1xscorch(6) Games Manual xscorch(6)
2
6 xscorch - Annihilate enemy tanks using overpowered guns.
7
9 xscorch
10 xscorch [options]
12 xscorch --help
14
16 Xscorch is a clone of the classic DOS game, "Scorched Earth". The basic
17 goal is to annihilate enemy tanks using overpowered guns :). Basically,
18 you buy weapons, you target the enemy by adjusting the angle of your
19 turret and firing power, and you hope to destroy their tank before they
20 destroy yours.
21
23 First, fiddle with the options in the main menu. There are a number of
24 options which are described below, which may make the game easier or
25 harder. The default options make for a reasonable level of gameplay.
26 Most of the game configuration is controlled from the user interface,
27 although there are a few command-line options which are mentioned
28 below. Once you are ready to begin a new game, you might want to Save
29 Options to save your configuration, then select Begin Game to start a
30 new game.
31 Gameplay is divided up into several rounds. Each round consists of two
33 parts: the Inventory phase and the Battle phase. In the Inventory
34 phase, you can buy weapons to shoot at your opponents, and accessories
35 to help defend your tank. See the Inventory section below for informa‐
36 tion on the weapons and accessories you may buy. In the Battle phase,
37 you setup defenses, choose a weapon, aim and fire at your opponents.
38 See the section on Battle below, for more information.
39
41 The player has the option to buy weapons and accessories to make the
42 game more interesting. Weapons are just that: an assortment of mis‐
43 siles, including ICBM-like warheads, napalm, lasers, and a number of
44 custom weapons to bring down specific defenses. Accessories are meth‐
45 ods to make gameplay easier for the player and increase their chance of
46 survival, with guidance systems, shields, fuel, batteries, and other
47 odds-and-ends.
48 At the beginning of a round, each player is given an opportunity to buy
50 or sell weapons and accessories. Each player may have up to 99 of any
51 item in their inventory. A few weapons have an infinite supply (for
52 example, Baby Missiles) - these weapons cannot be purchased.
53 Weapons and accessories are sold in bundles; the price for the bundle
55 is displayed in the inventory, and you must buy items as a complete
56 bundle. The exception to this is when a player attempts to buy more of
57 an item than their inventory can hold; in this case, the bundle will be
58 broken and the weapons are sold on an individual basis, with a small
59 markup applied.
60 Weapons and accessories may also be sold from a player's inventory.
62 Again, items are generally sold as a bundle. The player will receive a
63 reduced amount of money for the sale - hey, the middleman has to make
64 money somewhere :)
65 In the Inventory screen, two panels are displayed, listing the weapons
67 and accessories that are available. The Tab key will switch between
68 the various panes. Up Arrow and Down Arrow will allow the player to
69 scroll through the list of items, Right Arrow will buy a bundle, and
70 Left Arrow will sell a bundle of the currently highlighted item.
71 For each item, the name, bundle size/total price, and current inventory
73 are displayed.
74 Items which can neither be bought or sold will appear darkened. If the
76 player has maxed their inventory for that item, or they cannot afford
77 to purchase the item, or the item has a higher arms level than the
78 player is allowed, then the item cannot be purchased. Items which can
79 be bought will appear with an arrow pointing to the right, and items
80 which can be sold will appear with an arrow pointing to the left.
81 The items that are available are listed in the next two sections.
83
85 This list will be added once the weapons list is reasonably stable.
86
88 This list will be added once the accessories list is reasonably stable.
89
91 This overview is sadly, incomplete.
92
94 Left, Right
95 Change the turret angle. This will adjust the turret angle in
96 increments of 5 degrees. For finer control, hold Shift to
97 adjust the angle in increments of 1 degree.
98 Up, Down
100 Change the firing power, in the range of 0 to 1000. This will
101 adjust the firing power in increments of 20. For finer control,
102 hold Shift to adjust the firing power in increments of 1.
103 Tab Select the next weapon available in your inventory.
105 Shift+Tab
107 Select the previous weapon available in your inventory.
108 B, b Activate a battery. A single battery can restore 5% of damage
110 done to your tank, and therefore restore the maximum firing
111 power by 5% when you are damaged. You must have a battery to
112 discharge in your inventory to excercise this option.
113 E, e Activate or energize the currently selected shields.
115 F, f Activate your fuel tanks. A window will be displayed, indicat‐
117 ing the amount of fuel you have available. As long as you have
118 fuel, you may use the Left and Right arrows to move one unit to
119 the left or right, respectively. In general, you cannot move
120 your tank up a steep hill. Immobile tanks will not be able to
121 excercise this option.
122 R, r Force a redraw of the screen.
124 S, s Toggle the currently selected shields. The currently selected
126 shields are the shields which will be used when you Energize.
