HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: koffleva@darkwing.uoregon.edu (Evan Koffler)
Subject: Re: I wear women's undergarments...
Organization: University of Oregon Network Services
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 22:35:59 GMT

In article <39148@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> cs177wai@sdcc5.ucsd.edu (Christopher Fodor) writes:
>Evan are you out there?

Yo Feep, right here. 

>We (Keeshans and myself) tossed around the idea of starting a GB
>mailing list.  I think this would be an excellent idea.  It would
>be a forum for those who work on the code (as opposed to just players)
>I know of lots of bugs in the server (and fixes) that I don't know if 
>Garrett knows about.  It also helps us set up and maintain client
>server interfaces now that there is more than one person working
>on clients.  It would also allow us to set up standards and exchange 
>programming information.  I think it is better than using alt.games.gb
>because it allows us to talk directly to people, and people are more
>responsive when stuff shows up in their mailboxes.  I suppose it
>would be composed of people who have run several GB games (HAP falls
>under this I guess) and those who know the server code well.  I don't
>know what 5.1 looks like and I am afraid to ask.  Sheesh, I remember
>playing under 2.0!  A lot of people make mods or bug fixes at their
>sites and these never get onto scam.  Anyways, I'm a callin' you out Keesh,
>'cause I don't know how to go about starting up a mailing list.

Well to be honest, I don't have the ability to get my
sys admin to allow a mailing list created with all the
appropriate mailing address and stuff, but at a worst case 
I can rig up something to redirect incoming mail out to
those on a list, or if the numbers of people is small enough
we can just make it an alias in our .mailrc or any equivelents.


[ all the bugs that Feep listed deleted]

>Lovingly yours,

And I thought you only said that to me. I bet you say it to
all the races. :-(

>
>   Feepness
>


(--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--)
)  Evan Koffler                   ( GB and reality are mutually        (
(  GB II Client Coder             ) exclusive!!!! - Vers. 2.2.8 6/9/91 )
)  (Keeshans@GB/HAP)              (--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==(
(  koffleva@darkwing.uoregon.edu  ) PPPUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRR!! - Tribbles  )
)  koffleva@oregon.uoregon.edu    (==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--(
(  ekoffler@cie.uoregon.edu       ) LW: type "help fire" - me & Feepie )
)==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==(
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
From: gvbraun@lesti.hut.fi (Toni Kotinurmi)
Subject: Re: GB5.1 posted onto scam.berkeley.edu
Reply-To: gvbraun@lesti.hut.fi (Toni Kotinurmi)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 09:48:24 GMT

In article <1992Oct10.151934.16411@nwnexus.WA.COM> ninja@halcyon.com (Jonathan Roy) writes:


>Some other ideas I wanted to throw out is things like:
> 
> < = > for order/load/unload/fire commands. Such as:
> 
>load <ship> <commodity> <amount> <optional qualifier>
>load p f 1 f<1    This loads 1 fuel into all pods with less than
>                  1 fuel.
>unload s c 5 c>5  This unloads 5 crew from any shuttle that has more
>                  than five crew...

Ok, but remember > is used to send output to file, so...

for p f less 1 load p f 1 ( hmm.. a bit difficult to figure ? And for is used.)

>repeat 50 build p 1,1
>load p f 2
>load p c
>order p dest /Dest1
>load p f 3
>load p c
These have worked longer than in HAP actually ( at least the HAP's I've
 played in, might be old though )

>repeat 50 build p 1,1
Repeat is in client, read helpc of the newest client.

>order p dest /Dest2 f=3

?
Maybe read helpc for for-sentence. ( 'helpc for' I think )
>And so on...

>Another idea would be to allow your ships to automaticly fire on any
>ship belonging to a race you are at war with... You could possibly
>set the % chance to hit to wait for, and the amount of d to fire...
I think it is being planned now if I recall correctly...

>This would even out, slightly, the massive advantage someone has by
>being on at the update, if their enemy can't make it...

Their shame. You want to play GB, play it. Forget about liff' ;)

>them another time... Autoscrap and Threshloading would be a great
>improvment though... 

Threshloading could. Autoscrap also I think.

