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Soldat
Developer(s)	Michał Marcinkowski
Publisher(s)	Michał Marcinkowski
Release date(s)	0.9.4b / May 9, 2002 1.3.1 / December 9, 2005
Genre(s)	2D Run and gun
Mode(s)	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	N/A
Platform(s)	Windows
Media	Download
System requirements	333MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, DirectX 8.1 and above
Input	Keyboard, mouse

Soldat (meaning "soldier" in several languages) is a 2D multiplayer game for Windows. It is a side-scroller inspired by Liero and Worms, combined with elements from Counter-Strike and Quake. The game is freeware, although a registration fee is required to unlock extra aesthetic options, such as colored jet flames and custom interfaces.

Contents 1 Gameplay 1.1 Weapons 1.1.1 Modding Weapons 1.2 'Hit' bug 1.3 Maps 2 History 3 Community 3.1 Realistic Mode 3.2 Survival Mode 3.3 Advance Mode 4 External links 4.1 Official websites 4.2 Game Archive and Review sites 4.3 International leagues 4.4 Related websites 4.5 Fan Websites

In Soldat, the player controls a small soldier with customizable hairstyle, skin color, and clothing who bears jet boots which allow the soldier to fly for a relatively short time before needing to automatically regenerate its fuel (the amount of flying possible at a time, and fuel regeneration rate, both depend on individual maps). The game is normally played over the Internet or a LAN, but it is possible to play offline against bots. There are a variety of game modes to choose from, ranging from the popular free-for-all (DeathMatch, RamboMatch, and PointMatch) to the team-based (Capture the Flag, Infiltration, TeamMatch, and Hold the Flag). In some modes holding or defending a flag is the primary goal, where in others it is simply to obtain the most frags, with minor objectives (for example, PointMatch sports a yellow flag which doubles its bearer's points). Capture the Flag and DeathMatch are the most popular game modes.

For all game modes, the basic objective is to kill enemy players. Upon spawning, the player is presented with a large arsenal of weapons to choose from. A few frag grenades are also supplied by default and more can picked up from boxes found on the ground ("GrenadeKits," respectively). Jet boots are used to move around the map, which typically consists of 2-3 levels/floors, or disorganized, floating boulders. Some servers enable temporary-lasting power-ups that grant multiplied damage (Berserker), invisibility (Predator), a flamethrower along with temporary invincibility (FlameGod), or Cluster Grenades (which temporarily replace regular grenades with three of more powerful, modified versions) or even a Bulletproof Vest (effectiveness of the vest depends on the distance from the firer of the bullet, and the vest slowly decreases in 'health' as it soaks up damage, disappearing after absorbing a certain amount of damage, though there is no time limit). Health crates (known in the game as "Medikits") are available in many locations for healing injury back to 100% no matter how much a player is injured. Upon death and after waiting for a server-specified amount of time (on average 5 seconds), players respawn and may choose another weapon—this cycle repeats for the duration of the map, unless Survival Mode is enabled (in which case a spawning system similar to Counter-Strike is used). After a certain allotted time (on average 15 or 20 minutes), the map changes and scores are reset as players continue in another round. Players can chat with each other throughout matches (and to their own teams, for cooperative team-based game modes).

Most games are fast-paced and chaotic. Bodies often explode in a spectacle of blood and body parts, sometimes being hurled clear across the map. Besides its ragdoll physics, the game's engine, written in the Borland Delphi programming language, employs realistic concepts such as momentum and gravity. Fall damage and recoil are also taken into account when Realistic Mode is enabled, and supply crates, dropped weapons, and grenades realistically tumble down steep hills; another effect is the flag's realistic waving as a player runs with it.

There are ten primary weapons and four secondary weapons to choose from. Two may be held at any given time. Players can drop their current weapon and pick up others from defeated enemies.

It's also possible to create server-specific weapon mods.

