hpux xpilot.1
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XPILOT(6) BS & XPILOT(6)
Version 1.2
NAME
xpilot - XPilot/UX Multiplayer gravity war game hand-shake program
SYNOPSIS
xpilot [-join] [-list] [-name nickname] [-team team-number] [-help] [-
version] [server-host]
DESCRIPTION
XPilot is a multiplayer game which looks a bit like Thrust, the good
old action game for the Commodore 64. Several clones have appeared
for various computers, among others Gravity Force for the Commodore
Amiga.
The main objective of the game varies as you can choose different game
modes, although the only modes supported as of today are combat and
race. The former mode focuses more strongly on shooting each other
down, while the latter is more a piloting test than anything else.
To start playing, you need only to connect to a server by using a
small hand-shake program called xpilot. If there are no servers
running, you will have to start one on your own (see man-page
xpilots(6)).
Options
-help Prints some help, including commandline options.
-version Prints the current version.
-name player-name
Lets you use an alternative name during the play (may
be handy :). If this option isn't specified, and you
haven't set the X resource name, you will be known by
your login name.
-team team-number
Joins team number team-number. This has various
effects - you cannot harm another team member (and they
cannot harm you), and you can see (though not on radar)
cloaked team-mates. Note however, that you can still
harm yourself. This option will probably be much more
enhanced in the future. You may also specify a team
number using X resources, see below for details. Team
0 is equivalent to no team.
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XPILOT(6) BS & XPILOT(6)
Version 1.2
-join Automatically joins the first and best server.
-list Queries status information from all servers found.
-shutdown [message]
Sends a shutdown to the server, the message part is
optional.
server-host Tries to connect to server at host server-host. The
default is to search through the sub-domain your
machine is connected to. Note that you must use this
option if your net isn't class C.
PROMPT COMMANDS
When you startup xpilot without the -join option, you will get a
prompt asking you for directions. You may type 'h' or '?' to list the
available commands. These are quite obvious and deal with
communication to the current server only. You may enter the game by
pressing CR (Return/Enter).
If you are the owner of the server you will have a few extra options.
See xpilots(6).
THE WINDOW
When you enter a game you will hopefully be presented a window. This
window is divided into three major areas:
The radar This area shows the map the server you are playing
on is using as well as the position of your fellow
players (if they aren't cloaked). In race mode the
radar also outputs the position of the control
posts.
The player list
This area shows the list of players (sorted with
respect to rating) currently logged on the server.
A sample field looks like this:
*9 Selac 003 64
The asterisk (*) means that the player Selac (me)
has the best <rating>/<deaths> ratio. You can also
see that I am a member of team no. 9, that I have
died 003 times and have a rating of 64.
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XPILOT(6) BS & XPILOT(6)
Version 1.2
The game area
This is where the action is. Most notably you will
see your fighter in the middle of the screen,
hopefully you won't see any shots or explosions yet!
You may also see some strange blue drawings
surrounding your fighter - this is the HUD (Head Up
Display) which greatly simplifies and compresses the
information you need to know. Currently, the HUD
displays the following information:
Special items
You may notice some characters and numbers on
the left side of the HUD, these indicate
which, and how many, special items you have
picked up.
Fuel A fuel meter will appear on the right side of
the HUD when you are getting low on fuel, it
will start flashing when your fuel level gets
dangerously low. The fuel is numerically
displayed on the bottom right corner of the
HUD.
Lock The name of the player you have currently
locked on is shown on the top of the HUD.
Also, the distance and bearing to the player
is visualized by a dot where placement of the
dot gives the direction, and the size of the
dot gives the distance. The dot will be
filled if the player is not on the same team
as you. The distance to the player also
numerically displayed on the top right corner
of the HUD, it is measured in 'blocks'.
GAME PLAY
This section will only describe the combat mode of the game as the
race version is quite straightforward.
The game has really no main purpose but to have fun. This is
achievable in many ways, but mainly by blasting away on human or robot
players as well as cannons. All will naturally fire back at you, so
you will also need some nifty piloting skills and/or some heavy
equipment to really enjoy living. Another vital part of your
machinery is your energy/fuel - without it, you will surely die a
horrible death.
