                        Manual for Blind Galaxy 
                        23 July 1993 (Original 2.30 release date) 
                        by Russell Wallace
                        modified by Tom Finn 
                        and again by Glenn Ellingson 
                        once more by Howard Bampton

                        Notes: 
  A "|" indicates a portion of the rules which differs significantly from 
  the standard galaxy rules.

  These rules apply to Blind Galaxy V2.47


                        Introduction

  Galaxy is a game of interstellar war for several players.  You are 
  the leader of your race. You start off by sharing an area of the 
  galaxy with a number of other races and your objective is to become 
  its sole occupant.

  You must provide a name by which your race will be known e.g.
  "Mutant_Camels", "Zzyaxians" etc - if you have not already done this you
  should do it on your first turn, until then you will simply be known as
  "Player_5" or whatever. See "Orders" for how to change your race name.

                        The Galaxy

| The area of the galaxy in which the game is played is a square area,
| (for the sake of simplicity the third dimension is ignored) which
| contains a number of inhabitable and a few uninhabitable star systems
| (all other astronomical objects are irrelevant to the game and so are
| ignored). The playing area is also a repeating area -- if your ships
| travel off the eastern edge of the galactic map, they will reappear
| on the western edge, still traveling east. The same phenomenon occurs
| with the north/south edges of the galactic map. Each race starts off
| occupying one system and the other systems are uninhabited. It is
| possible to colonize uninhabited systems and destroy alien populations
| inhabiting systems, making them uninhabited and open for colonization.

| Planets are identified in one of two ways. The number they are assigned
| at the start of the game can always be used. You can also use the name
| of the planet if you happen to know what it is at the present time.

                        Units

  Game units relate to real units as follows: Distances are measured
  in light years. Each game unit of population represents 10 million
  people and each game unit of goods, raw materials etc. represents 10
  million tons. Each game turn represents about four years of time.

                        Industry

  Each inhabited system has an industry level. This may not be greater
  than its population but may be less. The productive capacity of a system
  is determined mostly by its industry and partly by its population.
  Each industry unit on a system gives one production point, and every 4 
  population units over and above industry also give one production point.

  At the start of the game you have one system with industry and population 
  of 1,000. This means you have 1,000 production units to be spent on 
  producing whatever you choose. If your home system had 500 industry and 
  1,000 population it would generate only 625 production units per turn.

  Each system may only produce one thing each turn (colonists and
  materials are the only exception to this, described below), and will
  continue to produce whatever it was last told to produce until told
  otherwise.

                        Technology

  You start off with a technology level of 1 in each of the following
  areas: Drive, Weapons, Shield and Cargo. These levels can be increased
  by allocating production to research. It costs 5,000 production points
  to increase one of your tech levels by one point. However fractional
  increases are possible and they are immediately useful. If you spend 500
  production points on research into Weapons, your Weapons tech level will
  go up by one tenth of a point and this will take effect immediately.
  You don't have to wait until the level goes up by a whole point.

                        Raw Materials

  Producing anything other than research requires raw materials as well
  as production points. Raw materials represent things like sheet steel,
  copper wire and wood and oil for conversion into plastics. Each system
  may have a stockpile of raw materials and if present this will be used.
  If no stockpile exists, production points will have to be allocated
  to producing raw materials. To build spaceships requires an amount
  of raw materials equal to the total size of the ships built. Each
  unit of capital (see below) also requires one unit of raw materials.

  For example, suppose you allocate production at the start of the game to
  building spaceships. Since you start off with no raw material stockpiles,
  raw materials will have to be produced in order to build the spaceships.

  This is completely invisible from your point of view. The only effect
  it will have is that spaceship production will be somewhat lower
  than you would otherwise expect. The only reason you need to know
  about materials at all is that some systems are better than others
  at producing them. Each system has a Natural Resources attribute
  which indicates how rich it is in metal deposits, coal and oil
  etc. Systems high in Natural Resources can produce materials more
  cheaply. The attribute ranges from 0.1 to 10. See the section "Odds
  and ends" for details on planet size and resource statistics.

  Your starting system has Natural Resources of 10, which means
  that each production point can produce 10 points of materials.
  A system with Natural Resources of 0.1 could only produce 0.1
  point of materials for every production point spent on this.
  If you colonize some systems with low Natural Resources you
  may want to dedicate your systems with high Natural Resources
  to producing materials and ship them to the other systems.

  The option "PRODUCTION" (see "Orders" below) will do these
  calculations about how much a system can produce for you.

  Consider the following numbers when deciding what to ship to worlds
  which have not been fully industrialized. Assume you have a world
  which has a population of 400 and no industry. This world will have
  an effective industry of 100. Assume you can ship in 17 units of
  capital, or 17 units of raw materials. What will be the result?

  Ind   Resource  Mat  CAP  Ind
                  Ship Ship Added 
  100   10.0      17    0   33.00
  100   10.0      0    17   67.00
  100    1.0      17    0   33.00
  100    1.0      0    17   62.56
  100    0.1      17    0   33.00
  100    0.1      0    17   46.50
  100    0.0      17    0   33.00       <- Can not happen
  100    0.0      0    17   34.00       <- Can not happen

                        Population

| Each system has a Size attribute which can range from 0 for systems 
| with such unstable primaries that it is virtually impossible to station
| any living beings in the system, to small numbers (up to 100) for 
| systems with stable primaries but no hospitable planets, or anything 
| from 0 to 1,000 for systems with an inhabitable and hospitable planet. 
| For rare systems with more than 1 inhabitable planet, the size attribute 
| may be even larger. This size attribute is related not only to the 
  inhabitable planets' physical size but also to how much of the planet 
  or planets are mountains, desert or oceans, how suitable the climate is 
  for agriculture etc. The system's population can never be higher than its 
  Size but may be lower. Your starting system's size and population are 
  both 1,000. A system's population increases by 8% every turn. Population 
  increases beyond the system's size are converted into colonists (see 
  "Colonists" below)

                        Colonists

  Population increases beyond a system's size are converted into
  colonists. These are people stored in suspended animation capsules.

  These are people stored in containers in deep freeze. Every 8 extra
  population units are converted into 1 unit of colonists. When colonists
  from a planet's stockpile are shipped to other planets which still
  have room for population growth, they are automatically thawed
  out and added to the planet's population. This is how uninhabited
  planets are colonized. (Note that colonist production is completely
  automatic, and consumes no production points or raw materials.)

                        Capital

  A system's industry level is increased by the
  production of capital goods. These represent things
  like machine tools, computers and transport vehicles.

  To produce one unit of capital requires 6 production
  points and 1 unit of raw materials. If the system's industry
  level is below its population it will then be increased
| by 2 units. Otherwise the capital units will be stockpiled.

  If shipped to a system whose industry level is below its
  population, that system's industry level will be increased. This
  is useful for quickly building up the economy of a colony system.

  A newly colonized system produces capital, until changed.

                        Designing Ships

  Blind Galaxy allows you to design your own types of spaceships! To
  design a ship, you decide on a name and give numbers for the following:

  Drive - how powerful is its hyperdrive engine 
  Attacks - how many guns does it carry 
  Weapons - how powerful is each of its guns 
  Shield - how powerful is its shield generator 
  Cargo - how much cargo can it carry

  Some example types are:

  Type            D A  W   S   C
  Drone           1 0  0   0   0 
  Fighter         1 1  1   1   0 
  Gunship         4 2  2   4   0 
  Destroyer       6 1  8   4   0
  Light_Cruiser  11 1 11  11   0
  Cruiser        15 1 15  15   0
  Battle_Cruiser 30 5  6  30   0
  Battleship     30 2 15  30   0 
  Battle_Station 60 4 25 100   0 
  Orbital_Fort    0 4 25 100   0
  Space_Gun       0 1 10   0   0
  Freighter       8 0  0   2  10 
  Megafreighter  80 2  2  30 100

  The Attacks number has to be a whole number, but the others can be
  fractional. However they must be either zero or at least 1. For example,
  you can have a Shield of 1.5 but not 0.5. For the effects of the various
  numbers, see Movement, Cargo and Combat. A ship without weapons has a 
  mass of Drive + Shields + Cargo + mass of cargo (e.g. a Freighter from the 
  above list has an empty mass of 20). A ship with  one attack has a mass of 
  Drive + Weapons + Shields + Cargo + mass of cargo. For a ship with multiple 
  attacks, each attack beyond the first adds half the Weapons number to the 
  ship's mass (i.e. a Battleship has mass 82.5, and Orbital_Fort masses 137.5,
  and a fully loaded Megafreighter weighs in at a massive 1313 [80 (drive)+ 
  2 (first gun) + 1/2 * 2 (second gun) + 30 (shields)+ 100 (cargo hold) + 
  100 (cargo) + (100^2)/10). 

