Magnum One/Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso/d19/tw2v601b.arc/TWEDITOR.DOC

Text File | 1988-10-28 | 24KB | 514 lines

                     TRADE WARS EDITOR INSTRUCTIONS
                     ==============================
                        by Chris Sherrick (PTL)

     Welcome to the Trade Wars (v.ii) editor.  The TW200 editor is divided
into sub programs which I'll handle section by section. When running the
program, don't be too worried about ruining the database, you can drop
carrier on from remote while editing and nothing will happen to hurt the
data base. The editor is pretty much self explanatory, and anytime there
is something confusing, I've added a help command ("Enter ? for help".)
The exception to this is the message editor, which can be confusing but
really don't expect you to be playing around with it anyway.
 Also, all numbers Trade Wars handles are integers, so don't enter any
noninteger values for numbers (from -32000 to 32000 approx.)
Even credits are an integer and if a player accumulates over 25000 credits,
he will be taxed 5000 when he logs into the game.

                     LOGIN AND MESSAGES TO TW SYSOP
                     ==============================
     When in local mode, no password is required to get into the editor,
but when not in local mode, a password is required. You define this password
when TWINIT2 is run, and note that upper case is different than lower case.
Once you're in, the computer will give a list of messages to the TW sysop.
It will tell who logged on, who they killed, whether or not they made
or destroyed a planet, and the maintenance and Cabal report.  Don't panic
when you see that someone else ran the maintenance program.  TW200 will
automatically run the maintenance program (TWMAINT) the first time someone
logs on to TW200 for the first time of that day. So when you see that someone
else ran TWMAINT, don't worry about it, everything is normal.  Another
thing the maintenance program does is give a Cabal report.  This will
simply tell you what the Cabal did, but the messages are a little cryptic.
Here is a decipher for the Cabal report:

   -->     = Attacked
   Sctr    = Sector
   ftrs    = Fighters
   Plyr    = Player/Player's
   Cabal   = Cabal
   dstrd   = Destroyed
   Grp     = Group

An example of a message is:
   Grp 2 --> Sctr 10(Joe Cuel): lost 20, dstrd 25 (Cabal ftrs dstrd)
which means Cabal group 2 attacked the fighters in sector 10 (who belong
to Joe Cuel).  The Cabal lost 20 fighters but destroyed 25 of Joe Cuel's
fighters.  All the Cabal fighters were lost.

Another example is:
   Grp 9 --> Joe Cuel: lost 45, dstrd 34 (Plyr dstrd)
which means that Cabal group 9 attack Joe Cuel's ship.  The Cabal lost
45 fighters, but destroyed 34 of Joe Cuel's fighters.  His ship was destroyed.

I hope you follow this, it was meant to take up little room in the list
of messages to the sysop.  Also, the messages to the sysop can be turned
off so that no messages will be written.  Look under the General editor
for this.


                        TWEDIT EDITORS
                        ==============

     The following is a summary of editors for TWEDIT:

A - Team Editor          - Edits Team info
U - User Editor          - Edits players players' ships.
S - Sector Editor        - Edits the contents of a sector.
P - Port Editor          - Edits the prices and values of a port.
G - General Editor       - Edits general information.
R - Report               - Gives a report of players and occupied sectors.
C - Cabal editor         - Edits information about the Cabal
D - Daily message editor - Edits the who-killed-your-fighters messages
R - Radio message editor - Edits messages to-from users
P - Planet editor        - Edits the planets



                         A - TEAM EDITOR

     This command allows you to edit Team info.  You will be asked which Team
you wish to edit, or choose L to list the available Teams.  You can edit one
of three fields.   The first field is a toggle, it toggles the Teams active/
inactive state. Second is the Team password. This is a four character password.
Please note: UPPER case and lower case are different here!  Lastly, you can
edit the number of players currently on that Team. PLEASE be careful when
editing any of these fields, as there isn't much error checking at this time.

