Cylon Attack (by A n F Software) has always been one of my favourite games, even though it takes ages to play to get to the really challenging levels - level 6 with a joystick, or 4 with keyboard.

The trouble was that I could never get any further to see if anything special happened in later levels.

I had a cheat program from somewhere (probably PD from a magazine), but the cheat pokes never worked on the version of the game I had. However, following a bit of hacking, I have corrected the program and can offer EUG readers the following cheats:

• Choose Start Level (0-98, anything higher is reduced (MOD 100) -1)
• Infinite Shields
• Infinite Fuel Pods (This was how I always used to die on level 6)
• Infinite Mothership (Bang goes the quick way of ending the game by shooting the mothership!)
• Number of Fuel Pods available (One added every 10,000 points was not nearly enough!)

In order for the program to work, Cylon Attack should be in the same directory as it, be called CA and have a load address of &2000, an execute address of &6907 and a length of &4A00.

When I started on level 98, I played for about four hours and, having destroyed about thirty of the nastiest aliens (the ones which produce other aliens, rather than missiles), I got bored. I guess there would still have been almost another seventy aliens to go - one more appearing when I destroyed the previous one.

It seems the game levels go as follows:

1	Type 1 and 2 aliens (looking like skulls and tie-fighters)
2	Type 1,2 and 3
3	Type 1,2 and a few more of 3
4	Type 1,2,3 and a couple of 4
5	Type 1,2,3,4 and nasty version of 4 which produces type 1
6	As 5 with another couple of nasty type 4s ...
8?	Add nasty type 4s which produce type 2s ...
10	Add nasty type 4s which produce type 3s
11	Add one extra type 4 producing type 3s per level, another appearing
-99	Once you are down to one type 4. Perhaps the number of type 4s producing type 3s is (Level number - 10)
100	Return to level 1

The best thing to happen in Cylon Attack is one shot killing two aliens, especially when one is a type 3 and the other a type 4!

The worst features of the game are:

• The aliens gang up on you when you're refuelling, using about three-quarters of your shields when you relaunch. The game stores up all the missiles fired after refuelling is completed and you get to run into them all on exiting the mothership.
• The type 4 aliens are very sneaky - you only get one shot at them before they surround themselves with missiles (up to ten at once) and retreat into subspace until you let them do a circuit by going off one side of the long-range window and onto the other side. (Perhaps it's while they are off-screen that they suddenly decide to start producing type 3 aliens as the game adds another type 4 as well!)

With infinite shields, I now regard having four aliens on screen at once as being a larger target, rather than a time to flee!

The only way to die with the cheat program installed is to forget to refuel - easy to do when you have to play with the sound off while the other members of the family are trying to sleep ;-)

Mark Bellis, EUG #37