Epiar
Version 0.5.0
Written by Christopher Thielen, Matthew Zweig, others (see AUTHORS)

http://epiar.net/

Copyright (C) 2002-2012 Christopher Thielen.
Licensed under GNU GPL version 2. Some parts (e.g. fonts, sounds) licensed differently
and indicated where appropriate.

----------------------
-       NOTICE       -
----------------------
This document and source code are under heavy development and may contain
inaccurate information, bugs, and other issues. Use at your own risk!

Contents
--------
1. What is Epiar?
2. System Requirements
3. Playing Epiar
	i. Controls
	ii. Single Player Epiar
	iii. Multi-Player Epiar
4. Epiar Editor
5. Reporting Problems
6. Credits

1. What is Epiar?
-----------------
Epiar is a space exploration/combat/trading game.  The Escape Velocity (EV)
series for the Mac was the major point of inspiration for this game.  Other
notable games of this genre include:

- Elite (the original game EV was based on)
- Star control 1/2 (and it's now open source successor Ur-Quan masters)
- Star Flight
- Solar Winds

2. System Requirements
----------------------
Epiar has been tested on Linux, OS X 10.6/10.7 and Windows XP/Vista/7.

3. Playing Epiar
----------------
Epiar is still under development and so the gameplay is in flux. If you
have any suggestions, please let us know.

i. Controls
-----------
The Escape key will quit Epiar.  When Epiar quits it saves your current game
settings and player progress.

You can open the settings window by hitting Question Mark (?).  This is where
you can adjust the Sounds volumes, change the key layout, or turn on Debugger
information.

Manuever your ship with the Arrow keys.  The Left and Right Arrows will turn
your ship and the Up Arrow will accelerate your ship in the direction that it's
currently pointing.  The Down arrow will spin the ship to point in the opposite
direction that it is currently moving.  This can be useful for
slowing down and stopping your ship when you want to land.  The 'C' Key will
turn you towards the center of the universe (0,0).

SPACE - Fire the weapon that you currently have armed.  If nothing happens then you might be out of ammo or not have a weapon attached.
TAB - Cycle through all the nearby Ships.
t - Target the closest ship.
SHIFT - Cycle through your different Weapons.
P - Pause or Un-Pause the game.
m - Display a map of the entire universe.
M - Display a map of the current Quadrant.
i - Display player information.
l - Land on a planet.
w - Watch your target.
q - Quit watching your target.

ii. Single Player Epiar
-----------------------


iii. Multi-Player Epiar
-----------------------
We don't have any Multi-Player right now.  Sorry.

4. Epiar Editor
---------------
You can start the Editor by opening Epiar with the command line option
"--editor-mode".  You can also change the <editor-mode>0</editor-mode> option
in the settings file (Resources/Definitions/options.xml).

The controls in Editor Mode are a bit different than in the Normal mode.  The
Options (?), Pause(?), Map (m or M), Radar (0 through 9) keys all work
exactly the same.  Escape will still quit the game, but unlike in the Normal
mode, it will only save your game settings but does NOT automatically save your
Game changes.

The arrow keys pan the camera relative to the Radar
visibility, so use visibility '1' to do fine grained movement and visibility
'9' to zoom across the universe.

The Space-bar will open up a "goto" window so that you can jump to any point that you want.

The 'i' key will give you more information about whatever Sprite is currently
being targetted.  The camera will also lock on to that sprite and follow it
around.


The Editor allows you to customize the Game Components (Alliances, Commodities,
Engines, Models, Planets, Technologies, and Weapons) however you want.  You can
add new Components or you can duplicate components simply by picking a new
name for an existing.

When you're done, hit the "Save" button to save all of your changes.


5. Reporting Problems
---------------------
See http://epiar.net/
Please visit the IRC channel #epiar on freenode.
You can also sign up for the developer email list by visiting http://epiar.net/mailinglists and subscribing to epiar-devel.

6. Credits
----------
See AUTHORS file.

