Welcome to the Gaming Museum, featuring Galactic Trader!

Our modest selection of games is free. Some of them are remakes of
classic arcade games, others are cult favorites from university and college campuses.

Galactic Trader players who use the PK flag will be able to change it back when they
are on the ground.  I will monitor player feedback on how this is used
and come to a decision on whether to make this a permanent change.

I have also made it a policy at the Gamingmuseum to not reset
passwords unless the player has set an email address in his or her
character and sent an email request from that address.  I spend a lot
of time scouring logs to verify a player's identity, and would rather
secure and streamline the process.  If you do not have an email
address set, you will be reminded when you enter the game.  Email
addresses may be set from the options menu (option "o" from the MAIN
menu).

If a player leaves fighters behind, they will be set to flee to the 
planet's surface and eventually hyper out.  This will keep these fighters
from picking on other players who stumble in after the battle.

I have made two updates today:

 Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash if one player fired a
missile with another player nearby.

 Fixed a bug that allowed players to buy unlimited tractor beams
without using cargo space.

The latest fix causes the payload from tactical nukes to ignore
players if either the attacker or the victim is not a player killer.

The Gamingmuseum mail server had a hardware failure, so any messages
you send to me or tech support may receive delayed delivery warnings.
I should be able to bring it back up within the next two days.

The behavior of "X" drives has been corrected so that it is not
necessary to use the "ah" command to tow an abandoned ship.

Galactic Trader  r4.42 Update


I've made some small changes to address two player-reported issues.

Regarding a third issue, the infrequent inability to contact a mobile
(aka NPC) such as a fighter or cop using "send", I have added some
error checking to the function which validates the scanner ID. If it
fails, it will report the error code. Under a normal circumstance,
such as the player making a typing mistake, it will return error code
155. If you are certain that you have entered the correct scanner ID
and receive the "trader ID... is invalid" message, please note the
error code following the message and report it to me.

Example:
The trader id ETHG is invalid (155).

"155" is the error code.


Bugfixes

The player's start planet after death was being reset to the first
planet in the galaxy instead of the first available planet in the
player's home empire.

Players were allowed to store extra equipment captured from an
abandoned ship even when they lacked sufficient space.

GalacticTrader r4.4 to be released on May 29, 2006


After over a year of development, the first major revision to Galactic Trader since August of 2004
will go "live" this month. Please, as always report any issues via email to "techsupport" at 
gamingmuseum.com. 

Release Notes
    
 MSP sound is only supported under Tera Term and zMUD at this time.  The support files may
be obtained from http://www.gamingmuseum.com/downloads.html.  Note that zMud cannot handle 
the full VT100 graphics set.
    
 When first entering the game, please check your options to confirm that they have been 
properly migrated from the old version.
 
 
New Features
    
 The cloaking device becomes less effective after player fires a weapon and they may be 
more easily detected.
    
 The random ships selected when a player hyperspaces into an empty planet are now tailored 
to the player's level, so that the most powerful ships are not unleashed on low-level players.
    
 Implemented Mud Sound Protocol, which can be enabled from the Options menu.  
    
 Credits are no longer displayed in scientific notation in the status bar.
    
 Expanded Options menu now uses letters instead of numbers to toggle selections.
    
 Damaged bases may now be repaired by the owner when boarded.
    
 A list is now kept of each player's base holdings, which can be accessed from the BUILD 
menu.  Bases are added to the list when built and subtracted (if found destroyed) when the player 
returns to the planet.
    
 Docking menu for outposts/bases. Options:
        -       Salvage
        -       Limited upgrades
        -       Police station
        -       Repairs(reduce unreliability due to high number of jumps)
    
 Added new "?" command to EQUIP menu to get equipment descriptions.
    
 Added HTML and XML leader board output, viewable from the Galactic Trader page 
(http://www.galtrader.com).
    
 Police and Navy now both lose 25% of their score when summoning reinforcements.
    
 GalPol Counter-Insurgency ships now appear instead of commandos when a powerful 
player jumps into a police ambush.
    
 CTRL-C has been disabled.
    
