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TWEDIT DOCUMENTATION for Tradewars Release 10_20_TW Released xx/xx 1990 Tradewars by Chris Sherrick (c) 1986 Release 4.0(and greater) Copyrighted 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 by: Co-Author, John Morris All Rights Reserved * ******************** ********************** * * ********************* ** ** * ***** *** *** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** * ***** ***** ***** *** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *** ***************** ** ****** ****** * RADE **** **** ** ** * * ARS Welcome to the Trade Wars (v.ii) editor. The TW2 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, most numbers Trade Wars handles are integers, so don't enter any noninteger values for numbers (from -32000 to 32000 approx.) . As often as possible, I check to make sure you have put in an appropriate value. 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 TWRI is run, and note that upper case is different than lower case. (NOTE: local mode, and local only mode are different, in local only mode you will be asked for the password.) 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. TW2 can automatically run the maintenance program (TWMAINT) the first time someone logs on to TW2 for the first time of that day (Or during your BBS maint- enance time). 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 - General Editor - Edits general information. B - User Editor - Edits players players' ships. C - Sector Editor - Edits the contents of a sector. D - Port Editor - Edits the prices and values of a port. E - Planet editor - Edits the planets F - Cabal editor - Edits information about the Cabal G - Report - Gives a report of players and occupied sectors. H - Help! - Gives quick list of options I - Instructions - Prints out this file J - Team Editor - Edits Team info K - Radio message editor - Edits messages to-from users A - TWMAIN.DAT 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, you can try TYPEing TWDATA.DAT from dos and read your password.. it is the first set of chars displayed. B - Turns per day This is how many turns people are allowed on per day. I recommend 60 to 65. 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. 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 - Todays fighter price. This command is here only for convenience. TWMAINT changes this value to a random number between 90 and 120 everyday when it is run. 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. J - Days until SysOp messages deleted (also known as Galactic Newspaper) This is usually set to 7 . That way seven days of news is accumulated, and the users can go thru and see whats been going on.. At the end of 7 days the file is erased and its starts over. K - Maximum number of holds allowed. I do NOT recommend that you change this, but it is there if you want to. This command is self-explanitory. L - Maximum Planet Production of Ore M - Maximum Planet Production of Org N - Maximum Planet Production of Eqp Dont go too high with this number.. Planets tend to 'rape' ports of goods. and the more holds a user has, the faster ports will get depleted. The best setting is 20 for each item. O - Local Password Required If you turn this on, the user will be required to use a password when logging into TW2. This is for security purposes. P - Allow aliases? Turning this option to ON will allow the user to pick an alias for their name when playing TW2. Q - Allow Sales? This option will allow for sales (on rare occasion) of fighters, holds, and planets. R - BBS type This will tell TW which BBS type you are running under (if any). You don't need to deal with numbers, TWEDIT will tell you the type of BBS in words.. ex: RBBS-PC 15.1C & up or PCBoard 14.1 & up etc... S - External Maintenance If you turn this to NO, then TW will run maintenance when the first player of the day logs on. Otherwise, TW expects maintenance to be run during your BBS event. T - Todays bank interest You can change TW2s current bank interest. This is changed everyday by TWMAINT. Interest rates fall between 1 and 10 percent. U - Amount of idle user time This sets the keyboard input time-out limit. This is usually 3 to 5 minutes. V - Maximum time allowed in TW per day. TW2 release 10 now has stricter time limits. If you set this to 30 minutes per day. Thats all the time the user can use TW2, period. TW will remember the time the user has already played today. This is used only when it is less than any other alloted time (usually BBS time left). W - TW in network mode If set to YES, TW will use SHARE for networking. This option will slow the game down quite a bit.. but its worth the extra file integrity. X - Use DEBUG mode This option is not currently implemented in TW release 10. Y - Using GMon? If you use RBBS-PC and are running GMon, then turn this option ON. Z - Player rankings file This will set the drive/path/filename of the TW player rankings. 1 - Edit special BBS info filename. Check SYSOP.DOC for more info on this. 2 - Edit BBS Name Type in your BBS name EXACTLY the way you want it to look (UPPER/lower case) 3 - Edit BBS SysOps name Whatever you input here will be adjusted with first letter of each word capitalized, all other in lower case. 4 - Modem lock speed If you have your modem locked at 19200 or 38400, then input that bps rate here. 5 - Communications port This is used in special cases. Check SYSOP.DOC for more info. 6 - Allow surrendering Yes or No.. allows surrendering of the enemy to an overwhelming attacking force. 