freedroid (6)

freedroid [ options ]

Freedroid is a remake of the classic C64 home computer game Paradroid by Andrew Braybrook, including also various extensions.

The player takes control of the so-called 001 influence device and must clear a freighter of robots by either shooting them or seizing control over them. Seizing control is done in a small logic subgame, in which you have to connect more electrical connections within 10 seconds than your opponent.

-v or --version

Prints out Freedroid version information.

-q or --nosound

Suppress all sound output. Very useful if you don't have your sound card configured yet or don't have any sound hardware at all.

-f or --fullscreen

Work in full screen mode. Note that fullscreen or window mode can also be toggled from within the game via the options menu.

-w or --window

Start Freedroid in a window rather than using full screen mode.

-j or --sensitivity

Control joystick sensitivity. Value must lie in between [0:32]. Default is 1.

-d LEVEL or --debug=LEVEL

Control debug output of the game. Debug output will be printed to stderr, i.e. in most cases to the console you started Freedroid from. The variable LEVEL controls how much debug output you would like to have. LEVEL 0 is the default and means (almost) no debug output. LEVEL 1 prints the most important debug messages and LEVEL 2 or LEVEL 3 print (almost) all debug output, which might be quite a lot.

Moving and Firing

The influence device can be moved inside the ship by either using keyboard input or joystick directions. Keyboard control can be done by either using cursor keys or the Quake and Half-life style a-w-s-d keys combination. Firing can be done by either using the crosshair and the left mouse button or by pressing a direction key and pressing space in addition or by holding a joystick direction and pressing a joystick button.

Entering Elevators and Consoles

The influence device can move from one deck to another deck using the elevators of the freighter. To do this, you must step onto an elevator plate, and then either press the e key or press the middle mouse button or appropriate joystick button. Entering consoles is done in a similar way. You have to stand directly in front of a console terminal and then press the e key to activate the console. Inside the console you will have access to a small scale map of the current deck, a side elevation of the ship and to the droid database of the ship. Note however, that access to the droid database is achieved via the security clearance of the host you currently control, i.e. you will only be able to view droid data for droids that are lower or equal to the host you currently control.

The takeover subgame (Taking control of other droids)

To take control of another robot, you must first enter transfer mode. This is done by either standing still and holding space bar pressed (and keeping space bar pressed afterwards) or by holing down the right mouse button or holding town appropriate joystick button. While in takeover mode, the influence device can try to initiate takeover by touching the host it wishes to control. As soon as another robot is touched while in takeover mode, takeover subgame will be initiated and control of the new host will be seized, provided that the takeover subgame is won.

Playing the takeover subgame

After the takeover subgame was initiated, the two droids struggling for control will be presented. Then the player gets to decide which side of the takeover game he wants to play. The player on the left side takes the yellow color, the player on the right side takes the magenta color. Note that which side to choose may be the most important decision of the takeover subgame, cause one side may host strong tactical advantages over the other. After sides have been chosen, the takeover capsules will be placed. Each droid has a limited number of capsules to place and must try to convert the central status bar to his color. The number of capsules you have at your disposal depends on the clearance of the host you currently control. Once the takeover subgame is won, the player will have control over the new bot while the old host is destroyed. Control over the new host also means inheriting the movement properties and the weapons of this robot. Loss of takeover subgame results in the current host, if one is present, being destroyed or the influence itself being burnt out and destroyed if no host was present.

Notes on energy loss

The influence device depends on hosts to control. Whether currently controlling a host or not, the influence device will always lose energy due to construction properties. When taking control of a new host, the influence device will also take control of the energy this droid had left, which will be even more the higher the bot you take control of. However, higher droids also tend to put up more resistance against the control of the influence device, resulting in faster loss of energy. Therefore it is recommended to change hosts frequently in order to keep the influence device well powered. Note that there are some refresh field, where some of the energy lost so far can be restored. But note also, that only energy loss due to collisions, explosions and enemy fire can be restored this way, while energy loss due to host resistance is permanently lost until the host is changed again.

The Freedroid project features a home page at freedroid.sourceforge.net. The project itself is hosted at the Sourceforge. The project summary page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedroid/ can be used to access download and status information. Note that home page and project summary page are shared with the FreedroidRPG development branch as well.

~/.freedroidClassic/highscores

The high scores file of Freedroid.

~/.freedroidClassic/config

The file containing all configuration setting of this user.

Freedroid does currently not care about any environment variables.

Debug output can be produced by using the -d or --debug command line options as described above.

Freedroid can now be considered pretty stable. However we're sure that there are still some bugs here and there. If you encounter any problems or bugs, please send mail to <[email protected]>.

Johannes Prix, Reinhard Prix, Bastian Salmela, Lanzz.

freedroidRPG(6),