fchain@pbm.com -- one cycle every day
fchain-6@pbm.com -- one cycle every 6 hours
fchain-n@pbm.com -- novice jungle. one cycle every day
fchain-e@pbm.com -- experimental jungle. we'll test changes here.
There are all the commands that the server understands:
RULES or HELP -- sends this message
SUMMARY -- sends you just the summary of the jungle
END -- marks the end of your input -- keeps the server from
thinking your .signature file is bad commands
START \ MUTATE | Game commands. NAME | See below for details REPORT /
The most successful players are the ones who own the most species - the Top 20 players are listed each report, along with the number of species they own.
START H N2 Y1 M2
This is an order to start a new species with the type and characteristics given. The server will record the email address which you sent the orders from, and future orders from the same address will be acknowledged as being from the same player.
Whenever you start a new species with this order, any old species currently under your control in the same game are eliminated. You could cheat here by sending in your START order using a different email account. Please don't. You may give any positive, whole-number values to the characteristics, but you may not create a species whose Body, Min and Max factors (see "Factors" below) are all the same as those of an existing species.
The types that you can give to an animal are herbivore (H) or carnivore (C). Herbivores only eat plants, while carnivores will only eat other animals.
The characteristics (also called "part-levels") that you can set are Nose(N), Eyes(Y), Ears(R), Mouth(M), Paws(P), Tail(T), Legs(L) and Brain(B). The letters in brackets are the codes to use in orders. In the example above, a new species is to be started with a Nose level of 2, a Mouth level of 2, an Eyes level of 1, and all other characteristics at level zero. Note that this does not mean that the species has no brain, but simply that it is not developed above a basic level. Fifty individuals of this species will be added to the jungle.
** Note that while you can re-start at any time, you will lose all your existing species if you do!
Posn Species Player ---- ------- ------ 1 3,12,37 fred@something.somewhere.edu 2 7,8,15 bill.jones@bills.machine.com 3 23,29 tom@yet.another.fake.address ... ... Species Num Hun Gro Cap Stv Bod Preys-On ------- --- --- --- --- --- --- -------- Plant(1) 502 3.4 200 336 0 5 --- Vole(2) 1252 3.6 237 0 330 4 5-5 [H] Squirrel(3) 87 0.1 43 0 6 6 4-5 [H] ... ...The first table shows the top 20 players, ranked according to the number of mutatable species they control (you can own more than one species because populations split off new species when you mutate them). Where players control the same number of mutatable (population >= 100) species, the one that controls the most individual animals is ranked higher. The "Species" column shows the ID numbers of the species under each player's control.
The second table lists every species in the jungle. The "Species" column shows the name and ID number of each species. The other columns are as follows -
Num: The total number of members of the species alive in the jungle.
Hun: The average number of turns since members successfully hunted.
Gro: The number of new members "born" last turn.
Cap: The number of members that were eaten by predators last turn.
Stv: The number of members that died of starvation last turn.
Bod: The species' Body factor (see "Factors" below).
Preys-On: The species' Min and Max factors (see below). The [H] after
some species indicate that they are herbivores.
At the bottom of the report is a summary of your species' offense and defense during the cycle. This summary is difficult to read, but should make sense after you have understood all the rules.
REPORT 4
After this order, the server would send you a report every 4 cycles. To turn off regular reporting, specify zero(0) in the REPORT order.
You can ask for reports even if you don't currently have any species. This makes you a "spectator".
MUTATE 26 C R5 T2
The number ("26" in this example) is the ID number of the species that you control and wish to mutate. The "C" indicates that the new species created will be a carnivore. The other items are new values for some characteristics. Fifty individuals will be taken from the parent species and made into a new species under your control. Its characteristics will be the same as those of the parent species, with the exceptions of the ones you change.
You can change a maximum of two characteristics by any amount, but the total of all characteristics of the parent species may not differ from the characteristic total of the new species by more than two(2). As before, you may not create a species with exactly the same Body, Min and Max as an existing species.
