HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: patton@phy.uab.edu (David Patton)
Subject: Re: Hell Peacock
Followup-To: patton@phy.uab.edu
Reply-To: patton@phy.uab.edu
Organization: University of Alabama at Birmingham
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 17:47:36 GMT

Does anybody know of any code similar to the xnetrekm program at pittslug.sug.org
which does not require  Motiff ?
Is there anything similar which works with Metaserver II?

Adthanksvance

patton@phy.uab.edu




Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: esj@cs.brown.edu (Eugene Santos Jr.)
Subject: Re: Rank
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 18:55:47 GMT

In article <BATHURST.92Oct12214601@felix.noaapmel.gov> bathurst@noaapmel.gov (Bill Bathurst) writes:
>In article <1992Oct13.035120.27797@cs.brown.edu> esj@cs.brown.edu (Eugene Santos Jr.) writes:
>
>I don't look at rank, I look at their stats.  I look at what ships they
>play.  If someone SC bombs a lot I expect a lower Bombing/Planet/Offense
>total.  If someone is a dedicated ogger I expected a good Boming/Planet/Offense
>total.  It can be hard to quantify, but it is a sign of how productive a 
>player is (as Spaceace mentioned).
>
>
>Azusa "Death Sperm from Hell"
>--
>Bill Bathurst				Internet:	bathurst@noaapmel.gov 
>NOAA/PMEL				Phone:		(206) 526-6765
>

I don't know who you are replying to, but I didn't post that message.
At least I'm pretty sure I didn't. Did I?

Captain "an incredibly confused" timid

uucp:	...!{ihnp4,decvax}!brunix!esj		Eugene Santos Jr.
bitnet:	esj@browncs.bitnet			PO Box 1910, Computer Science
arpa:	esj%cs.brown.edu@relay.cs.net		Brown University
csnet:	esj@cs.brown.edu			Providence, RI 02912
From: kb32+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kevin Michael Bernatz)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Sun Tzu's Guide to Taking 4th Space
Date: 15 Oct 92 20:09:31 GMT
	<BATHURST.92Oct14214025@felix.noaapmel.gov>
Organization: Senior, Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.netrek: 15-Oct-92 Re: Sun Tzu's Guide to
Taki.. Bill Bathurst@noaapmel.g (539)

>  It would be
> like comparing you logged onto bezier and trying to fight Mojo with a scout.

Ahh, therein lies a problem.  I'm not stupid enough to try to fight Mojo
in a scout on bezier.  Don't send a boy to do a man's job.

-KB
 "If you can't run with the big dogs, you better stay on the porch."
From: blojo@xcf.berkeley.edu (Jon Blow)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: LA Riot -vs- GB, game stats
Date: 11 Oct 1992 01:27:25 GMT
Organization: Experimental Computing Facility, Univ. of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: graft.berkeley.edu

Well, I'm not going to flame or anything.  I was pretty pissed and frustrated
during the game, but I suppose this was mostly due to lots of flowing
adrenalin and the combative urge and all that.

Anyway, what we've got to keep in mind is that, even though things like
minimum-lag-cutoffs and neutral-ground-servers might actually help reduce
the lag problem, it won't stop the bitching.  Lag has always been a
convenient excuse for poor performance, whether true or not, and people
will always use it.

All things being equal, the losing team will always be convinced that their
lag was the worse, sort of the way one team is always convinced that the
other team's planets are popping more.

I'm not really worried about the outcome of the game; sure, it may very
well have hurt our chances of making the playoffs (it is now imperative
that we beat Side Salad to make it) but, well, that doesn't piss me off
very much.  I guess I believe that there is more to life than being
Kings of the Fall 1992 INL Hill for about two weeks and, for that brief
period, having all xtrek newbies being impressed with one's largeness.

On another note, I'm kind of bummed that Amazing posted such rampant
flamage; as team co-captain, he is taken to be representative of the
team as a whole and, well, that kind of posting just seems like an
irresponsible thing for a captain to do.  So, well, I'd like to apologize
for my team's flamage, even though I'm not a representative member
(indeed, part of the "bottom half of the line-up".)

Anyway, I'm not going to polish this off with any sort of "It was a good
game" rubbish, because it wasn't.  But, I'd like to thank LAR for not
erupting into total counter-flamage.

