02-02-2004, 10:24 AM
Reference image is here. Sorry if some of the highlight boxes are hard to see. :(
I coached Lochnar a bit on the workings of GB earlier, but it's not all that easy to do while in the game itself. So I decided to doctor a screenshot and explain the stuff in a post. Enjoy.
1: This is the chat area, where text is shown (note that chat is also shown in speach balloons over the characters' heads). This area also shows bonus messages (good shot, back shot, etc) in blue, system notifications/warnings in yellow, and notifies any "double kills" in other games with orange text.
2: This is... Well, I don't know what it's really called. I call it the "moon phase" bar. After each player's turn, the icons outside of the box rotate fractionally; after 4 or 5 turns, the next icon enters the box. The icon currently in the box does certain things, depending upon which icon it is. I'm sure someone more knowledgable than me can explain them all, but the only two I know to have a solid effect are the Thor satellite (the blue/red pronged icon) and the black hole. When Thor is active, any weapon detonation will cause the satellite to fire a laser at the point of impact, which can be extremely painful. When the black hole is active, items are "locked" and cannot be used.
3: This is the wind meter. Pretty simple, really - The number in the middle is the wind power, and the directional pointer in the ring is the wind's direction. Depending on which mobile you're using the effects of wind will be more or less evident, although in general a wind strength of 1 or 2 won't bother you much, while a strength over 20 will heavily influence your shots. AFAIK wind only changes at the beginning of turns, and there's usually a wind-wooshing type of sound that plays if it does change.
4: This is your gold meter. It keeps track of how much gold you've earned in this game. You get gold by killing players (100 for normal kills, or "bunges"), or for doing something impressive (the aforementioned good shots and backshots, or firing through a tornado and still hitting, etc). Note that it's entirely possible to have a negative amount here, if you incur penalties (typically by damaging yourself or a teammate).
5: Your item slots. Before starting a game you can choose up to six slots' worth of items in the lobby. You can invoke them during the game for a delay cost (see below) and they'll allow you to pull off stunts (like firing twice in one turn, or teleporting, among other things). Some items take up 2 slots, as can be seen in the image.
6: Pressing this button or F8 skips your turn. I bet you were stumped, eh?
7: Here the mobile's firing arc is shown. Some mobiles have better firing arcs than others, and to attack someone outside of your firing arc you will need to either take advantage of the wind, or utilize the terrain to better position your mobile. Note that some mobile's arcs have lighter areas near their extremes; shots made from these angles will do less damage than those made from the darker center angles.
8: Player information. Here you can see the player's name (and if s/he is in a guild, it will be listed above the name, along with their statistical standing within the guild), their rank image, and their mobile's health bar. Note that the selected mobile in the image has a shield, noted by the blue portion of the health bar. Mobiles that have shields are generally slightly less durable than other mobiles, but their shields regenerate over time. As a side note, the Mage mobile's special shot will completely strip the shields off of any mobiles in its' radius.
9: The turn listing. This area shows the order in which the players' turns are, and their delays to the right. Every action you take during your turn adds some sort of delay to your tally; delay goes up by 10 points for every second you use, and in general shots add from 750 to 1400 delay (depending upon mobile and shot used). Because of the way delay works, someon using a fast mobile/shots may get 2 turns before another player using a slow mobile/shots and/or item(s) occassionally. Delay is explained much better on GunBound HQ than I can do so here.
10: Your shooting angle listing. Along with a small counter under your firing arc (not highlighted, but visible near my mobile on the right) this shows the angle at which your shots will leave your mobile.
11: This indicator shows which shooting mechanism you're using. It defaults to Slice, in which you hold down the spacebar longer for more powerful shots. The other options are Dragshot (where you click-and-drag with the mouse to select your power) and Snipe (which is supposed to fire with the same power your last shot used, but I think is broken). Your firing mode can be changed from the options screen (by pressing ESC or clicking the ESC button in the upper-left corner of the screen).
12: This little doohickey is used to remember your power settings. If you need to remember a particular power setting that's hard to eyeball for whatever reason, you can drag this with the mouse to the proper place on the power meter. Quite a handy gadget IMO.
13: Ah, the power meter. Divided into 4 section for ease of eyeballing those 75% shots, you use this to determine how much "oomph" to give each shell. Also, after you've fired, a golden bar appears at the power-point the shot was fired at. It disappears as soon as you begin charging another shot though, so I often use the doohickey from #12 to remember where the desired power level is.
14: This corner is used for different things, depending on the game type you're playing. In Score, it shows the remaining team lives (communal, first team to 0 loses). In Tag, it shows your alternate mobile and its' health (which can be switched to by pressing F7), and in Jewel it shows the teams' scores.
15: This statistic popup shows the first time each player's turn comes up each game. It can also be called up by left-clicking and holding on a player with the mouse. The rest should be fairly straightforward.
One more thing I couldn't easily label: In the bottom left-hand corner are butons for your mobile's Primary, Secondary, and Special shot. You can select your shot either by clicking a button or pressing Tab. In general, shot 1 is weak but fast (delay 700-800), shot 2 is more powerful but about 100 delay slower, and the SS is extremely powerful at a cost of 1200+ delay. There are exceptions though; I suggest reading the mobile summary sections at Gunbound HQ.
Whew! If I missed anything, feel free to chime in.
