Sys command

The SYS command provides privileged diagnostic and administrative controls from inside Galactic Empire. These are not normal gameplay commands: many of them bypass prices, cargo capacity, travel, proximity, or ship-class restrictions, and some can deliberately place game records into combinations that normal play could never produce.

Classic GE describes the commands as debugging aids and warns that they can give a player a distinct advantage. A production game should therefore limit them to trusted administrators.

Syntax

SYS HELP
SYS subcommand [arguments]

SYS HELP displays the subcommands documented by the installed version. ge-next also makes the same text available through HELP SYS, but only to a user who is authorized to use SYS.

Access control

Three configuration settings govern access:

SYSCMDS: Enables or disables the command as a whole.
SYSONLY: When enabled, restricts the command to users who pass the board's sysop authorization test. Turning it off makes these powerful commands available to ordinary players and is not recommended.
SYSKEY: On MajorBBS 6.x and later systems, identifies the key required for SYS access. It defaults to SYSOP, but an administrator can define a dedicated key such as GEOP and give it to selected game operators. MajorBBS 5.x builds instead test the account's built-in sysop flag.

Authorization is checked before any subcommand is interpreted. Classic GE responds Huh? if SYS is disabled or the user is unauthorized; it also uses that response for an unrecognized SYS subcommand. ge-next instead returns its ordinary invalid-command message for disabled or unauthorized SYS use, making it look like an actual invalid game command rather than acknowledging a special command.

Classic subcommands

These are the active SYS subcommands in classic GE 3.2e. All remain available in standard ge-next, with the noted changes. There are no active classic-only SYS subcommands in this version; old Cybertron test branches in the classic source are compiled out.

Syntax	Effect
`SYS HELP`	Displays the available SYS commands.
`SYS GET [amount] [item]`	Adds the requested item directly to the current ship. It does not enforce cargo capacity, purchase price, or normal acquisition rules.
`SYS KILL [user]`	Sets every matching active ship above the destruction threshold. Destruction then proceeds through the game's normal ship-destruction processing.
`SYS CASH [amount]`	Changes the current user's cash. Classic requires an amount and adds it directly. ge-next permits a negative amount to remove cash without going below zero, prevents overflow, and fills cash to its supported maximum when the amount is omitted.
`SYS GOTO [x] [y]`	Teleports the current ship to the center of the specified sector and clears its hostility timer. ge-next validates both positive and negative coordinates against the actual galaxy radius; classic's one-sided test can accept invalid negative coordinates and rejects the positive outer edge.
`SYS CLASS [number]`	Changes the current ship's class and top speed. It does not construct a new ship or automatically reconcile every existing system and inventory value with the new class. ge-next also rejects disabled or invalid class entries.
`SYS SHIELDTYPE [number]`	Directly changes the installed shield class. ge-next rejects negative values.
`SYS PHASERTYPE [number]`	Directly changes the installed phaser class. ge-next rejects negative values.
`SYS MAINT`	Classic starts its special fast-maintenance path and immediately performs a repair pass. ge-next starts ordinary timed maintenance without requiring planetary orbit, but still refuses while the ship's combat timer is active.
`SYS UNJAM`	Removes the current ship's jamming effect immediately. ge-next clears its separate jamming-severity and duration fields.
`SYS LIST [number]`	Displays as many as 50 occupied live-ship slots, beginning at the optional slot number. Classic shows channel, identity, sector, damage, update tick, and Cybertron target. ge-next adds course-control, Cybertron-update, and last-attacker state useful for debugging combat and NPC behavior.
`SYS CLASSLIST`	Lists the loaded ship classes and selected NPC-allocation fields, including whether Cybertrons may attack the class and its configured pursuit count.
`SYS CYBPAUSE [seconds]`	Suspends Cybertron processing for the specified number of seconds.