  Hint: The Space_Gun and Megafreighter are not something anyone would
  build in practice. Nor would one typically build a Destroyer, Cruiser,
  Battle_Cruiser, Battleship, Battle_Station, Orbital_Fort, or Freighter
  at one's homeworld.

                        Names

  As well as the various races, other things in the game which have
  names are ship types and systems. Names for all three things may
  be no more than 15 characters (a character is a letter, digit,
| punctuation mark etc). Spaces can NOT be used in names. Using single
| or double quotes (` ' or ") as well as the percent sign (%), semicolons's 
| (;), and pound signs (#) is also not reccomended.

  Ship types are given names by their designer. All systems only have 
  numbers for names at the start of the game. When you colonize a system you
  can change its name. You may want to change your home system's name
  immediately to something more exciting e.g. from "112" to "Zzyax_Prime".

  Note: System numbers are matched before the names are checked for a match,
  so naming a system with a number won't confuse the program (or your
  ships).

  Note: System which you can not see can only be referenced by number,
  not by name. This will keep players from "mapping" the galaxy with
  orders sending groups to randomly named worlds. This will also
  protect players from using common names from accidentally having the
  same thing happen (i.e. I have a Home, you try to name a system Home,
  get an error, and go looking for it). This behaviour is new as of
  version 2.47.

                        Building Ships

  You can allocate a system to producing a type of spaceship. The cost
  of a ship is equal to its mass times 10 production points. A ship 
  without weapons has a mass of Drive + Shields + Cargo (e.g. a Freighter 
  from the above list has an empty mass of 20). A ship with one attack has 
  a mass of Drive + Weapons + Shields + Cargo. For a ship with multiple 
  attacks, each attack beyond the first adds half the Weapons number to 
  the ship's mass (i.e. a Battleship has mass 82.5). 

  For example, if your starting system was producing Drones from the
  above list and there was a stockpile of raw materials and there was
  no need to allocate any industry for producing colonists, it would
  produce 100 per turn. However if it was producing Cruisers it would
  only produce two and two-ninths per turn. After the first turn there
  would be two cruisers and two-ninths in progress. After the second turn
  there would be four cruisers in orbit and one four-ninths completed.
  If you then switched production on that system to another type of
  ship or something else entirely, the four-ninths completed ship would
  be dismantled and converted back into raw materials so it's a bad
  idea to switch production too frequently when building large ships.

                        Groups

  In later stages of the game you can have hundreds or even thousands
  of spaceships which would be inconvenient to handle individually.
  Hence spaceships are handled in groups. A group is a collection of
  spaceships which are all of the same type, in the same place, carrying
  the same quantity and type of cargo and built with the same tech
  levels. This last bit is important because a ship's effectiveness
  depends on the tech level at which it was built. Any ships without
  a certain type of component are recorded as having a tech level
  of 0 in that component e.g. unarmed ships are always recorded as
  having a Weapons tech level of 0 so that two otherwise equal groups
  of them can be merged into one. You can load an entire group of
  ships with cargo, send it to another system etc. with one command.

  Suppose you have 10 ships in a group at a system and you want to
  load 8 of them with cargo and send those 8 to another system. You
  must first of all break off 8 ships into another group and then load
  the new group with cargo and send it to the other system. However
  you must do both in the same turn because otherwise the two groups
  will be automatically merged together again at the end of the turn.
  When you break off a new group, that group uses the next available
  number e.g. in the above example, if you had a total of 15 groups
  before breaking off the new group, the new one would be number 16.

  In the above example, if you only wanted to send the 8 ships from the
  group to the other system and not load them with cargo, you could simply
  use a command to send 8 ships from the first group to the other system
  - the computer would automatically split them into a separate group.
  The command to send a group of ships to a system does not require that
  you specify the number of ships to be sent. If you specify more than
  are in the group, it is considered an error. Also, if you just want to
  send the whole group, you can enter 0 for the number of ships to send.

  Alternatively you could use the "MAX" parameter. With any command
  which takes a group number, the word "MAX" can be used instead, to
  mean the highest numbered group. Thus if you want to break ships
  off from a group and then load them with cargo and send them to
  another system, after issuing the Break order you can refer to the
  newly created group as MAX, because it will have the highest number
  (until of course another order is issued which creates a new group).

  The "MAX" keyword can be made to refer to the highest
  numbered group not in hyperspace, by use of the
  "UNSAFEMAX" option (see details on the O command, below)

* ***** Read the above paragraphs closely, many players misuse the 
  ***** "MAX" parameter.

  There is a second way to move a group of ships, this is with the
  "Intercept" command. With this command, you specify one of your
  groups, and a target system. Typically there will be an alien ship or
  fleet at the system, which you want your group to attack and destroy.
  However if you use an ordinary "Send" order, the alien fleet may leave
  the target system on the same turn, so your group would arrive to
  find it gone. With the Intercept order, if alien ships are detected
  leaving the target system that turn, your group will be sent towards
  whatever system has the largest total mass of alien ships sent to it
  from the target system, except that only systems which your group
  can reach in no more than two turns and which you can see (either
  through having a group there or owning the system, at the time
  intercepts happen in the turn sequence [Note: sending or intercepting
  with all groups at a system that you don't own means you can no
  longer "see" it]) will be considered.  Otherwise your group will be 
  sent to the target system itself. Intercepting groups/fleets act
  as if they were given a send command as far as forecasts are concerned.

                        Fleets

  Fleets are a formed group of different types of ships. They are
  basically a group of groups. Fleets can be ordered to move around as
  a single group using the fleet orders. Fleets do not go off on routes,
  nor are cargo ships in fleets broken off and sent on a route. Also, 
  the speed of the fleet is the speed of the slowest group.

  When a individual group is given a 'send' or 'intercept' order
  it is automatically removed from its current fleet if any. Also,
  breaking off a number of ships from a group which is part of a fleet
  automatically removes the broken-off group from the fleet. Loading
  and unloading cargo does not affect the fleet status of a group.

  Fleets are typically used to reduce the amount of work that a
  player needs to do in writing up orders. In particular, they ensure
  that all groups in them will make it to a planet at the same time,
  rather than at the time dictated by their various group speeds.

                        Upgrading ships

  The group must be at one of your planets, and must remain there
  during the turn long enough for the upgrade to be performed; this
  means that it cannot be given a Send or Intercept command that turn,
  although it may be automatically sent on a route, as this happens
  later in the turn. Ships in the group will be upgraded to the latest
  technology levels as of the start of the current turn (if they are
  already at the latest tech levels, nothing will happen). The cost of
  upgrading a ship is equal to a fraction of the cost of building a new
  one; for example, if the ship is currently at 2/3 of the latest tech
  levels, the cost of upgrading will be 1/3 of the cost of building a
  new ship. (Effectively it will be even cheaper than this, because
  upgrading uses no raw materials.) The exact formula for the cost is:

      10 * ((1 - ship-drive-tech/current-drive-tech) * ship-drive-mass +
            (1 - ship-weapons-tech/current-weapons-tech) * ship-weapons-mass +
            (1 - ship-shields-tech/current-shields-tech) * ship-shields-mass +
            (1 - ship-cargo-tech/current-cargo-tech) * ship-cargo-mass)

  If all of the ships in the group (or the optional number of ships
  specified) can be upgraded to current techs, they are. Otherwise, as many
  ships as possible are upgraded to current techs. If not even a single
  ship can be fully upgraded, then a single ship is partially upgraded.

  The option "UPGRADECOST" will show how much a single ship
  in a group will cost to upgrade to current tech levels.

  Production points spent on upgrading ships during a turn
  are deducted from that planet's production that turn.

  Upgrades occur in the turn before the first combat phase (actually they
  happen as your orders are read). This is the one type of production
  that can be done during a turn before an enemy can bomb a planet.

  If enabled by the GM, you can partially upgrade ships to the tech levels
  you want, rather than upgrading all of them. This is detailed in the 
  section "Partial Techs".

                        Movement

  Spaceships are equipped with hyperspace drives whose power
  is equal to their Drive number multiplied by the Drive
  tech level at which they were built. Ships with a Drive of
  zero remain forever in the system where they were built.

  A ship moves a number of light years per turn equal to 20 times
  its drive power divided by its total mass. "Total mass" means
  the mass of the ship itself plus the mass of any cargo it's
  carrying, so transport ships move faster when empty than when full.

  Note that unless your Drive tech level is very high, large ships
  should have correspondingly large drives or they will be very slow.

  On the other hand the fastest ships you can possibly build
  (all numbers except Drive being zero in the design) can
  only travel at a speed of 20 times your Drive tech level.

  The mathematics of hyperspace travel dictates that ships can
  only travel from one concentration of mass to another, i.e.
  from one system to another; you can't send a ship out into
  empty space. Also, once a ship has started traveling to another
  system it cannot change course, turn back or even slow down.

