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<p>Asteroids3D - a first person game of blowing up asteroids<br />
Copyright (C) 2000 Stuart Mark Pomerantz <smp [at] psc edu><br />
Copyright © Jan Engelhardt <jengelh [at] gmx de>, 2003 - 2007</p>
<h1>Description</h1>
<p class="block">Welcome! Thanks for trying out asteroids3D. This program is
known to compile without error on SUSE LINUX 9.3-10.3, and possibly some other
Linux distributions. The program requires a GL library, which is usually
provided with your card's drivers. Alternatively, you can use the
software-based Mesa3D library, available at <a href="http://www.mesa3d.org/"
target="_blank">mesa3d.org</a>.</p>
<h1>Thanks to</h1>
<p class="block">Thank you to my girlfriend Colleen for her support, and never
failing to say "oooh, cool". Thank you to Lee Beatty for his enormously helpful
artistic suggestions. He has got a great eye for how things should look. Thank
you to everyone on the internet who emailed me with suggestions and kind
words!</p>
<p class="block">Thanks to Rob R. for a patch and a nebula graphic
(nebula3).</p>
<h1>Download</h1>
<p class="block">The latest copy of Asteroids3D can be found at <a
href="http://jengelh.hopto.org/p/as3d/"
target="_blank">jengelh.hopto.org/p/as3d/</a>.</p>
<h1>Compilation & Installation</h1>
<p class="block">asteroids3D uses autoconf, so you can use the usual
two-step. For running asteroids3D out of the source directory, you need:</p>
<p class="code"><code>./configure --with-gamedatadir=src<br />
make</code></p>
<p class="block">If you want to actually install it in the system, you could
use:</p>
<p class="code"><code>./configure --with-gamesdir=/usr/games
--with-gamedatadir=/usr/share/games/asteroids3D<br />
make install</p>
<p class="block">If you need extra compilation or linking flags, you can pass
them to configure using CFLAGS="your options" and LDFLAGS="opts" respectively.
For example, to turn on debugging:</p>
<p class="code"><code>./configure CFLAGS="-O0 -ggdb3"</code></p>
<h1>Playing</h1>
<p class="block">The object of the game is to stay alive and destroy all the
asteroids in the asteroid field.</p>
<p class="block">To view the available command line options type:</p>
<p><code>asteroids3D -help</code></p>
<h1>Playing > Controls</h1>
<h2>mouse</h2>
<p class="block">The mouse rotates your ship up, down, left, and right. The
left mouse button fires your torpedo, the right one targets the asteroid in the
crosshair, if any.</p>
<h2>keyboard</h2>
<p class="block">The basic keyboard movement follows the commonly-known
WASD/SAWD scheme.</p>
<table border="1" class="bd">
<tr>
<td>ESC</td>
<td>exit the game immediately</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>$</code></td>
<td>turn on debugging axes and cubes (not very interesting for
playing)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>s</code>/<code>w</code></td>
<td>slide forward/backward</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>a</code>/<code>d</code></td>
<td>slide left/right</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>c</code>/<code>x</code></td>
<td>slide up/down</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>f</code></td>
<td>hit the breaks!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>b</code></td>
<td>automatically target next asteroid</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>TAB</code></td>
<td>target asteriod in crosshair</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>p</code></td>
<td>pause the game</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>SPACE</td>
<td>fire a torpedo</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>[</code></td>
<td>activate/deactivate headlight</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><b>Best with keypad:</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>4</code>/<code>6</code></td>
<td>rotate about the ship's y axis</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>7</code>/<code>9</code></td>
<td>rotate about the ship's z axis</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>8</code>/<code>2</code></td>
<td>rotate about the ship's x axis</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><b>Graphics features:</b><br />
These keys are like toggle switches now and are mapped across
the top of the [US] keyboard</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>+</td>
<td>activate/deactivate crosshair</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>_</td>
<td>activate/deactivate tracer</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>(</td>
<td>activate/deactivate dust effect</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>)</td>
<td>activate/deactivate shield effect</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>*</td>
<td>activate/deactivate torpedo lens flares</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>m</td>
<td>activate/deactivate asteroid textures</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>k</td>
<td>activate/deactivate nebula textures</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>o</td>
<td>activate/deactivate torpedo texture</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>#</td>
<td>activate/deactivate sound</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>!</td>
<td>swap mouse x direction</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><code>@</td>
<td>swap mouse y direction</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h1>HUD symbology</h1>
<p class="block">The position of your mouse is represented by a green dot.</p>
<p class="block">The purple circles on the left represent torpedo slots. As you
fire they will dim, letting you know that you have fired and a slot is
reloading. You have five torpedos.</p>
<p class="block">The number at the top center of the screen tells you how many
asteroids are left in the field.</p>
<p class="block">The shield indicator at the bottom right of the screen tells
you the strength of your shield indicator. When you are hit by an asteroid, the
shield will automatically come on and you will bounce elastically off the
asteroid. The amount your shield will decrease depends on the momentum of the
asteroid, which depends on the speed and mass of the asteroid and your ship.