                         U - USER EDITOR

     This editor allows you to edit the information about a person.  The
first thing it will do is ask you for a search string or a player number.
For the search string, the editor recognizes differences between upper
and lower case.  If you wanted to find "Joe Cuel", "joe" would not find
him, but "Joe" would.  As for the user number, each player is assigned
a number from 2 to how many people are playing.  The record for player
1 is used for general information, not as a person, so you will never
have a player number 1.  If you want to return to the main menu (of TWEDIT),
just press ENTER.
     Once you've got a person, it will then list the information about
him, along with what can be changed.  Here is a list of what is printed
and what can be changed:

A - Name.
     You can change a person's name, but not his new number.  Keep in
mind that a person's name is adjusted when someone logs in to TW2.  The
adjusting routine will change every letter following a nonletter to a
capital.  Here is some examples of what it will do to a name: "Joe Cuel",
"Ronald Macdonald", "Glort From Org Xxx-Yyy!."  Make sure that if you
change the name, the computer will recognize who it is.  Names are limited
to 41 characters in length.

B - Last day on
     This will display the last time the player was on Trade Wars.  This
can be adjusted so that a player won't be allowed on for several days.
If you don't want him or her on for another 7 days (banished for a week),
enter -7 and the game won't let that person on for another seven days
from the day you changed the value.  If you make this a positive value,
it will interpret it as how many days ago the person was on.  A "0" means
that person was on today.  A "1" means he was on yesterday.  A "244" means
the last time he was on was 244 days ago.

C - Who killed them
     This will tell you who killed that person.  If it's a "<none>" then
they're still alive.  When changing the value, enter the person's name
or search string, as when starting this editor.  However, the search string
won't find the Cabal, or a deleted player.  Enter a -1 for the Cabal,
and a -98 for a player who has been deleted (because he hasn't called
for a while, etc.)  If you want to have their ship initialized, enter
a -99.  Note that a -99 will have a different effect on the last day on.
If the last day on is negative (banished from the board,) it won't let
that person on until that day comes, then they will be reinitialized.

D - Turns left
     This is simply the turns they have left on the last day they were
on.  If they weren't on today, it will be reset to the number of turns
allotted per day, unless this value is greater then the number of turns
allotted per day.  If this number is greater, it will take the greater
number rather then lower (the amount of turns allowed per day)  e.g. If
it was set to 500, that person would have 500 turns the next time they
called, regardless of how many days ago they called.

E - Location
     This is the sector they are in.  If it is set to a zero, they will
be taken out of the game and "hidden" until they call up.  When they call
in, they will be moved to sector 1.

F - Fighters
     This is how many fighters they have.  There is a 9999 limit.

G - Total cargo holds
     This is how many cargo holds a person has, used and unused.  If you
adjust this, make sure that it is not less that the cargo holds filled
with ore, org and equipment.  If it is, it will give you a warning.

H - J Ore, Org, and Eqp
     This is how many of the cargo holds are filled with ore, organics
and equipment.

K - Credits
     This is simply how many credits they have.  Note that this is an
integer (less than 32000) and if they are over 25000, they will be taxed
when they log on.

L - Last room in.
     This is the last room the player was in and is only used in a retreat.
If it is zero, the game will pick a random direction and retreat that
way.

! - Delete player
     This will delete the player FROM THE GAME, not just destroy the ship.
If you want to destroy the ship, use the B command.

Adding a new person
     If you want to add a new person, there is three things you have to
change: A - name, B - last day on, set to 0 (so they won't be automatically
deleted), and C - killed by, set to -99.  However It is much easier to
let them log on and let the game initialize them.


                        S - SECTOR EDITOR

     This editor will allow you to edit some of the information in a sector.
It will ask for the sector number, then allow you to edit the information
for that sector.  If you want to return to the  TWEDIT main menu, just
press ENTER.

