Adroid Help

To unpause the game, press the PAUSE button on your keyboard.

Welcome to Adroid, a 3D first-person shooting game.  In Adroid, you are a pilot, your sole purpose being to stay alive, to shoot as many other droids as possible and to collect flags and red crosses along the way.  To read about the background and story of Adroid, click here.

Before you play the game, you may need to learn the controls.  You will need to know how to strafe and shoot to be an effective pilot. To learn how to control your droid, click here.

You might be interested to know what youll be coming up against.  In light of this, you can click here to view the fifteen droid enemies you will face and learn about their capabilities.

You may also be interested about the general rules involved in playing Adroid (click here) and how the score is kept (click here).

For tips on improving the performance and visual quality of Adroid, click here.

On detail levels 3 through 5, Adroid sets the game time to the real time.  To learn more about this and other features, click here.

To contact the author with suggestions or questions, you can write to the address in the Registration section (click here) or send an e-mail to CCode@msn.com.  All questions and comments are gladly accepted and will receive a reply as soon as possible.

Finally, like all other shareware programs, you are asked to register your copy if you find it useful and run it beyond this trial.  For information on registration, click here.

Special offers

A program, entitled No Limits, was written to create the 3D models used in Adroid.  No Limits is available to you with your registration.  With it, you will be able to modify the existing enemies, scenery and static objects, as well as create your own.  You can then incorporate your objects into Adroid and play against them.  For more information, click here.


Story

Human nature, the driving forces of materialism, have pushed capitalism around the globe.  Like a plague it spread; from the West it pushed on into the East, and by the year 2010 China with her robust economy and finally Russia had begun their transitions.  By 2030 the world had lost its political boundaries.  Countries ceased to exist; now corporations ruled the Earth.

Five companies dominate Earth today.  Each has many subdivisions, which handle a different task, much as governments did 50 years ago.  Each one has a military subdivision.

Warfare has changed much over the past hundred years.  The wars in the Balkans which occurred over 85 years ago were the last of their kind, the last in which large masses of human life were involved.  Man lost his place on the battlefield.  As weapons became too efficient, battlefield conditions became too intense to sustain human life, and machines began to take over.  At first, armies would control their equipment from afar.  This, however, soon became outmoded.  Vehicles, droids, which could sustain a single human pilot, began to dominate war zones.  Companies began to compete with each other to produce the fastest, most powerful droid and thus ensure victory in combat for their pilots.  At first wars were sporadic and short, fought over land disputes.  Litigation usually resolved the conflicts quickly.  Then, war became a mode of competition.  For the past 15 years, a perpetual war has raged between four of the five companies, creating a world much like that described by George Orwell in 1984.  The remaining one has remained neutral.  However, the other four have begun to make unfair land claims, encroaching upon the other.

The Big Four, as they are called, have spent many years in the development of their droid models.  The first company, called 4307, has developed its namesake of products, including the 4307A, B and C.  The other three companies, all of which are identified by numbers, have developed the Gunship, Surveyor and Manta lines.  Currently the Gunships dominate the industry, possessing the greatest speed, agility and firepower.

Your company, pressured by the hostile actions of the other four, has begun development of its first droid.  Having committed the full extent of its resources and talents, your company has produced an experimental prototype.  Rather than using the existing modes of propulsion and energy generation, completely new methods have been developed.  The result is your ship.  It is over 50% faster than the fastest droids from the Big Four and has amazing agility and firing speed.  Its adroitness is its strong point, and thus its creators have aptly named it Adroid.

Only bits and pieces of technical information have leaked out to the Big Four: just enough to get them scared.  Because they lack the ability to defeat the Adroid in the every-man-for-himself mode of combat the wars have been following to this point, they have formed a loose confederation against your company.  When you enter the battlefield, youre all alone.

You must fight to save your own life and that of your company.  You better be good.


Controls

The mouse is used exclusively for moving the Adroid.  To move the droid forward, push the mouse forward, or upward.  To move the droid backward, pull the mouse backwards, or down.  To turn the droid, move the mouse to either side.

