To begin these demos you must click on the shortcuts, since they employ a number of command lines.
Team Alligator Shortcuts and Arguments
Team Alligator currently runs from a series of shortcuts, with arguments to set in game
parameters. Essentially the shortcut should be defined as follows:
1 Create a shortcut to the location of Team2.exe, or get the properties of an existing
shortcut.
2 Go to the Shortcut Tab. In Target type the location of the Team2.exe, for example:
"C:\game\Team2.exe"
3 Following this add the command line arguments, with a space separating each one. See
below for a full list of command line arguments and there effect.
4 In Start In, type in the folder location of the Team2.exe file. For example:
"C:\game"
5 If you want to, click on the change icon button, and point it to ka52.ico, which should
be in the game root directory. This uses a Ka52 Team Alligator icon for the shortcut.
The shortcut should now be ready to run.
Possible problems:
1 If the error message: "The name 'C:\game\Team2.exe' specified in the Target box is not
valid. Make sure the path and filename are correct" appears, then the Team2.exe file is
in the specified folder. Check the folder path to make sure there are no mistakes, and
check in the folder to make sure Team2.exe is there.
2 If the error message: "The folder 'c:\game' specified in the Start In box is not valid.
Make sure the folder exists and that the path is correct". This means the folder the game
should be running from is not is the place specified in the Start In box. Either the folder
name is wrong, or the drive/folder pointed to does not exist. Make sure the Start In box contains
the correct location, and that the folder exists.
COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS
All command line arguments start with a negative symbol: -
-dev:hal These two arguments tell the game to run in primary hardware or secondary.
hal2 "hal" is primary, "hal2" is secondary.
-terrain:Belarus_Day Describes the terrain files used to create the terrain.
Belarus_Dawn
Belarus_Dusk
Tajik_Day
-world:Belworld Describes the cultural object file used.
Tajworld
-area:bel Points at the correct directory for shapes and terrain.
taj
-mission:Belcm1 Describes the mission file used.
Belcm2
Belcm3
Belcm4
Belcm5
Belcm6
Belcm7
Belcm8
Tajcm1
Tajcm2
Tajcm3
Tajcm4
-env:world_bel_wthr Describes the envirounment file used.
world_taj_wthr
-tod:12 Describes the time of day in hours 1-24
-ambient:0.4 Describes the ambient light setting where 0 (dark) 1 (light).
-nearclip:10 Set the nearclip to a value between 1-10
(described by the number at the end).
-appstop When an error occurs the user is prompted to quit the game or continue.
-skipgui Skips the gui selection screen embedded in the code
(for loading seperate missions from a short cut).
-allsarges Turns on ALL enemy units in a mission, instead of relying on percentages
described in param file.
-worldlog Activates the creation of a log file to assess what point the exe had
reached in its loading cycle.
-no_sound De-activates sound in the game.
-dropmips1 This will drop the number of mips
(described by the number placed at the end).
Demo Notes
To begin the demos, click on the 'Combat Demo' or 'Campaign Demo' shortcuts.
Combat Missions
The combat demo takes you through to the Combat Mission screen. This presents a scrolling list of missions. By selecting a mission with the mouse, then pressing the Fly Mission button, you can fly that combat mission. Mission descriptions are as follows:
Belcm1 - Beetle Juice
This is a simple seek and destroy. Your targets are some SS-21 "Scarab" Ballistic Missile Launchers, which intelligence reports to be in a village.
From the takeoff point, there are some hills directly south of you. Fly over them, and towards the river. Your first waypoint is at the corner of the river that is directly south of the lake - from that point you should be flying as close to the river as possible. Continue southwards following the river, until you pass a bridge. You will notice a friendly group of scouts on your right - they are being ambushed, and could use some help (but do you have the time?).
The first group of enemy units on the left hand side of the river are a forwards reconnaissance group; they will most probably run away when they see you. Follow them around the face of the hill, and you should see the remainder of their platoon. Continue along this valley, staying as low as possible; the enemy have a SAM umbrella set up on the hills, so if you stray too high you should get into trouble. If you follow the road you will come to a village. There are AAA defences in the streets of the village, so be careful not to level too many civilian buildings. The SS-21's are parked in the lee on the left hand side.
The enemy will receive word of your attack fairly quickly, and should send reinforcements, so keep it quick.
