Path: spunky!cmcl2!yale.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!news.Brown.EDU!noc.near.net!uunet!usc!news.service.uci.edu!network.ucsd.edu!sdcc12!sdcc13!cfodor
 From: cfodor@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Hi.)
 Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
 Subject: Please Flame me!
 Summary: Seven hundred fifty four thousand eight hundred fifty nine.
 Message-ID: <38740@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>
 Date: 29 Sep 92 03:50:03 GMT
 Sender: news@sdcc12.ucsd.edu
 Organization: University of California, San Diego
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 Nntp-Posting-Host: sdcc13.ucsd.edu
 
 I was bored, so I thought I'd write something that other people
 could pick apart and explain to me how stupid I was. :)
 
 Seriously, this is something I hope that gets included with racegen
 or possibly in the FAQ.  It is an attempt to help newbies to design
 their races.  People can learn in the game what to do, but when
 they get into racegen they are on their own, and so often they
 give themselves a real loser of a race.  Hopefully this will
 help.  All inaccuracies were purposely designed to help me win
 games.
 
 -------------
 
 A Little Dissertation on Racegen (and a few other things)
  
     By Christopher Fodor (aka Lord Feepness)  9/92
  
 This document does not tell you how to compile a client, how to connect
 or find a game, or how to use vi.  It is merely here to give you an
 idea of how to go about playing.
  
 Enrolling your race:
  
 In most GB games you will be required to register your race by using
 some form of race generator to selectively choose your race attributes.
 This is when you first begin playing the game.  You are given a set
 number of points and must apply those points to tweak attributes of your
 race.  This is the most important part of the game.  You can modify
 certain of your race attributes to be poor, and then modify others
 so that they are stronger.  In this way, your race becomes a custom
 unique entity.
  
 The race attributes follow:
  
 Planet type: The planet type you choose is very important as your home
 planet type limits the sectors types you can choose, establishes your
 initial resource production, number of civs you will produce
 initially, and your atmosphere preference.
  
 Airless (symbol: O) - Airless planets are very small, and, despite their name
 usually have an atmosphere.  The atmosphere, if I am correct, is never
 methane (more on this later).  Airless consist of usually land and mountain
 sectors, sometimes desert.  Airlesses can sometimes be VERY small, normally
 though they range from small to small-medium.  Airlesses have very
 low fertility meaning initial population would be extremely low.
  
 Iceball (symbol: #) - Iceballs range in the same size as airless, except,
 instead of land and mountain, they consist of ice and mountain.  Iceballs
 never have any atmosphere.  Resources will be lower than an airless,
 but fertility will be higher.
  
 Do not pick airless or iceball as your starting planet unless you
 know what you are getting into.  You do get a point bonus for starting
 on them, but it is difficult.
  
 Waterball (symbol: .) - Waterballs range in the medium size mostly.
 Waterballs range from all water, to water with a little land and
 ice bands at the poles.  Waterballs have low resource deposits compared
 to other same sized planets, but much higher fertility, resulting in
 lots of population at first.  Waterballs can be both methane or
 mostly normal.
  
 Class M (symbol: @) - This represents an earth-type planet.  Like
 earth, it can be (and often is) mostly water.  However, sectors
 present on the planet can include ice at the poles, mountains,
 forest, desert, and land.  Having a variety of sectors increases
 the resource content, but lowers the fertility slightly.  Class-M's
 can have both types of atmospheres.
  
 Asteroid (symbol: o) - Asteroids are very small airlesses.  They
 have very low fertility.  Would you want to start a race on an
 asteroid?    I didn't think so.   No atmosphere though.
  
 Forest (symbol: '(') - Forest planets contain significant amount
 of jungle, with ice at the poles and land and water scattered
 in for good measure.  They can range from medium to large, but
 have a higher percentage of methane atmosphere.  Resource content
 is ok, and fertility is very high.
  
 Desert (symnol: -) - Desert planets are about 50/50 methane/normal.
 Desert planets will have very low fertility resulting in low population
 at first.  They range from medium to huge. Deserts are almost all
 desert sectors, in addition to ice bands at the poles, and splotches
 of land and/or mountains.
  
