T-WARP for Tradewars

Add-on module development discussions, including non-Galacticomm branded modules
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Milton
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Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2020 1:30 am
Location: USA

T-WARP for Tradewars

Post by Milton »

Originally named T-WARP or Tradewars Enhancement For Serious Systems by (C) 1995 Nth Degree Software
The Dev Team: Andy, Al, Luke, Robin & Pam

Would like to see a port of this module to WG 3.x Systems. Just needs to be recompiled to run under NT.
So far this TW Addon only works WG1 and WG2 in my in house VM tests.

List of Features from the DOC

MOBILE WORMHOLE - This is a sector that is randomly selected. All warps
that lead out from it are randomly set to new values (randomize the
outgoing warps). The next day it is restored to it's original values and
a different sector is randomly chosen.

MOBILE SD - Stardock is relocated on a daily basis to a new sector.
T-Warped ALWAYS applies the following conditions to Stardocks new sector:
The sector MUST have at least 4 incoming warps and at least 5 outgoing
warps. There MUST not be any fighters or planets in the sector, nor
any Nav Haz Debris. Also there cannot be a port there beforehand.

MOBILE CLASS -0-'s - These are the 2 Class 0 ports. This will move these
two ports around just like MOBILE SD.

* TECHNICAL NOTE: When Star Dock and/or the Class 0 ports move, naturally
* the fed space lanes change as well. There will be no fed spacelane sweeps
* (illegal fighters, mines, debris etc...) on the "new" space lanes until
* the next cleanup. If your BBS is acting odd and you are going to do
* extra cleanups, consider disabling this option when you do these extra
* cleanups. If this happens to you a few times, let us know and we will
* see if we can check for these bonus cleanups in T-Warped somehow.

COLONISTS: This will randomize the number of colonists generated on terra.

PORT REGEN: This will randomize the port restocking time.

CLOAK FAIL: This will randomize the percentage chance of cloak failures.

PLANET MAXIMUM: This will randomize the maximum number of planets in a
sector. We recommend to NOT go below 5 for your minimum. This suggestion
is not based on any technical issue, rather if all of your players planets
blow up one day, you will be removed from their christmas card list.

NAV HAZ: This will randomize the Navigation Hazard (debris) decay rate.

FERR SKIT: This randomizes the change of those ferrenghi ships moving
around.

ALIEN SKIT: This randomizes the chance of alien trundling about.

REWARPS: This will surgically pluck sectors out of your universe and move
them about. Again, we recommend not setting this too high. Even though
it would be very amusing for you to watch your universe mutate under the
players feet, they would likely complain to you.

ALIEN RACE: These are Space Pirate fighters and mines that get randomly
plopped about in space. They will never stomp on anyone elses space
hardware. Their real purpose we assume is the quick dispatch of eprobes,
hence helping the big well stocked player spend turns looking at them.


NEW with version 2!

Also, you will notice that the Ferrenghi are MUCH more clever now! They
will warp around in formation, they may even storm stardock! They will
also attack more freely now as well.

WANDERER: A nice planet that is stock with freebies. It will be recreated
at cleanup, and placed randomly in the universe.

BONESMASHER: A VERY mean level 6, Class H planet. This thing is ARMED to
the gills, and will cream anyone who tries to land on it. It is restocked
and randomly relocated each cleanup.

FERRENGHAL RESTOCKER: Every cleanup, this will restock Ferrenghal's
defenses, it will also beef up the planet if necessary. The Ferrengi home-
world will be VERY safe now!
Last edited by Milton on Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

daniel_spain
Posts: 395
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Re: T-WARP for Tradewars

Post by daniel_spain »

