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 Data usage 
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Sergeant

Joined: Wed Dec 11, 2013 2:32 pm
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Unread post Data usage
Ok ive been playing now for about 2 months. Ive been using swath, but recently, Archie (thank you) showed me how to use twx. Since that time my data usage, I have satellite service since I live out in the sticks, has shot up to almost 250 megs an hour. Does twx use that much data? Because my usage habits havent changed in the last 2 weeks. Anyway any help in this matter would be appreciated.


Fri Feb 21, 2014 11:54 am
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Unread post Re: Data usage
Network communications are built up in layers. If you send the letter 'A' by itself, it gets wrapped in a TCP packet, and then in another wrapper for the actual transport layer. Now your one byte is probably a dozen or more. Your satellite link is probably metered for the size of the packets, not just the data they contain. And TW, like many games, has a lot of small packets flying around...

If you're seeing distinctly different network usage between SWATH and TWX, then maybe SWATH is buffering the network more efficiently (although that would be less desirable from a gameplay standpoint, at least in combat with other live players) or SWATH's scripts are sending larger bursts of commands.

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Fri Feb 21, 2014 2:29 pm
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Unread post Re: Data usage
It could be related to how keepalive is handled. I believe Swath keepalive waits for the timeout prompt and then sends a "N" in response to the prompt.
TWX doesn't have a keepalive, but TWX bots do, and I think most of them are active silent keepalives. In other words, they are constantly sending an invisible character to the game, and you never see the timeout prompt. This can increase your bandwidth usage.

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Sat Feb 22, 2014 6:18 pm
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Ensign

Joined: Wed Nov 06, 2002 3:00 am
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Unread post Re: Data usage
Micro wrote:
It could be related to how keepalive is handled. I believe Swath keepalive waits for the timeout prompt and then sends a "N" in response to the prompt.
TWX doesn't have a keepalive, but TWX bots do, and I think most of them are active silent keepalives. In other words, they are constantly sending an invisible character to the game, and you never see the timeout prompt. This can increase your bandwidth usage.


Is there any way to turn this off in the bots? Shouldn't be too hard to do a keepalive script that sends a character when you get the timeout prompt.


Wed Jun 11, 2014 6:45 pm
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Unread post Re: Data usage
SteveH_66 wrote:
Micro wrote:
It could be related to how keepalive is handled. I believe Swath keepalive waits for the timeout prompt and then sends a "N" in response to the prompt.
TWX doesn't have a keepalive, but TWX bots do, and I think most of them are active silent keepalives. In other words, they are constantly sending an invisible character to the game, and you never see the timeout prompt. This can increase your bandwidth usage.


Is there any way to turn this off in the bots? Shouldn't be too hard to do a keepalive script that sends a character when you get the timeout prompt.


Mine is the same as SWATH. Telix, should be easy to translate, and no overhead:

main()
{
int cycles=1;
while (cycles>0)
{

if(waitfor ("inactivity",200)) cputs("#");
}
}


Thu Jun 12, 2014 2:06 am
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Joined: Wed Nov 06, 2002 3:00 am
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Unread post Re: Data usage
Thanks Kav, that would work for people wanting to do SWATH scripts. I was just asking if there was a way to turn off the silent keep alive in the bots like mombot and zbot. It doesn't matter much to me at the moment since I am just scripting and testing in a local game on my own machine, but if I ever get back into playing in real games it wouldn't be good to have the bot constantly sending a silent keep alive or queries all the time and running up a lot of data usage. My ISP has gone from unlimited internet to metered usage and it doesn't take a family long to use up 3 gigs a month these days. I have done tons of keep alive scripts so I would just do my own silent keep alive when I got the disconnect warning. I guess it would be better to take that discussion over to the scripting forum though, although this would be useful information for others to know who have limited bandwidth per month and run the bots, so they could turn the keep alive off in the bots. Or maybe the bot writers could mod the bots to send the keep alive at timed intervals or only when you get that message?


Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:32 pm
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Unread post Re: Data usage
My ignorance of TWX is almost complete, but I might be able to hack a mombot (or whatever TWXbot), if the source code were available, preferably commented, to turn that off


Sun Jun 15, 2014 2:55 pm
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Unread post Re: Data usage
no way to turn keep alive off in Z-Bot.. But I will look at that when I get back to work on the Bot.. shouldn't be too long now I hope..

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Sat Jun 21, 2014 7:28 pm
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Unread post Re: Data usage
I understand what is being asked , but Swath has a built in one that is triggered by the in game time out messages.

If that was only complaint about usage , it is the lesser of 2 evils.
I say this because the other recourse is to relog and that is more band width usage.

As for all bots with the invisible keep alive , this was developed because a server could have interactive sub-prompts turned off.
This in some cases would disallow the timeout prompt from being seen.
So the invisible keep alive would keep you connected.

Just some explanation to the events and thoughts of why you might just suck it up and cut out some other internet tasks or not run some scripts to balance the usage if its that big of a deal.

I wish I could be more diplomatic in my explanation.
But just the facts as I have seen it in my many years of playing.

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Sun Jun 22, 2014 6:09 am
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Unread post Re: Data usage
I have never come across that in all the years, but perhaps I have led a sheltered life : )

A suggested solution, if a server acted as you suggest, would be to send a timed "#" character, at a delay less than the banner advertised timeout. That would be an overhead comparable with Swath's or mine, and nowhere near the idiotic bandwidth hogging that the OP refers to.

I assume TWX can note the timeout on logon and make provision for it?


Tue Jun 24, 2014 2:51 pm
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Unread post Re: Data usage
Kavanagh wrote:
I have never come across that in all the years, but perhaps I have led a sheltered life : )

A suggested solution, if a server acted as you suggest, would be to send a timed "#" character, at a delay less than the banner advertised timeout. That would be an overhead comparable with Swath's or mine, and nowhere near the idiotic bandwidth hogging that the OP refers to.

I assume TWX can note the timeout on logon and make provision for it?


Sure Kav, you could do a script that checked what the inactivity timeout was, or mod your login script to find out what the inactivity time is for the game.

Vid, couldn't someone just have their login script call up a little inactivity script set to be a system script, have it track the time since you hit the command prompt and fire off a silent message to the game with a character code? Might have to shave off a few tics, maybe a hundred or so just to be on the safe side, but I think that would be a fairly simple script to write.

At first I was thinking it might interfere with your other scripts. But since the invisible character SWATH sends doesn't interfere, and neither does the method the bots use to do it, I would think someone's little keep alive would work just fine as well. But I definitely don't have your knowledge of scripting so maybe there is something I'm not thinking of here.


Wed Nov 19, 2014 12:34 am
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Unread post Re: Data usage
SteveH_66 wrote:
Kavanagh wrote:
I have never come across that in all the years, but perhaps I have led a sheltered life : )

A suggested solution, if a server acted as you suggest, would be to send a timed "#" character, at a delay less than the banner advertised timeout. That would be an overhead comparable with Swath's or mine, and nowhere near the idiotic bandwidth hogging that the OP refers to.

I assume TWX can note the timeout on logon and make provision for it?


Sure Kav, you could do a script that checked what the inactivity timeout was, or mod your login script to find out what the inactivity time is for the game.

Vid, couldn't someone just have their login script call up a little inactivity script set to be a system script, have it track the time since you hit the command prompt and fire off a silent message to the game with a character code? Might have to shave off a few tics, maybe a hundred or so just to be on the safe side, but I think that would be a fairly simple script to write.

At first I was thinking it might interfere with your other scripts. But since the invisible character SWATH sends doesn't interfere, and neither does the method the bots use to do it, I would think someone's little keep alive would work just fine as well. But I definitely don't have your knowledge of scripting so maybe there is something I'm not thinking of here.


Its so easy , I'm not sure why it was not done in the first place.
The twx script keep alive , replace the Send "#" with Send #27
no " 's around it , its the escape charactor and is invisable.

Then all you need to do is figure a good delay setting and its all done.

Vid

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Wed Nov 19, 2014 8:14 am
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