 Jovains (symbol: ~) - Jovian planets are massive.  At least twice the size
 of the largest desert, they usually have a third the resources.  A
 Jovian planet is ALL gaseous sectors, which have a very high fertility
 and very low resource.  Races which start on Jovians are separated from
 races which start on normal worlds, because normal races may not
 pick gas as a compatible sector and jovians (as they are called) may only
 pick gas.  However (and this is a big however) gas sectors on jovians may NOT
 in any way be terraformed into any other sector type.  On other planets
 sectors can be terraformed back and forth however you please.  Jovians
 are typified by about a 50/50 split on methane/normal atmosphere.
 Jovians aren't recommended for beginners.
  
 The big atmosphere deal: Atmospheres are usually considered to be
 either "normal" or "methane."  A methane atmosphere consists of
 65% or more methane with other gases scattered in.  Most normal
 atmosphere are combinations of all gases with some being higher than
 other.  The atmosphere of your home planet is your ideal atmosphere,
 and much of your compatability with other planets will be based on
 that.  Unfortunately for the methane races, compatability is very
 bad for them on normal (and vaccum) planets, making colonization
 hard.  Conversely, compat is very high on other methane worlds.
 For "normal" air breathers, compat across the board is pretty
 average, except on methane worlds where it is very bad.  Most people
 want normal atmospheres, and will bitch for hours about getting
 methane.
  
 Sector compats: After picking your planet, you pick compatability
 with sectors.  All races are 100% compatible with plated.  Plated
 representing a totally efficient sector, as in Asimov's Trantor
 of _Foundation_ (no relation to the race of the same name :).
 Plated sector are created when a sector any sector (except gas)
 gets 100% efficient.  The opposite of a plated sector, is a
 wasted sector, which has been bombarded!  Wasted sectors can
 be repaired.
  
 Here is a quick rundown of the sectors and info about them.
  
 Sector   Symbol  Defense   Fertility   Resource   Abundance (scale 1-10)
 Plated     o        4         N/A        N/A         N/A
 Ocean      .        1        High        Avg         4
 Gas        ~        2        High!       Low!        10+
 Ice        #        2        Avg         Avg         4
 Mountain   ^        3        Low         High        4
 Land       *        1        Avg         Avg         5
 Desert     -        2        Low         High        6
 Forest     )        3        High        Low         3
 Wasted     %        0         N/A        N/A         N/A
  
 Note that the abundance is only a subjective measure by me and
 will vary with the universe.  Fert and resource will vary also
 but not as much.  Defense values are straight from the server
 code.
  
 Defense value of a sector affects attacks land combat by multiplying
 the defender's strength.  It also protects ships landed on them
 by decreasing the chance to hit by 10% * defense value, and adding
 defense value armor points onto the ship.
  
 Your percent compatability will affect how much popn can live on
 that type of sector, how well you fight on that sector, and how well
 you mine resources on the sector.  If you are 50% compat to a sector
 your combat strength will be 1/2 that of a 100% race.  If you have 0%
 compat with a sector, you will neither increase the efficiency of the
 sector or mine resources from it.
  
 You always have to pick one home sector type that will for sure occur
 on your home type planet.  Sectors are more expensive in points
 the less common they are on your homeworld.  It is also more expensive
 in points to choose lots of sectors.
  
 Rate of Explore: Explore rate determines how fast your civs expand
 by themselves during updates.  Be aware that civs want to move from
 low fertility to high fertility, not the other way around.  This
 saves you from using APS (actionpoints), but not much else.
  
 Fertility: The fertility of your race is not directly related to the
 fertility of a sector.  What it is is the percentage chance that your
 race will raise the ferility of a sector by 1 each update.  This can
 be useful to generate lots and lots of civs.
  
 Birthrate: This might be better represented as fecundity.  A high number
 means high reproduction, and a low number means low reproduction.  A good
 example of a 100% birthrate would be insects (lots born, die fast,) and
 a low birthrate might be a whale or an elephant (few born, long span,).
 The jist of it is that a high birthrate means your population (on a sector)
 will move more quickly towards the maxinum number that can be supported
 (on that sector).  A low birthrate means that you gradually move towards
 that maximum.  As you can (hopefully) see, this is a double edged sword,
 but generally it is more convenient to have a high birthrate than low.
  