  Jon
  a.k.a. Hell Peacock
From: botelle@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Justin Botelle)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Scott's night on Bronco
Date: 12 Oct 92 02:34:04 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Scott, you played on a bad night for clue.  Sunday's are probably the worst.
From what you said the other team did not seem that strong, and yet they 
genocided you.  Your dogfighting skills must have been to no avail.

As for stats, everyone will tell you how easy it is to get great Stats when
your team is reduced to LPS.

Nice try, though.

Justin
From: beorn@elk.Berkeley.EDU (Beorn Johnson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: This weeks xtrek history lesson
Date: 12 Oct 1992 08:05:04 GMT
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: elk.berkeley.edu


(By the way, when are these high clue games at CMU?   I guess with the
time-zone difference all of the clue has left by the time I start playing.
That or the que is at 14 -- what's going on out there?!.)




Before ogging (and I'm assuming before CMU had an xtrek server), there
was "Dweebing".  "Dweebing" (named for the player "dweeb", also an
Empire fanatic, and a fanatical game player in general) was a less
strategically motivated form of ogging, in that it wasn't significant
whether or not the target player hard armies, or even if the target had
a kill.  Just locate a player, preferably one who is distracted, cloak,
maxwarp, etc. etc.  I'm sure you all know the (boring, simplistic) drill.

I don't know for sure, but I am nearly certain that this was a factor
in putting in the defense requirement for rank (long before bezier
existed).  I am also pretty certain that this is why slow-cloak
was added.  The game was modified to motivate good play, as
dweebing took a lot out of the fun of the game for many people.



At CMU, the strategic usefulness of suicide play has become paramount,
and "ogging" is without question a significant tactic.  However, I agree
with Scott Drellishak that dogfighting is more fun and interesting.

My main argument against ogging is that it reduces the advantage of
skill (which is obviously one of it's strategic advantages).  I am not
terribly convinced that good ogging requires that much skill.

Now, if the game were changed, perhaps dogfighting would be the most
important tactic.  Or, with other changes, bombing would be the
most important tactic.  Or even refitting (ala Sturgeon -- ick!) . . .

But perhaps balancing the game such that the ideal tactic depends on
the conditions of the game would make the game more interesting.  I've
had many ideas, but never enough desire to start a server.  Certainly
if I did I would try to make ogging less desirable and dogfighting more
desirable.  (But then the good dogfighters would discourage the oggers,
and then the oggers would start flaming me on r.g.n . . .)



It seems that many vocal CMU players are keen to keep the game what
they learned it to be, just as Scott D. and I (and I hope others) want to
keep the game more like what we learned it to be.  It is unfortunate but
perhaps inevitable that the debate has all been lost in irrelevant flames.

Change will occur regardless.  Does anyone who likes ogging want to
encourage it further?  Return to instant uncloaking.  Or for more fun,
read the recent thread on jousting.



	Beorn
	(aka Snidly, yet another low clue Berkeley player)
From: tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Timothy C. Worsley)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: NBR
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:38:44 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


	So the info-borg I complained about is the new NBR client, eh?  Isn't
the NBR client supposed to be part of the NBR package, along with an NBR
server?  It seems perfectly clear that the new features are designed at
client-side additions, not server-client interations.  Why would someone
write a the new client in this way if they intended to write an improved
server to go along with it?  It is clear that the NBR is, as I have
rather expected all along, an excuse to replace the old client with a
new "better" client (Read: info-borg).  And you've bought it.
	People who use it assure me that it makes no difference what-so-ever. 
Do I need to say that this is bullshit?  If it made no difference, then
why would someone have gone to the trouble of writing it?  Isn't this
the same arguement that the person who blessed the Beef client used (As
least he had the sense not to put it up for FTP.)?  Everyone was quite
upset about that.

	As for Rob, I don't want you to appologize for me.  I say what I mean.

ZZnew guy
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: von@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steve Von Worley)
Subject: Re: INL strategy: take a weak planet, or the front line?
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:52:26 GMT

In article <BvtIHs.FKr.2@cs.cmu.edu> hill@norman.VI.RI.CMU.EDU (Robert Hill) writes:
>
>Some people have commented on this, and I have found it to be quite  
>interesting.
>
>Mojo thinks you should leave a back line planet to take the front line.  I  
>strongly disagree.  Take as many cheap planets as you can.  If the front  
>is free, take the front.  If you don't own a back line planet, take the  
>back line planet.
>
>Armies wins the game.  Being in enemy space is important, but not as  
>important as army production.
>
>Discussion?