Primary Desert Eagles—The first weapon on the list, the dual Desert Eagles are fairly slow-firing but capable of killing in a few well-placed shots. The slow and heavy double bullets have a unique ballistic curve which can have the advantage on hilly terrain. It regularly kills with 3 shots but can kill in 1 or 2 shots in Realistic Mode. It also has no bink. HK MP5—The HK MP5 is a close-quarters weapon and inflicts good damage per shot and has a very high cyclic rate, but also has the shortest range of all the automatics, as the pistol-caliber bullets lose their momentum rather quickly. The 30-round magazine doesn't last long given its fast firing rate, but it reloads very quickly and is very powerful in narrow tunnels. AK-74—A long-range automatic rifle; highly accurate and damaging, but the slowest firing of the automatic weapons, the Kalashnikov AK-74 takes a while to use up its magazine and has a relatively slow reload time. Steyr AUG—This automatic fires fast, medium- to long-ranged bullets, but it has a high self-bink, and the 30-round magazine combined with its high cyclic rate can force users to reload in the middle of fighting, although its reload rate is fairly decent as well. SPAS-12—This shotgun can kill in 1 or 2 hits up close, but its range is naturally the lowest of all weapons. Accuracy and damage are poor at long ranges because the shot spreads out and loses momentum quickly. Unlike any other weapon, the SPAS-12 reloads shell by shell individually.This capability allows the user to counter attack quickly and effectively, while their opponents are reloading. Ruger 77—Highly damaging at all ranges, this normally deer-hunting rifle fires as well as reloads its four bullets per magazine slowly. Accuracy is heavily compromised when taking fire or moving. The Ruger 77 is a great weapon for realistic games, due to the settings imposed in the realistic setting, the Ruger's damage is substantially increased, allowing for a quicker kill with one headshot or two to the body. M79—The famed weapon used in the Vietnam War, the M79 grenade launcher shoots explosive 40-mm grenades that kill in one hit. Although it can only hold one at a time and takes three seconds to reload, many have complained this slow reload is not enough to offset its damage advantage and the advantage offered by unlimited ammunition. In realistic mode it is a very balanced weapon. Barret M82A1—With a scope, extensive range upon crouching or proning, almost always one-hit kills, and almost no gravity due to its super-fast projectiles, this sniper rifle is one of the most unique weapons in Soldat. It has a very slow firing rate and reload rate for its magazine of 10 shots. It has major bink, becomes highly inaccurate if fired while moving, and has a short startup delay. Nevertheless camping never go out of fashion. FN Minimi—This automatic weapon has a magazine of 50 high-caliber bullets with high damage,range and ricochet ability. However, this is offset by a massive self-bink and slow reload time. With almost twice as much of it as the next weapon, bursts of more than six will disperse in all directions. XM214 Minigun—A minigun normally mounted on vehicles. While it sports the fastest rate of fire in the game and a 100-round belt, it is often neglected due to its propensity to cause server lag and its low per-bullet damage. More useful for long-range suppression fire than targeted shooting, a good support gunner can give his team the necessary edge in tight battles. However, it takes a little less than a second to queue up before firing, allowing fast-acting players to kill before the minigun even fires. It is occasionally removed on public servers.

Secondary USSOCOM—A small pistol, favorite sidearm of many snipers and grenadiers. In realistic mode it can serve as a main assault weapon. It has a medium-sized magazine and fast reload. Combat Knife—A knife, when thrown (by holding the 'discard weapon' key) or by stabbing in close proximity, can instantly kill anyone it hits with enough speed. Now has a startup time to keep game play balanced. Chainsaw severly damages (kills mostley) all it touches, on the downside, occasionally a glitch means contact isn't registered. Some players prefer to use only chainsaw and grenades, as they can prove to be a powerful combination in tight maps. M72 LAW— A light anti-tank weapon, in order to shoot it the rocket launcher users must crouch or prone. Kills in one hit but has a 9-second reload and minor startup delay. As the projectile flies for several seconds, it is quite possible to destroy off-screen enemies or to fire the weapon in a ballistic, mortar-like arc for strategic tactics.

Other Fists— The weapon of last resort. It's possible to lose one's weapon from heavy impacts or to deliberately drop it. Fragmentation grenade— This weapon is very versatile and a key element in Soldat. The throwing range is adjusted by holding down the throw button. A skilled user can destroy enemies without leaving safe cover. The grenade explodes on enemy contact or after about three seconds, which is often enough for improvised booby traps on terrain that the enemy will cross. Cluster Grenade— Similar to the grenade, this one explodes too. Although the inital blast is not that big, it comes with a "gift" inside. Several bomblets come out and explode on a larger area. Rambo bow— This weapon is the primary goal of a Rambomatch. On a Rambomatch, players can only score kills with this weapon. There is only one Rambo bow available on the start of a map, so it is usually a rush to be the first in control of this. When in possession of this weapon, the player health will regenerate slowly. Flame bow— When acquiring the Rambo bow, your secondary weapon is also replaced with this. Compared to the Rambo bow, this weapon reloads slower, but has an advantage by having the arrows exploding on contact. Flame Thrower— The flame thrower is picked up when you touch the Flame God box. You lose the ability to change weapons while you are invincible due to the powerup (10 seconds), but afterward you keep the flame thrower and your former primary weapon is transfered to the secondary slot. This special weapon deals massive damage and can even set a target on fire. M2 Mounted Machine Gun— A mounted machine gun found on some CTF and Infiltration maps, it is mounted, making it limited to one spot, which aids camping. it has unlimited ammo and cannot be reloaded, its bullets are very powerful, usually kill in about 4 or 5 hits, but it has a disadvantage of overheating long bursts of fire, it has no bink.