  So for example, if you launch a massive attack on an alien
  system and then discover that that system is so heavily
  defended that your fleet will be wiped out as soon as
  it arrives, too late: your fleet is irrevocably doomed.

                        Cargo

  A ship's Cargo number determines the size of its cargo bay. The amount 
  of cargo a ship can carry is determined by the following formula:

  cargo-technology * (cargo-number + (cargo-number^2)/10)

  where "cargo-technology" means the cargo technology at which the
  ship was built, and "cargo-number" is determined in the ship design.

  So, at cargo technology level 1, some examples would be:

        Cargo Number            Amount Carried
        1                       1.1
        5                       7.5
        10                      20
        50                      300
        100                     1100

  At cargo technology level 2, these quantities would be doubled,
  and so on. Note that large freighters can carry very large
  quantities of cargo, but if fully loaded are likely to be
  slow (e.g. a fully loaded Megafreighter at drive and cargo
  technology 1 would have a speed of only 1.22 light years per turn).
 
  The slow speed of heavily loaded ships can be alleviated by higher
  levels of cargo technology, however. At tech level 2, the mass
  of any cargo loaded onto a ship is only considered to be half as
  much as normal, for purposes of calculating ship speed and shield
  dilution (see "Combat" below). At tech level 3, the mass is divided
  by 3 and so on. So, a Freighter from the example ship types can
  carry 20 units of cargo at tech level 1. At tech level 2, it could
  carry 40 units, but these would only slow it down as much as 20
  units at tech level 1; thus, a tech level 2 freighter loaded with
  40 units of raw materials can travel as fast (assuming the same
  drive technology) as a tech level 1 freighter loaded with 20 units.

  A ship may only carry one type of cargo at one time. The possible types are 
  raw materials (MAT), capital (CAP) and colonists (COL). Cargo may be loaded 
  onto a ship at a system where it is available and unloaded at any system.

| Exceptions & Clarifications: 
| No cargo may be unloaded at a size 0 planet. 
| Colonists may not be unloaded on to an Alien planet.
| Capital and raw materials MAY be unloaded at an Alien planet.
| Cargo may only be loaded from a planet you own (no piracy)

                        Routes

  To move cargo between systems you can use a route instead of doing
  it manually. A route from system A to B for a particular cargo
  type means that the computer will try to get that type of cargo
  from system A to system B using all available transport ships.

  Once the route is set up, any empty ships at system A each
  turn will be loaded with cargo (if any of that type is
  present on system A) and sent to system B. Any ships which
  arrive at system B carrying that type of cargo (even if they
  didn't come from system A) will be automatically unloaded.

  You can set up a total of four routes from each system that
  you own, one for each of the three kinds of cargo and one for
  empty transports which is useful for returning transports from
  resource consuming systems to resource producing systems.

  You can only set up routes from systems that you own but you can set
  up routes to any system at all, so you can use them for shipping
  colonists to uninhabited systems. Routes are assigned transport
  ships in the following order of priority: COL, CAP, MAT, EMPTY.

| Hint: Routing col/cap/mat from a planet back to itself
| will ensure that these items will be unloaded the turn
| they arrive. This is similar to the option "AUTOUNLOAD"

| Hint: A route to system X for CAP (or MAT or COL) will unload CAP of
| yours that arrives from any system, not just X.

| Note: Routes are unloaded BEFORE production, so there is
| a difference between using them and not doing so. This
| is a difference from the "standard" galaxy behavior.

| Note: A route can be set up to go to a system you can not presently
| see so as to colonize it this turn (and thus gain an extra turn's
| worth of production). If this world is size 0, or already colonized
| by another player, your forecast will NOT contain any errors. Any
| COL/CAP/MAT routed there will be "unloaded" and not show up on the
| forecast. The correct behaviour will happen when the turn is run.

                        Combat

  Ships in hyperspace cannot be attacked but whenever
  hostile warships are present at the same system a
  battle will take place. This proceeds as follows:

  A ship is picked at random.
  It selects a hostile target at random and fires.
  The target may or may not be destroyed, depending on weapon and
    shield strengths and on luck.
  If the attacking ship has more attacks, it will fire again at
    randomly selected targets until it has used them all.
  Then another ship is picked at random to fire its shots.


  This continues until all ships have fired. If neither
  side has been wiped out another round of combat
  takes place, and so on until only one side is left.

  The power of an attack is equal to the Weapons
  number multiplied by the Weapons tech level.

  The power of a spaceship's defense is equal to it's Shield number
  multiplied by it's Shield tech level and divided by it's diameter.
  (A ship's diameter is equal to the cube root of its mass). This is
  because a large ship's shield will have a larger area to protect and
  so be diluted and, other things equal, weaker. A ship with numbers 
  8 1 8 8 0 will have only 4 times the effective shield strength of one
  with numbers 1 1 1 1 0, even though it has 8 times the Shield number.
  The mass of any cargo being carried will also influence a ship's
  defense value. See Cargo, above.

  The numbers are calculated so that if a ship with numbers 
  10 1 10 10 0 fires at an identical ship, it will have a 50% chance of
  destroying the target. If the effective attack is four times as
  strong as the defense of the targeted ship, the attack will always
  succeed. Similarly, if the effective defense is four times as
  strong as the targeting ship's attack, the attack will always fail.

  The preceeding two paragraphs should be read as to say:
 
  Effective shield strength = 
     ship-shields-tech * ship-shields-mass 
     ------------------------------------- * cuberoot(30)
          cuberoot(ship mass)

  Battles will stop after one round of combat if no ship has any targets
  that it is able to destroy, e.g. if a small fighter is up against a
  huge unarmed freighter whose shield it can't possibly break through.

  Also in your turn report, after the first round of combat shots
  fired by ships which have no chance of destroying any of their
  targets will not be shown even when the battle is still going
  on. This is to reduce the volume of information in the report.

  Blow by blow battles can be turned on or off. See the options command.

  Two groups will fight each other under the following conditions: 
    a) If player A has armed ships and is at war with B. 
    b) If player B has armed ships and is at war with A. 
    c) If player A owns the planet and has Guard status vs. B. 
  The K command (optional feature, see below) adds this case: 
    d) If player A owns the planet, and has set the status at the planet 
       with respect to B to be war (setting it to peace ensures that 
       there will be a battle if and only if condition (b) above is true.

  Hint: If you are at peace, and only unarmed ships show up at your system,
  you will not fire upon them, even if the owner of the unarmed unit
  is at war with you.

                        Conquering Systems

  If an armed ship is left at an enemy race's system after all
  fighting has been done, it will bomb the system and sterilize
  it, wiping out the population and all goods present. The
  system is then uninhabited and colonists may be landed on it.
  This is how you conquer systems occupied by another race.

  Note: Bombing will occur if there are unfriendly armed ships
  at the system, even if you have ships there as well.

                        War and Peace

| At the start of the game you are assumed to be at war with all
| the other races. You can change this status only after meeting
| each race, because you must know the race's name to change your
| status. After you know their name you can change status at will.

| Exception: You can set your default to war or peace for all races,
| via the A MyRace and W MyRace commands, see below for details.

| When at war with another race your ships will fire whenever
| they meet ships of that race, and will bomb any of that
| race's systems which you are orbiting after a battle phase.

| When you are at peace with a race your ships will not fire
| at them unless they would fire upon you first. At that
| point all ships that of yours at that system will behave as
| if they were at war for the duration of that battle only.
| You will not, however, bomb the system if you win the battle.

| For example: If you are at peace with a race but they
| are at war with you, you won't shot at their probes
| unless there is an armed unit of theirs at that system.

| In addition, you may choose to adopt a defensive posture with respect
| to another race, such that you will fire at their ships if they
| venture into to any of your systems, but will not fire at them at
| neutral or foreign planets. You also will not bomb their planets.

| Exceptions: See the "K" command, below.

                        Victory and Defeat

| Winning a Galaxy game is simple in concept: you must have completely
| exterminated all other races. When a race has no planets or ships
| left, it is declared extinct and deleted from the database.

| Note, however, that a game often reaches a point where
| all remaining players agree on whom the victor will be.
| Upon unanimous agreement of all remaining players, a
| game may be called before there is only one race left.

| Note that alliance victories are NOT allowed; there can be
| only ONE winner. However, a player who fought sufficiently
| well against the eventual winner in the last stages of the
| game before being defeated may, at the GM's discretion, be
| declared a runner-up. When a game is over, the name of the winner,
| together with any runners-up, will be posted to rec.games.pbm.

                        Order Format

  [Only significant changes are marked in this
  section, but you should read the whole thing.]