7 - Maximum nodes Total number of nodes for this BBS. This is used for the chat mode functions. Make sure this is set if you plan to allow chatting! 8 - Show dead player in rankings You can turn this option off if you don't want users to see who is dead during the rankings. Only players who are alive will be shown. 9 - Allow kloaking If set to NO, the game can be made a little bit more interesting. Of course, its all up to you. @ - Default language extension Used by 10.20 and above. This is the default language file extension file used by TW.. under most circumstances, this should be set to ENG ! - Restrict fat cats (registered version) When using more than 1000 sectors, you can optionally force players with a high ranking out of the first plane of 1000 sectors. This will allow new players (or low ranked players) exclusive use of the first 1000 sectors. These players can also go into the higher sector number areas. B - PLAYER 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" or "Joe" or "joe" would find him, but "Joe" would. As for the user number, each player is assigned a number from 2 to how many people are playing. 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 - REAL (BBS) name This is used to edit the name TW will be looking for from the BBS info. 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 30 characters in length. B - ALIAS (TW2) name This is the name that will be used in TW. If there are no aliases allowed, or the user chose not to use an alias, it is the same as the above name. Note: This name (along with the above) must be used! C - Local password This is the password that the user must use to log onto TW. This is only used if the 'local password' option is turned on in the general editor. D - 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. E - 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. F - 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. G - 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. H - Last location This is the last sector the player occupied, and is used mostly when a person 'retreats' from a sector. I - Bank Credits This is the amount of credits a user has deposited into the bank. (4 billion is max). J - Trading Credits This is simply how many credits they have. Note that this is a long integer (less than 4 billion). K - Fighters This is how many fighters they have. There is a 60000 limit. L - Mines This is the amount of sectors mines held aboard the ship. M - Kloak energy This is the amount of days left before the energy has run out of the kloaking device. N - Probes This is the amount of sector probes held aboard the ship. O - 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. P - R Ore, Org, and Eqp This is how many of the cargo holds are filled with ore, organics and equipment. S - Team player is in This is the team the user belongs to (if any). T - Real-Time attack by This is used to tell the user they have been attacked while they were playing the game. This can be by the Cabal, and by another user (in network mode). U - Day quit team This is the day the player quit his/her team. This is used to keep a user from quiting one team and joining another one immediately (ie: rebelling against his old team mates). V - Currently Kloaked This is used to tell if the user has their Kloak on right now. If not, then they are displayed when a player enters a sector. W - Graphics This is one of 4 options. 0 - None. 1 - Color. 2 - Color/Graphics. 3 - Color/Graphics/Music. Currently only 0 and 1 are implemented. X - Using TW now This is ON if the user is using TW at this moment. OFF otherwise. Y - Super Search option This is amount of days that the super sector search option will last. Z - Real-Time message from This is used to tell the user that they have received a radio message while they were on-line. This is used in network mode only. ! - Delete player This will delete the player FROM THE GAME, not just destroy the ship. If you want to destroy the ship, use the E command. Adding a new person: If you want to add a new person, there are three things you have to do: First, find an empty user record. then change: A - REAL name, B - ALIAS name. However It is much easier to let them log on and let the game initialize them. C - 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. 