O P E R A T I O N B L A C K S U N 2 alpha 3.1 Linux (08-05-02)

#include <std_disclaimer.h>

"We do not accept responsibility for any effects, adverse or otherwise, that this code may have on you, your computer, your sanity, your dog, and anything else that you can think of. Use it at your own risk."

What is Operation Blacksun 2?

Basically, this is the successor to OBS1 ( obviously ). Our goal is to create a fun to play overhead spaceshooter for single and multiplayer games, supporting various game modes. This is an early alpha release, so very little of this stuff is implemented right now.

System Requirements

A fast PC with a relatively fast OpenGL supported 3D card. ATI Rage 128 is too old/slow for the game, GeForce 2 MX suffices. Other cards are not tested, yet. For internet play, at least a 56k modem is recommended.

Linux requirements: Installed and working Allegro 4.0.x

( Google "Allegro game library" )

Installation & First Start

unpack the archive
become root and execute "ldconfig ./" ( so the libfmod-3.5.so is recognized by ld )
return back to your normal user
execute ./startobs2.sh, the game should start now
exit again. config.cfg has been created
open 'config.cfg' and tweak what you like

Starting a game

To create a game, click on "Multiplayer" from the mainmenu. The first time you do this you will be confronted with the player setup screen, in which you should configure your player name and connection speed. After finishing that, select "Start Server" and you have the following options:

°Game Name:
... will be shown when other people try to join other servers. It is basically the name under which your server will appear in the lists.

°Password:
... shouldn't be used, yet.

°Port:
... is the port your server will listen for new connections on. Servers behind firewalls or NATS are not possible.

°Maxplayers:
... defines the maximum amount of players allowed to join your game, the local player included.

°Maxrate:
... is the maximum amount of bytes/sec allowed to be sent to each player. 0 disables this feature.

°Map:
... select your map here. We have included one map in 2 variations:

"test.obl": is for multiplayer purposes
"testship.obl": spawns some ships for you to shoot at

°Advertise server:
... if enabled, the game will try to register your game online, so other internet players can see it.

After you made your choices, press "Start" to launch the game.

Dedicated server

To start a dedicated server, simply run the executable with the parameter "-q". It is a good idea to edit the settings in config.cfg before you do that. You should care especially about:

-sv_maxrate ( bytes/sec/player )
-sv_maxplayers
-sv_advertise ( if false, server won't propagate itself to masterserver ) -sv_port ( the port the server listens on )

The dedicated server does not provide any input facility at this time. All the setup and tweaking must be done before starting the game. The windoze version doesn't even provide an output facility, so you won't be able to see what's happening unless you constanstly open and close the .log-file.

Joining a game

Go to the "Multiplayer" menu and press "Join game". The two checkboxes at the top of the screen allow you to configure where to look for games. "Search LAN" broadcasts in the Local Area Network, while "Search Internet" will try to contact the master server and download a gamelist.

After you're done, press "Refresh" to actually perform the search. You can also manually enter a server adress in the "Target adress" field. If you don't specify a port "ip:port", OBS2 will default to 14200.

Press "Connect" to initiate the connection.

The console

You can popup the console by pressing F10. Known commands are:

list - list all cvars and cmds
...

If you want to learn more about the console, use the "list" command and/or stduy config.cfg, which uses the exact syntax as you should, when issuing commands to the console.

The editor

Yes, the editor is still there. You can use it for toying around or even make maps. But if I were you, I wouldn't do it, since the mapformat is very likely to change completely one more time.

More to come

Since this is an alpha release, there is not much you can do yet. No real funstuff has been implemented as this is only intended as a "nettest", to see if my networking and engine concepts are working. If you have any wished concerning features of any future version, please speak up. I will consider every idea, if it fits into the game.

How to play

The standard config looks like that:

general keys:

CONSOLE : F10

SCREENSHOT : F11
INSTANT QUIT: F12

EXIT        : ESC
CHAT        : T

1P mode:

THRUST FORWARD: UP

THRUST BACK : DOWN

TURN LEFT : LEFT

TURN RIGHT : RIGHT

FIRE : L-CTRL

CHANGE OBSERVATION FOCUS: ALT

SELECT WEAPONS: 1/2/3/4/5

Report Bugs

If you found a bug, please mail us with the name, version and build date of the game as subject. Also important are: GFX card, OS, CPU and speed and your network configuration if your problem is multiplayer specific. If the game crashes, please send us a mail including the things above, OBS2.LOG and what happened just before the crash if you noticed something special.

About this game

This game is developed mainly in C++ under Linux, using Shawn Hargreaves' Allegro library for I/O routines, and the FMOD library for music and sound. The reason why there is no linux release this time is, that I am currently unable to compile it in Linux.

Credits

Jörg "Sharky-X" Rüppel

Coding, Design, Music, SFX, GFX

Andre "Nemesis" Kleinschnittger

GFX, Design

Thorsten Mortag

Ship Graphics

David Lyr

2D tileGFX

External use of any media shipped with this game is prohobited unless you are explicitely allowed to do so.

Thanx fly out to:

Oh my, I am too lazy to list all those nice people on all these mailinglists right now :)

Contact

You're always welcome to mail us with your comments, suggestions and any other thoughts you want to inform us about.

Thanx in advance for any reply.

E-Mail: sharky-x@gmx.net
WEB: http://www.sharky-x.de