Netrek Glossary
!kcamS
"Smack!" backwards, you get to say this when you phaser somebody's plasma right in his face as they fire it.
++
Carrying, e.g. "R9++". More or fewer plusses represent an exact knowledge of number of armies. [Timothy Worsley] [Coined by Randy Dean]
ACC
Actual carriers created. A stat tracked by the INL servers, this is how many times you gave someone a kill that they then used to pick up armies. [Developed by Mark Noworolski]
ASW
Anti-Scout Warfare, i.e. harrassment of the enemy scout bomber. A.k.a. anti-bombing.
Borg
A netrek client that has some sort of automatic "cheat" feature, e.g. auto-dodge or phaser, cloaker display, etc. This is cheating (except on servers which explicitly allow it). [Perhaps named after Fil Alleva's character]
Bot
Practice robot, or third space robot, or terminator.
Bronco server
Bronco-type servers, such as CMU, Berekeley, USC, and UofW. Differs from Chaos servers in refuel and plasmas. No Galaxiy class ships. [Hunter Chen] This is what is now the standard Netrek server, so named becuase it first appeared on a machine called bronco. [Shekter]
Bronco-type server
A.k.a. vanilla servers, these are ordinary netrek servers such as continuum.us.netrek.org or pickled.psychosis.com. Servers with small mods such as bigbang.astro.indiana.edu and calvin.usc.edu are considered bronco-type too, except by the purists. But definitely not Paradise servers, Chaos servers, Hockey servers, Dogfight servers, or Sturgeon (upgrade) servers. Named after bronco.ece.cmu.edu, a now-defunct server run by the great Terence Chang.
Buttorp
To fire torpedoes out the rear of one's ship while running. While this is a fun and easy way to waste someone who insists on chasing you, doing this habitually makes you a Runner Scum. [Shekter]
Chain reaction
The explosion of one ship killing a nearby teammate's ship, and so forth.
Chaos server
Modified Bronco server with high refuel rates, free plasmas, and Galaxy classes. Also known as Galaxy server. [Hunter Chen] These are pretty rare these days.[Shekter]
Chung
To kill oneself by firing plasma point-blank at the wall. If you carry armies, most servers give you DI for this, and in any case it denies the kill to enemies. Named after Greg Chung, pioneer of this dubious tactic, who will never forgive me putting this entry here.
Clear kills
To aggressively get rid of most enemies with kills, independent of whether they carry or not. This is to prevent having to track too many potential enemy carriers and helps you focus on fewer targets. [Erik Hietbrink]
Clear
To kill the defenders of a planet, so that a teammate (following close behind) can bomb or take it.
Clue
Basic grasp of strategy, Netrek playing ability, experience, etc. Also someone who has these, e.g. Tywong is clue. [Shekter] There's a critical paradigm shift between non-clue and clue. Beginners tend to see all enemy ships as targets: things to fight, to destroy. In contrast, clue tend to view places as targets, with enemy ships as obstacles - things to go around or shove out of the way so you can get to where you want to go. Once a player sees the game in terms of places to go and obstacles in the way, they understand a lot of how netrek works, especially once they recognize planets as the usual places. It's a short hop from there to space control tactics, useful both in defense and escort. [Andrew Markiel]
Clueless
A generally derogatory term referring to a players inability to match to expected levels of play either due to lack of experience or poor ability. [Hunter Chen]
Core planets
Usually refers to the homeworld and four nearest planets of each system. However, the server has its own idea of what a core world is, which it uses to award double planet DI to an enemy who takes one, namely the homeworld and three of the four nearest planets. Alp, Hyd, Lyr, and Her are not core for this purpose.
Cripple
A player that is damaged significantly, so that with his low top speed he basically becomes either a sitting duck or a useless observer. Which of the two depends on the game situation. Especially when your team is ahead you want to cripple the good enemy players rather than kill them. That way they will not spawn with a fresh ship at your destination. [Erik Hietbrink]
Cut
Make a sharp turn, especially to go to take a different planet than the one you had been headed for.
DEF
Deaths by enemy fire. One of the statistics for INL games.
