HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: frits@ph.tn.tudelft.nl (Frits Kuijlman)
Subject: Olympia: The heir system, what's the sudden quiet?
Organization: Delft University of Technology
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 14:40:09 GMT

Well, the discussion about heirs seems to have died down a bit, so I`ll
try to restart it.

This has some connection to Rich's posting about faction trees, but I want
to concentrate mainly on the question of heirs.

Current faction leaders(your PC) has no leadership skill whatsoever. If he
gets killed you're out of the game. Too bad.

If you introduce an heir skill then you can have several men/woman in your
faction study to become the leader when your old leader dies. This can be
done without faction trees(awful name!), they can be wandering around
somewhere without any responsibility, and when it is time they become the
new leader.
Advantage:
    - Can be introduced into the current game.
    - The more money you invest, the less risk if you lose your leader.
    - You can create as large a faction as you want without having to have a
      very good leader. Only the heirs have to be good.
Disadvantage:
    - Faction survival depends on skill of best heir.
    - Where did your old leader learn to lead?
      (IMHO conceptually weak)

IMHO a leader can only be replaced successfully by somebody else who has some
leadership skills. You could require that to lead a large faction you need
a high leadership skill. If you want an heir you have to let him study the
leadership skill also(same as heir skill), but this heir can lead part of
your organization. You can even go so far as to have several leaders that are
loyal to the faction, i.e no top leader but a committee.
Advantage:
    - Can create relatively independent subfactions.
    - Death in a subfaction does not have to influence other subfactions.
    - More money invested, the less risk you lose your leader.
    - Creates all kinds of possibilities for loyalty changes.
    - For a large faction you need one or more highly skilled leaders.
      (IMHO conceptually better than above heir skill)
Disadvantage:
    - Needs Rich's faction trees.
    - What skill does your current leader get?

As you have probably seen I am in favor of some kind of leadership skill.
There are several points which are applicable to both skills, and some of
you may want to put them in the advantages or the disadvantages list
depending on your preferences.

The main possibilities are:
    - No leadership skill and optional heirs.
    - Mandatory leadership skill and one top leader.
    - The same with more top leaders in a faction.

Most(if not all) of the above has already been said by others. Maybe there
are other ideas about heirs, so let's hear them. I wanted this mainly to
lead to a discussion about what we really want from an heir system.
When there has been enough discussion maybe we can turn this into a vote(Rich)?

As an aside, all discussions about faction trees are also welcome. The
rec.games.pbm group is a bit quiet on the Olympia subject lately.

Frits

-- 
Frits Kuijlman                      frits @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl
Delft University of Technology               The Netherlands
From: n8841777@beaker.cc.wwu.edu (Mike Toepke)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Re: Galaxy transporter design
Date: 29 Jul 92 15:04:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: beaker.n8841777.712422265
Organization: Western Washington University

jerry@uni-paderborn.de (Gerald Siek) writes:

>Now take a look at the transport ships.   There's but one standard design
>used by every experienced player:  (x,0,0,0,1),  where x is a number
>between 1 and 3 (usually).   This transporter offers good speed and 
>maximum flexibility.   Sometimes paranoid players modify this ship by

>Reactions?

Yes, and now every INexperienced player who reads r.g.pbm will be doing it.
Sheesh, is nothing sacred anymore ? :-)

>	Jerry

Mike
Newsgroups: rec.games.rpg,rec.games.frp,rec.games.pbm
From: jlb@ccs.itd.umich.edu (Jeff Bailey)
Subject: Tales from the Floating Vagabond PBeM
Summary: Starting up, need 2-3 players
Originator: jlb@diddley.ccs.itd.umich.edu
Organization: Campus Computing Sites, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 05:38:25 GMT

I am still looking for players for a Play-by-Mail version of Tales from
the Floating Vagabond, AH's any-genre comedy rpg.  This would be a one-shot
adventure at first, and hopefully will blossom into a campaign.  If you
know the system, feel free to respond with a character submission.  If not,
but you're still interested, submit a character background and general
description, and I'll convert it to TFTFV and try to run invisibly for you.
I'll also recommend the books even if you're not available; they're great
source material!  I'm hoping for 4-6, and one slot is definitely filled.
(Good work, Dan.)  If you just want more info, feel free to ask.

-- 
-- Jeff Bailey, jlb@ccs.itd.umich.edu (Open 24 Hours a Day!)
Standard disclaimer - If you wanted U/M's views, you came to the wrong place. 
"The owner of the game deals and plays first." -- Nuclear War/Escalation
From: rajiv_sud@vos.stratus.com (Rajiv Sud)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Q: Amount of display memory in Turbo-C
Date: 28 Jul 92 21:22:49 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.


	Anyone out there know how to find out the amount of display memory
available on a PC when using Turbo-c? The setvisualpage, et al calls allow
one to access different display memory pages. How does one figure out how
many display memory pages are available for use?

..Rajiv
From: 8914437l@levels.unisa.edu.au
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Collision Detection Question
Date: 23 Jul 92 03:20:20 GMT
Organization: University of South Australia


Does anybody out there know of a fast efficient way to detect and handle
colliding objects in two dimensions (there may be multiple objects colliding
as well)...

it may be a similar problem to gas particles colliding...

Part of my Honours project is to animate objects and then detect when they
collide and generate there new position...the problems come in when after a
collision occurs the object then collides with another object, when it bounces
away...


Any suggestions or good algorithms???
Please email me...

Thanks in advance,

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Andrew "Killer" Kulikovsky                Be alert...the world needs lerts! |
|------------------------------------+----------------------------------------|
|  B.App.Sc (Hons) Computer Studies  | The wise men looked for Jesus Christ...|
|                                    | and so it is today.                    |
| send email to:                     |                                        |
|   kulikovsky@unisa.edu.au          |        - Look to Jesus Christ!         |
+------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+

               - People who live in glass houses shouldn't!
From: cyberman@toz.buffalo.ny.us (Cyberman)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: software evaluation s
Date: 29 Jul 92 22:33:30 GMT
X-Maildoor: WaflineMail 1.00r


     -=> Tony Porczyk spoke of "Re: software evaluation s" <=-
    To All at 07-28-92  06:55
 TP> I absolutely agree with you in your case.  When I originally stated
 TP> that shareware = commercial software (and, no, you missed, I am not a
 TP> shareware programmer), I meant real shareware, not crippleware, which
 TP> to me is crap,  not software.  I will not even bother checking it out.

I agree also (except apogee) I detest cripled Software.
 
 TP> That is a totally different story.  However, shareware which i use
 TP> every day (registered) was most certainly written by professional
 TP> programmers who did expect to be paid and did an excellent job of both
 TP> designing the program, writing it, and then supporting it (go check
 TP> out 4DOS group - Mike Bessy is there every day).

I concur some of what I've seen has been quite good.
 
 TP> It's so nice when two people agree...

Or 3 I suspect many poeple do this.

        Stephen Cyberman@Toz.Buffalo.NY.US
        Scripted at Wed  07-29-1992  13:51:37

... I like traffic lights.
--- Blue Wave/QWK v2.10
From: sl8nl@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: Bitmap 3-d graphics systems
Date: 28 Jul 92 18:16:53 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

> First off, let me say that WC (1&2) do not map textures over polygons->
> at least not for the ships. The images are simple bitmaps that were
> captured from Autodesk (where they were wireframed and phong shaded ).

You're right on the nose.  We figured out the system a few months after
they released it.

> It seems that they must capture a bunch of bitmaps for each object,
> and they just display the correct one probably according to some
> 'direction facing' vector in each data structure. I'd bet there's
> also a velocity vector. When used with the 'direction facing' vector
> that would produce stuff like the debris and asteroids which spin
> in one direction and move in another.

You're on there too.

The number of pictures seems to vary, however.  For instance, that ship 
that looks like it has fuel things on it...it jumps a lot more.

> Star Trek seems to jump a little, which is what you would expect from
> having only a fixed number of stored views, yet WC is much smoother.
> I'd like to know why. Any germ of wisdom you TP and C++ programmers
> have out there would be much appreciated!