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 Player editor) H - Planet in sector This works just like the port editor. You can add or delete a planet. You will be asked for a search string, or number of the planet (if you add one) I - Mine in sector You can add or delete a mine in the sector with this command. A mine can let a player into a sector unmolested, or it can let a team in unmolested you will be prompted. J - Fighters defending 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 CABAL 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 player editor. D - PORT EDITOR This will ask you for the port number or search string, and answering this question works just like the player 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 30 characters. B - Class The class descibes what the port buys and sells, and is used mainly for show, and is a way for a user to tell 'who sells what'. Class 0 ports sell Mines, Holds, Fighters,etc.. like Sol, so in large galaxies you can have more than one 'Sol'.. This eliminates the need for a user to travel all the way to sector 1 to get vital goods. C - D - E - Quantity of ore , org, eqp, and prices This will display how much ore they have, and what the fair price is (used when bargaining.) F - G - H - 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. I - J - K - 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) Mp = 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) E - 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 This will display the planet's name and number. You can change the name, but you are limited to 30 chars. max. B - Owner You can tell who owns this planet. You will specify the player by entering their number, or a search string. C - D - E - 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. F - G - H - 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. I - Fighter Factory This is a switch. If on, then there is a factory on this planet. J - Workers This is the number of workers working at the factory. This number can be between 1 and 200. K - Pay (per day) This is how much each workers makes per day. If you have 200 workers earning 100 credits a day, you will need 20000 credits in the factory to pay for them that day. L - Cash This is the cash used to pay the workers in the factory. M - N - O - Factory supplies of Ore, Org, and Eqp. These are the raw materials used when making the fighters. There should be quite a bit of these in the planet, or it won't produce many fighters. P - Fighters This is the current inventory of foghters ready to be picked up and used by the player. F - 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. The user must destroy both of these forces to win mega-points. Wandering Groups, They have a specific goal. (sysop specified amount) 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. Each group starts at a certain size (determined by the Cabal Strength Level) and if the group is above or below that size it will head back to the Cabal HQ to merge with the fighters groups assigned there. If they enter any sectors containing a player's fighters, they will fight until either the player's or the Cabal fighters are destroyed. Attacking Groups, They have a new goal every night. (sysop specified amount) 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 a few fighters on that person, just to be mean. Again, If they are over or under a certain amount, they will head back to the Cabal HQ and be merged. Last Group (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 100000 credits. This is made to keep control an annoy the best player. Cabal Regeneration This value effects how fast the Cabal regenerate. I recommend 2000 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 3000 or 4000 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. Cabal Strength Level This is a number from 1 to 10.. ie 10% to 100% strength.. I recommend 3 or 4 (or 30 to 40 percent) 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 wandering groups, it will ask you for a goal. Press enter to leave these the same. You can now enter O instead of a group number. This command will allow you to edit more juicy Cabal info. For instance, where the Cabal HQ, and Secondary defense force are located, and where they hang-out, among other things. For the HQ and 2ndry defense force I recommend an area of the map that looks like this: 106---- 100---- 101 / / \ / / \ 107---- 102---- 110 103 \ \ / \ \ / 108---- 104----105 The Cabal HQ would be located in 110. The secondary force in 102. You could then specify the other 6 sectors for the Cabal to 'hang out' in. For example, 100, 104, 105, 106, 107, and 108 of course, you could specify any sectors for the other 6 sectors.. one reason to do so is to trick the users into thinking an area is the Cabal HQ when it really isn't. G - 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: U # - The player number. T # - Team number (if any) 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). You'll also et a complete list of planets, and planet owners, and Sector mines. J - 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. A - Team name This is the name of the team. B - Team password This is the password used by new members who wish to join the team. UPPER case is different than lower case. C - Number of team members This is the number of current team members. This can be 1 to 4. D - Team captain This is the person who created the team. You will be asked for a search string for the player who created the team. If there is no team captain, then the team is considered inactive. M - Change Sector Plane This will allow registered users to change between different planes of 1000 sectors. If you enter 2, TWEdit will load sectors 1001-2000 for you to edit. 3 gets you sectors 2001-3000.. etc. Of course you had to initialize those sectors in the first place. If you enter an invalid number the program will let you know.