DI scum
Similar to ratings scum, these people either only play during the initial bombing runs, or else quit out near the end of the game when there are no more chances for lots of bombing and planet taking. [Walter Pullen]
DI
According to the authors, DI is "Destruction Inflicted". It is simply your (planets+bombing+offense) ratings x (Tmode hours). Note that it is possible to lose DI because your ratings are always relative to the global average. To achieve a given rank, you must accumulate a certain amount of DI before going over some number of hours. Or you can get promotions on double DI or quad DI with lesser ratings but more hours. [Terence Chang]
DI
According to the authors, DI is Destruction Inflicted.It is simply your (planets+bombing+offense) ratings x (Tmode hours). When you a receive a promotion on DI, it means that you could sit around and do nothing while waiting for the required number of hours and still get the promotion. E.g., Admiral Flatliner has only 27.19 hours while 40 hours and a ratings total of 8 are required for the rank. 8 x 40 = 320 DI. Flatliners ratings add up to 11.69, so 27.19 x 11.69 ~= 320. Note that it is possible to lose DI because your ratings are always relative to the global average The double DI and quad DI promotions are fairly meaninglessbasically you can get a promotion with insufficient ratings but lots of hours. [Terence Chang]
DL
Draft League. A semi-professional Netrek league with regular games. This requires less clue to play in than the INL. [Shekter]
Damage Control
This is something that's very hard to do, especially if you're a new player. Since a ship repairs BOTH its hull and shield at the same time it's really beneficial to be able to take some damage in the hull and the rest on the shield. The really hard thing is to figure out HOW much damage you can allow on the hull since damage to your hull lowers your maxwarp as well. Of course damage control in the smaller ships, DD, SC is questionable, I've never done it in any other ships than the CA, BB and SB. A.k.a. Damage splitting. [Jan Sandorf]
Decoy
Fly deep into enemy space, perhaps cloaked, pretending to be a planet-taker, for the sole purpose of drawing enemy attention to oneself (and away from teammates). Ben Peal calls this the Magna Doodle tactic. A variant is the Rob Hill Memorial Decoy, where you do this while carrying armies just in case you get through.
Deep Bombing
Bombing deep in enemy teritory. This often involves cloaking, and is very important at the begining of the game. [Hugh More]
Det
To detonate torpedos. [Timothy Worsley]
Doosh
To kill an important carrier who is carrying a reasonable number of armies. Any kill of a base that has been effective in gameplay is a doosh, whether the base was carrying armies or not. There are some other odd spots where doosh applies. Any particularly large display of carnage (such as two fleets meeting at a planet and going up in an 8-ship chain explosion) certainly qualify. Also, even if a starbase were very weak and innefective, any base ogg where 6-7 ships uncloaked simultaneously from well-spread angles such that it is very clear that the base hasnt got a snowballs chance in hell, is quite clearly a Doosh! [Jon Blow]
EAO
Enemy armies ogged. One of the statistics for INL games.
ECK
Enemy carries killed. One of the statistics for INL games.
Ensign Clueless
A special term to denote those players who don't really know how to play very well, but help their teams greatly by being at the right place at the right time. These guys can really help Oggers and planet taker by distracting opponents and often serve to scare off runner scum who would be taking planets. [Hugh More (ZZnew guy)]
Ensign scum
Good players who log in as guest or a new Ensign character so people will think they are clueless, until they promptly get wasted. Especially fun to do against the Newbie scum, below. [Walter Pullen]
FAO
Friendly armies ogged. One of the statistics for INL games.
FCK
Friendly carriers killed. One of the statistics for INL games.
Fake
In the context of planet taking, making a feint towards a planet, fully intending to cut to a different one when the defenders react.
Faker scum
People who do things like fly their SB at warp 1 when its not damaged, or pretend to be damaged so you'll chase them and they can waste you. [Walter Pullen]
Fed
Short for Federation. It is the name of one of the four races in Netrek. The others are Kli(ngons), Ori(ons) and Rom(ulons). The homeworld of the Federation is Earth.
Fire-hose
Orbit a fuel world and fire continuous streams of torpedos. [Coined by Bean Peal]
Flat
A planet is flat when it has four armies or fewer. See also kill-flat.
Fly casual
Fly carrying armies in the same manner you would if not carrying.
Free beer
Someone who is consistently easy to kill.
Front line
The line of contention. E.g. in a close Fed-Rom battle, the Romulan front is Cap-Ind-Reg and the Fed front is Rig-Can-Org.
