From: cfodor@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Hi.)
Newsgroups: alt.games.gb
Subject: Please Flame me!
Summary: Seven hundred fifty four thousand eight hundred fifty nine.
Date: 29 Sep 92 03:50:03 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

I was bored, so I thought I'd write something that other people
could pick apart and explain to me how stupid I was. :)

Seriously, this is something I hope that gets included with racegen
or possibly in the FAQ.  It is an attempt to help newbies to design
their races.  People can learn in the game what to do, but when
they get into racegen they are on their own, and so often they
give themselves a real loser of a race.  Hopefully this will
help.  All inaccuracies were purposely designed to help me win
games.

-------------

A Little Dissertation on Racegen (and a few other things)
 
    By Christopher Fodor (aka Lord Feepness)  9/92
 
This document does not tell you how to compile a client, how to connect
or find a game, or how to use vi.  It is merely here to give you an
idea of how to go about playing.
 
Enrolling your race:
 
In most GB games you will be required to register your race by using
some form of race generator to selectively choose your race attributes.
This is when you first begin playing the game.  You are given a set
number of points and must apply those points to tweak attributes of your
race.  This is the most important part of the game.  You can modify
certain of your race attributes to be poor, and then modify others
so that they are stronger.  In this way, your race becomes a custom
unique entity.
 
The race attributes follow:
 
Planet type: The planet type you choose is very important as your home
planet type limits the sectors types you can choose, establishes your
initial resource production, number of civs you will produce
initially, and your atmosphere preference.
 
Airless (symbol: O) - Airless planets are very small, and, despite their name
usually have an atmosphere.  The atmosphere, if I am correct, is never
methane (more on this later).  Airless consist of usually land and mountain
sectors, sometimes desert.  Airlesses can sometimes be VERY small, normally
though they range from small to small-medium.  Airlesses have very
low fertility meaning initial population would be extremely low.
 
Iceball (symbol: #) - Iceballs range in the same size as airless, except,
instead of land and mountain, they consist of ice and mountain.  Iceballs
never have any atmosphere.  Resources will be lower than an airless,
but fertility will be higher.
 
Do not pick airless or iceball as your starting planet unless you
know what you are getting into.  You do get a point bonus for starting
on them, but it is difficult.
 
Waterball (symbol: .) - Waterballs range in the medium size mostly.
Waterballs range from all water, to water with a little land and
ice bands at the poles.  Waterballs have low resource deposits compared
to other same sized planets, but much higher fertility, resulting in
lots of population at first.  Waterballs can be both methane or
mostly normal.
 
Class M (symbol: @) - This represents an earth-type planet.  Like
earth, it can be (and often is) mostly water.  However, sectors
present on the planet can include ice at the poles, mountains,
forest, desert, and land.  Having a variety of sectors increases
the resource content, but lowers the fertility slightly.  Class-M's
can have both types of atmospheres.
 
Asteroid (symbol: o) - Asteroids are very small airlesses.  They
have very low fertility.  Would you want to start a race on an
asteroid?    I didn't think so.   No atmosphere though.
 
Forest (symbol: '(') - Forest planets contain significant amount
of jungle, with ice at the poles and land and water scattered
in for good measure.  They can range from medium to large, but
have a higher percentage of methane atmosphere.  Resource content
is ok, and fertility is very high.
 
Desert (symnol: -) - Desert planets are about 50/50 methane/normal.
Desert planets will have very low fertility resulting in low population
at first.  They range from medium to huge. Deserts are almost all
desert sectors, in addition to ice bands at the poles, and splotches
of land and/or mountains.
 
Jovains (symbol: ~) - Jovian planets are massive.  At least twice the size
of the largest desert, they usually have a third the resources.  A
Jovian planet is ALL gaseous sectors, which have a very high fertility
and very low resource.  Races which start on Jovians are separated from
races which start on normal worlds, because normal races may not
pick gas as a compatible sector and jovians (as they are called) may only
pick gas.  However (and this is a big however) gas sectors on jovians may NOT
in any way be terraformed into any other sector type.  On other planets
sectors can be terraformed back and forth however you please.  Jovians
are typified by about a 50/50 split on methane/normal atmosphere.
Jovians aren't recommended for beginners.
 
The big atmosphere deal: Atmospheres are usually considered to be
either "normal" or "methane."  A methane atmosphere consists of
65% or more methane with other gases scattered in.  Most normal
atmosphere are combinations of all gases with some being higher than
other.  The atmosphere of your home planet is your ideal atmosphere,
and much of your compatability with other planets will be based on
that.  Unfortunately for the methane races, compatability is very
bad for them on normal (and vaccum) planets, making colonization
hard.  Conversely, compat is very high on other methane worlds.
For "normal" air breathers, compat across the board is pretty
average, except on methane worlds where it is very bad.  Most people
want normal atmospheres, and will bitch for hours about getting
methane.
 
Sector compats: After picking your planet, you pick compatability
with sectors.  All races are 100% compatible with plated.  Plated
representing a totally efficient sector, as in Asimov's Trantor
of _Foundation_ (no relation to the race of the same name :).
Plated sector are created when a sector any sector (except gas)
gets 100% efficient.  The opposite of a plated sector, is a
wasted sector, which has been bombarded!  Wasted sectors can
be repaired.
 
Here is a quick rundown of the sectors and info about them.
 
