The creation of new races is controlled by the person hosting the
game. Player #1 (the first player enrolled into the game) should
always be given deity status, as many of the game default operations
are placed in player #1's control. Other players may be designated as
having deity status during the enrollment procedure, but this isn't
recommended (or needed in most cases).

Race generation is often done using a rather complex point based
system, the idea being that you must spend a limited number points to
get better attributes. The program that you do this creation process
with is called "racegen". There are five types of data associated with
each race that the player can choose:

* Name, password, and other profile information -- While none of these
have any direct effect on game play, they add interest. Name and
password can be set with racegen before enrolling in the game. All of
the others can be changed as needed; see also: name, personal, profile

* Home planet type -- A race's home planet can drastically affect its
game. Jovian home planets are the most costly type, because jovians
are huge planets with big % the sector area of the universe on them.
Jovians are the only worlds with gas sectors on them; gas tends to be
resource-poor but fertile. Class M (Earth-type) home planets are the
next most useful, with a good balance of fertility and resources.
Forest and water worlds are like class M's and generally more fertile,
but they are also smaller on average. Desert worlds have high resource
content but are not very fertile. Iceballs and airless worlds are too
small to make very good home planets, but they are very common in the
universe as a whole.

* Racial type -- There are two main racial types in GB: normal races
(think of humans, Klingons, Wookies, Pierson's Puppeteers, etc) and
metamorphs (Alien, the Thing, body snatchers, etc.) The primary
difference between these two race classes is that only metamorphs may
have pods. A secondary difference that is rather harder to notice is
that the price of various attribute combinations is slightly different
for normals and morphs in racegen, especially for some of the
attributes' extremes.

* Compats -- The planets found in the GB universe are represented as
arrays of sectors of various types: ice, land, sea, etc. Various races
may have varying degrees of compatibility with these sector types,
which will affect the amount of population they can grow on that
sector type, and other things too.

* Attributes -- Attributes are quantizations of a race's abilities.
Currently there are 11 basic attributes for each race:

** Absorption -- Only metamorphs may have this attribute, which allows
   them to absorb enemy troops and civilians in combat if the morph wins.
   Combined with pods, it allows metamorphs to replace alien population
   on planets when pods burst.

** Adventurism -- This described how willing a sector's population is
   to move and explore other sectors. High value tend to settle planets
   on their own far more efficiently. If you have a low value, you can
   order movements with the 'move' option.

** Birthrate -- This factor determines how rapidly the population in
   the sector will converge to the maximum population supportable on the
   there. High values mean that the population multiplies faster.

** Fertilize -- This attribute represents the percentage chance that a
   race will increase by one percent the fertility of any sector it owns.
   Any race may take advantage of space plows for a similar effect, once
   it gets to tech level 5.

** Fighting Ability - Higher values mean that the race is more likely
   to kill an alien than a lower value. Races with lower values will
   usually need to have larger forces to win in direct combat over a high
   fighting ability. It is important to note that this effects only land
   combat and ship boarding strengths, and not ship to ship fighting.

** IQ -- The raw growth rate of a race's technology is governed by the
   race's intelligence. The technology increase per update is IQ/100.
   Additional technology gain is available by technology investments on
   the individual planets under the race's control.

** Collective IQ; IQ limit -- The intelligence of a race with
   collective IQ is related to the race's total population, as follows:
   IQ = IQ_limit * [ (2/PI) atan(population/50000)]^2. [Note: Be careful
   with this one! If you can't build pods, then having a collective IQ
   could be disastrous as you won't have the knowhow to build *any* kind
   of useful ships for a looooong time.]

** Mass -- Each race has a mass. The heavier the individual, the more
   fuel it will take to launch and land ships full of the race.

** Metabolism -- This value controls how industrious the race is.
   Higher metabolism races will produce resources more rapidly than lower
   metabolisms, and also increase the efficiency of sectors faster.

** Pods -- Pods are small ships, available only to metamorphs but at
   tech level 0, buildable instantly on the surface of planets. Each one
   may carry a single crew-thing; this makes them ideal for settling
   other planets. Pods which enter a system after having frozen in deep
   space will warm and eventually burst, possibly leading to spores
   landing on worlds in the new system. If a spore lands on a sector, a
   ton or more of biomass will be created, resulting in a new colony for
   the podding race. Note that spores may never land on alien occupied
   sectors unless the podding race has absorption.

** Sexes -- Each race has a number of sexes. This represent the
   minimum population that a sector must have in order to be able to
   reproduce. Lower values are preferable to high values for colonization
   efforts. It is not recommended to have more than 3 to 6 sexes at the
   outside, unless you are really looking for a challenge