Re: Okympia: New Subskills

From: skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta)

Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1992 16:41:17 +0000

rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) writes:
> Why not just forget about all this hassle with subskills and go back to
> the old system whereby you learned a skill, you used it, it worked and
> that was that?

We've always had subskills, it's just a matter of how you invoke them.
The new subskill system in somes ways is simpler than the old system:
now we have one skill per use, rather than multiplexing uses based on
numerical keys (the so-called "ioctl" approach to skill uses).

Here are the big three ways to do subskills (so far):

1)  Make everything a top-level command.  Olympia started out with
    this method.  WORK ENTERTAIN, BUILD SHIP, etc.  Some commands might
    require skills to function.

2)  Multiplexed skills: the T'Nyc way.

use <skill> <number>

Uses are keyed off of the skill with numerical tags.

3)  Subskills, Olympia is using this way now.

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> It's got to the stage now where I haven't the foggiest
> idea how to go about learning any of the economic skills, nor how to use
> them if I did, and it sounds like too much hassle to bother figuring out
> anyway.

I didn't think you used any Olympia commands besides WORK and ATTACK.  :-)
I recall you briefly experimented with IMPRESS, but deemed it useless since
you never made it to PERSUADE or TERRORIZE.

--
Rich Skrenta

References

Re: Okympia: New Subskills
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Thu, 09 Jul 1992 05:54:20 +0000