Release notes

ge-next RELEASE NOTES

https://manicpop.org/ge-next https://github.com/manicpop/ge-next

https://github.com/elwynor/elwge https://www.elwynor.com/

https://discord.gg/SqhYmZvWsn anthony@manicpop.org

Please contact me with thoughts and suggestions.

=== 0.3.1 === 2026-06-30:

Cargo size calculation routines were rewritten with separate 16-bit and 32-bit implementations. There were still some overflow issues; should all be fixed now.
The DATA command has been rewritten. See FRONTEND.TXT for more information on how to use this command.
A build specifically for MBBSEmu is now available.

=== 0.3 === 2026-06-16:

ge-next's main executable is now MPOGEMP.DLL and all MBM* filenames have been moved to MPO*. ge-next should now run alongside classic Galactic Empire. There have been significant structural changes starting with 0.3 RC2, previous saved games are not compatible.

The main focus of 0.3 is enhancements for user ships:

A new "overspeed" routine has been implemented that will smoothly degrade a ship's warp engines over time when it is traveling above the recommended cruising speed, instead of cutting speed by half, then half, and so on. The accumulated warp damage is also saved, so drops in cruising speed can't be avoided by lowering speed right before a drop, then raising it again.
A new "negligible" damage string has been added for damage between 0 and 2. Previously this was displayed as "no" damage.
Scans have been overhauled:
SCAN RA (which is a circular scan) has red highlighting showing where the scan doesn't reach.
SCAN RA and SE shows locked on ships, Cybs, non-Cyb NPCs, user ships, planets, and wormholes in different colors.
SCA SE now displays planet distances and bearings in the right area.
Both SCAN RA and SCAN LO have blue highlighting indicating areas that are outside the galaxy boundaries.
SCAN RA can be issued without a range specified, which defaults to full range. 'h' and 'q' can be specified for half and quarter ranges as well. The original 1 through 9 are still available.
SCAN LO can also use 'h' and 'q' ranges.
The = (user ship) takes precedence over the + (NPC) in SCAN LO, so you will always be able to locate user ships.
A locked on ship takes precedence over all other ships in SCAN RA.
Scan accuracy has increased, ships should "line up" better.
The list of ships in SCAN RA will only display ships that are inside your specified scan range.
If your scan range is large enough that a SCAN LO will touch all four corners of the galaxy, you will receive a full galaxy scan properly scaled to the scan window.
There are new options for scans in the SET command, including showing more than 8 ships in a SCAN RA, or displaying just text and no map. See HELP SET for more info.
Color code usage has been optimized, so scans might feel a little "snappier."
Jamming has been overhauled:
Instead of jamming causing scanners not to function, a "jamming effect" will be applied to your scans if you are jammed. The intensity of the jamming effect will be greater the closer you are to the ship that launched the jammer.
Light jamming will interfere with your readouts of ships and planets, heavier jamming might cause them to disappear from your scans completely.
The range of a jammer is now 50,000, and is no longer determined your scanner range.
The duration of a jam is the same for everyone affected by it, only the severity changes.
Torpedoes and missiles will work if you are only lightly jammed (however, if you are only lightly jammed, you are probably not in weapons range of the ship doing the jamming).
NPCs will still get confused by moderate to severe jamming.
Phasers have been overhauled:
In classic GE, the spread of the phaser beam is biased to to the port side. It's now realigned and centered.
In classic GE, even-numbered phaser classes are no more powerful than the previous odd class (e.g. phaser 6 is just as powerful as phaser 5). That missing half step has been added.
The routine that determines phaser damage has reworked with more floating point math. Phaser range is now smoother and no longer "stair steps."
This made the phasers a bit hotter so HPDAMMAX and PDAMMAX defaults have been lowered from 50 to 40.
What is a "hit" and is not has been reworked. Both phasers and hyperphasers now have three ranges, no hit (and no message), hit but no damage, and hit with damage. You will no longer see hyperphaser hit messages for ships way out of range, and you will see messages on 0 damage phaser hits unless they are way out of range. NPCs will react to no damage hits, but not no hits.
If a ship is in the path of your phaser but is protected by the neutral zone, you will get a message. The other ship won't though.
Cloak enhancements:
If a cloaked ship scans you, or you hit a cloaked ship with phasers, you will no longer see the ship's name.
The "ion displacement" messages that help you track a cloaked ship have been limited to two sectors worth of distance.
There is a now a small window after lowering your cloak when you are not able to fire (sorry, ambush fans!).
Missiles now travel more slowly when they carry a larger charge, and speed up as they travel and burn energy. This gives players a reason to actually use different charge levels on the missiles instead of always using the maximum. Close-range combat may benefit from using lightly charged, fast missiles, whereas someone firing from a distance may prefer a heavier charged missile that will be more likely to have an impact when it reaches its destination.
The self-destruct sequence has been changed:
If your shields are up when you self-destruct, you will not damage other ships around you. If you want the explosion to damage other ships, make sure your shields are down.
If the explosion does damage other ships, you will be notified before the death screen.
The size of the explosion you create is now based on your ship's damage factor (DAMF), not the ship class number.
New LOCK behavior:
You will no longer see the "locked onto this ship" message when someone fires at you.
You will see the "locked on this ship" message when a user player uses the LOCK command on you.
When a player is locked onto you, you will not see messages each time that player scans you. You should assume they are watching your every move.
If someone is locked onto you, and you exit or leave that ship's scan area, that player's lock will be cleared.
If you are locked onto a player and they cloak or enter a nebula, the lock will be retained for a while, although you still won't be able to scan or fire on the player. It will eventually clear if the ship doesn't reappear.