 The minimum value of salvaged ships is now 1500.
    
 The value of salvaged ships has been reduced by 10%.  The cost of repairs has 
been increased correspondingly.
    
 Only players who choose to use the PK flag to kill other players can be killed. 
    
 The number of player jumps and ship condition (based on the number of jumps completed) 
now appears in (c)heck status.
    
 The player MUST enter Y or N to dismiss a prompt.
    
 Players are now limited to two sessions per IP address.
    
 Computer-controller ships may now be seen both entering from and jumping to hyperspace.

The Gaming Museum is now back on line.

It's moving time again.

It's GT beta time again!  In 4.3, I allowed a limited number of testers on the
beta.  I'm opening the beta to all players this time around.

I have been slaving over the next version of Galactic Trader for some time now
and, in light of some of the requests on this forum, thought it would be a
good time to reveal some of the new features. There will also be a few
bugfixes, but per my custom I won't reveal them until they're fixed.

Most important are two changes that affect player-killing. One is the
addition of a PK flag. When the player chooses to PK using a special command,
s/he is able to attack other players with the PK flag. No one without a PK
flag is allowed to attack other players, nor can they be attacked. The PK
flag is removed once that player dies. The second change involves removing
the turn-based restriction currently in place. Players will now be allowed to
attack each other as quickly as possible. If you choose to PK, you will have
to contend with the possibility that your internet latency or lack of
scripting skills may result in your defeat.

A current rule limits each player to playing no more than two characters at
once. This rule will be enforced by the game by only allowing two connections
per IP address. I realize this will also limit people playing from a single
location behind network address translation (NAT). If this becomes a problem,
I have the ability to raise the limit.

Finally, there will be some mysterious new invaders wielding impressive
technology ...

The rest of the new features and changes are listed below.

• A new command will be added to the EQUIP menu for equipment descriptions.
• The minimum value of salvaged ships is now 1500 credits.
• The value of salvaged ships has been reduced by 10%. The cost of repairs has been increased correspondingly.
• The ship condition (based on number of jumps completed) now appears in (c)heck status.
• The player now MUST enter Y or N to proceed when facing a (Y/N) prompt.
• Mobiles now hyperspace out of planets to keep them from becoming crowded.
• CTRL-C will be completely disabled to keep Windows users from kicking themselves out when cutting and pasting.
• There will be a new Docking menu for bases. The current services of energy recharge and salvage/repair will be available, along with refurbishment (reduce jump count, improving reliability), limited trading, public trading computer usage, and a police station.
• The leaderboard will be visible on the web at Galtrader.com.

I will be putting a new SCSI card in the Alpha tomorrow evening at 8
PM EDT, so there will be about 30 minutes of down time for Galactic
Trader.  This will allow me to use real disks instead of IDE junk that
doesn't belong in my fine HDECPaq hardware.

Warped MUD will be moved to the new Alpha on Monday, April 24 at 8 PM EDT.
Unfortunately, the player files are not compatible with the new platform and
those few players will have to start over.  I apologize to those who have enjoyed
the game, and will offer to give free promotions to level 5 to whoever asks over
the next two weeks.  Send your request to technical support.

The Gaming Museum will move into the next phase of its upgrades tomorrow,
April 19th at 8 PM (20:00) EDT.  Galactic Trader will move from the VAX (Orff)
to the new Alpha (JSBach).  Players will not need to change any settings
to connect to the machine.  The cutover should be complete by 8:30 PM.  Please
be sure to sign off by 8 PM in order to avoid being kicked off.

Galactic Trader 4.39 goes up the evening of April 10 (EDT). This
should be the last update for a while, barring any critical bugs that
may appear. I will be concentrating on improving game balance and
playability for the next major update, along with creating a
proper "newbie" guide and correcting outdated parts of the existing
documentation.

Here are the bugfixes:

The game would sometimes crash when a player sold a captured vessel.

Players' bases were attacking other players without provocation if
the base had Outlaw legal status.

Ships would continue targeting the ID of a player who had jumped off
the planet. This would result in them attacking the next
(possibly innocent) player to jump in and be assigned that ID.

