Revenge Of The Cats: Ethernet

Revenge Of The Cats: Ethernet is a fast-paced multiplayer FPS with strong emphasis on individual player skill.

Maps in ROTC: Ethernet are divided into rectangular zones and two teams fight over control of these zones.

Players can switch at will between two different forms: The flying, indestructible "Etherform" and a humanoid, weapon-wielding physical manifestation called a "CAT".

Players start out in Etherform and need to find a zone owned by their team in order to manifest as a CAT. As CAT, players take zones for their team simply by being inside the zone while no enemy CAT is also present in the zone. The zone then turns red or blue, depending on which team captured it. If CATs of both teams are present, the zone remains white.

The game is won if the opposing team has lost all their zones and has no more players manifested as CAT.

 * Things that are fairly unique about the game: Players can't "die". If a player loses all his health, he is simply forced back into Etherform.
 * Dealing damage to enemies increases/restores a player's health.
 * Players can fire and deflect target-seeking discs that bear an eerie resemblance to the discs in the movie TRON ;)
 * All weapons draw from the player's regenerating energy. The energy consumed when firing a shot is restored when the shot hits an enemy.
 * The same energy also serves as the player's armour, which means that firing your weapons without hitting an enemy makes you more vulnerable to damage.
 * Players can ride their "Etherboard" to trade agility for speed.

What is new in this release:

• The game is now also available for Mac OS X.
• Repel disc changes:
• Don't remove anchoring anymore.
• Stop enemy CAT before pushing it.
• Ignore enemy CAT's anchoring when pushing.
• Mine Launcher changes:
• Bubbles don't bounce anymore.
• Increase proximity radius from 5 to 6.
• Early version of new map (Archipelago)
• Bugfixes

What is new in version 5.2:

• Mutators for ROTC: Ethernet:
• - Slowpoke: Makes the game slow.
• - Superblaster: Replaces standard blaster with powerful hitscan version.
• Standard blaster now uses projectiles instead of hitscan.
• New grenade: Bypasses shield but does much less damage.
• An exploding mine can now lead to a disc-lock.
• On "death", display info on what caused your CATs destruction.
• Per default, HUD colors now indicate player condition instead of team.
• MOTD (Message Of The Day) feature.

What is new in version 5.1:

• New (albeit very simple) map
• Increased recoil of Blaster and Battle Rifle.
• Bugfixes & other minor improvements

What is new in version 5:

• Support for Infantry arenas
• New disc: Explosive Disc
• B.O.U.N.C.E. can now annihilate enemy projectiles.
• The mines now work and look more like conventional explosives and have been put into the orange/green weapon category.
• New way to configure loadout: Hotkeys load a pre-configured loadout and only the first slot can be exchanged on-the-fly.
• Fixed zone mechanics and demo recording.
• Improved UI

What is new in version 4:

• In-game hints for newbies
• Handicap feature allows more experienced players to give a fair chance to less experienced players.
• Weapon & Disc tweaks
• Other neat stuff

What is new in version 3:

• Damaging enemies again increases/restores a player's health, but unlike before, damaging enemies' damage buffers does not count. In addition, overflowing damage buffers leak very fast in CAT form.
• Players now have three equipment slots instead of two.
• The etherboard now takes up an equipment slot.
• New "Regenerate" ability: Takes up one (or more for increased effect) equipment slots but constantly heals the player while in CAT form.
• The weapons' now impart a lot more force when they hit. To compensate for this, CATs can become "connected" to the ground by being close to it and not etherboarding. When fully connected, the impact force from a hit is reduced by 75%.
• B.O.U.N.C.E. now also deals damage based on the speed of the bounced enemy.
• Weapon tweaks
• Mission Editor improvements

What is new in version 2:

• Breaks backwards compatibility to older versions!
• In-game player chat (implemented as uber-minimalist IRC client).
• New weapons.
• CATs can now fire a B.O.U.N.C.E. that reverses the momentum of nearby enemy CATs.
• In Ethernet arenas, damaging enemies no longer restores a player's health.
• In Ethernet arenas, CATs are limited to carrying 2 weapons (not counting discs, grenades and B.O.U.N.C.E.).
• Deflecting discs should now be easier/possible at higher latencies.
• Render player trails to make it easier to gauge CATs' velocities from a distance.
• Increased minimum speed needed to suffer impact damage.
• New default font & slightly fancier GUI.
• Warnings on the HUD for low health / armour.
• New etherboarding effects.
• Bugfixes & all kinds of minor improvements.

What is new in version 1.11:

• Replaced HTML manual with server-driven in-game online help and README, NEWS, AUTHORS and COPYING files.
• Changes to Ethernet zone mechanics: CATs can only capture zones adjacent to their own zones, but can enter any enemy zone to prevent the enemy from manifesting there.
• Unlimited etherboarding.
• Higher maximum speed for CATs.
• No more weapon sets: CATs carry both MG and Sniper ROFL.
• Reduced MG splash damage radius from 3 to 2 and removed influence of player trajectory on MG projectile trajectory.
• Reduced Sniper ROFL damage & armor cost.
• The "Controls" dialog now allows rebinding almost every control and should finally work properly (keep your fingers crossed).
• Early version of dynamic in-game music.
• More player statistics.
• More useful minimap.
• Color of sniper projectile trail now shows if the shot hit.
• Revert to simpler (uglier and faster) zone rendering for now.
• Zones now flash when they change color.
• The sky now changes color to show which team has more health in a disputed zone.
• Reverted to always equipping the Trident when manifesting as CAT.
• Changed sound effects for manifesting, grenade explosion, sniper firing and sniper & MG projectile explosion.
• Reverted to default Torque Game Engine server query protocol. (Prototype 1.11 servers will not show up in the server browser of previous releases.)
• This release does not include the "nort1" arena of previous releases.
• Minor visual changes
• Bugfixes