A 1-3 player 3d realtime strategy/arcade game of biplane dogfighting.
System Requirements:
It requires the Apple OpenGL system extension and 10 Mb free RAM (exact memory requirements vary with screen size and hardware used; virtual memory is OK). A G3 processor and/or OpenGL compatible 3D accelerator card is strongly recommended. You can obtain the latest version of OpenGL by download from http://www.apple.com/opengl/
Contents:
Controls
Game Modes
Options
Tips
FAQ
Ordering
Contact Information
History
Known Problems
License
How To Play:
The basic aim of the game is to guide your team of biplanes to victory over one or two other teams. All the planes in the game are controlled by identical auto-pilot mechanisms - each individual pilot is as skillfull and each plane as tough as the next one, you affect the outcome of the conflict by changing the targets and behaviour patterns of your team members at timely moments to eke out a tactical advantage over the opposing forces.
You have no direct control over your planes but you may alter the target and behaviour of any of your planes at any time:
• select the plane you wish to alter by pressing the key corresponding to that plane;
• press the key corresponding to the tactic you wish the plane to adopt; choose from attack, evade and escort.
• A line will be drawn from the plane to its target, by repeatedly pressing the tactic button, you can cycle through all the available targets.
The Controls:
The keys for each team are layed out in a contiguous block of two rows and four colunms on the keyboard. Once used to them you should be able to play the game with one hand resting on the keys without looking down.
Reds:
Q W E R
A S D F
Blues:
U I O P
H J K L
Greens: (numeric keypad)
7 8 9 -
4 5 6 +
Attack: A, J, 4
Evade: S, K, 5
Escort: D, L,6
Selecting 'Human Pilot' from the red team commander menu allows the red team leader's plane to be directly controlled with the mouse - the cursor position relative to the center of the screen maps to the plane's joystick relative to a neutral center spot.
• Positioning the cursor to the left of the center of the screen rolls the plane anti-clockwise, to the right rolls clockwise, above the center will cause the plane to nose dive, with the mouse below the center the plane will pull up.
• The simulated joysick is at full lock when still a considerable distance from the edge of the game window, so you never need to take the cursor outside of the game window's bounds.
• Holding the mouse button down fires the guns.
• Pressing the Tab key will allow you to check whats behind your plane.
• When in 'Human Pilot' mode, the camera is locked behind the player controlled plane, at all other times the mouse is used to control the camera position.
Note: 'Human Pilot' mode is only made available to registered users.
Camera Controls:
The mouse is used to control the camera position - the precise effect depends on which camera mode is being used:
• Auto Cam
The camera automaitcally follows the battle, move the mouse up and down to get a higher or lower altitude view of the action; leave the cursor nearer the left or right of the screen to make the camera revolve around the action in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction.
• Mouse Cam
the camera always looks towards the center of the arena, vertical mouse movements behave similarly to 'Auto cam' moving the camera left and right selects which angle to view the battle from.
• Overhead
the battle is represented in plan view, left and right mouse movements behave similarly to 'Auto cam', vertical movements zoom the camera in and out.
• Cinematic
provides an 'in the thick of it' chase plane view, press 4 to swap which plane is being chased, the vertical cursor position alters how actively the camera chases its subject - if the cursor is near the top of the screen it will chase the plane only very slowly, whereas if the cursor is near the foot of the screen the camera will always be right behind its target.
Note: pausing the game does not pause the movement of the camera.
Game Menu:
Game Mode: When TACS starts up for the first time, it will default to a two team, three players per team 'To The Death' match. This is a good set-up to use while you familiarise yourself with the game.
• To The Death: downed planes are not replaced and the winner is declared when only one team's planes are still airborne.
• Forever Game: each time a plane is downed, it is replaced by a new one, the fight continues until someone chooses 'End game' from the menu ( E ) The winner is the team with the fewest planes destroyed during the battle
• First To Ten: this is similar to the Forever Game except the battle ends automatically when one team has lost ten planes.
• Five Minute Melee: (my favourite) This is a timed game - when the five minute count down ends, the team which has suffered fewest casualties is declared the winner.
Game Speed: This affects how fast the planes fly and how fast they can turn as well, but doesn't alter the speed of bullets. The result is that fights become more hectic - pilot error also becomes a greater factor - with higher speeds.
