Permissions system

Rich Skrenta (skrenta@shadow.com)
Mon, 11 Apr 94 9:06:26 EDT

There are three aspects to the permissions system in Olympia:

admit
combat attitudes (hostile, defend, neutral, default)
permisions on receiving items with GIVE

I never implemented the third. Should I? What kind of mechanism
would you like to see? Something like:

RECEIVE <who> [item] [qty] # lasts 'till end of turn

Do you like the admit system?

* * *

There are a few problems with the current combat attitudes system.
The biggest issue is that there is no way to specify your global
attitude (i.e. hostile, "attack everyone I meet"). The fact that
there are four commands for this one feature is also starting to
bother me.

How about if I replace HOSTILE/DEFEND/NEUTRAL/DEFAULT with one DECLARE
command:

DECLARE <attitude> <who> ...

One could specify a global disposition with DECLARE <attitude> 0, i.e.
"declare hostile 0".

The arguments in this declare syntax are backwards from Olympia I's,
but it allows multiple units to be given ("declare defend 501 532 4301").

* * *

Should units inside of buildings that we are hostile towards be attacked?

If you're hostile to Osswid [501], and upon arriving in a province you
see him in Strong Tower [fx83], should you attack?

* * *

Currently I don't allow one to be hostile to ships. Combined with the
current lack of a global disposition, this is a big problem for naval
combat.

There are actually various classes of things you might want to be
hostile to:

monsters only
characters only
all monsters and characters
ships only
ships not owned by x, y, z...
so and so if he's not in a tower
so and so if he's not in a big stack

Ugh. Some suggest a clever idea to make all this work!

--
Rich Skrenta <skrenta@shadow.com>


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