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Set command

From Galactic Empire wiki

The SET command changes display preferences stored in the player's persistent user record. Classic Galactic Empire provides four independent on/off options. ge-next replaces those switches with a scan-display mode and category-specific message filters.

Enter SET ? in either version to display the current settings.

Classic Galactic Empire

Classic uses this syntax: 

SET option ON
SET option OFF
SET ?

The four options are:

Option Effect
SCANNAMES Adds ship names to full range-scan contact listings. It has no visible effect unless SCANFULL is also on.
SCANHOME Sends the ANSI cursor-home function before a range, sector, or long-range scan, causing the new scan to begin at the top of the terminal screen.
SCANFULL Uses the full range-scan layout: the map remains on the left while a textual ship list appears on the right.
FILTER Suppresses messages that the source code classifies as FILTER. Messages classified as ALWAYS are still displayed.

Examples: 

SET SCANFULL ON
SET SCANNAMES ON
SET FILTER OFF
SET ?

Classic scan options

With SCANFULL off, a range scan shows only the graphical map. Turning it on adds the ship-contact list. Classic sector and long-range scans remain map-only regardless of this setting. SCANNAMES adds a second line containing the ship's name below each ship entry in a full range scan. Because the map has a fixed height, using names reduces the number of contacts that fit beside it.

SCANHOME exists to make repeated scans resemble an updating display on an ANSI terminal. It moves the cursor to the home position before drawing the next scan; it does not alter scanner range, contact detection, or the underlying scan results.

The three settings are independent Boolean values. For example, SCANNAMES ON can be saved while SCANFULL is off, but names will not become visible until the full layout is enabled.

Classic message filter

Classic help says that FILTER “filters out 80% of the battle messages.” This is a description of the approximate result, not the algorithm. The game does not randomly discard four messages out of five.

Every output call is assigned one of two broad classes:

  • ALWAYS messages are delivered regardless of the option.
  • FILTER messages are delivered when the option is off and discarded when it is on.

Examples of FILTER output include the notice sent to a ship when another player scans it, the “Hyper-phaser fired” confirmation, torpedo and missile launch confirmations, and the notice that a ship has finished turning. Thus, FILTER ON can hide feedback about the player's own actions, not just messages about other ships.

This is a coarse mechanism. A player cannot independently keep user hails while hiding Cybertron taunts, or keep important approach reports while hiding less useful background activity. Whether a message is suppressed depends on which class its particular source-code call site passes to the output routine; it is not a semantic category system. Even two messages arising from the same command may have different classes. Classic also has a shared-buffer bug: one recipient with FILTER ON can inadvertently suppress a filtered broadcast for later user slots.

ge-next

ge-next uses two groups of settings: 

SET SCAN mode
SET DISPLAY category setting
SET ?

A newly created ge-next user starts with FULLNAMES scan output and with all display-message categories enabled.

Scan display modes

SET SCAN replaces classic's separate SCANFULL and SCANNAMES switches with one mutually exclusive mode:

Mode Range scan Sector scan
SIMPLE Graphical map only Graphical map only
FULL Map plus a contact list Map plus a planet list
FULLNAMES Full display with ship names on additional lines Same sector display as FULL
FULLEXTRA Full named display, with contacts that do not fit beside the map continued below it Same sector display as FULL
NOMAP Textual contact columns without the graphical map Textual planet information without the graphical map

Examples: 

SET SCAN SIMPLE
SET SCAN FULLEXTRA
SET SCAN NOMAP

FULLEXTRA addresses a limitation of the classic full display: ship names consume an extra output line, so only a limited number of named contacts fit alongside the fixed-height map. ge-next continues the remaining contacts below the map rather than silently omitting them from the textual list. NOMAP is useful to screen readers, narrow clients, and frontends that prefer a compact textual listing.

Classic's SCANHOME setting has no direct ge-next equivalent. ge-next prints each scan as ordinary terminal output rather than treating cursor-home redraws as a player preference.

