The biggest problem will be inexperienced sysops not knowing what they are doing and really messing up. I think PH and Sing will agree with me when I say that there should be a balance in any changes. Such as 1) No Delays 2) Short Delays 3) Medium Delays 4) Long Delays, and each mode has equal changes per delay producing a more balanced game.

Yeah, I think that's what JP is referring to as his "Official Rules" Modes... a mode for each style of game.

I think it's up to us to help him decide the settings for each "Official Rules" mode. And I beleive he even said he'd play a game himself to get a feel.

Well, I agree with BigD, I'd like to have some broad settings that would balance multiple settings according to a general goal like "fast play" or "slow play". That's easier said than done, of course.

Most good strategy games have a game configuration screen that allows you to set some broad characteristics like how fast the game moves, how quickly players grow, how large the game should be, how scarce or abundant resources are, etc. A bigbang screen with these kinds of configuration setting would simplify things considerably for gameops.

What is this supposed to accomplish other than sysop's fooling with stuff and making the games unplayable?

IF the games were balanced then what difference would it make as to speed?

You hit a fig and die slow or die fast? What difference does it make...your still dead!


I seem to be missing the point.

Right, timings need groups of settings, not
individual settings.

Once they get worked out, we need stuff like
"fast" and "slow" settings, not minute-detailed
settings that inexperienced syops have to
wade thru. That'd be a disaster.

The reason things are open right now is so we
can determine the optimally balanced timings
without JP having to roll out new beta versions
every 2 days.

What is the POINT?

Would you rather have horribly unbalanced timings?

Things have changed since the previous version.
The random message window delay is gone. That
has a profound (yet positive, as you will find out)
impact on play.

Parrothead, you're looking at the game as if timing has always been the same. It hasn't. Why is it automatically better for timing to be whatever it happens to be given so many variables like network and hardware speed, number of players active on the server, etc, as opposed to what testing determines to be the optimal timing? By making timing a setting, I'm taking it away from essentially random chance and providing the opportunity to establish static and balanced timings. How can that not be a good thing (rhetorical question)?

Also, delays can have a significant effect on gameplay. Having planets that move more slowly depending on the distance of the TWarp should have a major impact on gridlock. The further figs are from your base, the harder it will be to defend your grid. Also, by using a Photon blast delay, it will become more difficult to use a Photon as an aggressive ship vs ship weapon. If you detect a ship in a sector, then Photon from adjacent, currently there's zero delay from the moment the player is notified of a Photon and the moment the player is disabled. With the blast delay, a Photon event will tell the player that a missile has entered the sector, then a moment later, it will detonate and disable the ship. That little delay makes all the difference in the world.

You suggest that it's pointless to define timing in a game. I can't think of any other game where timing isn't strictly defined. Imagine playing Pac Man if the pace of movement was tied to CPU rather than a timer. It's often one of the most important parts of a game, and especially of a simulation. In TW, there was no strict timing to events because only one player was playing at a time. When it went interactive, timing was added, but only in a few places. For many years now, some actions have been locked at a specific pace, while others have been allowed to speed up with hardware and Internet. This divergence of pace tends to imbalance the game. But we can and should establish balanced timings for today's game, and once we do, we're guaranteed that it won't change no matter how much hardware and Internet speeds change. I believe we can find timing parameters that allow your game to play just as you're used to it playing. And once we find those settings, they'll be locked in. Without doing this, your game would continue to change, and there's no guarantee that the current balance would be sustained.

Keep in mind that will make it impossible to stop
gridders, too. Making it very easy to find and
invade bases.

Timing matters, quite a bit in some cases, but it
is possible to go a bit crazy with it.

The POINT in configurable timing JOhn.

Either the game is balanced or it isnt.
IF it isnt then Scripters rules the waves.
If it is balanced then everone has a chance.
Sysop configurable timing is Stupid plain and simple....
as a interim tool to DEFINE the timings fine....
But to fool with game play? Nonsense.


Make the Planet go to SLow and I will grid u out in 2 days.
Make it go to fast and ill kill you every time u move....


We went over this ground 15 times already John.
Start fooling with every other timing in the game? Unplayable. Despite the best intentions.

Some kind of base line multiper could be used to slow the game down if it is being played on a LAN or Limited WAN where the pings are super fast I can see as very useful as TW get alot of play on LAN's

A menu where u can set the BASELINE ping....from 105 to 300 say depending on Who what and Where the game is being hosted.

This way the game would be balanced over a RANGE of possible AVERAGE pings based on the user base.



Distance based delays Only add a little complexity.
Turns games are based on HOW MANY SECTORS I CAN GRID PER TURN....SO peeps tend to Twarp Mow.....Double/Triple hit...Flex Charge ....Line Pgrid and other effecient methods.

