looking for SALAMANDER gamer manual.

oh, right, name edited..

Game uses a combination of tile and sprite enemies! E unlocks weapon upgrades like HAWK WIND and METEO each time you get 15 of them. I don’t know about the player captured message.

If I look at this video, red player gets two options and the blue one (at 3:25). So it should be possible. Maybe try to get the options for the red ship first? It could be peculiar like that.

Yes, I see, I got those green missile without knowing that is what earn with thouse 'E', anyway seeing the video, it is incredibly hard to play, is incredibly too that later it is a scroll up game!.

A great masterpiece from konami.

About the options: If you get 3, the other player can't get any more options. Even if you die and lose your options, the other player will still not be able to get options. (it's a sort of bug). if the options upgrade box is cancelled out, the only way to clear that is by dying. :/

When player 1 has collected 15 'E' you get the message: "Player 1 captured HAWKWIND"
It doesn't mean the player is captured himself

By collection E you can 'capture' the following weapons:
HAWKWIND (upgrade from missile, missiles that can climb terrain)
METEO (upgrade from laser, wider laser, and the only weapon that can shoot the barricades on planet Eioneus)
SCREW (upgrade from meteo, really wide laser)
HOMING (upgrade from hawkwind, missiles that fly directly to enemies, but kinda glitchy!)
TWIN LASER (2P combine weapon, difficult to activate -> merge ships with item, then upgrade from laser)
TRIPLE LASER (2P combine weapon, even more difficult -> merge ships with item, then upgrade from twin laser)
ARMING BALL (2P combine weapon, merge ships with item, then upgrade from ripple laser, shoots 'balls' in any direction you want)

Never use ARMING BALL though, it's extremely glitchy, and because of the limited time you can use it, it's not worth the powerups

imho, Nemesis 2 had far better powerups with up-laser and napalm missiles