A - F - Warps lead to
     This allows you to change what sectors the warps lead to.  I recommend
leaving this alone.  If you change a warp, it won't change it for the
other sector, e.g.  If you change sector 1 to warp to sector 77, it won't
automatically change 77 to go to sector 1.  If you insist on changing
the map, it will be a lot of work.  But if you do, make sure you leave
sector 85 and 83 together.  The Cabal moving routine assumes these are
next to each other, and will create problems if they're not.  Also, sector
85 is the the Cabal HQ, and a player gets 100,000 points for invading
it.

G - Port in sector
     This allows you to add or delete a port that is in the sector.  If
you want to move a port, you have to delete it from one sector and add
it to another sector.  It will ask for a search string or a port number.
The search string is just like the player search string (see the User
editor)

H - Fighters in the sector
     This allows you to change the fighters in a sector, and who they
belong to.  This is pretty self explanatory.  When it asks for the player
number, enter a -1 if you want the Cabal in a sector.  But it's not a
good idea to move the Cabal from this editor, since TW will no longer
recognize them as a group.  Move them from the Cabal editor.  You can
change the Cabal group size with out bothering the groups though.

People in sector
     This will display the people in this sector.  If you want to change
these, you have to use the user editor.

Planet in sector
     This will be displayed if there is a planet in the sector.  If you
want to change this, you have to use the planet editor in TWEDITA.

I - Shortest path
     This will give you the shortest route from one sector to another.
It is just like the sector finder, only you get to specify both sectors.


                           P - PORT EDITOR

     This will ask you for the port number or search string, and answering
this question works just like the user editor.  Just press ENTER to return
to the TWEDIT main menu.

A - Name
     This will allow you to change the name of a port.  You are limited
to 41 characters.

B - Class
     Class is not used for anything but show.  You could set the class
to -999 and it wouldn't affect a thing, except the class reading.  For
convention, keep this accurate.

C - E - Quantity of ore and prices
     This will display how much ore they have, and what the fair price
is (used when bargaining.)

F - Productivity
     This is how many units get produced every 24 hours.  I do not recommend
changing this value.  When the ports produce they produce smoothly over
the 24 hour period, figuring quantities by the minute.  If the productivity
was set to 24, it would produce one item every hour.  The ports stop producing
merchandise when they are at ten times their daily amount.

G - Max change in cost
     This, in other words, is how much of a deal the player gets.  It
is at max cost, so if this was set to 50%, when it has ten days merchandise,
they would sell around 50% of the cost.  With 5 days of merchandise, it
would be around 25 percent the cost.  It is a linear function of cost
vs. how much they have or need, and looks like the following graph:

             Port selling                        Port buying

    (Price) ^                             Price ^
            |                            Sp*Mp  |
         Sp-o                       Sp + ----- -+   o
            |o                            100   |  o
            | o <- Curve                        | o <- Curve
     Sp*Mp  |  o                                |o
Sp - ----- -+   o                            Sp-o
      100   |                                   |
            +---|------>(Number                 +---|--------> (Number
           0   d*10      of units)             0   d*10         of units)

            Mc = Maximum change in cost (in percent)
            Sp = Standard Price (Ore=10, Org=20, Eqp=35)
            d  = The daily production rate

The above is a graph of what is considered a fair price per unit vs the
number of units being sold.  If you don't follow them, don't worry; it
take an economics course to really understand it well (supply and demand
curves)


                       G - GENERAL EDITOR

     This allows you to edit general information about Trade Wars, and
you will probably find this section the most interesting.  You should
go through and check this before you set up Trade Wars to run on your
BBS.

A - Change the editor password
     The first thing you have to do is remember the old editor password,
because it will ask for it before you change it.  Once you've entered
the old password, it will ask for the new password.  If you forgot it,
load in the ascii version of TWEDIT into basic and type the following
(at the basic prompt):
FS$ = "TWDATA.DAT
GOSUB 2000
GET 1,1
PRINT LEFT$(FA$,CVI(FB$))
CLOSE
and it will print your password for you.  This is doing it the hard way.

B - Turns per day
     This is how many turns people are allowed on per day.  I recommend
45 to 50 for TW200.

C - Initial fighters
     This is how many fighters a person gets when their ship is being
reinitialized.