You may notice some red circles - either containing a plus (+), minus
(+), clockwise or anti-clockwise arrow. These are gravs which affect
the gravity. You may also notice some rotating circles, this is a
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XPILOT(6) BS & XPILOT(6)
Version 1.2
wormhole, a shortcut through the space-time continuum (works like
teleporting).
During the game you might encounter red triangles - these are special
items which will make your life easier. As of today, these are:
F More fuel.
C Cloaking device.
I Instrument pack - improves your sensors so that you
can see cloakers more easily.
R Rear shot.
W Wide angle shots. The more you pick up, the more
awesome your firepower gets.
S Pack of smart shots (missiles). Default is four
missiles in each pack.
M Pack of mines. Default is one mine in each pack.
CONTROLS
The game understands quite some keys, but not all of them are equally
important. The following keys are in prioritized order, and note that
a | is used to separate equivalent keys. The words inside the curly
braces {} are the name of the resources that corresponds to the
actions, see Xresources below.
Primary keys
The primary keys are:
a {keyTurnLeft}
Turn left (anti-clockwise).
s {keyTurnRight}
Turn right (clockwise).
shift {keyThrust}
Thrust me.
return {keyFireShot}
Fire normal shot.
space | right-meta {keyShield}
Activate shield. Must be held down for continuous
use.
- 4 - Formatted: October 28, 1993
XPILOT(6) BS & XPILOT(6)
Version 1.2
ctrl | f {keyRefuel}
Try to connect to nearest fuel station. Must be
held down during refueling.
Secondary keys
The following commands are not always available, some require
special items to have any functionality at all.
q {keySelfDestruct}
Self destruct. At last we managed to include a
timer, got rid of all those nasty I'd-rather-die-
by-my-own-hands-than-let-you-kill-me-and-get-all-
the-points pilots.
backSpace {keyCloak}
Enable/disable cloaking device if available. You
will be invisible on both radar and on screen, but
beware - the device is not foolproof, it is not
cheap on your fuel and the only thing becoming
invisible is your ship, i.e. the exhaust-flames
will still be visible.
Esc {keySwapSettings}
Toggle between two different settings. You'll
probably want more power and a larger turn rate in
combat than when you're doing some critical
maneuvering. Also, the game speed (unfortunately)
varies as the load of the machines and the net
varies.
Tab {keyDropMine}
Drop a proximity mine. The mine will detonate
after a certain amount of time (quite large
actually) or when a foe comes too near.
Home {keyChangeHome}
Change home base. You will need to be landed on
the base of your choice. (The Home key is located
just right of the Return key on most HP-
keyboards.) These keys are convenient for HP
keyboards, also somewhat adapted to SUN keyboards.
p {keyPause}
Parking mode - you can only park while you're
landed on your own home base, and when you park,
you cannot rejoin the game until the P has stopped
blinking (to prevent users from using this option
to run away from a battle).
- 5 - Formatted: October 28, 1993
XPILOT(6) BS & XPILOT(6)
Version 1.2
These keys let you adjust the control sensitivity:
* {keyIncreasePower}
Increase engine power.
/ {keyDecreasePower}
Decrease engine power.
+ {keyIncreaseTurnspeed}
Increase turn speed.
- {keyDecreaseTurnspeed}
Decrease turn speed.
[ {keySlowdown}
Slows down the game (owner only).
] {keySpeedup}
Speeds up the game (owner only).
The following requires that you have a lock on somebody:
\ (backSlash) | LF (lineFeed) {keyFireMissile}
Fire smart missile if available. The missile will
home onto the player that you have currently
locked on. You must have a clear lock on a player
for this to work.
Select | Up | Down {keyLockClose}
Will lock onto the closest player if he/she is
within range.
Next | Right {keyLockNext}
Will, if possible, lock onto the next player in
the game.
Prior (Prev) | Left {keyLockPrev}
Will, if possible, lock onto the previous player
in the game.
There is even a cheat mode, and a possibility to join the 'twilight-
zone boys' if you should be so lucky to hit the right key while the
option isn't disabled. But don't lose any sleep over it, it's not
that easy. Usually, this option is disabled.
