help.txt

MATLAB实现的3D炮兵小游戏

"STAKER" HELP FILE:

Staker is a 3D artillery warfare game in which players do battle using their "Claim-stakers", giant fortress ships designed to occupy plots of land on a newly repopulated planet Earth. It's an homage to the old computer game Scorched Earth that I used to play oh so many years ago. Hope you have as much fun playing it as I did writing it, and be sure to keep an eye out for improved future versions.

STARTING THE GAME:

The folder "Staker_v0.5" should be added to the Matlab path. This folder is the main folder for the various game files and contains the Matlab code of the game ("staker.m"), the help text ("help.txt"), and a folder of images ("textures"). The game is started by typing "staker" at the Matlab prompt. When started for the first time, a new file will be created in the "Staker_v0.5" directory called "status.stkr". This file saves various preference settings, records, and saved game information, and should not generally be modified or moved to another directory.

This beta version of Staker was designed in Matlab 7.1.0.246 on a Windows PC, and also uses functions from the image processing toolbox. It should work in later versions of Matlab and in other operating systems, but has not been fully tested and may contain some bugs. If you come across any bugs or errors, please leave a comment on the mathworks file exchange where this file is posted.

INTRODUCTION:

"A new start..."

   In a not-too-distant, cliche future, the Earth becomes uninhabitable. Desperate to survive, humans spread throughout the solar system, forming colonies on Mars, Europa, and numerous other worlds. With time, the Earth once again becomes suitable for life, and so begins the rush to recolonize! Numerous government, corporate, and freelance organizations fight to stake their claim, battling tooth and nail to secure any and all plots of land they can.

Do you have the skill to win back the world?

MAIN MENU:

The top panel of the Main Menu figure window allows you to select from suspended games of Staker. Simply select the saved game from the pull-down menu and the location and player information will be displayed in the other panels below. Press "Start" to begin the game.

To start a new game, first select a location from the "Location" pull-down menu. Selecting "random" will randomly choose from the available battle locations. Next, two player profiles must be selected. A new profile can be created by pushing the "Create Profile" button on either profile panel. This will bring up a window to enter a profile name, followed by a window to select the name of the file to which the profile will be saved. The default directory for saving profile files ("*.prof") is the "Staker_v0.5" directory. The newly created profile will be loaded into the profile panel. To select an existing profile file, push the "Select Profile" button and browse for a ".prof" file to load. Computer profiles are not yet available in the current version of Staker.

Once loaded, the profile panel displays the current player information. From top to bottom, it shows the player's name, the capacity gauge (i.e. staker health), total earnings, record (wins-losses-draws), staker class, and list of bombs in the player's arsenal. A profile can be cleared from the profile panel by pushing the "Remove" button. To purchase new bombs, push the "Shop" button. This will bring up the Armory screen (discussed below in the ARMORY section). The "Shop" and "Remove" buttons won't appear when loading a saved game, since you aren't allowed to purchase bombs or change players in the middle of a game.

The bottom panel of the Main Menu screen contains buttons for displaying this help text, modify the game preferences (discussed below in the PREFERENCES section), quitting Staker, or starting a game. The "Start" button is only enabled when either a suspended game is selected or a location and two profiles have been loaded. Once a new game is started, the ".prof" files for the player profiles will temporarily disappear from the directories they were loaded from. This is because the player data will be stored along with the saved game data in the "status.stkr" file. When the game concludes, the updated player profiles will be resaved to their original directories.

ARMORY:

The Armory screen displays the current customer's arsenal and available funds in the left panel. To sell bombs, select a bomb from the current arsenal. The bomb's description will be displayed in the top right panel and the middle panel will show the bomb's sale price, a selectable multiplier, the total sale price, and a button to complete the sale. Bombs can be sold back at half the purchase price. You won't be allowed to sell "Vanilla" type bombs, since you are given an unlimited supply.

The bottom right panel displays the bombs that are available for purchase. When selected, the bomb's description will be displayed in the top right panel and the middle panel will show the bomb's purchase price, a selectable multiplier, the total purchase price, and a button to complete the purchase. Unavailable bombs are listed as "???". These bombs can be unlocked by various means, such as using a certain number of other bomb types or playing a certain number of games.

The bottom panel of the Armory screen contains buttons for displaying this help text and returning to the Main Menu screen. The player's profile is updated and saved upon exiting.

GAME WINDOW:

When starting a new game, it may take some time (10-15 seconds or so) for the Game screen to appear due to the computational demands of the procedural texture mapping algorithm used to generate the terrain. The Game screen should appear much quicker when loading a saved game.

The Game window displays the battlefield, an area of terrain of roughly 36 square miles. Any bombs that fall outside of this area will not detonate. The camera is controlled using the mouse. Holding down the left mouse button will cause an orbiting of the camera around the terrain. Left and right mouse movements will change the camera azimuth, while forward and backward mouse movements will change the camera elevation. Holding down the right mouse button will cause a rotation of the camera in the direction the mouse is moved. The camera is limited to a cone of about 30 degrees in how far it can rotate. Holding down the middle mouse button will cause the camera to zoom in and out when the mouse is moved forward and backward. Double-clicking any mouse button will cause the camera to return to its default position.

