Bot's do have their downside. However, I don't miss the days where you try and organise a TeamSSt/TeamSDT session and someone is always holding you up for hours. Then others have to leave. Then you loose the game because of it or worse, win the game because of it. We are busy, who's got the time?

And don't get me started on people complaining about secret/advanced scripts. 98% of them are out there, some of us might refine some of them more. Most of it's in the public bot, and most of it isn't used efficiently or effectively because people lack the knowledge. If you haven't obsessed over this game to the point of effecting your life in the real world, your going to loose

The other issue with the game I also think more than bot's is personalities. In recent times I've certainly started firing back and being a bit of a angry gamer myself, so this is going to be a bit of the "pot calling the kettle black". However for years, I'd kill people, and they'd abuse me in game. OR they'd come "Smack Talk" like it was was a productive and useful thing in the game. Most people can't cope with the fact this is a game, you play for days/months/years, and then someone comes in and destroys your work, despite the game being called traderWARS. Just look at this thread, I'm sure at least one person would have fired of shots and two people who weren't even in the thread. Really helpful.

Anyway i'm taking the derail to new levels, Great to see you Xide, I quit the game initially before you made your excellent product. Came back and embraced it though, perhaps to much

Play on Cruncher's server. No fotons, no mobile planets, rainbows and unicorns on every corner.

This wasn't true in v1 either, btw, depending of course on ping time. The only time what you are suggesting works is if you are playing against players who don't have sufficiently advanced scripts.

Why, exactly, do you "think" a player should be able to do this? Because that is how it worked before we developed advanced scripts? Or some other reason?
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Not familiar with that, did it ever exist?

It is a little hard to play on Cruncher's since she has been down a couple years or more.

Yes, there is an Attack Delay (Option 'y' / Option '3'):



As previously stated, you cannot turn any of these delays on without scriptwriters screaming bloody murder.

Option '5' sounds interesting - that would effectively disable photons. except for advanced predictive pdrop scripts.

Not familiar with that, did it ever exist?[/quote]

I think there should be a reasonable path to scout bubbles and ultimately grid out every sector in the entire universe, while dodging photons and burning your opponents fuel in the process.

If single fighters, photons and a level 4 can lock down sectors that seems pretty ridiculous to me.

Attack delay used to be minimum 250ms but it doesn't sound like there is any based on the sequencing of events that you described earlier.

I was playing on Cruncher's server when W10 smoked it last year; the River Rat/Alien Base "Call to Battle" edit. Your description doesn't remotely apply.

It defies logic, that a planet, probably light years away, could magically warp to somewhere across the galaxy in milliseconds. But games aren't about logic. But yeah, no delays makes varies aspects of the game unplayable. Especially since the game was built and grew in an era when super fast internet access wasn't even a thing. But, you can't tell players of this era anything. Nevermind that no one actually plays the game anymore, for some reason....

I'd love to see Crunchers server back - I came back to that - and learnt the ropes again. Worked out ok for me being able to compete. Casual games with a few regulars pawning noobs doesn't help the game or help them learn. When I did do this, I just got called a cheat and sworn at.




I'm fairly sure you did this for a big game with about a 500ms-1 second pause 2-3 years ago. From memory when you fired, you essentially locked up for that period before the photon fired. Meant you had zero chance of hitting someone who mow's if you targeted them directly. I had tried shooting 3 sectors ahead or on surrounds, however that's statistically difficult

No photons, Photon delays, etc are all great and add a great variety. Being able to zoom everywhere and have ship to ship combat more freely is great.. least imho.

Every few years this debate comes up.. and we all start pointing fingers and blaming everyone and everything... The truth is everything has killed trade wars.

Xbox & PS killed trade wars. The younger players are there playing space games with real graphics. not some "boring old text game" as my nephew descried trade wars. so there was no one to replenish our player base. Time has killed trade wars. How many players have passed on in the last 10-15 years. more then i can count. and finally drama has killed trade wars. Drama over V1/V2 drama over scripting, Drama over tournaments. Drama over Drama. Drama has prob driven just as many people away as all of the other combined... And yes im as guilty as the rest on that..

I personally play to enjoy the game for as long as we have left and try to keep the Drama down to minimum

sk

The game has certainly moved on but we do get where it was.

I dialed in from Perth, Australia (most isolated city in the world) on a crappy modem, to a local provider who had about 1mb of bandwith to the rest of the world. From there I played on The Stardock and other places and was considered one of the better players. I'm guessing but I most likely had a 800-1000ms ping (as I now get 3-600ms pings if I play from home). I played well then still from understanding game mechanics and making good macro's.. confident in the knowledge, that I hit "Send" on those and they'd do what is required, not that I'd know till well after the fact

The understanding the game mechanics and exploiting them with scripts is far more interesting to many of us than typing stuff in game doing repetitive boring stuff. And regardless of using scripts or not, I'm confident many who loose in todays environment would still loose due lack of knowledge we played with zero scripts. The stuff in the public mombot is super powerful but very few know how to use it and actually win a game. If you can't re-write the TW-Cabal PDF you've already lost, let alone taking that knowledge one step further.

I get the social side lacking,but we are on discord, chatting etc to our corpies. No point talking to anyone on Fedcom because there is always 2-3 dudes who want to smack talk and make most of us just turn it off. The amount of Drama in this game is always an issue, I've been sucked into it. I'm sure a few years ago everyone considered me "Calm, didn't get involved", or just didn't know me. NOw I've been suckered in to many times

SK has easier games, but I think Cruncher's mix of competitive minus a few variables was great. Someone else should consider those, or I'd be happy to throw in the first $100 to get her going on a VM server. Perhaps someone else could even let Cruncher host games on their server? Assuming she even has any interest.... which with all the BS in this game she may not

This is all basically correct. Frankly, the game should've died completely a decade ago. Its a nice snapshot of gaming 30 years ago. We mourn all the people we grew to enjoy hanging out with online when it was a very different world. Though I seriously doubt I'll ever actually play the game again, I'm glad its still around.

I will take this one step farther. If Cruncher wants her server back I will set up the VPS and TWGS and turn it over to her to run it.



sk

Done, I'm heading away soon out of internet range (places do exist) for a week, but I can organise before or after if Cruncher is interested.

Cheers SK

Love it! Hush Child!

Yeah, I resisted for some time but then gave in and learned Mombot. I've been a bot and a bot master. IMHO neither are fun, but necessary to play in tournaments today. So, I'm retiring again. At least from tournament play.

I'll think about it, no rush. I'm glad you guys liked my edits, heck if I do this we may even get Vader to play again!

I'm actually more interested in hosting a TWGS and making edits than playing.