  To enter orders for Galaxy, you should send
  a mail message containing the following:

  #GALAXY game-number race-name
  ...orders...
  #END

  The #GALAXY line should be in the body of the message, not
  in the subject line. The # character should be the first one
  on the line (i.e. no leading spaces.) It is very important
  to type this line correctly, as otherwise all of your orders
  will be discarded. Everything before the #GALAXY line or
  after the #END line in the message is ignored by the program.

  Comments are marked with a leading semicolon or pound
  sign (; or #). If they are on the same line as a command,
  there must be a space separating them from the command.

  For example:
    #GALAXY Mygame MyEmpire
    ; This is a comment
    A MyEmpire ; This text (after the first ;) is a comment
    W OtherEmpire; This isn't a valid comment
    # This is a comment
     ; This is not a valid comment (leading space)
     # This is not a valid comment either.
    #end


  Each type of order is designated by giving a letter or keyword
| as the first character on the line (no leading spaces!). The program 
  only checks the first letter, so you can either give a whole word or
  just the letter. Parameters are given after this, separated by
  spaces or tabs. Blank lines are permitted, as are comments. Anything
  after a semicolon or pound sign on a line is treated as a comment 
  and ignored, provided it is either the first character on the line,
  or is preceeded by a space when on a line with a command.

  The parser is not case sensitive, so all commands, names etc.
  may be given in upper case, lower case or a mixture of the two.
  This includes passwords, gamenames, empirenames, and #galaxy/#end
  lines.

  Replacement sets of orders may be sent anytime before the deadline. 
| The most recently sent (which if a mail system is running slowly,
| might not be the last received) set of orders will be used. This is
| done by the GM outside of the Blind program, and thus might not be
| true. Concerned parties should check with their GM for how this is
| handled.

  Any player not sending in orders for three turns in a row is removed
  from the game, e.g. if your last set of orders was for turn 20, you will
  receive reports for turns 20, 21, 22 and 23; and you will not receive a
  turn 24 report unless new orders are received. Note that an empty order
  set still counts as sending in orders. [Also note: the program itself
  does not handle this, the GM does, so this is not a hard and fast rule]

  The following commands can be used in your orders for a turn. An
  argument in []'s is optional.

  A race 
| Declare peace on another race. In addition, you may use this 
| command to declare peace on all alien races, by using the  syntax
| "A race-name", where the race-name you choose is *your* race name. 
| The same may be done with the H and W commands to declare defensive
| postures or war postures to all foreign races. Note that if you have
| any allies, and you issue "W your-race-name", you may want to issue an 
| "A ally-race-name" command right after the W command (to re-ally
| yourself), lest you have a major diplomatic incident on your hands!

    Example: 
      A my-race

    Effect: 
      Sets your empire to peace with everyone.

  B group-no how-many-ships 
  Break off a number of ships from a group.

  Note: By default you can not break off all ships from a group. The option
    UNSAFEBREAK allows you to override this behaviour. See the Options
    section below for details.

    Example: 
      B 7 10

    Effect: 
      Breaks off 10 ships from group 7. This new
      group can be referred to either by the keyword
      'max' or by determining the next new group number.

  C new-name 
  Change the name of your race.

  D type-name drive attacks weapons shield cargo
  Design a new ship type with the given numbers.

  E type-name 
  Erase a ship type (only works if you have no ships
  of that type in existence, in a battle last turn, or being
  built. See fulltype option for one way to determine this.).

| F 
| Toggle between getting "Full Report on systems"
| and the "standard" report format. See "Full Reports" below. 
| This is a synonym for "o fullreport".

| G group-no [number-of-ships]
| Upgrades the groups specified as follows:
| If all of the ships in the group (or the optional number of ships
| specified) can be upgraded to current techs, they are. Otherwise, as many
| ships as possible are upgraded to current techs. If not even a single
| ship can be fully upgraded, then a single ship is partially upgraded.
 
| There is no way to partially upgrade all the ships in a group.
 
| See "Upgrading ships" for cost & restrictions. See "Partial techs" for
| a feature your GM may opt to enable.
 
| H race-name 
| Adopt a defensive (guarding) posture towards another race. Doing 
| "H race-name" with your race-name, sets you at guard status with all
| races not subsequently overridden by an A or W command.
| See Combat (above) for its effects. 

| I group-no system [number-of-ships] 
| Order your group to intercept alien ships at another planet. With 
| this command, you specify one of  your groups, and a target planet. 
| Typically there will be an alien ship or fleet at the planet, which you 
| want your group to attack and destroy. However if you use an ordinary 
| "Send" order, the alien fleet may leave the target planet on the same 
| turn, so your group would arrive to find it gone. With the Intercept 
| order, if alien ships leave the target planet that turn, your group will 
| be sent towards whatever planet has the largest total mass of alien 
| ships sent to it from the target planet, except that only planets which 
| your group can reach in no more than two turns and which you can see will 
| be considered. Otherwise your group will be sent to the target planet itself.

| Note: If ANY groups leave the system, you will follow them, even if
| the main force does not move. I.e. a single departing probe could
| lead you attack force elsewhere. Use cation when intercepting, and
| consider using the "shortint" option.



| K planet [status race] 
| This command only works on in games where the GM has decided to allow it. 
| Ask your GM before attempting to use it.

  The K command makes your status at the planet for the race given, appear 
  to be "status" (status can be either "war" or "peace"). 

  Not specifying a race and status erases all the ones for that planet. 

  Specifying a race, and putting a "-" for the status erases the command 
  with regards to that race only at the planet. 

  Specifying "-" for planet and status, wipes the selective planet defenses 
  for all planets with regards to the specified races.

  Specifying your empire's name for the race sets the status at that
  planet to war/peace for all species known to you at the time you enter
  the command (note that this differs from A/H/W where it would be all
  species irregardless of your knowing of them.


  Note that you must own the system to issue a K command for it.

  Example: K 16 peace Taperans

  Effect: If you are not the Taperans, this command over-rides whatever 
  global setting you have with regard to the race called the Taperans, 
  and any Taperan ships which show up at this world will not be
  fired upon (unless of course, they start shooting at you!)

  Effect: If you are the Taperans, this command over-rides whatever 
  global setting you have with regard to all races known to you at the
  time. You will only shoot at someone if they are at war with you, or
  an unknow species shows up an your default posture is war.

  Example: K 23
  Example: K 23 - -

  Effect: These commands erase any selective planet defenses for planet 23.


  Example: K - - Taperans

  Effect: This command erases any selective planet defenses for all planets
  you own which have any set up for the Taperans.

  Example: K - - -

  Effect: This command erases all selective planet defenses for all planets
  you own.

  L group-no cargo-type [number-of-ships [ammount-of-cargo]]
  Load cargo onto a group of ships. By supplying a number of ships as
  the fourth item on the line, you can load a specific number of ships
  with the desired cargo. If this number of ships is less than the number of 
  ships in the group, a new group is created. If a number of ships and 
  ammount of cargo is given, the ships will be loaded with the cargo so that
  ammount-of-cargo is evenly distributed among them.

  The following cargo types are available: 
  MAT Materials 
  CAP Capital 
  COL Colonists

  Examples: L 10 COL 0 
            L 10 COL

  Effect: This will load colonists on to all ships in group 10.

  Example: L 10 COL 3 1

  Effect: This will create a new group (if group 10 has more than 3 ships),
  and load each ship with 1/3rd of a unit of colonists.

| M x y size 

| Request a map of the entire galaxy. This command will remain in effect
| until turned off. In other words, if you want a map of the galaxy
| on every turn, you do not need to put the M command in every set of
| moves. You may find that maps are of much less use in blind galaxy
| than in the original galaxy game. Mapping utilities exist (ask your
| GM) that will generate detailed maps of specific areas of the galaxy,
| or of entire galaxies, if you want these pictorial representations to
| assist in your planning. The option SMARTMAP might also be helpful.

| Note that X & Y are the point you want your map CENTERED around, not 
| the upper left hand corner of it. Entering a M command will generate a 
| map even if you had maps turned off. If you want to turn it off again 
| in the same set of orders, you will need to do a "o no map" command after 
| the "M x y size" command.

  Note: The map is not set up as you would expect. The Y-axis is flipped:

                -Y
                 |
        -X, -Y   |  +X, -Y
                 |
   -X  ----------+--------- +X
                 |
        -X, +Y   |  +X, +Y
                 |
                +Y

 Example: M 0 0 100

 Effect: This will turn on map printing (if it was off), and give you a 
 map of size 100, centered on 0,0. I.e. the map will cover from 
 -50,-50 to +50,+50

  N system new-name 
| Change the name of a system. The number assigned to it will remain 
| unchanged and can be used as well as the name. 
| Note: This takes place immediately, unlike the standard galaxy game.
| Note: You must own a system to change its name.

