Lamentations of the Damned: Playing Far Horizons for the very first time

[GrimFinger]

ENTRY ELEVEN

Here it is, late as Hell, as I sit here trying to figure out what my empire's next set of turn orders for Far Horizons: The Awakening will look like.

This turn, I decide that I will try to move some ships, and I have discovered the Orders Verifier that game moderator Casey has tucked away on the Far Horizons website.

Talk about a pain in the ass! Man, I'm not trying to conquer the whole galaxy in just one turn. All that I want to do is to move some starships around. The JUMP command that I issue seems to pass the Orders Verifier just fine, but trying to move a starship from one planet in my home star system to another planet in my home star system doesn't seem to want to work, no matter how many times that I review the Game Manual.

I'm tired. I'm starting to get a headache. I start to question whether it's even worth it. I just want to move a ship. It's very tedious trying to figure out such bare bones basic tasks. It just drains the fun right out of it. I've got to go to bed, soon. I still don't know what I'm doing.

[JonO]

In all honesty, I can't say as I blame you for your frustration. The explanation of how to give a jump order sucks scissors sideways. It is possible that a player should know what all the codes in the examples mean, but as my first sergeant use to tell me, "Assumption is the mother of all foul-ups."

What the bleep is a PB or an FF??? (my guess is they are a type of ship like "Patrol Boat" or "Flying Fortress" but they could be anything and there's sure nothing in the section that explains what they are.) Again, what's a "Benjamin Franklin?" The face on the amount of currency you must send to the GM to get the order to go through??? (My guess this time is that it is the name of the starship, but there's nothing in that rules segment that supports that opinion.)

I am not suggesting that every section of the rules has to explain over again what all the codes are, but there should be an identifier explanation as well as an example. Something like: "A jump order consists of the ship's type-code followed by at least one space, followed by the ship's name, followed a comma and at least one space, followed by a destination code which can be the system's Cartesian coordinates ( x y z --spaces, no commas in-between) or by the code for planet ('PL') followed by a space, followed by the name of the planet."

Of course I have no idea if I have correctly identified the codes, but if there was something like this immediately preceding the examples, I suspect frustration would be lowered. Better still of course would be the UI that RAM is designing that wouldn't let you input anything that wasn't machine readable and doable by your ship.

By the way, I have no idea whether or not the player is supposed to type "START JUMPS ; Place jump orders here." and "END" or if they are part of the turn sheet. That may simply be the fact that I jumped into reading Movement Rules instead of RTFM from the beginning.

[Ramblurr]

Grim, well you seemed to have puzzled it out, because your jumps went through this turn!

As for confusion with the syntax, that is the entire reason I created the How Do I... page, that succinctly explains the syntax of various orders with complete examples. I already linked this page earlier in this thread. If there is still confusion after referencing that page, then please let me know. We've already established the manual is not a good player guide. Please utilize the supplementary materials I've provided, and complain about them, so I can improve them.

Regarding the class abbreviations, yes it is unfortunate the original game designer chose to make those so prominent. There is a class abbreviations list . To make things even more clear, any time an abbreviations occurs on the wiki a simple mouse-over will provide a definition.

Before mouse-over -- After mouse-ver

[JonO]

Your "How Do I" is exactly what needs to be there. (Until you get your UI up.)

[Ramblurr]

By the way, I have no idea whether or not the player is supposed to type "START JUMPS ; Place jump orders here." and "END" or if they are part of the turn sheet. That may simply be the fact that I jumped into reading Movement Rules instead of RTFM from the beginning.

To counter this confusion I present the Orders Format page!

[JonO]

Do you need to start each section with a semicolon?

[Ramblurr]

Um, no. ; denotes a comment. I thought I made that clear in the text

This would be a complete and valid, but empty, section:

Code:

START COMBAT
END

Do you know how I can word it to make it more precise?

[JonO]

Shades of INI files.

There is no reason why you shouldn't use whatever symbol for non-executable state you wish.

Question: Is it truly non-executable? i.e. if my turn shows up with a line commented out with a semicolon will it be ignored by the computer?

FWIW In an example, I would show only what is necessary to the example and any form of comment would exist outside of the example, but I am not sure that is more than personal preference. Maybe someone else has a thought.

[prozenfeld]

Question: Is it truly non-executable? i.e. if my turn shows up with a line commented out with a semicolon will it be ignored by the computer?

Lines starting with semicolon are removed during preprocessing before parsing.

The only time when comments may affect turn processing is when the comment line is (too) long - it may be split and the remainder of the line (without semicolon) might be executed. Most of the time such gibberish will be discarded by game parser with an error, unless you happen to create a valid command that way ...

[JonO]

unless you happen to create a valid command that way ...

Don't you just hate it when that happens?