Giving away kills
Giving the enemy kills is bad, of course, but this term is also applied to teammates, especially starbases, who wound enemies and hold them, allowing a teammate who can better use the kill to "steal" it.
God
The server god is the person who set up and controls the server. He or She has great power but seldom if ever uses it.
Hard-take
Effectively take and reinforce all in one trip. As opposed to taking a planet but leaving it at 1 army.
Hero of Core
Someone who hides in his own core, ratio-scumming, sometimes retaking nearby planets, and talking trash.
Hitler
Scum who log in specifically to hurt a team, and so help the opposing side. This can involve giving away kills, going in as their SB and letting the enemy kill it (along with 25 armies), telling the other side whos carrying, along with other nasty things. [Walter D. Pullen] A player who comes in on the other side in order to hurt them and then quits out again and rejoins his old team. [Hugh More (ZZnew guy)]
Hockey
There are many variants of Netrek. The "standard" is called Bronco. The Hockey variant is Netrek adapted to play like ice hockey. Often described as the most fun you can have on ice without actually being on it. Teams of players try to shoot (pressor) the Puck (a robot) into the other teams' goal. Hockey however, is difficult and should not be attempted by very new netrek players.
Hork
To steal someone's kill is to get the kill with one phaser or a couple long-range torps after your teammate did the hard work. To steal someone's planet is similar, e.g. he used 4 armies to destroy it, and you just drop 1 and get all the DI. Both are perfectly fine instances of teamwork, but some people care about their stats.
Hoser
Practice robot. Also a derogatory term.
Hotel
Or Army Motel: the armies check in but they don't check out. A player who carries a lot of armies around for a long time and never manages to use them..
Human Target
A battleship Ogg done without cloaking at warp 8 in order to clear space. Named after Hugh Moores ship of the same name. [Timothy Worsley]
INL server
Bronco-vanilla server set up for timed games. Games are normally 60 minutes, with a 15 minute sudden-death overtime, where the victory condition is owning at least 11 planets with the opponents owning no more than 8. Planets start at 17 armies. Ensigns can starbase. One player on each team gets captain's privileges, allowing him to start the game, pause it, etc.
INL
International Netrek League. A professional Netrek league. INL players and INL games are generally considered to be the ultimate in Netrek clue. [Shekter]
Iggy
Practice robot. So named because it is often the player designated by Ig (Player in slot g, on the Independent team.)
KF
Kill-flat. A team is kill-flat when they have no ship with a kill, other than perhaps their starbase.
Kids
Armies. (I know there is an origin, but Im not sure what it is.) [Timothy Worsley]
Kill scum
People who only play to rack up kills and don't do anything with them to help their team. They are often found hanging around the SB or around a last planet where they can easily rack up kills. [Walter D. Pullen]
Kill-flat
A team is kill-flat when they have no ship with a kill, other than perhaps their starbase. Often abbreviated with KF.
Kli
Short for Klingons. It is the name of one of the four races in Netrek. The others are Fed(eration), Ori(ons) and Rom(ulons). Further Kli can also stand for the Klingon homeworld, Klingus, as used in "Bomb Kli @ 6".
LPS
Last Planet Stand. If the enemy is down to a few planets, its useful to try to get the hardest ones first (like the home planet) while they are still uncertain which planet youre planning to take: i.e. you can fake an attack on a different planet in hopes of drawing away some defenders. If it gets down to an LPS on the hardest planet, its much harder to take since the enemy knows exactly where youre going. [Andrew Markiel]
Loaded
Carrying many armies (typically 5 or more).
Message scum
People who send nasty or insulting messages to individuals or teams to intimidate or scroll their screen so they can't read useful stuff. Especially applies to those robots. [Walter Pullen]
Mutual
Kill and be killed (usually in your victim's explosion).