Planets could have too high a tech level, so that the "tech level"
field in the description
was blank.

Sometimes an officer was asked to attack an outpost on a planet where
there wasn't one.

Player will not be prompted to flush cargo hold when capturing an
extra energy unit, because it is non-storable cargo.

There will be intermittent service outages between 8 and 10 PM EST due to 
the installation of a new UPS.  The VAX won't be brought down, so if you
are disconnected from Galactic Trader you should be able to resume your game
within a few minutes.

Please excuse our mess while we work to better serve you!

As promised, the Galactic Trader 4.38 update goes up this evening.

Bugfixes:

When tractor beams are taken from abandoned ships, they will no longer replace
front lasers.

GalPol and Navy will no longer be able to dock at Thargoid bases unless they 
are in poor standing in the Federation.
 
Tractor beams will no longer miss abandoned ships when the attacker is much 
larger than the target.

You can no longer reload missiles or torpedoes at a base if your racks are 
filled with nukes.

Game would crash if a player scanned a vessel having zero energy.

INC will not pay for the hiring of pilots when a player is at 'traitor' status.

If you had insufficent funds to pay your pilots, one of them would desert upon
landing, and you would receive a sizable sum of money.

If you launched a fighter at an abandoned ship, it would "revive" and attack the
fighter before abandoning again (and giving you points).

A police or navy player could continuously board a player's base and give him 
900 credits (courtesy of Galpol or the Navy).  A cap has been placed on these 
transfers.

All services except those web-based (such as the Java games) will be
unavailable intermittently during 8-9 PM on February 23rd.

The classic VMS game which inspired the Internet MUSH genre is coming to
the Gaming Museum in March (exact date TBD), along with more updates to 
Galactic Trader and a hardware upgrade.

I'm highly pleased to finally offer Monster at gamingmuseum.com.  Past 
players of Galactic Trader at this site (mostly from the University of
Buffalo) introduced me to this game, which I was fortunate not to have at my 
university because I would have been sure to net a "Blutarsky"-like GPA.  
Monster is a unique kind of game (if you can classify it as such) that can
only exist with dedicated participation of the players, so please spread the word.  
Read the FAQ for more information on Monster.

Galactic Trader, WarpedMUD, and Monster will be moving from the 
VAXStation 4000/60 which has hosted the VMS games for over five years 
to an AlphaServer DS10L.  There may be intermittent service outages as 
the games and mail are migrated, but the increase in performance should 
be noticeable.  I will post more information on exact dates and times.

DS10L information (for nerds). 

Galactic Trader r4.38 will go online on February 24th.  The (long) list of fixes will be posted at that time.

Galactic Trader 4.37 Released
Just a few more bugs squashed tomorrow.

Bugfixes:
A crash would sometimes occur when a ship was destroyed.

The game crashed if a new player started a game, then went into SU without jumping.

A fresh, crisp update of Galactic Trader is in store for Tuesday evening!
Yummy!

The updates are below.

I regret that I will have to perform the unprecedented act of imposing an
actual rule on the game.  Starting immediately, non-Immortal players may no
longer use more than two characters at a time.  This rule will not yet be
enforced by the game, but any unusual activity can and will be noted in the
game logs.  The penalty for the first offense is suspension of all characters
and for the second is deletion of the highest-scoring character.  

After that, we pull out your toenails.


Bugfixes:

• Sometimes god vessels were summoned as reinforcements.
• "Quit" will now correctly delete the player file.
• Players will automatically leave 'away' mode when they land.
• Abandoned ships did not have their equipment reset when destroyed, so new ships that jumped in or otherwise appeared on a planet often had equipment they should not have.
• (Gods) Logs will now indicate the correct number of players in the game.

Small update going up Saturday:

• Players who broadcast while another player is "away" won't receive the "away" warning.
• Players who lose connection won't be "locked" into the game and cause "invalid recipient" messages to appear. I have also made some changes in the hopes of keeping players' fighters from acting like players and preventing you from shooting them. If anyone sees this bug reappear, please let me know.

