Game Play

Scoring

The battle is a standard deathmatch. All ships are trying to shoot each other. One kill earns you two points. If you die, you lose one point. Computer-controlled bots take part in score calculation just like player-controlled ships.

SCORE = 2 * KILLS - DEATHS

Repairing

Each arena has a couple of docks. They are visible in the minimap as green dashes. Landing on the dock starts repairs on your ship. Repairing will pause for a few seconds if you shoot your weapons or if you receive damage. The pause is an absolutely necessary safety measure for the protection of the tiny people who live and work inside the dock! You cannot destroy the docks.

Bonuses

Bonuses look like blue spheres. They will appear here and there around the arenas. Collecting bonuses is very helpful for you and your quest to blast your friends up. You may obtain

  • a special weapon upgrade which is much more powerful than your regular special weapon,
  • a significant speedup to your main gun,
  • a nanobot repair system which will repair your ship for a short while, or
  • a self destruct system which replaces your special weapon for a while.

There are also megabonuses that appear as green spheres. They contain bonuses that have more dramatic positive effect than the casual bonuses. Be sure to catch them!

Changing Equipment

You can change your weapons during the battle on the battlefront. Just press Esc and Y, and you’ll return to the equip screen. Note that if your ship is still alive, it will remain in the battle and others can shoot it. When you’re done selecting your ship, special weapon and ship modification, press F10 to return to the battle. Your new selections will take effect when your ship is reborn the next time.

Bots

Optionally all arenas feature computer-controlled bots (new since Assault Wing 1.4.0.1) The bots are disabled by default but can be enabled in the Setup menu or using a console command in the terminal based dedicated server.

If there are a lot of players, the number of bots will reduce. The purpose of the bots is to provide the players some extra distraction and amusement, and also to substitute human players if there are not so many online. You can shoot the bots or just ignore them. They will try to shoot you but they may not be very good at it ;-)

Bots are also useful as practice targets in a local game.