1Warp is a real-time space war game. This means that the enemies will keep 2playing even when you sit still. Another peculiarity is that things which 3blow up can damage other things around them. Universes above a critical 4density may chain react. 5 6The game starts at difficulty 1, and gets more difficult with each 7succeeding wave, up to difficulty 99. You're not likely to get that far. 8(Invoking warp with a -b switch causes the difficulty to increase more 9slowly, but games count only a tenth as much.) The game starts with 105 Enterprises and 3 Bases, and you get more for surviving long enough. 11The game is over when you run out of Enterprises and Bases. 12 13The object of the game is to get as many points as possible. This is done 14by destroying as many enemies as possible. This is not a trivial task. 15Each wave starts with one Enterprise and one Base, and continues until 16either both the Enterprise and Base are destroyed, or all the enemies 17(including any homing torpedoes) are destroyed. It is possible to abort a 18wave, but you will be penalized for it. The game may be saved between waves. 19 20A -x switch causes any saved game to be ignored, and causes the new game 21not to be saveable. Hence it is possible to run test games without 22invalidating a currently saved game. 23 24The game is played in a 23 x 40 double wrap-around universe. Everybody 25(both you and the enemies) gets the chance to move once every second, 26unless a -l (low-speed) switch was given or you are under 2400 baud, in 27which case it's every two seconds. The following symbols are displayed: 28 29 FRIENDS 30E Enterprise with shields e Enterprise without shields 31C Cloaked E with shields c Cloaked E without shields 32B Base with shields b Base without shields 33+ Friendly torpedo M Harry Mudd 34 35 ENEMIES 36K Klingon G Gorn 37R Romulan A Apollo 38 Romulan with cloaking device! & Space Amoeba Nucleus 39T Tholian >,< Planet crusher 40x,X Hostile torpedo o,O Homing torpedo 41P Pirate M Harry Mudd 42 43 MISCELLANEOUS 44* Star @ Inhabited star 45|,-,/,\ Web ~ Protoplasm 46other Friendly Freighter, for now... 47 48The following keys control the DIRECTION of your various actions: 49 50 h or 4 left 51 j or 2 down 52 k or 8 up 53 l or 6 right 54 b or 1 down and left 55 n or 3 down and right 56 y or 7 up and left 57 u or 9 up and right 58 59(You will note that the letters are the same as other visual games, and the 60numbers are for use with a keypad.) By themselves, these keys move either 61the Enterprise or the Base, whichever is the current vessel. When shifted, 62they fire photon torpedoes in the specified direction from the current 63vessel. When used with either the CTRL key or the FUNCT key, phasers 64(turbo-lasers for the Base) are fired in the specified direction. (CTRL 65won't work with numbers, and FUNCT probably doesn't exist on non-TVI 66terminals.) When preceded by an 'a', an attractor beam is fired in the 67specified direction, and when preceded by an 'r', a repulsor beam is fired. 68 69These keys have special functions: 70 71 del or % fire photon torpedoes in every (reasonable) direction 72 s stop all friendly torpedoes 73 S or 0 stop the Enterprise when in warp mode 74 d destruct all friendly torpedoes (quite useful) 75 D destruct the current vessel (commit suicide) 76 i/w switch to Enterprise and put into impulse/warp mode 77 c/v switch to Enterprise and put into cloaking/visible mode 78 p switch to Base (not very mnemonic, but 'b' is taken) 79 o switch from Enterprise to Base, or vice versa 80 z zap explosions (multiple zaps extend further) (E only) 81 82 ^R refresh the screen 83 ^Z suspend the game (on a bsd system) 84 q asks if you want to exit this wave (will not work 85 within 10 cycles of previous q command) 86 Q exit this game (not wave) 87 ? display a summary of these commands 88 89There may be additional commands listed in your terminal's keymap file. 90Unrecognized keystrokes are ignored. IF YOU FORGET ALL THE OTHER COMMANDS, 91REMEMBER "?", which gives you help. 92 93Commands for moving the Enterprise may operate in one of two ways. If it 94is in impulse mode, movement commands affect the position of the ship; 95if it is in warp mode, movement commands affect the velocity instead. 96The Base always moves in impulse mode. Since multiple commands may be 97entered in one turn (if you can type fast enough), it is possible to jump 98over things even in impulse mode. In a crowded universe this may be the 99only way to go. 100 101(Actually, motion commands always change the velocity--the actual motion 102does not occur until the next turn. Impulse mode simply causes the 103velocity to be zeroed out at the end of every turn. Phaser commands, on 104the other hand, are executed immediately. If you want to move and fire a 105phaser, you must wait for the motion to actually occur before typing the 106phaser command, or the phaser fires from your old position. This is a 107feature, not a bug, and is intended to reflect reality. Really.) 108 109If multiple torpedo launching commands are given in a turn, a single torpedo 110is launched with extra velocity. You can thus launch photon torpedoes over 111objects in the way, and get them where you want them quickly. This feature 112works well with the destruct button. Variations on this may be useful 113against the Space Amoeba. 