I have a tiny update for GT. I'll be putting it in tonight. There
will be no interruption of the game.


Bugfixes:
The maximum penalty for trading as a naval officer is now 1/2 of the
player's score.

Players with more than 2 billion credits will no longer be kicked out
of the game every time the status line is updated.

I will be bringing the game down Sunday evening to backup and restore the
system disk and correct some nasty disk fragmentation. This should only take
about 2 hours.

Galactic Trader r4.33 Update
I will update GT tonight to fix some small bugs.

Bugfixes:
You couldn't enter '0' as an option when prompted to take cargo from a
ship or asteroid.

NPCs would on rare occasions attack themselves.

Stationary targets such as asteroids were far too difficult to hit
when the player's ship was large.

Tractor beams were being replaced when a laser was taken from an
abandoned vessel and no hardpoints were left.

After about 320 days of continuous uptime, it seems that something
has happened to the GT VAX. I can connect to the LAN remotely and it
doesn't even seem to be responding to pings. I will not be able to do
anything about it until about 6:30 PM EDT, so I hope you will be able
to bear with it today!

Update: Service was restored at 6:15 PM EDT.

New licenses loaded. All is well.

You may now go from:

--- In galtrader@yahoogroups.com, "ericdfairchild"
< ericdfairchild@y... > wrote:
> aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

to:

ARGG!! She's breaking up... I can't hold her...

Galactic Trader down temporarily

Unfortunately, my license for OpenVMS has reached its annual expiration
and the OpenVMS Hobbyist site is not emailing
my new one for some reason.  The hobbyist site admin has been notified, 
but it may take until Monday before I get a response. This problem happened
last year - unfortunately, it's difficult to set myself a reminder well 
in advance (the system doesn't warn you) in order to avoid these kinds 
of technical difficulties. I apologize for the inconvenience. 

  	
Galactic Trader r4.3 released

I intended to save this update for later, but the two big exploits
recently revealed have required that I push it out now.  Please report
any exploitable bugs to techsupport@gamingmuseum.com.

Imperial Navy players, please take special note that you will no
longer lose your game if you are dishonorably discharged (or be
"locked out", but you will have your class changed to Trader.
If you don't want to continue as a Trader, you must quit and start over.

Bugfixes:

Some equipment (such as X-ray) would sell for less than its trade-in
value.

"Traitors" (including Thargoid players) could attack Thargoid Outposts
without retaliation.

Game would crash if certain types of ships were scanned.

New ships appearing on an occupied planet would sometimes get "phantom 
equipment" or other characteristics acquired from ships that had
previously been in that slot.

Cargo space was miscalculated when players replaced their ship.

When Navy officers are dishonorably discharged, they will no longer be
locked out of the game.

Automatic navy reinforcements would be the wrong ship type and always
arrive at 0 km altitude.

Players' fighters will no longer dock if their hangar is already full.

"Surrender" requests have been corrected so that they no longer change
legal status to "offender" instead of "clean".

Limited number of randomly appearing ships on a planet to improve
performance.

GalPols won't get non-police ships as reinforcements if they're flying
a non-police ship.

Ships (such as starbases) were "jumping" in.

Sometimes a GalPol will scan a ship, be permitted to fire on it, then
be flagged fugitive.

Gods: Crash when entering a number greater than maxships in the Purge
command.


New Features:

Instead of "killing" the Navy officer when they are dishonorably
discharged, they become a trader. 

Third-person laser attack messages now include the ship type and
scanner ID.

Enemy ships will favor attacking the player instead of their fighters
if the player's ship is much more powerful.

Several of the more powerful ships now have long range scanners.

I will be reconfiguring the web server and installing the hardware
into another case on Sunday the 8th, so it may be down for most of the
day. This should only be a problem if you currently use the Java
telnet applet to play. In that case, you will have to use one on your
computer instead. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I haven't seen Yitzchak Handel (YITZ) around for a while, but I'd like
to thank him for donating the current case and some RAM back in 2003
when the hardware was desperately needed. Thanks Ian!