>order Y automove 6
>order K automove 1

>That's about it. Keep up the work Garrett! :)

Right. Hope you could get back to pooh :I

Keskiolut
--
From: boutell@athena (Tom Boutell)
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
Subject: Weekend vs. Daytime Games...
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:12:42 GMT
Organization: Cold Spring Harbor Labs

I may be a rare case, but I work with computers for a living and have
occasional free time during the workday during which I wouldn't mind
GBing, to release a little of that ol' work - related stress. 
On weekends, however, I go into the City (the only City, you
know, THAT City) and see my SO, et cetera, and GBing just ain't likely
to happen. In other words, I'm not in school anymore.

Is anybody else interested in *weekday*-oriented, or at least
opening-on-a-weekday, GB? Running a server isn't possible for me right
now (I've already got one multiplayer game of my own to maintain-
Broken Throne 2.0 is due out any minute now), but I'd sure like to play
if anyone else is in a similar position. These weekend startups are
always when I'm busy having a life (just kidding, folks, you know
I don't really have a life, I'm just trying to make you look bad).
Anybody else out there with a weekday preference in GBing?

-T

-- 
Tom Boutell, boutell@cshl.org

Clausthaler is the best non - alcoholic beer in the known universe.
From: cs177wai@sdcc5.ucsd.edu (Christopher Fodor)
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
Subject: US games up?
Date: 16 Oct 92 06:50:39 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

Are there any games up in the states?  The closer to California the better.
I just want to log on as guest or something to test my client.

The net to Europe is unfortunately flakey at best, but those are
the only games that I know of.

Merci

Chris, aka Feepness
Xref: sparky alt.games.gb:1172 news.answers:3410
From: leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens)
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
Subject: GB for people with lives
Summary: Need autoplay
Date: 9 Oct 92 16:11:26 GMT
Organization: Deep Thirteen, Gizmonics Institute

Chris Fodor writes:
>[Hydra:]
>Can't we think of something better than VN's to work on??? 
>
>I think Hydra should code his auto-players into the server to take over
>for any player missing more than three updates... :)

Not just three updates... autoplay should be available at any time to
any player.  It would be nice to be able to log in for a few minutes,
do a few vital thing like fire up new factories and maybe order fleets
to a new destination, and then simply set autoplay to get some
standard set of programmed controls.  You know, the vital scutwork
that makes GB into living hell after your race gets large...
autobuilding K's, T's, a's and autoloading their fuel... domes and
dome movement, and their res... res loading for H's... metamorph
infestation elimination...  other small combats... building fleets one
by one...  upgrading ships one by one...

As it stands, GB can never be a popular game.  It simply takes too
much time, governors or not, to appropriately control any race with
more than a few planets.

-Leonard
From: nawesson@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
Subject: *** NEW GAME ***
Date: 12 Oct 92 09:52:45 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620


		H    H          A         PPPP
		H    H         A A        P   P
		HHHHHH        A   A	  PPPP
		H    H       AAAAAAA      P
		H    H       A     A      P

		======== 16th October =========


Yes, A new game of HAP is starting up this Friday (16th October). Newbies
and experts are welcomed. Please send your entries in quickly as there is a 
limited number of space for 20 players. 

To generate your race please use the racegen file at:

		client29.comlab.ox.ac.uk 2020.

The game.
=========

Game:      Heuristic Astronomy Project IV++
Location:  client29.comlab.ox.ac.uk 2010
Deadline:  Friday, October 16th 1992, Noon GMT
Starts:    Friday, October 16th, 1992, 7pm GMT
Moderator: Mark Woodgate, woodgate@uk.ac.oxford.comlab
Code:      HAP version 4.1

Comments
========

	The "dissolve" command WILL work.

	Max number of systems = 50.

	Max IQ = 170 for Biomorph. which has been increased.

	Planets are larger.

	No water bands on Jovians.

Schedule
--------

	Friday   [  7:00pm - 10:00pm GMT  15 minutes ]
		 [ 10:00pm -  1:00am GMT  30 minutes ]

	Saturday [  7:00pm -  1:00am GMT  30 minutes ]

	Sunday   [  7:00pm -  1:00am GMT   1 hour    ]

	
	Monday - Friday      10:00pm GMT.

