Ideas for improving the Vanilla Bronco and INL server

Contents

Ideas for improving the Vanilla Bronco and INL server

INL server

It might be good if there was an easy way for a captain to pick someone out of the queue, or even an obs, to add to their team. Risk of abuse though; in open clue games, it should be first come/first serve, not cherrypicking the good player who's third in line.
It would be good tserverideao have a way to lock out a slot for a 7 on 7 game.
"uncaptain", "trade", and "continue" are not in the in-game help
- (they appear to be present in the help text in the inl_commands table in robots/inlcmds.c, though the entries will only be displayed if you first use the captain command. can you check again please? quozl)

INL-related stuff

From: "Bill" / To: clue game list / Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 01:10:19 -0800 / added to wiki by akb4

1) final planet count and cscore would be nice in pw_stats

2) add auto guest# name generation for INL server, i.e. if someone logs in as guest, they are given the name guest1234 or something so they don't get booted

3) Enable server blogging for both pickled and inl servers, can send them to same directory, I think there's only one blogging event specific to INL anyways and I think it may not even work. But blog for pickup server would be good. Allows one to compare activity on continuum and pickled (and warped I guess) over time quantitatively.

INL Results

When an INL game finishes, the client should be given the URL of a web page that contains the results of the game. The client should launch a browser to that page. The page can be hosted by the server, either as a directory given to an apache server or as a specific netrekd controlled script request. We'd need to take care not to let the client web browser escape the filesystem.

This could be combined with the generation of an RSS feed for genos, something which is already in the PROJECTS file in the server source code.

Gameplay Modifications

On The Line

A similar style gameplay to 'Tower Defence', which is a style of gameplay for the popular Warcraft 3 and Starcraft games. In those games you use a variety of defences to attempt to stop what results in an overwealming force of non-player-controlled bots, and the idea is to last as long as possible (or until a timer runs out).

The Parallel in netrek would be a situation where you have to 'Hold The Line'. Defend the homeworld, or a collection of worlds, against bots. The original idea I had was given a team of players (8?), that would be pitted against a team of robots that would start with 1 robot, and each minute, the enemy would gain another robot on its team, until an overwealming force of 32 (32 is a nice, large, arbitary number) robots are in play.

The idea would be to last as long as possible, or last a full 5 minutes against 32 players.

Tutor server

Reason: many new players suffer or even fail already with the basics.
Problem: too few human clue servers around to teach new players.
Idea: fill the gap by having the server spill out some basic clues for basic actions for the start, until they meet a human to tell them the advanced stuff.
Server vs. clients: all new players should benefit from it, independent of their client.

Extract from Clue players, sources recommended by Niclas: http://www.netrek.org/clueguides/kiaclueguide.php http://www.netrek.org/clueguides/greyelf.php http://www.netrek.org/cinema2/takefile/ http://www.netrek.org/clueguides/redshirtguides/clueoutlines.php http://www.netrek.org/clueguides/redshirtguides/advice.php http://www.netrek.org/clueguides/ogging-101.html, when necessary also http://www.netrek.org/clueguides/dantesdogfightguide.php, also extract from netrek.org random clue database some technically useful items.

Send intro info:
- Keep reading this window as it'll help you in learning the game.
- Your enemy for this session is <race>, identified by <color>. Try flying to them and kill them.
Usability:
- No cryptic RCD messages with trek-talk (++, ogg, ...), but clear human speak, with additional background info: not 4++ but 4 carries armies and about to attack our planets, kill him
- Disable the following tutor messages and protections optionally on demand after a certain rank or when a veteran player approves.

approval has to be defined what it means and how to install/ implement it (technically/ socially).

For all low-ranks (ensign) send feedback messages to each meaningful action which signficantly affects gameplay (either good or bad). Examples:
- kill: You have earned your first kill. Now go kill more. Only kills count.
- death: There's no penalty for dying!!! Dying for the team is good for you, too. ATTACK! (maybe at 1st and only every 5 or 10 deaths
- beaming down unbombed: Beaming down before bombing to less than 5 is waste of own armies, bomb first.
- beaming down no take: Beaming down without neuting or taking the planet is good ONLY when a teammate follows up to complete, otherwise wait till you can carry enough to complete the planet in 1 go.
- butt-torp no fuel/Wtemp/Etemp: running away won't make you win (exception: you're a carrier): face your enemy to help your team.
- beam up: carry only when you're good enough to defend yourself or have allied escorts to clear the planet for you.
- get/fire plasma: special weapons are expensive and not of general use. They are mostly good to track cloakers.
Reduce noise via message boards:
- Less or no team messages, definitely no multi-line, warning that this is the case and how to restore full noise mode.
- private messages only by approved players. (no "guest", some further conditions)
- ALL no multilines by default