AlienHack

Movement: arrow keys or the number pad (7 9 1 3 or Home PgUp End PgDn for diagonals). z/x before a direction strafe/turn for one move; Z/X lock it until Esc. Note: the game draws stairs up as > and stairs down as <.

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           AlienHack

       README version 1.0
         by Sock Puppet
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AlienHack is a tactical, combat-focused roguelike loosely based on AliensRL by Kornel Kisielewicz. Like that game, AlienHack casts your character as a lone soldier of the far future, trying to escape a claustrophobic labyrinth infested with vicious predatory aliens. Your enemies are single-minded, highly mobile and deadly at close range, while your avatar relies for survival on powerful ranged attacks and superior tactical positioning. 







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How To Play - The Basics
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Controls (default set)
----------------------

? - Show help screen
Numpad keys - Movement
l - Look mode
z - Strafe (move without turning) - one move only
x - Turn without moving - one move only
Z - Strafe lock - strafe for multiple moves
X - Turn lock - turn for multiple moves
. - Wait
g - Pick up (get)
f - Fire
o - Reload
d - Drop an item
s - Switch to sidearm weapon
p - Switch to primary weapon
c - Display character screen
$ - Display Perks screen
> - Climb stairs / up one floor (in look mode)
< - Descend stairs / down one floor (in look mode)
m - Use medpack
n - Use molecular neutraliser
e - Use a demolition charge
t - Throw a stun grenade
r - Throw a frag grenade
i - Throw an incendiary grenade
k - Throw a krak grenade
  - (space) Close door or use terminal
Esc - cancel


Field of View
-------------
Unlike most roguelikes, AlienHack features a limited angle of vision. As a result, the direction that your character faces is IMPORTANT in this game: you can only see what's in front of your avatar. By default, your character will automatically turn to face in the direction that they last moved in, but you can also strafe or turn on the spot by pressing the 'z' or 'x' key before a movement key (see list of controls above). You can also strafe for multiple turns by pressing 'Z' (escape key cancels). You will find that strafing is quite important to playing successfully.

Actions
-------
AlienHack is not strictly a turn-based game. You can't expect that you will always get one whole turn before your enemies get theirs. Every action takes a different amount of time to complete, and if you start an action that takes a while - such as reloading a weapon - then your enemies may get to move more than once before it finishes. Also, if an enemy is about to move just before you begin an action, they will probably be able to move before your character can! Always try to leave yourself a safety margin in case of nasty surprises...

Look Mode
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Look mode is activated by pressing 'l'. You'll find it is quite important for getting information about your surroundings. When you activate look mode, the cursor will usually jump to the nearest significant object that you can see.
Look mode also functions as your 'map' - any area that your character sees is automatically mapped, and you can use look mode to scroll to any area that you have been to. You can also automatically map the entire floor that you are on by using an Info Terminal, but be careful - those maps might not be 100% accurate!

Weapons
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Your character can carry two weapons at a time, a primary weapon and a sidearm. Only one of these can be held and ready to fire at a time. The weapon you are holding will be highlighted at the top right of the screen. Switching between weapons takes time - much longer when switching from sidearm to primary than when switching the other way - so be careful. Holding the right weapon at the right time can often be critical! 
Reloading weapons also takes time, and is usually not something that you want to have to do when enemies are on top of you. 
See the 'Combat Manual' below for more details on the weapons you are likely to find.

Ammunition
----------
The amount of ammunition that you have for your currently held weapon is shown by the lower (green) bar at the top right of the screen. You can find out the amount of ammunition of all types that you are carrying on the character screen (press 'c'). The numbers next to your weapons show how much ammo is loaded in each one, and how much ammo it can hold.

Armour
------
In AlienHack, your character is VERY exposed if they are not wearing armour, so you will want to try and make sure that they are armoured at all times. You can see how much more damage a set of armour can take before breaking from the number displayed in square brackets [] next to its name. Also, the middle (cyan) bar at the top right of the screen shows the condition of your character's current armour. Unfortunately, most of the armour that you find during the game will probably already be damaged to some extent. 
You will find various kinds of armour lying around the complex. Stronger varieties of armour can not only take more hits (if they are in pristine condition) than weaker types, but they also reduce the damage of attacks by greater amounts. There are three common types of armour that you will find: flak jackets, riot armour and combat armour. Of these, flak jackets are the weakest and combat armour is the strongest (but also the heaviest... see below). There are also rarer, stronger types of armour that you can find, and also certain special types of armour with unusual properties that may be very helpful.

Weight
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Your carrying weight can affect how fast your character can move. Only the weight of your armour and your weapons contributes to this value. If the amount of weight you are carrying is slowing your character down, you will see a red negative number appear next to your weight value in the top right of the window. 

Grenades
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There are 4 different types of grenade that your character can pick up and use. Normally, up to 5 of each may be carried at once. See the 'Combat Manual' below for a list of the grenade types and what they do. Don't attempt to let off grenades at close range!

Firing Weapons and Throwing Grenades
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Press 'f' to fire your weapon. This will bring up a targeting cursor, which you can move around with the movement keys. It will jump automatically to the nearest threatening enemy that you can see. Press 'f' again (or the return key) to select your target and fire, or press escape to cancel. 
Throwing grenades works much the same, except that you press one of the grenade keys instead of 'f'.

Perks and XP
------------
In AlienHack, your character does not have a level, but they do gain Experience Points (XP) from every kill. XP can be spent to buy 'perks' which will permanently boost your character's abilities in various ways. Go to the Perks screen to see the available perks. Your character begins the game with some experience, so you can buy one or more perks straight away, or save up for the better ones. Choose wisely.

