warp/warp.doc

   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 \f
  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 \f
  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 \f
  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 \f
  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 \f
 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 \f
 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 \f
 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 \f
 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 \f