Avoid getting hit by big asteroids if you can. (Avoid getting hit at all,
preferably <code>:-)</code></p>
<p class="block">The collision warning indicator is at the lower center of your
screen. There are four arrows representing above the ship, below the ship, to
the left of the ship, and to the right of the ship. The oval represents
directly behind you. If the dim red arrow (or the oval) lights up, then you
know that an asteroid is near you on that side. For example, if the right red
arrow lights up, then an asteroid is near you on your right side. It is good to
move at a ninety degree angle away from close asteroids.</p>
<p class="block">Finally, a group of numbers on the lower left corner of the
screen represents your velocity vector (x,y,z) in m/s. Although this looks
cool, it may not be of much use to you. You will be able to see if you are
moving, though.</p>
<p class="block">When you lock on to an asteroid:</p>
<p class="block">The spot where your torpedo will be in the time it will take
to reach the asteroid is represented by either a yellow (out of range) or red
(in range) dot.</p>
<p class="block">The spot where the asteroid will be in the time it will take
your torpedo to reach the asteroid is represented by either a yellow (out of
range) or red (in range) circle. The target circle grows and shrinks with
distance to the target so that you have a more accurate idea of how big a
target you need to hit is at a given distance.</p>
<p class="block">There is an outer circle with hash marks which turns right as
you shorten the distance between the ship and the asteroid and left as the
distance between the ship and the asteroid increases. The outer circle will
give you a good idea of your rate of closure with the target.</p>
<p class="block">Put the dot inside the circle when they are both red and
voilà, you hit. There are a small number of cases where the aspect angle of the
torpedo on the target is such that you will miss. And unless you are close
enough, the torpedo may fizzle out before it hits. Additionally, the
will-hit-or-miss-detection logic is simple, so it may happen that a torpedo
might miss if the distance is close to the maximum possible distance while the
circle is still red.</p>
<p class="block">The targeted asteroid is boxed in green, and has a green line
pointing in the direction it is travelling (its movement vector).</p>
<h1>Comments and suggestions</h1>
<p class="block">I welcome all comments and suggestions. Please remember that
this game is A WORK IN PROGRESS. I do not consider it finished or completely
debugged. The version number is meant to reflect that.</p>
<p class="block">If you have a comment or suggestion, please email it to the
current maintainer, Jan Engelhardt and/or cc: Stuart. If you have a criticism,
I would like to hear it as long as it is constructive. "This game sucks"
criticisms will be ignored and put in the trash.</p>
<h1>Finally...</h1>
<p class="block">I am giving this away to thank the GNU community of developers
for all the wonderful software they have given away to me for free. I thank you
all for your generosity. I hope you like this game.</p>
<p>Stu Pomerantz</p>
<h1>License</h1>
<pre>This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
MA 02110-1301 USA
Stuart Pomerantz
3935 Stonecliffe drive
Monroeville, PA 15146</pre>
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