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Manpages bzflagSection: Games and Demos (6)Index Return to Main Contents NAMEBZFlag - a tank battle gameSYNOPSISbzflag [-3dfx] [-no3dfx] [-anonymous] [-callsign callsign] [-directory directory] [-echo] [-geometry widthxheight[{+|-}x{+|-}y]] [-interface interface] [-latitude latitude] [-list url] [-longitude longitude] [-multisample] [-mute] [-nolist] [-port port] [-solo number-of-robots] [-team {red | green | blue | purple | rogue}] [-ttl ttl] [-version] [-view {normal | stereo | three}] [-window] [-zbuffer {on | off}] [server]DESCRIPTIONBZFlag is a 3D multi-player tank battle game that allows users to play against each other in a networked environment. There are five teams: red, green, blue, purple and rogue (rogue tanks are black). Destroying a player on another team scores a win, while being destroyed or destroying a teammate scores a loss. Rogues have no teammates (not even other rogues), so they cannot shoot teammates and they do not have a team score.There are two main styles of play: capture-the-flag and free-for-all. In capture-the-flag, each team (except rogues) has a team base and each team with at least one player has a team flag. The object is to capture an enemy team's flag by bringing it to your team's base. This destroys every player on the captured team, subtracts one from that team's score, and adds one to your team's score. In free-for-all, there are no team flags or team bases. The object is simply to get as high a score as possible. Options
ControlsTanks are controlled by moving the mouse within the large yellow box in the main view. When the mouse is inside the small yellow box, the tank is motionless. The large box is the limit of the tank's speed.Shots are fired by pressing the left mouse button. The type of shot fired depends on what flag the tank has. Normal shots last about 3.5 seconds. Reloading also takes 3.5 seconds for normal shots. Pressing the middle mouse button drops a flag. Nothing will happen if the tank has no flag or is not allowed to drop the flag for some reason (e.g. it's a bad flag). Flags are picked up by driving over them. A dropped flag gets tossed straight up; it falls to the ground in about 3 seconds. Pressing the right mouse button identifies the closest player centered in the view. If your tank has the guided missile super-flag, this will also lock the missile on target. However, the target must be carefully centered for the missile to lock. When the server allows jumping or if the tank has the jumping flag, the Tab key jumps. Tanks can jump onto buildings, however there is no way to shoot downward (or upward) with a regular shot. The guided missile and the shock wave are two ways of destroying a tank on or from a building. The current radar range can be changed by pressing the 1, 2, or 3 keys above the alphabetic keys for low, medium, and long range, respectively. The f key toggles the flag help display, which describes the flag in the tank's possession. Displaying help does not pause the game. The Pause key pauses and resumes play. When paused, the tank cannot be destroyed nor can it's shots destroy other players. The reload countdown is suspended and the radar and view are blanked when paused. A paused tank has a transparent black sphere surrounding it. Since a paused tank is invulnerable a player could cheat by pausing just before being destroyed, so there's a brief delay before the pause takes effect. This delay is long enough to make pausing effectively useless for cheating. Pressing Pause before the pause takes effect cancels the pause request. The list of players and scores is displayed when your tank is paused or dead. Pressing the s key toggles the score display when alive and not paused. The b key toggles binoculars, which gives a close up view of distant objects. The t key toggles the frame rate display and the y key toggle the frame time display. The time of day can be changed with the plus and minus keys, which advance and reverse the time by 5 minutes, respectively. The time of day in the game is initialized to the system's clock. In addition, the latitude and longitude are used to calculate the positions of celestial objects. The Esc key shows the game menu. Use the Enter and arrow keys to navigate the menu and the Esc key to return to the previous menu or hide the main menu. The menus allow you to start a new server, join a game, leave a game and enter another, change the rendering options, change the display resolution, change the sound volume, remap the meanings of keys, browse online help, and quit the game. The display resolution is not always available for changing. If it is, use the t key to test a selected resolution; it will be loaded for a few seconds and then the previous resolution restored. Press the Enter key to permanently select a new resolution. When you quit the game, the resolution is restored to what it was before the game started. Options are recorded between game sessions in the .bzflag file (or .bzflag.$(HOST) if the HOST environment variable is defined) in the user's home directory. This file has a simple name/value pair format. This file is completely rewritten by the game after each session. You can send typed messages to other players by pressing the m or n keys. The m key will send a message to your teammates only. Rogue players cannot send these messages. The n key will send a message to all the other players. After pressing the key, just type your message and press enter or Control-D. To cancel a message, you can enter a blank message or press Delete, Escape, or Control-C. Be careful with the Escape key; pressing Escape once will cancel the message, pressing it again will show the main menu. Backspace will delete the most recently typed character. The Tab key doesn't add a tab to the message but instead causes the tank to jump (as usual). ScoringAn individual's score is the difference between that player's wins and losses. A win is scored for each enemy tank destroyed. A loss is scored for each teammate destroyed and for each time the