How to play Sopwith
Fly a biplane over a front several screens wide. Your airfield is at the left end and theirs at the right, and in between stand their factories, fuel tanks and tanks. Destroy every one of them to win the round.
You carry five bombs, a hundred rounds and one tank of fuel, so the war is fought in sorties: fly out, hit what you can, then land back home to refuel and rearm. Enemy biplanes take off to meet you.
Rules
- To take off, open the throttle, roll down your runway and pull up once you have speed. Below stall speed the nose drops and the plane sinks.
- Factories only fall to bombs. A fuel tank takes two bullets or one bomb and blows up whatever stands next to it; a tank takes three bullets. From round 2 the tanks fire flak as you pass over.
- Bombs keep the plane’s speed and direction, so let go before you reach the target. Drop one from too low and its blast can catch you.
- A factory scores 100, a fuel tank 150, a tank 200 and an enemy plane 250, each times the round number. Hitting an ox costs 200 times the round. Clearing a round adds 500 times the round.
- Three hits from enemy guns or flak bring you down. So do the ground, a bird, a mid-air collision and a landing that is too fast, too steep or upside down. You have three planes.
- Land slow and level on your own runway and stop with the throttle closed: the ground crew refuels, rearms and patches the plane and turns it to face the front.
- Each round adds two targets and, up to three, one more enemy plane in the air at a time. Their planes never fly over your airfield.
- Switch tabs and the game pauses. Only finished games are saved.
Controls
- Comma · ↑ / W
- Pull up (hold to take off or loop)
- Slash · ↓ / S
- Push the nose down
- Period · F
- Flip upside down, or back
- X · → / D
- More throttle
- Z · ← / A
- Less throttle
- Space (hold)
- Fire
- B
- Drop a bomb
- H
- Autopilot flies you home and lands
- Click / tap and hold
- Fire
- Touch
- On-screen stick, throttle, flip, home, bomb and fire buttons
- P / Esc
- Pause
Tips
- The radar strip along the bottom shows the whole front: targets still standing as dark ticks, enemy planes as dots and you in red.
- Hit a fuel tank that stands next to a factory and its explosion takes the factory too, which saves a bomb.
- Low on fuel or out of bombs? Press H and the autopilot flies you home and lands. Touch the stick or the throttle to take over again.
- Shooting a flock of birds scatters it; flying into one costs a plane.
- If you stall, push the nose down for speed; pulling up won’t help.
Sopwith strategy
Throttle and speed
Each throttle notch is worth about the same amount of level speed. One notch is below stall speed, two cruises slowly enough to land, and three or four are fast. On the ground two notches cannot reach take-off speed, so take off on three or four. Climbing costs speed and diving gains it. A full tank lasts about 80 seconds at full throttle and about twice that on two notches.
Aiming bombs
A bomb leaves with the plane’s full speed and direction, then slows sideways as it falls, so in level flight at cruising speed it lands well ahead of the drop point. A shallow dive brings the landing point closer and makes it easier to judge. The blast reaches a little further than half a factory’s width either side, and an exploding fuel tank reaches twice as far. Targets stand in pairs, so a fuel tank beside a factory is the one to hit.
Dogfighting
Enemy planes turn more slowly than you and fly slower than your top speed, so a tight turn or a loop puts you behind them. They fire short bursts only when you are almost dead ahead, and break away rather than ram you. Two hits bring one down. They never cross over your airfield, so if you are hurt, run for home.
Plan each sortie
The first round has eight targets and each round after adds two, up to sixteen. With five bombs a load, a sortie covers two or three sites before you have to land. Rearming is quick: the tank refills in about two seconds and bombs load at about three a second, so wait until all five are aboard before you take off.
About Sopwith
Sopwith was written by David L. Clark at the Canadian firm BMB Compuscience in 1984 to show off the company’s Imaginet network, but most people played it alone against computer planes, in four-colour CGA on office PCs. Sopwith 2 followed in 1985 with the oxen and the birds.
This version keeps the original’s sorties, its landings to refuel and rearm, and its keys: comma and slash for the stick, period to flip, Z and X for the throttle, Space to fire, B to bomb and H to fly home. The war is drawn in ink, and only your plane is red.
Questions
Is this the original Sopwith?
No. It is a tribute made for this site that plays in the browser, with the same idea and the same keys but its own world, scoring and enemy pilots. The original’s source code was released in 2000, and SDL Sopwith is a port of it for modern systems.
How do I land?
Line up with your runway and come in shallow, upright and not too fast, with a little throttle on. Once the wheels are down, close the throttle so you stop before the end. Or press H and let the autopilot do it.
How is the score calculated?
Factories score 100, fuel tanks 150, tanks 200 and enemy planes 250, each times the round number. An ox costs 200 times the round, and a cleared round adds 500 times the round. The Expert target is 2,000 and Pro is 20,000.
How do I play Sopwith on a phone?
Touch screens get buttons to pull up and push down, for the throttle, flip, home, bomb and fire. Pressing and holding the playfield fires too.