127 Shields are classified by a power number with a type suffix: M
128 for magnetic shielding, F for force shielding, and S for your
129 standard, run-of-the-mill shields. If no shields are available,
130 0S is displayed.
131 T, t Toggle contact triggers on/off. This is only meaningful if you
133 actually have some contact triggers of course, and when tunnel‐
134 ing is enabled. Weapons that are fired after this point will
135 have contact triggers equipped (until you run out).
136 0 - 9 Display information about a particular player. 1 gives informa‐
138 tion about Player 1, and 0 gives information about Player 10.
139 Enter Accept your orders.
141 Ctrl+Y Bring up the System Menu (this can also be accessed from the
143 menus). You can control certain graphics options from the sys‐
144 tem menu, clear the screen of smoke trails, and end a round pre‐
145 maturely.
146 Ctrl+Z Pauses the game.
148 Ctrl+R Resign from the game. This will end the game for everyone. You
150 will be asked to confirm the resignation.
151
153 The system menu gives you some control over the game while it is in
154 progress. In this menu, you will have options to change how the game
155 is displayed (e.g. the Graphics Fast option described below). You
156 also have access to a few useful commands, described below.
157 Mass Kill
159 Kills everyone still alive in the round. No player gets credit
160 for the kills, and none are considered a suicide. This option
161 is useful if all human players have already been eliminated from
162 the game, but the AI players are making no progress whatsoever
163 in annihilating each other. This option ends the current round
164 only.
165 Erase Smoke
167 If you have used smoke tracers or have Trace Paths enabled, then
168 this option will clear all smoke trails from the sky.
169 Retreat
171 N/A
172 Resign Game
174 Resigns from the current round and all remaining rounds. This
175 option ends the entire game, and will take you back to the intro
176 screen.
177 Sound Setup
179 Takes you to the Sound Options window.
180
182 Human The humans believe they are the superior mind. The AI's rather
183 disagree with that sentiment. Keep this in mind when you are
184 wondering why 9 AI's would want to simultaneously target your
185 tank...
186 Moron This AI fires at random. Of all the AI's, this one has by far
188 the highest suicide rate. An alternate name is ``Cannon Fod‐
189 der''.
190 Shooter
192 This AI goes for targets it has a line-of-sight to. It's not a
193 great player otherwise. This AI buys weapons that have the best
194 economical yield, but during the game it will select weapons
195 which have the highest yield.
196 Spreader
198 This AI is similar to the Shooter, except a Spreader buys
199 weapons with the highest yield, without regard for the price.
200 Chooser
202 This AI chooses a victim. Once chosen, the victim is attacked
203 until they are dead, or the Chooser loses the ability to reach
204 the victim. This AI does not need line-of-sight, but fortunately
205 it cannot compensate for wind.
206 Calculater
208 This AI is like Chooser, except a Calculater can compensate for
209 the wind. These guys are fairly deadly in a fight; they also
210 tend to allocate large budgets to defense and offense.
211 Annihilater
213 This AI goes for weapons that will cause as much damage as pos‐
214 sible, without much regard for individual victims. This AI
215 prefers spread weapons to the more focused, precision weapons.
216 A few Annihilaters can clear the terrain easily. These AI's
217 don't worry about defenses too much. With their destructive
218 tendency, they won't survive long anyway - but neither will any‐
219 one else.
220 Insanity
222 No one knows what this AI thinks...
223 Unknown
225 This selects one of the above AI's at random, but you will not
226 be informed which AI was selected.
227
229 Players/Rounds:
230 Number of Players (integer, 2-10)
232 Set the number of players participating in the game.
233 Number of Rounds (integer, >= 1)
235 Set the number of rounds to play for this game.
236 AI Type (list)
238 Select the AI type. Human players are ``Human''; the remaining
239 AI's are documented above.
240 Player Name (string)
242 Give a unique name for each player.
243 Tank Style (list)
245 Select the type/shape of the tank, for each player.
246 Economics:
248 Interest Rate (float, 0-0.30)
250 Interest rate for savings, compounded once per round.
251 Dynamic Interest (toggle)
253 If enabled, interest rates will change during the game.
254 Initial Cash (integer, 0-1000000)
256 Amount of money each player should start with.
257 AIs Can Buy (toggle)
259 If enabled, computers are permitted to buy items. The AI's are
260 very uninteresting if this option is turned off.
261 AIs Buy Aggressively (toggle)
263 If the previous option is enabled, the AI's will buy items con‐
264 servatively. With this option, the AI's will allocate larger
265 budgets and buy bigger items early in the game.