Galactic Trader: Five Years of Mayhem

This month marks five years of Galactic Trader on the internet. There
have been a lot of changes since then, and Gamingmuseum.com has more
on the way. Make ready for some surprises in the coming weeks.

Thanks to all the players who make all this possible by offering
suggestions and bringing in their friends to add to the chaos. Bring
it on! Many thanks also to my staff and testers, both past and
present, for keeping the ball rolling.

By the way, if you were here in 1999, step up for your props!

Keeping the bugs on the run ... here's the fixes that will be going up
around 11 PM (23:00) EDT Sunday, July 25.

• Players were being allowed to choose a fighter target id bigger than the maximum ships and causing a crash.
• Crash when scanning ships with special laser types.
• When a ship carried equipment instead of cargo items, advanced sensors would sometimes report either the wrong equipment or a cargo item.
• Fixed phantom cargo space loss caused by tactical nukes.
• Fixed crash caused by value of a cargo item falling to zero.

I'll be updating GT to 4.25 on Friday evening around 11 PM (23:00 EDT). I'd hoped to
include more features, but I really needed to put this out because I've made some 
changes to the code to aid debugging crashes.

• The "Hall of Fame" now includes a list of the highest scoring current players, in addition to the all-time list.
• Energy recharge at bases now costs one credit per unit recharged, with the minimum fee still being 1000 credits.
• When a piece of equipment is sold on a planet without it, it will appear for sale in the equipment list until the planet is reset.

I have implemented a new scrubber for Galactic Trader to delete user accounts
that have been inactive over a year. I previously only had been purging the 
saved games, which meant that new players were still prevented from registering 
using that login ID. 

Don't let your accounts go stale. If you forgot your password, let me know and
we'll see about resetting it.

GamingMuseum.com (and GT) will be down from 0:00 (12 AM) EDT to 1:00
EDT on June 5 for a hardware upgrade.

GT 4.23 Update on June 1

I've planned a small update on June 1st that will address the following items.
Expecially note the following:

• Reinforcements: this is actually a feature that has been in the game for some time but wasn't functional. If you are in the Navy or Police and find yourself overwhelmed, you can ask for reinforcements. You will lose points from your score in return: 5% for police, and 10% for Navy. Naval officers may also receivereinforcements automatically when up against a very powerful opponent - this does not deduct from your score. You must be in "Mild Offender" or better for police, or "Offender" or better for Navy, to receive reinforcements.
• Email alerts: There is a new option 0 that allows you to set an email address. If you set an email address, when one of your possessions (a base) is under attack, you will receive notification. I won't be looking these up or using them for anything. If you don't trust me, don't use this option. Likewise, if you don't want to get "spammed" by the game, don't set it either.

Bugs:
Sometimes a random cop would show up as mild offender when scanned.

You couldn't go fractional distances using "ah".

Attempting to fire a laser you don't have would often show "You don't have a
1000 km laser"

Crash caused by HTML status file being written to or uploaded while another
game session is trying to delete the old copy.


Features:
Random ships hyperspace in while players are on the planet.

Improved game performance on crowded planets by using local variable instead of
common game file to store attacks on the player.

Changed cloak so that it also makes it harder for cops to see your legal
status.

Added new heavy and light drydock bases. These are inexpensive bases with
little defensive capability, designed for repairing ships.

Removed all missile type (torp, nuke) from "equipment mounted" screen of "c"
command. This cleans up the display a bit.

Reinforcements can be called by both police and navy.

Players get email alerts when their bases are under attack.

GT 4.22 Update on April 8
 
I'm slipping this update in quickly before the Easter weekend. It only
includes a few bugfixes.

----------
Gal-who.html (for the web) was not updated when someone left the game,
but only when someone entered.

The first credit transfer queued up for you wouldn't show up at the
bank.

Bug in equipment price setting that caused prices to be too low, and
sometimes let missiles sell for 0 credits and cause a crash.
----------

I haven't fixed the negative cargo problem yet, but if you board a
ship it will abort if your hold is still full or overfull even after
flushing.