Arena: The choice of arena doesn't usually affect the gameplay much, although the crater setting can bunch the battle up in the middle of the arena, and the lumpier surfaces can be tricky for pilots who like to fly low... :-)
Team Menu:
Team Size: You can configure each of the three teams individually - games with all three teams playing rather than only two have far more tactical permutations to deal with. Each team can have between one and five planes, the more planes involved, the more hectic the battle will be. Team sizes are limited to only three planes until you register.
Target Lines: Switching target lines on or off determines whether the lines exposing who is chasing who are to be visible for that team. Player controlled teams should have them on, but computer controlled teams will prove more challenging if you turn the lines off for them.
Commander: Each team can be controlled by the keyboard or handed over to one of the three built in computer player types:
• Dumb AI: this might better be called 'No AI' - the team members attack targets at random, with no tactical organisation.
• Less Dumb AI: An unimaginative opponent, related to 'Dumb AI' but with a few safeguards to prevent it doing anything too silly. Its inhumanly rapid response times can make it a challenging opponent in some situations.
• Not Dumb AI: A Game Theory AI that continually weighs up the tactical strengths and weaknesses of each team alters its targets accordingly. Only available to registered users.
Note: the AI players do not 'cheat' by controlling planes directly. Like human players, they have no direct control of their aircraft - you will not be outclassed by superior flying or shooting from AI teams.
Graphical Options:
Most of these have little effect on the game: play around with them until you find what works best on your system - try to keep the frame rate above 30 Fps, also try a large window size - the game has been tuned to look good at 1024 X 768.
• Fat Vectors: recommended for high resolution displays - try it and see.
• Magnify Planes: This increases the size of the plane graphics to make it easier to discern the direction in which the planes are flying when playing in a smaller window size. It only affects the appearance of the planes, so you will often see large plane graphics appear to fly right through each other when in fact the (much smaller) planes actually missed by a good margin. It also has the side effect of making the planes seem to be moving more slowly. Only turn it on if you really can't see whats going on without it.
• Motion Blur: this mode produces 'whoosh lines' behind fast moving objects - may smooth out the view if you are getting more than 50 or 60 frames per second - it leaves some smears on the screen in thousands of colors. Turn it off if it slows the frame rate down much..
• Smoke Trails: long smoke trails are nice, but they slow the frame rate and can make things confusing. Deselecting this option reduces them to a few shortlived puffs. It is important to be able to asses how badly damaged a plane is by how much smoke and fire is pouring out of it, though.
• Title Bar and Window Size: Pressing T will hide the window's Title bar behind the menu bar giving an almost full-screen display, pressing it again will make it visible again. There is no propper full-screen option in this version of TACS - if there is enough demand, I might add one in the next version...
Note: As well as the menu options, you can resize the game window by clicking on the bottom right-hand corner of the window and dragging it like a standard Mac window.
Tips:
Fine tuning performance:
• There is frame rate indicator in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, for best results try to keep the frame rate above 30 Fps. You can toggle the indicator on and off by pressing "?"
This indicator also displays what hardware is being used to render the graphics in the bottom left - if it says 'GENERIC' here, then no 3d card was found capable of rendering the current screen mode and window size and the processor will be rendering the graphics itself. This will be slower and also increase the memory requirements for the game.
• The higher the resolution, the easier the game will be to play - don't run this game at 640x480 if you can get more than 30 Fps with a higher resolution screen mode.
• Thousands of colours is good, millions of colours is great, but only if it doesn't reduce the frame rate too much. If you are using the 'GENERIC' renderer, you might want to experiment with 256 colours as well...
• The game will not change your screen resolution or number of colors for you - use the control strip or control panel. TACS should automatically adjust if you change your screen settings while it is running.
• 'Smoke trails' and 'Motion blur' can both reduce the frame rate considerably - see what works best for you.
• Overlapping windows: if you are running with the GENERIC renderer, the framerate can be drastically reduced if anything is drawn infront of the game window (this only happens under special circumstances) - this includes the control strip: try hiding it and see if the frame rate improves at all.
• Low frame rates don't just make it harder for you to see whats going on, they also reduce pilot reflexes and anticipation times - expect to see more blunders and missed oportunities with a lower frame rate.
Combat techniques:
• Each plane can take 5 bullets before going down. You can tell how badly damaged a plane is by how much smoke and fire it is emitting. The more badly damaged a plane is, the worse it handles and the less effective it will be in combat.
