ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/BBS/DOORS/SUPDOM1.ZIP/SYSOPDOC.DOM

Text File | 1991-05-05 | 12.1 KB | 286 lines

                     System Operator/Programmer Documentation
                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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                        The Race for Galactic Domination

                            "Super Dominions" v1.00
                                   MAR 1991
                 By Marshal Bertier #32 (aka ATN the Ace) for

                        "The Old Guard BBS" - WWIV 3112

                                  T.O.G.G.A.
                      THE OLD GUARD GAMING ASSOCIATION

                               Original Dominions
                     By Apocalypse of StrangeMode Software

     I. Running Super Dominions!
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     To run Dominions!, just do two things...

  FIRST...

     In DOS, run the program RESETDOM.EXE

     C>RESETDOM

     The reset program will create the data files needed to run
dominions.

  SECOND, make sure you have all of the following
files in the same path directory...

     Program Source files
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     DOMINION.EXE
     CONFIG.DOM
     COMBAT.EXE
     IDCHANGE.EXE
     RESETDOM.EXE

     Data files (created by RESETDOM.EXE)
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     EMPIRES.DOM
     PLANETS.DOM
     OLDPLNTS.DOM
     SQUADS.DOM
     MESSAGES.DOM
     DATE.DOM
     LASTON.DOM
     REGION1.DOM
     REGION2.DOM
     REGION3.DOM
     REGION4.DOM
     REGION5.DOM
     TODAY.DOM
     YESTERDA.DOM

     Text files
     ~~~~~~~~~~
     HELPCOUN.DOM
     HELPEMPI.DOM
     HELPNAVA.DOM
     HELPPLAN.DOM
     HELPMAIN.DOM
     HISTORY.DOM
     INSTRUCT.DOM
     PICTURE.DOM
     SHIPS.DOM
     STRATEGY.DOM
     SYSOPDOC.DOM


     II. The RESETDOM program
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     The Reset program (RESETDOM.EXE) does the task of erasing and initializing
the Dominions! data files.
     There are two times when you would want to run the reset program.  The
first is when you're initially setting up Dominions!  The second is when
"the war" is over.  I highly suggest that you allow the game to run for a
predetermined time (1-2 months suggested), and then reset the data files and
start over.  Declare whoever had the most points at the time of the reset as
the Winner, or Emperor or whatever title you think is deserved.  Then go
post the final scores in message, to let everyone see how they did.
      You don't have to do this, but it's probably wiser and more fun than
letting the same war go on forever.  After a few months the numbers will
become to large for the maintenence program to handle, and it will fail to
run properly (it will return a Run-Time error 91, I believe).
     Also, I suggest that you place the "REGION_".DOM files in the download
area so that your game players can have easy and quick access to them.


     III. The MAINTENENCE program
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     The Maintenence program (MAINTAIN.DOM) updates all the players and
their squadrons when the first person plays the game each day that the game
is configured to update.  It shouldn't take it very long to run, no more
than maybe 5 minutes, maximum.
     If you take the BBS down for the day for repairs, etc., don't worry,
the maintenence program won't run for the day because no one played it.
If no one plays for two days, two day's worth of maintenence will not be done,
only one day's worth.


     IV. Super Dominions! Files
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Superdom.ZIP (Berthier's version 1.00) was PKZIPed with PKZIP v1.02.
     The following files are included in the Zip file...

     Dominion.Exe       Main program
     Resetdom.Exe       Reset program
     Config.Dom         Maintenance days config text file
     Instruct.Dom       Intructions text file
     Strategy.Dom       Strategy hints text file
     HelpMain.Dom       Main menu help file
     HelpCoun.Dom       Counterintelligence menu help file
     HelpEmpi.Dom       Empire menu help file
     HelpNava.Dom       Naval menu help file
     HelpPlan.Dom       Planet menu help file
     Picture.Dom        Opening screen text file
     History.Dom        History text file
     Ships.Dom          Ships help text file to be posted for users help
     Squad.Dom          Squadron file
     Supdom.Bat         Generic Batch file
     Idchange.Exe       Program for Sysops to change users empires
     Combat.Exe         On-line Combat Calculator
     Sysopdoc.Dom       This text file


     V. Sharing Super Dominions!
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     You are free to copy and distrubite Dominions and it's subprograms
as long as the following conditions are met...

     1) No fee or purchase cost is charged.


     VI. Legal Stuff
     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     The author(s) of Dominions! assume no responsibilty for any failure of
the program (or subprograms) to perform in the indicated or expressed way,
and/or any damage caused by the failure of the program.  Use Dominons!
at your own risk!



