Read Me

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0) Readme for VegaStrike version 0.2.9 Beta
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Welcome to Vega Strike, the Open Source Space Free Trade and Combat Simulator.
Here you can explore star systes, engage in trade, make cash and meet your destiny!


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1) Contents
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0) Intro
1) Contents
2) New Features
3) Tutorial 
4) Saving and Loading
5) The Update Utility
6) Running Vegastrike In Windows
7) Running Vegastrike From the Command Line
8) Playing Music in Vegastrike in Windows (Experemintal)
9) Docking to a Planet or a Capship
10) Accepting Missions
11) Trading Cargo
12) Upgrading and Downgrading your Ship
13) Buying a new ship
14) Briefings and News (Experemintal)
15) Interstellar Warp Transit (Jump Drive)
16) Time Compression / Autopilot
17) ReSpawn
18) Ordering Wingmen
19) Communications with Friends and Foes
20) Transfer Command
21) Pilot turrets
22) Single-Player Controls
23) Multiplayer Controls
24) Changing Controls
25) Editing Missions
26) Editing AI
27) Troubleshooting
28) License

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2) New Features
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Installer/Uninstaller  - Allows players to easily install OpenAL and VS
Autoupdater            - Keeps the player up to date and allows players to restore edited versions
Splitscreen Multiplayer- Coop gauntlet with a friend or blow him to shreds--even trading and exploration i spossible in this mode!
Save Games             - Having persistent gameplay over multiple sections is possible
Large Star System Size - Vegastrike engine has been upgraded to use double precision floating values so that realistic system size is possible
Communications/Orders  - Allows the player to contact neutrals and taunt enemies. Wingmen can be ordered.
Autopilot              - Lets the player quickly go from one zone of combat to another
Trading                - Lets players run guns to make money
Missions for cash      - Players can now contract out for spare cash
Ship Upgrades          - Don't like your ship? buy a new one or get some better weapons or engines!
Missiles               - Missile can lock on to their targets and track them with ease
ECM systems            - err...almost ease
Autotracking Weapons   - Guns may be updated to seek to their targets
Tractor beams          - Small pieces of cargo may be taken into a hold. look for these when a large cargo-laden ship has exploded
Energy Removing Guns   - Leech energy down to nada on their targets
System Damage          - Hud displays flicker and weapons blow off... maneuverability decreases and many more horrible things happen when you get damage... don't get damage
3d Cockpits            - With accurate lighting and damage effects these cockpits add a whole new dimension to vegastrike

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3) Tutorial -- Starting a New Game -- Making a few Credits
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To start a new Vegastrike game, click on the Vega Strike Launcher from the Start Menu.
Click on "New Game"
Type in the save game you wish to save to when you choose save at a base.
Click "ok" and Vegastrike should launch. Be patient while it generates BSP trees for the system. This will only happen the first time.
You will find yourself at the controls of an old starship known as the wayfarer. You may wish to read the introduction story for some information about how you got to where you are sitting.
Your wayfarer has an old, out of date, Windows-Brand targetting system.  You will need to face the targets on your radar before you can necessarily target them.  
Press t a few times to survey your surroundings.  Locate a planet named Agricultural:Poseidon by turning and pressing 't' consecutively until you see it in your right hud.  Then press shift-A to turn on autopilot.  This will move the camera into pan- mode and speed up time until your ship has arrived near your target.
When you exit Autopilot you _may_ encounter pirates, Aera, or other unfriendlies.  If this is the case you perhaps should turn your ship, press p a few times to pick the targets in front of you, and engage them!  They should not be difficult at this stage of the game, so they should be easy kills.
If your "AUTO" Light is on, however, you know that you are home free.  Your radar, however does not give an indication of starships intent towards you, so you must be cautious until you can afford a better one.
Turn back to the large earth-like Agricultural planet and press t until "Agricultural:Poseidon" is in your right screen (If you miss it hit shift-T to go back).  press "0" to request docking clearence.  A white box should appear around your planet.
With the onset of life-sized planets, you must spend a large chunk of time to actually get near enough to the surface to dock, so you must engage time compression.
press "+" until your speed is around 300, then hit F9 around 10-16 times to speed time enough to quickly engage the dockin clamps.   Around 300 seconds later (compressed as you have into about 10) you will be close enough to dock.  press 'd' and your comm screen will tell you if you have success.
Once the comm screens say "Docking Operation Begun" press "0" to step out of your ship onto the planet.
The planet graphics themselves are not completed yet, but they are underway--in the meantime you'll be presented with a computer interface that allows you to conduct business with the planet.
Agricultural planets sell food, so peruse the cargo list and get food by clicking on Natural Resources then "Food".   Stock up with your cash.  You should be able to get enough Grain and Generic Food to fill your cargo bay.
Buy the food and then Click on the Save/Load button on the top right