 

The Galactic Trader 4.21 update is ready and will be in place by 12:00 EST March 27.
Some fixes are not listed below because they can be exploited. You
may find information on these after the update using the News command
at the menu before entering the game.

In addition to the bug fixes, we're considering removing the auto-
immortality. I will confirm whether that happens before the update.

---------------------

If you had nukes, the automatic warhead purchase option would still
fill up the racks as if you didn't have any. This resulted in a
negative cargo condition.

Subscript out of range in 1400 because noship was already too big to
allow adding random Thargoids.

Radiation warning messages appeared to come from your own ship
instead of the abandoned vessel you attempted to communicate with.

Ships that come with LR scanner weren't having their scanner range
set properly.

Planets damaged by ebombs weren't recovering permanently.

The Mighty Galactic Trader r4.2 is on the way! There are many new features, and
the usual round of bugfixes.

I would like people who play the GalPols to take note of the changes in
scanning other ships. The scanning wasn't forcing smugglers' behavior properly.
This has been fixed, and enhanced. If the ship you are scanning is much weaker
than yours, it will immediately abandon ship and you may take its cargo. If the
ship is about the same strength, it will fire and run. If the ship is much more
powerful, it will attack. Don't scan a vessel unless you believe you can take
it! An additional feature of the advanced sensors is that they return some
tactical data. Non-GalPols will find this useful.

All players should also note that you may no longer "hock" captured ships on
the surface. If you attempt to tow ships to the planet, they will be destroyed.
Any ships you capture must be taken to a base or outpost. If you board a base
or outpost while towing a captured ship, you will be asked if you want to sell
or repair it at that time. If you choose to repair it, you will immediately
take over that ship and fly it to the surface. Some of you who rely on making
big amounts of money salvaging ships may have a problem with this. As always,
I'm trying to keep the game interesting and balanced, and I await your
comments.

Here are the rest of the changes. Expect this update on Sunday.

Bugfixes:

Corrected an error that would cause a crash if you had 10 payments pending.

Corrected an error saving options: can't find file or account.

Could target the scanner ids of ships that were destroyed.

Fighters could target sand clouds.

Navy wasn't getting ship upgrades.

Any ship could mount a mega laser.

When Navy ships were boarded, their commanders were addressed by a Trader
rating (Novice, Dangerous) instead of a rank.

Starbases didn't have their legal status set, so clean players would be asked
to pay a fine before being allowed to board.

Some ships would have "null" equipment because the laser type was not set
properly.


New Features

New behavior of ships scanned by police. If ship carries contraband and:
Is less powerful than cop - immediately abandons ship.
Is about as powerful as cop - runs away while firing
Is more powerful than cop - move and fire.

Advanced sensors now return some tactical data, in addition to legal status and
cargo.

Added "me" command to bring up message history log window.

When firing laser, scanner refreshes to only show targets within range in that
direction.

Allow players to repair/sell salvaged ships at starbases.
The "hock" command has been removed.

Ships in war zone will attack one another.

These are the changes I have ready for GT 4.17. Please take note of the
change in the behavior of the Mega laser. This has been requested time
and time again by the majority of players. Please also note that in
making this change, I relaized that NPCs were not hitting as hard as
they were supposed to be with this laser, so watch your energy! This
should bring balance to the game at the upper levels.

I removed the full credits from the opening screen because it was too
cluttered. Please use the "credits" command at MAIN> or the "Select"
menu to see the testers and staff.

These changes will be put into effect sometime on Sunday evening EST.

Features:

Changed Mega Laser behavior to remove "wave motion" characteristics
(which caused damage to all ships in path).

Improved logging so that all legal status changes (instead of just
changing from clean, mild, or offender to a higher status) are logged.

ECMs won't affect tactical nukes.

Programmer, staff, and tester credits are now available with "credits"
command.

Bugfixes:

Sometimes players would crash when entering the game because the game
log was
being updated by another player and it wasn't open for shared access.

Players can no longer choose unimplemented Mercenary class.

Thargoid starbases no longer offer to make a non-Thargoid player "clean".

When paying to clear your name at a planet-side police station, the
status bar did not update to show the credits deducted.

Fuel was not replenished at starbases.