I coached Lochnar a bit on the workings of GB earlier, but it's not all that easy to do while in the game itself. So I decided to doctor a screenshot and explain the stuff in a post. Enjoy.
1: This is the chat area, where text is shown (note that chat is also shown in speach balloons over the characters' heads). This area also shows bonus messages (good shot, back shot, etc) in blue, system notifications/warnings in yellow, and notifies any "double kills" in other games with orange text.
2: This is... Well, I don't know what it's really called. I call it the "moon phase" bar. After each player's turn, the icons outside of the box rotate fractionally; after 4 or 5 turns, the next icon enters the box. The icon currently in the box does certain things, depending upon which icon it is. I'm sure someone more knowledgable than me can explain them all, but the only two I know to have a solid effect are the Thor satellite (the blue/red pronged icon) and the black hole. When Thor is active, any weapon detonation will cause the satellite to fire a laser at the point of impact, which can be extremely painful. When the black hole is active, items are "locked" and cannot be used.
3: This is the wind meter. Pretty simple, really - The number in the middle is the wind power, and the directional pointer in the ring is the wind's direction. Depending on which mobile you're using the effects of wind will be more or less evident, although in general a wind strength of 1 or 2 won't bother you much, while a strength over 20 will heavily influence your shots. AFAIK wind only changes at the beginning of turns, and there's usually a wind-wooshing type of sound that plays if it does change.
4: This is your gold meter. It keeps track of how much gold you've earned in this game. You get gold by killing players (100 for normal kills, or "bunges"), or for doing something impressive (the aforementioned good shots and backshots, or firing through a tornado and still hitting, etc). Note that it's entirely possible to have a negative amount here, if you incur penalties (typically by damaging yourself or a teammate).
5: Your item slots. Before starting a game you can choose up to six slots' worth of items in the lobby. You can invoke them during the game for a delay cost (see below) and they'll allow you to pull off stunts (like firing twice in one turn, or teleporting, among other things). Some items take up 2 slots, as can be seen in the image.
6: Pressing this button or F8 skips your turn. I bet you were stumped, eh?
7: Here the mobile's firing arc is shown. Some mobiles have better firing arcs than others, and to attack someone outside of your firing arc you will need to either take advantage of the wind, or utilize the terrain to better position your mobile. Note that some mobile's arcs have lighter areas near their extremes; shots made from these angles will do less damage than those made from the darker center angles.
8: Player information. Here you can see the player's name (and if s/he is in a guild, it will be listed above the name, along with their statistical standing within the guild), their rank image, and their mobile's health bar. Note that the selected mobile in the image has a shield, noted by the blue portion of the health bar. Mobiles that have shields are generally slightly less durable than other mobiles, but their shields regenerate over time. As a side note, the Mage mobile's special shot will completely strip the shields off of any mobiles in its' radius.
9: The turn listing. This area shows the order in which the players' turns are, and their delays to the right. Every action you take during your turn adds some sort of delay to your tally; delay goes up by 10 points for every second you use, and in general shots add from 750 to 1400 delay (depending upon mobile and shot used). Because of the way delay works, someon using a fast mobile/shots may get 2 turns before another player using a slow mobile/shots and/or item(s) occassionally. Delay is explained much better on GunBound HQ than I can do so here.
10: Your shooting angle listing. Along with a small counter under your firing arc (not highlighted, but visible near my mobile on the right) this shows the angle at which your shots will leave your mobile.
11: This indicator shows which shooting mechanism you're using. It defaults to Slice, in which you hold down the spacebar longer for more powerful shots. The other options are Dragshot (where you click-and-drag with the mouse to select your power) and Snipe (which is supposed to fire with the same power your last shot used, but I think is broken). Your firing mode can be changed from the options screen (by pressing ESC or clicking the ESC button in the upper-left corner of the screen).
12: This little doohickey is used to remember your power settings. If you need to remember a particular power setting that's hard to eyeball for whatever reason, you can drag this with the mouse to the proper place on the power meter. Quite a handy gadget IMO.
13: Ah, the power meter. Divided into 4 section for ease of eyeballing those 75% shots, you use this to determine how much "oomph" to give each shell. Also, after you've fired, a golden bar appears at the power-point the shot was fired at. It disappears as soon as you begin charging another shot though, so I often use the doohickey from #12 to remember where the desired power level is.
14: This corner is used for different things, depending on the game type you're playing. In Score, it shows the remaining team lives (communal, first team to 0 loses). In Tag, it shows your alternate mobile and its' health (which can be switched to by pressing F7), and in Jewel it shows the teams' scores.
15: This statistic popup shows the first time each player's turn comes up each game. It can also be called up by left-clicking and holding on a player with the mouse. The rest should be fairly straightforward.
One more thing I couldn't easily label: In the bottom left-hand corner are butons for your mobile's Primary, Secondary, and Special shot. You can select your shot either by clicking a button or pressing Tab. In general, shot 1 is weak but fast (delay 700-800), shot 2 is more powerful but about 100 delay slower, and the SS is extremely powerful at a cost of 1200+ delay. There are exceptions though; I suggest reading the mobile summary sections at Gunbound HQ.
Whew! If I missed anything, feel free to chime in.
![[Image: 9426697EGZMV.png]](http://sigs.guildlaunch.net/wsig.php/9426697EGZMV.png)