PRBOOM-GAME-SERVER(6)PRBOOM-GAME-SERVER(6)NAME
prboom-game-server - Server for network games of PrBoom.
SYNOPSIS
prboom-game-server [ -adfnrv ] [ -e epis ] [ -l level ] [ -t ticdup ]
[ -x xtics ] [ -p port ] [ -s skill ] [ -N players ] [ -c conffilename
] [ -w wadname[,dl_url ]]
DESCRIPTION
PrBoom is a version of the 3D shoot'em'up Doom, originally by id soft‐
ware. It includes, amongst other things, the ability to play with sev‐
eral players connected by a tcp/ip network. prboom-game-server is the
`server', that is the program that passes data between the different
players in the game.
To start a network game (often abbreviated to `netgame'), first the
server is started. prboom-game-server accepts various parameters to
control the type of game (the skill level, number of players, level to
play, optional WAD file(s) to load, etc).
Then each player that wishes to participate runs prboom -net hostname,
where hostname is the name of the machine on which the server is run‐
ning. Each copy of prboom retrieves information about the game from the
server, and when the specified number of players have joined, the game
begins.
Options-N players
Specifies the number of players in the game (default 2). The
server will wait for this many players to join before starting
the game.
-e epis
The episode to play (default 1). Unless you are playing Doom 1
or Ultimate Doom, and wish to play one of the later episodes,
you do not need to change this.
-l level
The level to play (default 1).
-s skill
Specify the skill level to play (1-5).
-d Set game mode to (old) deathmatch (default is cooperative). See
the original Doom docs for information about the different net‐
work game modes.
-a Set game mode to `altdeath' (v2 deathmatch) (default is coopera‐
tive). See the original Doom docs for information about the dif‐
ferent network game modes.
-f Select fast mode (monsters move faster).
-n Selects nomonsters mode, i.e. there are no monsters in the game.
-r Respawn mode. If you don't know what this is, you don't want to
;-).
-c conffilename
Specifies a configuration file to read which sets parameters for
the game. This is in the same format as the PrBoom configuration
file (in fact, you can ask it to read your normal PrBoom config‐
uration file if you want). Only certain settings are acknowl‐
edged: default_skill, default_compatibility_level, the compati‐
bility options and some of the game settings (use -v to have the
server print the options as it recognises them).
-w wadname[,dl_url]
Specifies a WAD file to play. This is added to the internal list
that the server keeps. When a client connects, the server sends
the list of WADs; PrBoom will then add this to the list of WADs
specified on its command line. Optionally, an url to the file
can be given too; if when PrBoom connects it cannot find the
named WAD, it will attempt to retrieve the file from the given
url, extracting it if necessary. See prboom(1) for information
about the supported url types and compression formats.
-t ticdup
Reserved.
-x xtics
This causes extra information to be sent with each network
packet; this will help on networks with high packet loss, but
will use more bandwidth.
-p port
Tells prboom-game-server what port number to communicate via
(default 5030). Note that if you change this from the default,
then all the clients will also need to specify this number when
they try to connect (the default programmed into prboom is also
5030).
-v Increases verbosity level; causes more diagnostics to be
printed, the more times -v is specified.
More Informationprboom(6), boom.cfg(5)
For more information, see the README that came with PrBoom.
Doom is a registered trademark of id software (http://www.idsoft‐
ware.com/).
Author
See the file AUTHORS included with the PrBoom distribution. This man
page was written by Colin Phipps (cph@moria.org.uk).
local PRBOOM-GAME-SERVER(6)
