Player's Guide to bronco.ece.cmu.edu
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Last revised 7/24/92.

* Surrender countdown.  T-mode only.  When a team is reduced to
ownership of 1 planet, countdown is initiated (30 minutes if borgs are
allowed, otherwise 45 minutes ).  If team gains ownership of 2 or more
planets, countdown is suspended (but not reset).  If team gains
ownership of 4 planets, countdown is terminated.  While team has
ownership of only 1 planet, countdown runs down in real time.  When it
expires, the team is genocided (surrender), and team's last planet is
neutralized.

* HunterKillers (aka Iggy) (see server robots).  Appears every 20
minutes in a random location near the center of the galaxy (but not
too close to a player), announcing time of day and queue size.
Hostile to all players.  Is polymorphic: assumes ship class of nearest
enemy, shields/damage are scaled proportionately when changing ship
class, adjusts warp while maneuvering according to ship class.  Goes
away when killed.

* Terminators (see server robots) for planet taking out of T-mode.
Neutralizing a planet located in the beamer's home quadrant produces a
Terminator if T-mode has been gone for 15 seconds, and two Terminators
if the planet is outside the home quadrant.  Does not polymorph, but
is hostile to target's team and preferentially seeks out the target.
Has a max warp of 10 and unlimited etmp in order to pursue targets of
all ship classes.  Goes away when target leaves the game or when
Terminator is killed.

* Terminators for players on a non-warring race.  T-mode only.  Once
T-mode begins, after a random delay of several minutes, a Terminator
will target any players that are not on a warring race (once these
players die, the distribution server code forces them to join a
warring race).  Goes away when target switches teams or when
Terminator is killed.

* Guardians for bombing out of T-mode.  If T-mode has gone for 15
seconds, a guardian robot can appear in response to bombing even if
the planet's race is represented by players.  (Distribution code
produces a guardian robot when bombing a planet located in a team's
home quadrant which is owned by that team and no players on are that
team).

* Server robots.  Have sub-optimal tractor/pressor code.  If damaged:
Will not repair while sitting on top of a hostile planet, and will
orbit the nearest repair planet if it is friendly.  Robots do not
count towards T-mode.  After 10 minutes of inactivity they become
"bored" and declare war on all races.

* Torps.  Torps that hit galaxy boundaries only damage hostile ships
(no wall kills).

* Messages.  Players can selectively ignore messages (to All, to Team,
or individual) from other players.  See server motd for usage.

* Kill messages.  Displays number of armies on board when a player
dies.

* Cyborgs.  The server will list non-blessed clients if you send a ":"
to yourself.  Sends less that the usual amount of player flags to
clients, especially on "inviso" players.

* Players entering the game.  The maximum allowed delta in the size of
T-mode teams is 1 instead of 2 (player may choose between the two
teams only if they are even in size).

* Resource distribution.  Not more than 3 agris can exist in any one
quadrant (there was a bug that kept this from working that I just
fixed, fortunately 4+ agris is pretty rare).

* Lock outs.  The server can reject logins from certain user names.

* Restricted hours.  Server accepts connections 24 hours a day but
allows players past the motd (message of the day) screen only during
certain hours.  Motd includes the bronco's local time when the
connection was established, for those trying to get in right when the
server opens.

* Supported but not used: planet movement; a fix for the "two
players/one slot" bug (apparently this bug was corrected elsewhere);
faster turn rates (from sequent); no rearward torps restrictions.

* Planets.  Planets pop every 10 seconds instead of every 40, but
there is a 75% chance that a planet will be skipped, so the overall
pop rate is the same.

* UDP.  UDP v1.0 installed.

* Session statistic query.  Sending yourself (or any other single
player) a '?' produces a session statisitc query, listing the t-mode
planets/armies/wins/losses and corresponding ratings and ratio for the
current session.

End of Player's Summaries.