Unlike other games, Soldat aims to balance every weapon so no one is better than the rest while each maintains individuality. The choice is largely dependent on the type of map, preferred tactics and weapons choice of the other side.

Much tweaking has been done to try to achieve this but there is often disagreement within the community. In the past, the Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle has been a notorious source of complaint from players for its ability to kill in a single bullet, along with its 10-shot magazine and scope ability (even though these portray real-life characteristics of the actual weapon). Recent versions have included measures to curb overuse of the Barrett, including "bink" (a Counter-Strike coined term which lowers accuracy when hit by gunfire), an increased power of other weapons, and recently in 1.3.1, a startup time similar to the one present on the M72 LAW. The XM214 Minigun has also been criticized for supposedly lowering FPS on slower computers and its ability to let minigunners unfairly "surf" across the map, given its tremendous recoil. With more recent releases, other weapons are being challenged as well. Contention over balance is so great that an entire section of the official community message board is devoted to discussion about the weapons' game balance. Despite the recent update, the Barrett is still responsible for the majority of all kills in the game, although in Soldat's current version of 1.3.1 the M79 is dominating over the Barrett due to its minor bink. There are also growing complaints about the AK-74 and Minimi; because of their slow rate of fire, players can rapidly click to fire bullets which do not decrease the weapons accuracy.

The ability to Mod weapons is contained in the Soldat codes. Accessing it through the Soldat file and changing the weapon statistics via the "weapons121.ini" and "weapons.ini". Some of the more infamous mods over the online portion of the game include modding the Ruger to shoot knives. Makeing the other weapons more powerful, faster, and with better aim are also modded constantly.

As Soldat has progressed through its versions, naturally its complexity has increased. Eventually, a bug known as 'Hit' arose. This has become the most prominent bug in Soldat, and has been left unfixed for a long time. It occurs when either bullets register late or don't register at all on online games. There have been numerous complaints and message board topics made to try and determine the cause, some believe Soldat's networking code, which organizes all the data for all the players on the server, is the cause, although the more logical explanation would be that Soldat uses unreliable UDP packets instead of TCP, which guarantees information which is sent will be received. The 'Hit' bug is still in version 1.3.1.

Maps in Soldat are 2D arenas, most being tailored to fast-paced gameplay. DeathMatch maps are shared by the DeathMatch (DM), PointMatch (PM), RamboMatch (RM), and TeamMatch (TM or TDM, for Team DeathMatch) gamemodes, whereas Capture-the-flag (CTF), Infiltration (Inf.), and Hold-the-Flag (HTF) have their own sets of specialized maps.

Every map consists of numerous textured polygons carefully positioned in relation to one another. Unlike Liero, a major inspiration of Soldat, landscape is non-deformable, though it can be interacted with in other ways. Scenery, such as bushes and sandbags, may conceal players and aid in camping. Polygons can be given special attributes, to simulate lethal death pits, icy terrain, or even a property which heals players who stand on them. Weather effects (snow, rain, and sandstorm) are used on some maps. Some servers enable the powerful stationary M2 turret specified by particular maps (usually CTF and Inf.) which players can man.

Because landscape is composed of polygons, players can slip between vertices and get stuck in terrain. The phenomenon, known as a polybug, is more prevalent on poorly constructed maps. Entering most polybugs is unintentional and irreproducible, but well-known polybugs can be abused to gain unfair advantages. Often, if a player gets stuck in a polybug, they can escape by simply moving around (running, crouching, flying), exiting and reintering the game, or by grenades, which can either kill the player and have them respawn, or when friendly fire is off, get knocked out of the polybug by a teammate.

Soldat is written and maintained by Polish programmer Michał Marcinkowski, who started working on the game in November, 2001. It is coded in the Delphi programming language using the JEDI libraries. Though Marcinkowski is the primary developer, a small beta team aids in testing prior to new releases.

1.0.5b (released August 23, 2002) is considered the first major version of the game, though several betas and minor versions were available in the months preceding its release.

Since then, the game has gone through many changes and additions. Weapon balance is often a main focus of new releases. The current version is 1.3.1. The significant release changes were "startup" modifications in the M82A1 Barrett, M72 LAW, and Combat Knife, as well as minor bugs with flags and maps.

