BBS Toolkit/BBS Toolkit.iso/doors_1/aedit.zip/AEDIT.DOC

Text File | 1992-02-20 | 15KB | 280 lines

AEDIT v .412605  (C)1992 Jason Boyd
Released into public domain as of 2/20/1992.

This doc file dedicated to James Joyce and Herman Melville, who are both
awfully great guys.

AEDIT and this documentation are distributed without any express or implied
warranties.  You, the user, assume all risk for the use and operation of these
programs.  You alone shall be responsible for any loss of profits, loss of
savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
correct or incorrect use of this program, even if I have been advised of the
possibility of any damages.  I do not warrant that this documentation is
accurate, or that AEDIT operates as I have claimed or as I have designed it to
operate.
By using AEDIT you agree to the above limitations.

WARNING: DO NOT use this program with anything but Trade Wars 2002 version
1.03.

AEDIT in an auxiliary editor for Trade Wars 2002.  It is intended as a
supplement and in no way a replacement for TEDIT.  It should be copied into
the TRADEWAR directory and run from there.
Functions are summarized as follows:

<B> - Edit the Federal bounties.  These are the ones that are posted and
claimed at the police station at the StarDock.  They cannot be claimed by evil
players.  For some reason, creating new bounties doesn't seem to work.  But
you can try it anyway.  (The highest bounty number that AEDIT lets you edit is
always a yet-uncreated bounty.  If you edit it, it will be considered created
and the highest number you can edit will be one higher.  It probably won't
work, but I haven't seen it damage anything.)
      <B> - "Placed by"  This doesn't matter at all in the game.  The only
time you will see it is through the "B" function in TEDIT.
      <C> - "Placed on"  This is the player whom the bounty is against.  The
player who destroys this player first will (usually) be able to claim the
bounty.
      <D> - "To be claimed by"  This is the player who has killed the "Placed
on" player and can now claim the bounty at any time.
      <E> - "Amount"  The amount that the "To be claimed by" player gets when
he collects the bounty.

<E> AEXTERN functions.  These options are saved in the AEXTERN.DAT file, which
controls the AEXTERN.EXE program.  If you do not have or do not run
AEXTERN.EXE, these options have no affect on the game.
      <B> - "Bank interest %"  The daily interest given to players accounts at
the Galactic Bank on StarDock.  The game provides for no such interest, so the
default is 0.
      <C> - "Cloak fail %"  The chance that cloaking devices will fail when
the AEXTERN.EXE program is run.  This chance will be applied to each cloaked
player individually every time AEXTERN is run.  Uncloaked players will be
placed in the same sector they were in, but will now be vulnerable to attack.
      <D> - "Max planet shields"  The maximum number of planetary shields
allowed.  This is used to (optionally) prevent players from making invincible
planets (caused by more than 1638 shields.  Therefore 1638 is a good maximum.)
      <E> - "Wanderer number"  The planet number of the "Wanderer" planet.
This planet will move to a random new location (containing no planets) every
time AEXTERN is run.
      <F> - "Wanderer owner"  The owner of the Wanderer will be set to this
number every time the program is run.  A good number is 0, which will reset
the planet to unowned every time.  Otherwise the first person to claim the
planet will be able to keep all other players off, and to trace the planet's
location through the computer.  A value of 1 here will disable this feature,
so that the owner will not be reset.
      <G> - "Wanderer population control"  If this is on, the Wanderer's
population will be reset to 1000 holds of colonists in each category.  This
will prevent the planet from becoming overpopulared and worthless.
      <F> - "Wanderer nightly eviction"  When toggled on, AEXTERN will evict
all players in the citadel of the Wanderer before the Wanderer is moved.  This
prevents a player from being able to track the Wanderer by staying in it's
citadel every night.

<F> Find something.  This is rather self-explanatory.
      <A> - "Search for string"  Search for a text string in the various text
fields in the data files.  Useful for locating particular players, ships,
ports, all sectors of a certain nebulae, etc.  Note that if you've put color
codes in a string they must be taken as part of the string.
      <B> - "Search for fighters"  Search for certain numbers of fighters on
planets, players, and in sectors.  Ports will be searched according to their
"Defensive ratings," calculated as follows:
((AmtOre+AmtOrg+AmtEqu)/200) + ((ProdOre+ProdOrg+ProdEqu)/20)
Or maybe they won't.  I forgot whether I put this in or not.  Maybe ports will
not be searched at all in the fighter search.
      <C> - "Search for credits"  Search for credits on planets, players,
ports, and toll fighters.
      <N> - "Search planets"  Toggles whether or not to search planets.
      <P> - "Search ports"  Toggles whether or not to search ports.
      <U> - "Search users"  Toggles whether or not to search players.
      <S> - "Search sectors"  Toggles whether or not to search sectors.

