2025-06-27: ge-next 0.2.1 for 16-bit MajorBBS is now available. Eventually I'll make a website for it.
ge-next RELEASE NOTES
ge-next is an updated and expanded version of the classic Galactic Empire by Mike Murdock.
https://manicpop.org/ge-next https://github.com/manicpop/ge-next
https://discord.gg/SqhYmZvWsn anthony@manicpop.org
Please contact with me thoughts and suggestions.
* A text bug in the message displayed if your ship is too full to pick up any items from a ship you destroyed was fixed.
* The "scanners are jammed" message is now only displayed if you are close enough to the jamming to be affected by it.
* SDDs were too chatty... now they only send messages to you if you are close.
* A legacy Galactic Empire bug that keeps Cybs from pursuing you if you are the only player logged in has been resolved.
* A legacy Galactic Empire bug that caused too many of certain classes of Cybertrons to be created, causing other NPC classes to never be created, has been resolved.
* The options NUMSHIPS and MAXDROIDS have been removed, as well as the routine to create to random classes of NPCs to fill the game up to the amount of NUMSHIPS. The game will create only the amount of NPCs you specify with the MAKE options, and allocates memory for only that amount.
* Four new Cybertron classes replace the Cybertrons and Cyberquads: the Cyber-Interceptor, Cyber-Destroyer, Cyber-Cruiser, and Cyber-Dreadnought. The Cyber-Base is still around.
* New non-Cyb NPCs (droids) have been added, and existing ones reworked.
* Some non-Cybertron NPCs will send a distress message if they are being attacked by Cybertrons or users. If you destroy their attacker, you will receive bonus points. They will also remember you helped them and treat you accordingly in the future.
* While an NPC is in distress, you won't be able to hit it with phasers (unless you're the attacker), so that you don't actually take out the ship you're trying to protect. If you want to attack the ship instead of rescuing it, setting your weapons lock to that ship will override this behavior.
* NPC numbering has been reworked. All Cybertrons are all named "Cybertron IxNNNN" where I is the class of Cybertron (higher number, more powerful) and NNNN is identifying number.
* The Cybertrons now are assigned random shield and phaser classes, between 50 and 100% of the max specified in the configuration file.
* Cybertrons will pursue other NPCs if their CATK and NATK values are set that way (and users are in the game to see it).
* Faction codes: New to the ship configuration is the faction code. Users should always be set to 0, which will allow them to fire on anyone. Cybertrons should always be set to 1, and other NPCs have different codes. Faction codes higher than 0 can't damage other ships with the same code, which will keep Cybertrons from destroying each other with phasers if they are lined up in pursuit.
* Non-Cybertron factions will remember if you have attacked them and will respond accordingly in future encounters. Something to think about before destroying that NPC minding its own business.
* Loadout codes: Also new is the loadout code, which is used to identify the various classes of droid ships, so that droids can be added, removed, renamed, etc. This code will also be used for optional upgrades for user ships (coming soon).
* Cybertrons with a 0 acceleration rate (by default, only the Cyber-Base) are now excluded from any routines that involve pursuing other ships. This should fix several legacy bugs related to the Bases moving when they shouldn't.
* When entering the game or traveling through a wormhole, all current Cybertron pursuits for that player are dropped and the closest new ones are picked. This means when you enter the game, the closest Cybertrons to your position are dispatched, and when you go through a wormhole, the Cybertrons pursuing you will forget about you and the ones closest to your new location will pursue. If you destroy a Cybertron pursuing you or it gives up on you, the previous (somewhat) random behavior will still be used to pick a new pursuer. A new sysop command, SYS ASSIGNCYBS, can be used to trigger this behavior as well.
* The amount of gold on a Cybertron is still random, but it is now skewed toward larger amounts on bigger Cybertrons and smaller amounts on smaller ones.
* Cybertrons will now carry, and can use, zippers and missiles if they are configured to do so.
* The CYBNEW/DROIDNEW messages now display the actual bearing if the new ship is out of the player's scanner range, and the sector if within range. Thanks Dave Walton for the idea.
* The toughness level of Cybertrons has expanded to 0 through 4, corresponding to the five classes of Cybertron ships.
* CYBWHOOPS (the ability for a Cybertron to be prone to failure) has been removed in favor of the new toughness levels and random shield and phaser levels.
* GE_BE_NICE and GE_BE_EASY, the values that made the Cybertrons easier until you accumulated a certain number of kills, have also been removed in favor of these new levels.
* NPCs can no longer travel at above their maximum specified warp (except for Cybertrons in pursuit) or travel at fractional (non-integer) warp values.
* Cybertrons in long-range pursuit (the "hyperwarp" mode) will now show "??.??" for their speed when traveling at this speed, then immediately snap into a "normal" speed when reaching their destination.
* A new planet scanning and updating routine, which should ensure that all planets are updated the same amount of times every day. It's more efficient than the old routine so it should be able to handle even very large, long running games. Also, if updates are missed (due to downtime, etc.), it will catch the planets up, up to a week out.