Enemies will choose another target if theirs is cloaked.

NPC taunt "You're mine, DIE!" would come from wrong ship.

GPs and Navy will not accidentally shoot at each other, as what
sometimes happens when you are in a bad legal status and then "get clean".

Trading centers would shoot at innocent players if
another player had previously been fighting with them.

Sand clouds would take damage and/or abandon ship if a tactical nuke
went off.

God players would still show up on scanner when landed, but with no
ship name.

A happy new year and best wishes for blessings and peace in the year
to come, at least for those who follow the Gregorian calendar!

My gift to you is the first GT update for 2004. This should be the
most solid release to date. I've focused on fixing several
long-standing bugs, staring at the screen until my vision blurred and
I started seeing the shapes of bunny rabbits and Elvis in the
spaghetti code.

Those of you who were bitten by nonfunctional or very crashy tactical
nukes should find them much more effective when I put the update in
place on January 1.

I should note that I have made changes to the architecture of the game
that will allow me to create more versatile equipment and weapons in
the future. This will also allow me to remove the "wave motion"
feature from the Mega laser while leaving its range and power intact-
something which appears to be preferred by the majority of players.


Bugfixes:
Game would crash when a Thargoid Mothership appeared.

Corrected bug that allowed extra thargoids to be added on war zones
when the planet was already full, which caused a crash.

The 30th item in the equipment list wasn't appearing on the screen.
This was usually the tactical nuke.

Tactical Nukes were causing crashes when they detonated.

Tactical nukes were not hitting players when they fired, and weren't
dealing out the right amount of damage.

Features/changes:

Changed all colored text that appeared before entering the game to
high-intensity: much nicer to those who don't like or want color.

A truckload of fixes and two new features is on schedule for release sometime
on Monday evening (EST). 

Here's what's new:


Fixes:

Fixed "sell equipment" bug: on some planets you were offered more for an item
than it sells for.

Sand clouds won't abandon ship.

Don't send "away" notifications to players who broadcast.

Thargoids can no longer "clean" at a police station, and now Independents can.

Asteroids sometimes carried equipment because their slot had been previously in
use and not zeroed out.

Players were still able to shoot other players without having to wait for them
to respond.

Mega laser was often hitting ships that were behind its intended target.

Fixed spacing on status bar to allow room for more credits.

Non-navy players will get a "mission was a success" message if they kill a
Thargoid outpost on planet 0.

Fixed bug that caused crash when 211th ship was added on a planet.


Features:

E-bombed planets should eventually recover and increase in pop/tech.

Players drop "Away" status when they jump.

My success upgrading OpenVMS systems at my new company has emboldened me to do the same with the trusty Galactic Trader VAX. OpenVMS 7.3 has several improvements that would benefit both GT and overall system performance.
Email, Galactic Trader, and Warped MUD will not be available from 1-3 PM November 22 EST.

The Scorched Earth Server is back up! Make sure you check it out!

Welcome to the Gaming Museum!

We have a new look and a new name, but the same old, decrepit games!
Enjoy! Go here to learn more about the webmaster.

I have added a new game, Scorched Earth, to the java Arcade games, and moved Nibbly and Simon to the more appropriate Puzzle area.

R4 goes up at 22:30 (10:30 PM) EDT. Glad to see at least one person
was waiting expectantly for it!

Please- everyone be out by 22:30. Barring any problems (which will be
reported here), r4 will be up by 23:00.

Especially note the changes to the Navy class, and the addition of
player-owned bases.

PLEASE NOTE THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGE: After the update, you will NO
LONGER BE ABLE TO LOG IN AS "GT" TO PLAY. You MUST logon as "REGISTER"
to register (no personal data is collected) and choose a user name and
password. Then you can log in as that user and you will be connected
to your existing character.

Your character should be safe, because the first time you enter the
game YOUR OLD IN-GAME PASSWORD WILL STILL BE IN EFFECT. Enter your old
password there. It will be erased so that you won't be prompted again
next time. All you'll need is the new user name and password you
registered with.