Have you figured out the rotation code yet???  You'll die when you figure
out how simple it is...

Josh
From: psalp@acad2.alaska.edu (Albert L. Perrien II)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: PC Intern: Where to find it
Date: 21 Jul 92 22:31:21 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska


Okay, Okay, I'm human. I make misteakz.
PC intern can be ordered at your local waldenbooks store.

P.S. I'll try and have the pascal stuff ready tomorrow. It uses some of the
routines in the Book PC Intern. i.e. sprites, and scrolling stuff.
From: mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re:   TP or C ?
Date: 24 Jul 92 14:24:14 GMT
Organization: DB and ES Subdivision, TU Vienna

From article <BrwACJ.1sp@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, by tmkk@uiuc.edu (Khan):
> Take it as meaning your complaints about C have merit, as opposed to the
> complaints of those who just can't comprehend the semantics of the
> language. 

Wrong argument, since hard-to-grasp semantics are not a recommendation
for a language, if simpler languages with the same power exist.
-- 
Markus Stumptner                                mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
University of Technology Vienna                 vexpert!mst@relay.eu.net
Paniglg. 16, A-1040 Vienna, Austria             ...mcsun!vexpert!mst
From: hamrick@milton.u.washington.edu (Mike Hamrick)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: TP or C ?
Date: 27 Jul 92 20:25:20 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

Markus Stumptner writes:

>As for the comments on the cryptic C syntax - yes, it is harder to
>read.  Reading speed is not measured in characters, but words;
>cognitively, word shapes have a lot to do with recognizing a word, and
>moderately long keywords separated by whitespaces are easier to read
>than bunched-together special characters (don't remember where I read
>that, though).

Yeah, C is sometimes very hard to read.  I guess it is all a mater of
what you are used to.  I learned C about five years ago, and I remember
being confused quite frequently.  Things like this I still have to look
at for a while:

void Garply (void (*foo) (void (*bar) (void (*baz) (void))));

This is a function prototype for a function called Garply, it returns
void and takes as it's argument foo, which is a pointer to a function which 
returns void and takes as it's argument bar, which is a pointer to a function 
which returns void and takes as it's argument baz, which is a pointer to a
function which returns void and takes void as it's argument.

This prototype could have also been written like this:

void Garply (void (*) (void (*) (void (*) (void))));

This is of course ANSI C.  If you try stuff like this on a non-ANSI
compiler I would expect it to yak.
--
From: sl8nl@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: TP or C ?
Date: 23 Jul 92 18:20:26 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

> what I want added to C:
> add scope control with '.' ie:
> int a;
> blort()
> 	{
> 	int a;
> 	a=1;	/* set LOCAL A=1 */
> 	.a=1;	/* set GLOBAL A=1 */
> 	}
> 

Turbo Pascal already has that feature <sneer :)>  It deals with the one and
only reason I've found to use a program header (and it works with unit headers
too!)

program Global;

var a : Integer;

procedure blort;
var a : Integer;
begin
  a := 1;    (* set LOCAL A=1 *)
  Global.a := 1;  (* set GLOBAL A=1*)
end;

> B-)
> (ever tried thinking of new and interesting names for x and y when
> 	programming graphics B-< )
> 

Too many times.

Joshua Jensen
Xillion Software Development
Author of Protracker Playing Source (yes, for public distribution, free,
and royalty free...well, it's shareware anyway :) )
From: baylor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Baylor)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re:  TP or C ?
Date: 25 Jul 92 00:52:17 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

>You know, I always suspected that most of the C bashers in the world
>hate the language because they aren't posessed of the intellectual
>capacity to understand how to use it. People who think a for loop in C
>
	You know, I always suspected that most people who claim others
aren't posessed of the intellectual capacity to understand something
they like are not posessed of the intellectual capacity to give
a better thought out argument (or maybe are just short of patience -
I always thought C programmers were too good to make snide remarks)

>Personally, I'd rather be "confused" by a C for loop than be genuinely
>confused at all the bizarre dialects that call themselves Pascal. I can
>port a Borland C program to Unix C or VAX C or even Atari 8-bit C with
>little trouble. The same can *not* be said of a Turbo Pascal program!
>
	Which is a definite plus for those who have jobs that 
require porting. A couple (but not too many) jobs will never 
require porting to other platforms (not commercial programmers
so much as small time "patchers" and people who help companies
keep things running smoothly). I don't use C if it's just a
small prog that will never see anything but an IBM (the custom 
software - I will never port my modem/tsr stuff to a computer that
does communications differently and doesn't need tsrs).