There are about 250 servers and 500 players online at any given time. The whole number of players has not been counted but the official Soldat Forums bore over 10,000 registered members before it switched to the current Simple Machines-based messageboard. Map editors are also available. Many soldat players have developed and distributed their own programs for use with the game. These include, but are not limited to, map editors, weapon editors, statistics programs, mods[1], server-side statistical webpage-plugins (such as U13SSS and Zitro-stats), and auto-join applications. There are many fan webpages serving a multitude of purposes and tastes, mainly different clans for the official tournaments the game's community sponsors.

As the Soldat community has grown, so has the popularity of "R-mode," or the sub-gamemode "Realistic Mode." In v1.3.1's R-mode, the weapons are more powerful, and have a recoil, where the cross hair slowly moves upwards with each successive shot. There is a realistic field of view, players sustain damage when they hit the ground at high speeds. This emphasizes the need for proper tactics more strongly than the standard game mode, sometimes regarded as requiring more skill.

In addition to Realistic mode, there is the option to enable Survival Mode, a sub-gamemode where all players spawn together at the beginning. In most realistic servers, survival mode is paired with realistic mode. These servers are referred to as R/S (Realistic-Survival) servers. When a player dies, they must wait until the round is decided, then every player spawns again to start the next round. This game mode also provides a break from the normal non-stop action and more intensive battles. R/S mode games usually consist of short length battles between two sides in Capture the Flag mode.

Since this gamemode is fairly similar to the online action/FPS PC game Counter-Strike, many Counter-Strike 2D replica maps have been created and designed specifically for playing in R/S mode.

Around the time of Soldat v1.3.1, most R/S matches developed a certain 'gentlemen's rule' that a player should not 'Capture the Flag' unless the opposing team is defeated. Because this is an unwritten rule, it is confusing to most people new to R/S servers. 'Capping' or 'Running' in an R/S server is usually considered bad etiquette, because it effectively defeats the other team without having to kill them. In more popular servers ran by R/S clans, capturing the flag is a legit tactic, as the gamemode is still 'Capture the Flag', not 'Team Deathmatch', which only involves eradicating the enemy team. On the other hand, killing the other team AND capping the flag in the few seconds remaining before the round ends, is called a 'doublecap', earns the team 2 points instead of the normal single point and is accepted in most servers, although many have implemented 'anti-doublecap' scripts to prevent it.

Advance mode may be combined with the other game modes, e.g. for R/S/A mode, or it can be active by itself. In Advance mode players start the match armed only with secondary weapons. Primary guns are progressively unlocked as a reward for frags. With its forced low-tech phase and limited weapon choices, advance mode is the most tactical Soldat mode.

• Soldat Official Site (Polish/English)
• Official Messageboard
• Official Soldat Guide/Wiki

• Soldat at MobyGames

There are several leagues, for several gamemodes, where Soldat clans can participate:

• ESL (Electronic Sports League) - Offers DM, TDM and CTF Ladders
• TNL (The Next League) & TPC (The Pwnage Cup) - Active CTF League, playing in seasons
• SCTFL (Soldat Capture The Flag League) - Intercontinental CTF League with a radical system
• SRL (Soldat Realistic League) - Intercontinental Realistic Mode CTF League
• SaD CTF Tournament - An 8-team tournament with invited clans run by SaD

• Interview with Michał Marcinkowski

• uname - An actual community of soldat 1.3.0.
• Selfkill - A German resource for Soldat tools, news, clans, etc.
• Ultimate 13 Soldat - A huge American website which hosts many Soldat servers
• EnEsCe Corp - American community. Forums, dedicated servers, news, soldat-related programs
• Fractured Soldat - North American community. Great community, forums, hosts servers and other services
• Fractional Details - Turkish Soldat mods and extras
• Fractional Services - Turkish Soldat Upload Service by Fractional Details
• Soldat Brasil - Brazilian Soldat Forums; Brazilian servers' info and clans
• Aussoldat.com - Australian Soldat community forums, server info, clans, and 1GB+ worth of Soldat downloads
• Soldat Frags - Forum, dedicated servers, resources, and more
• Soldat-TR - Turkish Soldat Community
• Strategic Soldat - Forum, servers, stats, status page, information. R/S Community.
• Soldats - Polish Website
• Real Soldat - Forum, tactics and links dedicated to "R/S"
• Other FPS - Soldat Technical Support
• xDreamerCore - Small Community, free zitro stats, game servers, R/S server stats, video productions, and more to come
• DS Clan Forums - Home to a medium sized American R/S community hosted on the U13 web servers.
• Soldat Files Directory - Largest soldat files directory, hundreds of maps, mods, and files for soldat available to download.
• Soldat French Community - French Website.
• Soldat Russian Community - Russian Community Website.