Then go to the menu (where the cargo used to be) and click "Save"
You will get a confirmation dialog.  Next time you run the Launcher you should Open up your saved game to continue from where you left off.  (If you click the LOAD button there, your current ship will be destroyed, so you can hit semicolon to respawn and reload the last game you had saved!)
Click done on the bottom right.  We have some nice foodstuffs, lets deliver them to a base where they are needed.

You must undock with the planet.   Undocking is somewhat unintuitive, so I will go over it briefly here.  The full text is below.  You may only undock from the starship you have targetted. If you somehow lost the agricultural planet in the meantime you may not have undocked with it.  Make sure Agricultural planet is targetted, and press 'u' (or 'd' again) to undock.
If you failed to undock, you will notice the game gets all jittery--this is because your thrusters have to fight with the docking clamps to turn...  So just target the thing you were docked to and try again with a 'u'.
 
We want to run this food to a mining base.  Lets try our good mining base New Poona--they're often in need of food with these pirates around, and cut off trade routes.
Target New Poona with 't', and then hit shift-a to get there. 
Again you may encounter some enemies.... prepare to engage them!
When you reach a white guide box, press 'd' again to dock.  You should then press '0' to enter the base.
Once inside the base, you will se the docking screen, like before.  Except this time, you should click on SellMode to get a list of Items.  
Browse through the Food categories like you did before.  You should see the same cargo that you bought back at the planet.  Select both of them.  Notice that the prices are greater; you can sell them for more than you bought them for!  so click on the SellCargo button until all of your cargo is gone.
By doing this, you get some cash for spending. You should maybe buy something usefil with this money, like an afterburner to allow you to go a lot faster.  Go to UpgradeShip an select Engines.  Then you will see Light and Engine Enhancements Light.  To get an afterburner, choose afterburner_generic from the Engine Enhancements Light category.  about 2700 credits should have immediately been deducted from your account and you should immediately have an afterburner installed on your ship.
Make sure to go to the Load/Save button in the top right and click on "save". Otherwise if you forgot you could go to the launcher and recover your auto save to your game, but if you encounter an undesirable situation, this could leave you with fewer options. We recommend saving after conducing landing operations.
You can do missions as well to earn money.  To find a list of missions, go to the MissionBBS. The categories are listed by who offered the mission or who you have to kill. Make sure not to take missions where you kill someone you wish to be an ally of.  Killing units of a given race affects your relationship with them far more than merely taunting them, so be careful who you choose to be your friends.
In the beginning it would be wise to take cargo missions and simple scout and patrol missions.  Make sure you select missions that occur "in system"... many missions require you to jump out of system to complete them, and you need at least 9000 credits to afford a jump drive.
This is one of the most important improvements you can get for your starship. It will allow you to complete many more missions and explore a better part of the galaxy.

If mission directions get lost in the battle chatter use page up and page down to scroll through the messages and find the directions you need to complete a mission.  

So take a mission, take off, and prepare to meet your destiny!

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4) Saving and Loading
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There should be a program named "Launcher" in the vegastrike directory or start menu.  This will give you a list of choices:

Select mission button - This allows you to select which mission vegastrike will start the next time you press one of the keys below it.  Most missions do not involve save games and will ignore those options, however the default, in the mission/exploration folder will indeed ustilize the save games you specify.  If you ignore this option you begin in the standard trading/bounty hunting mission.

