1FREEDROID(6) User Manuals FREEDROID(6)
2
6 freedroid - a free Paradroid clone
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9 freedroid [ options ]
10
12 Freedroid is a remake of the classic C64 home computer game Paradroid
13 by Andrew Braybrook, including also various extensions.
14 The player takes control of the so-called 001 influence device and must
16 clear a freighter of robots by either shooting them or seizing control
17 over them. Seizing control is done in a small logic subgame, in which
18 you have to connect more electrical connections within 10 seconds than
19 your opponent.
20
22 -v or --version
23 Prints out Freedroid version information.
24 -q or --nosound
26 Suppress all sound output. Very useful if you don't have your
27 sound card configured yet or don't have any sound hardware at
28 all.
29 -f or --fullscreen
31 Work in full screen mode. Note that fullscreen or window mode
32 can also be toggled from within the game via the options menu.
33 -w or --window
35 Start Freedroid in a window rather than using full screen mode.
36 -j or --sensitivity
38 Control joystick sensitivity. Value must lie in between [0:32].
39 Default is 1.
40 -d LEVEL or --debug=LEVEL
42 Control debug output of the game. Debug output will be printed
43 to stderr, i.e. in most cases to the console you started Free‐
44 droid from. The variable LEVEL controls how much debug output
45 you would like to have. LEVEL 0 is the default and means
46 (almost) no debug output. LEVEL 1 prints the most important
47 debug messages and LEVEL 2 or LEVEL 3 print (almost) all debug
48 output, which might be quite a lot.
49
51 Moving and Firing
52 The influence device can be moved inside the ship by either
53 using keyboard input or joystick directions. Keyboard control
54 can be done by either using cursor keys or the Quake and Half-
55 life style a-w-s-d keys combination. Firing can be done by
56 either using the crosshair and the left mouse button or by
57 pressing a direction key and pressing space in addition or by
58 holding a joystick direction and pressing a joystick button.
59 Entering Elevators and Consoles
60 The influence device can move from one deck to another deck
61 using the elevators of the freighter. To do this, you must step
62 onto an elevator plate, and then either press the e key or press
63 the middle mouse button or appropriate joystick button. Enter‐
64 ing consoles is done in a similar way. You have to stand
65 directly in front of a console terminal and then press the e key
66 to activate the console. Inside the console you will have
67 access to a small scale map of the current deck, a side eleva‐
68 tion of the ship and to the droid database of the ship. Note
69 however, that access to the droid database is achieved via the
70 security clearance of the host you currently control, i.e. you
71 will only be able to view droid data for droids that are lower
72 or equal to the host you currently control.
73 The takeover subgame (Taking control of other droids)
74 To take control of another robot, you must first enter transfer
75 mode. This is done by either standing still and holding space
76 bar pressed (and keeping space bar pressed afterwards) or by
77 holing down the right mouse button or holding town appropriate
78 joystick button. While in takeover mode, the influence device
79 can try to initiate takeover by touching the host it wishes to
80 control. As soon as another robot is touched while in takeover
81 mode, takeover subgame will be initiated and control of the new
82 host will be seized, provided that the takeover subgame is won.
83 Playing the takeover subgame
84 After the takeover subgame was initiated, the two droids strug‐
85 gling for control will be presented. Then the player gets to
86 decide which side of the takeover game he wants to play. The
87 player on the left side takes the yellow color, the player on
88 the right side takes the magenta color. Note that which side to
89 choose may be the most important decision of the takeover sub‐
90 game, cause one side may host strong tactical advantages over
91 the other. After sides have been chosen, the takeover capsules
92 will be placed. Each droid has a limited number of capsules to
93 place and must try to convert the central status bar to his
94 color. The number of capsules you have at your disposal depends
95 on the clearance of the host you currently control. Once the
96 takeover subgame is won, the player will have control over the
97 new bot while the old host is destroyed. Control over the new
98 host also means inheriting the movement properties and the
99 weapons of this robot. Loss of takeover subgame results in the
100 current host, if one is present, being destroyed or the influ‐
101 ence itself being burnt out and destroyed if no host was
102 present.
103 Notes on energy loss
104 The influence device depends on hosts to control. Whether cur‐
105 rently controlling a host or not, the influence device will
106 always lose energy due to construction properties. When taking
107 control of a new host, the influence device will also take con‐
108 trol of the energy this droid had left, which will be even more
109 the higher the bot you take control of. However, higher droids
110 also tend to put up more resistance against the control of the
111 influence device, resulting in faster loss of energy. Therefore
112 it is recommended to change hosts frequently in order to keep
113 the influence device well powered. Note that there are some
114 refresh field, where some of the energy lost so far can be
115 restored. But note also, that only energy loss due to colli‐
116 sions, explosions and enemy fire can be restored this way, while
117 energy loss due to host resistance is permanently lost until the
118 host is changed again.
119
121 The Freedroid project features a home page at freedroid.source‐
122 forge.net. The project itself is hosted at the Sourceforge. The
123 project summary page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedroid/ can
124 be used to access download and status information. Note that home page
125 and project summary page are shared with the FreedroidRPG development
126 branch as well.
127
129 ~/.freedroidClassic/highscores
130 The high scores file of Freedroid.
131 ~/.freedroidClassic/config
132 The file containing all configuration setting of this user.
133
135 Freedroid does currently not care about any environment variables.
136
138 Debug output can be produced by using the -d or --debug command line
139 options as described above.
140
142 Freedroid can now be considered pretty stable. However we're sure that
143 there are still some bugs here and there. If you encounter any prob‐
144 lems or bugs, please send mail to <freedroid-discussion@lists.source‐
145 forge.net>.
146
148 Johannes Prix, Reinhard Prix, Bastian Salmela, Lanzz.
149
151 freedroidRPG(6),
152Linux MARCH 2003 FREEDROID(6)