From: terence@bronco.ece.cmu.edu (Terence Chang)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Is Iggy random?  (was Re: CMU Netrek)
Date: 17 Apr 92 11:39:56 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University

In article <SFD.92Apr16141746@bezier.bezier.berkeley.edu>
sfd@bezier.berkeley.edu (Scott Drellishak) writes:
>In article <74219@netnews.upenn.edu> paulsen@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Commodore FreeKill) writes:
>   3) The server god, Terence, keeps adding new hacks that really improve the
>      game.

"really improve" is an exaggeration.  Some hacks may make it more
fun.  Some hacks may make it more interesting.  Some hacks correct
glitches or deficiencies in the original source.

>OK so far.  UDP sounds like a big win.  Although it really Andy's fault,
>not Terence's.

Correct.  I claim no credit for UDP, other than actually installing
v0.1, v0.2, v0.3 and v1.0.  And when people from other time zones
post that they can play on bronco as if it were almost next door
because of UDP, I'd say UDP _is_ a big win.

>      The ability to find game stats is another.
>
>Not a *bad* thing, but certainly not something that "really improve[s] the
>game".

Correct.  It was suggested several times by various people, and it's a
feature that's hard to object to.  I like the bigdog implementation -- done
with a sense of humor -- where you can broadcast your stats to a team, or to
all.

>      HK also comes to mind.  Now we also have the attacking Guardians and
>      cloaking iggys.  Also, iggy dets torps...

The original guardian robots were supposed to go away after a certain
amount of inactivity (there are some comments and an unused variable
in the robot source suggesting this).  I've seen guardians with
defense ratings of 35+... not because they were tough to kill, but
because they were left hovering near their homeplanet for ages (and
yes, robots do skew the ratings since they count towards
status->timeprod ... I guess I should "hack" the daemon so they
aren't counted).  I decided to make the guardian robots become
hostile (a la Hoser) if they hadn't fired a torp in 10 minutes.

>While I respect the smartification of the robots on bronco (I'm a robot
>freak, after all), I have to say that HunterKiller is the most irritating
>feature of bronco.  Who decided that "more randomness" was a desirable
>feature in a game of skill?  Maybe we should just have planets switch
>sides once in a while, just for the hell of it.

Well, we have:

  * Planets with n armies that lose 1 to n-1 armies once in a while,
    just for the hell of it
  * Planets that grow armies in random increments
  * Bombing with random decrements
  * Torpedos that wobble randomly, with randomly varying lifetimes
  * Ships that etmp at pseudorandom points for random amounts of time
  * Ships that wtmp at pseudorandom temperatues
  * Ships that appear with a random displacement on the galactic map
    when they cloak
  * Ships that enter the galaxy in a random location with respect to
    their teams' starting planets
  * Galaxies with random resource configurations

Some randomness IS desirable, even in a game of skill.

Iggy isn't terribly random.  He appears every 15 minutes somewhere
within the center 9th of the galaxy (middle square of a tic-tac-toe
grid).  Iggy's behavior is horribly deterministic:  I just grepped
for "random" in ntserv/rmove.c -- robots send messages at random
intervals.  That's it.

It is the random/deliberate interactions of the humans around him that
lead/chase him to nether corners of the galaxy and perhaps
surprising/irritating a few others in the process.  I think the
randomness he adds to the game is comparable to the existing random
features noted above.

Respectfully tired of Scott's ragging on bronco,
Terence
-- 
"People who get nostalgic      |  Terence Chang:
 about childhood were          |    e-mail: terence@bronco.ece.cmu.edu
 obviously never children."    |            or an acceptable facsimile thereof
       -- "Calvin and Hobbes"  |            (subject to change w/o notice)