From: ddickey@aspen04.cray.com (Dan A. Dickey)
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
Subject: Re: Feep's Ramblings...
Date: 9 Oct 92 16:38:22 GMT
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Originator: ddickey@aspen04


In article <39206@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, cs177wai@sdcc5.ucsd.edu (Christopher Fodor) writes:
> Feep writes, Hydra Respons:
>  
> >> Appearance 255 aps at "/" scope:
> >
> >Fixed in Garrett's 5.1 code.
> 
> What was the cause of this out of curiosity?  I tried to figure
> out the cause myself but I never could.

Basically...bad indentation in the declare() subroutine...
I don't remember exactly...take another long look at your code,
you'll probably spot it.

> 
> >> Anothing nice thing (tm) would be allowing leaders to grant governors
> >> "generalship" allowing them full powers as if they were in the 0 slot.
> >> This makes things much more convenient for a good team.
> >
> >I've always just given my governors the race password...haven't had
> >any problems yet.
> 
> Aren't you ever inundated while you are playing with:
> 
> "Could you grant me ship ###?"
> "Could I have our home system for a bit?"
> "Could you build a (whatever) at /Foo/Bar?"
> "Grant me that factory so I can look at it too."
> 
> The problem for me is that I can't have multiple log-on sessions from where
> I play, and so I have to log out from my governor, and then log onto the 
> leader slot, then log back out, and then log onto my governor slot.  God
> save me if I accidently read news or telegrams while on the leader slot. :)
> Not to mention having the leader trying to log on when one of his govs
> is hogging his slot.
> 
> I like the separation of ships to keep things organized, but granting
> being controlled by one slot is very inconvenient.
> 

No, don't have any problems like that...basically, we all play
the leader; use the governor slots for thinking.  All ships/planets
are owned by the leader...  the problem is to find governors
that can be around at the correct times...to provide for 24 hour coverage.
This way...someone can be logged in as the leader at all times and
take the neccessary action as required.

> >
> >	-Hydra
> >
> >P.S. - The new VN code is about done...looking pretty good too, I might add.
> 
> How the do the new VN's work (groan...) are they still strip-miners from
> hell??  Are they the new scourge of the universe?  Will the players
> unite to stop them?  I do hope that V's aren't as powerful as they
> were.  The way the tech went up they got pretty scary very quickly.
> Perhaps they should be given the average tech of all the non-collectives...
> that sounds pretty reasonable...

As soon as I get the code to Garrett, and games start being played with
it; we'll find out how it works.
Here's a summary...
There's a new race type, VN.  Players don't build vn's, or V's.
Believe me, you wouldn't want to.
vn's are the planet destroyers, V's are the berserkers of Saberhagen fame.
V's go after ships, planets, and population...not neccessarily in that order.
v's & V's are both extremely nasty....better count on about 10 D's
to take out a single V.  Or, a ship with an "instrument of the Law"
on it.  This is the weapon of choice against the vn race.
v's will be nearly indestructible without it.  And you really don't
want to go picking on v's unless you are looking for V's to pop
in the next update.  The "instrument of the Law" will be
able to wipe out v's at a glance...and about an even match for a V.
But...extremely expensive; count on it being the product of several
races cooperatively contributed resources.
The vn race comes into existence spontaneously during the game,
it doesn't start from update 0.

As for the rest of your questions...
Yes, they are the scourge of the universe.  Dedicated to wiping out all life.
If the players don't unite to stop them, kiss your colonies good bye.
The vn race will determine its own intelligence...investing res to make
intelligence as it deems neccessary.
Oh...one other thing about V's....they'll be "smart".
You'll find out what this means when the games get going...  :-)

> 
> Can't we think of something better than VN's to work on??? 

Oh lots of things of course...
I keep kicking around an idea in my head to get rid of this scope stuff.
So that ships at universe level aren't "invisible" when they fly by
systems...the problem is to keep the ship search times short.

> 
> I think Hydra should code his auto-players into the server to take over
> for any player missing more than three updates... :)

Nope, no way...I will however, code an autogb player that can take over
for you when you go away.  The last thing the server needs is more code
in it.  The autogb player will look to the server exactly like a player...
although perhaps one that types abnormally fast.

> 
> Ramblings courtesy of,
> 
>   Chris aka Feepness

	-Hydra
-- 
---------
Dan A. Dickey      ddickey@cray.com
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb