AIRQUAKE test build 9 (8/17/1997) by Iikka Ker„nen ikeranen@raita.oulu.fi http://www.student.oulu.fi/~ikeranen/quake/ Help wanted! See "contributing" section. This will be a "total conversion" with players replaced by fighter planes, and monsters replaced by something that can damage/kill a plane. Since this also means all the maps need to be done specifically for the patch, it will be a very total conversion indeed. The patch already has almost everything needed by the players. You can even play deathmatch in it, but the level included is not really good (though better than the first one). I have added some unarmed aircraft "drones" that fly around for target practise, and there are some ammo in the level too. (You have some ammo at the start though... You don't live long enough to run out of ammo in DM.) This is not trying to be a hard-core realistic simulator, rather than a 3d shoot-em-up arcade game. The controls are very simple, as you'll see. **WHAT'S NEW (since test 8) - Now three planes, selectable before each respawn. (Player starts can be also given "style" variable to force a plane if the level needs that..) - Added flares against missiles (50% change) - The planes can now do sort of loops... Actually more like vertical rolls, anyway it should help you to turn 180 degrees in narrow places. - Made the missile AI capable of loops too. (Now you can hit something with a maverick launched horizontally at high altitude above the target) **INSTALLING & RUNNING - Install the patch to a subdirectory under the main Quake directory; for example, unzip it into quake\airquake\ - Run Quake by typing "quake -game airquake +map air1". - To run the demo, type "quake -game airquake" and wait. This only works if you have also downloaded the airdemo1.zip (containing demo1.dem). Sorry, the demo1.dem doesn't look all right with the new version of the map. I added some more stuff into it... **PLAYING This section tells you how to play with the included autoexec.cfg, that has all the necessary controls bound to mouse and keyboard. In multi-player games, it is not recommended to use a serial cable or modem. The best choise is LAN of 4-6 players. CONTROLS - Steer your plane with mouse, or turning keys and look up/down. The plane turns toward the direction you look at. It doesn't turn instantly but much like a real plane would, just see how it works... Hard to explain. - Press right mouse button (jump) to use afterburner. It almost doubles your speed, but it's of course harder to control... - Change views by pressing: W (bound to +freelook) to freely look around with mouse. The plane's direction is "locked" and it flies straight while you press this key. Release the key to return the controls. Learn to use this... It is used for locking guided missiles to targets in any direction with some planes. A (+lookleft) to look left. Release to return to the normal front view. S (+lookback) to look back. D (+lookright) to look right. Z (+cczoomin) to zoom in. X (+cczoomout) to zoom out. - Press number keys to select weapons. More about them in Planes section. - When you select the bomb, you can't dive or climb. This is to make it easier to aim downward while maintaining the altitude. - All the weapons auto-aim into ground targets, and homing missiles can be locked into planes as well. - The red targeting box shows the direction where you are flying/shooting. - When the targeting box changes to different shape and moves on a target, you have gained a weapon lock. - The drone planes fly around following their routes. At first, they don't use afterburner, but if they take some damage, they start to use it... They have no AI yet, but I'm going to make some. - SAM launchers and AA guns are not used in the example map, because it's a deathmatch map after all. Read more about them in specs.txt. PLANES Currently, there are three different aircraft ready. When the game starts, you get a dogfighter unless set otherwise in the map file. The planes have many different features, and they'll have different roles in the game in team play... Now, to the specs: Plane 1: Dogfighter (no more names... They were too stupid) This plane is an air superiority fighter, with weapons for little more than air-to-air battles. Relatively fast, and can outturn almost anything. Speed: 0.9 mach, with afterburner: 1.5 mach. Weapons: 1: Autocannon (AA). Shoots out nails. 2: Laser cannons (AA). Fires two lasers per a cell charge. 3: Plasma cannons (AA). Fires two plasma balls, usign two cells. 4: 37mm Rockets (AA/AS). Rapid fire, uses 1 shell per shot. 5: Sidewinder missiles (AA), speed 2.4 mach. Moderate damage. Uses rockets. 