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battleball

NAME battleball - military version of soccer

SYNOPSIS

battleball [options] Players ...

DESCRIPTION

BattleBall

is essentially the game of soccer, played with military vehicles rather than with people. Each player drives a tank or flies a helicopter, and tries to move the ball down the playfield to the other team's goal. In BattleBall, the teams' "goals" are their headquarters buildings, positioned at the ends of the playfield. Hitting another team's headquarters building with the ball scores a point, knocking the building over in the process. Yes, realism was my ultimate goal in this game.

OPTIONS

-ag ##l

Set players' auto-gunner settings. The argument of this option is three characters: a single-digit number specifying firing accuracy, a single-digit number specifying firing frequency, and one of the following letters specifying target selection:
a - fire at all targets
b - fire only at the ball
v - fire only at vehicles
n - no targets (i.e. do not fire)
This option affects players which appear after it on the command line. The default is 43a.

-ff d|b|t

Make accidental 'friendly fire' from fellow teammates:
d - dangerous (the default)
b - blocked or
t - transparent.

-grav #

Set gravity. Defaults to 0.031 m/iteration^2.

-help

Show the help screen

-id #

Set the inter-frame delay. If the game runs too slow, set this lower; if the game seems to lag behind your keystrokes, set this higher. Defaults to 30 milliseconds.

-mtns #

Set the number of mountains. Defaults to 8.

-noag

Disable human players' auto-gunner capability.

-noap

Disable human players' auto-pilot capability.

-nobang

Disable 'bangs' (the flashes at the end of a gun barrel)

-noflyby

Disable aircraft fly-bys.

-nopause

Disable players' use of the pause ('P') key.

-noresize

Do not automatically resize the window to fit the graphics.

-noshade

Disable shadows. Uses less cpu time.

-out

Allow vehicles to go outside of the playfield.

-pts #

Set number of points required to win. Defaults to 3.

-rad #

Set the 'radius' of the playfield. Defaults to 100 meters.

-sb

Single-buffer the game windows.

-sd #

Set the startup delay. The game will wait for this many seconds for players to get ready.

-simple

Use simpler graphics. Uses less cpu time.

-snum #

Set number of shells per player. Defaults to 3.

-spow #

Set shell power. Defaults to 1.6.

-svel #

Set shell muzzle velocity. Defaults to 1.5 meters/frame. At higher velocities, some collisions may not be reliably detected.

-train

Include a train running on a track around the playfield.

-trees #

Set the number of trees. Defaults to 12.

-wf

Use wireframe rendering. Uses less cpu time.

PLAYERS & TEAMS

Battleball is played with teams of human and computer players. Up to six teams can play at once, and teams may have any combination of human and computer players. Human players are created by giving the name of an X display on the command line. Computer players are created by using the magic name 'comp' instead.

Computer players may be created with specific auto-gunner settings. Use 'comp', followed by (no space) the three characters used in the -ag option, e.g. 'comp67b'. This overrides the -ag option.

Commas between names put players on the same team; spaces between names separate teams. Teams may have any mix of human and computer players.

At least one player (one team) must be specified on the command line. However, soccer with just one team is rather boring; using two or more is strongly suggested.

Each team is assigned a color. Tanks, helicopters, and headquarter buildings are all marked with the team's color.

PLAY

When the game starts, each player is seated in her vehicle, in front of her goal, facing the ball at the center of the playfield. Vehicles are, of course, armed with cannons, but these are primarily a means to an end. Gunfire is good for forcing obstinate opponents out of your way, but gunfire doesn't destroy anything. Gunfire is also good for blasting the ball across the playfield and into your opponent's HQ.

You use the keyboard to control your vehicle. The commands that are available at any given time are shown at the bottom of the screen.

Commands for all vehicles:

'I'

(or up arrow.) Move forward.

'J'

(or left arrow.) Turn left.

'K'

(or down arrow.) Move back.

'L'

(or right arrow.) Turn right.

Space

Fire.

'P'

Pause.

'Q'

Quit.

'T'

Transform tank to helicopter or vice versa.

'A'

Toggle autopilot.

'G'

Toggle autogunner.

'V'

Switch between view from vehicle, and view of vehicle from HQ.

Tab

Show teams and scores.

Extra commands for tanks:

'E'

Raise barrel (shots go farther).

'S'

Rotate turret left.

'D'

Lower barrel.

'F'

Rotate turret right.

The current angle of the barrel and turret are shown beneath the main display, next to the team insignia.

Commands for helicopters:

'E'

Go up (note, your helicopter cannot fly on the ground).

'S'

Fly left.

'D'

Go down.

'F'

Fly right.

'Y'

Pitch forward.

'H'

Pitch back.

The current elevation and pitch are shown beneath the main display, next to the team insignia.

The controls which are available to your vehicle are always shown at the bottom of the screen.

SCORING

When there are two teams, scoring is the same as it is in soccer: scoring a "goal" is worth 1 point. When there are more than two teams, scoring a goal earns 2 points, and the other teams besides the losing team receive 1 point each for defending their headquarters.

EXAMPLES

battleball :0

Starts a game with only one player on only one team, a human player on the local X display. Not a very interesting game.

battleball :0 comp

A single human player vs. the computer, one-on-one.

battleball ford:0 chevy:0

Two humans, head-to-head, one on the display "ford:0", one on "chevy:0".

battleball flavio:0 chirp:0,roar:0

Sets up a one-player team against a two-player team.

battleball parrot:0,comp raven:0 comp,comp

Creates three teams with a mix of human and computer players.

battleball dunce:0 comp75a comp,comp

Creates three teams. The first computer player gets special auto-gunner settings; the other computer players get default settings.

BUGS

Using multiple X displays introduces certain security risks (which are beyond the scope of this document). Networked games will require the use of the incredibly insecure xhost(1) command or the less insecure but rather complicated xauth(1) utility. Do not play this game with people you don't know and trust.

Using multiple X displays also imposes performance overheads. You will need fast network connections for multi-player games.

The game must render 3d graphics for each player in the game. This can slow the game down dramatically as the number of players increases. You can use various options to speed up the game, but you will eventually reach a point of diminishing returns.

SEE ALSO

See battleball -help and /usr/share/doc/battleball/README.gz for more information.

AUTHOR

Battleball was written by Philip A. Hardin.

This man page was written by Chris Waters <xtifr@debian.org>.