Freebooters v0.2.1
==================

This archive contains Freebooters, a free Pirates! clone, primarily for
free Unix variants. All code will be GPL and all artwork will be released
under DFSG compatible licences.

Our homepage can be found on http://home.gna.org/freebooters
The GNA project page is http://gna.org/projects/freebooters

We have two mailing lists, subscription information is on the project page:
freebooters-announce@gna.org -- Low volume, for announcements etc.
freebooters-devel@gna.org    -- Freebooters development
freebooters-cvs@gna.org      -- CVS changelogs

Some of the game mechanisms already work, but gameplay is not tuned yet.
See the manual, which is rather unfinished as well, for further information.

A rough estimate of our current status:

Gameplay: 
- Some of the crucial game mechanisms already work, but they need to be
  improved a lot, both with regard to features (refine the mechanisms,
  simulate more realistically) and to playability (how hard is a game,
  do certain features make sense at all?)
- Several core elements are missing (e.g. fencing duels with other captains,
  attacking a harbour from the seaside)
- There'll be a lot more harbours all over the Caribbean Sea
- Most game data is bogus (such as features of the ships, harbours, history etc.)
  and has to be replaced with realistic ones
- There'll be a career mode and a mission mode

Tech:
- The current menus are mostly prototypes, they'll be replaced with clickable
  images maps, which are yet to be raytraced. However, the game will always
  be comfortably playable with the keyboard only.
- The current selection of targets on the map is a prototype as well. It will
  be replaced with a navigatable sea map as in the original game. This will
  be done with a 3D engine using ogre3d.
- Multiplayer capabilities over IP will be tackled once the game is properly in
  shape for single player games and the game mechanisms are fully established
  This is an item for the very far future, for a foreseeable timeframe Freebooters
  will be singleplayer only like the original.
- Lots of tuning and other improvements are needed

Your help is very welcome, especially if you are a good artist or good
at game design and game balancing. History experts of the pirate days are
warmly welcomed as well. Check the TODO for details.

Bug reports are welcome as well. Please give a rough estimate how to reproduce
the bug and send it to freebooters-devel@gna.org
Freebooters' target systems are free Unix-like systems, but patches for proprietary
systems might be integrated if they don't cause too many maintenance hassles.

The public repo will be switched to Subversion once it's available at gna.org.