Display categories

ge-next replaces the single classic FILTER switch with independently controlled categories:

Category Settings Effect
CYBS ON, BATTLE, APPROACH, OFF Controls Cybertron hails at four detail levels. ON includes all messages and taunts. BATTLE keeps battle and approach messages. APPROACH keeps only messages from Cybertrons tracking and approaching the player. OFF hides the category.
DISTRESS ON, OFF Controls distress messages from non-Cybertron ships.
BEACON ON, OFF Controls beacon messages from ships and planets.
HAIL ON, OFF Controls public player hails sent with > or SEND ALL. Team and encoded messages are not filtered.
ENTRY ON, REDUCED, OFF Controls player entry and departure announcements.
SHIP ON, OFF Controls noncritical ship-function notices, such as routine flux reload and sector-change activity.

Examples: 

SET DISPLAY CYBS BATTLE
SET DISPLAY ENTRY REDUCED
SET DISPLAY HAIL OFF
SET DISPLAY SHIP ON

The settings affect only messages explicitly assigned to their category. Critical warnings, direct command responses, and other unfiltered output continue to appear.

The HAIL filter applies only to public player messages sent with > or SEND ALL. After SET DISPLAY HAIL OFF, the player no longer receives those public hails. Team messages are always delivered to eligible members of the sender's team, and encoded messages are always delivered to eligible ships tuned to the sender's frequency. A player who does not want encoded traffic can leave the ship's frequency set to zero.

The sender is excluded from the broadcast and receives the usual “message sent” confirmation regardless of how recipients have configured their filters. The sender is not told that a particular recipient suppressed the hail.

This setting follows the internal message category, not the wording displayed on screen. Cybertron hails are governed by CYBS, distress messages by DISTRESS, and beacons by BEACON. Other output described as a “Hailing message,” including Enforcer Planet announcements in ge-arena, is not necessarily a user HAIL message and is not hidden by this setting.

Reduced entry messages

SET DISPLAY ENTRY REDUCED is intended for busy games where users frequently enter and immediately leave. An entrant in the player's scan range is announced immediately. Other entry announcements are held for 30 seconds. If the entrant remains in the game, the delayed announcement is shown; if the entrant leaves before the delay expires, neither the entry nor its corresponding departure is shown to that player.

This gives more useful context than classic's binary filter while suppressing brief login/logout noise.

Storage

The scan mode occupies one byte in the persistent user options. The six display categories are encoded as independent bits or bit groups in a second byte. Packing the filters this way preserves the compact user record while allowing substantially more combinations than classic's single Boolean filter.

The setting names are the player-facing interface; frontend software should not depend on the underlying bit values. A frontend using the ge-next DATA command can request DATA MSG to obtain the unpacked message-filter settings.

Frontend metadata

When a frontend enables DATA METADATA, message framing is applied after the player's display filters. A suppressed message produces neither visible text nor metadata markers. Team and encoded messages are not subject to the HAIL filter, but retain user-hail metadata type 5; unfiltered catchall output (type 8) is never framed. See Data command for the metadata protocol.

ge-arena

ge-arena uses the same scan modes and the same underlying message-filter byte. SET is allowed in the arena lobby as well as during a match, and the user record is loaded before the lobby so changes remain persistent.

The arena interface omits the DISTRESS, BEACON, and ENTRY settings because those ge-next message categories are not used in the same way by arena play. CYBS, HAIL, and SHIP remain configurable. The unused fields still exist in the shared user-record format; ge-arena simply does not offer commands that change them.

During a match, public player hails use the regular SEND path and obey SET DISPLAY HAIL; team and encoded traffic does not. The arena lobby's one-line > chat uses a separate lobby broadcast and is always shown regardless of the HAIL setting.

Summary of differences

Area Classic GE ge-next
Scan configuration Three independent Boolean switches One of five explicit display modes
Named full scans Names can reduce how many listed contacts fit beside the map FULLEXTRA continues additional contacts below the map
Text-only scan Not available NOMAP
Cursor-home redraw Optional through SCANHOME No corresponding SET option
Message filtering One broad FILTER on/off switch Six independently controlled categories
Partial filtering Not available Cybertron and entry messages have intermediate levels
New-user scan default Boolean option combination FULLNAMES
Frontend access Raw option values appear in classic DATA output DATA MSG returns documented, unpacked settings

See also

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