179 lines
7.4 KiB
Plaintext
179 lines
7.4 KiB
Plaintext
This file has been dedicated to the public domain, to the extent
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possible under applicable law, via CC0. See
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http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ for more
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information. This file is offered as-is, without any warranty.
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========================================================================
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Thank you for downloading Project: Starfighter!
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Project: Starfighter is a space shoot 'em up game originally developed
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by Parallel Realities in 2002, and released in 2003. You assume the role
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of Chris Bainfield in his quest to put an end to WEAPCO, the weapons
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corporation which has enslaved the galaxy.
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If you played one of the versions of Project: Starfighter distributed by
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Parallel Realities, you might notice some differences in this version
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compared to the original:
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* The graphics, sounds, and music are all completely different. This is
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because most of the original media was not properly licensed, and
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therefore needed to be replaced to make the game 100% libre. Most of
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this work was done by the previous project at SourceForge; the current
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project completed that work by adding music and replacing one
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non-libre graphic that got into version 1.2 by mistake.
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* There are several gameplay changes. These changes were mostly done to
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balance the game better. However, if you want the original experience,
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"Classic" difficulty emulates it as closely as possible (see the
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CLASSIC DIFFICULTY DIFFERENCES section to read about the few
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differences that exist).
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* Much of the dialog has been changed. There are various reasons for
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this; some of these include fixing bad writing, making the dialog
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match new music queues, and giving the characters more personality.
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* In many places, the interface has been considerably improved. As an
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example, the simplistic target arrow of the original has been replaced
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with a system of several arrows, one for each ship.
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* Typing "humansdoitbetter" in the title screen no longer enables
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cheats. This is actually because the switch to SDL2 broke the original
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feature, and rather than fixing it, I just replaced it with something
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else. I'll let you figure out what the new method to access the cheat
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menu is. :)
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
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CLASSIC DIFFICULTY DIFFERENCES
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Classic difficulty is designed to emulate the experience of version 1.1
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of the game (the last version released by Parallel Realities) as closely
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as possible. However, there are several minor differences in addition to
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the changes to graphics, sound, and dialog. Here you can fine a list of
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notable differences.
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* Selling your secondary weapon leaves you with standard Rockets. In
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version 1.1, it instead left you with no secondary weapon at all (with
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no way to gain standard Rockets back).
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* If you buy a secondary weapon while one other than standard Rockets
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is already equipped, the currently equipped secondary weapon is
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automatically sold for you (which gives you money equal to half of
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said weapon's cost). In version 1.1, the old secondary weapon would
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simply disappear in this case, meaning the money was lost unless you
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explicitly used the "Sell" button.
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* Travel in Spirit works the same as in every other system, except that
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there is no chance of interceptions in Classic difficulty. Version
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1.1 instead instantly teleported you to the target planet as soon as
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you clicked on it.
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* In the Venus mission, Kline starts some distance away directly to the
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right and immediately begins combat. In contrast, version 1.1 spawned
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Kline much closer to the player (to the point where his ship was
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visible on the screen) and a bit further down, unmoving until a string
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of dialog boxes finished being displayed. This change was made to
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accommodate new music and dialog.
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* Similar to the above, the time spent to accommodate Kline's banter
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when he first appears in the Elamale mission is different from version
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1.1.
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* Several bugs present in version 1.1 have been fixed. Many of these
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bugs affected gameplay in notable ways; such bugs include:
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* A bug in the shop that caused goods to be sold at the wrong price
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(notably exploitable to gain infinite cash by buying and selling
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the permanent cooling upgrade)
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* Overflow bugs that caused various numbers (especially plasma ammo)
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to "wrap around" to zero (leading to cases where gaining plasma
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ammo would cause you to lose plasma ammo instead)
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* A broken event in the Odeon mission that showed a odd error message
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* A bug that caused slaves rescued after the interception is destroyed
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to not count toward the total for the purpose of the Eyananth
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interception mission
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
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GENERATING CONFIGURE SCRIPT
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If you contribute to Project: Starfighter's source code, you will need
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to know how to generate a configure script for compiling the program.
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NOTE: This is for developers only. End-users simply compiling releases
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of Starfighter from source can ignore this section and skip straight to
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the COMPILING FROM SOURCE section.
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The following components are required to generate the configure script:
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* Autoconf
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* Automake
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* pkg-config
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Once these dependencies are installed, simply do the following from a
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terminal window:
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autoreconf -vif
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The arguments are technically optional, but recommended.
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If for some reason you need to remove all of these files from your
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directory, you can do so via the following command (requires Git):
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git clean -fdx
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Note: automatically generated files are listed in .gitignore, so you
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generally don't actually have to do this.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
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COMPILING FROM SOURCE
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Project: Starfighter depends on the following libraries to build:
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* SDL2 <http://libsdl.org>
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* SDL2_image <http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/>
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* SDL2_mixer <http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/>
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Once you have all dependencies installed, you can do the following from
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a terminal window:
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./configure
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make
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make install
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Run "./configure --help" to see more options.
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The third step ("make install") is technically optional, but highly
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recommended.
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For most GNU/Linux systems, an icon should be added to your menu when
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you run "make install". You can click on this icon to start up the game.
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Otherwise, you can manually install or use the launcher found in the
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"misc" directory, or you can run the "starfighter" command to start up
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the game.
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If you choose not to use the "make install" command, you can find the
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"starfighter" binary in the "src" directory.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
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PLAYING THE GAME
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The basic controls are the arrow keys, Ctrl, Space, Shift, and Escape.
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Other keys on they keyboard can also be used in case of keyjamming or if
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you simply prefer other controls; alternative keys include the keypad,
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ZXC, ASD, <>?, and 123. A gamepad or joystick can also be used.
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The basic objective of Project: Starfighter is simply to complete all
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missions. Exactly what entails completing a mission varies and is
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explained in-game.
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In the system overview screen, various sections can be accessed by
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clicking the icons on the bottom of the screen. You can also use the
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keyboard or a gamepad if you prefer.
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Other than that, have fun, and good luck!
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