Heya Folks -

As many people running TW games know, Bots/Helpers/Macros/Scripts really have done wonders to ruin some of the fun of a TW2002 game.

Does anyone know of ways to configure the options to at least attempt to inhibit the use of these programs as best as possible (IE: disabling the CIM, minimizing command floods, etc?)

Thanks in advance for any recommendations,

--Micah

you can set it up the game to accept like 1 command per cycle, you can turn on all delays, basically, you can make the game horribly un-fun for anyone (scripts or by hand).
you can not disable CIM, the only thing you can do to limit that is to change the max warp distance to 1. and i would hope you'd see the problem with that.
basically, you either have to buck up and realize that helpers/scripts are part of the game abd learn to adapt, or you walk away.

Slim

Just put a bunch of aliens in the game that alone would probably keep most of the scripters from wanting to play that game and keep the players that do show at a lower skill level but still wont stop scripters from playing.

Other thing is set the game up with a time limit say like 30 mins and set max connections to the twgs to 1 then there will be no one on at the same time to use photon/kill scripts against but that’s not going to stop anyone from using scripts, helpers, or macros it will just make it harder for people to make script related kills.

I do want to say this, helpers and macros have been used in TW from almost the beginning I know when I played back in the late 80’s early 90’s I used a combo of q-modem and a helper called twhelp so unless you played like way back in the early 80’s or something there was always someone who had an helper or a macro to do something in the game.

I remember twhelp. That thing was awesome. I also liked the old twar200 helper, but by todays standards they wouldn't be able to compete. Even with their help, you still had to manually "play" the game. I used to play every single night. I used to write my own little basic scripts on the fly, it was a ton of fun. Back then, it was easy to find games with a lot of active players. That's not so easy anymore....

I would also like to say that turning on ship delays and reducing the command cycle would only make the game "horribly unfun" for those that never really understood the spirit of the game in the first place.

Well, I'm so glad you've come back to explain to us all what TW is really about [:P] Ships delays are normally off because they unbalance the game, not because us "script-kiddies" cry if we don't have the fastest possible speed. As Traitor explained in a previous post, planet warps have no delay regardless of whether or not ships do. What that means is that a pwarp photon is immensely harder to avoid, and that direct pdrops become a viable tactic. It more or less becomes sudden death to touch an enemy fig and gridding is extremely difficult to do without dying. Yes there are some things you can do, such as 2 ship gridding, but only a "script-kiddie" would be fast enough to pull it off in time to dodge the photon. If you're looking for games with lots of active players, and not finding any then you aren't looking hard enough. I just finished a game with 10 actives, and am now playing one with 12. And of course, there are the "big" games that commonly draw 20-40 players.

To address your original question, ISGuise, there isn't really a good way. Speed Demon made solid suggestions and they are about the best you can do. My suggestion would be to bang separate games and clearly state in the descriptions that one is intended to be a non scripting game. That or host closed games and only invite players who feel like you do and won't use scripts.

It used to be that "big" games would have upwards of 100 players. I remember playing a tournament where I couldn't log on because every node of the TWGS was full.