Galactic Empire

History

Galactic Empire was, clearly, Mike Murdock's most successful module for The Major BBS. It was also one of the top 5 modules ever produced for the platform; it was a virtual "must have" game for any system into serious gaming.

From Mike Murdock:

"_Galactic Empire was inspired by the desire to make the simulation in Galactic Raiders much more real. I wanted to have more than a simple field of battle, I wanted to incorporate a strategy simulation part also. I also wanted the game to keep its "real-time" appeal. That meant that the code needed to do quite a few things behind the scenes in order to present the "illusion" that things where happening in real-time.

GE first came out with a limited square universe, 20x20 or 50x50 etc. This universe was pre-generated using a utility provided to the Sysop and each sector consumed a record in the database. When a Sysop would run the game over an extended period of time the newer players never had a chance, all the sectors were populated, owned, and well defended.

In order to make the simulation more real I needed a universe that could be huge, or at least 32767x32767 sectors. Given that each sector took about a K byte of data in the database this meant that the database would be larger than the hard drives of the time... and most of that data was empty. To solve this dilemma I developed the concept of a virtual "unlimited" universe using the old philosophy question... "If a tree falls in the forest and no-one is there...does it make a sound?". In other words... If you fly though a sector and never look (scan it)..is the sector really there? The answer – Nope!

In 1992, GE 3.0 was released which contained a terraforming universe... The game would create data for a sector on the fly as players scanned a sector. This meant that the game could now have over 4 Billion sectors to explore and brought up some interesting problems and possibilities. How do you get to all those other distant sectors without having to sit at your terminal for 200+hours straight... enter wormholes.

Yes, Einstein did me a big favor in providing the ideal solution to my game. Randomly create wormholes to link distant parts of the universe together.

I later decided I wanted a visual depiction of the entire universe so I created a graphical mapping utility which Sysops could run on a daily basis to generate a TIFF map file for their users to download. The images generated by this utility was fascinating to view. You could see the wormholes, and how the colonized sectors had expanded out from them. It even let you run it in an interactive mode and zoom in and out._"

In 2002, Mike Murdock released the latest Galactic Empire under the GPL license. In 2006, he transferred rights to Elwynor Technologies.

Game Information

Galactic Empire was M. B. Murdock and Associates' premier module for The Major BBS. It provides all the action of a user versus user space battle game and the challenge of an economic adventure. Players explore and settle the far reaches of the universe and set up empires of their own. This provides a game that has plenty of interest when a few players are on the system and during off hours, increasing system utilization and a dynamic user vs. user real time space battle game.

Since the game has no "fixed solution" you can reset the databases and start a new campaign as often as you like. This gives those players who came into the game late a chance to start over and win the next game. You determine what prizes the winners of each campaign receive. This increases the attraction of the module and its worth to your system.

Plot: It is 3250 in the standard year, 975 years since man has developed inter-planetary space navigation, and 412 years since neutron flux warp technology was perfected by the ship builders of Zygor. They currently lead the industry with the state of the art ships and weapons systems.

These are good times where a commander with a good ship and some business sense can make himself very very rich. Many of the planets in the known universe are ideal for basing industries to supply the demands of the interstellar fleet. These are also times when the less scrupulous commanders can overrun a distant settlement and claim the planet for his own. It is not a good idea to leave a distant settlement unprotected and the Galactic Command (an ad hoc legal body) recommends that commanders check up on their colonists regularly.

Once you have secured your ship, it is yours to command and keep maintained. The Zygorians will outfit you with enough supplies to get you started but you will surely run out if you encounter any rouge ships. The Galactic Command recommends you find and settle some planets immediately to secure a supply source for your ship. Or you can purchase supplies from other commanders with whom you have established trade agreements.

The object of the game is to build and maintain as large an empire as you can sustain, using any means you find appropriate. You can do this by yourself or with a team of other players. Your System Operator will inform you of the prizes and awards for becoming the top player(s) in the game.

Good luck and beware the dreaded Cybertrons at all cost.

Gameplay

Galactic Empire is a text-based multi-user action and strategy game. All events are presented in real-time to the user's ANSI/ASCII terminal. Commands are given on a command line, and occasionally, menus are present. Shortcuts for commands are available to allow for quick typing, or for easier macro programming. Users could control only one of their ships at a time, but could own many ships.

Galactic Empire Control Panel

Galactic Empire Control Panel is a front-end for Mike Murdock's Major BBS game, Galactic Empire, that aids the avid player with navigation and combat. It was written by Dave Walton in 1991.

GECP simplifies navigation and combat, provides some automatic defense features, and keeps your last SCAN in a window onscreen so you can see the movement of ships easily. It automatically aims phasers for you so you rarely miss a shot, and its auto-orbit feature prevents crashing your expensive ships into planets. It simply is a must for anyone who takes Galactic Empire seriously.

"Picture this. I'm cruising around warp 6 towards my unsuspecting target. As I approach, I drop to impulse and the shields automatically raise. My scanners update constantly to show my target's course. Seconds later, I scan as my ship automatically sends a volley of missiles, re-shields and re-cloaks all in one fluid motion. Next!"
– Commander Shadow of The Scarlet Brotherhood (Keith Johnson)

In 2002, Walton released the source code to GECP v1.14 under the BSD license.

• GECP v1.14 Source - BSD license.
• GECP v1.14 Binaries - includes v1.03, aimed at GE v2.
• GECP v1.14 Documentation
• GECP v1.14 Revision History

Binary Registrations:

• v1.03 - The registration code for "The Major" is: "MKCHCYJAVGCXWVVWNPLDFCVB"
• v1.14 - The registration code for "The Major BBS Restoration Pro" is: "OTCVWRRTLYBKSKNOZYTTAVCX"

Official Website is http://www.digger.net/projects/gecp/.

Forks

There is an in-progress expansion of the game called GE-Next. See the link on Github.