Stopping this Can be Adj Pdrop...(time is not relevant)...I can kill u with a 350 ping
ALso one of many ways to do Predictive Pdrop ... 2 sectors out
Predictive with Photon..... Adj/density torp....Predictive/density Torp

And other methods....For every method of gridding in a turns games there are several methods to try and stop it. All this tends to be Man vs MAn albeit thru scripts. To think that I can stop gridding while I am AFK is foolish......You have been listening to bad players without a mower again. Best I can do is set up some Saftey Adj Torps w/ Auto Return (which eats a lot of gas) to Hit someone with a script error or other mistake..or some noob entering the game with the intent of mowing thru grid then logging out. To stop intentional gridding by a determined foe is harder than u think.

To stop a gridder you first need to know HOW they are gridding.
Then compile the tools needed to stop him.

Fooling with this balance in favor of the gridder at all just makes grid and therefore your base undefendable. A little in the other direction is OK but too much there just results in stalemates.

Parrothead: "Either the game is balanced or it isnt.
IF it isnt then Scripters rules the waves.
If it is balanced then everone has a chance.
Sysop configurable timing is Stupid plain and simple....
as a interim tool to DEFINE the timings fine....
But to fool with game play? Nonsense."

Of course I'm aware of the damage gameops can do to game balance. Where we differ is in the belief that the game as it's currently configured is balanced. The point has been made several times, if the game is out of balance, scripters rule. Anybody believe that isn't the case today? So steps need to be taken to restore balance to the game, and in a way that the whole game doesn't center around gridding.

Now, assuming that's possible, and I am able to provide support for a different mode of play where there's more of an emphasis on strategy and building and less on tactics and killing, I don't believe that balance will be locked in. Just as we've seen all along, various forces will tip the balance one way or the other. If gameops lack the ability to adapt, as they have in the last 6 years while I've been away from the game, then the game will just slip back into the state it's currently in, where only one group of players is supported and others have been alienated. My hope is that by having more options, gameops will be able to forge ahead with adaptation and not be dependent on me releasing an update to fix certain gameplay issues. Sure, that will leave it open for some gameops to create really unplayable games. But that's always been possible. It's going to fall to the community to focus on the best game sites and the best settings so that those become the norm. And as I'm trying to do now, when I do have a chance to put out a new update, I'll be able to integrate the standards of play into the game, like I'm adding truce rules now.

I have to admit, I'm getting very mixed signals here. When I came into this, one of the highest priorities according to my gameops was to provide lots of options and to make them local rather than global so they could support a wide variety of different game styles. Now that I'm doing that, I'm getting flack for somehow overburdening the gameops and making it impossible for them to filter through all of the options and make a good game. I gotta say, I trust guys like Thrawn and V'Ger to continue to get the best out of this software. There are things I can do to make the software easier to use for noob ops, but I don't need to dumb it down for veteran ops. To a large extent, I just need to get out of their way.

The difference is the ones complaining are not sysops, the rest of us look forward to seeing the end result. Thanks John for taking the time to do the work it should and will help servers offer more variations to the game. Allowing each server to have it's own feel giving people the choice to select where they decide to play with the feel they like.

Making the game Unbalanced wont allow people to have different styles of PLAY it just FORCES them to play in a certain way or Die. IT removes CHOICE......IT prevents different gameplay styles. Sysop's won't evolve they will just continue to believe they know best. That is human nature.


@SG and others....watch the tone or go to Smack please.

Some players feel FORCED to play a certain way right now. The type of play we once enjoyed in the early years is by-gone because like John says the speed of the processors and the internet. At first I didn't believe it myself until I found the old HVS game still running. This thing absolutely flies off the screen it's so fast! The old game I had such fond memories of moving as slow as molasses is now moving so fast I'm getting dizzy! It could only process as fast as the processors of the day, which if I'm not mistaken a 486 was pretty darned fast back then with a whopping 8 Megs of RAM no less! LOL

I dunno, I didn’t run a server. Maybe Eleq or Jake from Fament could tell us what hardware they ran back then. The point is John has made some improvements so the TWGS server side works with today’s new OS’s. He’s made improvements to the sysop side, so you no longer have to disrupt everyone’s game just because the sysop wants to reset one of the games. Sysops can now remote access to open, close and rebang games, allowing them more flexibility. Now he wants to do what many players (not of this forum necessarily) have been asking for, which is more choices.

Players are tired of being FORCED to play a certain style right now. The style you enjoy will NOT change. If you feel so strongly that it may, then you can request the sysop on the server you enjoy continue to run the 2004 release, or put up your own server and run that one. It’s all about choices, that’s all, nothing more.