Name scum
Similar to Ensign scum, people who play under a different name then they are accustomed to. Often involves switching terminals with a teammate to confuse the enemy or give an advantage. E.g. a good dogfighter gets a kill and switches terminals with the team planet taker. [Walter Pullen]
Newbie scum
Merciless players who target Ensigns and other newbies and waste them several times to rack up kills so they can do whatever. [Walter Pullen]
Newbie
Beginner; One who has just started playing netrek. [Hunter Chen]
Offensive Tackle
See Human Target. Named for Jon Kims ship of the same name. [Timothy Worsley]
Ogg
Og....The act of Ogging. The process of cloaking and appearing adjacent to enemy while firing torps and tractoring on to him. Purpose: To kill. Without caring about dying in the process, also called suiciding. Ogging is an art, it consists of knowing when to cloak and when to uncloak. Planets are not subject to Ogging, since no one can here their screams.[Bert Enderton] Suicide, Kamikaze. Attack a ship without caring about dying in the process. Especially, a cloaked approach to an enemy carrier or starbase. Back in, I believe, November/December of 1990 I use to play netrek much more than now. At the time, I was probably only Flt Captain Sun Tzu, maybe even just a Captain. A group of us, which included Jay Hui (TheSlug), Byron Sinor (Krang), and Steve Russel (Khelik) were playing netrek with Terence. The three of us were Feds, Terence was Orion. It was a full game, and Terence had come in as Og <== (beginning to get how it happened :> ). At this time, suiciding people with kills *NEVER* happened. Dogfighting rained supreme, and cloaking was used only for planet taking, that is until Terence decided to teach us CMU boys alesson. Steve had accumulated a 3, 4 kill ship and had taken Spica (or El Nath, I don't remember) and Terence chased him and tried to mutual with him. Steve killed him, but was left at ~90% internal. As he wiggled towards Fed. space he watched the galactic map as Og reappeared and began to move rapidly in his direction. I will never forget how his voice shattered the calm of the cluster with yells of Its OGGGGGGGG. HELP! HELP!!!!!!!!! Its OOOOOOGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!. His final words were something to the effect of AAAAAAAAAArrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh, Ive been Ogged!!. Jay and I immediately picked up on the effectiveness of suiciding people, and had Terence show us how to do it better. That is how Ogging started getting popular, and how the name spread through Netrek History. [Kevin Bernatz]
Ogger Scum
Those who Ogg for no understandable reason. This does not include those who occationally Ogg planet takers with kills, bombers, and star bases. However, there are people who Ogg people with no kills, and people who never take planets simply because its the only way they can see anyone blow up other than themselves. [Hugh More (ZZnew guy)]
Open side
As opposed to the wall side. The region near the planets facing 3rd space. E.g. in a Fed-Rom war, the Federation's open-side planets are Beta, Ceti, and Organia.
Open
A (momentarily) undefended planet.
Ori
Short for Orions. It is the name of one of the four races in Netrek. The others are Fed(eration), Kli(ngons) and Rom(ulons). Further Ori can also stand for the Orion's homeworld, Orion, as used in "Bomb Ori @ 6".
PAD
Percent armies delivered. One of the statistics for INL games.
PCK
Potential carriers killed. These are enemies killed who had kills for more than 30 seconds. They could have picked armies and thus were potential carriers. One of the statistics for INL games.
PWstats
Stats calculated by INL servers after the game. PW stands for Passing Wind, the character played by INL server hacker Mark Noworolski. They are: tpt (total planets taken), tpd (total planets destroyed), tpb (total planets bombed), (total armies bombed), tac (total armies carried), pad (percent armies delivered), fao (friendly armies ogged), eao (enemy armies ogged), tof (normalized average distance to enemy homeworld), eck (enemy carries killed), pck (potential carriers killed), tek (total enemies killed), fck (friendly carriers killed), def (deaths by enemy fire), and acc (actual carriers created).
Pac Man Fever
To suddenly dodge into a stream of torps. You know, eating the dots. [Scott Drellishak]
Peace scum
Players who declare peace against the opposing team so they can fuel off of enemy planets. A worthwhile technique, but can have bizarre results when players on both teams are doing it.
Phaser lock
Hit a cloaker with a phaser, thus determining the cloaker's position.
Phaser
Sometimes also referred to as "lines" (versus "dots" = torps). A phaser is one of the primary weapons of your starship. Its range is limited so it can only be used in close combat. Its destructive force increases lineary with the decrease in distance. The additional advantage of a phaser over torps is that your opponent cannot dodge a phaser. It shoots instantly (of course taking in account the communications delay). Classic battles between Phasers and Torps have proven that the phaser is the superior weapon of the two. [Erik Hietbrink]
Pig Call
Originally implemented to identify if someone was using a Borg client, most notoriously the "Pig" borg. If anyone sends a message consisting of five space characters as a message, the receiving clients will answer back with their client and version information.