Sector   Symbol  Defense   Fertility   Resource   Abundance (scale 1-10)
Plated     o        4         N/A        N/A         N/A
Ocean      .        1        High        Avg         4
Gas        ~        2        High!       Low!        10+
Ice        #        2        Avg         Avg         4
Mountain   ^        3        Low         High        4
Land       *        1        Avg         Avg         5
Desert     -        2        Low         High        6
Forest     )        3        High        Low         3
Wasted     %        0         N/A        N/A         N/A
 
Note that the abundance is only a subjective measure by me and
will vary with the universe.  Fert and resource will vary also
but not as much.  Defense values are straight from the server
code.
 
Defense value of a sector affects attacks land combat by multiplying
the defender's strength.  It also protects ships landed on them
by decreasing the chance to hit by 10% * defense value, and adding
defense value armor points onto the ship.
 
Your percent compatability will affect how much popn can live on
that type of sector, how well you fight on that sector, and how well
you mine resources on the sector.  If you are 50% compat to a sector
your combat strength will be 1/2 that of a 100% race.  If you have 0%
compat with a sector, you will neither increase the efficiency of the
sector or mine resources from it.
 
You always have to pick one home sector type that will for sure occur
on your home type planet.  Sectors are more expensive in points
the less common they are on your homeworld.  It is also more expensive
in points to choose lots of sectors.
 
Rate of Explore: Explore rate determines how fast your civs expand
by themselves during updates.  Be aware that civs want to move from
low fertility to high fertility, not the other way around.  This
saves you from using APS (actionpoints), but not much else.
 
Fertility: The fertility of your race is not directly related to the
fertility of a sector.  What it is is the percentage chance that your
race will raise the ferility of a sector by 1 each update.  This can
be useful to generate lots and lots of civs.
 
Birthrate: This might be better represented as fecundity.  A high number
means high reproduction, and a low number means low reproduction.  A good
example of a 100% birthrate would be insects (lots born, die fast,) and
a low birthrate might be a whale or an elephant (few born, long span,).
The jist of it is that a high birthrate means your population (on a sector)
will move more quickly towards the maxinum number that can be supported
(on that sector).  A low birthrate means that you gradually move towards
that maximum.  As you can (hopefully) see, this is a double edged sword,
but generally it is more convenient to have a high birthrate than low.
 
Fight: FIGHT!  The best.  This is way cool.  Feep likes it.  Seriously,
this is merely an exact scale of how well your race tears the guts
out of someone else.  It ranges from 1 to 13 normally.  Even for the techies
you should have at least 3 unless you have a good reason to do something
else.  Think about it.  If you start with fight 1, why not fight twice
as well for just a few points.  Then when you have fight 2, why not
spend a few more to increase by 50% to fight 3.  After that your
percentage gains are lower and it becomes a personal thing, but an
extremely low fight will hamper you the entire game.  Mesos normally have
high fight, and normals lower.
 
Metabolism:  Metabolism is an indication of how well you mine resources
and increase efficiency.  Efficiency is an integer, and you raise
efficiency on your sectors based on your metabolism.  A metabolism of
2 would raise efficiency twice as fast as a metab of 1, and also,
mine (remove) twice as many resources when production occurrs.  Note that
production on a sector occurs is merely a percentage chance based
on efficiency.  If a sector does produce, the amount produced is
based on the amount of resources in the sector, the race metabolism, and
your compatability with the sector.  The amount you mine is then removed
from the sector.
 
#sexes:  This is the minimum number of sexes needed to reproduce.  One sex
is very convenient because no one ever needs to worry about safe sex,
and because it is very easy (on ACTIONPOINTS) to move 1 civ around.
Six sexes is really hard to work with.  And then there is the legendary
57 sex race which no one ever wants to talk about.
 
Intelligence:  Intelligence is an exact determination of how smart your
dudes are.  Your tech will rise by intel/100 each update.  Additionally,
you may use the "technology" command to invest money in research
which will increase your tech.  However, normally the bulk of tech will
come from intelligence.  Intelligence is gotten in different ways discussed
below:
 
Normals:  This would be a race of individuals.  Intelligence is a constant,
decided when you gen your race.  This is very simple.  A common sub-class
of the normal is the techie who has a very high intelligence.  Normals
are nice because they are producing tech from the very start.
 
Mesos: Mesos (or metamorphic races as they are now called) are like the
Thing.  They are fighters, not thinkers, though they have a group
mass intelligence.  The maximum cap on their intelligence is decided when
you gen your race, and as more civs are generated, the smarter the race
will get.  Most mesos will be behind the normals on tech because mesos
start with intelligence zero!
 
Note:  Mesos/Metas name confusion.  They used to be called mesomorphic
races, until someone realized that meant "of medium size".  Now they
are called "metamorphic" which is the original intent "shape changer".
Call 'em mesos/metas/morphs they don't care because they'll be to
busy cleaning their teeth with your carpal-bones.  Ask one a question,
it won't answer, they can't talk.
 
Mass:  Mass is an important, if oft ignored, stat.  A low mass allows for
lower fuel usage in both hyper-jumping and normal travel.  Other than
that mass really isn't that important, but giving yourself a really high mass
can really shoot yourself in the foot.
 
Absorb:  Remember _Aliens_?  Remember _The Thing_?  That's the idea.
Suck in the writhing, screaming, body, and spit out a happy, thriving,
hungry, little new dude.  This is very convenient, and hours of fun
for the whole family.
 
One final note: Do not go too far!  Unless you've played at least one
game, don't decide: "well geez, all I need is tech and nothing else,
I'll give myself nothing but that".  Well, let me say this, I see
one every game, and every game they go down in flames.  Same goes for
the other stats.  Don't go too far unless you are prepared.
 
That's it.  Now you are prepared to run racegen hopefully a little more than
you were before.  Now find out how to turn on your factory.