Start a new game button - Start a new game in the Vegastrike universe.  You start with a dinged up old wayfarer and head from the vega sector with the hope of finding profit and adventure on the frontier.  To begin afresh you must choose a new saved game.

Load game button - This opens up a saved game you had finished playing before.  To save you must dock at the base and click on the save/load button and choose the save option. 
	     (NOTE that if you
	     choose the LOAD button
             from a base IN GAME, your
             ship will be destroyed so
             you can press respawn
             (semicolon) and continue
             where you last saved from!
             This is not quite as intuitive  as we would have hoped :-(.

Recover autosave button - This button allows a player to recover their most recently played game into the selected save game upon next run.  If the player quits or the player docks, and then dies, it will restore to the last saved position.

Launch last savegame button - Use this button to launch Vegastrike with from a saved game or mission.  If you do not choose a mission, you will start in the standard trading/bounty hunting mission.

Launch no savegame button - This button allows you to launch the selected mission without using a saved game.

Help button - This will print tis on a help window.

Exit launcher button - exits the launcher.

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5) The Update Utility
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The "Get Recent Update" program will allow you to get the most recent data for vegastrike.
It will first ask you whether you wish to update the update list.  This will allow you to get the most recent working code if you click "Update".
After choosing that option, you will be presented with a checkbox and a number of buttons.
The check box labeled "Restore Factory Defaults" will allow you to revert all of your modified files to the "factory defaults".
The next button says "Update to recent experimental data" and will update to the most recent developmental data.  When using this button, you may get a better game, but it will be experimental.
The rest of the buttons will update to previous or more recent releases.


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6) Running Vegastrike In Windows
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Make sure you have the most recent nVidia drivers. Old nvidia drivers cause problems with display lists and compiled vertex arrays.!!
After completing setup, run the Launcher program.  Select the mission you wish to play then run it by clicking on "New Game" and typing in a save game  (or else by clicking run without save game if it is a simple mission)
The default mission is recommended for an introduction to the Vegastrike trading universe. To get the default mission you need not select the mission initially.

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7) Running Vegastrike From the Command Line
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Vegastrike takes a single command parameter indicating which mission it should load
		.\vegastrike mission/explore_universe.mission
is an example of a valid mission call.

The -j flag (must be flush with the system) will force a player to begin in a star system.
		.\vegastrike -jvega_sector/vega mission/n_vs_n/confed/confed_2v2.mission
will force the 2v2 mission to run in the vega sector.

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8) Playing Music in Vegastrike in Windows (Experemintal)
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Run setup.exe and select Windows External Music.
Put 3 .m3u playlists in the .vegastrike folder that must be called peace.m3u battle.m3u and panic.m3u.  Winamp can create such files.
As vegastrike currently does not have music artists, you must choose the playlists for yourself.  Songs towards the top get played more often
During better times...songs on the bottom get played more often during worse times.

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9) Docking to a Planet or a Capship
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If you wish to earn money, you will need to know how to dock.
First of all, plabnets without a type on them on the right vdu are inhabitable and do not have any cargo on them.
		Myplanet
But if it has a type on it on the right vdu, feel free to dock to it!
		industrial:Myplanet

If you wish to get clearence to land at the base or planet, you must communicate that you wish to land by pressing the '0' key.
In order to dock to starships, you must press 'd' and to undock, press 'd' again or press 'u'.
Once docked at the planet or base, you may press '0' again to leave your starship and enter the base.
See the next 5 sections for more information about the bases.

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10) Accepting Missions
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You must accept missions to earn money.  The first step is to click on the "Mission BBS" button.  This will give you a list of mission categories.  You will then need to click on the category name
There will be missions to attack targets in the Attack  categories.
In the Neutral category, there will be neutral missions like patroling, escorting and scouting.
Finally, the Confed, Aera, Pirate, Rlaan or Retro categories will give you missions to diliver cargo, search for contraband or escort ships to other places.  
Once you have bought the missions, you may check your cockpit screen to see the instructions for the missions.
When you have completed them, your credits will immediately be added to your account.