Other stuff:

NEBULAS have been added. Certain sectors of the galaxy will now be nebulas. You will need to seek out (or avoid) these sectors as you see fit. Inside a nebula, your scan range is severely limited. You will also be hidden from any ships outside the nebula. Nebulas interfere with scanners, your LOCK system, and torpedoes and missiles. Nebulas do not protect you from phasers or mines (but make it much harder for someone to target you with them). Nebulas are a good place to hide, but you won't have any idea what's going on outside (or who might be following you in). Planets and wormholes can exist in nebulas like any other sector, but you will have to search for them. The positions of nebulas are determined by a random seed generated the first time a new game is loaded, so they will be different in every ge-next instance. Nebula frequency can be adjusted (or turned off) by the admin.
SHIP UPGRADES have been added. Use HELP UPGRADE for more info. Go to Zygor and use NEW UPGRADE to see what upgrades are available for your class of ship (not all upgrades are applicable for all ships). For 0.3, all upgrades will be available at Zygor. In future versions, some upgrades will be found in other places or require certain conditions to unlock.
The list of ships presented at the start of the game will now show 15 ships, and if you have more than 15, you can use 'n' and 'p' to scroll through the pages of ships. This fixes a memory error where long lists of ships were overflowing into other users' memory areas, causing people to not be able to select ships if more than one user was in the menu at one time. It's been tested with up to 60 ships. Max configurable ships is now 60, the default has been changed to 45.
A bug that caused that invalid planet data to show if the planet database has reached its limit (MAXPLREC) has beed addressed.
Ship letters showing up as '?' should be completely fixed. There were a multitude of reasons this was happening, but they should all be corrected now.
You can no longer jettison men, troops, or spies.
The all-powerful SYSOP level (20) of phasers and shields has been removed.
The random damage routine that determines if ship systems are damaged after a hit has been reworked to include more ship systems, and can also result in loss to onboard items. Mine and ion cannon damage can now also trigger this routine.
The amount of time a damaged system will stay damaged has been lowered, but all ship systems (other than shields) will now only be repaired one at a time.
Total kills by a user and total kills in a particular ship are now tracked separately, and user-on-user kills are tracked separately from all others. More opportunties for bragging rights.
A player's total amount of planets as shown in the roster will now update automatically any time a planet is added, abandoned, or lost to an attack or revolt. You will no longer have to wait until the next day for the correct count.
The planet command will now list your first 20 planets. "PLANET 2" will list 21-40, and so on.
The "captured document" feature (SHOWDOC), which will occasionally display a list of planets owned by a user when their ship is destroyed to the winner, has been changed from a compile-time option to a MSG-configurable option. SHOWDOC can be set from 0 (never) to 10 (always). The default is the same as classic GE. It will now also assemble the list at random instead of always showing the first 20 planets, but still display 20 planets max.
The roster command will now report your current roster position (no longer just updated once a day). It's been removed from REP SYS.
There are new bonuses for user-on-user kills. You will receive bonuses for taking out players with a higher score, as well as for taking out a ship significantly more powerful than your own. There will be a slight deduction from your points awarded (not your total score) if you take out a significantly less powerful ship.
Projectile message batching: If multiple torpedoes or missiles are tracking you, the "tracking" message will list the amount. If multiple torpedoes or missiles hit you on the same tick, you will receive one message saying how many projectiles hit and the combined, total amount of damage they all caused.
If you are trying to fire torpedoes or missiles on a player, and you can't because another player (or NPC)'s projectiles are filling the slots, it will tell you who else is firing on this ship.