>Face it, ugly spaghetti code can be written in ANY language. Don't try
>to blame the language for a lack of skill on the part of the programmer.
>
	Which means that it doesn't matter if you use Pascal - it's
not the language, it the programmer (many commercial/custom progs
over $10,000 are actually in Basic and COBOL according to my 
catalogs). 
	And most important really in developing software isn't speed
of code but speed of development and ease of maintainance. If you know
all the tricks of a substandard language or are adequate at a better
language, then program in the substandard one.
	But then, these aren't native languages people, these are tools.
Could you imagine if stereo people who liked tweeters put nothing
but in their systems?

	In all fairness to the poster, he didn't rag on pascal
programmers, just on people who rag on C programers.
	C has one big use for all you corporate sweat house programmers -
even if you can't program C, you better be able to read it!

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Baylor Wetzel    baylor@cc.utexas.edu        Hang Tyson 
Free Leonard Peltier
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: SESPC379@ysub.ysu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Crobots
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 15:20:33 EDT
Organization: Youngstown State University

  Does anyone out there program their own robots for the game Crobots?
 
 
Steve K.
sespc379@ysub.ysu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: psteffn@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Paul Steffen)
Subject: Re: Dave 'n' Josh
Organization: /etc/organization
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 03:54:37 GMT

In article <greg.712516168@duke> greg@Quotron.COM (Greg "Maddog" Knauss) writes:
>What this discussion seems to come down to, to me, is a question of
>credibility.  Josh has made some pretty impressive claims, Dave has
>doubted those cliams.  Period.

I don't doubt Josh's claims.  His posts are certainly competant enough.
It is certainly nice of him to post his hard work to rec.games.programmers 
for professionals who would otherwise not have done it themselves.

>	I believe that a flat-surface texture mapping routine could
>be written with Bresenham.  Would it be fast enough to be real-time?
>I'd like to see it.  So, apparently, would Dave.

This is kind of funny.  I remember having a rather lengthy discussion with
Dave some time back and he insisted that he has NEVER ran a demo that didn't
crash on his stock ST.  Quite unfortunate, actually, because his whole 
attitude toward young self-taught programmers would be QUITE different.
There is one demo [ftp.uni-kl.de - pub/atari/demos/chaos*.msa] which has
some VERY nice real-time texturing and phong shading [w/point source
shading, of course] including a texture mapped rotating disk DURING 
disk loading.  There are some BRILLIANT texture-mapped flying ships.
This was coded and heavily optimized over a period of 6 months and runs
smoothly on a stock Atari ST [@8MHz].  Now look at PC Wolfenstein's
routines which require a '386 for smooth animation, VERY limited 
texture mapping, and the author claimed something like 5 years development
time!!!!  

If you want to see something fast, get Maggie issue #10 from ftp.uni-kl.de,
which has an intro that does VERY fast bitmap rotation coded by 
Karl/Delta Force.  [and, Dave, it even runs on a MegaSTe].  

>	I firmly believe that a 16-year-old can be a programming god.
>I also believe that nobody is going to believe him until he proves
>himself.  Which Josh can with one post.

The average age of demo coders is something like 18-years old. It's
been proven many times over!  I met, in person, two guys of the famous
European ST demo group, The Lost Boys, a couple days ago.  These guys
have kept me [and thousands of others] in awe for years and yet, are
amazingly humble in person.  Manikin is my age and he wrote the real-time
solid 3d fractal landscape code for their 'Oh Crikey!  What a scorcher!'
demo [@ftp.uni-kl.de and atari.archive.umich.edu] which operates at about
17 frames per second.  [remember, on an 8MHz 68000!]