Pig
A Borg client written my Tod Mummert. Also, any player who uses this client. Named after MUCUS PIG. [Timothy Worsley]
Ping-pong plasma
Normally a player can hit an incoming plasma torpedo with his phaser and make it explode. However, with ping-pong plasma's, the plasma will instantly reverse direction and lock onto the enemy team. On top of that its lifetime will increase as well as the damage it will do. Currently the only server with Ping-pong plasma enabled is nl.netrek.org [Erik Hietbrink]
Pizza scum
A player who takes up a slot, normally cloaked, while eating, going to the bathroom etc. [Timothy Worsley]
Planet Hork
An enemy gets killed by planetary fire just before you could get the kill yourself. Basically the planet stole the kill after you did all the hard work fighting and damaging the enemy ship.
Planet Scum
A sub-group of Ratings Scum. Those who waste armies by dumping them on planets that can't be defended in order to improve their planet ratings. This can acutally help the team if they have a lot of armies or are against a clueless opponent. Often, however, it hurts the team because the planets are quickly recaptured and the armies are lost for good. [Hugh More]
Planet scum
Sometimes used derogatively to indicate someone who is just trying to improve their planet rating without thinking of his team's welfare. (E.g. someone who takes an enemy core world for the double DI when he could have taken a more strategic planet instead.) But normally just refers to someone trying to take planets.
Plasma Scum
Some one who devotes their game play to getting plasma and keeping it (i.e. never dying). They stay near a fuel planet and just plasma anyone who comes near. Really obnoxious dorks to have on your team. [Ellis ?]
Plasma scum
Anyone using plasma, especially if that seems to be their main goal.
Plink
Lob torpedos (at) from long range.
Plock
Short for "phaser lock". (Instantly) hitting a cloaked enemy ship with your phaser.
Pop
When a planet grows armies. [Timothy Worsley]
Pregnant
Carrying armies. [Timothy Worsley]
Quitter scum
Someone who quits out when facing certain death, to avoid giving the enemy a kill (and the satisfaction thereof). If there's no wait queue, the quitter scum can quickly re-enter, so this is occasionally a clever ploy.
RCD
Receiver Configurable Distress. There is a whole section on these in your client manual.
ROBO effect
Shooting a plasma as soon as it is fired. Some only count this as the ROBO effect if the phasorer is then accused of playing a borg client. [Timothy Worsley]
RSA
The encryption alogrithm used in Netrek to prevent people from using borgs. It works like this: each client has its own key, which is in two parts, a public and a private key. The public key is given to all the servers. The private key is hidden in the client binarythis is why clients are distributed only in binary form. When the client connects to the server, the server generates a packet of random data and sends it to the client. The client encrypts this with its private key and sends it back to the server. The server decrypts this with the public key for that client. If the client is what it claims to be, i.e. it has the correct private key, the public key will decrypt the packet back to the original sequence. Its actually somehwat more complex than this, but the net result is that its very difficult to use a borg when you are not supposed to. Even if you do manage to create a blessed borg, the server gods can simply disable the particular key you are using, without causing too much disruption. [Shekter]
Racing
Netrek Racing is a for-fun-only game variant where all players have to fly a pre-determined course. Whoever makes it first to the finish line wins. [Invented by Rakesh Murria]
Rank scum
Players for whom ratings and rank are more important than helping their team. Usually they wind up helping their team by accident anyway.
Ratings scum
General scummy players who only play to make the next rank and don't bother helping their team any. [Walter Pullen]
Ratio Scum
Someone playing for ratio rather than to help their team.[Bert Enderton] Another sub-group of Ratings Scum. Those who are so cautious about dogfighting that they rarely get a chance to do it, but prefer to pick up injured ships. These hurt a team by stealing kills from those who would use them (to take planets) and by filling up a team slot with a more-or-less useless player. Frequenly, star bases are Ratio Scum. [Hugh More]
Redlining
Flying for a long period of time with an e-temp above 95. [Timothy Worsley]
Reinforce
Beam armies onto a planet you already own, e.g. to bring it from 1 army to 3. The symmetric operation is to weaken an enemy planet.