D - Initial credits
     This is how many credits they get when their ship is reinitialized.

E - Initial cargo holds
     The same thing as above, only with cargo holds.

F - Days until an inactive player is deleted.
     Trade Wars will go through and delete old players who have been killed
after this many days of inactivity.  Note that it will keep alive players
still alive until they get killed, no matter how long they haven't been
on the game.  If they have 700 fighters, they should be allowed to at
least survive until someone kills them.  The maintenance program deletes
the inactive players and totally removes them from the game.

G - Last day maintenance ran
     The maintenance program is run every day when the first person for
that day calls on.  If it has not been run today, it will run when the
next person plays TW2.  This should only be run once per day, as the Cabal
regenerate and move every time the maintenance program is run.  To change
this, enter how many days ago the maintenance program was run.  e.g. for
today, enter a 0; for yesterday, enter a 1; for 233 days ago, enter a
233.  All that will matter if it was run today or not, so 1 and 223 will
have no difference as far as effecting the program.

H - Cabal regeneration
     This value effects how fast the Cabal regenerate.  I recommend 50.
That will give the players a challenge, but they are still (barely) con-
querable.  Also, if you want to lower the top players, jack this up to
100 or 200 and the number one player will get picked on more often (see
the Cabal editor - Group 9.)  If someone is going against the Cabal, and
you want them to win, lower this to 10,20,30 or even 0, and it will give
them a good chance.  Just don't abuse this - players should be able to
wipe out the Cabal... It is the test of a good TW2 player.

I - Messages to TW sysop
     By turning this off, TWMAINT and TW2 won't add to the list of messages
to the sysop.   If you don't want to periodically check into the editor
and delete the message to sysop list, turn this is off, and you won't
have to worry about TW2.  It will run on its own without supervision.


                           R - REPORT

     This will give a report of players, and all occupied sectors.  It
will rank the players and print from the strongest player to the weakest
player in a table format>  Here is the meanings of the symbols:

#    - The player number.
Name - The player's name.
Day  - How many days ago the player was on.
KB   - Killed By, what player number killed that person.  A blank means
       no one killed him or her.  A -1 means the Cabal
Trn  - How many turns they have left on their last day on.
Loc  - Location, what sector number they're in.
Crdts- How many credits they have.
Ftrs - How many fighters they have.
CH   - How many cargo holds they have (total).
Ore  - The amount of cargo holds containing ore.
Org  - The amount of cargo holds containing organics.
Eqp  - The amount of cargo holds containing equipment.

Sr   - The sector number.
Cl   - The class of a port in that sector.  A blank means no port there.
Ftrs - How many dropped fighters are in the sector.
Who  - Who dropped the fighters (player number and name).



                         C - CABAL EDITOR

     The Cabal editor allows you to edit general information about the
Cabal, such as group size, destinations, etc.  But before, you should
understand what each of the 9 groups of Cabal operate.

GROUPS 1-2 (Defense)
     All they do is defend.  Group 1 defends sector 85 with 1000 fighters,
and group 2 defends sector 83 with 500 fighters.  If group 1 is lowered
in fighters, they will be replaced with fighters from group 2.  In other
words, group 1 has priority over group 2.

GROUPS 3-5 (Wandering)
     These three groups pick a spot and head for it one sector per day.
When they get there, they pick another "goal" and aim for it.  They start
at 100 fighters, and if the group size is under 50 or over 100, it will
make its new goal sector 85 and head to it so it can merge with the fighters
(see below)  If they enter any sectors containing a player's fighters,
they will fight until either the player's or the Cabal fighters are destroyed.

GROUPS 6-8 (Attack)
     These groups pick a spot and head straight for it, but they move
through every sector to get there in one day.  Like the wandering group,
they will destroy all fighters dropped in a sector (or be destroyed.)
Also if they stumble across a person they will waste 20 fighters on that
person, just to be mean.  If they are over 50 or under 20, they will head
back to sector 85 and be merged.

