Stars!-R-Us Article

Stars! Abbreviations

NOTE: The abbreviations below are used in the newsgroup rec.games.computer.stars, but typically not in the games themselves.

ABBREVIATIONS BY TYPE

Primary racial traits (PRT)

AR - Alternate Reality
CA - Claim Adjuster
HE - Hyper-Expansion
IS - Inner-Strength
IT - Inter-stellar Traveler
JoAT - Jack of All Trades
PP - Packet Physics
PRT - Primary Racial Trait
SD - Space Demolition
SS - Super-Stealth
WM - War Monger


Lesser racial traits (LRT)

ARM - Advanced Remote Mining
BET - Bleeding Edge Technology
CE - Cheap Engines
GR - Generalized Research
IFE - Improved Fuel Efficiency
ISB - Improved Starbases
LRT - Lesser Racial Trait
LSP - Low Starting Population
MA - Mineral Alchemy
NAS - No Advanced Scanners
NRS - No RamScoop Engines (see NRSE below)
NRSE - No Ram Scoop Engines (see NRS above)
OBRM - Only Basic Remote Mining
RS - Regenerating Shields
TT - Total Terraforming
UR - Ultimate Recycling


Minerals

B - Boranium
G - Germanium
I - Ironium


Planets

G - Gravity (see grav below)
grav - Gravity (see G above)
R - Radiation
T - Temperature


Ship hulls, ships based on a particular hull

...G - See "G" in technology
BB - Battleship
BC - Battlecruiser
CA - heavy cruiser / attack cruiser
CC - Cruiser
CG - cruiser with torps/missiles (see ...G above)
CL - light cruiser (uncommon)
CoH - Miniminer with OAs (Orbital Adjusters, from "Change of Heart")
DD - Destroyer
DDG - destroyer with torps/missiles (see ...G above)
DN - Dreadnaught
FF - Frigate
PVT - Privateer


Other technology (weapons, engines etc.); forms without the hyphen are also used; for instance AD-8 and AD8 are likely to mean the same

AD-8 - Alpha Drive 8
Arms - Armageddon missiles
DLL-7 - Daddy Long Legs 7
Dooms - Doomsday missiles
FM - Fuel Mizer
G - when appended to a ship hull acronym, means "with missiles". For instance, "DD" is a destroyer with guns or lasers, while "DDG" is a destroyer with missiles
IS-10 - Interspace 10
Jugs - Juggernaut missiles
LH-6 - Long Hump 6
OA - Orbital adjuster
QJ-5 - Quick Jump 5
Rad-Ram - Radiating Hydro-Ram Scoop (see RHRS below)
RHRS - Radiating Hydro-Ram Scoop (use in proper context only, see Rad-Ram above)


Race design level strategies

-f/~f/!f - Factoryless race (There are variants with extremely expensive factories.)
HG - Hyper Growth (A race - often HE - designed for population explosion, 1/1000 pop eff, average factory settings ~11/9/16 or better maybe. See QS below.)
HP - Hyper Producer (A race designed for high resources, but often slower growth, 1/2500 pop eff, 15/7/20+ facs, or thereabouts.)
HR - hyper-resource (Not often used, sometimes called Quickstarts/hybrids with HG pop off and HP fac settings. See QS, and use it preferably.)
NF - (uncommon) see -f above
QS - Quickstart (See HR above.)


Hosting, gameplay, and race wizard

AccBBS- Accelerated BBS start
AI - Artificial Intelligence (race played _exclusively_ by the computer, see "maid" below)
APs - Advantage Points (in the race wizard)
maid - player position temporarily being played by the computer
PBEM - Play-By-E-Mail
PPS - Public Player Scores
RW - Race Wizard


Other Non-standard acronyms in the Stars! newsgroup

1/2 ... - like "1/1000 11/9/16/3g 10/3/15" shows race design economy settings:
- resources produced per colonist;
- factory efficiency (resources produced per factory), factory cost (in resources), number of factories operable per 10,000 colonists, germanium cost of a factory (3 or 4);
- mine efficiency, cost and number operable.
(There are variations on how the germanium cost is shown. Sometimes instead of 3g or 4g, people use g-box or no g-box, to indicate 3 or 4, respectively.)
1/2/3... - with six numbers, like "10/16/9/12/11/7", shows the technology research levels attained by a race:
energy, weapons, propulsion, construction, electrical, biotechnology
ly - lightyear
MM - Micro Management (having to take care of lots of details each turn)
MT - Mystery Trader
tech - technology
TMND - The Monster/Menace Next Door (uncommon) (You wouldn't like him so close.)


"Standard idiom acronyms" used in the Stars! newsgroup

AFAIK - as far as I know
BTW - by the way
IIRC - if I recall correctly
IM(H)O - in my (humble/honest) opinion
IOW - in other words
ISTM - it seems to me
LOL - "laughing out loud" or "lots of laughs"
NG - newsgroup
OFC - of course
OTOH - on the other hand
RL - real life
RTFM - read the f... manual
WTF - What the f...
YMMV - your mileage may vary - implies that the reader might get a different result or reach a different conclusion

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