>--
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Greg "Maddog" Knauss                      My boss doesn't know I'm doing this,
> greg@duke.quotron.com                           so I doubt he'd agree with me.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------


STratoHAKster/TPPi
Amiga/ST coder
psteffn@gnu.ai.mit.edu

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
From: bruce@cheetah.inmos.co.uk (Bruce Stenning)
Subject: Re:  TP or C ?
Reply-To: bruce@inmos.co.uk (Bruce Stenning)
Organization: INMOS Limited, Bristol, UK.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 14:47:08 GMT

In article <cg.0afn@ami-cg.UUCP> cg@ami-cg.UUCP (Chris Gray) writes:
>In article <1992Jul22.000454.24871@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> stuartw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz
>writes:
>My relevant experience: I've written an ANSI C compiler at work. I use
>ANSI C at work almost exclusively. I've written other compilers, including
>the one I use here at home. I've probably written over half a million lines
>of high-level-language code over the years, so I've learned a LITTLE about
>how to do it in a maintainable way, usually without sacrificing efficiency.

One question:  Do you consider C a high-level language?  I'd call a low
level language with the typing and control of a high-level language. 
There are a lot of things you can do in C that would be far less
efficient in any other language.  The beauty of C is that it allows the
programmer to write code that checks itself rather than this being done
by the compiler.  It is very good practise to write code that is
thoroughly checked than hope the compiler will catch it for you. 
Writing well-documented C code with meaningful variable names will mean
that it will be maintainable and very efficient.

Can you imagine writing something like UNIX in Pascal?  It would be an
absolute nightmare.

>--
>Chris Gray   alberta!ami-cg!cg	 or   cg%ami-cg@CS.UAlberta.CA

+-------------------+-------------------------\\__--.------------------------+
| Bruce Stenning    |                      |\/   o\ . ARGGH.... Stop eating  |
+-------------------+                      |   "" <.                         |
| bruce@inmos.co.uk |                      |/\  __/       my .sig file...    |
+-------------------+-------------------------//-----------------------------+
+-------------------+-------------------------\\__--.------------------------+
| Bruce Stenning    |                      |\/   o\ . ARGGH.... Stop eating  |
+-------------------+                      |   "" <.                         |
| bruce@inmos.co.uk |                      |/\  __/       my .sig file...    |
From: psrjd@acad3.alaska.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Re: TP or C ? (was: Languages to program in and ports and blah and etc...)
Date: 27 Jul 92 06:15:29 GMT
Reply-To: psrjd@acad3.alaska.edu
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Alaska - Fairbanks

In article <1992Jul27.005952.4167@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>, stuartw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Stuart Woolford) writes...
>well..I guess you beat C there.. in C you  would have to go:
> 
>int BoolTest(x, y)
>	int x, y;
>	{
>	if(x==y) /* or whatever... */
>		return 1; /* or use TRUE, with stdio included.. */
>	else
>		return 0; /* or use FALSE,        ''            */
>	}

Not really.  You could do this just as easily:

	int BoolTest ( int x, int y ) {

	   return ( x==y )
	}

The value is returned based on the condition.  0 if false, greater than zero
(or just any non zero value?) if true.

> 
>main()
>	{
>	if( Booltest(10,40) ) DoTheRealProgammerThing;
>	}
> 
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>stuartw@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz
> 
>			>>In VI Where Available<<
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ray J., PSRJD@ACAD2.ALASKA.EDU
From: simmons@duncan.utkcs2 (Paul T Simmons ( Doc ))
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer
Subject: Biorhythm algorithm
Date: 28 Jul 92 16:12:30
Organization: My own private world :-)
NNTP-Posting-Host: duncan.cs.utk.edu


	Does anyone out there have an algorithm for biorhythms?  Any and 
all help appreciated.
--
-------------------------disclaimer.standard -------------------
simmons@cs.utk.edu               | 
[The Doctor]                     |  "The secret is:  you have to
     ____    ____    ____        |     bang the rocks together!"
    /   /   /   /   /            | 
   /___/   /___/   /___          |

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer