Conference galina::decweb

    For all you DECweb addicts going through withdrawel, Dave Tenny, "the
    MAN", the dude that made it all happen, NEEDS YOUR HELP!
    
    Dave, as you know has left Digital, and in his copious free time is
    working on a new play by Email game called "Tenn - Adventures in the
    Tenth Millenium".  He runs it through his Ultranet account, so it is
    accessible via the internet to anyone with Email (and FTP to pick up
    manuals, tools, etc).
    
    This game is still in the infant stages.  Its NOT ready for prime time. 
    Never-the-less, he needs play testers.  If you are interested, you can
    be a beta tester for "free". :-)
    
    Sure, you don't have time.  Its spring, and you have other outside
    interests.  Hey!  Nobody said beta testing a new game was *fun*!!!
    Its easy to play in *your* spare time.  What about Dave,  Game designer
    extrordinaire?  After all the happy hours you pissed away in DECweb,
    are you gonna let Dave down now, when he needs you most?  
    
    C'mon!  Be a man! (or a bug)  Sign up today!!!!!!
    
    Jim
    
    (PS  This new game supports an interesting feature that allows more
    than one person to collaborate on running an empire.  For example, one 
    might handle combat while the other handles empire management.  If you
    are interested in this (which might consume less time) then let Dave
    know.  Since I haven't had copious free time lately, I would consider
    taking on a partner, so if you'd like to join me, let me know)
    
    (PPS Note there is only *one* game.  There is no fast, medium and slow,
    because the nature of the game is that you can structure your orders to
    function through multiple game turns, thus eliminating the need to
    micromanage every single turn.  So currrently, only one game, already
    in progress, exists.  You probably have several options, such as taking
    over an abandoned empire, becoming a coplayer, or starting with a newly
    generated "generic" empire (TENN also supports an extensible, VERY
    large universe).  Contact Dave for more details)
    
From:	US1RMC::"tenny@games.ultranet.com" "Dave Tenny"  1-APR-1997 18:34:07.05
To:	"TENN Game 1 Mailing List" <tenny@games.ultranet.com>
CC:	
Subj:	Need replacement players

If you know anybody, *please* have them sign up.  Maybe an ad in the
DECWEB conference?

Point them at the web page: http://www.ultranet.com/~tenny/tenn.shtml

Thanks!
    

  Soo, what do you guys think of Tenn?

  Better than DECweb? Not as good? What do you think?

  George

    Still in its infant stages.  It relies heavily on tools which
    unfortunately either don't exist, or are undergoing their own growing
    pains.
    
    It has a lot more depth than DECweb, but pays for it with real, honest
    complexity.  Consequently, the turnsheets, on max output, are enormous
    (4500 lines = 75 pages).
    
    And I think it tends to run a little more liesurely than DECweb, since
    complex orders can span many game turns.
    
    jeb
    

  I like the fact that you don't have to scan sectors. That saves a lot of
time. Also I like the multi turn orders, just start'em up and let'em run. 

  I haven't gotten the hang of planet development yet. In DECweb you drop a few
POP on a planet and off you go doing stuff. In Tenn it takes forever to ship
pop 100 at a time to where you can dig a Mag 7 mine. Maybe I need bigger ships.

  I really miss character types. As it is the big problem with DECweb is that
it all comes down to a few big bash and crash battles among giant fleets. At
least you can do stuff that your character type is designed to do and think of
ways to earn points. I'm afraid that in TENN building up for the big bash and
crash battles will be about all there is to each game. 

  Maybe if he goes back to that idea of an encyclopedia or university where
your character can learn things. That would be nice.

  Pretty good game but I'm on the fence as to which one is better,
  George

    Tenn is not even out of the starting block.  Right now, all you can do
    is build mines, which create stockpiles, use the stockpiles to build
    factories (ship, protable sensors, large array sensors, laser cannon,
    nuclear mines, mass driver engine, ram scoop engine)  Put these items
    together (put portable sensor, cannons, engine and people in a ship)
    and execute your strategy.  Ships can be any size up to the gravity
    restrictions of the planet you are building on.  You can, for example,
    build a ship factory that produces ships of the size 115.  Put an
    engine in it (size 10), then fill the rest with 105 popultation.  Then
    you create an order that flys the ship to your moon that has a gravity
    equal to .007 and unload the pop.  The order you creat can be created
    once using the LOOP command and will continue to move pop and / or
    stockpiles to the moon until you have enough to build a ship factory
    that will out put a size 1500.  Then cannons can be brought up and
    loaded into this massive ship and launched against your enimies.
    
    Evenutually, the technology will pyrimid.  If you want to invest in
    offense, you can devote your empires resources to that end, but at the
    expense of defense or some other aspect of technology.  
    
    I think that Tenn, as it is, great.  As it will be, lightyears ahead of
    DECWEB.