• If you aren't sure whether changing a plane's target/tactic will help, its usually best to leave it as it is - changing tactics too often doesn't give the pilots enough time to home in on targets. For the same reason, become proficient in switching targets quickly.
• Use the Attack behaviour most of the time - a plane that is Evading or Escorting will not be able to shoot down any enemy aircraft. In attack mode the plane will doggedly pursue its target. Firing whenever the target is in its sights.
• Switch planes that are under pressure to Evade mode for a few seconds - until you can get another plane in to watch their backs. Planes in Evade mode are faster and more manoeverable than planes in attack mode, and will do their best to keep out of the firing line, but they are not invincible.
• Escort mode causes your plane to target one of its team mates and tail them at a respectful distance - it is not particularly useful as they will not shoot at oponent planes. Use it to prevent a pile-up when you outnumber your enemies and many planes are going after a single target.
FAQ:
•How is the skill rating calculated?
•Is This Game Using My 3D Accelerator Card?
•Why does it look so old-fassioned?
•Who Are 'Forever Games' ?
•TACS doesn't work on my machine - what do I do?
•How is the skill rating calculated?
The skill rating is a number between 0 and 100, 100 being the best. It is calculated from the ratio of damage dealt out by the team to damage sustained by them. Anything over 50 means you are laying out more punishment than you are taking. If a winner cannot be determined on the number of planes downed alone, then the team with the highest skill rating wins. If someone has lost a game purely through being unlucky, or has won by being sneaky, it usually (but not always) shows in the skill ratings.
•Is This Game Using My 3D Accelerator Card?
OpenGL automatically searches for the best 3d rendering hardware that it can use on the current window size and depth settings. The name of the rendering device is displayed in the bottom left of the screen, if you see 'GENERIC' written there, then no 3D cards are being used. Try resizing the window, or changing the monitor's colour depth to see if a different renderer kicks in. This game has only been tested on "Rage Pro OpenGL Engine" and "Generic" (software) rendering modes.
•Why does it look so old-fassioned?
I decided to go with a retro look for this game - I'm a big fan of Tron and the old Atari CoinOps. My next game will look more texture mapped.
•Who Are 'Forever Games' ?
Forever Games is not a company - its just a pen name. My real name is Ben Mitchell, I live on the west coast of Scotland where I spend the long, dark winters alternately writing and playing computer games.
•TACS doesn't work on my machine - what do I do?
I haven't had the oportunity to test TACS on a wide range of machines before release and some problems are bound to crop up. First, ensure that you have the Apple OpenGL system extension installed on your machine, preferably check that you can run some other application that uses OpenGL on it. Second, check the TACS website to see the latest bugfixes and workarounds - its at http://freespace.virgin.net/forever.games/
If OpenGL works fine, but my game doesn't, then write me an email: see the contact details section below.
Ordering:
Why Should I Register TACS?
TACS is shareware; certain features of the game have been withheld from the trial version, registration has the following benefits:
• You will no longer have the ten second wait on the title screen before you can start playing.
• You will be able to have up to 5 planes per team: more planes = more tactics = more mayhem!
• You will be pitted against the awesome 'Not Dumb AI' an artificial opponent of remorseless and unrelenting guile.
• You will see what TACS is like from the pilots' point of view: fly one plane manually while still commanding your four wingmen, taking on up to ten deadly opponents. Its fast. Its fun. But - I'll be honest - its an enjoyable novelty, not a whole new game in itself.
• The registration code is guaranteed to work with all future versions and updates.
• All this, and my my undying gratitude as well! ...That may seem like an utter irrelevance, however, the more support (be it financial support, advice, criticism, encouragement...) I get, the better I can maintain this game and develop forthcoming MacOS productions...
The order process:
TACS costs just $12 (US Dollars) and all payment transactions are handled by 'Kagi' the well established payment processing firm. You can pay by cash, cheque, money order or credit card using the 'Register TACS' application that accompanies this file - fill in the required data and send it to kagi by fax, mail or email. Whichever method you use to order, when Kagi receive payment they will send you a registration code via email (if you supplied an email address) otherwise they will post it to you. Simply launch TACS, type in the code and the extra features will appear in the menu.
You can also order TACS by credit card over the web, by going to:
http://order.kagi.com/?XVI
Using 'Register TACS':
Run 'Register TACS' by double clicking on it, fill in the form. Check that all the information is correct, then select Print, Save or Copy as appropriate to the payment method (see below)
• If you do not have an email address, you will need to include your postal address and select the 'Postcard Receipt' check box. Kagi will send a Postcard receipt to this address containing your registration code - there is an extra $1 charge for this and it takes much longer than an email response.
