ALIEN ARENA

1. Introduction
2. System Requirements
3. Getting Started
* Installation
* Basic Commands
* Completing Levels
* Connecting to a server
4. The CodeRED ACE Bot
5. The Rewards System
6. How to uninstall
7. Credits
8. Copyright Information


1.	INTRODUCTION

ALIEN ARENA is a fast paced arena FPS game with multiple modes,
mutators and level, wrapped in a macabre sci-fi theme that harkens
back to the classic themes of the 1950's.

The game features 23 levels, which can be played competitively online
against other players, or practice offline against the built in
AI(bots).

Alien Arena offers Capture The Flag, All Out Assault(players can climb
into randomly spawned jetpacks to do battle), and Tactical(Alien Vs
Human in a battle to destroy the other's base by planting bombs and
other means).  Simply go into the multiplayer menu to start a server,
change the game rules , and choose a map to play on.  You can also
select from a large variety of different mutators(instagib, rocket
arena, excessive, low grav, regen, vampire, etc) to further customize
your game experience.


Alien Arena : Many are called, only one will reign supreme.

Eternal war ravaged the vastness of infinite space. For as far back
into the ages as the memories of the galaxies oldest races could
reach, it had been this way. Planet at war with planet, conflicts
ending with a burned cinder orbiting a dead sun and countless billions
sent screaming into oblivion. War, endless and eternal, embracing all
the peoples of the cosmos. Scientific triumphs heralded the creation
of ever more deadly weapons until the very fabric of the universe
itself was threatened.

Then came the call.

Some said it was sent by an elder race, legendary beings of terrifying
power who had existed since the birth of the stars and who now made
their home beyond the fringes of known creation, others whispered
fearfully and looked to the skies for the coming of their
gods. Perhaps it didn't matter who had sent the call, for all the
people of the stars could at least agree that the call was there.

The wars were to end - or they would be ended. In a demonstration of
power whoever had sent the call snuffed out the homeworld of the XXXX,
the greatest empire of all the stars, in a heartbeat. One moment it
was there, the next it was dust carried on the solar winds. All races
had no choice but to heed the call.

For most the call was a distant tug, a whispered warning that the wars
were over, but for the greatest hero of each people it was more, it
was a fire raging through their blood, a call to a new war, to the
battle to end all battles. That fire burns in your blood, compelling
you, the greatest warrior of your people, to fight in a distant and
unknown arena, your honor and the future of your race at stake.

Across the stars you traveled in search of this arena where the
mightiest of the mighty would do battle, where you would stand face to
face with your enemies in a duel to the death. Strange new weapons
awaited you, weapons which you would have to master if you were to
survive and emerge victorious from the complex and deadly arenas in
which you were summoned to fight.

The call to battle beats through your heart and soul like the drums of
war. Will you be the one to rise through the ranks and conquer all
others, the one who stands proud as the undefeated champion of the
Alien Arena?


2.	SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

2.8 GHz CPU
4 GiB RAM
1.2 GiB hard disk space
3D Accelerator with at least 512 MiB texture memory available

3.	GETTING STARTED

* INSTALLATION

See the INSTALL documentation file.

* BASIC COMMANDS

ALIEN ARENA works very much like Quake and Unreal Tournament, with a
few notable exceptions.

The player will have the following weapons:

1.  Blaster (automatically equipped at spawn)
2.  Alien Disruptor
3.  Chaingun
4.  Flame Thrower
5.  Rocket Launcher
6.  Alien Smart Gun
7.  Disruptor
8.  Alien Vaporizer
9.  Violator (automatically equipped at spawn)
10. Minderaser(replaces re-spawning weapon every 2 minutes)

Weapons also have alternate firing modes.  In you controls menu,
select your secondary fire key and this will allow you to use these
modes.  The default key for alternate fire is MOUSE2 (right click).

There are powerups such as double damage, alien force, haste and
sproing.

Although the game automatically detects hardware capability on intial
run, it would be advisable for you to change video settings for
however you wish to view the game, and what gives you reasonable
performance.

ALIEN ARENA also allows for colored names just as Quake 3, using the ^
character followed by a number to set the color.

Movement is based on Quake 2 physics, allowing strafejumping,
doublejumping, and other Quake type movements.  In Alien Arena, you
can also dodge, similarly to Unreal Tournament, by pressing a strafe
key, releasing it fully, and pressing it again.  Dodges can be linked
together into sequences, similar to strafejumping, called
strafedodging.  You can also lean around corners, and sneak silently.

* COMPLETING LEVELS

Your goal is to reach the fraglimit before your opponents, or by
scoring the most frags before the time limit is up.

In CTF mode, you'll be on a team, and trying to capture the enemy's
flag and return it to your own flag's location.  The team reaching the
capture limit first, wins.

In Tactical, the goal is to destroy all of the components of the enemy
base before they destroy yours.  As items are destroyed, defenses such
as laser beams and deathrays gradually begin to malfuncion or weaken.
There are 3 classes on each team, each with different capabilities
such as planting bombs, detonating them, or having a superweapon to
protect the bomber/detonators.

