Robots:

A robot appears whenever you *bomb* a planet belonging to an unrepresented race and that planet is in that race's home quadrant. Suppose there are no Klingons, but there are Kli planets outside of Kli space. These planets can be taken normally without creating Guardian. Note: you will be at war with Klis until you die, be careful lest someone else bring in Guardian.
If Guardian is already there, he will not leave Kli space unless someone at war with him leads him out. Kli planets outside of Kli space are pretty easy to get; again, you will be at war with the Klis until you die.
[ Of course, "hostile" is reversible, "war" is not. ]
Taking a planet from a robot-defended team gives you much less DI for the planet than usual. Bombing robot-defended armies gives you normal DI, I think.
Note that robots are not summoned when you beam down. Of course, it's wasteful to beam down 58 armies for ONE planet, which leads us to.... [Terence M. Chang]

Orders for sfop, as of 2-15-92

I run the server on bezier.berkeley.edu, and I'm the author of sfop, the robot which often runs there on robot nights. Since sfop is pretty single minded most of the time, and not much of a team player, I modified it so that players on its team can send it messages. Here is the currently available list of commands:

• order patrol [planet]
  Causes the robot to patrol the named planet (you only need enough of the planet's name to uniquely identify it). It will orbit the planet, attacking anyone who comes near, until it dies. Then it reverts to hostility.
• order take
  Returns sfop to normal hostility (planet-taking in its own good time) mode. This will override any of the previous commands.
• order take [planet]
  Overrides the standard planet-choosing algorithm. If you notice that sfop is going to take a planet, and you're making a run at the enemy's home planet, you can order sfop to make a simultaneous attack (be aware that it may hesitate quite a bit before diving in). Note that this command doesn't force sfop into planet-taking mode, but simple affects its choice of planet when it decides it's ready to take one. Use the "order take" command to put it in planet- taking mode.
• order map [planet] *or* order touch [planet]
  sfop will try to touch the named planet until your team has info on it, then it returns to hostility.
• order bomb [planet]
  sfop will try to bomb the named planet until it is down to 4 or less, then it returns to hostility.
• order escort [player] [planet]
  sfop will preceed the named player (either a unique part of the players name, or the player number), attacking enemies who come nearby, so that the player can take the specified planet. Just as the planet comes on the edge of the escorted player's screen, sfop will run ahead and clear off the planet -- it's a good idea to slow down a little so you don't get caught in the crossfire. sfop returns to hostility when the planet is taken, or when the player dies.
• order ogg [player]
  sfop will do its best to hunt down the named player and kill him. It'll keep trying until the person dies, even if it dies, so this is a good way to tell sfop to harass a starbase. When the player dies (whether or not sfop killed him), sfop returns to hostility.
• order report *or* order r
  sfop will report its status. This includes shields, damage, type of ship, and number of armies. Most importantly, though, it tells you what sfop is doing. If you're going to send an order to sfop, check his status first -- if it's doing anything besides "TAKING", assume that someone else on your team has already sent it an order. Hopefully, this will cut down on tugs-of-war about what sfop should do next.