To strafe, to walk sideways without turning, press and hold down the right mouse button while walking.  Sideways motion with the mouse will now result in the sideways motion of the droid and will not turn it.

To shoot a laser beam, press the left mouse button.

To pause and unpause the game, press the PAUSE key on your keyboard.

To display the score in the upper left hand corner of the screen, press the S key on your keyboard.

To display the number of lives you currently have on the screen, press the L key on your keyboard.


Options

1.  Detail

In this box you can change the detail level with which you view the action.  The highest detail level, 5, provides the greatest picture quality while absorbing the most processor power.  The lowest detail level, 1, creates smooth animation at the expense of object complexity.

In choosing a detail level you must strike a balance between speed and detail.  While you want to enjoy the highest possible picture quality, you also need to have a certain degree of fluidity in animation to enjoy the game.  Thus, pick a detail level which bests suits both.  If your computer has a 386 or 486SX processor, your computer may not be capable of carrying out the computations necessary at high detail levels fast enough, and you may wish to choose levels 1 or 2.  If your computer has a fast 486 processor and animation on the first two levels is smooth, you may wish to try levels 3 through 5.  If you are using a graphics accelerator card you may also want to increase the detail level.  Finally, if you are using a Pentium, P6, P7 or beyond processor with a graphics accelerator card or VESA local bus or PCI, you probably should choose a high level of detail.  The most important thing is to experiment; test all the detail levels and choose the one you like the most.

To change the detail level, click on the Change button in the bottom of the Detail box or press ALT+C.  Information about the new detail level will appear in the box.

1.  Low / High detail objects

Low detail objects have a lesser complexity than their high detail counterparts, and thus take less computational power.  High detail objects have a better look, more features and shadows.

2.  Color fading

If color fading is on, you will notice the objects colors fade as you walk away from them.  Adroid uses all the colors in the palette to draw each object; thus, if you have a high color (16 bit) or true color (32 bit) adapter installed with 32,000 or 16,000,000 colors, you will enjoy the realistic and dynamic shading techniques used in Adroid.  Color fading works on all adapters, but on 256 and 16 color versions the new colors will appear pixelated (represented by dots of different colors).

3.  Maximum objects

This is the maximum number of objects Adroid will have on the playing field at once.  This includes enemies and static objects, like trees, bushes, etc.  This does not include the background objects.

4.  Time calculation

If this option is enabled, Adroid will use your computers internal clock to set the time of the game.  Using the aforementioned color fading techniques, Adroid will adjust the brightness level of the playing field and objects therein to reflect the current time of day.  Light sources, including the eye plates of the droids, remain luminescent.

The playing field will not darken or will darken only slightly if your video card has a small color palette.  Also, the enemies and other objects will appear pixelated.  For instructions on increasing the size of your color palette, click here.

2.  Mouse sensitivity

In this box, you can change the scrutiny with which your mouse movements are measured.  Choose a value between 50 and 200%.

3.  Difficulty

In this box, you can change the difficulty level by clicking on the Change button or by pressing ALT+H.  Four levels exist: low, medium, high and insane.

On the low level, only one enemy is present at all times.  Its speed is at a minimum, and it cannot fire rapidly.

On the medium level, a maximum of three enemies and a minimum of one enemy can exist at one time.  The speed of the enemies is increased slightly, as are their firing abilities.

On the high level, there are always three enemies present.  Their agility and speed have been increased.

On the insane level, there are either three or four enemies present.  Agility, speed and firing ability have all been drastically increased.


Score keeping

While you play, your score is totaled.  Scoring follows the rules below.

25 pts. for each enemy you kill times the difficulty level (i.e. 25 for an enemy killed on low difficulty, 50 on medium, 75 on high, 100 on insane).

50 pts. for each red flag you collect times the difficulty level.

1 extra life for each red cross you collect.

2 pts. deducted every time you shoot.

1 pt. added every time you dodge an enemy shot.

When your lives have expired, you will be asked to enter your name if you earned one of the top 5 high scores.  The high score window will then appear.


General rules

Your droid has full range of motion on the playing field.  You can move in whatever direction for whatever length of time you choose.