	Client29 is a working machine so the game is not guarenteed 
	to be up during the office hours.

	Saturday ..........

The game is open ended.


GOOD LUCK.
Paul.
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
Subject: Re: GB for people with lives
From: berggren@husc10.harvard.edu (Karl Berggren)
Date: 9 Oct 92 23:04:41 EDT
Followup-To: karl@atomsun.harvard.edu
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

I just had to put my comments in because the time commitment of gb has
been a major difficulty in the game I've been playing... It may be I
just don't have the time to play gb, but I do enjoy the game.
Basically I think that certain things... for example being able to get
a robot to log on for you after an update and blast away anyone who
has gotten too close to your ships... would be extremely useful.  This
would also be useful for offensive purposes...  It makes sense to me
that if I can write a program that will do this for me, I not only
save time, but I also am a "better player".  I guess I disagree that
the best player is necessarily the one who spends the most time... if
the game is that way, it shouldn't be... It makes sense to me anyway
that if a player can do the same as another in less time, then the two
are just as good players.  The only difference is the more efficient
player gets a chance to do something else with his/her life as well.

I would agree, however, that there should not be a "robot player" who
could be invoked whenever a person fealt like using it to do all the
niggling little details.  I would support a concerted effort to revamp
the macro system to allow a number modifications.

1) The addition of simple loops and conditional statements

2) Allow simple math to be done with variables.

I think a very valuable modification to the server would be

1) The ability to group ships together so they can be ordered into
action with one statment.

2) The ability to order merchant routes to load and unload commodities
with a quantity, so that these routes can be used in the start of games
to colonize planets, unloading fuel and crew but leaving some on the
ship.

3) The ability to order a ship with hyper space to two destinations,
one with hyper, one with regular drive, so you don't have to log on
before and after every update in order to keep a ship charging while
moving it around insiide a system.

Anyway, that is just my $1 worth as well... Sorry it took so long :-).
-- 
Karl Berggren --- K.G.B. - /\  -----   ---   /\  /\ --- ---- ---- ---     +
karl@atomsun.harvard.edu -/  \   |    /   \  | \/ |  |   \   |_   |  \ -  o
+     o                  /----\  |    \   /  |    |  |    \  |    |  /  +
    =      -            -      - -     ---   -    - --- ---- ---- ---      +
From: mich@cwi.nl (M. Hazewinkel)
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
Subject: Re: Domes & server/client split...
Date: 12 Oct 92 22:08:31 GMT
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam

In article <1992Oct12.081132.2481@hemlock.cray.com> ddickey@fizban.cray.com (Dan A. Dickey) writes:
>
>In article <1992Oct10.151934.16411@nwnexus.WA.COM>, ninja@halcyon.com (Jonathan Roy) writes:
>> Autoscrap was only implemented for Y's. The way it worked was, once
>> the sector's eff reached 100%, the Y automaticly scrapped at the
>> update. This made building hundreds of Domes much more realisitic.
>> (Autoscrap and threshloading for Y's is awesome!)
>>  
>You scrap your domes???!!
>Why not just move them?  It takes what, a 23.something tech shuttle to do
>this....you save a lot of resources that way.

Well, remember that this was specifically for HAP. In the last HAP
game I played in, the size and weight of Domes, Plows, and
Terraformers was multiplied by 100 or so. I'm not entirely sure
about the numbers, but something like that. This makes them rather
hard to move by shuttle.
I think it was a really good idea, but it had one drawback IMHO:
Terraformers became great mine-carriers, as you could detonate a
mine right next to it and the T would almost certainly survive if
you mine is less than 50-100 dest.

>	-Hydra
>-- 
>---------
>Dan A. Dickey      ddickey@cray.com

Terkans

Maarten Hazewinkel	mmhazewi@cs.ruu.nl
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
From: wmm8g@helga1.acc.Virginia.EDU ()
Subject: Governors, et al.
Originator: wmm8g@helga1.acc.Virginia.EDU
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 21:00:16 GMT

Just a suggestion to those who are annoyed by governors' limitations,
if you have one gov. you trust, give them everything...
the home system, all ships, etc.. (this is easiest at the begining)
That way, your gov 1 is effectively a gov 0 because 0 can always 
override and "use" 1's stuff.

