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Kernel Panic! The easy RTS.
zwzsg
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, there is a game that I care for, and that I'd like to see played more.
Links:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Kernel_Panic
http://www.moddb.com/games/kernel-panic
1) Pictures:
2) Videos
Or, instead of watching those videos, you could get the 25 meg installer, then use the "Spectate" button in the Single Player Launcher, and watch some AI battling it out for the pleasure of your eyes.
Introduction
Kernel Panic is essentially a sublimated RTS. The resource management has been taken away completly: all mobiles units and buildings can be constructed for free. The learning of complex tech tree has been cut out drasticly: there are only 10 units per side, including factories and walls. The hours long struggle so typical of TotalA-like RTS have been shrunk dramatically: A typical Kernel Panic game will last no longer than 10mins. Even the eye dazzling graphics every other game strive for have been swapped for old school vectorial look, somewhat reminscent of Tron or Darwinia.
With the removal of economy management, of offense/defense balance, all that remains is pure strategy and tactics: Performing a 10sec retreat to gather your troop, choosing between staying battling units, or charging through to hit the enemy to the heart, spreading your forces to scout and skirmish everywhere around the map, or concentrating them into an unstoppable tide, taking the left, right, or middle route,.... Yes, in every RTS, you will have to make such choice, but much too often they are diluted into long and boring building up phase, repeating learnt by heart build order, building in masses only the one best unit and throw it by pack of 20 to the enemy via the direct route, ....
In other RTS, newcomers are slaughtered in 5mins by Koreans who know every little idiosyncrasy of every of the myriads units. To the contrary, Kernel Panic has such a short learning curve, that it takes about half of game to learn all there is to know about Kernel Panic. It is not unusual for people who have never played Kernel Panic to reach the top players in their first game, as only raw skills matter in Kernel Panic. Even today, I sometimes get beat by newcomers in the first or second game.
In short, Kernel Panic is pure, unadulatered RTS fun, with all the borings bits removed, and condensed in quick and intense action.
Keywords:
- Streamlined
- Fast Paced
- No resources. (All constructions are free)
- Short game (like, 5-10 mins)
- Extremely few and archetypal units.
- Short learning curve.
- Gameplay feels a bit like Z, the 1996's Bitmap Brother hit.
- No building up, to teching up, no porcing up. Pure unadultered action!
Where to get:
The "main page" for Kernel panic would be one of these two:
http://www.moddb.com/games/kernel-panic
http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Kernel_Panic
Kernel Panic is an entirely free game. It is powered by the "Spring" Open Source RTS engine. To install Kernel Panic, get the file Kernel_Panic_3.2_Including_Spring_0.78.2.1_Installer01.exe from ModDB or Jobjol, and runs it. It will install the engine, the game/mod, some maps, the multiplayer client, the skirmish generator, and everything else needed. After everything is installed,
To ease your discoverey of Kernel Panic, a Single Player mode has been added. What it does is basically run a random skirmish game. The AI will play as best as I could make it, so probably too hard for newbs, too easy for veteran players. However, Kernel Panic is about multiplayer. Single Player is here to help you test it, and to help you discover it, but please play Kernel Panic online! Don't be afraid, unlike other RTS, anybody can get fun from their very first online games.
How to play:
Anybody who played any RTS should have no trouble playing Kernel Panic, as the basic command are pretty standards. Select one of your unit with left click, several of your unit by keeping left mouse down and drawing a box, select all unit of a kind by double clicking one, give default order with right click, use the left menu and left click to pick a precise order, etc... When moving (default command for empty terrain), a long click will let your draw a dotted line that represent the formation your units will arrive into. Maybe I should stress the importance of the shift key, allowing you to enqueue orders, even on unfinished units. Or that units inherit orders, group number, and settings from the factory they're born in. Also, if you get stuck in a weird camera mode, it's Ctrl + middle click to change between all the camera mode, TA overhead being the default and most convenient. Middle click also help scrolling with the minimap. Advanced users will be pleased to know they can create any hotkey they want with ctrl-insert, and will have to pay a look at uikeys.txt for complete key reference.
Credits:
Even though I released lastest versions, I am not the author of KP, credits go to KDR_11k. And to the SY for the engine.
Links:
http://www.moddb.com/games/kernel-panic
http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Kernel_Panic
Links:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Kernel_Panic
http://www.moddb.com/games/kernel-panic
1) Pictures:
2) Videos
Short Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q48ys5hFtI&fmt=18
Long video, showing different aspect of the game
http://youtube.com/watch?v=doF7owZ0blk&fmt=18Or, instead of watching those videos, you could get the 25 meg installer, then use the "Spectate" button in the Single Player Launcher, and watch some AI battling it out for the pleasure of your eyes.
Introduction
Kernel Panic is essentially a sublimated RTS. The resource management has been taken away completly: all mobiles units and buildings can be constructed for free. The learning of complex tech tree has been cut out drasticly: there are only 10 units per side, including factories and walls. The hours long struggle so typical of TotalA-like RTS have been shrunk dramatically: A typical Kernel Panic game will last no longer than 10mins. Even the eye dazzling graphics every other game strive for have been swapped for old school vectorial look, somewhat reminscent of Tron or Darwinia.