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11) Trading Cargo
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You may buy cargo at the base that you are docked to.
To find the list of cargo, use the Buy Mode button.  When you click on it, you will most likely find a list of categories. (If you don't, then the planet or capship that you are docked at doesn't sell cargo.)
After browsing through the categories, you should select the Cargo that you want to buy.
The selected item will be blue, with the name and the quantity in the base in parentheses.
		Jade (3)
On the right side of the screen, there will be the item, the price, the mass and the volume.
		Jade
		Price: 124.83
		Mass: 0.01
		Cargo Volume: 1.00
To buy it, simply click the "Buy Cargo" button at the bottom.
Different planets or bases will have different prices and quantities for groups of items.  For example, Mining Bases will have cheaper minerals.

After buying cargo, you may want to go to a planet that is in need of that cargo.  When you are done docking at that planet, you may go the Sell Cargo screen.
In the sell mode, you will see the same categories, except only those of the items that you bought.  Find your item again and click on it.  Notice that the price has changed, but everything else has stayed the same.
Click The "Sell Cargo" button if you wish to sell it, and you will immediately be rewarded with your credits.
Note: you should NOT go the "upgrades" or "starships" categories if you want to buy a ship or upgrade it UNLESS you wish to have a starship or upgrade in your cargo hold.

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12) Upgrading and Downgrading your Ship
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If you want your ship to get better (so you can do more missions and kill harder enemies), you will have to eventually upgrade your junky ship.
You must click on the "Upgrade Ship" button to get a list of possible upgrade categories.  Browse through them until you find a good Upgrade that you need.
The screen will look similar to the cargo section, with the name and the quantity in parentheses.  If you click "Buy", you may see one of many things:

If the computer says that the ship may not entirely fit on your ship, it is saying that not all of the upgrade may be used.  For example, if you add fuel to your ship and you have only used up half of a fuel item, it will say that the fuel may not fit.  You usually should just click Yes.

It may also ask you which mount to place the gun, missle or turret on.  Mounts with brackets [] on are empty mounts.  Select which mount to put it on.
		Laser
		[LIGHT MEDIUM HEAVY ]
		ImageRecognition
Here you could put another laser or beam in the LIGHT MEDIUM HEAVY mount because it can hold those categories.

Downgrading works the same way.  If you need to earn more money, just click the Downgrade button.  It will give you a list of caregories of items on your ship.
When you have the item that you wish to sell, make sure that you have selected the best item in that category. For example, you may have an "engine_level_0" and an "engine_level_1" in the list you should downgrade the engine_level_1 if you want to get more money out of the item.

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13) Buying a new ship
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Buying a ship is simple, if you have enough money.  Just go to the Ship dealer and select the ship that you want.
The ships ending with ".blank" are blank ships.  You will have to buy upgrades to put on them before they are flyable.
The wayfarer.begin may also be listed; it is the same ship that you started with.
There are a very few ships without these endings that come pre-equipped without those endings.  You can buy those ships and then you will not have to put upgrades on.
You should sell all of your upgrades and/or cargo before buying a new ship; they will get trashed if you don't.

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14) Briefings and News (Experemintal)
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Briefings and news have not been added yet.  They will come in next release.

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15) Interstellar Warp Transit (Jump Drive)
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Most starships come equipped with a warp drive.  Unfortunately they can only be used at large singularities in the space-time continuum.  Your computer signals these points by placing glowing blue balls in those areas.  Their relative size indicates how small a starship must be to fit through the jump point.
To engage a jump drive, position your ship inside and press 'j'.
Regulations state that starships should be stopped before jumping-- disasters have resulted from starships travelling at any great speed into a jump point.
You do not come equipped with one at the beginning, so you must do missions to earn enough money to buy one.

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16) Time Compression / Autopilot
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Often interstellar travel requires going great distances. To facilitate this, we have provided time compression.  Press F9 to increase time compression to get where you're going.  Press F10 to drop out of time compression.  F10 will happen automatically if enemies are nearby.
If going towards a big object, like a planet, you may autopilot there by pressing Shift-A.