The top panel of the Game screen contains a message window that displays various information. The indicator light to the left will flash when new information appears. There are also buttons to the right for quitting the game and displaying this help text. When the "Quit" button is pressed, the current player is given the option to either return to game, forfeit the game, suspend the game and return to the Main Menu, or suspend the game and quit Staker.

The bottom panel contains all of the player controls and information. The center of the control panel shows the current player's name, the bomb type currently selected, the fire button, and a vertical capacity gauge showing the current health of the staker.

The left side of the control panel shows the slider controls for the barrel azimuth, the barrel elevation, and the muzzle velocity of the bomb. The azimuth is in degrees relative to North and has 360 degrees of movement (negative azimuth value is counter-clockwise from North, positive is clockwise from North). The elevation can range from 0 to 90 degrees and the muzzle velocity can range from 100 to 3000 feet per second. These three value can be set using the sliders or the editable text boxes just above each slider.

The right side of the control panel displays the compass, which is yoked to the camera movements. The blue arrow on the compass displays the direction the wind is blowing, while the text to the right of the compass shows the wind speed. The "Markers" checkbox, when checked, will display markers on the terrain to show where the two players are located. The slider for the sound level is not enabled, since sound is not yet available in the current version of Staker.

PREFERENCES:

The Preferences screen displays a number of properties the user can set to customize the look of the game screens, the camera controls, and the animation speed. Each preference is set by an editable textbox next to it. The preferences and valid values are:

   Font name: This will determine the font used for all displays. It can be any valid string normally entered for the 'FontName' property of uicontrols. A sample of the font is shown to the right of the font preferences.

   Font size: This will determine the font size used for all displays. It must be a numerical value, and will be rounded to the nearest integer if necessary. A sample of the font is shown to the right of the font preferences.

   Text color: This will determine the text color used for all displays. It can be either one of the predefined Matlab ColorSpec strings (such as 'b' or 'blue') or three numerical values in the range of 0 and 1 defining an RGB triple (such as '[0 0 1]' or '0 0 1'). A sample of the text color is shown to the right of the color preferences.

   Background color: This will determine the background color used for various text, menu, edit, and list uicontrols. It can be either one of the predefined Matlab ColorSpec strings (such as 'b' or 'blue') or three numerical values in the range of 0 and 1 defining an RGB triple (such as '[0 0 1]' or '0 0 1'). A sample of the background color is shown to the right of the color preferences.

   Panel color: This will determine the color used for various panels. It can be either one of the predefined Matlab ColorSpec strings (such as 'b' or 'blue') or three numerical values in the range of 0 and 1 defining an RGB triple (such as '[0 0 1]' or '0 0 1'). A sample of the panel color is shown to the right of the color preferences.

   Accent color: This will determine the color used for various buttons and subpanels. It can be either one of the predefined Matlab ColorSpec strings (such as 'b' or 'blue') or three numerical values in the range of 0 and 1 defining an RGB triple (such as '[0 0 1]' or '0 0 1'). A sample of the accent color is shown to the right of the color preferences.

   Slider color: This will determine the color used for all sliders. It can be either one of the predefined Matlab ColorSpec strings (such as 'b' or 'blue') or three numerical values in the range of 0 and 1 defining an RGB triple (such as '[0 0 1]' or '0 0 1'). A sample of the slider color is shown to the right of the color preferences.

   Azimuth gain: This will determine the gain used for azimuth orbits of the camera. It must be a numerical value in the range of 0.0005 to 0.01 and the units are in radians of azimuth rotation per pixel of mouse movement.

   Elevation gain: This will determine the gain used for elevation orbits of the camera. It must be a numerical value in the range of 0.0005 to 0.01 and the units are in radians of elevation rotation per pixel of mouse movement.

   Rotation gain: This will determine the gain used for rotations of the camera. It must be a numerical value in the range of 0.0001 to 0.005 and the units are in radians of rotation per pixel of mouse movement.

   Zoom gain: This will determine the gain used for camera zooming. It must be a numerical value in the range of 0.001 to 0.01 and the units are in power of 2x zoom per pixel of mouse movement.

   Trajectory step: This will determine the frequency of plot updates during the bomb flight. It must be a numerical value in the range of 0.001 to 2 and represents the number of seconds of simulated bomb flight between plot updates.

   Blast step: This will determine the frequency of plot updates during the bomb detonation. It must be a numerical value in the range of 0.05 to 0.5.

The bottom panel of the Preferences screen contains buttons for displaying this help text, resetting all the preferences to their defaults, and returning to the Main Menu screen. The preferences are updated and saved upon exiting. The Main Menu screen may disappear for a few seconds as the new preferences are saved and the Main Menu is redrawn.

CREDITS:

Texture maps were used from the following sources, some with a few modifications:

   beach: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/4375.html
    dirt: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/2315.html
    fire: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/4927.html
  forest: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/1864.html
   grass: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/3223.html
   metal: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/4793.html
  rubble: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/2315.html
    silt: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/1407.html
     sky: http://www.philohome.com/skycollec/skycollec.htm
    snow: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/992.html
   stone: http://www.filterforge.com/filters/1542.html
   water: http://www.mnmug.com/maps.htm