With the removal of economy management, of offense/defense balance, all that remains is pure strategy and tactics: Performing a 10sec retreat to gather your troop, choosing between staying battling units, or charging through to hit the enemy to the heart, spreading your forces to scout and skirmish everywhere around the map, or concentrating them into an unstoppable tide, taking the left, right, or middle route,.... Yes, in every RTS, you will have to make such choice, but much too often they are diluted into long and boring building up phase, repeating learnt by heart build order, building in masses only the one best unit and throw it by pack of 20 to the enemy via the direct route, ....
In other RTS, newcomers are slaughtered in 5mins by Koreans who know every little idiosyncrasy of every of the myriads units. To the contrary, Kernel Panic has such a short learning curve, that it takes about half of game to learn all there is to know about Kernel Panic. It is not unusual for people who have never played Kernel Panic to reach the top players in their first game, as only raw skills matter in Kernel Panic. Even today, I sometimes get beat by newcomers in the first or second game.
In short, Kernel Panic is pure, unadulatered RTS fun, with all the borings bits removed, and condensed in quick and intense action.
Keywords:
- Streamlined
- Fast Paced
- No resources. (All constructions are free)
- Short game (like, 5-10 mins)
- Extremely few and archetypal units.
- Short learning curve.
- Gameplay feels a bit like Z, the 1996's Bitmap Brother hit.
- No building up, to teching up, no porcing up. Pure unadultered action!
Where to get:
The "main page" for Kernel panic would be one of these two:
http://www.moddb.com/games/kernel-panic
http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Kernel_Panic
Kernel Panic is an entirely free game. It is powered by the "Spring" Open Source RTS engine. To install Kernel Panic, get the file Kernel_Panic_3.2_Including_Spring_0.78.2.1_Installer01.exe from ModDB or Jobjol, and runs it. It will install the engine, the game/mod, some maps, the multiplayer client, the skirmish generator, and everything else needed. After everything is installed,
To ease your discoverey of Kernel Panic, a Single Player mode has been added. What it does is basically run a random skirmish game. The AI will play as best as I could make it, so probably too hard for newbs, too easy for veteran players. However, Kernel Panic is about multiplayer. Single Player is here to help you test it, and to help you discover it, but please play Kernel Panic online! Don't be afraid, unlike other RTS, anybody can get fun from their very first online games.
How to play:
Anybody who played any RTS should have no trouble playing Kernel Panic, as the basic command are pretty standards. Select one of your unit with left click, several of your unit by keeping left mouse down and drawing a box, select all unit of a kind by double clicking one, give default order with right click, use the left menu and left click to pick a precise order, etc... When moving (default command for empty terrain), a long click will let your draw a dotted line that represent the formation your units will arrive into. Maybe I should stress the importance of the shift key, allowing you to enqueue orders, even on unfinished units. Or that units inherit orders, group number, and settings from the factory they're born in. Also, if you get stuck in a weird camera mode, it's Ctrl + middle click to change between all the camera mode, TA overhead being the default and most convenient. Middle click also help scrolling with the minimap. Advanced users will be pleased to know they can create any hotkey they want with ctrl-insert, and will have to pay a look at uikeys.txt for complete key reference.
Credits:
Even though I released lastest versions, I am not the author of KP, credits go to KDR_11k. And to the SY for the engine.
Links:
http://www.moddb.com/games/kernel-panic
http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Kernel_Panic
Kernel Panic! Quick and easy RTS
zwzsg on
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Posts
Like I said, you don't waste time building up, collecting ressource, teching up, or generally not fighting. It's short and to the point.
And the ease to pick it up means there's not much skill level disparity in multiplayer.
How is the single-player campaign?
It's simple, but if it wasn't deep it would have been broken already.
First, the launcher appears in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, partially obscured by the taskbar. I suspect you are manually setting the window position coordinates to a magic number and would like to submit that this is"pretty stupid" and a bad coding practice in general.
Second, the online multiplayer has to be run by an administrator. (Seriously? Vista has been out for how long? This shouldn't even be an issue any more.)
Third,
Forgive me if I am somewhat underwhelmed.
Sorry, indeed I forgot to change that form Position setting from its default "poDesigned" to something more sensible like "poDefault". A shortcoming on my part. :oops: Will fix it for next time.
I was told that it is due to Vista limiting the rights inside /Program Files/, hopefully installing elswhere should let you run the multiplayer without adminship. If that doesn't work, then I'll have to bundle K.P. with the rival lobby next time.
This is a problem with some graphic cards (which do you have btw?) To fix that, you need to open the file C:\Documents and Settings\Your Login\Local Settings\Application Data\springsettings.cfg, find the line Shadows=0 and replace it by Shadows=-1 (with a -) Yeah, I agree this shouldn't have happened in the first place.
Err, yes you can! In the settings, change the zoom scroll speed to something negative.
Start Menu -> Kernel Panic -> Settings -> "UI Options" tab -> Zoom: Scrollwheel speed -> Change from 25 to -25.
Maybe I should look around to see which convention is used the most by other RTS, and pick the same.
It's... interesting. I'm not sure I completely understood what was happening ingame. It seemed like I could only choose which units to produce at my starting base? The only thing my second base was making was bits, and there didn't seem to be a button to change that.