<N> Planet editor.
      <A> "Planet name"  Edit the name of this planet.  This differs from the
TEDIT function in that you can put in color codes to make it look pretty.  In
fact, this is the only difference in all the name editing functions.  I just
thought it might be fun.
      <C> "Creator name"  Edit the name of the player who created the planet.
      <D> "Update date"  Date, in days since Jan 1st 2000, that the planetary
stats were last updated.  Changing this will screw up planet production.
      <E> "Update time"  Time, in minutes after midnight, that the planetary
stats were last updated.  This only screws things up mildly.

<P> Port editor.
      <A> "Port name"  Edit port name.
      <B> "Port class"  The class number of the port.  Changing this seems to
have little effect on the game other than confusing players.  The class the
port SHOULD be (calculated from the production data) is shown at the top of
the menu so you can gives ports that get screwed up their proper class.  Ports
that have not been created yet will usually be class 0, but claim they should
be class 7.
      <C> "Last ship"  The name of the last ship to port.  This is the data
that the old trader in the back of the tavern uses to find where a player has
ported.  Therefore, changing this will screw up the normal play of the game.
This field is updated only when a trader ports to trade, not when the port is
robbed.  Ports that are undiscovered or have been robbed but not traded at
will say "The Merchant Marines" here.
      <D> "Date"  Date that this port was last visited, including robbing.
This info is put against the age of the game to determine whether a port has
been discovered, and thus how much experience a person gets for finding it.
This data is also passed along by the old trader when he tells you where a
player has ported.
      <E> "Time"  This is of exactly the same nature but less important than
the "Date" field.
      <F> "Credits"  This is the "accumulated trading credits," or, as far as
the game goes, it is the number that is summed for all ports to form the "net
worth" amount, shown in the Configuration and Status screen.  More
importantly, this is the amount that evil players can embezzle when they rob.
      <L> "Find location of port"  This goes through each sector record and
tells you which sectors claim to have this port in them.  If it is not in any
sectors, it has been destroyed or has never been created.  If it is in more
than one sector, something is probably wrong.

<S> Sector editor.
    <A> "Nebula"  Name of the nebula this sector is in.  Enter nothing for
"uncharted space."
    <B> "Beacon"  Text of the beacon that is in this sector.  Enter nothing
for no beacon.
    <C> "Port"  The port number that is in this sector.  Negative values
indicate the port has been destroyed; I'm not QUITE sure how this works yet.
Be careful with this number, you can put one port in multiple sectors which
could have bad results.  Again, I'm not sure.

<T> Titles.  Edits the various titles or ranks assigned to players based on
alignment and experience.  The titles on the left will be given to players
with alignment > -1, the ones on the right will be given to players with
alignment < 0.  The higher the number in a column the more the experience that
is required for that rank.  Ranks equivalent in experience are on the same
line.

<U> User editor.
    <A> "Game name"  The player's alias in the game.  You can use color codes
in this, but if you use them in the middle of the name it will hinder the game
in finding the player when he's being sent messages, etc.
    <B> "Ship name"  The name of the ship the player currently controls.  See
the comments under "Last ship" in the port functions.
    <C> "Ship date"  This is the date and time when the ship was bought or
acquired (by being blown up, or being a new player.)  The field is in plain
text and, as far as I can tell, has no function in the game.  It is seen only
when player views his "Information," and even then it is usually ignored.  If
you want to confuse someone you can set this field to something weird like
"~ZError - No Date Found!!~Z".  Or, if you are clever, you can set it to
"07:00:01 AM Sun Jul 05, 1998" and see if anyone notices.
    <D> "Ports"  Number of times this ship has ported.  The higher this
number, the lower the trade-in value of the ship.
    <E> "Kills"  Number of ships have been destroyed with this ship.  The
higher this number, the lower the trade-in value of the ship.
    <F> "Xfer Lock"  This is the same as the "ship transfer lock" in TEDIT.
I'm really not sure how this number works.  TEDIT claims it is a player number
or corp number who is allowed to swap ships with you, but the only values the
game seems to use are 0 for locked and 1000 for open to everyone.  TEDIT only
lets you enter from -30 to 150 or so; with AEDIT from -32768 to 32767.
    <G> "Planet #"  The planet number in whose citadel this player's ship is
in. Be sure the planet you pick is NOT in sector zero and DOES have a citadel
on it.  Also be sure to set the below option at 1000 plus the sector number
the planet is in.
    <H> "Location"  This is 0 for a player who's escape pod has been
destroyed, 1-1000 for players sitting in space, 1001-2000 for players in a
citadel on a planet (actually it's 1011-2000 since citadels are not allowed in
FedSpace), and 2001 to 3000 for players who are cloaked.  DO NOT set the value
between 1001 and 2000 if there is not a planet with a citadel in the sector!
    <I> "Fighters"  This can be set as high as 32767, because you can set the
maximum fighters of a ship exactly that high with SEDIT (q.v.)
    <J> "Shields"  Ditto.
    <N> Number of "Underground bounties"  The number of bounties placed on
this player in the Underground.  It doesn't REALLY matter what the number is
as long as it is greater than 0 if there are any bounties.  Note that it works
just fine to create Underground bounties, unlike Fed bounties.
    <O> "totalling"  The total reward a player can collect in the Underground
for destroying this player.
    <P> "to be claimed by"  The player who can now claim the above bounty.
Note that if the player has alignment over 200, he cannot enter the
Underground to claim the cash.
    <T> "Bank account"  The cash that this player has in the Galactic Bank at
StarDock.  This amount can but should not exceed the maximum bank amount,
which, until I find how to change it, is 100000 credits.
    <V> "Avoids"  Edit the sectors that the player has marked as avoided.
    <W> "Explored"  Edit the sectors that the player has explored.  The player
will be able to get sector and port reports for these sectors.