You can no longer bait a Cyb into pursuing you by attempting to fire projectiles at it when you are out of weapons range.
You CAN now bait a Cyb into pursuing you (if it's idle) by using the LOCK command on it.
Mines have been given an overall damage boost. Overall "blast range" is still one sector, but the damage falloff has been lessened so the radius of actual damage is bigger. Mine time is also displayed in real seconds, however they are still set in six-second ticks as before.
Higher warp speeds now use more flux. Stock up on pods.
Impulse now uses 1 flux unit per tick. Ships now "background charge" flux twice as fast so that impluse is "free." You can no longer cruise at warp 1 with no flux.
Instead of a "yes/no" for torpedo and missile capability, ships now have from 0 to 3 torpedo and missile launchers and a small reload delay. Ships can fire up to that many projectiles before having to wait a few seconds for the launchers to reload.
Several tweaks have been made to Cybertrons to make them less predictable and more formidable.
If you destroy a ship and there aren't other ships in weapons range, your "can't exit" timer is significantly reduced.
Ineffective phaser hits now apply a reduced "can't exit" timer value.
You will no longer lose your ship if your "can't exit" timer is set when the board shuts down for midnight cleanup. Good news for insomniac ge-next players.
A number of things were addressed regarding teams:
Team member lists and counts are built in real time instead of at cleanup so they should always be current. TEAM START, TEAM JOIN, TEAM UNJOIN, and TEAM KICK all update immediately.
Team scores are calculated in real time so they should always be current.
Empty teams are removed immediately but their teamcodes are saved in the DB so they can't be reused (which was potentially exploitable).
If you're on a team you have to UNJOIN before you can join a different team.
Team names must be at least five characters long and start with a letter.
If a planet is set to "team" for a password and that team ceases to exist, the planet will return to having no password.
You can no longer damage a teammate with phaser fire unless you LOCK onto them first (same behavior as NPCs in distress).
Planet beacon messages can now be seen if you are within 1000 of a planet and not at warp. You no longer have to scan the planet first to see it, and it will be send out at regular intervals, not random.
The notification when a ship in the same sector as you exits has been removed, since there's a game-wide notification now.
You'll get an "appeared in the sector" message now if someone decloaks in the same sector as you or enters the same sector as you from a a wormhole.
The SEND command has been overhauled and the FREQ command removed. You can now specify between messages that go to everyone, only to team members, or only between players tuned to a specific frequency. You can use SEND FREQ to set the frequency.
You can also now just type '>' in place of SEND A; this should chatting in-game much easier.
The ALWAYS/FILTER display message filters in SET have been reworked to give you much more control over the types of messages shown. Everything is on by default for new players.
One new feature that may be helpful in busy games is the new "display entry reduced" option. Setting this to reduced will cause only entrances in your scan range to be shown immediately, while all other entrance messages are delayed for 30 seconds. If the entrant exits before the entry message is shown, you never see the entry or exit message. This is not on by default, but if you're in a game where players do a lot of quick enter and exit, it can help filter out a lot of it.
Maintenance has been overhauled. Repair time is now shown in real world seconds instead of "centocks." Also, ship systems are repaired one by one as maintenance progresses, instead of being fixed all at once during the final maintenance tick.
Ship names are now optional. Ships with no names will display as "username's ship" instead of " <NO NAME> ".
Cybertron generation/loading has been overhauled. The routine will now delete Cyb records that are invalid or are not the expected class. That means admins can now change the amount of Cybertron ships that spawn in each class without resetting the game. Any saved Cyb records that will no longer be loaded or are saved in a slot that now belongs to a different class will be deleted automatically.

