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- Dome Wars 1.0 by Nathan Sturtevant
- nathanst@csua.berkeley.edu
- http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~nathanst/DomeWars.html
-
- Description
- ------------
- The goal of the game is to be victorious in battle over the other tanks (domes). Each
- dome is started in a location across the canyon floor. By varying the angle and the
- power used, attempt to destroy the other tanks on the screen. Points and cash are
- awarded according to your performance during the play, which can then be used to buy
- new weapons.
-
- Quickstart Keys:
- ----------------
- Move turret left: right arrow, 6 (numeric keypad)
- Move turret right: left arrow, 4 (numeric keypad)
- Increase power: Up arrow, 8 (numeric keypad)
- Decrease power: Down arrow, 2 (numeric keypad)
- Medium increase power: hold down command key
- Fast increase power: 9 (numeric keypad)
- Fast decrease power: 3 (numeric keypad)
- Fire: space/enter/return
- Select Weapon: click with mouse/tab (forward)/command-tab (backward)
-
- Options
- -------
- File Menu
- New Game - start game with settings in the preference menu
- Quit - (sort of obvious)
- Preference Menu
- Define mountain - Set the parameters used for generating the ground
- Music - turn music on and off (REGISTERED VERSION ONLY)
- Sound - turn sound on and off
- Speech - turn computer speech on and off (REGISTERED VERSION ONLY)
- There is a 1% chance that the computer will say something if you
- haven't registered.
- Buy Weapons - allow players (& computers) to buy weapons at end of each round
- Fast Computers - If only computers are left, computers will play extra speedy
- Wind - turn wind on and off
- Trace Shots - turn shot tracing on and off
- Order - This submenu chooses how the first player in a round will be chosen. Random
- chooses a random tank, Round-Robin cycles through the tank numbers to choose who
- goes first. Winners & Losers first let the tank with the highest or lowest
- respective score go first.
- Starting Cash - Choose how much cash each person starts with
- Game Speed - This controls the speed (and accuracy) at which shots are simulated
- 10 is the fastest and 1 is the slowest
- Walls - Choose wall & ceiling settings
- Floors - Choose floor settings
- Celilings - You guessed it, changes the ceiling settings!
- Computers - This allows you to specify 3 things. If computers buy weapons,
- if they buy shields (if they don't buy weapons, they obviously won't buy shields),
- and if cyborgs are chosen when you choose "Random" tank type. I realize Cyborgs
- are pretty tough, so you don't have to play with them if you don't want.
-
- Help
- Controls - Shows the controls used to play the game. If it key is marked with a •,
- it means by holding down the command key, the specified value will change at a
- much slower rate than normal, allowing precision changes.
-
- Weapons
- --------
-
- Standard Missiles:
- Baby Missile
- Missile
- ICBM - generic explosion, from small to large explosion
- Little Boy
- Fat Man
- Armageddon
-
- (size) Roller - rolls down hills until land goes up, or hits tank, small explosion
- up rollers roll up the hill
-
- Dirt Weapons:
- Dustbuster - a dirt removing weapon (circular explosion)
- Digger - another dirt removing weapon; this weapon causes all the dirt around it to collapse
- Dirt Bomb - place a chunk of dirt where your shot lands (useful as a cheap sheild in an
- emergency)
-
- Defense Weapons:
- Shields - protection against exposions
- Gopher - Bury your tank into the ground. A Gopher can burrow half way to the ground,
- while a Gopher II can burrow fully to the ground. Using a power of 1000 will use the
- max. power of the weapon, while 500 will take you half way, etc.
- Auto Defense - allow you to put up shields first.
- Impact Brace - minimize the effects of falling
- Anti-Gravity - don't fall! This is automatically in use once you buy it
- Batteries - (+ 10) power up after taking some damage
- Retreat - in those situations where you are bound to lose, get out of there to avoid
- giving the other players cash for killing you.
-
- Guidance Weapons:
- Cruiser - horizantal guidance (tracks on the mouse location at the time of the shot)
- Bomb - vertical guidance
- Horiz/Vert Napalm - Napalm that tracks horizontally or vertically
- Ceil Funky/Missile/… - use just enough power to get to the top of the screen
-
- Special Weapons:
- (Size)-(Quantity) Shot - Shoot a (Quantity) warhead shot out with exposion (Size)
- Napalm - That icky burning stuff that ruins a tanks day.