GROUPS 9 (Attack highest player)
     This group will head straight for the top player (taking out dropped
fighters as normal) and spend all of its fighters on the number one player,
providing that he/she is worth over 21000 credits (around 100 fighters.)
This is made to keep control an annoy the best player.

FORMING AND MERGING GROUPS
     Groups are formed from any extra fighters left over in sector 83
in group 2.  When two groups stumble across each other, the higher number
group will merge into the lower number group.  If group 7 with 50 fighters
comes across group 4 with 100 fighters, group 7 will be destroyed and
group 4 will have 150 fighters (and subsequently head back to sector 85).
When group 4, 150 fighters, stumbles across group 2, 500 fighters, in
sector 83 (group 4 was heading for 85 remember?) group 4 will cease to
exist and group 2 will have 650 fighters.  The 150 extra (donated from
group 4) will be used to create other groups.

USING THE CABAL EDITOR
     After displaying which groups exist, it will ask for the group number
you want to edit.  Enter any of the group numbers.  Then it will ask you
for then Location and size of the group.  If you are editing groups 3
through 5, it will ask you for a goal.  Press enter to leave these the
same.  If you want to see a path the Cabal will go to get to somewhere
(as in groups 3 - 5) use the sector editor, shortest distance command.


                   THE MESSAGE DAILY EDITOR

     This is the most confusing, user hostile program of the whole package.
I don't plan on having you use this, so I wrote it very quickly an sloppily.

A - List messages with numbers
     This will give a list of messages in number form.  Here is what each
number stands for:

Mesg # - The message number
Who to - What player number the message is address to
Type   - 0 = deleted, 1 = player destroyed your fighters
Var A  - Who attacked that person
Var B  - The number of fighters destroyed

B - List messages with test
     Will display the above messages with names instead of numbers.  More
legible.

C - Edit a message
     This will let you edit a message, given the number. The consequences
     are not good (but may be rather interesting - errors!) if you drop
     carrier in this part of the editor.
     This is self explanatory

D - Add a message
     This will add a null message, a deleted message, at the end of the
message list.  If you want to do anything with it, you will have to C
- Edit a message.

                      M - RADIO MESSAGE EDITOR

     Like the Daily message editor, this routine is quite user hostile.
Once you pick the M command you will be given a starting list of messages
that you can edit.  They will displayed in the following form:

  8 0 24 50 Got a guilty conscience or something?

Which is equal to:

 Msg#  Active?  From  To  Message

You then will enter the message to edit. The you are then given info on the
Message, and asked if it is the correct one.  If you reply with a Y you will
then be prompted through each of the message fields. First, you are asked
whether the message should be active or not. Next you will be asked who the
message is TO. You must know the number of the user to change this info.
After that, you will be asked who the message is from. Last but not least,
you will be asked to input a new message (in any).  Please note:  using
[ENTER] will mean  No change, or end.


                          PLANET EDITOR

     This will allow you to edit the information about the planets.
The first thing it will do is ask you for the search string, planet number,
or sector the planet is in.  The search string and number act just like
the user editor.  If you want to enter the sector number the planet is
in, put a "/" before the number, e.g. "/45" means the planet in sector
45.

A - Name and number
     This will display the planet's name and number.  You can change the
name, but you are limited to 41 chars. max.

B - D - Ore, Org, Eqp
     This allows you to edit how much ore, organics, or equipment the
planet has to give away.  Good values are between 1 to 10 times the prod-
uctivity.

E - G - Productivity of ore, org, eqp
     This value is the productivity of the ore, organics and equipment.
For an explanation of productivity, look under the port editor.  Good
values are limited from 1 to 3000.

! - Delete/Create (and move) a planet
     This command will delete a planet if the planet exists by deleting
the name and removing it from the sector it is in.  All other information
will be saved (productivity, etc.)  If the planet doesn't exist, it will
create a planet by asking for its name and location.  Once again, the
name is limited to 41 chars.   If you want to move a planet, you have
to delete it, then re-create it in the sector you want.  All the merchandise
info will be saved from deletion to creation.