Silo

About

Silo is a multiplayer "Missile Command" real-time strategy game. It's free and runs as a Java applet. All players enter the same game, so grab 99 of your friends and push the button!

Controls

Defense Panel (Landscape):

• LClick and RClick launch missiles to intercept incoming missiles.

Mini-Map:

• LClick to launch missiles at enemies or set your home base.
• RClick to launch transport to occupy an empty territory, take over an enemy's, or reinforce your own.

Upgrades:

• Click "sell" to cede your home base territory and get an upgrade point.
• Click on one of the other upgrade buttons to spend an upgrade point on that upgrade.
• Click either of the "x1" icons at any time to cycle the size of a missile salvo between 1, 3, and 5 missiles (no upgrade points required).

Gameplay Overview

The right-hand side of the screen is a mini-map divided into 100 territories. Your territories are green, while other players are various shades of red and blue. Grey territories are unoccupied.

You start with 3 transport planes and you get another plane every 20 seconds. Use these planes to occupy other territories and expand.

The left-hand side of the screen is a landscape that abstractly represents all your territories. All missiles launched at any of your territories will show up on this defense panel, where you launch your own missiles to intercept them and blow them up before they reach the ground. Any transports flying over your territory (including your own transports) will show up on the defense panel and can be shot down. Transports will appear to move faster or slower based on how many of your territories they have to fly over before they move outside your borders.

If an enemy missile is allowed to touch the ground, the territory it was originally aimed at is destroyed. As long as you have other territories left, you are still in the game.

"Sell" your territories to get upgrade points. A sold territory goes instantly to the weakest player.

Gameplay is "King of the Hill". The battle's always going - join anytime and survive as long as you can!

Upgrades

Army

Increases the number of soldiers carried per transport and stationed at each territory by two soldiers per upgrade (+2, +4, etc). Each transport you launch (and each territory you possess) has 20 soldiers initially. Whenever there is fighting in a territory, each side loses 1 soldier per second.

 

Transport Speed (T.SPD)

Makes each transport fly faster. This makes them harder to shoot down for enemy players, plus you'll win more races to get to unoccupied territories.

 

Build

Increases the build rate of your missiles. The build rate increase of a single "Build" upgrade is equivalent to owning two extra territories.

 

Store

Increases the maximum number of missiles you can have by 100.

 

Defensive Missile Speed (D.SPD)

Increases the speed of your defensive missiles.

 

Shield

Creates an energy shield just over ground level on the defense panel. The width of the shield is proportional to the number of shield upgrades you have over the number of territories you possess. If an incoming missile strikes the shield, all onscreen missiles are destroyed and the shield loses one upgrade's worth of power.

 

Attack Missile Speed (A.SPD)

Increases the speed of your attack missiles. This affects both how fast they move across the mini-map and how fast they fall on your enemies' defense panels.

 

Deadman Missiles (Skull & Crossbones)

At the moment you die (all your territories and transports are destroyed), one very fast missile will be fired at every other territory for every upgrade point you spend on Deadman Missiles. If you raised this to Level 3 and a particular opponent had 4 territories, that opponent would soon have 12 missiles screaming down at 'em. Whenever Deadman Missiles are loosed, all players hear an air-raid siren to give them a slight warning.

 

It's worth noting that all of the "speed" upgrades (transport, defensive missile, and offensive missile) are asymptotic - that is, the first few upgrades give a more noticeable boost, while further upgrades creep slowly towards a maximum value.

Strategy

Build Rate, Attack Missile Speed and Defensive Missile Speed are your most important upgrades to begin with. You should sell at least half of the territories you occupy until you can get the levels up around 2 or 3.

Depending on how full the map is, a single Transport Speed upgrade can really help if you have to cross enemy airspace. Likewise, a single Army upgrade can help you win battles for enemy territories instead of being mutually destroyed. If you do conquer a territory, consider reinforcing it right away - there may only be one soldier left defending it. Of course this also means you should be on the lookout for enemy territories where conflict was just resolved - send a tranport in there and it may fall quickly.

Increasing Storage isn't usually necessary, and a Shield should only be bought as an afterthought if you can spare the upgrade. Since it's the only upgrade that can be destroyed, you're wasting effort if you depend on it too much. Upgrading Deadman Missiles is an interesting choice, since there of no value whatsoever until you're dead - but it sure is satisfying to see half your enemies fry when you do go.

Firing too many missiles against an enemy actually makes the attack easier to defend - if you blow up one missile in a tight knot, all the rest go up as well. About 6 missiles per second is the hardest attack to defend.

If you join a game and established players instantly send dozens of missiles your way, spend your 3 upgrades on the deadman missiles. Let yourself be nuked into oblivion, then sit back and enjoy your revenge.

Credits

Silo was created by Abe Pralle and Jacob Stevens.

Many thanks to Ty Heath, Matt Shanker, and Paul Stevens for invaluable assistance, suggestions, and playtesting.

The Silo network server is programmed on the Linux platform in C++. The client is Java 1.8 and uses Plasmaworks' own Java GameKit. Photoshop 7.0 was used for the artwork and Sound Forge Studio 6.0 for the sound effects.