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Conquest(tool) 05Oct85 (Original) Conquest(tool)
LAST UPDATED: 1/2/2001
NAME
Conquest - a multi-player real-time screen-oriented space
war game
SYNOPSIS
conquest
DESCRIPTION
1. OBJECT OF THE GAME.
The object of the game is twofold. The short-range goal
is to accumulate "kills" by shooting down enemy players.
You get one kill point for each enemy ship shot down,
plus some extra if the enemy had kills too. The major
weapon used to shoot down ships is the photon torpedo.
The long-range goal is to conquer the universe for your
team by taking every planet. You take planets by killing
off the enemy's armies via bombardment, and then beaming
your team's armies down. When all the planets have been
taken, the game ends, a new game begins, and the player
who actually took the last planet gets his/her name up
in lights.
2. IMPORTANT COMMANDS.
This section lists the basic commands of Conquest. The
next section lists the more advanced / obscure commands,
and at the end of this document there is a summary list.
The list is also available on-line via the 'h' command.
0-9,= - To set your warp factor, just type a digit, or
'=' for warp 10. The teams have different top
speeds: 8 for Romulans, 9 for Klingons and Feds,
and 10 for Orions.
k - The 'k' command is used to set your course. You
can specify your course a number of different
ways: in degrees (0=east,90=north), via the
arrow keys (see below), a ship number (precede
it with an 's'), or a planet name. If you set
course for a planet, you have the option of
"locking on" by terminating the line with a TAB
instead of a carriage return - then you will
orbit automatically when you get there.
p,P - These two commands fire photon torpedoes. Lower
case 'p' fires one at a time, and is less
useful. Upper case 'P' fires a burst of three.
When you are in the heat of battle, you will
want to fire every torp you have got (nine), so
you will almost always use 'P'. You can specify
the direction to fire using either degrees or
the arrow keys.
*,d,D - Lower case 'd' or '*' detonates near-by enemy torps
before they get close enough to damage you. Use
this command *alot*. Upper case 'D' detonates
your own torps, for instance in case you missed.
Since you can only have nine torps out at a
time, this can be useful.
B - To capture enemy planets, you first have to get
rid of the enemy armies by bombarding them.
Orbit the planet, type 'B', confirm with a
TAB, and then watch your damage closely. You
will continue to bombard until you type another
command. When your damage gets up above 60 or 70
percent, set a warp factor and get out fast.
R - After a bombing run, you can repair your damage
three times faster by going into repair mode.
While repairing, your shields are down and you
can't move or fire.
b - Once you have blasted a planet down to three
armies, you can beam your own armies down to do
hand-to-hand combat and replace them.
m - Use the 'm' command to send messages. You can
send to single ships (using the ship number),
entire teams, (first letter of team name) or
everyone ("all"). You can even send messages to
GOD, but don't expect an answer. This command is
useful for bothering the experts and asking them
annoying questions. It is also useful for
trading insults. If you type RETURN or TAB as
the target of a message, the message will be sent
to the last person(s) you sent a message to.
i,TAB,RETURN - You can get information on planets and ships
with the 'i' command. Pressing RETURN will show
you the last information you asked for. Pressing
TAB will show you the 'next' last information you
asked for.
Q - The only way out besides getting killed is to
self-destruct. There is a 15-second time delay
because it is not honorable to quit in the heat
of battle.
h - This command gives you a short command summary
(such as the one that is found at the end of
this document).
3. LESS IMPORTANT COMMANDS.
A - Type 'A' to change your weapons/engines power
allocations. You can either enter a new weapons
allocation percentage or else type TAB to
toggle between the two extremes of 30/70 and
70/30. The power allocation controls things like
how powerful your weapons are, how efficient
your engines are, etc.
C - Cloaking device. You can activate the cloaking
device by typing 'C' followed by a TAB.
While the cloaking device is in operation, you
are invisible, even to your teammates. However,
the cloaker uses a LOT of energy - so much that
you can't use your weapons while it's on. A
second 'C' will turn it off again.
E - Emergency distress signal. A quick way to let
your team mates know that you are in trouble is
by typing 'E' followed by a TAB. Every
ship on your team (except those who are at war
with your team) will get a short message from
you that includes information about your fuel,
shields, and ship damage.
f,F - These two commands let you fire phasers. Lower
case 'f' is used to fire one phaser blast. It
takes about one second to fire phasers (and your
shields are down the whole time!) Upper case 'F'
fires phasers again in the same direction.
H - This command displays the list of recent
Conquest players.
I - You can type 'I' to get a menu of user options.
By typing the options character, you can toggle
whether or not the option is on. The options
are:
G Phaser graphics: When this option is set,
your phaser shots are displayed.
P Planet names: When this option is set, the
names of planets and suns are displayed.
A Alarm bell: When this option is set, your
terminal beeps whenever important things
happen. Important things include enemy ships
getting within red alert range and enemy
photon torpedoes getting too close.
I Intruder alerts: This option controls
whether or not you are informed of enemy
intrusions, such as the bombing of planets
owned by your team.
N Numeric map: If you have this options set,
the number of armies that are on planets
which you have scanned will be displayed on
the strategic map.
T Terse messages: Makes a few messages shorter
for the experienced player. Also disables
some navigational messages from the
computer.
E Explosions: When this option is set,
explosions are displayed as a pretty pattern
of '%' characters. When it is off, you
cannot see where explosions are occurring.
K - Attempt a coup. If all of your team's armies get
killed, you may think you are in deep fecal
matter. Not so - you can still get some back by
pulling a coup. Try it.
L - Type 'L' to review old messages that have been
sent to you.
M - Type 'M' to toggle your display between the
short range and long range tactical displays.