  O [no] option 
  Change the way some portions of the reports are done, current options are:

  Option        default
  map           on
  smartmap      on
  xcenter       *
  ycenter       *
  unknown       off
  production    on
  techprod      off
  techs         off
  sortgroups    off
  sortplanets   off
  longbattle    off
  battlesum     on
  battlemass    off
  forecast      off
  longforecast  off
  fullreport	on
  techplus      on
  fulltype      off
  autounload    off
  upgradecost   off
  twospace      off
  unsafemax     off
  unsafebreak   off
  shortint      off
  showfrom      off
  bombsum       on
  sysmass       off
  cartesian     off
  pedantic      off
  showopts      on

You can turn off options using 
  O no <option>

for example: 
  O no techs

  Effects of options: 

Option: map

Toggles map printing on and off (note that doing
a M command will turn maps on automatically).

Option: smartmap

Any maps requested (see "M", and the reports &
map ) will use more symbols than the default.

Option: xcenter, ycenter

Changes your reference X or Y by the specified amount. 
  Example: 
    O xcenter 14.5

  Effect: 
    All X-coordinates of systems (except those that wrap
    around) are shifted by 14.5 [I.e. 0,0 -> -14.5,0; 20,5 -> 5.5,5]

Options: unknown

The default prints out an "Unknown planets" section only
if you request a map, Toggling this option switches the
behavior, so you won't get both a map and the unknown list.

Option: production

This option adds the optional "Ships in Production"
section. See that section of the rules below.

Option: techprod

If partial techs are in use, then this option controls if they will
show up in the Ships In Production section as additional columns.

Option: techs

This changes the groups section reports to standard galaxy
style, with tech levels instead of effective numbers.

Option: sortgroups

Sorts the groups so that all groups at a planet have adjacent group
numbers.  Sorting is done in planet number order. At a specific
system, groups not belonging to a fleet end up first; groups within
fleets are sorted in fleet order.

Option: sortplanets

Sorts your planets by industry value, rather than planet number order.

Option: longbattle

When turned on, via "o longbattle", does not print blow-by-blow
listing of the battle. This option is useful when you want
to know how well your ships performed. Note that you'll want
a battle summary program. One does exist, and works provided
that you don't have "battlesum" on. 

Note: This can substantially increase the size of your turn report.

Note: The logic on this command is backwards for historical reasons,
but will be "fixed" in a future release.

Option: battlesum

Prints a battle summary (i.e. ships left after the battle).
Note that the output is a little different from "standard" galaxy.

Option: battlemass

This option will print out a chart detailing the number of ships each 
empire started a battle with, their mass and their techmasses. Similar
information is given for what they had left after the battle, and the
percentage losses for both sides (in terms of mass).

It also prints out an overall summary, detailing this information for
all battles you witnessed this turn.

Option: bombsum

This will print an overall summary of all the bombings you saw,
broken down by who did the bombing, and whom they bombed. The number
of systems, population, industry, col, cap, and mat obliterated is
also included.

Option: forecast

This option will return a forecast of ship designs and locations,
planet production, routes, and pop/cap/ind/etc as it will be on the
next turn report. These calculations are based upon your orders
(load/unload, routes, sends, etc.), but do not take into consideration
the affects of other player's moves. I.e. Battles and bombings are
not done. Planets you did not own at the beginning of the turn
will not be shown, nor will groups/systems not belonging to you.

This option takes an optional argument. If given, a forecast
for the turn specified will be given, provided that it is
no more than 5 turns in the future (and isn't in the past).

Option: longforecast

This option enables full reports in forecasts. A full forecast
report will only be generated if full reports are enabled.

Option: fullreport

This option enables full reports. See the section "Full planet reports"
for details of what this does.

Option: techplus

When this option is set, 3 additional fields are added to the status
section (see "Status of Players"). Note that all numbers are based
on what you can see. If another player has a single old probe,
that's all you'll get information on. Tech masses are calculated as
(mass of drive * drive tech + mass of weapons * weapon tech ... ).

Option: fulltype

This option prints out additional information in the Ship type section of
reports. See "Your Ship Types" for more details.

Option: autounload

Unloads all cargo of all types (CAP/MAT/COL) at all planets that you own.
This is done at the same time as cargo ships on routes are unloaded.
This behavior can be undesirable under some conditions. For example:
Without autounload, in order to have all groups going to planet 0
with COL automatically unloaded at the end of the turn, you had to
have a route somewhere sending COL there, which can be inconvenient.
With autounload set, you don't have to have a bogus route set up.

Option: upgradecost

Adds an extra column in all your groups sections; "I", which is
the cost to upgrade 1 ship in that group to current tech levels.

Option: twospace

Changes the report so that all fields have 2 spaces between them, instead
of 1. This option should make the reports more readable by other galaxy tools.

Option: unsafemax

This option changes the effect of the 'MAX' keyword. By default, MAX refers 
to the highest numbered group. When unsafemax is turned on, MAX will refer to 
the highest numbered group that is not in hyperspace and which has ships. This 
option should be used caution.

Option: unsafebreak

This option allows you to break off all ships from a group (normally this is
an error). Typically one would want to break all the ships off in order to
reorder the groups (such as to have cargo ships loaded in a particular order).

Option: shortint

This option changes intercepts to work on systems within a single turn's
range, instead of two turns.

Option: showfrom

When a group is in hyperspace, instead of showing the target system's
name (or ? if not known), show the number of the system of origin.

Option: sysmass

Shows the number of ships, mass, and techmass of all groups at a
system. This option only affects full reports.

Option: cartesian

For historical and compatibility reasons, galaxy maps have let smallest 
numbers in the upper left corner of the map. Many people expect them
to be in the lower left corner (Cartesian Co-ordinates). This confusion 
results in people going north instead of south...

When cartesian is off, normal galaxy co-ordinates are in effect. When
turned on, the Y Axis is flipped, and cartesian co-ordinates are in
effect.

Option: pedantic

Some commands, while not wrong when done, are often indicative of a
mistake or something that you may wish to reconsider. This option
warns of them. In particular, the following things are presently
flagged:
  Trying to upgrade a group when you have insufficient industry to do
it totaly.
  
Option: showopts

This options shows the current option settings.


  P system produce-what
  Set production for a system.  The following things can be produced:
  CAP                   Capital
  MAT                   Materials
  DRIVE                 Drive research
  WEAPONS               Weapons research
  SHIELDS               Shield research
  CARGO                 Cargo bay research
  type-name             Ships of the named type

  Ships can be produced at less than current tech levels, if enabled by 
  the GM. This is detailed in the "Partial Techs" section.

    Example:
     P 234 CAP
     P 234 DRIVE
     P 234 MAT

    Effect:
     Sets system 234 to producing CAP, DRIVE, or MAT.

    Example:
     P 123 Fighter 1 2 3 0

    Effect:
     Sets systerm 123 to producing a fighter with drive tech 1,
     weapons tech 2, and shield tech 3, assuming that their tech
     levels are high enough, the ship type exists, etc.
  R from-system cargo-type [to-system]
  Set a route.  The following cargo types are available:
  COL           Colonists
  CAP           Capital
  MAT           Materials
  EMP           Empty transports
  ALL           Mat, Cap, and Col
  Specifying an underscore (_), or minus (-) as the to-system (or not
  giving one) indicates that an existing route should be canceled.
  Routing the cargo type "ALL" to a system is the same thing as setting
  the COL, CAP, and MAT routes to it.

    Example:
     R 0 COL
     R 0 COL -

    Effect:
     Unsets the route for col from system 0.

| Note: Systems you can not see, will not be able to be refered to by
| name. They will only be able to be referenced by number.

| S group-no system [number-of-ships]
  Send ships to a system.

    Example:
     S 3 123
     S 3 123 0

    Effect:
     Sends group 3 to system 123

    Example:
     S 3 123 10

    Effect:
     Sends ten units from group 3 to system 123 (or however many ships
     there are in group 3, whichever is less).

| Note: Systems you can not see, will not be able to be refered to by
| name. They will only be able to be referenced by number.

  T type-name new-name
  Change the name of a ship type.

  U group-no [number-of-ships]
  Unload a group's cargo onto the planet it's currently at. Colonists
  cannot be unloaded onto an alien planet (this applies to unloading at
  the end of routes, as well). Capital and materials unloaded onto an
  uninhabited planet will sit there until someone colonizes the planet.


  W race-name
| Declare war on another race.  Be very cautious about using the 
| "W your-race-name" format of this command, since it will set you to war
| with *all* races, including any allies you may have, until
| overridden by a subsequent A or H order.

  X group-no [number-of-ships]
  Scraps the group at the planet. You get the raw materials from it.
  Scrapping must be done over a system with size greater than 0. Any
  cargo carried with be unloaded before scrapping. Groups carrying
  colonists can not be scraped over alien worlds. Groups in hyperspace
  can not be scrapped.

