Res uses macros...not scripts from what I gather. You seem misinformed. You are "laboring on a misconception." Heh.

What's the difference? Lonewolf is the one that leaves himself on 24/7 defending the sector via cheating.

Res has a program that sits at stardock and attacks continously until someone enters the sector. He filled about 4 pages worth of the daily log with "res tried to attack someone in the federation" because he knew I was in the game and would eventually come to stardock.

I tend to not use the sit-and-wait scripts like p-watch and what you say about res at SD SOUNDS like a script...but it could be a macro that has very repetitive commands. But just because they use scripts doesn't mean they're cheating. I personally pride myself on my at keys skill even though I'm not at the level of some "big names" in TW...but that's just my preference. Like others have said before...everything and everyone can be beaten. There is no perfect script. No computer can account for the randomness of human thought. So the question I guess I ask of myself when I play MY way and that you should ask yourself is "Am I better than some program, or are lines of code more intelligent than I?".

Unless the sysop of a particular game has declared script us as unallowed on his server, I don't see any way to call it cheating. You may not like scripts, but there are a lot who do. It is up to each person to find a server with rules and opposition that fits their idea of fun.

I rememeber, a looong time ago, back in the BBSing via a 24kbps modem, I played in this game and the Federation would give you missions.

You'd get a message like "Go get Menace 1st Class Jumpin Jehosepheth, last seen around Sector 1234"...

If you killed/captured that game-generated, evil alien, you would get exp/align points boost, and a monetary reward/bounty.

If you failed, your exp/align points would drop...

I mean, I'm going by very vague, distant memory here, so please don't correct me too precisely [:)] ...

I think something like this would be fun in a game: "Missions" from FedPolice, and maybe..."Contracts" from the Underground?

Something to think about!

I think that was an addon door- Currently disabled..

Kinda like when you could buy turns, and the borg, and moble planets ect ect ect..

Grazhoppa

Or how about the Q Plug-In? Q would appear and randomly do something in the game.

Same, door addin.

Grazhoppa

It was a program that was run before TW2002 was loaded. I remember as I had it on a BBS I was a SYSOP on. It was not a door, but something that modified the TW data files before TW2002 got loaded.

Players would enter and exit a game repeatedly to see if they would get any good stuff, and so I had to regretfully remove it because of abuse.

That's why it's called a door addin.

Door + addin.

....

grazhoppa

I sent a mail many years ago to John asking about a *nix port.
As I remember the response was they'd like to but it was going to be a while. That's when I started making my own version. It's not going to be exactly the same. Otherwise it could be considered in copyright violation land. But right now it's pretty much the same. It's not directly telnet based, but has it's own server and client.
And it doesn't use any really strange communication so if anyone ever wants they can write their own clients for it. I'm planning on
making a more robust AI for the aliens etc, invisible ports, user buildable stardocks, more citadel levels. ability to smuggle things, more evil stuff, more good stuff. If anyone is interested in trying it out (and you have a *nix box) it's at twclone.sourceforge.net

--Rosencrantz

It's currently under development, lol...

Talk about a day late and a dollar short =\

LOL

quote:Originally posted by Nightblade

Personally, I consider scripts to be cheating. What is the point of playing the game if you are nothing more than a 'bot?? Since it is a text based game it is very easy to script. It is up to the game's sysop to monitor the game and get rid of scripters (if he wants to).

In the game I am developing I have made it so some types of cheating is impossible (like ztm), but of course there is a lot of it you can do nothing about.


"nothing more than a bot"

heh - do you have any idea how long it takes to write a decent bot? even the best bots out there don't play the game for you... you still have to control them and tell them what sorts of things to do or look for. no bot in existence can play the game for you.

"nothing" and "bot" should not even be in the same sentence. bots are something - something quite substantial and take an enormous amount of effort and game knowledge to develop.

i understand your position though - you just want to play the game and not have to face these scripts in combat or match their efficiency in trading. fine. go play warcraft or something. tradewars is a text game and it has been scripted from the very beginning - whether you call it a helper or a script doesn't matter. people who write scripts consider scripting to be the challenge - because doing it all by hand is slow and time consuming and ultimately boring.

quote:Originally posted by Grazhoppa

That's why it's called a door addin.

Door + addin.

....

grazhoppa


Reading the Q docs:

quote:
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Q v1.00a Written by David Proper °±²Û²±° Copyright 1993 David Proper
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ

"Boy, isn't that a descriptive name" - I like to make people guess sometimes.

"Ya, I gathered that. So what is this?" - It's Q.

"Ha-ha. Real funny. That one is getting old." - Ya, I have overused it.

"What does this Q do" - Ever see the ST:TNG episodes where Q, from the
Q Continuium pops up and 'plays' with the Enterprise?

"Ya. I've seen them. What connection is there with this program?" - Well, the
other day I logged on to my BBS to check the new messages like I always do
and found a feedback message from Jerry Woody. He gave an idea about having
a Q-type person going around p*ssing with the users. He said that it would do
either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on Q's mood. So it does.

"Cool. I like this. How come the other TW authors don't do stuff like this?"
I guess because I'm better. haha.

"Ego alarm, I can hear it" - Ya, me too.

"So how does this program work and what does it do?" - same setup as the rest.

Calling syntax: Q datapath

Where datapath is the drive:path to your TW data files.

When Q is run, it will pick a random sector, and check for players in that
sector. It will then decide what kind of mood it's in, either good or bad.

Then it will pick what it will mess with, Fighters, shields, or Credits. If
it's in a good mood it will add a random amount, if in a bad mood, it will
subtract a random amount.

While adding it takes into consideration ship limits on shields and fighters.
If they have more fighters or shields then the max the ship can handle, then
it will remove the extra. Like like a miniature bug catcher.

OK, that's about it.


It would be great if someone wrote a plug-in for TWGS to do the same thing.

His BBS contact info was:
quote:
The Ace of Spades
1-216-339-4592
300/1200/2400 baud - 24hrs - 7dys
21,000+ files - 130+ doors - 7+megs Gfiles


In the docs he ranted about nobody donating any money for his TW stuff he wrote. I have his Postal Address in case anyone wants to contact him, but not sure if I should post it in a public forum.

Ah the good old days when people wrote TW add-ons/plug-ins/doors, why can't we do that these days?

From what I've been told, the way the databases are now handled, attempting to modify them while the game is running almost always causes corruption.