just take the current screen. The other method is a delayed shot. Choose a delay (in seconds) and hit go. Then you can take time to get the screen set up the way you want before the screen gets grabbed.

You may halt a screen grab which is in progress by pressing START. You may need to press START several times before it will respond.

• Quick Snapshot - Exit out of the menu & take a shot of the current screen
• Start Delay - Choose delay in seconds before grabbing screen
• Single Frame/Multi Frame - If "Single Frame" the grab will be a single shot. If "Multi Frame", the screen will continuously be grabbed over successive frames. You can skip a certain number of frames in between each capture using the next option.
• Frame Delay - The number of frames in between each capture for a Multi Frame grab.
• Go - Start the counter to capture the screen
• Cancel - Back out without capturing

Only active cheats will be shown in the list. To activate a cheat, choose "Enter Cheat" and type out the secret code.

• Enter Cheat - Allows entry of a cheat code (see submenu)
• Various Cheats - Play around with the cheats to find out what they do. Most cheats can be enabled/disabled at any time.

Enter a sequence of 10 button presses (using the 4 main buttons only). If the code was accepted you will hear a chime and the cheat will be activated on the Cheat Menu.

Press START while playing to bring up the pause menu. From here you can change the game configuration including sound options, control options, load & save (not supported yet), or quit the current game.

• Continue - Return to the game.
• Exit to Main - Quit the current game and return to the main menu.
• Control Config - Change control method and button configuration (identical to main menu above).
• Sound Config - Change volume settings and configure the CD player for background music (identical to main menu above)
• Menu Config - Choose how to interact with the menu system (identical to main menu above)
• Load Game - Load a previously saved game. (not supported yet)
• Save Game - Save current game. (not supported yet)