     Notes from ATN the Ace:

     About the same time that Tarl Cabot was working on his version 2, I was
doing the same thing, trying to get this program to compile and run on Turbo
Pascal version 4 (because it was the only one I had at the time).
     The relativelty minor changes I have done are listed here:

     A change I was asked to make was to prevent fleets being sent 'to' the
same planet that they were sent 'from'.  This would let some sneaky
warlords have an invisible defense for their planets.
      I made a slight modification to the reset program that doesn't let 2
homeworlds be created within 12 light years of each other.  This has been
found to be a limit to give everyone space to work with.
      Also, I made the program save the empire stats (and Laston.Dom) right
after a new player signs on, so people won't hang up on the bbs if they don't
get a good planet, planning on trying again later.
      The biggest (although least noticable) change I made was to keep a record
of the status of planets at the time that the maintenance program is run.  The
info from 'OLDPLNTS.DOM' is read for all planets not owned by the current
player.  The result is that planet spy reports don't show what has been done
today. This is so users are less likely to try to all play the game at the
end of the day, reacting to what everyone else has done.
      I had done all of these changes to an older version of Dominions that
included mods that added radars stations to the game.  This was done by
someone name Siroos Ashfar, and I take no credit for this.  I have copied all
of my changes to this version called "2.00TC".

                                              ATN the Ace, December 1989

      A last change that I made specifically for the Old Guard BBS was
for the maintenance program to run only twice a week (Wednesdays and
Sundays) allowing users to play who can't call every day.  A later change was
made by someone else that lets the sysop set exactly which days the
maintenance will run.  Just read the CONFIG.DOM file, it is explained there.

      Super Dominions was expanded to 750 planets, 30 empires, and a 100 X
100 map.  To save memory, I changed the structure of some of the records.
Much too many small changes were made to list here.  The important changes
are listed in the help files and in the SHIPS.DOM file.
      Also included in the ZIP are an online combat calculator and an empire
ID change utility.  The combat calculator is ready to put up as an online
chain.  It checks time left for the user, so it requires the chain.txt file
as a parameter.  The IDCHANGE utility is just for the sysop to change who is
controlling an empire, make an empire available to the next new player, or
when a player changes his user ID.  It shouldn't be put online.


     Notes from Marshal Davout #2 CoSysop from the Old Guard BBS:

     While play Dominions on the Old Guard BBS WWIVNet @3112, we have
discovered a multitude of problems and loop holes in the game.  In Dominions
you can moves ships from say planet #29 to planet #29.  What this did was make
those ships for that turn invisible to spying.  We called this tactic GHOST
FLEETING.  Also, Spying is as of that moment in the game.  If you logged on
early, like right after maintenance, and Ghost Fleeted your entire navy, no
one will see any of your ships on any of your planets.  This gave an unfair
advantage to those who log on first.

     Another problem that came up was that people were waiting for the last
minute to do their turns so as to get the truest spying reports.  What this
did was have 20 people calling the BBS an hour before and and hour after mid
night.

     Since Dominions came with the source code we decided to fix these problems
and were lucky to have ATN the Ace as a user and as an excellant TP programmer.
We got him to try and fix the problems with radar and the glaring bugs from the
original game.  When we found that he was very good with Pascal we decided to
get him to fix the loop holes in the game.  There were several other loop holes
that as of this moment I can't think of.  With the game running so well, we
started talking on The Old Guard BBS about some changes that might make the
game better.  After several months of discussion and having come up with so
many good ideas we decided to change the game of Dominions to Super Dominions.

     Super Dominions so good and when we started to beta test it we found that
20 people calling up every day and taking 30 minutes doing there turn was tying
up the BBS for 10 hours a day.  We were also getting complaints from users who
liked the game but couldn't call every day, were have trouble competing with
those who called every day.  So we decided that since the game was big and
exciting that we expand the game to 30 players and have the maintenance run
only twice a week.  We have included a Config.dom so that you can program the
game to run maintenance anytime during the week.  Whether it was twice a week
or everyday.

     Super Dominions is brought to you by T.O.G.G.A.

     THE OLD GUARD GAMING ASSOCIATION

     You can contact ATN the Ace, Marshal Davout and Arc Angel at

     The Old Guard BBS
     WWIVNet @3112
     301-391-2563
     Baltimore, Md

     We hope that you enjoy the game and if you have any problem please let
us know. If you have any ideas on improving the game let us know and we'll
try it.  If we use it and include it on update version, we will give you
credit.




THERE IS ONLY ONE PROBLEM WITH THE GAME AND AS OF RIGHT NOW WE CAN'T FIND IT.

What the game does is crash when the planets are around 80% taken.  It crashes
during maintenance when squadrons are moving.  We think that it is a memory
problem but unless we restructure the whole naval and combat system, I don't
think we'll every find the problem.


We at the Old Guard BBS have created a Generic Users for getting updated
version of Super Dominions as well as getting questions answered about any
problems that you are having.  You can call the Old Guard BBS and login as the
following user:

    User Name : TOGGA
    User Password : TOGGA
    Phone # : XXX-XXX-9999

Feel free to call us about any comments, suggests and problems that you are
having.  We will soon be having several more on-line games available from the
Old Guard BBS and TOGGA.


                    Marshal Davout #2
                    The Old Guard BBS
                    WWIVNet Node 3112