player is destroyed. The score sheet displays each player's score and the number of wins and losses.A team's score is calculated differently depending on the game style. In the capture-the-flag style, the team score is the number of enemy flags captured minus the number of times the team's flag was captured. Capturing your own flag (by taking it onto an enemy base) counts as a loss. In the free-for-all style, the team score is sum of the wins of all the players on the team minus the sum of the losses of all the players on the team. The score sheet also lists the number times you have destroyed or been destroyed by each other player under the Kills heading. This lets you compare your one-on-one performance against other players. TeleportersThe server can be configured to place teleporters in the game. A teleporter is a tall black transparent object that instantaneously moves any object (tanks and shots) passing through it to some other teleporter. The teleporter connections are fixed for the entire game. In the capture-the-flag style the connections are always the same. In the free-for-all style the connections are random and reversable (going back through where you come out puts you back where you started).Each side of a teleporter teleports independently of the other side. However, it's possible for each side to go to the other. This is a thru-teleporter and it's almost as if it weren't there. It's also possible for a side to teleport to itself. This is a reverse-teleporter. Shooting at a reverse teleporter is likely to be self-destructive. Shooting a laser at a reverse teleporter is invariably fatal. RadarThe radar is displayed on the left side of the control panel. It provides a satellite view of the game. Buildings and the outer wall are light blue. Team bases are outlined squares in the team colors. Teleporters are short yellow lines. Tanks are dots the in the tank's team color, except for rogues which are yellow. The size of a tank's dot is a rough indication of the tank's altitude: higher tanks have larger dots. Flags are small crosses. Team flags have the team color while super-flags are white. Shots are small white dots (except laser beams which are line segments and shock waves which are circles).The tank always appears in the center of the radar and the radar display rotates with the tank so that forward is always up. There's a small tick mark indicating forward. The left and right extremes of the current view are represented by a yellow V who's tip is at the center of the radar. North is indicated by the letter N. Heads Up DisplayThe heads-up-display, or HUD, has several displays. First, there are two boxes in the center of the view. As explained above, these delimit the ranges for the mouse. These boxes are yellow when you have no flag. Otherwise they take the color of the flag you're holding (white for superflags).Above the larger box is a heading tape showing your current heading. North is 0, east is 90, etc. If jumping is allowed, an altitude tape appears to the right of the larger box. Small colored diamonds or arrows may appear on the heading tape. An arrow pointing left means that a particular flag is to your left, an arrow pointing right means that the flag is to your right, and a diamond indicates the heading to the flag by its position on the heading tape. In capture-the-flag mode a marker in your team's color is always present, showing you the direction to your team's flag. A yellow marker shows the way to the antidote flag (when you have a bad flag and antidote flags are enabled). At the top of the HUD are several text readouts. At the very top on the left is your callsign and score, in your team's color. At the very top on the right is the name of the flag you're holding (or nothing if you have no flag). In the center at the top is your current status: ready, dead, sealed, zoned, or reloading. If you have a bad flag and shaking time is enabled and your status is ready, the status displays how much time is left before the bad flag is shaken. When reloading, the time until you're reloaded is displayed. A tank is sealed when it has the oscillation overthruster flag and any part of the tank is inside a building. A tank is zoned when it has the phantom zone flag and has passed through a teleporter. When there's a time limit on the game, the time left in the game is displayed to the left of the status. FlagsTeam flags are supplied by the server in the capture-the-flag style game. While at least one player is on a team, that team's flag is in the game. When captured, the flag is returned to the team's base. If the flag is dropped in a Bad Place, it is moved to a safety position. Bad Places are: on top of a building or on an enemy team base. The flag can be dropped on a team base only by a player from a third team; for example, when a blue player drops the red flag on the green base.A team flag is captured when a tank takes an enemy flag onto its base or when a tank takes its flag onto an enemy base (even if there's no one playing on that team). You must be on the ground to capture a flag. The server can be configured to supply a fixed or random set of super-flags. These flags are white and come in many flavors. However, you cannot tell what a super-flag is until it's picked up. There are two broad catagories of super-flags: good and bad. Good super-flags may be dropped and will remain for up to 4 possessions. Bad super-flags are sticky -- in general, they cannot be dropped. The server may provide a yellow antidote flag. Driving over it will release the bad flag. The server may also allow a timeout and/or a number of wins to shake the flag. Scoring the required number of wins, surviving the required amount of time or being destroyed will automatically drop the flag. Bad flags disappear after the first possession. Here is a brief description of each good superflag with the flag's code in parentheses:
A brief description of each bad superflag with the flag's code in parentheses:
FILES
SEE ALSObzfls(6), bzfs(6)
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