There may only be 30 laser beams on the field at any given time.  This ensures that the game is not bogged down by laser fire and also keeps the game fair.  You will probably not be hampered by this limit.

A laser cannot travel beyond 1000 meters of its origination.  If an enemy is near you but does not fire, it is aware that its lasers will not be able to reach you.  You can take advantage of this fact by waiting for an enemy to begin to fire before you attack it, thus ensuring that it is in range.

Enemies are confined to their maximum velocities, turning and firing speeds.  To read about each type of enemy and its abilities, click here.

Once you have been hit, the camera moves away from you while turning towards you.  When the camera is facing you, your droid will undergo the explosion jump that happens to all droids after being hit.  Upon reaching the ground it will disappear.  At this point, if you still have lives left, you will be back in the action.  The enemies will begin to move immediately.  You must be ready to start fighting again when your droid hits the ground.

Take advantage of the camera scrolling around after you have been hit to see where the enemies are.  With a few quick turns you can annihilate the ones close by.


Enemies

In Adroid you will come up against 15 different enemies.

The first of which is the model 4307A droid.  The earliest model droid, it is very slow, reaching a maximum speed of only 1 meter per second.  It turns slowly too, at 10 degrees per second, and its reload speed is slow.

The second is model 4307B.  A remake of the model with the same number, the 4307B cannot move faster, can turn at 50 degrees per second and reloads faster as well.

The next model, named G001, part of the gunship line, shows a marked improvement in reload speed.  Its maximum velocity of 3 m/s is modest, and it turns very slowly.

The 4307C, the last of the 4307 line, shows an improvement in velocity, 2 m/s, and turning speed, 20 degrees per second, and its reload speed is comparable to that of its predecessors.  Still, it is not a cause of concern.

The G002, the second of the powerful gunship line, is a very potent force.  The combination of its 6 m/s maximum velocity, 60 degrees per second turning speed and slow reload time (half that of the 4307s) make it one of the toughest dogs on the block.

The Manta is unique to itself, the only member of its namesake line of droids.  Its sleek shape gives it a maximum speed of 7 m/s, but its size slows its turning speed to 40 degrees per second.  Its reload speed is good, comparable to the G001.  The Manta has an innate ability to sneak up on you, so watch out.

The S001, the first of the surveyor line, has one of the fastest turning speeds around, 100 degrees per second, but can move at only 2 m/s.  Its firing speed is very slow.

The G003, aptly nicknamed the Dragon, sports the quick reload speed of its sister gunships, while its 5 m/s max. speed and 50 degree per second turning speed make it a force to be reconciled.

The G004, also known as the Daddy Longlegs, is the most powerful of the gunship line.  Its reload speed is faster than all the other droids, and its maximum velocity, 9 m/s, is tied for the fastest with one other droid.  Only its turning speed is lacking in supremacy, at 20 degrees per second.

The S002, nicknamed the Trashbin, does not seem to be a powerful force on paper.  It can reach speeds of only 3 m/s, turning at a maximum of 60 degrees per second, and its reload speed is equivalent to that of the Manta.  All of these qualities are at best mediocre, but when combined yield a potent quantity.  The S002 must be watched closely on the field, or it will watch you.

The G005, another gunship, is a well rounded droid.  It boasts a maximum speed of 7 m/s, a maximum turning speed of 70 degrees per second, and its reload speed is equivalent to the first of the gunship line.  In battle, it can usually find you quickly, but if youre quick, it has a hard time shooting you.

The S003, often referred to as the Blender, is quite an odd contraption.  This unique arrangement of panels yields an efficient machine, somehow.  It is tied with its predecessor, the S001, for the fastest turning speed.  Its maximum velocity is a modest 4 m/s, and its reload speed is too slow to mention.

The S004, nicknamed the Satellite Dish, is an efficient surveyor but is ill equipped for battle.  Its modest turning speed, 60 degrees per second, its mediocre maximum velocity, 3 m/s, and its slow reload speed make it a negligible force.