Medkits
-------
If your character gets injured, you can restore their hit points using medkits which can be found in the complex. There are 2 ways to use medkits: 
1. If your character's HP is less than maximum, a medkit restores about half of the lost HP and your maximum HP is lowered to the new amount you have. 
2. If your character's HP is at its maximum, and that is lower than 20, then using a medkit will increase both your HP and maximum HP by 1. 
Using medkits takes a long time, so make sure your character is somewhere relatively safe before attempting it. 




======================
Advice to New Recruits
======================

1. Check those corners.

2. Look behind you.

3. Don't let them get close.

4. Conserve ammo, but only when it's safe to do so.

5. Reload as soon as you are sure that you're safe, and not before.

6. Doors are your friends... except when they aren't.

7. Ventilation shafts are NOT friendly, but can work to your advantage...

8. Guns make noise. Lots of noise.

9. Explosions make even more noise.

10. Don't waste time. You don't have much of it.








=======================
AlienHack Combat Manual
=======================


Weapons
=======

M43A Service Pistol: Sidearm. A basic, reliable pistol issued to all combat personnel. It has low armour-piercing ability but is fairly accurate at range. It uses common 9mm ammo in clips of 11.

MP5 SMG: Primary weapon. A basic, lightweight SMG with a long and distinguished heritage, the MP5 is effective at short range against lightly armoured targets. It fires 5-round bursts and holds 30 rounds of 9mm ammunition. 

MP9 MP: Sidearm. Another ancient weapon that is still favoured for its cost-effectiveness, the MP9 machine pistol functions much like a one-handed SMG. It fires 3-round bursts of 9mm ammunition, and holds 15 rounds in its clip.

Sawn-off Shotgun: Sidearm. This weapon needs to be reloaded after each shot. It packs a mighty punch at close range, but isn't very good at penerating armour.

M37A2 Combat Shotgun: Primary weapon. A popular shotgun model found among security and military personnel all across the colonies. It holds 4 rounds and is devastating at close range against lightly armoured targets. 

.44 Colt: Sidearm. Once referred to as "the most powerful handgun in the world", centuries later this weapon is still in production, and still favoured by those who want to be able to stop large or armoured targets. It holds 6 rounds.

M41A Pulse Rifle: Primary weapon. Issued as standard to front-line troops for decades, the M41A is powerful, efficient, accurate and reliable. It takes M309 caseless armour-piercing rounds in clips of 95, and fires in quick 3-round bursts. 

M240A1 Incinerator: Primary weapon. While a flamethrower is probably not the best weapon to be holding in a firefight, the Incinerator is lethally effective at short range against any kind of biological target. It holds 100 fluid ounces of fuel at a time. 

M56A2 SmartGun: Primary weapon. The M56A2 SmartGun is not so much a firearm, as it is an automated point-defense weapon that you can pick up and carry; although doing so will slow you down significantly unless you are equipped with a powered exoskeleton. When carried, it functions as a fully-automatic heavy machine gun.
The M56A2 takes M250 armour-piercing rounds in clips of 250. It also has a mount for a Motion Tracking Sensor, but doesn't come with one as standard. 

M51A Combat Laser: Primary. One of the most advanced weapons issued to military units, the M51A vaporises special pellets to generate a phased-plasma laser effect which is effective in atmosphere. It can deliver a highly damaging burst of energy with pinpoint accuracy over quite a long distance. However, how accurate it actually is in practice depends somewhat on who is holding it. The M51A takes clips of 20 'PP slugs'. 

M44A HEDP Canister Rifle: Primary. This heavy infantry weapon fires gas-launched "High Explosive Dual-Purpose" canister rounds. These rounds are effectively grenades that combine a antipersonnel fragmentation blast with an armour-piercing lance effect designed to be effective against heavily-armoured vehicles. The M44A takes drums of 32 rounds. 


Grenades
========

Frag - Basic fragmentation grenade. These grenades have a relatively large blast area and can severely hurt unarmoured targets. However, they are almost useless against heavy armour. They also make more noise than any other grenade type.

Krak - High explosive grenades with a small, focused explosion. These have a small blast range but do large amounts of damage, even to heavily armoured targets. 

Stun - Stun grenades are the only type of grenade that your character can safely let off at close range, as the resulting blast will affect enemies only. As the name suggests, the blast does no damage, but will incapacitate enemies for a brief period. You will find stun grenades to be incredibly valuable when opponents get too close. 

Inc - A high explosive grenade spreading flammable material. These powerful grenades will literally create a wall of fire, incinerating anything in the blast area and blocking the path of anything on the wrong side of it.


Motion Tracking
===============

Motion Tracking Sensors are standard issue for most front-line military units in urban warfare scenarios. Unfortunately, your character begins the game without one. 

If you do find a motion tracker, it will show you all movement signals that it detects in areas nearby. However, you need a hand free to hold it, so you can't look at it while holding any two-handed (primary) weapon. There are exceptions to this rule: 

- The SmartGun has a mount specifically intended for a motion tracker.
- Certain types of armour can have the motion sensor mounted or attached so that you can see it at all times. 

The word 'TRACKING' appears in the top right panel when your character is able to see the motion tracker. 





=========
More Tips
=========

1. Don't forget to take ammo from the weapons you find. 

2. You'll rarely want to actually throw stun grenades; they are far more useful when dropped on the spot to stun enemies that are too close. 

3. Don't throw grenades directly at a wall.

4. If you get too much acid on your armour, take it off!

5. Don't shoot at enemies from too far away, or you will miss more often.

6. Avoid shooting at small or fast enemies with single-fire weapons.

7. If you find the game too hard, try getting the Keen Hearing perk at the beginning.