Re: galaxy questions

From: bampton@cs.utk.edu (Howard the Energizer)

Date: Sat, 05 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000

In article <Pine.SGI.3.91.950804195914.12599D-100000@golgi> Joseph Strout <jstrout@ucsd.edu> writes:
>I have some questions about Galaxy v3.52 which aren't covered in the
>rules... any help would be greatly appreciated.

>1. SPLITTING GROUPS: Under "Groups" it says, "Groups can be split up, and
>the program will automatically merge...after your orders."  Under "B" it
>says "Break off a number of ships from a group."  Nothing says how you
>can refer to those broken-off ships to give them orders.  If you can't,
>and they are merged with their identical ships at the end of the turn,
>then "B" can have no noticable effect.	...?

Under "Things to note:"

All orders involving groups can take an optional last parameter giving the
number of ships to be used. If this parameter is given, the indicated
number of ships will be broken off into a separate group first, and the
order applied only to that separate group.

Whenever a group number is required as a parameter, the keyword MAX may be
used instead. This will apply the order to the group with the highest
group number.  This will be the most recently created group.

That should half answer the question. You can also, if you are
careful, guess the group number, since it assigns them in sequence
(i.e. if you had 15 groups at the end of last turn, the first new one
you create will be 16, the second 17, and so on).

The Blind galaxy rules are a little more easy to understand on this
topic, and with the exception of UNSAFEMAX are accurate wrt to std.
galaxy.

>What I really want to do is load 5 cargo ships with COL and send them to
>A, and load the other 5 cargo ships (from that same group) with CAP and
>send them to planet B.  Is this impossible?

Assume group # is 1, and you only have 1 group at the begining of the
turn.

L 1 col 5
S max A    ; or S 2 A
L 1 cap    ; or L 1 cap 5
s 1 B

>2. Rumor has it that the penalty to shields due to mass (see "Combat") is
>not actually implemented.  Can anyone confirm or deny this?

It is in every version of the code I've ever seen. It certainly is in
the 3.5x code versions.

>3. "O SORTGROUPS" didn't return an error, but my groups are still not
>sorted in planet order -- looks more like the order in which they were
>created.  Am I missing something?

On some OS's, the sortgroups code causes the game to crash [Linix is
the best known example]. Your GM may have disabled this code until
some brave soul finds the bug.

When sortgroups is not enabled, or turned on, the behaviour you noted
is what will happen- groups will be ordered in the order they ae
created (subject to being deleted by destruction, or merging).

--
Howard Bampton                      "The man without love gives no hostages
Internet: bampton@cs.utk.edu        to fortune." -- Black Omne
Sys Admin, Points unknown

References

galaxy questions
Joseph Strout <jstrout@ucsd.edu>
Fri, 04 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

galaxy questions
Joseph Strout <jstrout@ucsd.edu>
Fri, 04 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000