Classic SYS MAINT has several rough edges. It prints the normal maintenance-start message, whose %d centock placeholder expects a repair-time argument, but this call supplies none; the displayed number is therefore undefined stack data, not a real estimate. The command sets the repair flag and runs only one repair pass immediately, rather than completing all repairs at once; later passes occur on ship-state updates. It prints that start message even while the battle-exit restriction is active, after which repairship() immediately cancels the work. On an undamaged ship, the immediate pass still reaches the completion path, lowering the shields and clearing their charge.

SYS CLASS, SYS SHIELDTYPE, and SYS PHASERTYPE are direct diagnostic edits rather than purchases. They do not charge the user and should not be assumed to enforce the normal class table, upgrade eligibility, or installation side effects.

ge-next-only subcommands

The following operations are not in classic GE 3.2e. The in-game SYS HELP list contains the commonly useful controls; a few low-level inspection commands are accepted without being advertised there.

Syntax	Effect
`SYS MAINT NOW`	Immediately completes all maintenance without waiting for the normal repair process.
`SYS FACTIONS`	Displays the current user's standing with each of the eight factions.
`SYS NEBSEED`	Displays the seed from which the current nebula layout is derived.
`SYS FILLSLOTS`	Populates every vacant NPC slot according to the currently loaded Cybertron and Droid class allotments. It is useful after changing allocations or while diagnosing the NPC population.
`SYS MIDNIGHT`	Runs GE's midnight housekeeping routine immediately. This is a debugging control, not a substitute for the board's scheduled cleanup.
`SYS TEAMDUMP`	Displays the in-memory team records, including internal identifiers, member counts, deletion dates, passwords, and founder secrets. ge-next 0.3 moved this sensitive diagnostic output from classic's undocumented, unprivileged `TEAM DUMPITOUT` to SYS.
`SYS MULTIPLY [number]`	Runs from one to 50 production cycles on the inhabited planet currently being orbited, then saves the planet. It refuses planets without a population and owner.
`SYS ORBIT [planet]`	Places the ship in orbit around a numbered planet in its present sector without enforcing the normal distance requirement. It cannot orbit a wormhole. ge-next also stops the ship and displays the planet's update timestamp for diagnostics.
`SYS ASSIGNCYBS`	Reassigns the Cybertrons pursuing the current player according to ge-next's distance-based pursuit selection.
`SYS FILL [amount]`	Sets every item slot in the current ship to the requested quantity. Omitting the amount uses the largest supported item quantity. Unlike `SYS GET`, this replaces every item quantity rather than adding one selected item.

SYS MULTIPLY, SYS ORBIT, and SYS MIDNIGHT were introduced in ge-next 0.1. Later releases added the NPC inspection and assignment controls as the Cybertron and Droid allocation systems were corrected and expanded.

ge-arena

ge-arena retains SYS authorization and permits an authorized operator to enter the command from the lobby. Only SYS HELP and SYS CLASSLIST work there; the class list is limited to ships configured for the selected arena mode.

The following commands require an active match, an operator participating in that match, and a selected ship:

SYS NEBSEED       SYS GET          SYS KILL
SYS GOTO          SYS CLASS        SYS SHIELDTYPE
SYS PHASERTYPE    SYS MAINT        SYS UNJAM
SYS LIST          SYS ORBIT        SYS FILL

Persistent-game or unsupported controls are disabled in ge-arena. These include SYS FACTIONS, SYS FILLSLOTS, SYS CASH, SYS MIDNIGHT, SYS TEAMDUMP, SYS CYBPAUSE, SYS MULTIPLY, and SYS ASSIGNCYBS. The restrictions prevent an operator in the lobby from modifying nonexistent ship state and exclude systems that ge-arena deliberately does not persist.

Operational cautions

Make a backup before using commands that alter persistent users, planets, or world state.
Do not use SYS GET or SYS FILL to test normal cargo limits; bypassing those limits is their purpose.
Do not assume a ship produced by SYS CLASS is equivalent to a normally purchased ship of that class.
Treat SYS TEAMDUMP output as confidential.
Check logs after SYS commands that write records; a success message alone does not establish that a Btrieve update succeeded.
Leave SYSONLY enabled unless deliberately running a controlled test in which every participant may use administrative commands.