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 standalone 3D first person online deathmatch shooter crafted from the original source code of Quake II and Quake III, released by id Software under the GPL license.  With features including 32 bit graphics, new particle engine and effects, light blooms, reflective water, hi resolution textures and skins, hi poly models, stain maps, ALIEN ARENA pushes the envelope of graphical beauty rivaling today's top games.

The game features 37 levels, which can be played online against other players, or against the built in CodeRED bots.  

Alien Arena offers CTF, AOA (All Out Assault) mode, in which players can climb into vehicles to do battle, Deathball, Team Core Assault, where teams disable enemy power nodes to eventually destroy the enemy power core, and Cattle Prod, where teams guide cows into goal areas.  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 five different mutators(instagib, rocket arena, excessive, low grav, regen, and vampire) 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

1.8 GHz CPU
1.5 GiB RAM
1.2 GiB hard disk space
3D Accelerator with at least 128 MiB texture memory available

3.	GETTING STARTED

* INSTALLATION

(Windows)

Installation has been made very simple.  After downloading, simply click on the .exe file and the installation will begin.  Follow the instructions of the Innosetup program. If you are running Windows, you should have administrative privileges.  If not, you may get some errors when the program tries to write the uninstall information to the registry.  If so, simply click "ignore", and the installation will continue without problem.

Once finished, you can click on the Alien Arena icon that has been placed on your desktop to start a game or the Alien Arena Chat icon to join the IRC chat channel.

(Linux)

See the README and INSTALL documentation files.

* 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)

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 new powerups such as haste and sproing, in addition to the venerable quad damage and invulnerability.

It would be advisable for you to change video settings for however you wish to view the game, and what gives you reasonable performance. The game's default settings are at a mid range setting, so try tweaking them or adding/removing effects depending on your framerate.  If you wish to see your framerate, you can type "set cl_drawfps 1" at the console (brought down using the ` key).  

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.

* COMPLETING LEVELS

In Alien Arena you can play a single player tournament where  your goal will to be to reach the fraglimit before a bot does.  If you fail, you will be forced to repeat the level until you do. These rules can be changed in the menu system.  You can also play people online, where 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 Deathball, the goal is to score as many points as possible, either by killing your opponents, or by finding the ball and shooting it into the goal (worth 10 frags).  When a player is inside of the deathball, he is defensless.

In Team Core Assault, your goal is to disable your enemy teams power nodes, then destroy the central spider node.  You can only do damage to the spider node when all other power nodes are disabled.

In Cattle Prod, each team tries to guide the cows in the middle of the map to the goals in the enemy base.  Cows follow players after a connection is automatically established between the cow and the player, when the player is within sight and range of the cow.  This connection is broken when either the player or the cow is killed. 

* CONNECTING TO A SERVER

You can either select "join server" from the "multiplayer" menu and select a server in the list, or you can use the CodeRED Galaxy server browser (windows only).  In the in-game browser, 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 2009.  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

To uninstall Alien Arena, simply go to your start programs menu, select your Alien Arena folder, and click on "Uninstall".  You can also go into your control panel, and uninstall Alien Arena in the programs and software section.

For Linux users, see the README 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 with input from the community at large.
Programming:  John Diamond, Jim Bower, Dave Stewart, Emmanuel Benoit, Max Eliaser, Charles Hudson, Lee Salzman, Victor Luchits, Shane Bayer, Jan Rafaj, Tony Jackson, Kyle Hunter, Andres Mejia
Models and skins:  John Diamond, Alex Perez, Shawn Keeth, Franc Cassar
Maps:  John Diamond, Dennis "xEMPx" Zedlach, Charles Hudson, Torben Fahrnbach
Textures and Artwork:  John Diamond, Dennis "xEMPx" Zedlach, Enki, Adam Saizlai, Yves Allaire
Sounds:  John Diamond, Sound Rangers, Jon Ward, Jim Bower
Music:  Paul Joyce, Arteria Games, Divinity, Whitelipper, and SoundRangers
Fonts: John Diamond, the-interceptor from http://www.quakeworld.nu/

Linux Port: Shane Bayer, John Diamond, Jim Bower
FreeBSD port: "Ale"
Gentoo portage: Paul Bredbury
Debian packaging: Andres Mejia
Alien Arena IRC Channel: Victor B "Bonfire" (visit us @ irc.planetarena.org #alienarena)

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.

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(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



