# The KSpaceduel Handbook

Andreas
Zehender
05/05/2000
1.00.00

KSpaceduel is an space arcade game. Two ships fly around the sun and try to shoot eachother.

This documentation was last updated for version 1.0.

Space duel
KDE
game
ships
shooting

## Introduction

KSpaceduel is an space arcade game for two players. Each player controls a ship that flies around the sun and tries to shoot at the other ship.

## The Game

### Rules of the Game

#### Ship Movement

Each player controls one ship.

The ships can rotate, accelerate, shoot and lay mines.

#### Energy

Each ship has an amount of energy (refer to the game options for values).

Ships need energy for rotation, acceleration, shooting and laying mines. A ship gets energy from its solar panels. The amount of energy a ship gets depends on the distance from and direction to the sun. A ship gets more energy near the sun and less energy near the border. It gets the full amount of energy if the sun shines directly on the panels and less or even no energy if the sun shines at an angle to the panel or to the side of the panel.

If a ship has no energy it can't navigate or shoot.

#### Hit points

Collisions with own or other bullets or mines decrease the hit points of a ship. If two ships collide, the weaker ship is destroyed and the hit points of the stronger ship are decreased by the hit points of the weaker ship plus an amount (Crash Damage). A ship is destroyed when it flies into the sun.

#### Bullets and Mines

Bullets fly around the sun like a ship.

Mines have an amount of energy to stay at the same position. When the energy is spent, the mine falls into the sun. Mines near the sun need more energy than those which are further away.

Mines can be destroyed with bullets.

By default a ship can have 5 bullets and 3 mines on the screen.

#### Powerups

From time to time powerups appear on the play field.

There are four different powerups:

- Mine: The maximum number of mines is increased for the player.

- Bullet: The maximum number of bullets is increased for the player.

- Energie (yellow sphere): The player gets energy.

- Schild (blue sphere): The player gets hit points.

### Options

#### Keys

Keys can be configured with the Options Keys... menu item.

#### Configurations

All settings of the game are configurable with the Options Game... menu item.

Settings are collected in different configurations. If you choose the "Custom" configuration, you can define all settings for yourself. If you have found an interesting configuration, mail it to the author of the game. It can be implemented in a future version (send the part [Game] in the file "~/.kde/share/config/kspaceduelrc").

The settings are:

- Sun

  - Sun energy: The strength of the sun. The higher the value the quicker ships will be charged.

  - Gravity: The strength of the gravitational pull of the sun.

- Bullet

  - Shot speed: The speed of bullets.

  - Energy need: The amount of energy needed for one shot.

  - Max number: The maximum number of bullets a player can have on the screen.

  - Damage: The number of hit points damage done when a bullet hits a ship.

  - Life time: The maximum life time of a bullet.

  - Reload time: The time a ship needs to reload a bullet.

- Mine

  - Mine fuel: The amount of fuel on a mine

  - Energy need: The amount of energy needed for laying a mine

  - Activate time: The time a mine is inactive,

  - Damage: The number of hit points of damage done when a ship hits a mine

  - Max number: maximum number of mines a player can have on the screen

  - Reload time: The time a ship needs to reload a mine.

- General

  - Game speed: controls the speed of the whole game

- Start

  - Position X and Position Y: the ships position at the begin of a new round. The ships start at opposite sides of the sun.

  - Velocity X and Velocity Y: velocity at the begin of a new round Ship:

- Ship

  - Acceleration: Acceleration of the ships

  - Energy need: The energy needed to accelerate a ship.

  - Rotation speed: The speed at which a ship rotates.

  - Energy need: The energy needed to rotate a ship.

  - Crash damage: The number of hit points damage done when two ships collide.

- Powerups:

  - Appearance time: Maximal time between the appearance of two powerups.

  - Life time: Maximal life time of a powerup.

  - Energie amount: Amount of energy a player gets from a energy powerup.

  - Shield amount: Amount of hit points a player gets from a shield powerup.

#### Handicap

You can specify the number of hit points each player has at the begin of a new round with Options Handicap...

#### Graphics

Refreshtime: Time between two screen refreshs in ms. All settings are independent of the refreshtime!

### Ai

Each ship can be controlled by the computer. You can choose a difficulty for each ship.

The ai is optimized for the default config, but can mamage with other configs. Just try...

## Credits and License

KSpaceduel

Program copyright 1998 Andreas Zehender az@azweb.de

Documentation copyright 2000 Andreas Zehender az@azweb.de

This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL.