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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 six units of food -- enough to keep you fed for two days if your character race needs to eat -- and six units of energy. When you run short, you *can* use the store to meet the shortfall, but be careful! The store can run out, and disasters can ruin the store inventory all at once. Prospector The prospector's office includes several important options. It allows you to buy a LuxKit, a portable chemical kit used to monitor the luxite content of land. If you're carrying a LuxKit, it will automatically read the luxite content of every plot you visit. Unfortunately, LuxKits only last one game turn. They are also fairly heavy and will slow you down as you travel. Another option in this office is to "jump the claim" of another player. If you can seize control of a plot of land from another player, and keep control long enough, Interbureau will turn over the rights to you. A final option is to claim a free plot of land. The first player to visit every plot in the river valley will be entitled to claim this prize! Visit Saloon For better or for worse, the Saloon is the cultural center of the colony. Care to chat with your fellow colonists? Interested in losing some spare change to the foul old Rockpicker who runs the Rat Race? Ready to risk the strange drinks mixed up by the addled bartender? The Saloon is the place. The Saloon is also the home of the Colony Cultural Competition. By making an entry and voting for the entry you think is best, you have a chance to win free land! Remember, though: the Cultural Committee won't reward people for selfishness. Sheriff's Some say that the Sheriff is useless -- aside from kicking vagrants out of town, he barely does anything. Of course, if there's someone sleeping in the streets you'd *like to see* evicted from town.... Robot Shoppe This is where you can replenish your supply of iron oxen and cybermutts. Both are priced very reasonably, but beware: the supply of iron oxen can fluctuate with the ore supply, and the price can go way up! Mutts are always available -- dogs can reproduce under the worst of conditions -- but *you* will need to provide five units of luxite for the power generator attached to each mutt. This shoppe is also where you buy trojan oxen. Trojan oxen *appear* to produce whatever product you choose. By installing "turbo-chips," you can even make them appear to make *more* than you normally could -- making the plot an extra-tempting target for sabotage. Trojan oxen, you see, are experts in self-defense. After a tangle with a trojan ox, even the most dedicated saboteurs wish they had never hefted that ball-peen hammer. Trojan oxen are only available in the registered version of Iron Ox. Bank The bank is a (relatively) safe place to deposit and draw interest off of surplus cash. Keeping at least *some* money in the bank is a must, because the price of maintaining your mutts, forts, and other land improvements is drawn automatically from the bank. If you have a large number of mutts or land improvements and you don't have enough money in the bank, the results may be unpleasant! News Office Care to change your name? Want to spread nasty rumors about other players? This is the place to go. Mutts/Drones This menu allows you to control your drones and cybermutts. You can pick up or drop off mutts (leaving a nasty surprise for other players!) and adjust your mutts' "attitude" -- whether they recklessly try to murder any visitors or fight defensively to protect the land. You can view a list of your drones, reprogram drones, load or unload products from them, and (if you're in a league game) even launch them to another BBS! Other Players As you travel, sometimes the game will tell you that you are "NOT ALONE" on a plot of land. When that happens, use this menu to see who's here, to attack other players, and to examine other players. If you're playing on a multinode BBS and other players are in the game at the same time as you are, you can also use the motion detector option to try to track down the other players. Note: Interbureau regulations don't allow fighting in the Town Square. Help/Info This menu includes a wealth of information you will need to refer to regularly while playing the game: Game Docs What you're reading right now Map Key What do all those symbols stand for? Player Key Who is who, and who has played today? Game Info Invaluable summary of various stats Race Catalog Review the race pictures/descriptions List Scores How's the competition doing? Your Holdings What land do you own? Got enough energy? Browse Map Lets you review places you've visited Note Pad A place to write reminders to yourself Mutt Summary Counts your mutts and maintenance cost Improvements Lists improvements and maintenance cost Use Phone This menu includes all the options you could want to keep in touch with the world: Auction Bid Bid on extra land offered by Interbureau Enter Mail Send a note to another player Review Mail Reread the mail you saw on game entry Outbound Deals Create/edit trade deals for other players Inbound Deals Review deals offered by other players Communes Team Menu; see "COMMUNES," below Multinode Menu Care to chat in real time? Newspaper Review the daily news; stay informed! Add to Log Let the whole world hear you gloat or gripe Order Pizza Call for pizza under someone else's name! Call Pirates Cut a deal with the bad guys.... More information on ordering pizza and calling the luxite pirates appears under "DIRTY TRICKS," below. Quit Game Aww, don't leave so soon! In this version, though (unlike Iron Ox 1.x and 2.x), you *can* access the game multiple times per day. OUT IN THE WILD The Town Square is fun, but the real action takes place out in the wilderness. When you leave town, be sure to bring your cybermutts