NETREK INFORMATION ARCHIVE ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: README (index and information) From: jch@cs.cmu.edu (Jonathan Hardwick) 31 October 1994: the FTP site on gs69 has now gone away. The AFS version is being kept around as a service to the community, but is no longer being updated. One of the mirror sites might take over as the new official home. If you're reading this via a WWW client, you're using an obsolete link. Load the URL http:/www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/jch/netrek/README.html for an HTML version with links to all the files. And tell whoever gave you the original link of the new version. Thanks. Maintained by jch@cs.cmu.edu and mirrored by: grind.isca.uiowa.edu (128.255.21.233) ftp.risc.uni-linz.ac.at (193.170.33.112) ftp.chemietechnik.uni-dortmund.de (129.217.174.20) This is an archive for information of interest to the Netrek community. The original source was the andrew.games.xtrek bboard at CMU; later items came from the alt.games.xtrek newsgroup, and now the rec.games.netrek newsgroup. It is indexed on the WAIS system: (:source :version 3 :ip-address "128.2.206.11" :ip-name "almond.srv.cs.cmu.edu" :tcp-port 6000 :database-name "netrek-ftp" :cost 0.00 :cost-unit :free :maintainer "spot@cs.cmu.edu" ) The WAIS database can also be accessed using a WWW client (e.g. Mosaic) through the URL wais://almond.srv.cs.cmu.edu:6000/netrek-ftp. This gives you indexed access to *all* the text in the archive: you give it a word, and it returns a list of all the articles containing that word, sorted by score. If you want to look up everything about something, this is the way to do it. It is also available via AFS in /afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/jch/netrek; as an added incentive, the text files on AFS are not compressed. There is an informal competition to see who has AFS access over the furthest physical distance. The current record-holder is Kristian Ejvind, in Stockholm, Sweden. If you have neither AFS, WAIS, Mosaic, nor FTP access, you can get the files by email using the FTP-to-email gateway at ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com. Complete beginners should start by getting the Netrek FAQ, server list, and FTP sites list from the rec.games.netrek newsgroup. They should then read "beginners", "opening-screen", and maybe "help-sheet". This is more than enough to get you playing, and doesn't take long to read. FTP sites with Netrek source and binaries are listed in "ftp-list"; this site currently contains the source for the Bronco server, beef borg, and the original ck_players utility, all in the "code" subdirectory. I no longer carry Andy McFadden's excellent collection of toolbox utilities, because he was updating them too often :-) [More seriously, I don't carry much code anymore, since other sites do a better job -- only code that began here is kept here] The files are (in the top-level directory): ChangeLog : Update history of the files README : This file art-of-war.Z : The classic essay on war by Sun Tzu beginners.Z : Red Shirt's advice to beginners borgs.Z : Aka cyborgs -- what they are, where you can get them bot-busting.Z : How to kill robots client-patches.Z : Correcting various infelicities in the standard client definitions.Z : The meanings of various game terms dogfighting.Z : Lance puts it all into one easy-to-read file enl.Z : The European Netrek League and mailing list frequent-suggestions.Z : Commonly-proposed changes to Netrek, and their faults game-facts.Z : An analysis of the rules and parameters of the game help-sheet.Z : A one-page summary of the game commands hints.Z : Huge collection of random game hints hockey.Z : How to play Netrek hockey humor.Z : Murphy goes to war, top-10 lists, deteriorata, and more maintainers.Z : Who is responsible for this outrage? nbr.Z : Current proposals for the Next Big Release of the client net-behaviour.Z : Find out what Netrek does to networks, and vice versa ogging.Z : What it is, how to do it, how to avoid it opening-screen.Z : A three-page summary of game commands and strategy personae.Z : Does Netrek bring out the schizophrenic in you? planet-taking.Z : Hints from Grey Elf, a master of the art playing-as.Z : How to play an Assault Ship, by Todd Williamson and Bert E. playing-bb.Z : How to play a Battleship, by Tom Holub playing-ca.Z : How to play a Cruiser, by Andrew Markiel playing-dd.Z : How to play a Destroyer, by Robert Hill playing-dd.alt.Z : Alternative guide to playing a Destroyer playing-sb.Z : How to play a Starbase, by Craig Boas playing-sc.Z : How to play a Scout, by Bert Enderton proverbs.Z : Nuggets of Netrek wisdom, by Bert Enderton rsa.Z : The RSA-based blessing method, and how it works. server-patches.Z : What to apply if your server doesn't work server-secrets.Z : How to bring up a Netrek server ship-facts.Z : The capabilities of the various ship types ship-opinions.Z : One person's opinions of the different ships short-packets.Z : Definition of the UDP short packets strategy.Z : Common strategies used in INL games starbases.Z : How to play them and how NOT to play them udp.Z : Information on Andy McFadden's UDP client xtrek-vs-netrek.Z : A comparison of the two games, plus where to get xtrek xtrekrc-hints.Z : How to customize your display and keyboard mappings xtrekrc-sample.Z : Some sample .xtrekrc files In the "code" subdirectory I've stuck the following big chunks of code and/or text: 6x10italic.tar.Z : X11 italic (actually, underlined) 6x10 font in pcf and bdf beef.readme.Z : Leonard Dicken's information borg beef.howto.Z beef.shar.Z beef.bitmaps.shar.Z bitmaps.Iggy.h : Bitmaps to give Iggy his own ship type bitmaps.Iggy.README bronco.final.tar.Z: Terence Chang's last release of the Bronco server source ck_players.readme : Program to list the players on a server, by Ivan Vazquez ck_players.tar.Z recorder-patch : Julian Ho's patch to let a client record a game scoredb.bronco.Z : Bronco player database when Terence left scoredb.rwd4.Z : Rwd4 player database when it went down ship-table.dvi.Z : Table of all the ship statistics; useful for quantitative ship-table.ps.Z : comparison, and fits on one printed page! xtrekguide.dvi.Z : Player's guide for Xtrek, the granddaddy of Netrek; xtrekguide.ps.Z : Included for historical interest, and to stop people xtrekguide.tex.Z : hosing the Japanese site which is its other source... Note that all files except README and ChangeLog are compressed. Use 8-bit FTP (type the FTP command "binary" before get'ing the files) and then use the Unix "uncompress" command, which will convert (for example) beginners.Z into beginners. Please don't send any flames, attributions or corrections to jch@cs.cmu.edu, because I've retired. I'm only interested if you want to take over the site... Spaceman Spiff ------------------------------ End of README *************