N - Pseudonym. Use this command to change your
battle name.
o - Orbit. Use 'o' to come into orbit around a
planet (or a sun, if you want a tan).
r - Refit. If you have at least one kill, and are
orbiting a team owned planet, you can use this
option to switch to a new ship type. Valid
types are Scout (great engines, weak weapons),
Destroyer (good engines, good weapons), and
Cruiser (weak engines, great weapons).
The refit ability in Conquest can be disabled
by conqoper, by setting the allow_refit
sys-wide option.
S - Displays a list of secondary user statistics.
t - Tractor beams. You can use these to tow another
ship, even if it is hostile.
T - Team list. Displays a list of team statistics.
u - Untractor. Disengage your tractor beams if you
are towing another ship or attempt to break free
of another ships tractor beam if you are being
towed.
U - Displays a list of primary user statistics.
W - Type 'W' to change your war and peace settings.
Note that there is a 10 second delay for
declaring war on another team. Also, if you do
something nasty to another team such as bomb one
of their planets, your war with that team
becomes sticky and you may not declare peace
with them.
-,+ - Use '+' to raise your energy shields, '-' to
lower them. Shields protect you from enemy
weapons; however, it takes more fuel to fly with
them up.
/ - To see which other people are currently playing
Conquest, use the '/' command.
? - To get a list of planets, use the '?' command.
[NOT IMPLEMENTED] $ - Typing the '$' character followed by a line feed
spawns a sub-process to DCL. To exit the
sub-process, simply type "logout". (Note: this
command is optional and may not be supported at
your installation.)
^L - When you type "^L", the screen is cleared and
redrawn.
4. DIRECTION KEYS
The easiest and quickest way to change direction is
with the direction keys or the keypad if your terminal/
terminfo definition supports it. However,
if you are prompted to enter a direction, for example
to fire phasers, or set course, you can use
the letters "qweadzxc" on the left-hand side
of your keyboard, called "direction keys" for
historical reasons. The keys are assumed to be arranged
as follows (if you have a Dvorak keyboard, you are in
trouble):
Q W E
\|/
A--+--D
/|\
Z X C
You can use them singly, e.g. 'd' would be 0 degrees,
'q' would be 135, etc. You can also use them in
combination: "ed" would be halfway between 'e' and 'd',
which is 22.5 degrees; "edd" is like 'e' + 'd' + 'd' /
3, or 15 degrees.
5. DESTINATION SEARCHING.
There are several special strings you can use when
setting course or getting information:
nes - nearest enemy ship
ns - nearest ship
nts - nearest (friendly) team ship
np - nearest planet
nep - nearest enemy planet
nrp - nearest friendly (repair) planet
nfp - nearest friendly class-M (fuel) planet
nap - nearest planet with available armies
(greater than 3 total armies)
ntp - nearest planet owned by your team
wp - weakest planet not owned by your team
hp - home planet for your team
sN - ship N (where N is a decimal number)
time - time of day (info only)
All of these can be abbreviated to their shortest unique
string. Also, for the planets, you can type a number
after the special string to specify an army threshold;
that is, planets with less than that number of armies
won't be considered. For example, "na8" specifies the
nearest planet with 8 (eight) or more armies, "nf14" is
the nearest fuel planet with 14 or more armies,
"nep1000" is the nearest non-scanned planet.
You can find out about on the second nearest object by
terminating your information request with a TAB
instead of a carriage return. For example, to find out
about the second nearest planet type "inp<TAB>".
You can't use these when firing weapons - that would be
too easy.
COMMANDS
Here's a list of commands (the ones marked "optional"
may not be supported at your installation).
0-9,= set warp factor (= is 10)
A change w/e allocations
b beam armies
B bombard a planet
C cloaking device
d,* detonate enemy torpedoes
D detonate your own torpedoes
E send emergency distress call
f fire phasers
F fire phasers, same direction
h this
H user history
i information
I set user options
k set course
K try a coup
L review old messages
m send a message
M strategic map toggle
N change your name
o come into orbit
p launch photon torpedoes
P launch photon torpedo burst
Q initiate self-destruct
r refit your ship
R enter repair mode
S more user statistics
t engage tractor beams
T team list
u un-engage tractor beams
U user statistics
W set war or peace
- lower shields
+ raise shields
/ player list
? planet list
[NOT IMPLEMENTED] $ spawn to DCL (optional)
^L refresh the screen
RETURN get last (i)nfo. (like 'i<RETURN>')
TAB get 'next' last info. (like 'i<TAB>')
AUTHOR(S)
[ Original Attributions:
Conquest is based on the game called "empire" on the
PLATO computer system. The original version,
written in Ratfor for VAX/VMS, was written by Jef Poskanzer
and Craig Leres in 1983 and is far superior to the original
empire.
(Not that the original wasn't any good - it was. But this one
is GREAT.)
Many thanks to Marshall Spight for finding far too many bugs.
Technical consulting was provided by Ken the Kunning,
Captain Happy, and Commander T'Lydown.
]
Conquest was re-written in C and ported to the Unix
environment in 1993-96 by Jon Trulson <jon@radscan.com>.
The Unix flavor used was Unixware 2.03 (SVR4.2MP).
In addition, several enhancements were added, like color
support and an Fkey macro capability. See (n)ews on the main
menu for more specifics about the changes made (or being
made) to conquest. Special thanks goes to John Clute
(Hunter) and David Payne (Bolo) for lots of *fun* play
testing and for dying well!
BUGS/DEFICIENCIES
No doubt bugs remain. Send bug reports to Jon Trulson
at jon@radscan.com. Please be specific, screen shots
are useful, and sometimes even entertaining. ;-)
The log file may also be of use. Patches are welcome.
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