The minimum score required in Space Shuttle by Activision for the Atari 2600 to earn a patch was: for the PILOT Patch -- dock 5 times with greater than 4,500 units of fuel remaining. For the COMMANDER Patch -- dock 6 times with greater than 7,500 units of fuel remaining. The best advice in Space Shuttle is to read the manual, so that you know all of the nuances of the game. The manual gives some really good tips. Make sure both difficulty switches are set to B. Space Shuttle is one of the hardest and most complex games made by Activision. Space Shuttle offers an entire different level of gaming experience. This rather intricate game is made to make you feel like an astronaut, with all the stress included. There is really so much to say about this game that it can be overwhelming, lengthy, and perhaps boring to the ones who really don't understand the command of flight. But it is a very entertaining and fun game once you get the hang of how to fly and guide the shuttle. The controls are color/bw switch is for primary engines, left difficulty switch is for the back-up engines, right difficulty switch is for the cargo doors and landing gear. And the game select switch is for the status. The game reset initiates the countdown. The joystick controls are left and right which guide the planes (A & Y axis). While the red button is pressed, up or down will control the Z axis. There are many things that are needed to be a pilot in this game. You contend with all sorts of details: Flight Preparation, Equipment Check, Flight Selection, Flight Evaluation, and then the Ranking. All of these factor in the level of difficulty that is ahead of you and you will need to know all of them very very well. The objective of this game is to launch the space shuttle into space, rendezvous and dock with the orbiting satellite station the greatest number of times that you can while expending the least possible amount of fuel. Then pilot the shuttle back to Earth. Each time you do this the orbiting satellite becomes more and more unstable. So getting the hang of this is a must in the latter part of docking. There are three flight selections to choose from. 1 & 2 are the training modes, which you must learn before attempting number 3, which is a full blown flight with no assistance. Your ranking at the end records all of the details on how the flight progressed. You will be shown and graded on just how well you did with the ranking description. Each game starts off with a lovely blue window with clouds outside. You are on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. It is evening and time to begin the mission. The space company, NASA, appears in the center of the console. But once started that changes to MET "Main Engine Cut-Out". Above NASA or MET are "C & T" which stand for Computer and Thrust. When you are at launch position you'll have 15 seconds to engage all of your check list before launch. As you start to fly you'll see indicators that move with all of your responses. As the game proceeds, the spot that says MET changes as your flight progresses with each modification that you make. It will change to "ALT for altitude" to "Fuel", "Y & A axis", "Z axis", "RNG" which is your landing. The green screen of your computer below indicates which selection that you are viewing that will correspond with all the above changes, so that you can compensate for its variances. Continued in Part 2... And when you've earned your patch, just visit http://www.ActivisionPatches.com