I think that taking any planet is a good thing, when your team has more
armies than the opposing team.  Since most planets which are not front
line are retaken within seconds of being destroyed, there is simply an
army depletion on both sides.  This is of course good for the team with
more armies, bad for the other.

When your team has less armies than the opposing team, backline takes
are generally wasteful, unless you can take an agri with a lucky bomb
and gaurd it until it pops.  Furthermore, such an agri will probably
become an object of obsession to the opposing team, and you may be
able to kill many carried armies with well timed Oggs (TM).

[when I say "armies" above, I mean armies and potential armies [production])

Above all, though, I believe bombing is the key to victory.

Sandia - Dr. Destructo - Bloated Cow - Stress Puppy - Scummi Bear
-- 
Steve Von Worley
von@cory.berkeley.edu
Computer Science Gradual Student
University of California at Berzerkly 
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org (Felix S. Gallo)
Subject: The Fine Art of 1 Update Netrek
Followup-To: rec.games.netrek
Summary: the author writes a post
Keywords: my three scum
Organization: Life in the Slow Lane, inc.
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 04:43:29 GMT


As a couple of people saw on bronco tonight, I've finally found
a nice color terminal upon which to play netrek.  It's my 386/25,
in my bedroom.

I've got Linux .98 (a free Unix clone), KA9Q 7.0 (a free user-space
SLIP program), SLIP access, Xfree86 (a free X11R5 port for 80x86
Unix clones), and, ahem, a Sun3 account in Illinois which can run the
netrek binary with the display set to my machine in Texas.  Ping
times are around 450 ms roundtrip for 100 byte packets.  Not bad
for a twelve-hop route including two compression/decompression
cycles and a trip through X11.

I can manage about 3-4 updates per second, hardwarewise, in color.
However, the flicker is so unbelievably distracting that I find it
easier and more fun to play the way God intended: 60 updates a
minute, like an MTV video or a slide show controlled by a jerking
epileptic.

I accounted for about 9 armies in 20 minutes before coming to the
conclusion that there has never been a more clue-forcing and yet
extremely frustrating way to play netrek.  Every duck and cover
scout move had to be made while the screen redrew -- blind -- with
as much as an inch and a half of error in enemy positional guessing.
Torps would come out at their leisure.  I finally realized I'd
have to come back at the problem from another angle when I out-juked
an anti-scoutbomber (what a dumb strategy that is) only to fall for
the uncloaking base next to you trick.  1 update/second netrek is
extremely demanding on one's powers of multitasking.

So my question is: does anyone else play like this?  Clearly,
engaging the enemy is not something to be taken lightly when they
receive nine times as much information as you, but what are other
strategies people use when they've got the equivalent of 800 ms
lag?  I remember some CMU people talking about cloaking when they
entered to maximize survival chances.

My secondary question: what are the best parameters for the various
packet sizes under SLIP if one is to play netrek?  Netrek seems
very interactive to me, so I'd guess that you'd want to keep the
packet size low, but a netrek X11 connection has got to be almost
as bad as an ftp session.  Has anyone experimented with this sort
of thing?

It's cool to play netrek at 1 update per second.  It's cool to play
netrek at home, naked, on your 386.  Real men do it.  Do it.  You'll
love it.  Do it.  Trak trak trak.

grand double admiral sunscreamer
minister of lag, hell's bagels
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Felix Sebastian Gallo                              rhodesia@wixer.cactus.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: jecoleb@eos.ncsu.edu (have clue, will travel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Netrek in an arcade?
Date: 7 Oct 92 19:28:27 GMT
Reply-To: jecoleb@eos.ncsu.edu
Organization: The Ghost Of Christmas Past Society


>In article <> paulsen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (FreeKill) writes:
>>If the technology was there to have netrek in an arcade as it exists now,
>>what changes would have to be made to handle the amount of time played.
>>[...]

Well, there is the option that the baseball game "World Series" used a few
years back--"stat keys", little plug-in devices that kept individual records
on batting and pitching statistics...

Come to think of it, Leland also made the Quarterback games, which kept 
equally intricate stats for its players.