The G006 is a departure from the usual gunship design.  Nicknamed the Virus, because its shape resembles the outer coating of that microscopic creature, the G006 manages to achieve a maximum velocity of 8 m/s, upholding the gunship tradition of excellence.  Its turning speed, 50 degrees per second, is fast as gunships go, and its reload speed is equivalent to the first gunship.

Finally is the G007, last of the gunship line.  Named the Missile, its shape gives it a maximum speed of 9 m/s, which makes it one of the fastest droids around.  Its large size lowers its turning speed to 50 degrees per second, which is still fairly fast, and its reload speed is very fast, equivalent to that of the Dragon.

Your ship, an experimental model which has been nicknamed Adroid, represents an amazing leap forward in technology.  Its maximum velocity, 15 m/s, its turning speed, 720 degrees per second (two revolutions), and its blazingly fast reload speed are unprecedented.


Welcome to Adroid

To unpause the game, press the PAUSE button on your keyboard.

Welcome to Adroid, a 3D first-person shooting game.  In Adroid, you are a pilot, your sole purpose being to stay alive, to shoot as many other droids as possible and to collect flags and red crosses along the way.  To read about the background and story of Adroid, click here.

Before you play the game, you may need to learn the controls.  You will need to know how to strafe and shoot to be an effective pilot. To learn how to control your droid, click here.

You might be interested to know what youll be coming up against.  In light of this, you can click here to view the fifteen droid enemies you will face and learn about their capabilities.

You may also be interested about the general rules involved in playing Adroid (click here) and how the score is kept (click here).

For tips on improving the performance and visual quality of Adroid, click here.

On detail levels 3 through 5, Adroid sets the game time to the real time.  To learn more about this and other features, click here.

To contact the author with suggestions or questions, you can write to the address in the Registration section (click here) or send an e-mail to CCode@msn.com.  All questions and comments are gladly accepted and will receive a reply as soon as possible.

Finally, like all other shareware programs, you are asked to register your copy if you find it useful and run it beyond this trial.  For information on registration, click here.

Special offers

A program, entitled No Limits, was written to create the 3D models used in Adroid.  No Limits is available to you with your registration.  With it, you will be able to modify the existing enemies, scenery and static objects, as well as create your own.  You can then incorporate your objects into Adroid and play against them.  For more information, click here.


Registration

Like all other shareware programs, you are asked to pay a registration fee if you like and use this program.  There are two registration levels:

Basic registration

With basic registration you receive product support and updates.  The basic registration fee is $5.00.

Full registration

With full registration you will receive product support, updates, and a copy of No Limits, a 3D object creator and editor for Windows.  With No Limits you can edit the existing objects in Adroid, create your own, and play against them in the game.  Complete documentation on how No Limits works, how to use it, and comprehensive on-line help are provided.  The full registration fee is $15.00.

Send your registration fees to:

Christian Carrillo

2352 Calle del Oro

La Jolla, CA 92037

Please specify that you are registering Adroid.

Thank you for playing Adroid.  Please distribute it to your friends.

Contacting the Author

If you would like to contact me for whatever reason, to get technical support or to offer advice or simply offer an opinion, you are encouraged to do so.  You can write me at the address above or (preferably) send me an e-mail.  My address is CCode@msn.com.  You will receive a real (not form-letter) reply as soon as time permits.  All questions, comments and concerns are welcome.


Improving performance and visual quality

Fluid animation and the highest possible picture quality are crucial in making the action in Adroid convincing.  Because of the wide range of hardware configurations, a range of detail options has been included in Adroid to maximize its performance on your machine.  This section has been included to help you choose what options will best work for you.

Animation

Two components of the computer limit the speed of animation: the processor and the video card.  You cannot speed up the processor itself, but you can reduce the amount of calculations it needs to do.  By playing the game on low detail, with the low detail objects, the processor is required to do less calculations and thus the animation speed will improve.  If you have a slow processor, a 386 or an early 486 (33 MHz and slower) you should probably play Adroid on low detail.

