Re: Blind Galaxy

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

Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 22:41:34 +0000

In article <3kqhe5$apq@flood.xnet.com> thorcom@flood.xnet.com (Stephen Thorson) writes:
>Just curious, is Blind Galaxy still around?  I did part of the coding for
>that, with Glenn Ellingson, a couple of years ago.  I've been pretty much
>off the net since then (and am even now logging in through a friend's
>account.)
>

Funny you should ask. I released V2.43 of the code last weekend.

This is an abbreviated version of the announcement I sent out at that
time:

I have placed the latest source code and rules for Blind galaxy
on the ftp server:

cs.utk.edu /pub/bampton/Blind

Mirror sites will presumably have it shortly.

The source code is named Blind-src-V2.43.{zip,tar.Z} it is
approximately 200K in its archived state, 768K unarchived (yikes)

GM's using the 2.42 code are strongly encouraged to upgrade to 2.43
as soon as feasible.

What's new:

Partial techs - now you can build ships at lower than your standard
   techs, and upgrade ships similarily, for a price. This code
   appears stable, but might have some undiscovered bugs.

Forecasts now show alien planets that you could see (as of the last
   turn)

The LONGFORECAST option shows alien planet data, as of last turn
   (that you could see)

Smartmaps are now available in forecast mode

The options UNSAFEBREAK, BATTLEMASS, SHORTINT are now supported.

Added B group fleet num-ships

Added E FLEET fleetname

Many bugs/misfeatures have been fixed, including:
   fleet name matching is no longer case sensitive
   UNSAFEMAX now works.
   The option LONGFORECAST now works correctly, instead of
     periodically crashing the program.

What's new for the GM:
  Portability- the Blind code should now compile out of the box
    (Makefile changes only) on Solaris 2.3 (2.x?), AIX 3.2.5 (3.2.x?),
    and HP-UX 9.03 (not 9.05) with gcc 2.5.8 or later. Prevoius
    versions only worked on Ultrix 4.3/4.4 and SunOS 4.1.x which are
    still supported. I've been told that Linux and DOS (using the DOS
    port of gcc) will work with some code hacking. Support for some
    flavor of Unix on a PC (NetBSD, FreeBSD, Linux) may be done for
    the 2.44 release. A Dec Alpha port may be done as well.

Documentation- The documentation while still not complete, is
    hopefully most of the way there as far as giving instructions on
    how to setup, and use the code.

"Fair" starting positions- The 2.43 code's galaxy creation code was
    heavily rewritten. Starting positions for players should be more
    even (and those GM's that care to balance it further, can rewite
    the function).

Code reorganization- the files report.c and cmds.c have been broken
    up into  7 and 23 files respectively. This should reduce the
    number of side effects, reduce compilation time (when debugging
    or writing new code), and make changes eaiser to integrate.

Error checking- the code is much more pedantic about player input,
    as well as having a documented, and defined set of exit codes
    which the GM can use in a forecaster.

A more complete list of changes can be found in the file "Changes" in
the source distribution.

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

References

Blind Galaxy
thorcom@flood.xnet.com (Stephen Thorson)
Thu, 23 Mar 1995 01:04:05 +0000