266 Free Market (toggle)
268 N/A
269 Scoring (list)
271 Specify how scoring works, selecting from Basic, Standard,
272 Greedy, or possibly other methods defined in the configuration
273 file:
274 Basic Players only receive money for kills and survival.
275 Standard Players receive less money for kills and survival,
276 but they will also receive money for damaging an
277 opponent.
278 Greedy Players are paid as in Standard scoring, but with
279 bonuses for unused inventory at the end of the
280 round.
281 The Lottery (toggle)
283 If the lottery is enabled, there will be a random drawing at the
284 start of each round. A random player will receive a bundle of a
285 random weapon for free as the lottery award. This is a great
286 way to inject a little extra life into AIs who are usually con‐
287 servative buyers. Plus it's always great fun when you get a
288 free Annihilator...
289 Physics:
291 Air Viscosity (float)
293 N/A
294 Gravity (float, 0-10)
296 Specify the gravity, in pixels per cycle squared (one cycle is
297 roughly 50 milliseconds).
298 Ground Damping (float, 0-10)
300 Specify the ground damping, used in tunnelling calculations.
301 Maximum Wind Speed (float, 0-10)
303 Specify the maximum wind speed, in pixels per cycle squared.
304 The actual wind velocity is initialised once per round, to some
305 value in (-max, max).
306 Wind is Dynamic (toggle)
308 Normally the wind remains constant through a round. If this is
309 enabled, the wind will change once per turn.
310 Suspend Dirt (percentage)
312 N/A
313 Tanks Fall (percentage)
315 N/A
316 Borders Extend (integer, >= 0)
318 This specifies how far off-screen weapons should be tracked,
319 when you are playing with no walls. When this value is zero,
320 weapons will disappear as soon as they leave the screen in the
321 horizontal direction, even if wind would have brought them back
322 on-screen.
323 Walls Are (list)
325 Specify how weapons behave when they hit a boundary. Note, the
326 ground is always ``concrete'' -- this specifies how the sides
327 and ceiling behave:
328 None The sides and ceiling are open.
329 Concrete All sides are solid. Weapons hitting any bound‐
330 ary will explode.
331 Padded Weapons hitting the sides and ceiling will
332 bounce off, although at a reduced velocity.
333 Rubber Weapons hitting the boundary will bounce off at
334 exactly the same velocity.
335 Springy Weapons hitting the boundary will bounce off
336 with an additional ``kick'' to the velocity.
337 Wraparound The ceiling is open. Weapons going off one side
338 will reappear on the opposite side. Explosions
339 will also wrap around the screen if they deto‐
340 nate near an edge.
341 Random One of the above types of walls are selected at
342 random.
343 Landscape:
345 Sky (list)
347 Specify the background sky.
348 Hostile Environment (toggle)
350 N/A
351 Land Generator (list)
353 Specify the generator to use to create the land.
354 Bumpiness (percentage)
356 Specify the noise on the generated landscape.
357 Weapons:
359 Arms Level (integer, 0-4)
361 Specify the maximum arms level for the game. Only weapons with
362 this arms level or lower may be purchased by any player, under
363 normal circumstances.
364 Bomb Icon Size (integer, 0-4)
366 Specify the size of the bomb icons, while they are traversing
367 their path in the sky. This does not affect the size of explo‐
368 sions, or the size of the smoke paths (if trace paths is on).
369 Tunneling (toggle)
371 If set, weapons are allowed to tunnel through land. If you
372 enable this, you will want to buy contact triggers if you want a
373 particular weapon to always detonate on impact (instead of tun‐
374 neling through land).
375 Scaling (float)
377 Scale the size of explosions by this value. If playing on a
378 very large or very small playing field, you might want to adjust
379 this value.
380 Trace Paths (toggle)
382 If enabled, all weapons leave a smoke trail to reveal their tra‐
383 jectory. If this option is off, you can still use Smoke Tracers
384 to determine the path a weapon will take.
385 Useless Items (toggle)
387 Some weapons are not useful given the current configuration
388 (e.g. contact triggers are irrelevant if tunneling is dis‐
389 abled). If this option is enabled, then weapons which will have
390 no effect are not listed in the inventory screens.
391 Graphics:
393 Screen Width (integer)
395 Set the width of the playing field, in pixels.
396 Screen Height (integer)
398 Set the height of the playing field, in pixels.
399 Dithering (toggle)
401 If enabled, the land and sky gradients will be dithered. This
402 option is particularly useful on 16-bit displays, where the gra‐
403 dient is very noticeable otherwise. This does slow down land
404 generation somewhat.
405 Animation (toggle)
407 If enabled, explosions and other effects will be animated. This
408 option can also be controlled from the System Menu.