Belcm2 - Crossroads
You are tasked with supporting our forces advance on an enemy held cross-roads. The aim is to cut a main MSR, and gain a strategic hold on the local roadways. At the cross-roads will be a makeshift roadblock, consisting of a light armoured vehicle, with a hastily put together camp for the squad. As the player flies through the second waypoint, there are two squads of friendly T-80s moving towards the cross-roads. The player should be ahead enough to have half a minute of uninterrupted few on many fighting. This will be the light combat, however - advancing slightly slower than the friendly forces are enemy reinforcements which have been waiting in the hills. They come is squads of three from the lower half of the map. The player must then fight off this wave of attacks and have surviving forces left at the end of it, securing the cross-roads. Victory occurs when the defending forces are all destroyed, failure occurs when half the friendlies get destroyed.
Belcm3 - Stick out your Tung
There is a platoon of Tunguska travelling towards an enemy airbase to reinforce it. We need to make sure those reinforcements never make it there. As you fly through your waypoints, you will pass the enemy Forwards Edge. The Tunguska are dispersed against air attack, and are moving in towards a fortified airbase. The player must utilise terrain masking in order to stay out of sensor range of the Tungs, ducking behind small hills and popping up quickly to take them out individually. The Tungs are in motion when the player arrives, and the forwards Tungs are already near the base, so the player hasn't got time to hang around. Victory occurs when the Tungs get destroyed, failure occurs when any of the Tungs escape.
Belcm4 - Tank Park Derby
Intelligence has reported that there is a tank park deep in enemy territory that can be destroyed by a helicopter group. As you fly deep into enemy territory, you should pass several different moving groups of units. As you approach the enemy tank park, there are fortified ADA on the ridge near it, as well as a few light ADA scattered around. As the player approaches, there should be a visible enemy base near the parked tanks, out from which infantry will come running when they see the player. Each infantry man will be tasked with getting to a particular tank, which if it is destroyed will trigger a contingency to make the associated infantry man run to a secondary tank. Once they get to the tank, they Hari-Kiri, and the message that they pass to the tank is to start defending with guns only (this assumes that any other systems would take several minutes to come online). This is a complex order system, which will only work if the AI get sorted out, so probably wont be functional for the milestone. Instead, the tanks will be utterly static, and will not respond in any way shape or form. Once eni-heli's become possible, there should be wings of helicopters to harry the player while he is en route. The player should find this a fairly fun mission, as it is essentially a turkey shoot. It does take time to destroy that many tanks, so there is plenty of scope for arriving reinforcements and eni heli groups.
Belcm5- Loathing
Key to the beginning of the next phase of our attack is taking out the heavy air defences that the Belarussians have in place to the south of the river. They are dug in and dispersed against bombing, so they must be destroyed by your task force. Following your waypoints will lead you into enemy territory to the north of them, allowing you to fight and run through to the less protected flank of the S-300s. As a secondary priority, weaken as much of the Belarussian front line on the south side of the river on your egress as possible. Success occurs when the player destroys the heavy SAM site, including the radar van and support vehicles. Failure occurs when the player dies.
Belcm6 - Fear
There is a Hind farm just behind the enemy front line. You must fight your way in, and take out the control tower as well as any and all Hind's on the ground. Enemy resistance is expected to be high, so extreme caution must be exercised at all times. Victory occurs when the grounded Hinds are destroyed, failure when the player is destroyed. Some of the Hinds will be on Patrol duty, and should come around in time to surprise the player while he is finishing off the base defences. These is also a platoon of enemy T-72s that will approach the enemy base after the player. Success occurs when the player destroys all of the Hinds stationed at the base - including the Hinds that are on patrol duty. Failure occurs when the player dies.
Belcm7 - Interdictor
There is an enemy ammo dump deep inside enemy territory which must be destroyed. Defending it is a heavy ADA squadron, as well as sundry other forces. The Belarussians are in a defensive posture, so the player will be forced to fight through the front line, and penetrate deep into enemy territory. There will be air patrols to avoid or destroy, as well as various armoured groups manoeuvring behind the line. Success occurs when the player destroys the ammo dump buildings, failure occurs when the player dies.
Belcm8 - Busta-Bridge
The Belarussian front line has advanced dangerously close to our airbase. In order to fragment their forces and make them easier for us to tackle, you must destroy the two bridges on the river to our south-west. Each bridge is protected by heavy ADA, and intel reports a number of platoons in motion behind their front line, so watch out for any arriving reinforcements. Success occurs when both bridges are destroyed, failure when the player dies. At the first bridge, the player should spot a convoy moving away from the bridge - what it is will not be revealed. If the player chooses to engage this convoy the defences at the second bridge will have been increased dramatically by reinforcements arriving - obviously these defences will also arrive if the player just dawdles after destroying the first bridge. If the player follows the brief to the letter the mission should be fairly straight forwards, but if the player begins to deviate, the mission will become a lot harder. When the player approaches the front line, two friendly MiGs will pass overhead, and destroy some of the defences before pealing off and heading home.
