anyone know of any good TW mapping Tool programs (other then Swath)

are you talking about visual maps of the universe? if that is the case, then you are out of luck. Over the many years i've played, there have only been a few programs that did nice visual maps. Some are vastly outdated now and won't work anymore (not supported) and only really one exists currently which is swath.

I know mongoose is working on a helper written in Java which does some nice maps. however it is in its infancy and not really ready to be used in real game play. Its called Weapon M and a new version he is working on is called Dark Matter. But again, they are not really ready for real game play yet.

Older programs consisted of TWAR for dos. which i found pretty nice when i used to play on dialup long long ago. The author there tried to make a windows version which failed miserably after a pretty solid dos program.

There was also TWAssist. which i loved. but it only supports 5k universes. and you have to modify cim data a bit to work, since older versions of tradewars formatted the cim data a little different. The new cim lines are slightly different. It had a nice visual map. but it lacked some useful information.

Another Java app out there which has lost support was Kokua. I thought the map was fair as it showed as you played. A few different people tried to build on it, but it soon was let go into cyber world. i believe the source is out there at source forge

Xide once experimented with implementing a visual map tool in TWX Proxy, but it didn't get much attention into it and was later dropped out of it. its probably in the source code still, just not active. and it was in its infancy too.

But as of right now, Swath is about the only visual map you will find out there. many use swath just for that and its data finding abilities along with TWX proxy for it scripting.

a Visual map would be nice for game play wish i could find a place to host a server i have a registered 100 node 25 game key

i can say the Evcal mode of Swath the Mapper is nice

Well, it seems there is a shortage of sysops banging playable games at the moment, and there are players looking for a game, so if you were to set up a twgs with a few decent game edits I think the community would appreciate that.

I'm not a sysop so I'm not the right person to help you set set it up, but maybe make a post in the Hosting Q&A? You might find someone willing to help.

What do you consider a playable edit? I've hosted a few private games with settings that players requested. (Private as in open to the public, but not advertised on my intro screen.)

If you want to make your own settings in TWGS and send me the TWA, that would be easier. You get the settings you want albeit on a v2 server.

TWASSIST (tradewars assistant) is probably the best visual map, unfortunately it only works up to 5K sectors.

KOKUA has a decent visual map, any size Universe, never used it much, nor SWATH, so cannot compare them.

TWASSIST and KOKUA are freeware.

i think i actually paid for twassist way back when kav but yeah it worked without too. i think the paid version gave different data reports.

Speaking of maps...I used TWX and Swath. I have a corrupt map DB. When I try to do a ZTM, I get a msg that states I have already ZTM'd and need to start with a freash database. What is the best way to get a new ztm done? Do I just need to find and remove some BD somewhere?

Well, Big D recently posted a "Wanted" message in Open Discussion. I'm not sure myself what all the desired settings would be.

He wants a game on a v1 server, first and foremost. I run v2.

Yes, this is true. The reasoning behind this decision is due to the following bugs I've found in v2.

1) Three new bugs associated with exit/re-entry into the game. One of which is a major bug.

2) One new bug associated with sector entry and cannon fire and/or killing a sector fig. (This shows up during invasions)

3) One new bug associated with disconnecting players. If this is released it would kill v2 completely.

4) Two bugs concerning time limit games. (Nothing new and I don't play time limit games so I really don't care about these.)

5) Database bug concerning capping ships. (Have no clue what causes this one)

6) The old cannon bug concerning fuel ore not updated until someone attempts to land is still there. (This DOES NOT have to be rogue planets, but also effects player/corp planets that haven't been visited in awhile)

7) TWGS bug that once a player exits and enters (or disconnects) the game multiple times will force the player to hard exit to get out of the game.

There, I've reported the bugs.

And you wonder why they don't get fixed...

Actually I do wonder why these bugs don't get fixed. These bugs are fairly easy to discover, and the "beta team", whoever that might be should have discovered them already. I reported at least 2 of these bugs about a year ago and went into detail about them. Guess what. Still there.

I've been told that Exit/Enter has been fixed, it was a modification to Mombot. Not a bug fix in the game. Some clever TWX script writers are adapting the scripts to fit the game.