along, because you're moving into danger: You can encounter other players, enemy cybermutts, or forts with devastating weapons that can knock you unconscious, injure you, or even kill you! Don't be shy, though -- nobody ever got rich by refusing to take chances. As you move around the map, you will encounter five different types of terrain: Plains Reasonably good for energy and food; lousy for ore. Easy to travel across, but difficult to defend against invaders. Mountain Good for ore and energy; very poor for food. (Mountain terrain may have one to six mountains. In general, the more mountains, the better the ore.) Difficult to travel across, but an excellent place to build forts and defend. River Very good for food, good for energy, and useless for ore. Many of the most important improvements -- like forts, power plants, and refineries -- cannot be built on river land. Swamp This terrain is typically useless: very poor for food, ore, and energy. Many land improvements cannot be built on swamp land because the ground is too soft. What's more, players traveling across swamps may be bitten by snakes! Desert Superb for energy, useless for ore, and useless for food unless irrigated. Like plains, difficult to defend. If you spend a lot of time traveling through desert, watch out for sunburn. Remember that you may find luxite on any type of terrain -- therefore, even the nastiest swamp may turn out to be precious! What you can do on a piece of land depends on who owns it -- you or a teammate, no one, or an enemy. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Unowned Land Attack Claim Plot Take/Leave Mutts/Drones Examine Plot Work Land Other Players Help/Info Use Phone Quit Game Move - Arrows ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Attack Launch a cybermutt attack against another player, a drone, or a pack of cybermutts that's standing in your way. Note: The object you're attacking must be on the same plot with you for this option to work. To attack players on another BBS in an interBBS league, visit "Other Players" and select the "InterBBS" submenu. Claim Land Take the plot as yours, so that you can put iron oxen on it and build things on it. Unless you missed a turn or joined late, you can only do this once a day. Take/Leave As you travel around, you may find products hidden by other players or scattered by a passing caravan. This menu allows you to grab those products and, if you choose, hide things yourself. Examine Plot This option redraws the screen, updating any plot information that may have changed (e.g., because of the actions of drones or players on other nodes). Work Land Iron oxen are very good for making things, but you know the old maxim: If you want something done right, do it yourself. You'll be most productive if you put iron oxen on all of your land *and* take advantage of all of your "work turns." You can work just about any land (except the Town Square), but you can only work each plot once a day. For best results, use the "Examine Plot" option to see what the land is good for before you decide what to make. Note: The number of times you can work a plot of land is determined by your sysop. You can view how many "work turns" you have left by looking at the "Game Info" screen described above. All other "Unowned Land" options are described above, under the information for the "Town Square" menu. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Your Land Attack Improve Plot Take/Leave Mutts/Drones Manage Oxen Examine Plot Work Land Other Players Enter Fort Help/Info Use Phone Quit Game Move - Arrows ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Improve Land You'll probably use many of the plots you claim just for production: claim it, drop an ox on it, and forget about it except when you come by to pick up the products. In some places, though, you will want to enhance your land by building things like roads, mine shafts, refineries, and forts. For more information, see the section on "IMPROVEMENTS," below. Manage Oxen When you claim a piece of land, you will almost always want to assign an iron ox to work on it. If you build your estate with skill, before long your iron oxen will be producing much more than you can make with your bare hands. This menu also allows you to assign trojan oxen to a plot. If you have a network of roads built up, you can also use this menu to "program" your iron ox to deliver your products to your doorstep. Enter Fort If a fort exists on your land, you can use this option to enter the fort. (See the section on "FORTS," below.) When enemies come on your land, they will have to defeat your defenses before they can enter your fort, so forts can be a very good place to use as a base of operations and stay when you quit for the day. When you try to use the "Enter Fort" option on *enemy* land, be careful! You can get blasted if you don't have enough mutts along. The other options on this menu are documented under the information for the "Town Square" and "Unowned Land" menus. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Enemy Land Attack Destroy Stuff Take/Leave Mutts/Drones Examine Plot Work Land Other Players Enter Fort Help/Info Use Phone Quit Game Move - Arrows ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Destroy Stuff You can use this menu to smash another player's iron ox, which will stop the land from making anything until the ox is replaced. Be careful, though! If the ox you're smashing is a trojan ox, *you* may get a black eye for your trouble. This menu also includes the option to destroy land improvements -- ruin roads, smash forts, and so forth. To do this sort of work effectively, you will need some sort of high explosive. Access to explosives on colony worlds is tightly regulated, but you may be able to find a disreputable person *somewhere* who will sell them to you. The other options on this menu are documented under the information for the "Town Square," "Unowned Land," and "Your Land" menus. MANAGING YOUR TIME The self-employed work very long days, so you get a large number of hours to invest every turn. (Exactly how many is set by your sysop.) Unfortunately, you have a great deal of work to get done with those hours. Most of the tasks in the game -- claiming land, assigning oxen, working the land -- take several hours. Early in the game, though, you'll probably spend most of your time moving around the map. Here are a few tips for how to get the most done every day: 1. Some kinds of land are slower going than others. If you're spending your time on mountains and swampland, you won't cover much ground. 