43BSDReno/games/warp/warp.doc - annotate

Return to warp.doc CVS log

Up to [CSRG BSD Unix] / 43BSDReno / games / warp

Annotation of 43BSDReno/games/warp/warp.doc, revision 1.1.1.1

1.1 root 1: Warp is a real-time space war game. This means that the enemies will keep
2: playing even when you sit still. Another peculiarity is that things which
3: blow up can damage other things around them. Universes above a critical
4: density may chain react.
5:
6: The game starts at difficulty 1, and gets more difficult with each
7: succeeding wave, up to difficulty 99. You're not likely to get that far.
8: (Invoking warp with a -b switch causes the difficulty to increase more
9: slowly, but games count only a tenth as much.) The game starts with
10: 5 Enterprises and 3 Bases, and you get more for surviving long enough.
11: The game is over when you run out of Enterprises and Bases.
12:
13: The object of the game is to get as many points as possible. This is done
14: by destroying as many enemies as possible. This is not a trivial task.
15: Each wave starts with one Enterprise and one Base, and continues until
16: either both the Enterprise and Base are destroyed, or all the enemies
17: (including any homing torpedoes) are destroyed. It is possible to abort a
18: wave, but you will be penalized for it. The game may be saved between waves.
19:
20: A -x switch causes any saved game to be ignored, and causes the new game
21: not to be saveable. Hence it is possible to run test games without
22: invalidating a currently saved game.
23:
24: The game is played in a 23 x 40 double wrap-around universe. Everybody
25: (both you and the enemies) gets the chance to move once every second,
26: unless a -l (low-speed) switch was given or you are under 2400 baud, in
27: which case it's every two seconds. The following symbols are displayed:
28:
29: FRIENDS
30: E Enterprise with shields e Enterprise without shields
31: C Cloaked E with shields c Cloaked E without shields
32: B Base with shields b Base without shields
33: + Friendly torpedo M Harry Mudd
34:
35: ENEMIES
36: K Klingon G Gorn
37: R Romulan A Apollo
38: Romulan with cloaking device! & Space Amoeba Nucleus
39: T Tholian >,< Planet crusher
40: x,X Hostile torpedo o,O Homing torpedo
41: P Pirate M Harry Mudd
42:
43: MISCELLANEOUS
44: * Star @ Inhabited star
45: |,-,/,\ Web ~ Protoplasm
46: other Friendly Freighter, for now...
47:
48: The following keys control the DIRECTION of your various actions:
49:
50: h or 4 left
51: j or 2 down
52: k or 8 up
53: l or 6 right
54: b or 1 down and left
55: n or 3 down and right
56: y or 7 up and left
57: u or 9 up and right
58:
59: (You will note that the letters are the same as other visual games, and the
60: numbers are for use with a keypad.) By themselves, these keys move either
61: the Enterprise or the Base, whichever is the current vessel. When shifted,
62: they fire photon torpedoes in the specified direction from the current
63: vessel. When used with either the CTRL key or the FUNCT key, phasers
64: (turbo-lasers for the Base) are fired in the specified direction. (CTRL
65: won't work with numbers, and FUNCT probably doesn't exist on non-TVI
66: terminals.) When preceded by an 'a', an attractor beam is fired in the
67: specified direction, and when preceded by an 'r', a repulsor beam is fired.
68:
69: These keys have special functions:
70:
71: del or % fire photon torpedoes in every (reasonable) direction
72: s stop all friendly torpedoes
73: S or 0 stop the Enterprise when in warp mode
74: d destruct all friendly torpedoes (quite useful)
75: D destruct the current vessel (commit suicide)
76: i/w switch to Enterprise and put into impulse/warp mode
77: c/v switch to Enterprise and put into cloaking/visible mode
78: p switch to Base (not very mnemonic, but 'b' is taken)
79: o switch from Enterprise to Base, or vice versa
80: z zap explosions (multiple zaps extend further) (E only)
81:
82: ^R refresh the screen
83: ^Z suspend the game (on a bsd system)
84: q asks if you want to exit this wave (will not work
85: within 10 cycles of previous q command)
86: Q exit this game (not wave)
87: ? display a summary of these commands
88:
89: There may be additional commands listed in your terminal's keymap file.
90: Unrecognized keystrokes are ignored. IF YOU FORGET ALL THE OTHER COMMANDS,
91: REMEMBER "?", which gives you help.
92:
93: Commands for moving the Enterprise may operate in one of two ways. If it
94: is in impulse mode, movement commands affect the position of the ship;
95: if it is in warp mode, movement commands affect the velocity instead.
96: The Base always moves in impulse mode. Since multiple commands may be
97: entered in one turn (if you can type fast enough), it is possible to jump
98: over things even in impulse mode. In a crowded universe this may be the
99: only way to go.
100:
101: (Actually, motion commands always change the velocity--the actual motion
102: does not occur until the next turn. Impulse mode simply causes the
103: velocity to be zeroed out at the end of every turn. Phaser commands, on
104: the other hand, are executed immediately. If you want to move and fire a
105: phaser, you must wait for the motion to actually occur before typing the
106: phaser command, or the phaser fires from your old position. This is a
107: feature, not a bug, and is intended to reflect reality. Really.)
108:
109: If multiple torpedo launching commands are given in a turn, a single torpedo
110: is launched with extra velocity. You can thus launch photon torpedoes over