Milton wrote:
> Originally named T-WARP or Tradewars Enhancement For Serious Systems by (C)
> 1995 Nth Degree Software
> The Dev Team: Andy, Al, Luke, Robin & Pam
>
> Would like to see a port of this module to WG 3.x Systems. Just needs to be
> recompiled to run under NT.
>
> List of Features from the DOC
>
> MOBILE WORMHOLE - This is a sector that is randomly selected. All warps
> that lead out from it are randomly set to new values (randomize the
> outgoing warps). The next day it is restored to it's original values and
> a different sector is randomly chosen.
>
> MOBILE SD - Stardock is relocated on a daily basis to a new sector.
> T-Warped ALWAYS applies the following conditions to Stardocks new sector:
> The sector MUST have at least 4 incoming warps and at least 5 outgoing
> warps. There MUST not be any fighters or planets in the sector, nor
> any Nav Haz Debris. Also there cannot be a port there beforehand.
>
> MOBILE CLASS -0-'s - These are the 2 Class 0 ports. This will move these
> two ports around just like MOBILE SD.
>
> * TECHNICAL NOTE: When Star Dock and/or the Class 0 ports move, naturally
> * the fed space lanes change as well. There will be no fed spacelane sweeps
> * (illegal fighters, mines, debris etc...) on the "new" space
> lanes until
> * the next cleanup. If your BBS is acting odd and you are going to do
> * extra cleanups, consider disabling this option when you do these extra
> * cleanups. If this happens to you a few times, let us know and we will
> * see if we can check for these bonus cleanups in T-Warped somehow.
>
> COLONISTS: This will randomize the number of colonists generated on
> terra.
>
> PORT REGEN: This will randomize the port restocking time.
>
> CLOAK FAIL: This will randomize the percentage chance of cloak failures.
>
> PLANET MAXIMUM: This will randomize the maximum number of planets in a
> sector. We recommend to NOT go below 5 for your minimum. This suggestion
> is not based on any technical issue, rather if all of your players planets
> blow up one day, you will be removed from their christmas card list.
>
> NAV HAZ: This will randomize the Navigation Hazard (debris) decay rate.
>
> FERR SKIT: This randomizes the change of those ferrenghi ships moving
> around.
>
> ALIEN SKIT: This randomizes the chance of alien trundling about.
>
> REWARPS: This will surgically pluck sectors out of your universe and move
> them about. Again, we recommend not setting this too high. Even though
> it would be very amusing for you to watch your universe mutate under the
> players feet, they would likely complain to you.
>
> ALIEN RACE: These are Space Pirate fighters and mines that get randomly
> plopped about in space. They will never stomp on anyone elses space
> hardware. Their real purpose we assume is the quick dispatch of eprobes,
> hence helping the big well stocked player spend turns looking at them.
>
>
> NEW with version 2!
>
> Also, you will notice that the Ferrenghi are MUCH more clever now! They
> will warp around in formation, they may even storm stardock! They will
> also attack more freely now as well.
>
> WANDERER: A nice planet that is stock with freebies. It will be recreated
> at cleanup, and placed randomly in the universe.
>
> BONESMASHER: A VERY mean level 6, Class H planet. This thing is ARMED to
> the gills, and will cream anyone who tries to land on it. It is restocked
> and randomly relocated each cleanup.
>
> FERRENGHAL RESTOCKER: Every cleanup, this will restock Ferrenghal's
> defenses, it will also beef up the planet if necessary. The Ferrengi home-
> world will be VERY safe now!

looks like it somehow manipulated the databases to move things around. i ported TW2/500T and TW2001 to Worldgroup and somewhat vaguely recall
a few things. This could easily be done really if i had a copy of the data structure from whomever has the tw2002 ip. i could write hooks to do the very thing listed in the dock. if you can acquire that i can make it happen.

Questman
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:12 pm
Location: Raleigh, NC
Contact:

Re: T-WARP for Tradewars

Post by Questman »

I've tried to find the Nth Degree team for years and never was able to find them.

TW2002 source is not lost, and it does work on WG3x.
Founder, The Major BBS Restoration Project
Owner, Elwynor Technologies ISV
Former Owner, Galacticomm IP (2005-2020)
Contributor, Galacticomm IP baseline

daniel_spain
Posts: 395
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Re: T-WARP for Tradewars

Post by daniel_spain »

Questman wrote:
> I've tried to find the Nth Degree team for years and never was able to find
> them.
>
> TW2002 source is not lost, and it does work on WG3x.

when i was talking to John about porting TW2/500 he mentioned he had the source but we never really discussed
if he had any intentions to release a wg3 module. He feels TWGS can fill that void. And what i can say is you can
actually host a tw2002 game using twgs and my rlogin client with the command line "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -p2002"
and it will connect right to it seemlessly. As soon as i completely redo the text variables with it you would be able to
integrate it seemlessly as it would show up as whatever in the /# listing. Tw2 i ported was the Sherrick/Morris
program and the source i have now to 2001 adds alot more stuff and when its done you could actually build off of it
to add some features from 2002. Not sure if his reluctance is due to a previous agreement or what. Almost like the
Presslar/Metro agreement and T-lord. Metro is gone, he is there with the source, but what to do?