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17) Match Velocity Key
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In space all speeds are relative...Flightrgroups can be travelling at great velocity with respect to a surrounding sun yet appear to be idly drifting into space.  A player may instruct his computer to match velocity of a starship by pressing the 'home' key on the keypad. This will set '0' to be the speed of that starship. Backspace will assure that your ship is stationary relative to the other starship (unless it accelerates faster than you and is accelerating). 
To stop matching velocity press the 'end' key on the keypad.

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18) Tractor Beam
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A tractor beam is just like a normal beam weapon except that it exerts a small force upon its target.  If the target is small relative to your ship or is a chunk of cargo, holding a tractor beam on it will cause the cargo to come towards you and eventually enter your hold.  It is almost impossible to tractor cargo that is moving with respect to your ship, so the suggestion is to press 'home' to match velocity with the cargo, and then to press backspace to stop... this will allow one to pick up cargo with ease.


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19) ReSpawn
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If you sadly lose your life in combat you may respawn by pressing ';' (Player 2 can respawn with '.' )
A new starship will be created for you by Bob.

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20) Ordering Wingmen
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If you are in a mission with more than 1 ship in your flightgroup you may order them to do certain things.
Press shift-F to have them form on your wing and follow you through jump points
Press shift-D to have them attack your target
press shift-H to have them attack the object attacking you
Press shift-B to release them from the above orders
Wingmen are fickle and may not always obey your commands.  They will inform you if they do or not.

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21) Communications with Friends and Foes
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When flying in space one may wish to engage in casual conversation with nearby starships.
Target a starship and press a number key to communicate with the ship.
Conversation topics are generally ordered from nice (low numbers) to threatening (high numbers), however you may wish to change your vdu to comm mode (press 'v' to cycle to it) in order to see exactly what you will say to your target.
If you choose particularly menacing taunts, the target may get angry and attack you instead of its current target.
Likewise often one can use the comms to restore relationships with hostile people.
Be careful as the local authorities may choose to scan your ship for contraband.  If you refuse to fly straight during this process you may be attacked!

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22) Transfer Command
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if you wish to transfer command to another starship, simply press '[' to switch over.  This is useful if you have died and do not wish to upset the blaance.  The AI that took over for the ship you left will attack your previously targetted unit, be it friendly or enemy.  You can use this to in effect give orders to friends.

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21) Turrets
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Turrets do not begin with their own AI at all times.  To toggle the AI of your turret, you must press 'o'. Pressing this when your turret is off will turn on your turret and tell it to attack your target.  Pressing o again will turn off your turret and make it sit idle.
Turrets can be told to attack your target.  do this by pressing 'shift-P'.  once they attack your target you may switch your target and they will continue to attack the target you told them to.
 
Press ']' to physically go to a turret.
Press ']' to return to cockpit again. Another press of ']' will get you to your next turret, and so forth.
Like with Transfer command, the AI of the turret will attack your previously targetted object when you leave the turret.

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22) Single-Player Controls
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esc          Quit
Arrow keys   Flight Sim style turning (you can also use the keypad arrows)
\            full throttle
backspace    zero throttle
=,+          accel
-            decel
enter        fire missile
space        Fire Guns
backspace    stop
tab          Afterburners
j            engage interstellar warp drive (use at clear blue balls)
*,ins        Spin Right
/,del        Spin Left
~            shelton slide while holding key
y            match speed
t            target
p            target nearest to center of screen
h            target enemy targetting you
n            target nearest target
Shift-T      reverse cycle through targets
m            change active missile
g            change active gun
v            switch targetting computer mode to navigation mode and then view mode
w            switch left targetting cpu
c            cloak
Shift-W      shift weapons computer mode to damage mode
Shift-S      next music track
F1           toggle cockpit
F2           left cockpit
F3           right cockpit
F4           back cockpit
F5           Chasecam
F6           Panning Cam (s,a,w,z pan)
F7           Target Cam
F8           Strange Cam
F9           Increase Time Compression
F10          Reset Time Compression
F11          Zoom in
F12          Zoom out
a,d,w,z      pan ghost cam
;            respawn -- use after death to recreate your starship
[            switch ships in battle (use to control allies)
]            switch to a turret onto your ship
Shift-A      autopilot to the target
a            autopilot to the target
Shift-P      target enemies for your turret
Shift-N      Turret Nearest Target
Shift-!      Suicide
Shift-|      Pause
page down    Scroll VDUs down
page up      Scroll VDUs up
home         Set Velocity Frame of Refrence
end          Reset Velocity Frame of Refrence
Shift-F      Tell wingmen to form up
Shift-B      Tell wingmen to stop forming up
Shift-H      Tell wingmen to help you out
Shift-D      Tell wingmen to attack targetted starship
1-9          Communicate to your allies
0            Request clearence to land
Shift-E      Eject
Shift-Z      Eject cargo

