List of player-related changes from 2.1w to 2.2w: ================================================ "." can now be used the same as "e" when moving/flying/navigating items so that the keypad may be used for all movement actions. *New "compressed" option for the "change" command. This will toggle the default mode used by the map command. *Nation command now displays the default compression mode. *Map now uses the default compression mode, but can be overridden by the "!" or "compressed" flags. Idle countries don't show up in the sorted country list CTRL-C handler now resets the interupt bit before each command, so extra breaks don't interupt the next command you do. Sending a telegram to country 0 (god) does not generate a news item, and a deity sending a telegram to anyone does not generate a news item. EmpServ, Empire, and SEREmp have a new flag to use a different message port, so that Empire may be tested while the main system is still running. *Fixed a bug which caused system failures when trying to do a census on a boot camp sector with more than 999 military. *Now lists in the log the passwords used when a country enters an incorrect password. This will help detect attempts to break into a countries account. *Now has the idle country recycling feature of 1.3x *All the commands that can list out available commands (help, ?, commands) will now only list commands that can be executed by a country in the current countries state. IE, an IDLE or DESTROYED country will only see 10-12 commands rather than having to find the commands they may use through trial and error. *The Deity may turn on an optional flag to have the server flush the buffers when a client terminates, as was always done in version 2.0. Flushing the buffers can take some time, and should probobly only be used on single user games. *SEREmp now has a seperate command-line flag to flush the buffers every time a country logs out, as was always done in version 2.0. Flushing the buffers can take some time, and should probobly only be used on single user games. This flag is independant from the one used to flush the buffers at client termination. You may set the client termination flag to false, and set this flag, and the server will flush the buffers whenever a country logs out from the serial port, but not from the local port. *The move command now checks to see if bundling and/or attacks may have reduced the amount of items you are moving to 0, and if so, will not let you move. Previous versions would allow you to move around basically forever (0 times any mobility cost is still 0), and map out sectors for free. *SEREmp now prints out the serial device and port number it is using in the start up and shutdown messages in the log. *A deity can now remove ships from a fleet with the edit-ship command. *The "xxx had a ship sunk" messages were not being entered into the newspaper. in 2.1w. Fixed this. *Distribution disk now includes a door client for Paragon BBS systems. Added the TEST option to the workbench interface of SEREmp *Added a new flag, NORESET, to the workbench & CLI interface of SEREmp. This turns off the "ATZ" that was being sent to reinitialize the modem. Some users had a problem with this. *Added a new flag, NONEWS to the workbench interface, and "-n" to the CLI interface of EmpServ. This flag turns off the creation of news files. When playing a game with very small update periods it was possible for EmpServ to create a tremendous number of files. *Will now return the spy info for sectors owned by a deity, as it did under 1.33w. Will also return a more meaningful message if you try and spy on one of your own sectors. *Added a new deity command "verify" which will verify all the Empire databases for correctness, and automatically correct any problems it finds. *Added a new flag the deity may set to allow all users to use the "flush" command. *The sector number is now printed when a bridge span collapses. Message is recognized and used by EmpFE. *Bridge spans will now collapse if the bridge head supporting them is damaged by bad weather. Previously only bridge spans were checked for weather damage. *There is now a message printed confirming the sector number and country you granted a sector to. Primarily used by EmpFE. *Refurbishing a ship costs needs only 1/4 of the production units. *You can tend any ship but a freighter. *Fixed a problem with the drop command causing a software failure if the country name was long. List of player-related changes from 2.0 to 2.1w: ================================================ *Serial handling is patched so that it always, definately, maybe, resets a modem to 2400 baud after a disconnect, if SEREMP was started with autobaud enabled. *When the "compressed" or "!" options are given to MAP, it no longer leaves those annoying spaces between the top and bottom lines of numbers and the actual map sectors *It no longer displays your name on every line in the NAT command for relations. You know who you are, so it apropriately say's "you". *Numerous places were fixed to now generate "suicide" news items and correctly kill off your country. It will now correctly mark your country dead if you load the last of the population into airplanes, and it will also correctly mark you as alive again if even one plane should happen to land safely in an unoccupied sector. *Numerous "sunk ship" news items were added, so that it will always generate some