APPENDIX ONE - TW2002 Color Codes
Codes to change color in TW2002 have the format ~ + a letter or number.  Some
change foreground and background, some just change background:
~0 -fg=bright white, bg=black
~1 -fg=cyan, bg=black
~2 -fg=yellow, bg=black
~3 -fg=magenta, bg-black
~4 -fg=bright white, bg=blue
~5 -fg=light green, bg=black
~6 -fg=blinking light red, bg=black
~7 -fg=yellow, bg=black
~8 -fg=the old fg blinking, bg=black
~9 -fg=black, bg=old fg
~A -fg=grey, bg=black
~B -fg=light red, bg=black
~C -fg=green, bg=black
~D -fg=yellow, bg=black
~E -fg=blue, bg=black
~F -fg=light magenta, bg=black
~G -fg=light cyan, bg=black
~H -fg=bright white, bg=black
~I -fg=blue, bg=white (dull white)
~J -fg=red, bg=white (dull white)
~K -fg=yellow, bg=blue
~Z -print 2 blinking red/white spaces, then fg=old fg, bg=black
~a -fg=black, bg=black
~b -fg=red, bg=black
~c -fg=green, bg=black
~d -fg=brown, bg=black
~e -fg=blue, bg=black
~f -fg=magenta, bg=black
~g -fg=cyan, bg=black
~h -fg=white (dull white), bg=black
~i -bg=black
~j -bg=red
~k -bg=green
~l -bg=brown
~m -bg=blue
~n -bg=purple
~o -bg=cyan
~p -bg=white (dull white)
~q -fg=blinking light blue, bg=black
~r -fg=blue, bg=black
~anything else -bg=black

APPENDIX TWO - A non-appendix

This is just some closing notes.  I am reachable via US Mail:
         Jason Boyd
         1520 Stainback Rd.
         Red Oak, TX  75154
And I'd love it if you'd send me money, or even non-perishable food.  Or even
a pleasant letter.  Burglars be forewarned:  My computer sucks, it's not worth
it.  I'm reachable as A Godlike Suffix on a few boards around Dallas; the
stablest (And the official distribution point for my stuff) is Gned's at
214-618-7414.  I also read the FidoNet Trade Wars sub rather regularly, so
it's safe to try that way.

This program inputs and outputs through DOS INT 21.  Therefore, it can be run
from remote with relative ease.  Also, you can feed the output to your printer
by pressing Ctrl-PrtSc.  Press it again to stop printing.

Also some might say there are some things one still can't edit that I should
have put in there.  However, I think I'm right and you're wrong.  If you look
close enough in TEDIT, you can find nearly everything else.  Some options
(such as the number of days til port and planet completion) are not in the
TEDIT docs are not in the menu normally, you have to just try all the letters
until you find them.  Of course if you have any ideas that you think I should
put in here anyway, do tell.

                             Good Luck,
                             JMB and/or AGS,
                             Active fellow.


Look for these other fine products which I wrote or am writing:

WeeBang - Reorganizes that universe into a good, old-fashioned, mappable shape
MultiGen - Automatic Planet Maker & Scatterer for weird games
SEDIT - Edit the specs for trade wars ships type.  Exceedingly cool.
SUND - Amazing SubUnderground Trade Wars extension.  Supreme, I think.