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23) Multiplayer Controls
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--------------------
Both Players
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F9           Increase Time Compression
F10          Reset Time Compression
F11          Zoom in
F12          Zoom out
Shift-|      Pause
esc          Quit
--------------------
Player 1
--------------------
Shift-S      next music track
F1           toggle cockpit
F2           left cockpit
F3           right cockpit
F4           back cockpit
F5           Chasecam
F6           Angle Cam
F7           Target Cam
F8           Strange Cam
v            switch targetting computer mode to navigation mode and then view mode
w            switch left targetting cpu
q            Set Velocity Frame of Refrence
z            Reset Velocity Frame of Refrence
Shift-F      Tell wingmen to form up
Shift-B      Tell wingmen to stop forming up
Shift-H      Tell wingmen to help you out
Shift-D      Tell wingmen to attack targetted starship
1            Say somthing nice to your target
2            Say neutral things to your target
3            Taunt the enemy
4            Dock/Undock
5            Request clearence to land
i,j,k,l      Flight Sim style turning
space        Fire Guns
y            Match Speed
Shift-J      engage interstellar warp drive (use at clear blue balls)
Shift-A      autopilot to the target
a            autopilot to the target
Shift-c      cloak
Shift-E      Eject
Shift-Z      Eject Cargo
return       fire missile
g            change active gun
;            respawn -- use after death to recreate your starship
[            switch ships in battle (use to control allies)
]            switch to a turret onto your ship
m            change active missile
t            target
p            target nearest to center of screen
n            target nearest target
h            target enemy targetting you
Shift-T      reverse cycle through targets
Shift-P      target enemies for your turret
Shift-N      Turret Nearest Target
Shift-H      Tell wingmen to help you out
~            shelton slide while holding key
=,+          accel
-            decel
backspace    zero throttle
\            full throttle
tab          Afterburners
Shift-!      Suicide
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Player 2
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Keypad Arrow Flight Sim style turning
6            Say somthing nice to your target
7            Say neutral things to your target
8            Taunt the enemy
9            Dock/Undock
0            Request clearence to land
Shift-@      SuicideKey
. (period)   respawn -- use after death to recreate your starship
Num lock     zero throttle
Keypad 0     Afterburners
Keypad enter fire missile
insert       Fire Guns
delete       shelton slide while holding key
home         change active gun
end          change active missile
pageup       engage interstellar warp drive (use at clear blue balls)
pagedown     cloak
Keypad 9     autopilot to the target
Keypad 3     target enemies for your turret
Keypad 7     Set Velocity Frame of Refrence
Keypad 1     Reset Velocity Frame of Refrence
Keypad del   target nearest target
Keypad -     Decel
Keypad +     Accel
Keypad /     target
Keypad *     target nearest to center of screen
up arrow     toggle cockpit
down arrow   Chasecam
left arrow   switch left targetting cpu
right arrow  switch targetting computer mode to navigation mode and then view mode

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24) Changing Controls
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If you wold like to change the controls of Vegastrike, open either vegastrike.config or vegastrike.config.2player
They will both have a section at the very top called "bindings": 
        <bindings>
		<bind key="S" player="0" modifier="none" command="Cockpit::SkipMusicTrack" />
The above will start the bindings section and then bind the "S" key to SkipMusicTrack for player 0.
The player defaults to and should only be 1 in multiplayer.

