BSE Digest V1 #33 From: kerry@io.com (Kerry Harrison) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 04:39:09 +0000 BSE Digest Friday, 16 December 1994 Volume 01 : Number 033 In this issue: + [none] + BSE: New GP Type? (Suggestion) + BSE: Question for RTG + Re: BSE: New GP Type? (Suggestion) See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the bse-list or bse-digest mailing lists. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steve668@dallas.relay.ucm.org Date: Fri, 16 Dec 1994 10:02:22 CST Subject: [none] A BSE Short Story Krag was a demon. Like all Foelians, he was ambitious. He had risen to his present job as Fire Control officer of Demon's Gorge by assassinating his former boss. He was the only demon on duty today because the others were celebrating the anniversary of the conquest of Jovian. There weren't many humans left for the blood sacrifices, but Krag remembered the day when the demon horde captured this human colony; GTT Agate, Krag vaguely remembered it was called. He remembered how the streets of the colony ran red with the blood of the humans sacrificed to the demon Lord Foebius. He remembered how soft the neck flesh of the GTT colonists was as he sank his fangs into it, and he longed for that ecstasy again. The Long Range sensors were beeping an alarm, but he ignored it. That would simply be the Imperial warship prowling the space lanes above the planet Little. He shuddered as he thought of the Imperial warships. He remembered watching in horror on the video monitor onvly a mere year ago, as the myth of the invincibility of the Foelian Devastators was shattered by an Imperial fleet. He remembered watching as the entire demon fleet had been destroyed, with only a badly crippled Dreadnought that the demons had captured during their initial conquest of Jovian, being the sole survivor... and not a single Imperial warship had been destroyed. Part of his job then had been to monitor human communication channels, and he recalled hearing that a new Imperial leader had taken command shortly before. Was that connected? A demon couldn't understand these strange creatures called humans. They prey upon themselves, some of their tribes even helped the demon horde, while other of their tribes resisted to the death. At times, the humans were more demon-like than they realized, but seemed to hate the analogy. The Long Range Sensor alarm continued to sound off. Why wouldn't that damn thing shut up, wondered Krag. The warship wouldn't dare try and come into range of Demon's Gorge's guns. He recalled that only 2 weeks ago, a tiny Imperial Ship had entered orbit of Little. It had been vaporized instantly by the automated defenses. The Demon gunners hadn't even had to come to their stations to fire the full defenses. Why would the human starcaptain commit certain suicide, he wondered? Was this another Imperial ship commiting suicide? Another kill would look good on his record. He'ld better go check, he thought. As he approached the readout screen, he realized that something was dreadfully wrong. Long range sensors weren't showing just one Imperial warship anymore. There were now 30 warships, all sitting outside gun range... and more were joining every second. Krag was frozen in disbelief. Foelian Intelligence had assured the military that the Imperials could never muster this many ships, but the evidence was there. Already there were 50 Imperial Dreadnoughts waiting outside gun range... waiting for something... and more were still arriving. Sensors registered something he had never seen before; a blip far larger than any ship he had ever seen. He had heard rumors of something wispered as a Star Destroyer. A human once told him that it would reveal classified details of the ship... what did that human call itself? GTT Lieutenant Governor? Strange name for a human.... Krag couldn't remember if it was served as last nights entree or main course. Perhaps he should've listened after all. The battle alarm snapped Krag out of his ponderings, as the Mid-range sensors detected that the Imperial fleet was moving. A glance at the readout showed more ships than he cared to count. The Imperial fleet had assumed a battle formation and was now closing on Little. The shouts and stomping of clawed feet in the hallway told him that the demon gunners were responding to their positions. But as the full size of the Imperial fleet became apparrant, he wondered what death would feel like. There were too many for the demon defenses to handle. The fleet had now reached the edge of gun range and short range sensors were marking targets. He scrolled through the list, there it was ISP Friedrich der Grosse, wasn't that