Q.E.D.  using the standard rankings, et al. wouldn't be so bad.  However...

The problem with an arcade netrek is simple; an arcade owner's ideal time
in which a game should END is approximately 3 minutes.

Therefore, he has two options for the game to be at ALL cost-effective in
a normal arcade--

1)  Make it like that atrocious Nintendo Play Choice:10 game, where you put
in a quarter for x minutes of playing time.  This would be about enough time
for you to get from Earth to Romulus and back, in practice.

2)  Make the value of one quarter significantly less; i.e. x deaths/quarter.
This would eliminate ogging as a tactic, and turn everyone into runner-scums.
(An option for bonus lives based on your offense ratio might help.)

Also--who are the other players?  Either (a) you expect 9-15 others to be on
at the same time (very unlikely, unless you're talking something with the 
appeal of a Street Fighter II) or (b) you're primarily going to be fighting 
'bots, which removes most of the strategy from the game.

Not to mention the fact that a machine capable of even 5-5 tmode would have to
be (a) connected to OTHER netrek arcade machines at other locations (not
practical) or (b) take up a HUMONGOUS amount of room in the arcade--both for
the ten+ monitors AND for the seriously huge number of controls to account for
just the frequently used keys on the netrek keymap...

Sorry, guys, it's just not gonna happen.

Now, if you're talking about a game where you have netrek-style ships duking
it out vs. primarily 'bots (maybe 2-3 other players), that's a possibility,
but it won't play anything like the netrek we're used to.

as the guy said in Pet Sematary, "Sometimes dead is better."

			--Commodore Video Sex Pope, NCSU
			--lifelong arcade junkie, so trust me on this one ;)

--
                         jecoleb@eos.ncsu.edu 
          ---------     have clue, will travel.    ---------
  "I am a penis. Worship me."--lead singer of rock band Bicycle Face,
vainly attempting to gain attention of the crowd at the Cat's Cradle
in Chapel Hill, while opening for Mojo Nixon & The Toad Liquors
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: paulsen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (FreeKill)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Rank
Date: 14 Oct 92 23:05:40 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Oct12.211447@IASTATE.EDU> exodus@IASTATE.EDU writes:

>   of course a t-bird Admiral means nothing........but so does
>a bronco admiral. just on t-bird it's easier too scum more often,
>but scumming is scumming no matter where you do it.....it just
>takes longer to build an admiral on bronco because you have to
>play selectively......i've seen many clueful people rank
>scumming at 3 am against a bunch of newbies.......anyone can do
>it anywhere if they really want to.......that's all i was trying
>to say.......

Heh - bronco is *rarely* completely clueless.  Even at 3am, there tends to
be some very good players in there.  *That* is why bronco is popular.  I
could care less about the mods that people put in, I go where the clue goes.

Finally, I've never seen people get serious rank at the relatively clueless
hours that didn't deserve the rank to begin with.

Brian
FreeKill



Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: archmage@hardy.u.washington.edu (Michael Bakkemo)
Subject: Re: Who is the best?
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 21:59:12 GMT


Not bav, definitely not bav :)

Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 15:26:37 -0400 
From: "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Army killing -- bombing vs Ogging

	I offer these percentages.  They are compiled fron close games between
teams that I think are very good during INL play.

Eaxh side
250 starting armies
+~550 popped armies
-------------------------
~900 armies total
-~200 initial bombing wave (22%)
-~500 bombed during game (56%)
-~65 Killed onboard (7%)
-------------------------------
~135 delivered (15%)

	25%-35% of picked up armies are killed on-board (Ogged or killed while
taking a planet.).
	65%-75% of armies popped during the game are bombed.

	You may make what you will of these stats.  In my mind, it solidifies
the theory that bombing is more important than Ogging.

ZZnew guy
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: suzka@hardy.u.washington.edu (Suzanne Soroczak)
Subject: Lagg_U versus Deeply Perturbed I think
Summary: Scrimmage game on 10/7
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 18:23:42 GMT

LaggU scrimmaged the Berkeley team DP (I think) on Wednesday night.  
I was expecting others to post about our game - but since none have I
will attempt to post a summary.

Lagg_U was away and picked Feds they played Rom.  When the game started I was
totally confused because we *had* been Rom and didn't figure out that we
we Feds for a minute... I think our bombing run could have been alot better.
(sorry guys!  "I'm so confused...what's going on")

They pretty much flattened us - but did not go after the base.

