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	This is a game of interstellar exploration/conquest.  

	Players begin the game as members of a randomly generated race, with
attributes (intelligence, birth rate, size, metabolism, etc) that affect
development later.  Each turn, population will migrate to unpopulated areas
of the planet.

	Currently I have the following features:

	Exploration: players can build many types of ships with which to 
colonize other planets.
	Terraforming: planets have atmospheres, composed of different amounts
of gases.  players can build machines to alter the atmosphere to one more
suited to their race.
	Von Neumann machines: This is a ship-type that can be built.  It
exists to reproduce itself using whatever resources are available, and can be
useful to send to other players.  I got this idea after reading _The Forge of
God_.
	Co-existance: There are several types of terrain: land, ice, ocean,
mountainous, and gas(gasgiant).  Each player has a type which he preferrs; if
one race's preference differs from another, both races can co-exist on the same
planet.
	Communication: players can communicate with each other, but only if
they sacrifice valuable resources to translate another language.
	Combat: If the above breaks down.


	The game is not (of course) complete, but it's fixed up enough to post
I think.  It runs pretty good on 4.3 and 4.2, but as our versions of
both here are a little funky, it may require some tweaking before it runs to
a game keeper's satisfaction.


	GB can be found via anonymous ftp to the machine ssyx.ucsc.edu
(128.114.133.1).  (Look in pub/games).


BUGS:
	None serious that I know of, however there are a few things that need 
to be fixed up in the near future:

	Mines are pretty recently put in, they might have problems.
	I know I should have used a linked list instead of the slots in
the planet/star data, but that part was written at a time when I didn't
know any better, I was going through psychological trauma, one of my
keyboard's keys stuck and I had to implement something that didn't use
that key, take your pick.
	The stuff with "bombard" only telegrams the users that it was
done, but it doesn't actually do anything besides that.
	Mirrors face the wrong way.
	Some of the stuff with zoom doesn't work; ships sometimes get
misplaced.
	Please disregard all that stuff in the overview about berserkers (my 
designs with the VN's cover most of that), magic, religion, etc.
That was all written back in my boundless youthful enthusiasm.
	Ships with "*" before their names (shipdata.h) don't work as yet.
don't build them.
	Probably shouldn't have used a square grid implementation for
planet maps, but I wanted the simplest thing possible for that.  I'm
thinking of adding new planet types if I can get information on their
generation.  Any help on this point (once you have seen the game and know how
it is done here) would be appreciated.  Ideas of mine on this point cover
things such as Ringworlds, Dyson spheres, space elevators, artificial
hollow planets, the list goes on..


	New versions will be posted/added to/however this is done,
when I have the time to write same.  I've spent two years writing 
this program, I hope it is enjoyed by everyone using it.

	Suggestions are welcome, as are bug reports, but don't expect
really fantastic and difficult ideas to be implemented, unless
of course they are really fascinating..



STARTING THE GAME:
	This was done on two seperate machines, one running 4.2 and the other
running a tweaked version of 4.3.  edit the Makefile and delete the
wrong one.  when it's done making, try this:
	Makeuniv < planet.list (wait about 20 minutes)
	This will set up a fair-sized game with 30 stars and 30 planets,
should be good for a decent system.  GB_daemon updates every 3 hours,
which is kinda slow at the beginning, but once the game gets more mature,
things tend to pick up.  This was not intended to be as intense a game as,
say, multi-trek or empire.  I don't want anyone academically floundering
because of GB.
	Please send me information on trends in the game; what tends to
happen here and there.


	Rob Chansky
	smq@ucscb.ucsc.edu
	smq@ssyx.ucsc.edu
	...!ucbvax!ucscc!ssyx!smq
	...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!smq
DataMuseum.dk

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