* A new ordnance report was added (REP ORD). This will list all incoming and outgoing projectiles as well as display how any mines and decoys you have deployed.
* The ship you have locked onto will be displayed with red highlights in the range scans and ordnance reports.
* Ships in distress will have green highlights.
* The Sysop ship was removed. "Hidden" ships might return in future versions.
* A bug that sometimes showed the wrong defaults in the planetary administration menu has been resolved.
* A bug that sometimes showed the wrong ship name in messages regarding decoys and cloaking has been resolved.
* If a ship bounces off the galactic perimeter, the size of the bounce backwards is now determined by the speed the ship is traveling when it hits. Ships will no longer be doubly damaged if they hit a corner (that is, cross the X boundary and Y boundary at the same time), but will be bounced in both directions. The ship will also be pointed directly toward sector 0 0 after the bounce. This should keep NPCs from destroying themselves by repeatedly running into the barrier.
* If you destroy another ship while you are low on space, gold is now prioritized, and you will collect as much as you can hold. You will also now collect the entire amount of gold (space permitting) from the ship you destroyed (all other items remain a random amount between 20% and 100% of the ship's contents).
* Damage factors (DAMF) have been set for each ship to make the larger and/or more powerful ones more difficult to damage.
* A phaser's effective damage is now factored by the DAMF value of the ship. The size (cargo capacity) of the ship is no longer part of the equation, bringing it into line with all other forms of damage. This should keep freighters from being nearly impossible to damage with phasers.
* A STOP command has been added, which can bring the ship to a complete stop even if the helm is damaged. If the helm isn't damaged, it's the same as entering WARP 0 or IMPULSE 0.
* If you accidentally issue the maintenance command while maintenance is in progress, you will be notified and not charged a second time.
* There is now an message shown to all users when a player exits.
* A WHO command was added (well, changed) to show a list of users online.
* The way missiles function has been changed. You can no longer "shake off" missiles, but you can outrun them. If you get far enough away from a missile, it will lose its lockon (you can use the new REP ORD to see their distance from you). Also, missiles' energy now decrease over time, so they will eventually run out of energy and sputter out. Missiles can now be charged between 2000 and 20000, drain your ship's flux by that complete amount, and the speed and maximum damage of missiles have both been increased to compensate for these changes (20000 is equivalent damage to 50000 in GE classic). Also, a default of 5000 is now used if you don't specify an amount.
* When torpedoes or missiles fail to reach their target, the user is now notified.
* Several legacy bugs that allowed a ship's flux pile to roll over and go negative when out of flux pods have been fixed.
* "ALL" now works with the ATTACK command.
* Firing a phaser and not hitting anyone, getting hit by phaser with 0 damage, unsuccessfully attempting to fire torpedoes or missiles, or being the target of such an unsuccessful attempt will not set your "can't exit" timer.
* If torpedoes or missiles are locked onto you, this WILL set your "can't exit" timer.
Some silly bugs involving the sell command, wrong degrees showing, absolute rotation not working with warp command, and a few other things fixed.
printmap and printmapfull use color codes more efficiently.
Welcome to the first release of ge-next built from source.
ge-next 0.1 WILL REQUIRE A GAME RESET.
* All ships can now attack with troops. Attacking with fighters remains limited to certain classes of ships only.
* Men now eat every planetary cycle as troops do, which didn't happen in GE classic although it was apparently the intended behavior. This obviously changes the amount of food that planet owners need to grow. You can set MENEAT in MBMGEMS.MSG to NO to revert to the Galactic Empire 3.2e behavior.
* Default rate of food production raised by 1.5x since men are eating now.
* If you reach the planetary maximum on an item, you will stop getting messages that you've reached the maximum once you set production for that item to 0.
* Planetary cash and tax are capped at 4,294,967,295 and can no longer overflow.
* When ADMINing a planet for the first time, all items automatically have their price set to base prices.
* When ADMINing a planet that has been previously owned and abandoned, the exisiting settings are kept.
* When editing an item on the admin screen, it will show you the existing value and you can now press enter to keep the current value.
* The BUY, SELL, and TRANSFER commands now take "ALL" and "MAX" as arguments in addition to numerical amounts. "ALL" is for all onboard or on a planet, whereas "MAX" will fill your ship.
* The TRANSFER command now lets you specify "u" or "d" instead of typing out "up" or "down."
* The PRICE command now properly shows the base price of an item when you own the planet.
* The PRICE command will tell you the price of the specified amount of items even if you can't hold that many.
* Several checks and improvements to how large amounts of items and weights are handled and displayed.
* You can now use absolute rotation (@) with the WARP and IMPULSE commands.
* If your ship is in the process of rotating, and you enter a warp or impulse command without a heading change, the rotation in process will continue.
* The acceleration routine has been modified to work with ships with acceleration rates under 1000 (e.g. Planetary Transport).
* Helm will announce the new sector when you go through a wormhole or use SYS GOTO.