To try to improve our team - we did not play our normal positions. 
Captain's idea.  I think it was pretty good one too - although very frustrating
I was an ogger (and normally scout).  I'm not trying to say we played worse
than usual - just that we weren't as tough as usual.  We also played all of
our scrubs to give them a chance at game time.

We were pretty even in the beginning, but steadily lost planets until we were 
down to 5.  The game seemed to stall there for about 40 minutes.  They finally
took us down to 2 with Earth and Alt (agri) left.  Someone neutered Earth
and I thought it was over but Alt popped popped and popped.  Within about
5-7 minutes we were up to 5 again, where we stayed until the end.

I would have to say that R3, R2, and Rb were all over us.  I never had to
think twice about whom I should be ogging.  In general DP escorted well too.

As far as our team goes - surge and Nate had good games as usual.

Feel free to correct any mistakes I may have made in summary.  We were
going to play DP again last night, but no one from our team showed.

always...ensign suzka

ps.  I can't wait to bomb tonight.  See you HB!
From: fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: INL Strategy: Is Ori and Kli playable?
Date: 10 Oct 92 21:32:09 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <61014@mimsy.umd.edu> jerryw@cs.umd.edu (Jerry Wieber) writes:
>>>Fight in their territory; I'm sure Sun Tzu had something to say about 
>>>that.
[...]
>Didn't see anything about fighting in their territory, however, it may
>have been implied by the admonition to "use the enemy's resources".

Turn ye to the chapter which begins:

"The art of war recognizes nine varieties of ground: dispersive ground; facile
ground; contentious ground; open ground; ground of intersecting highways;
serious ground; difficult ground; hemmed-in ground; desperate ground."

One particularly interesting passage in this section is:

"If asked how to cope with a great host of the enemy in orderly array and
on the point of marching to the attack, say: 'Begin by seizing something that
your opponent holds dear [agri]; then he will be amenable to your will.'

"Rapidity is the essence of war.  Take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness,
make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots."

If Sun Tzu played netrek, he'd have somebody grab an agri while he took
unguarded planets with a bunch of SCs.  Your interpretation may be different.

> UUCP:     uunet!cs.umd.edu!jerryw   SPOKEN: Jerry Wieber  |/ `-.    | U of Md
> INTERNET: jerryw@cs.umd.edu                                     \_|.|-,  

-- 
fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
[ Above opinions are mine, Amdahl has nothing to do with them, etc, etc. ]
From: mehlhaff@soda.Berkeley.EDU (ERic MeHlHaFf)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Blessed NBR type clients- where are they?
Date: 15 Oct 92 05:16:53
Organization: The Dis-Orginization
	<MEHLHAFF.92Sep29205228@soda.soda.Berkeley.EDU>
	<1bj5nkINNau8@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: jmn@crown.berkeley.edu's message of 15 Oct 1992 07:13:56 GMT

In article <1bj5nkINNau8@agate.berkeley.edu> jmn@crown.berkeley.edu (J. Mark Noworolski) writes:

   I have just looked in a bunch of places for these clients, finding 
   a couple of binaries for the decstation at ocf (I presume these are
   Eric M's clients binaries). Are there any for sun4's?

   However, I am having a problem with the binary... the font choice
   is bizarre! Namely:

   > /tmp/netrek.cal_bwo++.dec
   netrek: Can't find font lucidasanstypewriter-bold-10.  Trying others...
   netrek: Can't find font -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--34-*-*-*-*-*-*-*.  Tryin
   g others...


   I have never even HEARD of the first font. Can these font choices be fixed
   to work better? Also, is there a doc file for these binaries?


Sun4 binaries exist now on the OCF. I thought I had one there earlier, but cleaned
out the site and must have been overzealous at it.

As for the fonts, I chose those ones because they replaced the 6x10i and whatever
the other default Bigfont was, which got dropped in the switch between X10 and
X11.
Those two fonts are part of the standard X fonts package, but if you server
doesn't recognize them, pick something elsa and specify it with your .xtrekrc


Eric mehlhaff, 'Evil' netrek-hacker
--
ERic mehlhaff					Hoser at large
mehlhaff@soda.Berzerkeley.EDU
mehlhaff@ocf.berkeley.EDU