AIRQUAKE test build 7 (8/3/1997)
by Iikka Kernen
ikeranen@raita.oulu.fi
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~ikeranen/quake/

Help wanted! See "contributing" section.

This will be a "total conversion" with players replaced by fighter planes,
and monsters replaced by something that can damage/kill a plane. Since this
also means all the maps need to be done specifically for the patch, it
will be a very total conversion indeed.

The patch already has almost everything needed by the players. You can even
play deathmatch in it, but the level included is not really good (though
better than the first one). I have added some unarmed aircraft "drones"
that fly around for target practise, and there are some ammo in the level
too. (You have some ammo at the start though... You don't live long enough
to run out of ammo in DM.)

This is not trying to be a hard-core realistic simulator, rather than a 3d
shoot-em-up arcade game. The controls are very simple, as you'll see.

WHAT'S NEW (since test 6)

- Added SAM (surface-air missile) launchers and Anti-aircraft guns that
  can actually hit you. The AA guns can lead! Both of these use the same
  models, which will change; and their skins are unfinished. If you want
  to draw skins, contact me...
- Fixed some misconveniences, like a misspelling in "obituaries" and the
  targeting box bug (now it's removed in the crash).
- Recorded a DM demo. It's very big, so it's in a separate file.
- Removed the single player demo from the pak. If you want to see a demo,
  download that DM demo...

INSTALLING & RUNNING

- Install the patch to a subdirectory under the main Quake directory; for
  example, unzip it into quake\airquake\
- Run Quake by typing "quake -game airquake +map air1".
- To run the demo, type "quake -game airquake" and wait. This only works if
  you have also downloaded the airdemo1.zip (containing demo1.dem).

PLAYING

  This section tells you how to play with the included autoexec.cfg, that
  has all the necessary controls bound to mouse and keyboard.

  In multi-player games, it is not recommended to use a serial cable or
  modem. The best choise is LAN of 4-6 players.

- Steer your plane with mouse, or turning keys and look up/down. The plane
  turns toward the direction you look at. It doesn't turn instantly but much
  like a real plane would, just see how it works... Hard to explain.
- Press right mouse button (jump) to use afterburner. It almost doubles your
  speed, but it's of course harder to control...
- Change views by pressing:
  W (bound to +looklock) to freely look around with mouse. The plane's
    direction is "locked" and it flies straight while you press this key.
    Release the key to return the controls. Learn to use this... It will
    be used for locking guided missiles to targets in any direction with
    the new plane.
  A (+lookleft) to look left. Release to return to the normal front view.
  S (+lookback) to look back.
  D (+lookright) to look right.
  Z (+cczoomin) to zoom in.
  X (+cczoomout) to zoom out.
- Press number keys to select weapons. Currently you have 7 weapons:
  Key 2:  Super nailgun. Uses one nail per shot. 
      3:  Laser cannons. Fires two lasers per a cell charge.
      4:  Ballistic bomb. Uses up one rocket, and is hard to aim but very
          effective against ground targets. Just make sure you aren't flying
          too low!
      5:  Rocket pod. Rapid fire, uses 1 shell per shot. (There are no
          shotguns left in the game)
      6:  Homing missiles. Takes one rocket to shoot, easy to use but not
          very powerful.
      7:  Hellfire missiles. Very slow, almost never hits an aircraft; but
          very useful against ground targets. Takes 1 rocket to shoot.
      8:  Plasma cannons. Uses two cells per (double) shot.
- When you select the bomb, you can't dive or climb. This is to make it
  easier to aim downward while maintaining the altitude.
- All the weapons auto-aim into ground targets, and the two homing missiles
  (6&7) can be locked into planes as well.
- The red targeting box shows the direction where you are flying/shooting.
- When the targeting box changes to different shape and moves on a target,
  you have gained a weapon lock. 
- The drone planes fly around following their routes. At first, they don't
  use afterburner, but if they take some damage, they start to use it...
  They have no AI yet, but I'm going to make some.
- SAM launchers and AA guns are not used in the example map, because it's a
  deathmatch map after all. Read more about them in specs.txt.

CONTACTING

You can send me comments/suggestions to:
ikeranen@raita.oulu.fi
(No bug reports, please. This is not even a beta yet, just something I did
in a few days.)

CONTRIBUTING

I would like to get other people doing sounds, models, and maps. See
specs.txt for more information about these.

Do NOT attach files into email. Instead, ask me first if I need them, or
even better, upload them into the net and tell me the URL.

If I get very good models and maps (as good/better than mine), they are
likely to be included in release packages of AirQuake in the future.

Also, IF YOU ARE ABLE TO TEST THIS MOD IN A FAST NETWORK SYSTEM, CONTACT ME!
I need beta testers! If you have some friends and can often play over LAN,
then that's pretty ideal...

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

For now, I'll keep this patch freeware. Qrally guys did so too!

I'm planning to make different planes with different capabilities, weaponry,
etc. In Team Fortress -style game, it would be really cool to have some
people flying a bombing raid on enemy base with defenseless bombers, and
some other players would be escorting them with fighters... Also, the planes
will have different special abilities. For example, the afterburner is the
special ability of the fighter you can fly now. A stealth bomber plane could
have a special "stealth mode", that would make it invisible when not shooting
etc...

In single player game, there will be enemy fighters. To compensate the bad
AI they will have, there will be many of them. :)  SAM launchers and AA guns
are finished already (except for the graphics), but they will be later linked
to radars, so that they can shoot at targets visible to the radar (even if
the targets are further away than the normal visible range). Radars may be
of different types, for example an AWACS plane and an immobile ground radar.

I've added a virtual cockpit into my plans for the single player game. It
will not be available in multi-player games. (To make the cockpit possible,
I'll have to remove the aircraft model itself, and the other players could
then only see the cockpit flying around... No good :)

Quakeworld port is undecided yet. Since the planes are entities separate 
from the player entities, QW would make no use for the movement smoothness
of normal QW game so there's no reason to do a QW version. It would still
almost absolutely need a ping under 50ms, like this normal Quake version,
so I'm not doing this for QW right now. (or does it need that? I haven't
really tested it in a modem game after I did some things to reduce lag..)

LEGAL STUFF

Just don't sell this thing. And don't claim you did it by yourself.