Questman
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:12 pm
Location: Raleigh, NC
Contact:

Re: T-WARP for Tradewars

Post by Questman »

There's a lot of history there. It's probably just that John would prefer to have one "go to" platform in development and acting as the flagship TW game. The agreement with HVS was rocky - HVS did a great job building the game, and put a lot of original code into it.

Metro isn't gone, exactly. They aren't actively developing anything. I thought they'd at least sell LORD to Presslar - he did all the work for them on it (except for the initial port to WG3). But yeah, they own it.

The trouble with building onto TW2001 or anything else is technically John owns ALL of the IP for TradeWars and it keeps dipping into that grey area.

What would solve this for me is finding the source code to Yankee Trader (a BASIC door game). My understanding is the author lost the source code.
Founder, The Major BBS Restoration Project
Owner, Elwynor Technologies ISV
Former Owner, Galacticomm IP (2005-2020)
Contributor, Galacticomm IP baseline

daniel_spain
Posts: 395
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Re: T-WARP for Tradewars

Post by daniel_spain »

Questman wrote:
> There's a lot of history there. It's probably just that John would prefer
> to have one "go to" platform in development and acting as the
> flagship TW game. The agreement with HVS was rocky - HVS did a great job
> building the game, and put a lot of original code into it.
>
> Metro isn't gone, exactly. They aren't actively developing anything. I
> thought they'd at least sell LORD to Presslar - he did all the work for
> them on it (except for the initial port to WG3). But yeah, they own it.
>
> The trouble with building onto TW2001 or anything else is technically John
> owns ALL of the IP for TradeWars and it keeps dipping into that grey area.
>
>
> What would solve this for me is finding the source code to Yankee Trader (a
> BASIC door game). My understanding is the author lost the source code.

yeah i was up front with John from day 1 and he even gave me a full twgs license.
His only rule was no removal of original copyright info and his copyright info
circa 1998 be added which i did. Not to mention back in i think 2010 Sherrick
and Morris actually agreed to ports of there work which another developer did
a perl port of the game.

Yeah Metro is still there, some kansas company but again they arent doing anything.
There is a sort of LORD source out there on a public cvs server that was ported to
Javascript and i know from the logic i looked at it came from the original.
The dev is a big time bbs door developer who has been porting doors like mad for
close to 20 years now. Legality of it im sure is not good but if anyone can find the
yankee trader source is that guy.

Questman
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:12 pm
Location: Raleigh, NC
Contact:

Re: T-WARP for Tradewars

Post by Questman »

Unfortunately Alan Davenport lost the source, supposedly he said so himself. I never made contact with him.
Founder, The Major BBS Restoration Project
Owner, Elwynor Technologies ISV
Former Owner, Galacticomm IP (2005-2020)
Contributor, Galacticomm IP baseline

nessenj
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2020 5:21 pm

Re: T-WARP for Tradewars

Post by nessenj »

Questman wrote:

> Metro isn't gone, exactly. They aren't actively developing anything. I
> thought they'd at least sell LORD to Presslar - he did all the work for
> them on it (except for the initial port to WG3). But yeah, they own it.

They aren't?? Are they actually supporting anything? I've sent a few emails to them inquiring about MajorMUD and have yet to hear anything back from them. Even tried a few different email addresses.

User avatar
Milton
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2020 1:30 am
Location: USA

Re: T-WARP for Tradewars

Post by Milton »

Questman wrote:
> Unfortunately Alan Davenport lost the source, supposedly he said so
> himself. I never made contact with him.

If we can find someone to decompile the T-WARP files then recompile it work under NT, even a loader of some sort would do it. There two stages at clean up one while the bbs is running and final stage when bbs is completely down.
It Modifies the DATA files.

I have the last Beta from the author.
I even talk with him for hour or so about T-WARP features years ago over the phone.
He was still designing games at the time. Very nice person.

daniel_spain
Posts: 395
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Re: T-WARP for Tradewars

Post by daniel_spain »

Milton wrote:
> Questman wrote:
> > Unfortunately Alan Davenport lost the source, supposedly he said so
> > himself. I never made contact with him.
>
> If we can find someone to decompile the T-WARP files then recompile it work under NT,
> even a loader of some sort would do it. There two stages at clean up one while the
> bbs is running and final stage when bbs is completely down.
> It Modifies the DATA files.
>
> I have the last Beta from the author.
> I even talk with him for hour or so about T-WARP features years ago over the phone.
> He was still designing games at the time. Very nice person.

can you get any info on the data structures? that or someone proficient enough in PSQL to create the DDF files
so we can rebuild the structure data?

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