=== 0.2.6 === 2025-08-15

You can now only zip or jam once per cycle, so players aren't able to spam each other's screens.
You can now use "-" before an amount with the TRANSFER command, to transfer all but that amount.
Fixed a legacy GE bug regarding ion cannons. Ion cannons will now fire on you until you are 1000 away from the planet you attacked, which was the intended behavior.
Cybs that are heavily damaged won't pick new pursuits. (Cybs were occasionally picking new pursuits and then fleeing before they even reached their target.)
Unless something unexpected comes up, this will be the last release of the 0.2 series.

=== 0.2.5 === 2025-08-05:

Transferring items down to a planet in the neutral zone is no longer allowed (it can cause the item count on the planet to overflow and break).
Resolved a really odd legacy GE bug that caused gravity and orbiting planets to not function for a user if another user scanned in the same sector in certain circumstances.

=== 0.2.4 === 2025-07-31:

Some things planned for version 0.3 were fast tracked due to popular demand:

Torpedoes and missiles will not follow you through a wormhole. (This was actually supposed to fixed in classic 3.2d, but a small oversight kept it from working properly.)
Jamming will be cleared when traveling through a wormhole.
Non-Cyb NPCs could fire torpedoes from within 0 0 -- fixed.
The amount of time your helm can be damaged has been capped to eight cycles, so ships won't be sitting ducks for minutes and minutes. The "random damage" routine will be reworked in 0.3, but this is a quick, if hacky, fix.
Torpedoes and missiles will no longer follow you into sector 0 0; the Enforcer Planet will shoot them down.
The "decoy self-destructed" message will no longer print multiple messages at once.
You can exit the game at any time when you are in sector 0 0, unless you have incoming torpedoes or missiles. Of course, if you stay in 0 0 long enough, they'll go away.

=== 0.2.3 === 2025-07-21:

A bug with the HELP command introduced in 0.2.2 is resolved.
A new ship selection screen is a little neater and also displays information about your ships.
2x, 4x, 8x, and Base Cybs were given a small damage factor boost.
4x and 8x get a small boost in points, Base increased to 30000 to make it actually worth the time to take one out. (Congrats to Mlacko for being the first person, myself included, to defeat a ge-next Cyber-base!)
8x acceleration reduced to make it a little more lumbering.
4x and 8x ships will immediately raise shields upon dropping to impulse. (1x and 2x still have a little window.)
Some changes were made to the Cybertron flee routine to make them react a little quicker and be a little smarter about how they try to get away.
Cybs will no longer "talk trash" if they're fleeing or about to flee (this sometimes resulted in two messages in quick succession).
Cybs should be smarter about how and when they use zippers.
Cybs will now sometimes circle around a ship firing missiles at it to outrun them instead of completely retreating.
Cybs will no longer pick up food cases when destroying a ship.
An issue with torpedoes fired at a Cyb not going away when the Cyb goes to warp under certain circumstances has been resolved.

=== 0.2.2 === 2025-06-30:

A bug that caused planetary updates to not happen under certain conditions has been resolved.
A bug that showed "invalid pointer" when a ship is destroyed when the user is disconnected while in battle has been resolved.
The "ion field displacement" message has been moved from the impulse command to the moveship routine. This will keep one user from being able to flood another user's screen with messages by entering multiple impulse commands.
The text alignment for the "planet" command has been cleaned up.
A "help version" command was added by request.

=== 0.2.1 === 2025-06-27:

A few non-gameplay related issues were addressed:

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.

=== 0.2 === 2025-06-19:

The main focus of 0.2 is NPC behavior:

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.

Other stuff:

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.

=== 0.1.1 === 2024-09-30:

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.

=== 0.1 ===

Welcome to the first release of ge-next built from source. ge-next 0.1 WILL REQUIRE A GAME RESET.

PLANETS:

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 MBMGEMSG.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 existing 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.

ITEMS:

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.

NAVIGATION:

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.

REPORTS:

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.

SCANS:

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.

SYSOP/ADMIN:

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.

COMBAT:

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.

MISC:

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 announcements 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.

COMING IN FUTURE VERSIONS:

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

=== 0.09 === 2024-09-06:

Version 0.09 is not for release and is the initial publication of source code to Github. The release version will be 0.1.

=== 0.02 === 2024-09-05:

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.

=== 0.01 ===:

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 ;)