409 Graphics Are Fast (toggle)
411 If enabled, all graphics are always as fast as possible. This
412 option can also be controlled from the System Menu.
413 Computers Are Fast (toggle)
415 If enabled, graphics are fast when there only computer players
416 are alive. This option can also be controlled from the System
417 Menu.
418 Gameplay Options:
420 Mode (list)
422 Determines if all players will fire at once (Synchronous), or
423 whether each player will fire independently (Sequential).
424 Teams (list)
426 N/A
427 Order (list)
429 Determines the player order.
430 Talk Mode (list)
432 Determines who is allowed to talk.
433 Talk Probability (percentage)
435 Determines the likelihood that a player will speak at the end of
436 a turn.
437 Extended Status (toggle)
439 If set, the status bar will contain an additional row of
440 extended information during the game (things such as trigger and
441 battery inventories, life, wind).
442 Tooltips (toggle)
444 If set, tooltips will be displayed where available. A restart
445 is required to change the value of this option.
446 AI Controller:
448 Human Target Practice (toggle)
450 AI's will always prefer human targets to AI targets (except for
451 AI's that fire at random). When playing against 9 Calculators,
452 this can make your day pretty lousy.
453 Allow Offset Targetting (toggle)
455 Generally, when a weapon hits a shield it does less damage than
456 an explosion detonating right outside the shield (weapons hit‐
457 ting the shield do not have a chance to detonate). This changes
458 the AI targetting behaviour so they will deliberately aim out‐
459 side the shield, if their intended victim has raised shields.
460 Always Offset (toggle)
462 If the above option is set, this option will force the AI to
463 always offset its targetting as if the player had raised
464 shields. This allows the AI to compensate for cases where the
465 player may simply not have had their turn yet to raise shields.
466 The downside is the AI will never attempt to score a direct hit
467 with this option enabled.
468 Enable Scan Refinement (toggle)
470 If set, harder AIs are allowed to refine their trajectories by
471 computing trajectories that take into account player shielding
472 effect and various other factors they do not normally consider.
473 This option could slow down gameplay a bit but makes the AIs
474 much more difficult.
475 No Budget Constraints (toggle)
477 AI's will spend as much money as they can, disregarding their
478 budget preferences.
479 Sound Setup:
481 Enable Sound (toggle)
483 When set, music and sound effects will be played.
484 Use HQ Mixer (toggle)
486 When set, mikmod's high-quality mixer will be used.
487
489 --help Display a brief synopsis of the command-line options available.
490 --insanity
492 This is insanity, Max! Or what if it's genius?
493 --yields
495 Display weapon yields, and economical yields.
496 --geometry=wxh
498 Specify an initial window geometry for xscorch, where w is the
499 width and h is the height of the playing field. Useful for dis‐
500 plays less than around 800x600 resolution. Note this option
501 overrides the settings in the config file, but you can save the
502 new options to your config file so you don't have to specify
503 this every time. You may also use -g.
504 --config=file
506 Load an alternate user config file, in file.
507 --sound
509 Enable music and sound effects. You may also use -S.
510 --nosound
512 Disable music and sound effects. You may also use -s.
513 --hqmixer
515 Enable use of the high-quality mixer, if sound is enabled. This
516 may use a lot of CPU power on older machines.
517 --nohqmixer
519 Disable use of the high-quality mixer, if sound is enabled.
520 --name Set the name of your player, if you are initiating a network
522 game. By default, your user name is used.
523 --port Set the port number to use in a network game. This option is
525 only relevant if you also specify --client or --server. The
526 default is dependent on the protocol number, but is some large
527 port number.
528 --client=server
530 Start xscorch in client mode, and connect to server (which
531 should already be running). If --name and --port are not speci‐
532 fied, reasonable defaults are used.
533 --server
535 Start xscorch in server mode, and wait for connections from the
536 clients. --name may be used in conjunction to specify the name
537 of this player.
538
540 This is very unstable right now, and therefore is not documented.
541
543 ~/.xscorch/config
544 User's default configuration for xscorch.
545 tankprofiles
547 Profile bitmaps for the tanks, usually stored in the local share
548 directory.
549
551 The xscorch home page at <http://www.xscorch.org/>. There is also
552 additional documentation in the source distribution.
553
555 xscorch was written by Justin David Smith <justins(at)chaos2.org> and
556 Jacob Luna Lundberg <jacob(at)gnifty.net>. (Please do not list these
557 e-mail addresses on webpages, or list them in other packages, without
558 contacting us first.)
559 This manual page written by Justin David Smith <justins(at)chaos2.org>.
561 Copyright(c) 2001,2000 Justin David Smith.
562Justin David Smith May 2001 xscorch(6)