Yeah, me too. And it seems no matter the edit, no matter how many times we've played it, the script writers keep coming up with a better mouse-trap. I'm very lucky that Xanos took me under his wing when I returned. I've helped to "design" and test code, but never wrote any. Oh, maybe I've tinkered with the UI since Xan doesn't care for that aspect, but yeah if not by the good graces of Xanos, I never would have been able to play in tournaments again.

Welcome back! NZ just made the news, first country to be 100% Covid-19 Free! Good news for you!

Do you recall a player by the name of hELLCAT? He's in NZ now as well, settled down, started a family. I believe he's running a school that teaches how to code games. I could make the intro on FB for you two.

wow, hellcat. now there's a name from the deep past.

Was going on Xide. Very long time no see. Glad to hear you are doing well.

People are still playing TW but everyone is all grown up now (age wise). No one really has the time or desire to seriously commit tourney play these days it seems.

I have been back playing for about 1 year. I am only playing 1 game right now, the solo at SK server. I think there is a Summer Bash tourney coming up which is Pirates edit.

Seems like everyone runs mombot over twx. If you are lucky there will be 3 teams in a tourney. Last tourney there were only 2 teams and it ended pretty quickly.

With some of the game settings you can't even hit a fig without getting photoned. Sometimes you get hit by photon before even getting to the attack fighter prompt. Someone else could probably explain exactly how it all happens right down to the millisecond.

Hope to see you in a game soon!

Uh... mombot runs on top of twx. It's a twx proxy script. How can you seriously not know this by now?



Yes, this is thanks to TWGS v2, which was an attempt (influenced by Cruncher, among others) to break scripting and push it out of tradewars. Instead, it did the opposite, because the people working on it didn't understand how the timings they changed would actually impact the game.

With v2, you can set latency (how long the server waits to process incoming messages) and move delay (how long it takes a player to move into a sector).

Since nearly everyone has sub 50 ms ping times to most servers now, latency is completely useless for the original purpose it was intended to serve (to eliminate ping time advantage) and instead just serves to slow down the game for the servers where it is set higher.

If move delay is on, and latency is lower than move delay, then when you attempt to move into a sector, there is a delay that is greater than the time it takes for the server to process your next command after you enter the sector. So, even if you "burst" a command to enter a sector and kill a fig, a player running a foton/kill script will see you attempt to enter the sector immediately, and will have their command processed before you are able to reach the sector prompt (while the move delay is being enforced). Planets are not subject to move delay, only players, so a planet drop script can warp a planet into a sector after you attempt to move in but before you can remove the fighter(s) or warp out or do anyhing else. While you are waiting for the move delay to expire, the person has already warped in, lifted off the planet, and killed you. Actually, it's worse than that - in some cases, they have already warped adjacent to you, fotoned you, warped in on top of you, and killed you, before you ever reach the sector prompt.

This is why most old timers and scripters think that V2 is such garbage - because sysops can tune it however they want, and if they don't understand the impact, can easily make games that give a massive advantage to a talented scripter. Even if they do know what they are doing, once the scripters figure out how the game is set up, it can always be adapted to.

Being someone who can code, I mostly enjoy playing these games against other good scripters, because it is an opportunity to try creative new approaches, and can often end up in a head to head match with both sides changing their scripts to adapt to the tactics and techniques of the other. But if you can't code, you are generally useful only as a bot in these games (hi Farley!)

There is a separate delay for planets. Problem is that scripters scream bloody murder if you turn it on.

so if i set:

Latenancy: 75
Ship Move Speed: 75
Planet Move Speed: 75

what effect would that have on photon hit probability?

I had absolutely NOTHING to do with the timing, that was all JP and Singularity testing. In the end, Sing didn't like what JP did and left. I just wanted a few toggles. I think the timing was more to ensure the stability of the data file, and maybe with default latency give everyone at least a universal minimum ping.

Unlike the old days with most everyone on dial-up and hELLCAT on a T-1. heh

Oh yeah, that was one of the toggles I asked for. heh

@Cruncher - Sing was working with JP on the internal delays, which the gameop cannot change.

Not sure about the planet move speed because, as you note, no one ever turns it on.

If latency is equal to or higher than move delay, a fast player with good scripts will never, or nearly never, get fotoned. I have tested this extensively on my own server and in competitive games. Recently played two games against MD, Hammer and co. One game had move delay greater than latency and anyone who hit a fig died. You could warp adjacent, foton them, warp on top of them and kill them before their burst command to enter and hit fig ever reached the sector command prompt. Second game had equal move delay and latency both 50ms and we could both twarp grid each other all day no planet and maybe get fotoned one time out of a hundred a best. That one required predictive locks to have a chance to hit anyone.

There has been a recent escalation in using timings to make scripts that destroy anything out there. It has certainly changed the game.

I think the last straw for me was other players being able to bot player accounts. One could play the rest of his team without them even being near keys. That's not playing. But, it is what it is. The social side of it all was half the fun.

"The last straw"? Various forms of bots have been around for literally decades. Mombot makes this more accessible to nearly everyone, but bots are not even remotely a new thing in tradewars.

You feel like you know what I'm thinking? I've played TW since the early 1990's. I know what it was like. mombot made it far too easy for a single player to play everyone's ship in the corp. That's not playing. Besides, I wasn't talking to you. So, hush child, the grown ups are talking.

Thank you for the thorough break down.

I think a player should be able to attack a sector then xport to another ship without being photoned ever.

I don't see attack delay mentioned. Is attack delay still around?

Times have changed that's for sure.