Cream of the Crop 20/Cream of the Crop 20 (Terry Blount) (1996).iso/bbs/oxv300.zip/OXDOC.DOC

Text File | 1996-05-17 | 44KB | 836 lines

                         IRON OX, Version 3.00

                 (C)opyright 1993-1996, Joel W. Downer

                              INTRODUCTION

The kick in your ribs came at 3 a.m.  An hour later, still bleeding, you
stumbled through the door of this cell.

Earth is out of food, out of fuel, and out of space.  Worst, it's out of
luxite, the blazing heart of starships.  The long Metamorph Wars have
made things still worse.  Everyone agrees that what Earth needs can only
be found on other worlds.  However, most people -- including you --
still prefer a blanket in the hall and a can of soup to the risk of
becoming a colonist.

It's not up to you anymore.  Interbureau, the company that controls
space colonization, bought the U.S. prison system fifty years ago.  One
by one the prisons closed as inmates were sent to the stars.  Guilty or
innocent, at dawn you will leave the Earth forever.

To survive, you must master a raw and hostile world.  You must make
allies or grow powerful enough to crush the other colonists.  You begin
with your bare hands, a few automated "iron oxen" to help you build, and
a small pack of enhanced dogs ("cybermutts") to protect you.  If you
live, the world holds enough luxite and precious ore to make you one of
the wealthiest people in the universe.

Will you produce the food and power, the minerals and luxite, to save
your mother planet?  Or will you build wealth and weapons to conquer
neighboring worlds -- to revenge yourself on those who betrayed you?

The choice is yours.

                                THE GAME

Iron Ox is an exciting multiplayer game intended to run as a BBS door.
In this game, you will compete against up to twenty-four other callers,
and -- if your sysop is part of an inter-BBS league -- against callers
from other BBS'es, too!  Ox is a game of strategy, intense competition,
and just a bit of humor.  It will test skills you didn't know you had --
from your ability to choose the best farmland and maintain a network
of armed forts to your ability to write bad poetry.  You can play Iron
Ox in a friendly, cooperative way, or play like a black-hearted,
malicious Rockpicker.  There is no "right" or "wrong" way to play.

Iron Ox is one of the first BBS doors to bring together the two most
exciting features a door can have:  real-time multinode interaction and
interBBS support.  Attack an enemy's fort while the owner is on another
node, scrambling to purchase cybermutts and mount a counterattack.  Team
up *in real time* with a friend on another node to build a weapon to
launch against another BBS.  In Iron Ox, all of these things and many
more are possible!

Iron Ox also includes full support for RIP graphics.  If you have a RIP
terminal, Iron Ox will send you RIP icons the first time you enter the
game; your terminal should automatically place them in your ICONS\
subdirectory.

                            JOINING THE GAME

Once you are done with preliminaries like these docs, the game will ask
you for your alias.  This is the name by which other players will know
you throughout the game.

After you've chosen your alias, you will be taken to the Interbureau
Genetics Lab to choose what species you'd like to be.  One *helpful*
result of the war with the Metamorphs is that Interbureau now knows how
to transform human bodies and DNA to convert humans into creatures of
other races.  The race you choose will affect some of your abilities in
the game, as well as the way other players and characters in the game
react to you.  You will be able to look at as many of the pictures and
descriptions as you like before choosing, but here are some extra hints
for choosing a race:

Human:  The baseline for comparison -- average at everything.

Rockpicker:  Good miner and very good at fighting and nasty tricks, but
   not the best choice for beginners.  Vulnerable to starvation, and
   greatly mistrusted by everyone.

Slouch:  Not much good at anything, but very lucky and likeable.

Caper:  Very talented -- good at almost everything! -- but works short
   hours and takes frequent vacations.  Keep an eye on the boredom
   monitor in the game status screen.  Don't work too hard, and try to
   keep entertained!

Photovore:  Very powerful character, but tricky to use to its fullest
   advantage.  Doesn't mine well, but excellent at making food and
   energy.  Moves very quickly across most terrain, and invulnerable to
   starvation -- *superb* for scouting missions.  A beginner might not
   be able to use the Photovore to its full potential, but the generous
   number of hours can be a good way to learn.

Shovelfist:  Great miner, very friendly, but unlucky and not especially
   clever.  Vulnerable to starvation.  People pick on Shovelfists.

Rubblemuncher:  Invulnerable to starvation (like the Photovore) and
   *great* at making ore.  However, this character travels slowly and
   may have trouble making enough energy to meet its needs.

Handler:  Not much good at making things, but decent at dirty tricks and
   *very* good at bartering.  Mostly a character for advanced players
   and team play.  A politician -- well-liked but not well-trusted.

Metamorph:  Very attractive character because of its ability to change
   shapes!  Need to make some ore?  Become a Rubblemuncher!  Need to be
   sneaky?  Time to turn into a Rockpicker!  Unfortunately, the effort
   of maintaining your shape does reduce your daily turns and speed.

The best choices for beginning players are the Human, Slouch, Caper, and
Photovore.  Choose carefully!  Unless you play a Metamorph, you will
probably be stuck with your choice the rest of the game.  Some people
have spread rumors of back-alley genetics clinics cropping up to allow
people who *aren't* Metamorphs to change shape, but who would trust an
amateur physician for such a dangerous procedure?

                               THE COLONY

The colony is in a river valley which is divided into a number of plots,
labelled with numbers and letters.  The size of the map may vary from
five to fifty-five rows high, but is always twelve columns (A-L) wide.
If the map is more than five rows high, only five rows will appear on
the screen at a time -- your view will scroll as you move around.

When the game begins, you will be in the town square, which is
approximately at the middle of the map.  Your location will be marked by
a cross-hatch symbol like this:  ╬.  The rest of the map will be blotted
out (black), and will only become visible as you travel around and
explore things.  On the lower half of the screen, you will see a menu
that looks something like this:

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Town Square  Visit Store    Prospector     Visit Saloon   Sheriff's
             Robot Shoppe   Bank           News Office    Mutts/Drones
             Other Players  Help/Info      Use Phone      Quit Game
             Move - Arrows
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

When a menu includes "Move - Arrows," that means you can use the arrow
keys on your keyboard to travel around the map.  Only the four cardinal
directions are supported (Up = North, Down = South, Left = West, Right =
East), not diagonals.  If you try the arrow keys and the game doesn't
respond right, try using the numeric keypad with Num Lock turned on.  If
your terminal supports "Doorway Mode," turning on Doorway Mode should
also work.

Here's what the other options do:

Visit Store       The store is where you can buy and sell the four vital
                  products used in the game:  food, energy, ore, and
                  luxite.  Here's what each product does:

                  Food     Keeps your character alive!
                  Energy   Keeps your oxen running and charges weapons
                  Ore      Needed to build things, including oxen
                  Luxite   Worth good money, and needed for cybermutts

                  You start the game with s