  If you scrap a group, the group numbering will not be changed until
  after your orders are processed.

    Example:
      X 3 7

    Effect:
      Scraps 7 units from group 3 (provided that there are 7 or more, the 
      world isn't size 0, the group is not in hyperspace, and that if it 
      is carrying colonists, the would is not colonized by another player.)

  Y [password]
  Sets the race's password to the give password. If no password is
  given, the race's password is deleted. Passwords may not contain
  spaces, or colons, and can be at most 15 chacters. Passwords are not
  case sensitive. Support for passwords is optional. Ask your GM
  before using them, or check to see if it is listed in the options
  shown by the SHOWOPTS option.

    Example:
      Y mY-Pass

    Effect:
      Sets your password to mY-Pass (which also matches MY-PASS,
      my-pass, and My-Pass, among others).

    Example:
      Y

    Effect:
      Erases any password you might have.
  
  Z new-email
  Sets your email address to "new-email". Support for this command is
  optional, ask your GM before attempting it, or check to see if it is
  listed in the options shown by the SHOWOPTS option.

    Example:
      Z bampton@cs.utk.edu

    Effect: 
      Changes your email address to bampton@cs.utk.edu.

                     Fleet commands:

  B group fleet 
  Break the specified group off of the fleet.

  B group fleet num-ships
  Break the specified number of ships off of the group in fleet
  [This is the same as B group num-ships. It is provided for consistency]

  A group can not be broken off of a fleet while the fleet is in
  hyperspace.

    Example:
      B 7 MyFleet

    Effect:
      Breaks group 7 off of MyFleet.

  D FLEET fleetname
  Creates a new fleet, named fleetname.

    Example:
      D FLEET MyFleet

  E FLEET fleetname
  Erases the specified fleet, provided it is not in hyperspace.

    Example:
      E FLEET MyFleet

  I fleetname planet
  Order the fleet fleetname to intercept alien ships leaving planet

    Example:
      I MyFleet 37

  J group fleetname
  J group fleetname num-ships
  J fleetname1 fleetname2
  Joins the group & fleet together. In the second case, a new group will be
  created, and it will be added to the fleet. The third syntax will result in
  fleet1 becoming a part of fleet2.

  S fleet planet
  Sends the fleet to the planet

  T oldfleetname newfleetname
  Changes the fleet's name.

Note: The following commands are not presently supported:
Z (change e-mail @) - send your GM mail instead
Q (quit) - send your GM mail instead

Options: twocol, underscores, namecase

The following commands have different meanings
or are slightly different in blind galaxy:

I (intercept) - you have to be able to see where they are going
G (upgrade) - partial upgrades of a group are impossible, upgrades
              happen earlier. Partial tech support.
F (full reports) - this is not the player @ lookup command
B - requires a fleet name instead of the keyword FLEET
    supports an optional number of ships to break off of a group in a fleet
P - Partial tech support may be enabled.

| 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. [Exception: see the option UNSAFEMAX]

  Keywords used as parameters to orders must be given precisely;
  unlike order keywords they cannot be abbreviated (nor
  expanded). The following keywords are used: CAP, MAT,
  COL, EMP, DRIVE, WEAPONS, SHIELDS, CARGO, MAX, FLEET, - (minus),
  _ (underscore). You may not name a planet, ship, fleet, or empire
  one of those names (the program may let you, but doing so may 
  cause you grief later).


			Partial Techs

  Note: This is an optional feature, it is apparently stable, and 
  functional. It may undergo changes should major problems surface.

  Partial techs are the ability to build less than the best, with
  respect to the tech levels of warships. Just as Intel can build 
  Pentium chips, but still makes 486 chips, you can opt to produce old
  technology ships.
 
  There are two ways to do this- upgrades, and new production.
  To support this feature, there is a new extended syntax for the
  upgrade and production commands:

  G group [number-of-ships [drive weapons shields cargo]]
  P planet shiptype [drive weapons shields cargo]
     
  Drive, weapons, shields, and cargo are all the tech levels to
  build/upgrade that ship to. To build/upgrade at your current tech level
  at the begining of the turn (as would normally be the case), use a
  tech level of MAX. Tech levels must be MAX, 0, or between 1 and your 
  current tech level inclusive. Since tech levels are seldom exactally as 
  shown on your turn report, specifying a tech level that appears to be 
  the same as on your report will, in all likelyhood, not be the same. 
  To not change a tech level, use 0 for that tech (i.e. G group 0 10 0 0 0
  would only upgrade the drive tech of the ship).

  The following things should be kept in mind when using partial techs:
    1) The techlevel MAX is computed on the turn that you entered the
       orders and will not change unless you change it (thus scraping
       any partially built ships). This means it is not the same as a
       techlevel of 0 (case 3 below).
    2) If you are producing a unit (say a probe) with a partial tech,
       and subsequently do a "p planet probe" (i.e. no tech specs),
       the planet will continue to produce probes at the old tech levels.
       In order to cease production of those probes, change production
       to something else first, and then change it back.
    3) The techlevel 0 is always your techlevel at the begining of the
       turn (i.e. if on turn 10, the tech is 1, and turn 11 it is 1.2,
       ships produced would have tech levels of 1 and 1.2 on those
       respective turns). This differs from a techlevel of MAX (case 1
       above).

  Cost- older hardware is somewhat cheaper to build than the newest
  technogogy, so producing lower tech ships is as well. The cost of
  producing a lower tech ship is:
    f_tech = producing drive / current drive * ships drive mass +
             same calculation for weapons mass +
             same calculation for shields mass +
             same calculation for cargo mass
 
    cost = 10* (shipmass + f_tech)/2.0 + raw mat costs
 
  A quick example:
    If your techs are all 2, but you want a ship that has techs of all 1,
    the ship will cost 75% as much as usual. All techs 5, but produce at
    4, would cost 90% of normal. At best, a ship should cost 50% as much
    (but probably be totally useless).
 
  A more compicated example:
        Ship Design: 
          Destroyer= (10 1 10 10 1)
            Drive Tech: 5.32
            Weapons Tech: 3.11
            Shield Tech: 2.67
            Cargo Tech: 2.00

 
    Production Orders: P Homeworld Destroyer 2 1.5 MAX 0
 
    Production cost calculation:
      Normally would be 310 + material costs.
   
      Using the above numbers it would be:
 
         f_tech = 2 / 5.32 * 10 +
                  1.5 / 3.11 * 10 +
                 2.67 / 2.67 * 10 +
                 [ Remeber that a tech level of 0 == no change ]
                 1 / 1.00 * 1
 
       f_tech = 3.76 + 4.82 + 10 + 1 = 19.58
 
       cost = 10 * (31 + 19.58) / 2.0 + material costs
 
       cost = 233 + material costs
 
     Result: Homeworld (with sufficient mat stockpiles) produces 4.29
       Destroyers.
 
 
  Cost for upgrades- treat the listed techs as if they were your true 
  ones, and upgrade normally.
 

                        Sequence of Actions

  After all race orders have been entered, production set, cargo
  manually loaded and unloaded, ships entered hyperspace or been
  upgraded, etc. the following sequence of actions takes place:

| Empire name changes (unless disabled).
| Hostile ships fight each other.
| Ships at their destinations bomb enemy systems.
| Cargo is loaded onto ships at the beginning of routes, and the ships
|   are sent into hyperspace.
| Ships are sent on intercept orders.
| Ships move through hyperspace.
| Hostile ships fight each other again (new battles might be possible
|   after ships emerge from hyperspace).
| Ships bomb enemy systems again.
| Cargo is unloaded at the end of routes. (Not manually though)
| Population growth happens, available cap becomes ind if pop>ind.
| Production of ships takes place.
| Production cap/mat/tech takes place.
| Groups are joined together where possible.

| Yes, this means that N/T orders occur effective as soon as you type
| them in. When heading to an alien planet, always use the planet number,
| not the name (unless you don't care where your ships end up...)

  Note that all orders are processed before any time passes. Hence
  having sent ships into hyperspace, even if they will arrive at their
  destination at the end of the turn, you cannot unload them, name new
  colony systems etc. until the start of the next turn (although ships on
  routes will be unloaded at the end of the turn). However, you could do
  a unload/load/send (and name) combination [at a suitably small world].

  The turn sequence also prevents a ship that moved (either via send
  or intercept, but not a route) from fighting in the first battle phase, 
  or bombing in the first bombing phase.

                        Your Turn Report

  Your turn report will contain some or all of the following sections. 
  Sections found in forecast reports (if a forecaster is provided by the GM) 
  are noted as well.

  If you have not submitted orders for the
  current turn, a warning message will appear.

  If the option "showopts" is set, a list of the options
  that the game supports, and their status will be printed.