111: objects in the way, and get them where you want them quickly. This feature
112: works well with the destruct button. Variations on this may be useful
113: against the Space Amoeba.
114:
115: NOTE: Phasers destroy the target by blasting the projected next location of
116: the object hit. This means that if the object hit, be it Klingon, Romulan or
117: Enterprise, changes velocity in the same turn, it can elude the effect of
118: the phaser! (Note that this also means that if you phaser a Klingon or
119: torpedo that is about to ram you, you will be phasered as well as he/she/it.
120: This can be embarrassing, not to mention deadly.) Smart players move
121: immediately upon phasering something at short range, or whenever they
122: think they might get phasered (in other words, most of the time).
123:
124: Objects with larger mass can bounce objects with smaller mass out of the way.
125: In a crowded universe the bouncee can bounce quite a way before finding an
126: empty place to land. If you let the Tholians fill up the universe with web,
127: so that there is no place to bounce to, the Tholians win that wave.
128:
129: The status line across the top gives the current mode, the number of
130: points accumulated this wave, the Enterprise's energy and torpedoes, the
131: Base's energy and torpedoes, the number of stars, the number of enemies,
132: and the stardate. You will note that nice things happen to your energy levels
133: when you put the Enterprise next to the Base, or the Base next to some stars.
134: Bad things happen inside an Amoeba.
135:
136: An object is destroyed when its energy goes negative, either from a direct
137: hit, or from the blast of the previous turn's explosions. Enemies and
138: stars start with random amounts of energy. High energy enemies can go warp
139: 2. A Romulan with sufficient energy maintains a cloaking device. Tholians
140: spin web, Gorns shoot homing torpedoes, and the Planet Crusher munches
141: anything in its way, even Apollo. Apollo won't let you go unless you kill
142: him, but he loves you very much and beefs up your shields considerably.
143: Both Apollo and the Planet Crusher recharge themselves, so you must hit
144: them hard in a single turn to do them in. (Yes, the Planet Crusher must be
145: shot in the mouth--he can only die of gluttony--and he blasts out of his
146: mouth when he dies.) Tholian web may be crossed only by coasting across it
147: in warp mode, or by blasting it (but web blasts extend twice as far as
148: normal blasts, so keep your distance). The Space Amoeba sucks energy and
149: grows, and you must destroy the nucleus. Somehow. There are at least four
150: ways. Phasers won't work on the big ones.
151:
152: Pirates turn inhabited star systems into uninhabited ones. Even Friendly
153: Freighters will take potshots at you if you get them mad enough.
154:
155: Note that because of the size of the Base's turbo-lasers (the Base does not
156: have phasers) they cannot shoot anything next to the Base. (This is why the
157: Death Star died!) In part, this is to protect the Enterprise. It also lets
158: you shoot over one adjacent star. The Enterprise's phasers will shoot over
159: a arbitrary number of adjacent, contiguous stars, including inhabited ones.
160: Phasers die away with distance, so don't expect them to kill everything with
161: one blow.
162:
163: While the Enterprise's shields are up (when it is displayed as "E" rather
164: than "e"), hits on it count only a fifth as much (or even less if you are
165: moving in warp mode). The shields are automatically maintained as long as
166: there are more than 500 units of energy for the Enterprise. The Base also
167: has shields, which stay up as long as it has at least 1000 units of energy.
168:
169: Aside from losing energy, the Enterprise can also take damage, either random
170: damage from getting blasted, or specific damage when a system is in use
171: and breaks down under the load. In place of the score you will see the
172: Estimated Time to Repair. Sometimes docking helps to get things fixed faster.
173: If you lose both your warp and impulse engines, try the tractors. The
174: Base doesn't take damage because it has much more redundancy than the
175: Enterprise.
176:
177: You get points for destroying enemies and hostile torpedoes. At the end of
178: a wave, you also get bonus points for saving stars, saving the Enterprise
179: and Base, and for having an efficiency rating higher that 0.8. You get
180: NEGATIVE bonus points for letting friendly life forms get blown up, and for
181: giving up. Bonuses tend to be scaled by the ratio of the number of points
182: you got over the number of points you could have got. If you think you are
183: done with a wave, but it won't quit, there may be homing torpedoes that you
184: haven't destroyed--you must make the universe safe for posterity, you know.
185:
186: When you have used up your Enterprises and Bases (or quit), your score will
187: be posted to the scoreboard. You may see the scoreboard outside of the game
188: simply by giving the command "warp -s".
189:
190: If you get bored, you can always play with some of the undocumented switches
191: that are used to test warp. Such funny games go on their own scoreboard.
192: For kicks try "warp -x -d50 -C -\& -G -T -E400 -S5" and then go hide. Quick.
193:

unix.superglobalmegacorp.com

This archive runs on limited infrastructure. Preserving old code on modern bandwidth. Automated agents are requested to crawl responsibly.