Tajcm1 - Enter the Dragon
A Taleban General is reported to be controlling the offensive in this area from a fortified base deep within a maze of valleys and canyons. The area has several SAM nests which limit our ability to perform an air strike - instead, you must bypass these SAM defences by flying through the valleys and then take out the base. Victory occurs when the player destroys the primary base buildings, and escapes to base. Failure occurs when the player dies. At the moment, because of our inability to place infantry units, this mission seems a little easy - however, there are a number of ambush points which can only be filled with infantry, which will significantly increase the fun factor.
Tajcm2 - The Big Boss
Intelligence reports suggest that a supply convoy will be on the move today to support the Taleban offensive. If we can hit this convoy we can virtually stop the offensive in its tracks - your mission is to locate and destroy the convoy. The convoy is not yet in motion - we do not have the facilities to make non combatant units move as yet. En route to the convoy the player should engage several AAA defences situated inside villages, giving plenty of opportunity to expend weaponry before encountering he convoy. Included in the convoy are three fuel trucks - these should explode with a large shock wave and lots of flaming debris if at all possible. There will also be various pockets of infantry dotted around the area, protecting the convoy route and waiting to ambush the player. Victory occurs when the player destroys the convoy before it reaches the village, failure occurs when the convoy escapes to the village.
Tajcm3 - The Drunken Master
There are three villages that are known to be harbouring Tajik Guerrilla forces to the south of our airbase. Your mission is to teach the locals a lesson - using the universal language of fear. Destroy their villages, and eradicate the guerrilla presence from the area. Victory occurs when the primary buildings in the villages are destroyed, and half the guerrilla forces in the area are destroyed. During the Ingress and Egress the player should encounter several scattered Taleban squads. There is a juicy apparently unprotected 2S19 artillery piece situated out to the side of the ingress - if the player gets drawn into trying to destroy it, there will be a trap waiting...
Tajcm4 - Snake in Eagles Shadow
Intelligence are concerned that the Islamic Opposition has gained a new source of funding, and are using this to build up a SAM defence grid. They have already established a SAM nest guarding a bridge key to their supply route. This SAM nest is heavily guarded from a frontal assault, so for you to take it out will require a little finesse. Your mission is to fly in through the canyons, avoiding confronting the enemy as much as possible. A wing of SU-22 bombers will make a bombing run on the bridge 5 minutes and 20 seconds after you take off - by the time they make the run you should have destroyed the SAM nest. Using the planned route you should pop up within the SAM minimum range, however you will have the AAA defences to contend with. After the bombers are through, finish off any of the remaining defences around the bridge, and make your way back home. Your route home is much more direct, and will take you through some of the defences - hopefully you will be able to surprise them enough to destroy a significant number of them.
Campaign Missions
The campaign demo takes you through to the campaign demo screen. This presents the current time in the campaign in days, hours, minutes and seconds. Pressing the arrows to either side of the time will speed it up or slow it down. When a mission becomes available, a notice will appear in the centre box. Pressing Fly Mission will allow you to fly the mission.
There are two campaign demo shortcuts, which take you through to two separate mission strands.
Campaign 1 missions run as follows (you can reference the mission description in the design document):
Bmis1_1 Attack Command Post
Bmis2_1 Re-attack Enemy Command Post
Bmis3_2 Attack Second Echelon
Bmis4_1 Offensive Support
Bmis5_1 Defensive Support
Bmis6_1 Interdiction
Bmis7_1 Airmobile Insertion
Bmis8_1 Russian Campaign Mired
Bmis9_1 Russian Defeat
Campaign 2 missions run as follows (you can reference the mission description in the design document):
Bmis1_1 Attack Command Post
Bmis2_2 Attack Enemy Air Defences
Bmis3_2 Attack Second Echelon
Bmis4_3 Airfield Strike
Bmis5_3 Partisans
Bmis6_3 Counterattack
Bmis7_3 Infrastructure Strike
Bmis8_3 Russian Campaign Breakthrough
Bmis9_2 Russian Victory
These two strands permit you to play through the campaign core missions in the absence of a scoring mechanism to drive the selection of the next mission.