X RESOURCES
XPilot understands the following X resources in addition to the key
resources described above:
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XPILOT(6) BS & XPILOT(6)
Version 1.2
name Nick name of your player.
team Preferred team number.
power Primary power setting of your engine. Primary in
this context means that it is part of the default
setting, secondary means the other setting (two
different settings are available, pressing Esc will
switch between them). You may change "sensitivity"
of your ship by adjusting these parameters. Often
you would like one setting to be more "rough" than
the other - one setting for fine maneuvering and one
for racing. (Default 45.0)
turnSpeed Primary turnspeed setting of your ship. (Default
30.0)
turnResistance
Primary turnresistance setting of your ship. This
value determines how fast your ship will stop
rotating, i.e. the rotating speed of your ship is
set equal to itself multiplied by this value.
Obviously the value has to lie between 0.0
(exclusive) and 1.0 (inclusive). (Default 0.12)
altPower Secondary power setting of your engine. (Default
35.0)
altTurnSpeed
Secondary turnspeed setting of your ship. (Default
25.0)
altTurnResistance
Secondary turnresistance setting of your ship.
(Default 0.12)
fuelNotify The limit when the HUD fuel bar will become visible.
(Default 500.0)
fuelWarning The limit when the HUD fuel bar will start flashing.
(Default 200.0)
fuelCritical
The limit when the HUD fuel bar will flash faster.
(Default 100.0)
showHUD Should the HUD be on or off. (Default true)
verticalHUDLine
Should the vertical lines in the HUD be drawn.
(Default false)
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XPILOT(6) BS & XPILOT(6)
Version 1.2
horizontalHUDLine
Should the horizontal lines in the HUD be drawn.
(Default true)
fuelMeter Determines if the fuel meter should be visible. This
meter visualizes your fuel level in a different way
than fuelGauge does.
fuelGauge Determines if the fuel gauge should be visible. See
fuelMeter.
turnSpeedMeter
Should the turnspeed meter be visible at all times.
(Default false)
powerMeter Should the power meter be visible at all times.
(Default false)
EXAMPLES
The simplest invocation of the hand-shake program is to just type:
xpilot
This will force the program to search after a server on all the
machines on your sub-domain (i.e. all the machines with the all but
the last part of the IP address in common).
Say this don't work (it often doesn't unfortunately), and you know
where the server is, and you don't want to be prompted (handy in
scripts etc.), you may type for example:
xpilot -join lglab08
In the examples above your name would be your login name. Let's say
you want to be really cool and your login name is gudmari, well -
you're in loads of trouble if you don't know about the -name option;
xpilot -name FireEater
will fix the problem for you.
WARNINGS
If the server should go down, you will be without autorepeat on your
keyboard. To re-enable autorepeat, use the xset command with the r
switch, i.e.:
xset r
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XPILOT(6) BS & XPILOT(6)
Version 1.2
Also note that the game speed cannot be controlled, so that the only
way to slow down a game is to have several dummies join it. Use the
following command:
AUTHORS
The xpilot product was developed by Bjoern Stabell and Ken Ronny
Schouten at the University of Tromsoe, Norway.
BUGS
The product is seemingly stable, so bug reports are highly
appreciated. Send email to xpilot-request@cs.uit.no and we will see
what we can do. We merely ask that you remember to include the
following information:
- The platform(s) the bug(s) occurs on and what kind of display
(depth, color, type) you use.
- The version, revision and patchlevel of XPilot.
- What the bug(s) looks like.
- When the bug(s) usually occurs.
We would also like to receive changes you do to make the code compile
on your machine (we would NOT like to receive the whole program
translated to K&R C, keep it ANSI :) If you don't have an ANSI
compiler, there are several utilities which may help you de-ANSI-fy
the code (unproto, unprotoize etc).
NOTES
For credit list, see xpilots(6).
FILES
/usr/contrib/lib/xpilot/motd Message of the day.
/usr/contrib/lib/xpilot/maps/ Directory containing maps.
SEE ALSO
xpilots(6)
- 9 - Formatted: October 28, 1993