news when a ship other than a sub is sunk. *A couple of "sunk ship" news items were removed for sunken subs, and it will now send a telegram to the owner of a sub that torps another sub or ship in self defense. This happened for normal ships before, but was overlooked for subs. *When a destroyer sinks a sub in self defense, a telegram is now generated and the destroyer owner has a 50/50 chance of identifying the owner of the sub by the wreckage, just like the active DROP command. *The load command will now generate a message or telegram if all the civilians and military are loaded into a ship. *Country numbers are always displayed in the COUNTRY command. *Public messages can be sent by sending a telegram to *, &, @, or !. These relate to all, allies, neutral, enemies, respectively. *The deity can allow/dissallow public messages *The deity can allow/dissallow changing countries without hanging up. *Bridges can be more than 1 sector long. *Bridge collapses are handled for bridges more than 1 sector, and multiple supports for bridge spans are possible. *If you own a sub, or a country that own's a sub is allied to you, the country name will appear just as it does for other ship types. *Subs will defend each other. *You can only buy from a country that is at least neutral to you. *You pay a "technology tax" when buying ships that are at a higher tech level than your country. *The dissolve command really dissolves you. *Sectors that are owned by countries allied to you will show up when you do a map just as if you owned them yourself. *Radar will show sectors as A, W, or ? depending on whether the owner is allied, at war, or neutral to you. Of course, any sectors within the smaller range will show the real designation, as always. *Deleteing your telegrams actually does delete the old file and recreate a new, blank, file. *If a country has no sectors, you may declare a loan paid off and collect 80% of the original amount as bad debt. You get no interest. *New option for POWER command, "all" will list all countries in the report, even those that are dead or resigned. Usefull if someone's last sector gets taken, but they still have ships. *Info command now lists the person/alliance who won the last game. *You can use "tf" as a conditional when refering to ships to specify a certain tech factor. (shi ?tf>75) *More telegrams get sent, and new news items exist. Also more headline summaries. *Levels of storm, hurricane, and monsoon changed to make it more likely for a hurricane to occur. If the deity wants to limit them he may reduce the maximum level of the low pressure zone. 2.0 had an imposed limit of -15 (-16?), and so it would be very rare for hurricane to occur even with the weather set to the limit. *New command discharge will release military into civilian life. You must already have 25 civs and 5 mil in the sector to discharge military. *New sector type boot camp (a) will convert civs into mil automatically, in classes of 100 at a time. Some civs will always remain, and civs & mil are bundled in units of 10. *Info command now allows the "?" option to display the topics info is available on. *New headlines for the newspaper. *NATion command now displays the countries' notify status *Country command has new option "on" which will limit the countries listed to those that are currently logged in. *Disconnects after 5 minutes of inactivity instead of 15. *The country command now uses "<" to indicate a country is in chat mode. *God is now listed as one of the countries already chatting when a new country enters chat mode. *Removed a loophole that allowed you to remain in chat mode when your time would have expired. It will now remove you from chat mode and log you out if you run out of time while chatting. It will also print a warning when you are down to 3 minutes or less remaining time. List of player-related changes from 1.34w to 2.0: ================================================= Now supports multiple players at the same time. As many players as the host computer has memory for may play, and as each player only requires 32k or so, the number of ports is probobly the limiting factor. Now has a chat command/CB mode for player to player communication. As many players as the host allows may be in chat mode at the same time. The message command now allows a message to be sent to any country, not just the local console. If the country is not logged in, the message can be sent as a telegram automatically. Telegrams may now only be 980 characters long. But there is now an editor, so you can correct your mistakes. The serial port will now time out if there is no activity for 15 minutes, so output can safely be paused by the user, eliminating the need for a file pager. New command "propaganda" lets countries enter items permanently onto the the days newspaper for a cost of 5 BTUs. New command "doc" allows access to files larger than those in the "help" directory. New command "info" can list info about various stats in the current game. See the help file entry for more details. CTRL-S and CTRL-Q stop and start output. The census command no longer updates sectors. This was done to eliminate a loophole that allowed you to update your sectors without using any BTUs. ================================================================ An * indicates a feature found only in versions by David Wright. ================================================================