- Funky - Upon hitting the ground this shot will break out into a few random extra
- explosions.
-
- Investment:
- These weapons will allow you to invest your extra money with different risk
- to try and make more.
- Bank Bonds: You always get about 6% back on your investment. (safe)
- Stock options: You have 20% chance of losing all your money, 20% chance
- of doubling your money, and a 60% chance of no return on the investment.
- Ventures: You have 10% chance of no return on your investment. 80% of
- the time you will get back only half your investment, but 10% of the time,
- you will get back 10 times your investment.
-
- Enemy Tank Types (AI)
- --------------------
- Idiot: This computer just chooses a random direction and a random angle, hoping
- to hit something by sheer luck. (This isn't always too bad, depending on the walls.)
- Straight shot: This computer chooses another tanks situated above him, aims
- straight and fires. This AI has been greatly improved since the last version. If no
- dirt is in the way, this tank will almost always hit it's target. If a straight shot
- tank is the highest the screen, it will shoot with full power at a random angle.
- Cyborg: This computer targets the player with the highest score and homes in on
- them with high accuracy. More than one cyborg is sure you ruin your day.
- Lobber: This is a slight modification of the cyborg. This computer chooses a target,
- and slowly hones it's shot until it hits.
- Revenge: This computer uses a method similar to the Lobber to shoot at tanks.
- However, it will target whoever is shooting at it.
- Random: This will randomly choose between these types of tanks.
-
- Play Notes
- ----------
- A direct shot will always kill, unless shields are activated. A direct shot is
- considered any shot that lands within a radius of 9 pixels from the center of
- the tank. This means hitting directly below the tank so that the explosion takes
- place under the tank may cause a death. You lose one heath for every pixel you fall,
- and damage is assigned from explosions based on the explosion strength and your
- distance from the explosion. Rollers may behave unpredictibly when they hit a very
- skinny peak. Because not every point that the projectile passes through is calculated,
- it is possible for a shot to pass through a very narrow slit of land without exploding.
- Slowing down the game speed will reduce the chance of this happening. Do your best
- to survive the round, you get more points for doing this than for killing tons of tanks.
-
- Other Misc info.
- ---------------
- You can create your own backgrounds to randomly be chosen for the background.
- Registered users can have as many backgrounds as they like. Unregistered users
- are limited to 10. Sky patterns start at id 128, and go upward, ground patterns start
- at id 1000 and go up. Ids must be consecutive. Patterns should not contain more than
- 256 colors.
-
- Custom tank names can be added by the names to the proper str# resource.
- Custom spoken messages can be added in the same way. (REGISTERED VERSION ONLY)
- If you want to start with more cash, you can add extra items to menu id 136, with
- 10,000 more cash for each menu item. (ie 210000, 220000 etc)
-
- Closing remarks
- ---------------
- This game is shareware. This means if you like this game and decide to keep it, you
- should send me $10 to register it. This registration will be good for all versions of the
- game, and, when implemented will allow you to play across a network. I realize most
- people don't pay this, but, if you want to see further updates please send something.
- Registration entitles you to:
-
- * The next major release of the game on disk
- * A registration code which allows you to use all the game features
-
- A special thanks to the people who has registered, and to Todd for some of the
- extra textures!
-
- This game is provided as is, and no guarantee is made about the stability of this game
- on your particular computer. I take no responsibility if this game doesn't work on your
- system, or in anyway causes you loss.
- However, do send registrations/comments/suggestions/bug reports to:
-
- Nathan Sturtevant
- --before May '96--
- 2910 Hillegass Ave #3
- Berkeley, CA 94705
- --permament address--
- 84 Yosemite Ct.
- Ventura, CA 93003
-
- Internet:
- nathanst@soda.csua.berkeley.edu
-
- WWW: (the latest version is always avaliable here)
- http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~nathanst/DomeWars.html
-
- Dome Wars ©1996 Nathan Sturtevant