                Status of Players

| This is your current status. Any races whose planets you can see, or who
| have groups that you saw during the turn are listed. Information about
| their planets (population, industry) only represents those you can see,
| this often is not the true total. Their tech levels are reported, based
| upon those groups that you saw this turn. If so configured by the GM,
| the information will also be carried over to all future turn reports.

| The following information is provided:

  Name
  Drive Technology
  Weapons Technology
  Shields Technology
  Cargo Technology
| Total Size of all owned systems
  Total Population
  Total Industry
  Number of Systems Owned
  Diplomatic Relations (War/Peace/Guard)
  # of ships you have (or can see) *
  Total mass of ships you have (or can see) *
  Tech mass of ships you have (or can see) *

  The last 3 entries (marked with *'s) are enabled via the TECHPLUS option.
  This section appears in forecasts. Alien ship information is not printed
  in forecasts, however.

                Your Ship Types

  This is a list of your ship types; the following information is provided:

  Name
  Drive
  Attacks
  Weapons
  Shields
  Cargo
| Mass (without cargo)
| Speed (at current drive tech, no cargo carried)
| Shield Value (effective value after all adjustments -- compare this
|               number to attacker's weapon strength to determine the
|               probability an attack on a ship of this type succeeds.
|               This number is also calculated at current shield tech)
| Number of this type that have been built (or can see)
| Number of this type that are still in existence (or can see)

  The last 5 items are shown if the option "FULLTYPE" is set.
  This section appears in forecast reports.

                Alien Ship Types

  This is a description of each type of alien ship
  that you have come into contact with this turn; the
  information provided is the same as for your ship types.

  This section does not appear in forecast reports.


                Battles

  This is a description of all the battles that you have fought or witnessed 
  this turn. For each battle, a list of the groups existing at the start of 
  the battle is provided, followed by a shot-by-shot account. The list of 
  groups is in the same general format as for your groups (below) except 
  without the group numbers and the information on destination system, 
  distance, and upgradecost (see the UPGRADECOST option).

  If the option BATTLESUM is enabled, the number of ships remaining
  after the battle will also be shown (under the 'R' heading).

  Blow by blow battle reports can be turned on and off. See the option command.

  Names of the planet will only be reported
  at systems where you had ships left after combat.

  This section does not appear in forecast reports.

                Bombings

  This is a list of all the systems that you have observed
  being bombed this turn. The following information is given:

        Who bombed the planet *
        Owner
        Planet Name
        Population
        Industry
        Capital Stockpiled
        Material Stockpiled
        Colonists Stockpiled

  Obviously, most of this data is from just *before* the planet was bombed.

  * The empire doing the bombing is shown _only_ if you had ships there at
  the time they did the bombing, or if you lost in a battle over that world
  (i.e. leaving your worlds without ships over them means that you don't know
  who bombed them, or with what- leave at least a probe over your worlds).

  This section does not appear in forecast reports.

                Map

| This is a map of the entire galaxy. This section is only printed if you
| specifically request it. Symbols on the map have the following meanings:


  *     Your System
  o     Uninhabited System
  +     Alien System
  ?     Unknown System

| Unless you have ships at a system, or own it, it will show up as
| "Unknown" regardless of its actual inhabitants.

| Using the option "smartmap" will change the map symbols to:

  ?     Unknown System
  #     Battle at system (which you didn't survive)
  @     Uninhabited System
  0     Size zero system
        Alien Systems are identified by the first letter of the race's name.
  *     Your System

  Symbols are listed in the order they are placed on the map, so an
  unknown system ('?') which is located very close to once you can see
  (@/0/*/some letter) will be hidden by the later on your map.

  This section does appear in forecast reports.

                Incoming Groups

| This is a list of all the groups of alien ships currently
| heading for systems inhabited by you that have a mass greater
| than one. This means single probes can move around
| undetected (but not a group of more than one probe)....

  The following information is provided:

  Origin (which system the group came from- number, and name if known)
  Destination (which system the group is heading towards- number and name)
  Distance Remaining
  Speed of incoming group
  Total Mass

  This section does not appear in forecast reports.

                Your Systems

  This is a list of all the systems that you
  own. The following information is provided:

  Name (Assigned at the game's start, changable)
  Number (Assigned at the game's start, unchangable)
  X Coordinate
  Y Coordinate
  Size
  Population
  Industry
  Natural Resources
  Producing (capital, raw materials, research or ships)
  Colonists Stockpiled
  Capital Stockpiled
  Material Stockpiled

  This section appears in forecast reports.

                Ships in Production

  This is a list of all the systems that you own, with the following
  information supplied:
N        #       I           M     $     S        T         C        U
Name     Number  Effective   Mat   CAP   SIZE     Type      Cost     Unused
planet   planet  industry                of ship  of ship   of ship  Industry

  Effective Industry = industry including "extra" industry from population. 
  It does not take into consideration capital, materials, or colonists that 
  will be unloaded in the next turn, or population growth. Unused industry 
  from previous turns is also not included.

  Mat, cap, and size of ship are the amount of mat/cap/ship that the
  planet could produce next turn (from scratch). It does take into
  consideration the raw materials stockpile present at the beginning of
  the turn. The effects of routes or unloading cap/mat from groups at
  the system at the begining of the turn is not included. Discounts due 
  to Partial Tech production are not included.

  Cost of ship is in Industry. If no ship is
  being produced, a "-" is shown instead.

  Cost of ship and Size of ship take into consideration any material
  stockpiles that exist on the planet at the begining of the turn, but
  not any changes that might happen due to MAT arrival due to routes, 
  loading or unloading. If you have a partial stockpile (i.e. 50 units of
  raw materials at a homeworld) the cost is going to be somewhat wrong (if
  you can make more than one), but the Size of ship field will be correct.

  Note that cost per ship does not include discounts due to Partial Techs. 

  Unused industry is the amount of industry spent
  towards whatever the planet is currently producing.

  If "Partial Techs" are allowed in the game, and the TECHPROD option is set, 
  four additional columns will be shown: D - Drive tech, W - Weapons tech, 
  S - Shield tech, and C - Cargo tech. These are the tech levels that the 
  ship type is being built with. These columns will show up between the Type, 
  and cost of ship. If the currrent tech level is your tech levels (i.e the 
  default- you are not using partial techs), these will be 0. 

  This section appears in forecast reports.

                Your Routes

  This is a list of the routes from those of your systems which have 
  routes defined. Systems with no rotues are not shown. For each system, 
  the destination world is listed for the following commodities:

  Colonists
  Capital
  Raw Materials
  Empty Transports

  A "-" for a particular commodity means that no route is
  defined from that system for that commodity. The planet
  is list either by name (if you own it) or by number. If the
  AUTOUNLOAD option is set, it will show up as the last route listed
  (AUTO UNLOAD IS CURRENTLY SET). If no routes exist, and AUTOUNLOAD
  is not set, this section will not be in a report.

  This section appears in forecast reports.

                Selective Planet Defenses

  This section only occurs in games using the K command, which the GM may 
  not allow, and only if any selective planet defenses are set.

  This is a list of those systems for which you have changed
  how you will react to certain races. Typically, one would use
  it to be at peace with a race at a specific system (so they
  can make contact), or at war with them at sensitive systems.

  A list of the system name, number, race and status
  (war/peace) will be provided for all systems that are set.

  This section appears in forecast reports.

                Alien Systems

  This is a list of all those systems owned by another player, at which
  you have at least one ship at the end of the turn and which you can
  therefore observe. The same information is provided as for your systems.
  This section appears in forecast reports, although with less detail.

  This section appears in forecast reports.

                Uninhabited Systems

| This is a list of those systems you have a ship at
  that are not owned by another player. The name, number,
  X and Y coordinates, size and resources are provided.

  This section appears in forecast reports.

                Unknown Systems

  This is a list of systems which appear on your map, but which you
  can't observe. For all systems on the list, the number and X and Y 
| coordinates are provided. This section is also only printed if you have
| requested a galactic map. The option "unknown" will change this behavior.

  This section appears in forecast reports.

                Your Groups

  This is a list of your groups of spaceships. Groups in fleets are not
  listed in this section. The following information is provided:

  Group Number
  Number of Ships
  Ship Type
| Effective Drive
| Number of attacks
| Effective Weapons
| Effective Shields
| Effective Cargo
  Cargo Type (a "---" means that the group is carrying no cargo)
  Cargo Quantity Per Ship
| Mass of a single Ship in this group
| Speed of the group
* Upgrade cost for 1 ship of the group to current techs
  Location Name (or a "?" if you can not see the planet)
  Destination number
  Distance (if this is left blank, the group is at the Destination system).

| Note: Effective Drive, Weapons, and Cargo are the equal to the
| drive/weapon/cargo tech times the ship's base value for that.
| The Effective shield value reported is the Shield value (see
| "Your Ship Types" above), times the ships shield tech.
| i.e. A Cruiser (15 1 15 15 0) built with drive tech 2.5,
| weapons tech 3, and shield tech 1.7 would be reported as:
|    D A  W     S C   T Q  M     S
| 37.5 1 45 13.10 0 --- 0 45 16.67

  Using "O techs" will change this to the standard galaxy drive,
  weapons, shields, cargo techs (and eliminate the # of attacks)

  Groups in fleets are not printed in this section.