The second component, the video card, can be improved.  The more colors your video card holds in its palette, the slower your display is redrawn.  Thus, to improve the animation speed, you should reduce the color scheme.  This can be done quickly, easily and painlessly in Windows.  In Windows 3.1, you must run the Setup program in the Main program group in Program Manager, and change the display driver to a 256 or 16 color version.  In Windows 95, click on the background with the right mouse button, go to properties, then to the Settings tab, and change the color palette to 256 or 16 colors.  If you have a graphics accelerator or a VESA local bus or PCI card, your video will still be improved by reducing the color scheme.

Picture Quality

Adroid uses a complex algorithm to calculate the correct color for each panel of each object on detail levels 3, 4 and 5.  The colors are then depicted either as a solid color or as a pixelated approximation (represented by dots of many colors).  A solid color is much more pleasing to the eye, and reveals the realistic shading techniques more clearly.  A solid color can only be displayed when the color chosen by Adroid matches one in the palette.  Thus, to ensure that all the colors Adroid chooses are within the palette, you must increase the palette size.  You can do this by changing your video driver to the High color (also known as 16-bit, 32K or 32,000 colors) or the True color (also known as 32-bit, 1.6 million colors).  I suggest that you choose High color rather than True color, because True color slows down your system more and does not provide an obvious picture enhancement.  You can change your device driver by following the steps in the above paragraph.

Again, you must strike a balance between speed and picture quality.  If the animation in Adroid runs slowly on detail level 1, with a 256 color driver, you do not want to increase the palette because Adroid will run much slower.  If the animation is fast on detail levels 4 or 5, with a 256 color driver, you may want to increase it to High color.

Suggestions:

Below are a few suggestions for hardware and detail level configurations for certain systems.  Because there is a wide range in hardware qualities between manufacturers, these probably do not represent the best setup for you.  They are provided as examples only.

386, ISA video card

16 or 256 colors, detail level 1

486DX-33, VESA video card

256 colors, detail level 1

486DX-50, ISA video card

256 colors, detail level 2

486DX2-66, VESA video card

256 colors, detail level 2

486DX4-100, VESA or PCI video card

High color or 256, detail level 3

Pentium 75MHz, VESA or PCI

High color, detail level 4 or 5

Pentium 100MHz, VESA or PCI

High color, detail level 5

P6, VESA or PCI

High color, detail level 5

P7, VESA or PCI

High color, detail level 5

Beyond

High color, detail level 5


Features

A number of features have been included in Adroid to enhance the quality of the graphics.  If you have a fast 486, Pentium or higher processor you are advised to take advantage of them.  You can enable the below features from the Options window on the Game menu.

1.  Low / High detail objects

Adroid has two copies of each enemy: one low and one high detail.  The high detail objects are more complex, have more panels, and have shadows.  If possible you should play on a detail level with high detail objects.

Low detail objects, because they have less panels to draw, require less processor power and thus speed up the animation rate.

High detail objects are included in all detail levels except 1.

2.  Color fading

If you are in a room with equal lighting everywhere, you will observe the fact that objects closer to you appear brighter.  Adroid simulates this by fading the colors of objects which are far away.  If you are playing Adroid on a machine with 32,000 colors (High color) or better, you can observe this easily by walking close to a tree and then backing away from it; the green will noticeably fade.

Color fading is included in detail levels 3, 4 and 5.

3.  Time calculations

To further enhance your experience, Adroid uses your computers internal clock to calculate the amount of lighting to use and thus simulates that time on the battlefield.  The light is brightest at noon, and darkest in the late evening to early morning hours.  Time calculations are included in detail levels 3, 4 and 5.

If the background color (sky and ground) do not change or change only slightly, it is because your computers palette is too small to create the correct color.  Also, the enemies will appear pixelated (drawn as a combination of dots of many different colors) rather than drawn with solid colors.  To find out how to increase the size of your palette, click here.

Changing the detail level

Adroid starts out on detail level 1, which does not include any of the above features.  If you have a fast machine, you should take advantage of these enhancements.  To change the detail level, pause the game by pressing the PAUSE button on your keyboard, go to the Game menu and choose Options.  You will see a box entitled Detail.  Click on the Change button in the bottom of that box to change the detail level.  Information about the detail level you have chosen will appear in the box.  When done, click on the OK button.