Now, I have to ask that no one try to play as other people's
characters. It's simply not going to work- they're still going to have
a password set in the game. If someone has pulled this trick on you,
send an email to techsupport. If I see that the character
hasn't been played yet, I'll remove the password from that new account
so you can set one.

You might ask, why all the hassle? This change will allow players to
reconnect where they left off in case of a disconnect. If you are
disconnected, when you log in again you'll be asked if you want to
reconnect to your game. Hit enter and you're back. If you don't, you
won't be allowed back in.

Below is the final list of features:


Imperial Navy is now paid the same as Police.

Navy Vessels are assigned based on score/moves. Imperial
vessels are automatically equipped with maximum
armament and fighter complement. Your mission might be to patrol,
attack enemy fighters in a war zone or thargoid planet, or to destroy
an outpost.

Tactical nuke (can be attached to stationary enemy vessels)
Command is "n". You must be next to the vessel to attach it.

Random trading resets even while planet is occupied, because the
presence of player bases is keeping them from resetting.

God-only comm channel 99. Players may not tune to 99.

Fighters move towards and away from their target in order to
take advantage of their size and speed. Moving targets which are
smaller than the enemy are harder to hit.

Cops only appear on Federation planets. Your legal status can only
change to "mild offender" when you visit a Federation planet.

Players can clear legal status by visiting the Police on a planet.
The command is "po".
Players may also put out a bounty on other players at the station.
(sugg of Jeff Imes, aka LRTV,BOOM; and Wildcat/MAXX)

There are now distinct Federation and Thargoid regions of space.
The Federation territory is in planets in the outer rings of quadrant
I, while the Thargoids are in the outer rings of quadrant III.

Starbases can call in reinforcements from the Imperial Navy.

Runaway energy bombs now make planets worthless and uninhabitable.

Added new option to bank menu to accept transfers. Transfers will no
longer be automatic.

Add final cost to "hock" menu, including the trade-in value of your
ship.

Sometimes cops auto assist traders.

Radio remembers last channel used in broadcast

Police no longer honor requests for assistance by Navy vessels.

LSJ only jams police radios, it no longer causes lasers to miss.

New Anaconda and Pileatus class ships.

Pulled up status line for players buying new ship after 'death' so
that they can see how many credits they have.

Sand clouds reduce effectiveness of laser fire when they are
between the attacker and the target. As it was, you were only
protected if the sand cloud was adjacent to your craft.

Once attacked by another player, a player must make a move before
they can be attacked again.

Reformatted STat command to keep long equipment lists from scrolling
off screen.

"Aw" command at MAIN menu for setting your status to 'away'.

Changed control character for messaging to "'" from '@'
so that e-mail addresses may be sent or broadcast.

Allow players to build bases.
- They can board their own bases for free.
- When other players board their bases, they receive the funds via
a money transfer, or "direct deposit" if they are in SU.

Players used to get 3 turns to dock with a vessel demainding boarding
(like a Galpol). This made it too easy to run away, so now if the
player tries to move more than once, the other ship will pursue.

(S)end echoes the message back to the sender.

Added report of free cargo space and number of ships per squad to "c".

Added command to get reports from fleet on their status.
Send "r" to them.

Created Thargoid analog of Federation starbase. The Thargoid Outpost
will appear on Thargoid worlds with sufficient technology.

You can now fire unwanted mercenaries.

Added submenu to mercenary screen so that you can select the ship
type, then the quantity.

Fixed formatting on scanner so that the information lines up.

The debut of Galactic Trader r4 has been delayed until April 15th so that some recently discovered bugs can be fixed.

All of the Java games work again, except SpaceWar, which has been replaced with John Donahue's Lunar Lander; and Poker, which will be replaced at a later date.

The migration from OS/2 to Windows 2000 didn't go smoothly, to say the least. GT and the website are now available. However, the Java games are still down, as most of them didn't make it into the backup (thanks, Novastor). The main reason this whole thing was a mess is because I had some hardware issues (SCSI related) that didn't show up in testing. Warped MUD and the Java telnet applet for Galactic Trader should also be working. If they aren't, please let me know.