114 115NOTE: Phasers destroy the target by blasting the projected next location of 116the object hit. This means that if the object hit, be it Klingon, Romulan or 117Enterprise, changes velocity in the same turn, it can elude the effect of 118the phaser! (Note that this also means that if you phaser a Klingon or 119torpedo that is about to ram you, you will be phasered as well as he/she/it. 120This can be embarrassing, not to mention deadly.) Smart players move 121immediately upon phasering something at short range, or whenever they 122think they might get phasered (in other words, most of the time). 123 124Objects with larger mass can bounce objects with smaller mass out of the way. 125In a crowded universe the bouncee can bounce quite a way before finding an 126empty place to land. If you let the Tholians fill up the universe with web, 127so that there is no place to bounce to, the Tholians win that wave. 128 129The status line across the top gives the current mode, the number of 130points accumulated this wave, the Enterprise's energy and torpedoes, the 131Base's energy and torpedoes, the number of stars, the number of enemies, 132and the stardate. You will note that nice things happen to your energy levels 133when you put the Enterprise next to the Base, or the Base next to some stars. 134Bad things happen inside an Amoeba. 135 136An object is destroyed when its energy goes negative, either from a direct 137hit, or from the blast of the previous turn's explosions. Enemies and 138stars start with random amounts of energy. High energy enemies can go warp 1392. A Romulan with sufficient energy maintains a cloaking device. Tholians 140spin web, Gorns shoot homing torpedoes, and the Planet Crusher munches 141anything in its way, even Apollo. Apollo won't let you go unless you kill 142him, but he loves you very much and beefs up your shields considerably. 143Both Apollo and the Planet Crusher recharge themselves, so you must hit 144them hard in a single turn to do them in. (Yes, the Planet Crusher must be 145shot in the mouth--he can only die of gluttony--and he blasts out of his 146mouth when he dies.) Tholian web may be crossed only by coasting across it 147in warp mode, or by blasting it (but web blasts extend twice as far as 148normal blasts, so keep your distance). The Space Amoeba sucks energy and 149grows, and you must destroy the nucleus. Somehow. There are at least four 150ways. Phasers won't work on the big ones. 151 152Pirates turn inhabited star systems into uninhabited ones. Even Friendly 153Freighters will take potshots at you if you get them mad enough. 154 155Note that because of the size of the Base's turbo-lasers (the Base does not 156have phasers) they cannot shoot anything next to the Base. (This is why the 157Death Star died!) In part, this is to protect the Enterprise. It also lets 158you shoot over one adjacent star. The Enterprise's phasers will shoot over 159a arbitrary number of adjacent, contiguous stars, including inhabited ones. 160Phasers die away with distance, so don't expect them to kill everything with 161one blow. 162 163While the Enterprise's shields are up (when it is displayed as "E" rather 164than "e"), hits on it count only a fifth as much (or even less if you are 165moving in warp mode). The shields are automatically maintained as long as 166there are more than 500 units of energy for the Enterprise. The Base also 167has shields, which stay up as long as it has at least 1000 units of energy. 168 169Aside from losing energy, the Enterprise can also take damage, either random 170damage from getting blasted, or specific damage when a system is in use 171and breaks down under the load. In place of the score you will see the 172Estimated Time to Repair. Sometimes docking helps to get things fixed faster. 173If you lose both your warp and impulse engines, try the tractors. The 174Base doesn't take damage because it has much more redundancy than the 175Enterprise. 176 177You get points for destroying enemies and hostile torpedoes. At the end of 178a wave, you also get bonus points for saving stars, saving the Enterprise 179and Base, and for having an efficiency rating higher that 0.8. You get 180NEGATIVE bonus points for letting friendly life forms get blown up, and for 181giving up. Bonuses tend to be scaled by the ratio of the number of points 182you got over the number of points you could have got. If you think you are 183done with a wave, but it won't quit, there may be homing torpedoes that you 184haven't destroyed--you must make the universe safe for posterity, you know. 185 186When you have used up your Enterprises and Bases (or quit), your score will 187be posted to the scoreboard. You may see the scoreboard outside of the game 188simply by giving the command "warp -s". 189 190If you get bored, you can always play with some of the undocumented switches 191that are used to test warp. Such funny games go on their own scoreboard. 192For kicks try "warp -x -d50 -C -\& -G -T -E400 -S5" and then go hide. Quick. 193 194