Warfare SDL is a combination FPS and flight sim. Runs on any machine (windows, linux, mac, beowulf cluster, etc.), you will find this game quite different from any other game on the shelves today.
Remember the ability to destroy walls and terrain in Red Faction? Well, take that a step further, and now any weapon can cause such deformations - including walls, terrain, vehicles, and yes, you guessed it, people.
Ok, so what also makes this a flight sim?
Well, the idea is to pit large space ships against each other.
hmm... so each player gets their own ship? Then where's the FPS?
No, each player does not get their own ship. Each ship is fully laid-out - you as the player get to walk around the ship, and if you rank well enough (or nobody else is alive who is qualified), you control the ship.
Ok... I think I get it. So why would I want to walk around on a ship I can't control?
You probably wouldn't. The idea for the other players is to board other ships and take them over. This involves shooting a hole in the hull, piloting a smaller vehicle (or space suit) through the hole, and wreaking havok with the enemy crew. Battle your way to their bridge, and then use their own ship against the rest of their fleet (or grab it and run like hell depending on what the mission is).
Wow... that sounds like some insane fun. Is it multiplayer?
Definately. In fact, it is multiplayer only.
Great! I want in... but what if I'm all alone?
No problem. The intention is to have very intelligent bots playing to fill whatever gaps there may be. If you are one of the first to play, you will be under the command of a bot. There will be a bot navigator attempting to complete the mission. Essentially, until you get a higher rank through exceptional skill, you will be a grunt invading the enemy ships as they grow close enough
Ok, I can live with that. Umm... how large do you expect these engagements to be?
I'll leave that up to whoever is running the server... but I will say that the official machines will support hundreds of players and bots in a single engagement.
Cool! So... just how large are the ships we are using?
The objective is to have ships as small as a small shuttlecraft to something the size of the death star from star wars (with small vehicles and teleporters to get to essential parts of the ship of course, for something that size).
Holy crap! Just what do I need to run this thing?
This is an early projection, but I would suspect you would need at the least a dual-core or multi-CPU machine. This game makes heavy use of multiple threads to improve performance on multi-CPU machines, and some of what's going on in the background will all-out require the processing power that multiple CPUs give you. On the other hand, I will be trying to do all in my power to balance the processing load between the client and the server, so if I have a big beefy server you can have a less powerful client and still run the game smoothly.