•If paying with Credit Card, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is sales@kagi.com and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an email message or you can Save the data to a file and you can attach that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number. Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email containing your registration code as soon as it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will receive the code as soon as it has been processed, otherwise, the code will be sent by post.
• If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-XVI
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD check is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical.
Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as the payment method because without the payment, the form cannot be processed.
Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi as soon as the form is processed.
If you do not have an email address, please enter your complete postal address and please remember, we do not know what country you live in so please enter that into the postal address also. If you do not have an email address you must select the Postcard Receipt so that Kagi can inform you of your registration code. Kagi transmits the registration codes via email and paid postcard receipt only.
Contact Info:
On The Web:
You can visit the home of TACS by pointing your web browser to:
http://freespace.virgin.net/forever.games/
You can obtain the latest version of OpenGL by download from:
http://www.apple.com/opengl/
Note: Apple are spending a lot of time and effort improving OpenGL - newer versions are being released quite often and are likely to make TACS run faster and may improve the visuals as well.
Orders:
Send order forms to
sales@kagi.com
Feedback:
Send all comments, questions, bug reports and suggestions for improvements to:
forevergames@kagi.com
If you are going to send a technical problem or bug report, please read the 'Known Problems' and 'FAQ' in this document, and also the more up-to date versions on the website if possible, if your problem is not sufficiently dealt with there, then write me an email containing as much of the following information as you can:
- the Version of OpenGL used (this can be found in in the Extensions manager)
- Graphics card and ammount of Video RAM (eg. ATI Rage Pro / 6Mb)
- The Renderer being used (displayed in the bottom left corner of the screen)
- System software version (eg. 8.1)
- Processor Version (eg. PPC 604, 200Mhz)
- Ammount of Built-in memory/total memory (eg. 32Mb, Virtual memory off )
A lot of this information can be found under "About This Computer..." in the apple menu.
Try to describe the problem as clearly as possible including as much information about under what conditions and how often it occurs as you can.
History:
19 Dec 1999: V 1.0 released! I await a deluge of bug reports and flames....
Known Problems:
• Lack of testing:
I haven't been able to test this program on very many different Mac configurations, or all that many users - many problems will be quick and easy to fix, but I need to know about them before I can deal with them.
• Dim Smears Left Behind By Motion Blur
Not a serious problem. Switch to millions of colours and they should go a away.
• Can't play as the green team on a laptop computer
You can - use the number keys above the letter keys: 4 5 6 for tactics; 7 8 9 0 - for planes. However, fitting three players round a Powerbook keyboard isn't easy. I do need to know if any international keyboard configuarations are making it difficult to play, though.
• Memory Problems:
If the largest unused block in "About This Computer..." in the Apple Menu is smaller than 10Mb, you may experience serious problems running T.A.C.S. including crashes. To alleviate these problems:
- Do quit other applications, run in a smaller window size/number of colours or turn virtual memory on.
- But Don't allocate more than the recommended ammount of memory to the TACS application: OpenGL is part of the system software and gets its memory from unused blocks while TACS is running. Increasing TACS's memory requirements will mean there is less left for OpenGL to use.
- A low memory warning will appear if OpenGL can't get the memory it requires. If you press continue, the program will try to carry on, but you will have a much greater risk of crashing your Mac than if you opt to Quit immediately. In General. if the memory warning only appears once at the start of each session, you can probably just ignore it, but if it pops up repeatedly, its time to quit and free up some more memory, or turn Virtual Memory on. If you know you have enough memory, but the game continues to throw up memory errors, use the 'Ingore OpenGL Errors' button, If this becomes necessary please email me a bug report so that I can try and fix it.
- If you select quit from the low memory warning, the next time TACS starts, it will open in a small window in an attempt to reduce RAM requirements.
License:
This software is provided 'as is', without any warranty express or implied. If you launch it, you do so entirely at your own risk, and the author will not be held responsible for any loss or damage caused as a result.
This software is freely distributable provided the following files are all presented together (in the same folder or archive) and without modification:
- TACS ( the application program )
- Manual (this document)
- Register TACS
- TACS Homepage (web link file)
- Online Orders (web link file)
Registration codes are provided for the exclusive use of the purchaser and must not be shown or made available to anyone else or broadcast in any way.