Res(urrection) scum
Kill someone right when he reses, before he gets a chance to move. MUCUS PIG was a master at this, and would taunt his victims afterwards and runner-scum them.[Bert Enderton] People who kill you right when you enter the game. The worst scum of this type can kill you in this manner several times (especially in a borg on needmore) each time you get pissed off and come in to kill the person only to be smashed by a plasma and 8 torps before you can move or fire anywhere. [Walter Pullen] Type II Res scum: Basically the opposite of the above. These people use a shiny new ship or two to take out most anyone near their home planet, i.e. you are beautifully dogfighting, and manage to take out that BB in your DD. Unfortunately you are now going warp 2 and he comes right back in and flies at you in a new CA at warp 9 and your kill quickly becomes his kill. [Walter Pullen]
Res
Resurrect; i.e., re-enter after dying.
Rewl
Rule. Win dogfights without giving ground. Take up residence at a contested planet and crush all comers. Also as a carrier, beat the defender dogfighting and take the planet.
Robot scum
Players who bring in a 3rd space robot to give them an initial advantage if they get genocided, or else attract the Terminators or Hunterkillers over into enemy space to wreak havoc. [Walter Pullen] [Ellis: since most servers no longer allow bombing out of T, and terminatorsweapons will only hurt the team who fired out of T, and not many servers even have iggy, you wont see this one a lot either.]
Role
A long-term assignment for a particular player. E.g. scout-bomber.
Rom
Short for Romulons. It is the name of one of the four races in Netrek. The others are Fed(eration), Kli(ngons) and Ori(ons). Further Rom can also stand for the Romulon homeworld, Romulus, as used in "Bomb Rom @ 6".
Runner Scum
Berkley term. 1) This refers to those who run from and even fight in hopes of gaining the advantage of shooting backwards. It is important that this does not include running when outnumbered, injured, or out of fuel. It also does not include merely attemping to stay at rangewhere a smaller ship is more effective. Runner scum are looked down upon because this tactic can't be used by everyone. If it were, there would be no kills. So those who try to make the game more interesting get reamed. 2) also often used to descibe those who hide in the backfield and only fight the occational straggler. [Hugh More (ZZnew guy)]
Runner scum
Run away while fighting, hoping to be chased. If chased, the runner scum has a natural advantage in that torpedos don't reach him quickly, and his torpedos reach the chaser very quickly. Sometimes derogatory, because a runner scum might be ceding important territory or leaving a teammate in the lurch, and also because there's a feeling that if everybody tried to runner-scum the game would stagnate.
SMACK!
A hit with a plasma torpedo, especially if the ship dies, when it is also a FATALITY, and especially when the ship in question was carrying, in which case it is also a DOOSH! [Ellis]
Scarecrow [Hugh Moore]
A player who stays in a dangerous situation even though he is out of fuel or badly damaged in the hopes of tricking an opponent into wasting time or even running.
Scout bombing
Bombing deep in enemy territory, especially with a scout. The usual idea is to try to stay behind enemy lines and bomb the armies that pop, and to run and/or cripple any enemy who chases you.
Scout-dropping
Delivering two armies at a time to random enemy planets, using a scout. This seems to be a particularly powerful plan when one's team is ahead 13-7 or so.
Scum
In the absence of a modifier, to take planets (or someone who does so -- scum can be a verb or a noun).
Scum
Of course I like that one definition I read on this group a while back, that a ___ scum is someone who does ___ more than I do. [Walter Pullen] I should point out that at times, calling someone a <whatever> scum is a compliment. Particularly, Planet Scum and Ogger Scum can often help their teams, and are cheered by thier fellows. [Hugh More]
Shadow
Or shark. Stay near an enemy, without cloaking, far enough to avoid being runner-scummed, but close enough that he or she can't safely orbit a planet.
Shark Ogg
To Ogg, without cloaking, by following a player just outside of effective weapon range, until s/he reaches an obstacle, and then attacking. [Timothy Worsley]
Shuttle
Pick up from planets and drop on the starbase or homeworld.
Sling
What a starbase does to help teammates who want to fly from one side of it to the other; namely, tractor them in and then pressor them out on the other side. (Or on calvin, to touch a transwarping ship with tractor or pressor beams to bring him out of transwarp without his incurring the five second lock-up.)