* CONNECTING TO A SERVER

You can select "join server" from the "multiplayer" menu and select a
server in the list.  Servers are listed in order of ping, with lowest
ping at the top of the list.


4.	THE CODERED ACE BOT

Bots are a built in feature of ALIEN ARENA.  Several bots are already
configured for multiplayer games, and in Alien Arena, each level has a
specific bot file for what bots are to be played in each level.

To add a bot, type "sv addbot name model/skin", and to remove a bot
type "sv removebot name". You can also add bots in the menu, in the
deathmatch/bots flags area.

In your Deathmatch options, you can configure other options such as
chatting, node saving, and aiming.

These bots are fully configurable using the Botconfigurator program.
You can change their skill levels, accuracy, weapon favoring,
awareness, and chat strings.

Skill level 0 bots are quite easy to beat.  Skill level 1 bots are a
little tougher, and do more dodging and are more accurate.  Skill
level 2 bots do more advanced dodging, rocket jumping, and are even
more accurate.  Level 3 bots are extremely skilled, and will strafe,
and strafe jump around the level.  They will also taunt you after
killing you.  If in Alien Arena, you play the single player tournament
against the bots, selecting "easy" will make all bots skill level 0.
Selecting "normal" will leave them at whatever level they are
configured. Selecting "hard" will make them all move up 1 skill level.


5.	THE REWARDS SYSTEM

In Alien Arena, you are given points for getting kills (one point for
kill), two points for special kills (midair kills, gib kills), and
five extra points for killing sprees.  These points add up, and when
these points reach the point threshold (set by the server), they can
be used to purchase temporary powerups:  invisibility, haste, and
sproing.  Invisibility makes you appear like glass, haste makes your
jumps increase your speed dramatically (linking jumps together makes
this difference even more drastic), and sproing greatly increases the
player jump height.  These powerups last for 30 seconds.


6.	HOW TO UNINSTALL ALIEN ARENA

For Linux users, see the INSTALL documentation file. 

7.	CREDITS

There is a long list of credits - ALIEN ARENA is greatly indebted to
the following for its creation and completion:

Design:  John Diamond, Max Eliaser, Jim Bower with input from the
community at large.

Programming:  John Diamond, Max Eliaser, Jim Bower, Dave Stewart,
Emmanuel Benoit, Charles Hudson, Lee Salzman, Victor Luchits, Shane
Bayer, Jan Rafaj, Tony Jackson, Kyle Hunter, Andres Mejia

Models and skins:  John Diamond, Dennis Zedlach

Maps:  John Diamond, Charles Hudson

Textures and Artwork:  John Diamond, Phillip K, Dennis Zedlach, Adam
Saizlai, Yves Allaire

Sounds:  John Diamond, Sound Rangers, Jon Ward, Jim Bower

Music:  Divinity, Paul Joyce, Arteria Games, Whitelipper, and
SoundRangers

Linux Port: Shane Bayer, John Diamond, Jim Bower

FreeBSD port: "Ale"

Gentoo portage: Paul Bredbury

Debian packaging: Andres Mejia

Public Relations:  Victor Balke

Alien Arena IRC Channel: irc.planetarena.org #alienarena

Alien Arena Discord server: https://discord.gg/Rd5fwBg

Alien Arena Matrix server: https://matrix.to/#/#alienarena:matrix.org

There are other major contributions from the gaming community,
including MrG, Jay Dolan, Psychospaz, Barnes, Jalisko, Heffo, Chayfo,
Dukey, Jitspoe, Knightmare, Barens, MH, and Carbon14.  Without this
wonderful group of people, and the release of their accomplishments,
many features would not have been possible.  A special thanks for Lee
Salzman for creating the new model format(IQM) and his assistance in
getting it working for us.  A very special thanks goes out to the
community members who contributed to the crosshair and hud contest. A
full list of those contributors can be found in the in-game credit
list.


8.	COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

ALIEN ARENA and it's original content are a copyright of COR
Entertainment, LLC.

The source code of Alien Arena is Free Software. You can redistribute
it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version. Source code can be
located at http://red.planetarena.org

The included TrueType fonts (FreeSans and FreeMono) are from the GNU
FreeFont package (http://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/); they are
free software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
License version 3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html).

Permission is granted to freely distribute (without restriction) the
game data in this installation(models, maps, textures, sound, etc) as
a whole, and with the intention of being used with Alien
Arena. However, it is not permissible to distribute, sell, or use for
profit individual portions or items of the game data without express
consent from COR Entertainment.

'rcon' and 'svstat' ruby scripts are Copyright (C) 2009 Tony Jackson
and Licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License

The Debian packaging is (C) 2009, Andres Mejia <mcitadel@gmail.com>
and is licensed under the GPL, see `/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL'.

ALIEN ARENA may be included in free compilation CD's and similar
packages without consent, provided it adheres to the above
restrictions.


Contact:  http://red.planetarena.org

Privacy Policy: http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/privacy2.html