2. The more heavy things you're carrying, the slower you'll move. Ever trying climbing a mountain with 150 pounds of ore strapped to your back? 3. You will start with less than the normal number of hours if you are sick or don't get enough to eat. When the game tells you you're going hungry, make food your number one priority! 4. Don't pass through desert land over and over, or you'll get sunburned and lose some hours for the next few days. (This issue is especially important for underground/miner races.) Avoid swampland almost entirely, or you may be snakebitten and lose most of your hours for the turn! COMMUNES When you play Iron Ox, you can choose any number of strategies -- ruthless or friendly, loner or "team player," roving explorer or relentless builder. The most powerful form of cooperation in the game is to found or join a commune. (No, being a member of a commune doesn't make you a Communist, though some Rockpickers think so.) Members of communes still hold onto private property, but they can * trade property back and forth freely with other commune members * view teammates and their locations at any time * visit teammates' land and enter their forts regardless of defenses * take and leave cybermutts on teammates' property * reprogram each others' drones Because the philosophy of communes is "all for one and one for all," net worth for commune members is averaged across the entire commune. Warning: Be careful about whom you invite into your commune! An unscrupulous grifter or flim-flam man can sometimes pick an entire commune clean of its property and then disappear. The Commune Menu is accessible from the Phone Menu, which is available at just about any point in the game. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Team Options Show Communes Join Commune Start Commune Leave Commune View Members Chg. Password Help/Info Quit to Main ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Show Communes Lists the teams in the game, sorted by score, and shows who's a member of which team. Join Commune If you know the password, you can use the option to become a member of a team. Start Communes If no teams exist or you don't want to join any of the ones that do, use this option to found your own. Leave Commune *You're* not one of those flim-flam men, are you...? View Members This option shows you who's on the team, what they're carrying, where they are, what race they are, and how hungry they are. Knowledge is power! Chg. Password You can't be too careful.... IMPROVEMENTS You've been transported to a hostile, strange world. As you learn the landscape, you'll also want to *change* it -- to start building improvements that will make your colony world a little more like home. Land improvements affect many different parts of the game, from land production to player movement rate to cybermutt combat odds to maintenance costs. Most of the changes work intuitively (e.g., a road makes travel faster, and a grain silo cuts down on food spoilage), but some improvements have surprising "side effects." (Ask the Egyptians about the Aswan Dam if you want proof of that.) The most powerful improvements can also be quite expensive to maintain. However, skillful use of land improvements can make the difference between winning and losing, especially in league games. Here's a short primer on land improvements. (The improvements that are made on forts are described under "FORTS," below.) In addition to what's listed, most improvements require some money to start and many require products like ore or energy to build. Road Allows you to travel faster, and protects you from some of the nasty illnesses and injuries that can result from traveling. An effective network of roads will also allow your iron oxen to deliver products to *you*, so that you don't have to visit all of your land to pick up what's made there. Requires: Nothing. Freeway Freeways allow nearly instantaneous travel and protect you against the exposure to the elements that's common during travel. They also improve your manufacturing power and make cybermutts more effective (you know how dogs love to chase cars...). Requires: Road. Warehouse When you have a large estate of land and many iron oxen producing things for you, one of your biggest problems may be that products can go bad when stored for too long. Warehouses allow you to store more on a plot without worrying about spoilage. Requires: Road. Grain Silo A silo will substantially reduce food spoilage. What's more, having an effective storage system will cut down on lost food and make your land produce more effectively! Requires: Nothing. Irrigation Irrigation was one of the discoveries that launched modern agriculture. It improves food production near rivers, but is especially important if you want to grow food in the desert! Requires: Nothing. Dam The most common way to produce energy on a colony world is to use solar generators. However, water power can be much *more* effective under the right circumstances. Requires: Road; must be built on river land. Mine Shaft Ore mining is more effective, and wears out the