6: Press to drop a flare. 50% chance to get rid of incoming missiles. Plane 2: Fighter Bomber This is a ground assault fighter, with mostly air-to-surface weapons, but very capable of self defense. Pretty slow and turns slowly. To compensate bad dogfight abilities, this plane is equipped with a high-tech look-it-shoot-it helm sight... However, it doesn't help that much if the enemy is behind you. Try to shoot from distance and avoid dogfights. Speed: 0.75 mach, with afterburner: 1.2 mach. Weapons: 1: Autocannon (AA). 2: 37mm Rockets (AA/AS). 3: Sidewinder missiles (AA). 4: Free fall bombs (AS). Heavy damage. Uses rockets. 5: Maverick missiles (AS). speed 1.5 mach. Heavy damage. Uses rockets. 6: Flare. Plane 3: Stealth Fighter This is a flying piece of state of the art technology. Unfortunately, it can't take a big payload. While it's a bit easier to fly than the Fighter Bomber, it has no afterburner. Instead, the special key (+jump) toggles "stealth mode", that makes the plane harder to see, and may make incoming missiles unlock, as well as cause problems to other planes trying to lock missiles on you. However, when you shoot, the stealth mode is turned off for the time it takes to reload the weapon. In single-player game, this is ideal against small, important targets (ie. radar bases, power plants). In DM, the best tactic is to strike suddenly from a dark canyon, and hide with stealth mode before the enemy even sees you... Speed: 0.9 mach. Weapons: 1: Autocannon (AA). 2: 37mm Rockets (AA/AS). 3: Plasma cannons (AA). 4: Sidewinder missile (AA). 5: Maverick missiles (AS). 6: Flare. CONTACTING You can send me comments/suggestions to: ikeranen@raita.oulu.fi (No bug reports, please. I have beta testers already..) CONTRIBUTING I would like to get other people doing sounds, models, and maps. See specs.txt for more information about these. Do NOT attach files into email. Instead, ask me first if I need them, or even better, upload them into the net and tell me the URL. If I get very good models and maps (as good/better than mine), they are likely to be included in release packages of AirQuake in the future. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE For now, I'll keep this patch freeware. Qrally guys did so too! In single player game, there will be enemy fighters. To compensate the bad AI they will have, there will be many of them. :) SAM launchers and AA guns are finished already, but they will be later linked to radars, so that they can shoot at targets visible to the radar (even if the targets are further away than the normal visible range). Radars may be of different types, for example an AWACS plane and an immobile ground radar. I've added a virtual cockpit into my plans for the single player game. It will not be available in multi-player games. (To make the cockpit possible, I'll have to remove the aircraft model itself, and the other players could then only see the cockpit flying around... No good :) Quakeworld port is undecided yet. Since the planes are entities separate from the player entities, QW would make no use for the movement smoothness of normal QW game so there's no reason to do a QW version. It would still almost absolutely need a ping under 50ms, like this normal Quake version, so I'm not doing this for QW right now. (or does it need that? I haven't really tested it in a modem game after I did some things to reduce lag..) No. No people will be afoot in the game. There are several technical problems in it, and it wouldn't be a lot of fun for the players. I tried making player shrunk into the AirQuake scale (tiny), and I didn't like it at all. I managed to do it, right. The problem is, it took 20 minutes to walk through a distance that only takes half a minute in the plane. Making the tiny player work needs a lot of tweaking in Quake physics, and NOBODY wants to be helpless and small in deathmatch, so it's not worth of the work needed to redo AirQuake. LEGAL STUFF You may freely distribute AirQuake in non-commercial electronic formats. This includes public ftp- and www-sites and BBS systems, which don't charge money for downloading files. For cover-CD's on computer magazines (or other "free" disks or similar media that accompanies other products), I require a free copy of the magazine and the CD to everybody who has contributed to AirQuake. (So far, only me. But at least one other person is doing models for it now) For other commercial CD's, I require more money than you have. Forget it. :) AirQuake TC is copyright 1997, Iikka Ker„nen. Quake is copyright 1996, Id software.