An 8 player dog fighting game, based on the amiga programs BIP and BIPII by Peter Mason, which in turn were based in the intellivision Tripple Action game Biplanes by Mattel. Linux Version Linux is all a bit new to me, so you'll forgive me if this is a bit weird, i have tested it under mandrake 9 and it seems quite stable
| Flight Controls | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Throttle Up | Throttle Down | Dive/Climb | Dive/Climb | Shoot |
| 1 | w | s | a | d | Q |
| 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 (kpad) |
| 3 | i | k | j | l | u |
| 4 | up | down | left | right | rshift |
| 5 | f2 | f3 | f1 | f4 | f5 |
| 6 | home | end | del | pgdn | insert |
| 7 | / | 8 | 7 | 9 | - (kpad) |
| 8 | f10 | f11 | f9 | f12 | f8 |
| General Controls | |
|---|---|
| [ESC]ape | quit ( cant quit in network mode ) |
| [R]eset | reset game |
| de[B]ug | display debug data |
| [F]ps | display fps and other info |
| [P]ause | pause the game |
| [H]elp | bring up this help |
| [M]ute | mute |
| skin[Z] | list skinz |
| [C]redits | display game credits |
| [O]nline | online mode, connect to server |
| back[G]round | turn background on/off |
| 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 | swap to skin x, use[Z] for a list |
The networking is in its infancy, so its a bit pap at the moment, but it will improve honest! Lots of checking is missing so it'll probably do some daft stuff and also the packets are a bit big for a 56k modem, bit lurchy 64k ISDN is fine.
Having said that it is possible to have a game or two and it dosnt crash that much, honest guv.
So heres what you do:
1)Edit the aahalf.ini file from the skin directory you will all be using for the net game. i.e. Bip\Data\biplanes\aahalf.ini
2)Make sure all the refresh rates for all the players are the same
3)Set SERVER_IP to the ip address of the machine that will be running the server
4)Set PLAYER_NAME for your player
5)On the machine that will serve double click bs.exe ( the server program )
6)If alls well it will start with the message "Ready Sir!"
7)Each player should now start bip
8)Swap to the agreed skin (1-10)
9)And press O to go to online mode
10)If all's well you will get assigned a number, you must fly with that players keys (yeah i know!!! but is early days! )
11)You cant quit untill you press O again to discon
NB While bug reports are appreciated this is early beta so it has some bugs that i already know about, here they are so you dont have to tell me about em:
Enemy Plane dosnt know its dead, you get a kill and plane burns while flying, but oponent dosnt know theyve died
Scores get out of sync ( because of above )
Names not broguht through properly for self or other players
Game lags badly if slow player connects
I have tried to leave bip as open as possible to editing, so you can make your own graphics sets sounds and alter the parameters to the game engine, heres how it works:
Each folder inside the data folder is a seprate skin for the game ( think of halflife custom games cept more betterer )
So to create a new skin its often easiest to copy an exising one and modify the files.
All pictures backgrounds sprites are .bmp files
All sounds are .wav files
and then once you have bip looking and sounding the way you want you can mess with the game parameters by editing the aahalf.ini inside your skin directory, heres a brief overview of what the values do:
| [settings] | |
|---|---|
| BIT_DEPTH = 16 | Bit depth the game runs in, if you use less the 16 bit, make sure all you skin bitmaps have the same pallet |
| REFRESH_RATE = 60 | Refresh rate game runs at when full screen ( otherwise matches desktop mode ) |
| SCREEN_X_RES = 320 | X Res of playing field - recognised sizes will be full screen, odd size will be windowed |
| SCREEN_Y_RES = 200 | Y Res of playing field |
| SPR_BULLET_SIZE = 1 | bullet is a circle this is irs radius |
| WIN_SCORE = 20 | how many points to get a win |
| BULLET_SPEED = 8.000000 | bullet speed |
| MAX_THROTTLE = 3.000000 | max speed throttle can be set too |
| MAX_SPEED = 4.000000 | max speed acheivable ( keep higher than throttle to allow dive to gain speed ) |
| MAX_PLUMET = 1.500000 | max speed acheivable when stalled and plumeting |
| PITCH_UNIT = 4.000000 | amount plane rotates each frame |
| SPEED_UNIT = 0.3000000 | amount plane can accelerate each frame |
| STALL_SPEED = 1.000000 | speed below which the plane stalls |
| STALL_PITCH_UNIT = 0.000000 | how much nose tries to point down when plane stalls ( 0 is it dont! ) |
| STALL_RECOVER = 2.500000 | speed plane has to acheive to recover from a stall |
| DIVE_ACCELERATION_UNIT = 0.0800000 | how much the plane accelrates when diving ( see below ) |
| DIVE_DECELERATION_UNIT = -0.050000 | how much the plane decelerates when diving ( see below ) |
| CLIMB_ACCELERATION_UNIT = -0.050000 | how much the plane accelrates when climbing ( see below ) |
| CLIMB_DECELERATION_UNIT = -0.0800000 | how much the plane decelerates when climbing ( see below ) |
| LEVEL_ACCELERATION_UNIT = 0.060000 | how much the plane accelrates when level ( see below ) |
| LEVEL_DECELERATION_UNIT = -0.00500 | how much the plane decelerates when level ( see below ) |
| STALL_DECELERATION_UNIT = -0.005000 | how much the plane decelerates when stalled ( see below ) |
| PLUMET_ACCELERATION_UNIT = 0.040000 | how much the plane accelrates when plumeting ( see below ) |
| PLAYER_NAME = Jeff | your name in multi player network games |
| SERVER_IP = 127.0.0.1 | ip of network server (bs.exe ) to connect to |
This program is designed to format your RAM and generaly mess your PC up, by using it you agree this is what you want done, any trouble and we'll send the TSQN lads round with some bats.