Basic Controls
The basic flight controls are:
Throttle: Gain/lose altitude
Joystick Left/Right: roll and sideslip left/right
Joystick Forward/Back: move forward/back
Joystick Twist Left/Right: pivot left/right
The following are the in-game keyboard controls. Not all the keys (particularly systems keys) have as yet been implemented:
Keyboard Layout
Mission Creator
Press Numpad * to enable the mission creator program. Pressing / will exit the program. The Mission Creator will activate in a window. The viewer is a simple brick model, controlled by a joystick.
Controls For The Mission Creator
Joystick
X, Y, Z axes
Control pitch, yaw and roll seperately
Throttle
Controls Speed
Button 2
Reverses direction
Keyboard
/
Exits Editor, back to game
Shift
Extra speed in Movement Mode; extra rotation in Rotation Mode
Ctrl
x-z rotation in Rotation Mode
Delete
Deletes selected object(s)
Scroll Lock
(Toggle) Objects rotate about their own axis (default: rotate about centre of group)
( ( « (
Can be used in place of the mouse to move or adjust objects
C
Change object name
D
(Hold) Displays selected object with texture (as opposed to wire-frame)
G
Group objects
Ctrl + G
Brings up Group Edit dialog
Ctrl + G
Brings up Helicopter Edit dialog
Ctrl + E
Edit selected Rally Point
K
Turn world objects on or off
M
Turn mission objects on or off
N
Sets the selected object's orientation relative to terrain normal
O
Resets the orientation of the selected object to world reference 0,0,0
R
Reverses direction of movement
S
Saves the current state to the world file
T
Sets the selected object's height to the terrain height
V
(Hold) In Rotation mode, rotates relative to the viewer, as opposed to the world
W
Shift editing session between Mission and World files
Ctrl + W
Move a selected object between the world and mission files
Y
Detail Level down (from 10-1)
U
Detail Level up (from 1-10)
Ctrl + Y
Holds selected object at detail level as you shift down
Ctrl + U
Holds selected object at detail level as you shift up
F1
Selection Mode
F2
Movement Mode
F3
Rotation Mode
F4
Properties Mode
F5
Placement Mode
F12
Activate World Updates - the world objects are updated, unless they are currently selected.
Shift + F12
Deactivate world updates
0
Sets selected object to Neutral
1
Sets selected object to Friendly
2
Sets selected object to Enemy
Toolbar Window
The first window you will notice when you open the editor is the toolbar window. It represents the currently selected mode. The possible modes are
* Selection Mode
* Movement Mode
* Rotation Mode
* Properties Mode
* Placement Mode
Each of these modes is described below.
Selection Mode
When in selection mode objects under the mouse cursor are highlighted by brightening their textures. When selected the object goes to wire-frame mode. Objects may be added to the
current selection by holding down control. The status window will display information on the object currently under the mouse cursor in this mode.
Terrain may also be selected in this way. This allows objects to be placed directly on the terrain in the placement mode.
Movement Mode
By default objects are moved in the x-y plane relative to the viewer. Holding down control causes movement in the x-z plane. When using the arrow keys (as opposed to the mouse) to
perform this movement, the shift key gives extra speed.
Rotation Mode
By default objects are rotated in the x-y plane. The arrow keys or mouse can be used. Pressing the control key will give rotation in the x-z plane. Holding down shift will give extra rotation.
When the scroll lock light is not on (key is not pressed - as is the normal default), objects rotate about the centre of their collection. When the scroll lock key is pressed, objects rotate
about their own axes.
Properties Mode
There are currently no properties which can be accessed.
Placement Mode
When in Free placement mode (no terrain selected) the objects created are placed at the currently location of the mouse on the screen at the distance given in the requester both from
the viewer, and from the other objects. If multiple objects are placed then they are created in a circle around the current location of the mouse cursor.
When in Locked mode (one or more terrain locations have been selected) the objects are created at the locations selected. The number of objects is equal to the number of terrain
locations selected. Each new object is placed at the height of its terrain location, and using the normal to the terrain triangle on which it is placed as its up [y] direction (the outward [z]
direction of each object is pointing towards the centre of the collection of objects).
Status Window
When you run the editor you will get a new window pop up (in addition to the other windows). This is the status window. It's purpose is to display the current location and orientation of
the viewer. The position and orientation are editable and changing these values will have an effect when you re-enter the main window (with the mouse).
In the selection mode, the status window also displays the following information:
* When the mouse is over an object: The ID of the object and the name of its shape (if available)
* When the mouse is over terrain: The position of the cursor on the terrain and the normal of the terrain triangle being highlighted.