		<bind mouse="0" player="0" button="0" modifier="none" command="FireKey" />
This line will bind the FireKey command to the mouse button #0 (the left button) for player 0.  Button 1 and 2 will be the midle and right buttons.  After that, buttons are experimental... 

		<axis name="x" mouse="0" axis="0" inverse="false" />
		<axis name="y" mouse="0" axis="1" inverse="false" />
This binds the axes of the mouse... should you wish the mouse to drag in opposite direction set inverse to true.

		<bind joystick="0" player="0" button="0" modifier="none" command="FireKey" />
The previous line will bind the FireKey command to the joystick button #0 for player 0.  You can add as many buttons as you want, as long as your joystick has them.

		<axis name="x" joystick="0" axis="0" inverse="false" />
		<axis name="y" joystick="0" axis="1" inverse="false" />
This binds the axes of the joystick... should you wish the joystick to move in opposite direction set inverse to true.

		</bindings>

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25) Editing Missions
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How to make Vegastrike Missions
An example mission(this is stored in the test1.mission file)
A mission must begin with the headers:

<mission>
	<variables>
		<var name="defaultplayer" value="blue" 
		<var name="mission_name" value="Test Mission"  
		<var name="splashscreen" value="bad_guys_vs_good_guys.bmp"  
		<var name="system" value="sol"  
		<var name="description" value="This is a fun mission."  
		<var name="author" value="Me"  
		<var name="briefing" value="In this mission, you will have to have fun, or you will fail."  
	</variables>

it loads sol.system  as the star system (which is in XML and stores all present planets)
The only other system included in this beta release is the blank.mission
which has 1 planet, 1 sun and 2 starbases.
After this, comes the actors in the mission, the flightgroups of fighters.
        <flightgroups>
You must begin the flight group tag as above, and terminate it after all of your flight groups

                <flightgroup name="blue" faction="confed" type="nova" ainame="default" waves="8" nr_ships="3">
The name will be used later for targetting and offset purposes.  The faction is a faction listed in factions.xml (should be self explanatory 0 is neutral 1 is happy -1 is mad) Currently confed and aera are the two active factions.  AI must be default in this version as no ohter AI scripts are yet written.  nr_ships indicates how many starships will be in this flight squadron.
			<pos x="10000.0" y="0.0" z="3000.0" 
This indicates the flight group's position... be sure it is unique
			<rot x="180.0" y="180.0" z="180.0" 
			<order order="tmptarget" target="omikron" 
			<order priority="0" order="superiority" target="enemy" 
			<order priority="1" order="bomber" target="omikron" 
			<order priority="2" order="escort" target="blue" 
the rest is in development
		</flightgroup>
you must end all flight group tags
continue with any other flightgroups... you can have as many as you want from as many named factions are you want...
      </flightgroups>
</mission>

=================================================
26) Editing AI
=================================================

The AI is completely scriptable, and I have not spent all that long perfecting it.  There are included instructions about editing the AI scripts yourself.
Currently there is only 1 AI personality.  In the future there will be a method to assign different personalities to different starships.
it's the "default" personality.
2 files are responsible for the control of the "default" personality
default.agg.xml
and 
default.int.xml

default.agg.xml means the "aggressive" AI.  it controls what it does to aggressively bring its vengence upon its target.
When editing this file in notepad, you'll notice some tags and various numbers.
The first tag, AggressiveAI has a parameter time="4"
that's how often the AI checks if it should change its strategy.  This time can be any integer value... it can revise its plan more often or less often. 4 has been good because most maneuvers can mostly complete in 4 seconds and it's a good time to revise plans
underneath the beginning tag exist a list of tags that describes the logic the AI uses to figure out its next strategy.
there are a number of tags you can specify for the aggressive AI: distance, threat, hull, fshield lshield rshield bshield rand
Each tag asserts if one of the tag-values above is between min and max.
The AI needs to make a CHOICE about what it does next, so it takes a look at the list of tags and determines if any of the assertions is true.
Nested statements mean that BOTH must be true. so you can say "if the distance is at most .5 and the hull is between .25 and .75 by writing:
<distance max=".5">
  <hull min=".25" max=".75" script="afterburnerslide.xml">
  </hull>
</distance>