 Fight: FIGHT!  The best.  This is way cool.  Feep likes it.  Seriously,
 this is merely an exact scale of how well your race tears the guts
 out of someone else.  It ranges from 1 to 13 normally.  Even for the techies
 you should have at least 3 unless you have a good reason to do something
 else.  Think about it.  If you start with fight 1, why not fight twice
 as well for just a few points.  Then when you have fight 2, why not
 spend a few more to increase by 50% to fight 3.  After that your
 percentage gains are lower and it becomes a personal thing, but an
 extremely low fight will hamper you the entire game.  Mesos normally have
 high fight, and normals lower.
  
 Metabolism:  Metabolism is an indication of how well you mine resources
 and increase efficiency.  Efficiency is an integer, and you raise
 efficiency on your sectors based on your metabolism.  A metabolism of
 2 would raise efficiency twice as fast as a metab of 1, and also,
 mine (remove) twice as many resources when production occurrs.  Note that
 production on a sector occurs is merely a percentage chance based
 on efficiency.  If a sector does produce, the amount produced is
 based on the amount of resources in the sector, the race metabolism, and
 your compatability with the sector.  The amount you mine is then removed
 from the sector.
  
 #sexes:  This is the minimum number of sexes needed to reproduce.  One sex
 is very convenient because no one ever needs to worry about safe sex,
 and because it is very easy (on ACTIONPOINTS) to move 1 civ around.
 Six sexes is really hard to work with.  And then there is the legendary
 57 sex race which no one ever wants to talk about.
  
 Intelligence:  Intelligence is an exact determination of how smart your
 dudes are.  Your tech will rise by intel/100 each update.  Additionally,
 you may use the "technology" command to invest money in research
 which will increase your tech.  However, normally the bulk of tech will
 come from intelligence.  Intelligence is gotten in different ways discussed
 below:
  
 Normals:  This would be a race of individuals.  Intelligence is a constant,
 decided when you gen your race.  This is very simple.  A common sub-class
 of the normal is the techie who has a very high intelligence.  Normals
 are nice because they are producing tech from the very start.
  
 Mesos: Mesos (or metamorphic races as they are now called) are like the
 Thing.  They are fighters, not thinkers, though they have a group
 mass intelligence.  The maximum cap on their intelligence is decided when
 you gen your race, and as more civs are generated, the smarter the race
 will get.  Most mesos will be behind the normals on tech because mesos
 start with intelligence zero!
  
 Note:  Mesos/Metas name confusion.  They used to be called mesomorphic
 races, until someone realized that meant "of medium size".  Now they
 are called "metamorphic" which is the original intent "shape changer".
 Call 'em mesos/metas/morphs they don't care because they'll be to
 busy cleaning their teeth with your carpal-bones.  Ask one a question,
 it won't answer, they can't talk.
  
 Mass:  Mass is an important, if oft ignored, stat.  A low mass allows for
 lower fuel usage in both hyper-jumping and normal travel.  Other than
 that mass really isn't that important, but giving yourself a really high mass
 can really shoot yourself in the foot.
  
 Absorb:  Remember _Aliens_?  Remember _The Thing_?  That's the idea.
 Suck in the writhing, screaming, body, and spit out a happy, thriving,
 hungry, little new dude.  This is very convenient, and hours of fun
 for the whole family.
  
 One final note: Do not go too far!  Unless you've played at least one
 game, don't decide: "well geez, all I need is tech and nothing else,
 I'll give myself nothing but that".  Well, let me say this, I see
 one every game, and every game they go down in flames.  Same goes for
 the other stats.  Don't go too far unless you are prepared.
  
 That's it.  Now you are prepared to run racegen hopefully a little more than
 you were before.  Now find out how to turn on your factory.
  
 


-- 



-----
John Deragon		   deragon@cs.nyu.edu | deragon@jethro.cs.nyu.edu
-----
Space is big.  You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly
big it is.   I mean, you  may think it's a long  way down the road to the 
drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.
-- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

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