* Bug that showed "helm is damaged" (when it's not) if entering an invalid degree value with the WARP command fixed.
* Orbit planet message will not try to display the name of an unnamed planet.
* Your ship name will now display in messages such as the "entering hyperspace" message.
* If you try to rotate to a heading that you are already heading, the helm will report you're already heading that heading.
* All reports have been cleaned up with proper spacing and alignment.
* Ships without phasers or shields don't list them in reports.
* Warp engine damage, fire control damage, and phaser damage now listed in REP SYS.
* For planets, the population for planets you don't own is now represented as thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, etc.
* Mine stockpile size is shown instead of food.
* If you are orbiting an unowned planet, the scan will show the entire inventory just like it does when you own it.
* The amounts that are considered moderate and large stockpiles were raised.
* No registration number required, feel free to enter any eight-digit number for the REGNO. All registration/security checks removed.
* New sysop command: SYS MULTIPLY -- run planetary cycle for planet you are orbiting, up to 50 times.
* New sysop command: SYS ORBIT -- orbit planet in current sector even if you're not next to it.
* New sysop command: SYS MIDNIGHT -- run midnight routine, for debugging only.
* The option to use BBS e-mail as opposed to the in-game message system has been removed.
* The default for option MAXPLSE, the maximum amount of planets in a sector, was 5 but only created four planets maximum. This has been fixed, and the default lowered to 4 to make it effectively what it was before.
* Cleaned up the sysop commands and moved the messages from them into the MSG files. You still can't view the help for them if you don't have access.
* Streamlined the messages in the MSG files and remove unused and redundant messages.
* If phasers are damaged, hyperphasers are also inoperable.
* If phasers are damaged and you try to use them, a message will now be displayed indicating they are damaged instead of just saying they have insufficient power.
* If you have enough torpedoes, mines, etc. deployed that you can't deploy any more, the error message will now tell you what the maximum is.
* A brand new, much more readable, HELP CLASS screen.
* SCANNAMES and SCANFULL settings are now ON by default when a new player enters. They can still be turned off.
* Cash is now displayed as unsigned, meaning cash can be a value of up to 4,294,967,295. The SELL command, NEW command, cash awarded after user kill, and tax collection from a planet now all have checks to make sure you don't exceed this amount.
* If you've been traveling over the recommended warp speed long enough that your top speed has been lowered, and you change speed, you're now only lowered to the new top speed if you choose a speed over the new top speed.
* Roster cleaned up and re-spaced so huge population values won't explode the columns. "ROS ALL" now also shows users with 0 score.
* You can now enter "x" at the ship selection screen to go back to the main menu in case you decide you don't want to play after all.
* Cleaned up how the galactic perimeter is established. You can now travel all the way to (default) 300 300, you are only bounced back after trying to pass that. If you have wraparound on, it now wraps to the correct sector (e.g. 300 to -300).
* Changed the CYBNEW and DROIDNEW announcments to show the sector of the newly created ship, as opposed to the (fake) bearing.
* Changed "spy" to be "spies" so it's plural like all other items. Also changed the amount of letters you have to use to buy/sell/ transfer spies to two, so you can now enter or "spy" or "spies."
* If you are damaged by the enforcer planet or the galactic boundary, the message will display the actual level of damage applied.
* New bad guys and improved behavior
* Refinements to planetary attack
* Refinements to planetary item production
* Refinements to combat
* New capabilities for owned planets that can be purchased with planet cash (e.g. remote administration)
* Lots of item balancing to keep long running games competitive
* Much, much more
Version 0.09 is not for release and is the initial publication of source code to Github. The release version will be 0.1.
Version 0.02 released. This fixes some color bugs in the admin screen. This will probably be the last release before 0.1, which will be the first version compiled from source.
As of now, ge-next is simply a drop-in replacement of configuration files that run on a standard installation of Galactic Empire 3.2e. Future versions will be compiled from source and contain bugfixes, optimizations, quality of life improvements, and new features.
Please take a look at what's new and share your feedback.
What's new:
A brand new collection of user ships, 16 in total. I've tried to make each ship unique and useful, and to have interesting options for both players who are starting out and players that have accumulated loads of cash. (I have not reworked the Cybertrons yet, but that's coming.)
A complete reworking of the game messages and color codes for a more uniform appearance. All messages have explicitly set color codes which will prevent the text fading and other color bugs in the original. Spelling and punctuation fixes. Messages from the ship are labeled "ERROR," "CAUTION," and "WARNING!" as appropriate. (The helm officer has retired.)
A new game instruction screen and backstory, setting this game 30 years beyond the original. Future versions of ge-next will expand the backstory a bit.
Reformatted and updated all the help screens, including the HELP CLASS xx screens for each user ship type. A lot of the help screens in 3.2e had outdated information that changed during the game's development, so I did a bit of rewriting but tried not to stray too much from the original.
Slightly lowered shield and phaser prices so they would all fit under the 200m limit, and updated HELP NEWPRICE to match.
Other little tweaks ;)