Slot scum
Someone who connects but doesn't play. A.k.a pizza scum. This is very bad; slot scummers should be banned. Slot scumming the enemy team to help your real team is out-and-out cheating.
Smack
Hit with a plasma torpedo. Plasma scums seem to like writing SMACK! or :-* to the All board whenever they do this.
Space controlling
As a role, this generally means dogfighting at the front and escorting, point-defending, and dealing with front-line armies as needed.
Split damage
Take 1 point on the hull for every 2 points to the shields. Increases repair efficiency since shields repair twice as fast. A.k.a. Damage Control.
Starbase scum
People who play a SB and try to individually waste anyone that comes near. This involves cloaking and when an enemy comes within range, quickly uncloaking and tractoring it in to its death. Common tactic found most anywhere. I do it all the time. :) [Walter Pullen] [Ellis: of course, the base isnt helping its team at all. Dont do it.]
Stealer scum
Very annoying teammates who steal your kills or planets, e.g. you skillfully wound Flt. Capt. Dodgeswell after a hard dogfight and are about to take him out when some Lieutenant flies in and takes the kill with one phaser, or you use 4 of your armies to neutralize a planet, only to have someone else take it when you are away getting more armies. Generally doesnt apply if they take kills from the SB or take heavily contested planets. [Walter D. Pullen]
Stupid ogging
The strategy of slamming into and mutualling with any enemy ships in one's space. E.g. the Human Target style. A.k.a. offense scumming.
Surface Bombing
Bombing outside planets, genocided race planets, and other undefended planets. [Hugh More]
Switcher scum
People who switch sides in the middle of a game, often to the more clueful team so they can benefit by a quick genocide. Especially scummy is to log in on one side, and bomb the enemy flat, then quickly switch and bomb the first team flat, to rack up DI. [Walter Pullen]
Synch
Synchronize, e.g. for a starbase og. E.g. "sync on d" means to time your approach so that you reach the target at about the same time as your teammate in the d slot. Many ships synchronized comprise a wave.
T-Mode Scum
The worst slime in the galaxy. These are the people who at 3am log in 4 times on each side as guest, and then come in as their main character and bomb everything and take over the galaxy a few times while they are the only one playing = lots of DI. [Walter Pullen] This is not possible on many servers now, as they check the actual login and IP address of the player to prevent this sort of thing.[Shekter]
T-mode
Tournament Mode.
T
Tournament Mode.
TAB
Total armies bombed. One of the statistics for INL games.
TAC
Total armies carried. One of the statistics for INL games.
TEK
Total enemies killed. One of the statistics for INL games.
TOF
A stat computed by the INL servers, this is proportional to your ship's average distance to the enemy homeworld It's normalized to the rest of your team's distances, with 100 being the average for your team. Generally speaking, low tof is worth striving for. Stands for Total Offense, I think, although that makes no particular sense.
TOF
Total offense. Normalized average distance to enemy homeworld. One of the statistics for INL games.
TPB
Total planets bombed. One of the statistics for INL games.
TPD
Total planets destroyed. One of the statistics for INL games.
TPT
Total planets taken. One of the statistics for INL games.
Terminal scum
People who kick you off that nice color xterm because youre playing games and they want to use it to get some work done. [Walter Pullen]
Third Space
The section of the galaxy owned by teams with no players on them, e.g. Orion and Klingon space in a Fed vs. Rom game.
Third space scum
Someone who takes over neutral space rather than working for a genocide. Disallowed by most servers these days.
Third space
The section of the galaxy owned by teams with no players on them, e.g. Orion and Klingon space in a Fed vs. Rom game.
Tournament Mode
Server mode when there are at least 4 players on each of two adjacent teams. Without t-mode it's just practice, not a netrek game. Stats are only recorded during T-mode. T-mode shows up as a little T in the flags display. You can only bomb and take planets in T-Mode, so basically if you don't have T-mode you don't have a game (which means you will have a minimum of eight players for a Netrek game.)
Traitor
Someone deliberately working against the interests of his own team.
Twink-bashing
Picking on the bad players, e.g. to get kills.
Twink
A bad player, especially one who has been playing a long time and still sucks.
Type scum
Kill someone who is typing a message.
Wall side
The region near the galaxy side-wall. E.g. in a Fed-Rom war, Veg Alt Rig Cap Hyd and Ald are considered wall-side planets.