land more slowly, when you can reach deeper into the ground. Requires: Nothing. Laser Drill Luxite veins are very narrow and delicate, and are difficult to reach using conventional mining methods. Laser drills allow you to slice veins out of the ground, improving production and *reducing* the rate at which the land is worn out. Requires: Nothing. Ore Refinery One way to improve your ore production is to increase the amount you can tear out of the ground. Another is to do a better job of purifying the ore you're already mining. An ore refinery will improve the ore production for *ALL* land owned by you or your team! Requires: Freeway, Mine Shaft. Lux Refinery Does the same for luxite as an ore refinery does for ore. Requires: Freeway, Laser Drill. Power Plant Does the same for energy as an ore refinery does for ore. Also reduces energy spoilage *and* allows automatic pooling/sharing of energy for the commune that owns it. Requires: Freeway, good existing source of energy. Except as noted above, each improvement only applies to the plot on which it's built. Only the Refineries and the Power Plant have global effects. The Refineries and the Power Plant are unique improvements: Interbureau will only license one of each per colony! Another important thing to remember: Each improvement costs money to maintain. You will want to keep surplus in the bank if you're building improvements. The improvement summary from the help menu will tell you how much money your improvements need to stay working. DIRTY TRICKS In Iron Ox 3.00, the nastiest things you can do to other players happen in combat: you can knock people unconscious, steal what they're carrying, critically injure them, or even kill them! If you're short on mutts, though, the game *does* offer a couple of nasty tricks you can play using a common telephone: Order Pizza Online games are a great place to do all those things we're *FAR* too mature and honest to do in real life. This dirty trick is really more of a prank: It involves ordering a pizza in the name of another character so that the food arrives in the middle of the night and leaves your victim bleary-eyed -- and less able to work -- the next day. If you are caught, you will be fined 100 credits. Call Pirates Luxite pirates are ruthless, nasty predators who have made a fortune stealing from hard-working colonists. One of the most terrible things a colonist can do is to cut a deal with these vermin and give them the planetary security codes. However, you may be able to think of times when you'd *like* to see the colony's luxite supply disappear. Warning: Be *VERY* careful about this dirty trick. Some colonists have been executed for aiding the pirates. FORTS When you first join the game, you may decide to end your turn in the Town Square or find a hiding place off in the hinterlands somewhere. As you build an empire, though, you will probably decide that you need a safe "home base" for your estate. Building a fort is an excellent way to secure a plot of land against intruders. A fully developed fort can even attack enemies on nearby land. When you are inside your fort, you are invulnerable to attack by most types of drones, and protected against other players: an enemy will have to defeat your defenses before he or she can harm you. To take full advantage of your fort, you will want to build improvements that make it more powerful. Forts support the following improvements: Cyberkennel Research shows that having a dog is the single most effective way to discourage burglars and other intruders. A cyberkennel will allow you to deploy mutts to defend your fort. Defense System This equipment generates an energy field that, so long as it's operational, will completely prevent access to your fort. Unfortunately, it's pretty easily knocked out if your enemy can get hold of some explosives. Note: Due to some quality control problems, Interbureau has mandated a recall of DefSystem technology. Colonists are crossing their fingers that it will be available again before the rumored "fort-smasher" drone begins to show up in numbers! Sonic Cannon This terrifying weapon can be used to blast intruders, and even to lash out against people who *come near* your fort! A fort that has a sonic cannon, a defense system, *and* a large pack of mutts defending will stand a chance even against the best-armed attacker. A.T.M. Machine If you build your fort far from town, trudging back to the Town Square to access your bank account is a hassle. This improvement allows you to access your account long-distance. Transporter If you don't mind having your body broken down into billions of tiny energy particles and (probably) rebuilt miles away, this is the single fastest way to travel. Warning: Transporting is only reliable when you are beaming from one transporter-equipped fort to another. "Blind transporting" is unwise. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Inside Fort Attack Claim Fort Fort Tools Metamorphose Leave Fort Take/Leave Mutts/Drones Fort Status Examine Plot Other Players Help/Info Use Phone Quit Game ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Claim Fort If you can invade and capture an enemy fort, this option makes the fort yours. Claiming a fort owned by another player also changes the land to your possession, allowing you to "steal" the land! Fort Tools Allows you to tune, charge, and use your fort improvements. See below. Metamorphose If you are a metamorph, you will need a safe place to hole up when changing shape. A fort is the ideal spot! Leave Fort Takes you back out to the plot menu. It can be dangerous out there.... Take/Leave Allows you to store goods and money inside your fort. Manage Mutts If you have a cyberkennel added to your fort, you can take and leave mutts and program them to defend your fort. Mutts defending a fort fight more effectively than mutts defending normal land. Fort Status Allows you to review vital information about your fort. The other options are documented in the land menus, above. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Fort Tools Set Cannon Charge Cannon Cannon Range Use A.T.M. Transporter Fort Status Improve Fort Quit to Main ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Set Cannon Allows you to choose how much energy to use on each cannon shot. Charge Cannon When you have built a sonic cannon, you can use this option to transfer energy into the cannon. Cannon Range Allows you to choose whether your cannon will fire only to defend the fort itself, to defend the plot of land containing the fort, or to defend the land directly next door to the fort (to the north, south, west and east). Cannon fire is most effective at close range. Use A.T.M. Allows you to access your bank account long-distance. Transporter Allows you to beam anywhere on the map! Improve Fort Allows you to build improvements to your fort. DRONES Rumor has it that drones were originally built to exterminate and replace colonists if disorder in the colonies ever got out of hand. Whether that's true or not, one thing is certain: How well you take advantage of drones can mean the difference between fabulous wealth and ignominious death. Drones are machines -- robots like iron oxen, not cybernetically enhanced creatures like cybermutts -- with varying degrees of computer intelligence. Each drone is designed for one -- or at most two -- tasks, such as harvesting products, building improvements on land, scouting and defending territory, or attacking enemy installations. A limited supply of drones is available for purchase from the colony hardware store. You will probably encounter drones belonging to other players, and may attempt to destroy or capture them. Colonists also frequently report encountering drones with no obvious owner out in the wilderness. Some of these drones are clearly visitors from other colonies. Others are harder to account for. Are they rogues, freed by the misguided fools of the Robot Liberation Front? Or are they property of Interbureau, part of ongoing experiments in "life-free colonies"? In any case, these drones can sometimes be captured and reprogrammed for use by colonists, but extreme care is recommended! Here is basic information on the known classes of drones. Unconfirmed rumors abound about other drone classes currently in development back at Interbureau labs. DEINONYCHUS 3000 (Light Assault Class) This model is named for a prehistoric Earth predator related to the well-known Velociraptor. Like the Velociraptor, the Deinonychus was a small, light predator capable of travelling at alarming speeds and was, pound for pound, one of the most dangerous predators of its era. The Deinonychus 3000 fits this description well: it moves rapidly across flat terrain and "hunts" for ready prey, usually colonists or iron oxen. The Deinonychus 3000 is especially effective at harrassing large targets, like big mutt-packs; it cannot, however, attack forts. HARVESTER (Medium Tractor Class) The Harvester is the most benign drone, capable of working the land or building to improve its owner's property. It has almost no combat capabilities, and is too stupid to remember much more than what to make and where to make it, but effective use of Harvesters can drastically improve your profits. Harvesters may be instructed to stick to land belonging to you (so that they stay within the protection of your defenses) or to roam across the map to cover as much territory as possible. To control your drones, choose the "Program Drone" option from the Mutts/Drones menu. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Drone Mgmt Owner Range Enemy Land Targ Product Improve Only Quit to Main ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Owner If this drone belongs to you and not to a teammate, you may use this option to give it to another player. Range This option controls what area of the map the drone will (voluntarily) travel. If the drone isn't currently within the range you specify, it will move as directly as possible to reach that range. If it encounters some obstacle that prevents it from moving toward the desired range, it won't move at all. (Drones are quite stupid about this -- if they encounter an obstacle in the most direct path, they probably won't be able to figure out an alternate route.) Drones will not use their special abilities (sabotage, land work, improvements) when they are outside of the travel range you set. Enemy Land Drones may be programmed to avoid enemy land. If this option is set, and they are on friendly land (land owned by you or a teammate), they will not leave friendly land, even if that means not moving at all. Targ Product This option controls which of the four products a Harvester drone will try to make. You will want to use this option and the "Range" option to verify that your Harvesters are making a useful product on land that's a good place to make it. Improve Only This option tells a Harvester drone not to work the land to make product, but instead to concentrate all its energies on completing land improvements you have started. If the drone cannot find a land improvement to complete within the specified range, it will do nothing. Note: Because of the scrambling technology that prevents smaller drones (like the D3K) from breaking into forts, Harvesters will not help to build forts. BEING THE BEST Iron Ox is a exciting and complicated game, so you may want more advice on strategy and game play. If the bulletin board you call is connected to FidoNet, the best way to get information about the game is to read the IRONOX game echo. Many veteran Ox players, not to mention the author, participate in that echo and will be happy to answer your questions!