what the human had said? That and something about a human named "PD"? If only he could remember. The demon gunners were opeing fire, he could tell from the roar of the positron guns, but so was the Imperial fleet.... how could any ship mount that much firepower? i>tpjf3f3f3f3f9a^B > to be continued < ------------------------------ From: Phil Krauskopf <PKRAUSKOPF@FALCON.AAMRL.WPAFB.AF.MIL> Date: Fri, 16 Dec 1994 15:57:07 -0500 Subject: BSE: New GP Type? (Suggestion) I recently was reminded about another thing about BSE that I found somewhat irritating. Specifically, I always thought it was stupid that GPs filled with inanimate objects had be both fed and kept happy. Although I've never had it happen to me, it is possible for a pile of rocks to mutiny against you, if you don't feed them nothing occasionally, and if you don't send none of them to the rec complexes occasionally. This is one thing I'd like to see end. Specifically, I'd like to propose the development of cache GPs, which can only accept inanimate objects. Caches can't move and can't revolt. All they can do is sit there. Any position can remove objects from, or place objects into caches (although perhaps security complexes would protect people from stealing from them). There are no orders to process for caches, and no printouts for them either; these would have to be obtained by other positions. This means we would need additional GP/Ship/Colony orders: PICKUP FROM CACHE (cache #) (item # to pick up) (quantity) DELIVER TO CACHE (cache #) (item # to deliver) (quantity) Each of these is 4 TUs or 1 colony order INVENTORY CACHE (cache #) gets a listing of cache contents (10 TUs for ships/GPs, 2 colony orders) For starport caches protected by securoty cpxes: AGENT: GET CACHE CONTENTS (Cache #) (10 TUs) Comments? Phil K. ------------------------------ From: Phil Krauskopf <PKRAUSKOPF@FALCON.AAMRL.WPAFB.AF.MIL> Date: Fri, 16 Dec 1994 16:06:12 -0500 Subject: BSE: Question for RTG Pete and Thad: One thing I've not seen discussed yet is what RTGs policy toward NPC races is going to be. I've heard rumors that you intend for the NPCs to become much more peripheral, and take a much smaller role in the game. Is this your intention? And if so, can you gie us a feel for exactly how this might be implemented. For instance, in the past, it was possible for NPC races to attack player-run positions, based on the profile of the NPC and its victim (Alippon is a good example of this. Alippon traditionally will defend any ships in orbit, or colonies on its surface. The Alipponians demanded peace; and would go to any length to maintain it). It was even possible for one player group to "tlak" an NPC race into attacking another player group, if the profiles and situations allowed it. Just Curious, Phil K. ------------------------------ From: Richard Chiang <richc@ocf.Berkeley.EDU> Date: Fri, 16 Dec 1994 13:49:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: BSE: New GP Type? (Suggestion) On Fri, 16 Dec 1994, Phil Krauskopf wrote: > I recently was reminded about another thing about BSE that I found > somewhat irritating. Specifically, I always thought it was stupid that > GPs filled with inanimate objects had be both fed and kept happy. > Although I've never had it happen to me, it is possible for a pile of rocks > to mutiny against you, if you don't feed them nothing occasionally, and if > you don't send none of them to the rec complexes occasionally. This is > one thing I'd like to see end. > > Specifically, I'd like to propose the development of cache GPs, which > can only accept inanimate objects. Caches can't move and can't revolt. > All they can do is sit there. Any position can remove objects from, or > place objects into caches (although perhaps security complexes would > protect people from stealing from them). There are no orders to > process for caches, and no printouts for them either; these would have > to be obtained by other positions. This means we would need additional > GP/Ship/Colony orders: > > PICKUP FROM CACHE (cache #) (item # to pick up) (quantity) > DELIVER TO CACHE (cache #) (item # to deliver) (quantity) > > Each of these is 4 TUs or 1 colony order > > INVENTORY CACHE (cache #) > gets a listing of cache contents (10 TUs for ships/GPs, 2 colony orders) > > For starport caches protected by securoty cpxes: > > AGENT: GET CACHE CONTENTS (Cache #) (10 TUs) > > Comments? > > Phil K. > > Brilliant idea ------------------------------ End of BSE Digest V1 #33 ************************ To subscribe to bse-digest, send the command: subscribe bse-digest in the body of a message to "Majordomo@io.com". 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