  The option "UPGRADECOST" controls the display of the Upgrade cost column.

  This section appears in forecast reports.

                Your Fleets

  If you have any fleets, this section will be printed. The header for 
  each fleet will be:

              'Fleet fleetname (Speed fleetspeed)'

  where fleetname and fleetspeed is the fleet name and fleet speed
  respectively. Groups in each fleet are printed as in the "Your Groups"
  section.

  This section appears in forecast reports.

                Alien Groups

  This is a list of groups of ships belonging to other players
  that you can observe. The information provided is the same
  as for your groups except there are no group numbers.

  This section does not appear in forecast reports.

|               "Full" Planet reports

| This is another list of all the planets you can see, but along with
| each planet you also get information on all groups at the planet
| (and all of YOUR groups en route to the planet), conveniently in
| 1 place. Other information includes, routes, ships in production,
| and incoming reports. All the information in this section exists
| in the previous sections, and it is just repeated here in the
| different format for your convenience. You see your planets, then
| alien planets, then unowned planets. Within each grouping, planets
| are ordered by industry level. The option "SORTPLANETS" switches
| between displaying planets based on their industry, and their number.

| This section is optional, see the "F" command
| and the options "FULLREPORT" and "LONGFORECAST", under "Orders"

| The SYSMASS option adds a 'System Group Stats" table to each
| system's report section. For each player who has groups at a system,
| you are told the number, mass and techmass of all their groups at (not
| in hyperspace!) the system.

|                "Partial" Planet reports

| This is a list of all the planets you have groups headed towards, but
| which you can not see. The planet number, and it's coordinates are given,
| along with the groups. If LONGFORECAST is enabled, this section will
| appear in forecasts. If FULLREPORT is enabled, it will apear in turn
| reports.


                        Odds and Ends

  * Homeworlds are (unless changed by your GM) at least
    20LY apart, and are often 30-35LY to the closest one.

  * Large worlds are usually at least 10 LY from all homeworlds.

  * Worlds come in several classes:
        Type          Size      Resources        Frequency
        Homeworlds    1000      10.0             rare
        "Big" worlds  1000-2000 0.1-10 (ave 5.5) very rare (2%)
        Standard      0-1000    0.1-10 (ave 1)   common (48%)
        Small rich    50-250    4-10 (ave 7)     uncommon (10%)
        Tiny          0-20      0.1-2  (ave 1)   common (33%)
        "Zero" worlds 0         0                very uncommon (7%)

  * All computations (planet sizes, resources, locatation, etc) are done to
    machine precistion (i.e. more than 2 decimals). They are generally
    rounded to the nearest 0.01 (Exception: producable ship sizes are
    always rounded down) when printed.

                        Hints and Tips

  It is not a good idea to reuse an empire name that is associated with
  you- knowing that I play the Zethrin (in non blind games), gives my
  opponents a significant advantage when I don't know who they are...

  It is generally not a good idea to mention what empire you are playing
  in a Blind game. If other players know that you are the FooBarians,
  they can play against your known weaknesses or lack of experience for a
  new player, while you do not have the same advantage over them. Well
  known players are advised to keep a low profile so that they don't
  get killed by an alliance set up to get rid of them.

  There should be no need to fight for systems in the early stages
  of the game there will be plenty of planets to spare so there
  will be little need to fight for territory; however, you should
  ensure that your homeworld is defended against sneak attacks
  by xenophobic aliens. You will need to devote your efforts to
  exploration, building up colonies, researching technology,
  and contacting other races with a view to forming alliances.

  Alliances can be crucial to your survival when the fighting does
  start. An empire with no friends either dies a cruel death,
  or is stronger than several of its neighbors put together.

  The map in your turn report only indicates where systems are, but does
  not give any information about alien races or their locations (except
  that provided by your ships). To learn of alien races which may pose
  a threat to your safety, you will need to send ships to locate them.

  If you have an "Incoming Groups" section on your turn report, this
  probably means that one or more of your systems is under attack.
  Your first priority should be to ensure that you have an adequate
  defense. For each incoming group, divide the Distance by Speed to find
  out how many turns the group will take to reach its target world.
  Look at the Total Mass figure - the bigger this is, the greater the
  potential threat. Of course you don't know whether a very large group
  is a huge battleship or a fleet of small fighters or anything in
  between. You could also try some last-minute diplomacy: the player
  owning the group cannot turn it back, but he could declare peace
  on you, so that the group would not attack you when it did arrive.

  Economic and technological growth under this variant are very different
  than "normal" galaxy. In addition, the only information that you will
  have about your fellow players' empires is what you can gather by
  spying on their systems. Unless you happen to see him building ships,
  you won't have any idea what his technological base is; and you can
  never be quite sure that you've gotten every last ship & planet.....

  Players who prefer to be very aggressive economically early in
  the game will be particularilly thrilled, as there are lots
  and lots of systems for them to acquire. Tacticians who like
  to bushwhack unsuspecting planets will be equally pleased
  with the scattering of size 0 planets throughout the galaxy.
  Drones are much more useful, due to their "stealth" ability
  (not showing up as incoming groups, if sent individually).

  The upgrade command is an attackers worst enemy. Since upgrades occur
  before any combat, you can radically change your strength at a planet
  just before he opens fire... This is counterbalanced by the high cost
  of upgrading a ship. Typically only cargo ships (due to the need for
  extra speed/cargo capacity and their long in service periods), and large
  warships are upgraded, smaller warships are generally cheaper to replace.


  While deception is an integral part of the game, out and out lying can
  put you on the express lane to extinction- While you might be able
  to knock a player out by telling them that that incoming fleet is a
  bunch of cargo ships (when it isn't), when he finds out, there is
  nothing stopping him from mentioning your duplicity far and wide. Your
  chances of being taken at your word thereafter are quite low [some
  players have, for better or for worse carried such grudges over to
  later games; so you get knocked out of two games for the price of one.]


  The ship designs given in the "Designing Ships" section are just samples
  of what you can build. No one in their right mind would build a mass
  45 Cruiser at a homeworld (which can produce 99.00 or 99.01 mass of 
  ships depending upon roundoff), nor would most players build a "Space_Gun"

  Due to the fact that Galaxy (other than Galaxy Explorer) does not
  use Cartesian Co-ordinates like everyone learned in school, care
  should be taken in specifying north and south. With the CARTESIAN
  option, things get even more confusing since "+y" is no longer the
  same for everyone...

                        Acknowledgments

  Many thanks are due Russell Wallace for writing this game.
  The changes I've made have been minor, and couldn't have
  been done without the excellent framework he put in place.

  -- Tom Finn

  I echo Tom's sentiments 100%, and want to insert an additional
  big thank you to Tom himself, for being the driving force behind
  the blind variant. I coded a few of the last features, but make
  no mistake, Tom is the reason you are able to play blind galaxy.

   -- Glenn Ellingson

  I'd like to thank both Tom & Glenn for their help in understanding
  & modifying the code. Kudos go to Russell Wallace for
  writing such an interesting [and addictive (:-)] game.

  My thanks also to John Kehrbaum, Kevin J. Pankhurst, and David
  desJardins for their input on new options to the code, as well
  as some of Kevin's code itself. Without their ideas, the game
  wouldn't be nearly as bug, err, feature filled as it currently is.

  -- Howard Bampton 
     bampton@cs.utk.edu

                        Contributors (to the V2.xx releases)

  Russell Wallace- Original galaxy code, upon which this thing is based (:-)
  Kevin Pankhurst- Fleet code, production tables, several bug fixes,
      forecasts, autounload.
  John Kehrbaum- Partial techs, "Partial reports", bug reports, techplus, 
      bug reports, sanity checks on creeping features, most of the To-do 
      list (:-) examples of commands, UFAQ questions, battle mass summaries,
      still more bug reports, Partial techs in Ship in Prod tables...
  Rob Novak- beta tester, FAQ pointers. Linux (x86/sparc) access.
  Mika V{liviita- upgradecost, number of ships in class (?), bug finder.
  Joe Slater- short intercepts.
  Roger Dingledine - Linux porting & bugfixes. Linux access.
  Richard Batch - Cartesian option [lifted from Galaxy Explorer]
  Bernhard Myrnek Schmidt - report/Battle.c speedups
