clp, 1965-2012

PETERSON, Charles L. ‘Chuck’ Passed away on May 27, 2012 in San Francisco, CA. He was born April 30, 1965 in Sacramento, CA. Charles graduated from Del Campo High School in Fair Oaks, was an Eagle Scout and graduated UC Santa Cruz in 1987 in Computer Sciences. Charles is survived by his parents, Al and Mary Peterson; brothers, Bruce (Deanna), William, Jeff (Kathy); as well as nephews, Alex and Jeffrey and nieces, Samantha, Tiffany and Jacquie. He also leaves several aunts, uncles and many cousins. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, June 23 2012 at 1:00pm at Santa Cruz Memorial Gardens, 1927 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95606.

Published in The Sacramento Bee on June 17, 2012

Game Update (2) 2012

Improved bot logic:

-Bots will ram enemy ships under certain conditions.

-increased overall bot skill level from 5 to 1. (Can be set at 1-5 with 1 being the most skilled)

-Bots overwarp more effectively and more appropriately now.

-Bots now have a much higher chance of landing a mine in combat. They also mine and wide-phaser cloaked ships more accurately and with more phaser power. (previously they only fired 25 power but now they fire a full burst)

-ESI-equipped bots are now less likely to accidentally phaser a starbase/planet.

-Bots will break peace if a juicy target presents itself. They are also more likely to vulture a weakened/injured ship than a full power one.

-When outnumbered or getting defeated, a bot will attempt to flee sooner than previously. Also factors in situational awareness and runs away from potential teams/vultures before fighting if possible.

Game Update (1) 2012

The game server is now 100% operational. (Including the high score list!) Things are pretty much the way they are going to be for a while.

At a glance, the game looks and plays nearly identically to the 90’s mtrek server. Most of the differences are improvements incorporated into the jtrek engine.

Here’s a basic breakdown of the changes you’ll find on this server:

Creating a ship-

You’ll be asked to enter your player name along with your ship name. The player name is used to link all of your ships into one fleet. When exiting the game, you’ll find that all of your saved ships using that player name, are listed on the third page of high scores. It will only display your top 20 ships, sorted by gold. If you’re planning to manage a fleet of more than 20 ship, I’d recommend adding another player name.

You may only choose from the 14 “standard” mtrek ship classes. (II-A, EXCEL, LARSON, DY-600, RBOP, KEV-12, KPB-13, BR-5, BR-1000, CL-13, CV-97, CDA-180, CDA-120) However, any of these may be traded in for additional classes not previously available in mtrek. See the player’s guide and previous Game Server Updates for details.

Miscellaneous devices

Seeker probes and lithium mines load and regenerate in your ship’s inventory the same way buoys do. These aren’t new for jtrek, but they were never part of the 90’s mtrek, so they’re probably worth mentioning.

Delta Quadrant

Again, not new to jtrek, but new to mtrek. You can get there via the spatial anomaly in alpha (object W). Currently, there’s not much to do there aside from looking at assimilated planets and upgrading to an AVG-IX.

I think it was originally meant to be a Borg-infested quad to add a little depth to the solo “player vs bot” play. There’s a lot of distance to cover, getting to the anomaly and the planets are pretty far apart. There’s also nowhere to save off in delta.

Delta will stay on the back burner for a while, but if I ever run out of things to do, I’ll play around with it some and maybe even get it finished up.

Server-side bots

Unlike mtrek of old, this server incorporates AI robot ships that fly around, attack players, attack each other, and generally, give players something to do.

Bots vary in skill level and ship class. Currently, they can be found flying EXCELs, LARSONs, DY-600s, KPB-13s, BR-1000s, CDA-180s, and CDA-120s.

The AI isn’t very good for cloaking ship classes and flys them as if there were no cloak at all. I’m not sure if I could improve upon it any, but cloakers are pretty useless without cloak, so for now, the above (non-cloaking) classes will be the only ones you see.

Finally…

Now that the game server is pretty much sorted out, I can spend some time on the website. Writing documentation is the bane of my existence, but it is a necessary evil.

I know fully well, how frustrating it can be, especially for a new player, when the docs are inaccurate, incomplete, poorly written, or in this case, a combination of all three. I assure you, I will do my best to expand upon them in comprehensive detail, and one day, perhaps, finish them.

-obit