NAME 12 Sabre-Tooth Tiger
The name of the species that you control with ID 12 will be changed accordingly. Alternatively, you can name the species most recently created in the same email with the order -
NAME Fieldmouse
Letter Hunt Chase Evade Power Body Min Max Res
Nose N 1 - - - 1 1 1 1
Eyes Y - 2 - - - 1 - 1
Ears R - - 1 - 1 - 1 1
Mouth M - - - 1 1 1 2 1
Paws P 1 - - 1 1 1 - -
Tail T - 2 3 - 2 1 1 1
Legs L 1 1 2 - 2 1 1 -
Brain B - - - - - - 2 -1
The values are cumulative so, for example, a species with Eyes of 3 and a Legs
of one would have Chase factor of 7, assuming Tail was zero. These factors are
used to determine who gets caught and eaten during the hunt for prey.Important: All species start with a body factor of 3. Any body factors added from the table above are in addition to these initial 3 points.
When two factors (A and B) are tested, A is successful when a random number between 0 and 1 is less than (A/(A+B))^2, (where "/" denotes division and ^2 is squaring). The test for starvation, only, does not include the square.
For example, if my Chase is 2 and I am hunting a species with an Evade of 1, I have a 4/9 chance of catching it. If I have a Chase of 1 and my target has an Evade of 2, I have a 1/9 chance of catching it.
If A=B=0, then there is a 50% chance of success. If A or B is less than zero, it is set equal to zero for the purposes of this test.
For example, if the animal above had a Resistance factor of 2, then 70% of the members would have a 50% chance of starving, and the remaining 30% would have a 60% chance of starving.
For example, an animal with a hunt factor of 3 will hunt 1.5 times. An animal with a hunt factor of 10 will hunt 3.91 times.
However, a species may only hunt if prey is available. A species may only hunt prey with a Body factor between the Min and Max of the predator. Each animal may be hunted only once, and the number of animals in a species which may be hunted is limited to 1/2 the animals in the species plus all of the net growth from the previous cycle.
For example, a species with 100 members had 50 new animals born in the previous cycle, 30 animals eaten, and 5 starved. This cycle, as many as 57 of these animals could be hunted.
Each hunt, an individual is chosen at random from the prey pool, which consists of all species (other than the predator) whose Body factor is no less than the predator's Min factor and no greater than the predator's Max factor. Plants are the only eligible prey of herbivores, but are never included in the prey pool of a carnivore. The Min and Max factors of every species in the jungle are displayed in the "Preys-On" column of each report.
To determine whether the prey can be caught, its evade factor is tested against the predator's chase factor. If the chase factor is successful, the prey is caught. To determine whether the predator can overcome its prey in combat, its power factor is tested against the prey's power factor. If the predator is successful, it eats its prey.
Whenever prey is eaten, its Body factor (minus a 5% waste factor) is added to a total for the predator's population. After all hunting is completed for the turn, each population's size grows by a number of individuals equal to this food total divided by the population's Body factor.
For example, if a species with body 20 eats 10 individuals with body 8, the body 20 species will gain 4 new members.
Note: the growth rate of plants will never decrease due to a decrease in the number of species. This limitation prevents the population of the jungle from "crashing". Also note that if you make a herbivore with a Chase factor of 0, it will only have a 50% chance of successfully hunting a plant. The same goes for power. This is a frequent mistake of new players.
Don't expect to succeed immediately. The jungle is very much a platform for experimentation, so if your dual-carburetor, overhead camshaft mountain cat is dying off, don't be afraid to use the START order to scrap them and try something else.
Remember, though, that stability and growth are the key to success in the long run. If you can get a species to 100 population, then mutate to something better, you may be better off than starting again (at least you will have two species then, instead of one!)
When you create a new species, be sure that there is something in the jungle that it can eat. In other words, make sure that there is an abundant species whose Body factor lies between the Min and Max factors (inclusive) of your new creation.
Beware of being too successful, however. If the aforementioned mountain cat is chomping through its prey faster than they can recover, then your cats are doomed to extinction by starvation shortly after the prey have disappeared.
Use the min factor to your advantage. By excluding species with small body factors, you can ensure that your large animals won't waste their time and energy chasing small morsels.
Webbed by: Greg Lindahl (lindahl@pbm.com)