Second thought on governors... Has the auto-money-slushing feature
(I can't think of a real name for it) that was used in the USC game
been put in the new code? ie, if gov 1 only has $1000 but spends
$10,000 on maintence, the money needed is "slushed" into his account
from gov 0. Otherwise you lose moral and I *hate* that. (gee.. think
it has happened to me about thirty or forty times? :)

I realize the "giving gov 1 stuff" is pretty elementary, but it works
Unless of course you have a "team" of five or six people, in which case
you are sick and I don't want to talk to anyone that organized :)
 
-- 
Bill Merone (Fluffy Jr. and other bunnies) wmm8g@helga1.acc.virginia.edu
"Area of the Universe: Infinite. Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then
some... real "wow, that's big" time.... Gigantic multiplied by staggeringly 
huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here."--Hitchhiker's Gd.
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
From: "davidr turner" <davidr.turner@canrem.com>
Subject: the germans say:
Reply-To: "davidr turner" <davidr.turner@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: alt
Date: 7 Oct 92 19:49:11 EST

00>>In article <CPM.92Sep25165928@kottan.digtec.dtro.e-technik.th-darmstadt.de>
00>@digtec.dtro.e-technik.th-darmstadt.de (Claus Meder) writes:
00>>|
00>>|Ist hier nicht der Deutschunterricht?
00>>
00>>In das Flipperwald gespurt?
00>>

Don't know if you're trying to quote the funniest joke in the world,
but if you are.... see below...












Wenn ist das Nunstuck git und Slotermeyer?  Ja!  ... Beiherhund das
Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

Translation: (no real one, but maybe someone wants to translate
it literally).
Later...
---
  SLMR 2.1a  I'm in shape ... round's a shape isn't it?
--
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
From: skf5055@tamuts.tamu.edu (Shawn Keith Fox)
Subject: Sector types in GB
Organization: ~/lib/organization
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 05:05:17 GMT

Well, I was a little curious about which sectors were *really* the most
abundant in a standard GB game, so I ftped the newest source for version
5.1, compiled makeuniv and ran it 10 times, here is what I found.

Using makeuniv, with settings of 50 stars, with 4-10 planets/star.

	Average Sectors		Min sectors		Max sectors
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Water	2136			1699			2700
Land	763			692			866
Mount	841			771			941
Gas	9770			8687			11137
Ice	2913			2441			3451
Forest	662			404			848
Desert	5697			4742			6428
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Averaged 22732 sectors/universe

Assuming that the number of desert sectors that were produced is
really around average, I think it is *way* too much, and that the
distribution of land/mountain/forest is *way* too small.  It looks 
to me like about 3000 sectors should be taken from desert and made
into land/mountain/forest, just to help balance out the game.  

I don't know if anyone else knew about that there were so many
desert sectors (I sure didn't), but unless something really 
strange happened on my system, there are *way* too many of them.
Guess it is no wonder that many of the better players I know keep
choosing Desert compats. 

Regardless of how realistic it might be, I think that the normal
type sectors should be about even.  Because taking Just Desert
compats gives you access to about 44 percent of the non gas
sectors.  Like I said, very unbalanced.

Not really sure if it was designed to be that way, but I seem to
remember reading in some old docs a while back that said land
was supposed to be the most numerous sector... Obviously not. :)

Shawn Fox
MR
From: cs177wai@sdcc5.ucsd.edu (Christopher Fodor)
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
Subject: Re: I wear women's undergarments...
Date: 9 Oct 92 00:50:47 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

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.

>> 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.

>
>	-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...

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

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

Ramblings courtesy of,

  Chris aka Feepness
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
From: solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky)
Subject: Re: Alt.games.gb (Galactic Bloodshed) FAQ  [Part 2 of 2]
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 23:42:00 GMT

I tried to find the section in the FAQ where it lists all on-going games and
couldn't find it. Are there really NO games going on right now?

Jason W. Solinsky
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
From: ninja@halcyon.com (Jonathan Roy)
Subject: General for HAP!
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 01:19:42 GMT

I can't accept control of a race totally by myself this time,
since i Might miss a day, but I'd love to be a general for a meso
race in the HAP game. I've mailed a few specific people, but if they
aren't playing either, maybe someoneelse will be interested in 
hiring me on. :)

Thanks!


-- 
  F F  Jonathan Roy, Vice President, Free Access Foundation.    GEnie: J.ROY18
   A   Mail faf@halcyon.com for information, or FTP to halcyon.com:  /pub/faf/
  F F  "A server is a terrible thing to waste."    Internet: ninja@halcyon.com
 "Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design." - _RotJ_
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
From: sigma@picasso.ipl.rpi.edu (Kevin Martin)
Subject: Re: GB5.1 posted onto scam.berkeley.edu
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 21:14:13 GMT

gvbraun@lesti.hut.fi (Toni Kotinurmi) writes:
>ninja@halcyon.com (Jonathan Roy) writes:
>>Some other ideas I wanted to throw out is things like:
>> < = > for order/load/unload/fire commands. Such as:
>>load <ship> <commodity> <amount> <optional qualifier>
>>load p f 1 f<1    This loads 1 fuel into all pods with less than
>>                  1 fuel.
>>unload s c 5 c>5  This unloads 5 crew from any shuttle that has more
>>                  than five crew...
>Ok, but remember > is used to send output to file, so...
>for p f less 1 load p f 1 ( hmm.. a bit difficult to figure ? And for is used.)

A genuine pain for the parser.  Not that the solution I proposed while
running RPI-GB-2 is much better, but at least the number of arguments is
consistent:

Basically, enhance the ability to specify "p" for all pods or "Y" for all
domes in scope, to specify a restricted subset of those ships, eg:

load p:f<1 f 1
order p:((f>5)&(dest=/)) dest /Death

The : is the key to it, which could trigger a parser for logical
expressions - then apply the parsed expression to every ship matching the
first specification.  While we're at it, how about * for all ships in
scope, or a leading / to indicate all ships regardless of scope?

Yeah, I know, it's not likely to happen in GB.

-- 
Kevin Martin
sigma@ipl.rpi.edu
"We're gonna need another Timmy!"
From: vancleef@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
Subject: Re: GB 5.1 Maybe?
Date: 8 Oct 92 03:17:29 EDT

In article <9210070851.AA04490@GROUCHO.CS.NYU.EDU>, deragon@GROUCHO.CS.NYU.EDU (John Paul Deragon) writes:
> 	Hmm, 5.1, where have I heard that before...
> 
> 	Well, yes, the NYU games did end in tragity on a galactic
> scale, and left many, many unhappy solar campers.  There are lots of
> things that led to the fall of the GB game, lots of bugs in the game,
> like insurg, dissolve(?), move, load, and garbage spewing database.
> 
> 	I am not going to blame this all on the game, as I made a few
> mistakes myself, (ie: too many blitz updates, corrupt backup).  But
> it *was* fun for awhile eh guys?
> 
> 
> 	So if/when/ 5.1 comes out (does the word vaporware ring to mind),
> I will try it again.  With some ground rules:
> 
> 	Defined and _adhered_ to update/segment schedule.
> 	Defined blitz schedules.
> 	Races to carefully examined for correctness.
> 	
> 	Once I get my hands on the 5.1 code, I will compile it,
> and post another note.  I can also try the HAP code if as some people
> belive that HAP is alittle safer (no offense GVC!). 
> 
> 
> 	In anycase, drop me a line if you would like another game
> here, and what software you would like (5.1 or HAP).  If there
> is enough demand, I will host it.  
> 
> 	Ciao...
> 
> 
> -----
> John Deragon				 deragon@groucho.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"
> 
> 
> 

It turns out that after changing all 'floats' to 'doubles' that everything
grok'd. I ran the code through lint and it came out pretty clean (except
for all of the racegen stuff which isnt my work anyways :).

The code has been totaly ANSI-fied, I found *lots* of subtle bugs in
the process of going through this procedure. I am now going to spend
a week or two testing all of the games features, and then post the
fixed code. Afterwards, I will start up a test game, and put in
a smart client interface.

-Garrett