this means "if the distance is at most half the range of my guns and the hull is between 1/4 and 3/4 of its capacity, then perform an afterburner slide.
It goes down the list of such assertions and chooses the appropriate AI script to run.
The facing and movement tags fill in the gaps where NONE of the list of the assertions are true and the ship is not either turning or moving anywhere:
<facing script="turntowards.xml">
</facing>

at the very bottom the </AggressiveAI> must show up to indicate that the AIscript has terminated.

The aggressive.int.xml is written out exactly the same as the aggressive.agg.xml
the difference is that scripts listed here INTERRUPT the current action!
An example from the game is:
<AggressiveAI close=".05">
  <hull max = ".5" script="evade.xml">
   <threat min=".4" script="afterburnerslide.xml">
   </threat>
  </hull>

  <distance max=".03" script="turnaway.xml">
  <!-- distance less than .1-->
  </distance>
  
</AggressiveAI>

this says:
If the hull is at most half and someone is threatening me with a 40% chance to hit... then evade and then afterburner slide
OR
if someone is at most .03 of my max range away from me TURN AWAY!

this will interrupt the current progress of any scripts

So that's how to use AI scripts.
If you want to know more about writing actual maneuvers (like turnaway.xml  which as you can see is in the directory) please contact me at hellcatv@hotmail.com
you need to have a heavy background in vector math.

=================================================
27) Troubleshooting
=================================================
If you should encounter problems, then you should check these things:
 - Always check if Setup.exe is set to the closest options for your computer
 - Check the bottom of stdout.txt and stderr.txt to see if there are any errors.  Then, send us an e-mail with those 2 files attached, along with a description of the mission you chose and what you did to cause it to: <vegastrike-users@lists.sourceforge.net>

=================================================
28) License
=================================================

		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
		       Version 2, June 1991

 Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
     59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
 Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
 of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

			    Preamble

  The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
freedom to share and change it.  By contrast, the GNU General Public
License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software--to make sure the software is free for all its users.  This
General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
using it.  (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
the GNU Library General Public License instead.)  You can apply it to
your programs, too.

  When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
price.  Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

  To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.

  For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
you have.  You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
source code.  And you must show them these terms so they know their
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  We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
(2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
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  Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
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  Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
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  The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
modification follow.

		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
   TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

  0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this General Public License.  The "Program", below,
refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
language.  (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
the term "modification".)  Each licensee is addressed as "you".

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
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running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

  1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
along with the Program.

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

  2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

    a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
    stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.

    b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
    whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
    part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
    parties under the terms of this License.

    c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
    when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
    interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
    announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
    notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
    a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
    these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
    License.  (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
    does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
    the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole.  If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works.  But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
collective works based on the Program.

In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
the scope of this License.

  3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

    a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
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    1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

    b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
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The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
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itself accompanies the executable.

If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

  4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this License.  Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
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  5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
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  6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
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all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
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If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
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It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
implemented by public license practices.  Many people have made
generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
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This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
be a consequence of the rest of this License.

  8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
countries not thus excluded.  In such case, this License incorporates
the limitation as if written in the body of this License.

  9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
of the General Public License from time to time.  Such new versions will
be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number.  If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
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  10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
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			    NO WARRANTY

  11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.  EXCEPT WHEN
OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
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WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
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PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
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		     END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

	    How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

  If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.

  To do so, attach the following notices to the program.  It is safest
to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

    <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
    Copyright (C) <year>  <name of author>

    This program 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.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA


Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.

If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
when it starts in an interactive mode:

    Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year  name of author
    Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
    This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
    under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate
parts of the General Public License.  Of course, the commands you use may
be called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be
mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program.

You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
necessary.  Here is a sample; alter the names:

  Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
  `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.

  <signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
  Ty Coon, President of Vice

This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into
proprietary programs.  If your program is a subroutine library, you may
consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the
library.  If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
Public License instead of this License.