I am curious, can you simply host a server and have people connect to your IP address, without a BBS? If not, what's the next closest way? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

One more question, if you buy an extra ship - say a Sentinal and park it in a sector with your planet, load it up with shields and fighters, will it defend that sector from attackers? Even with no player assigned to it?

Thanks for your time..

Yes, if you have the TWGS, you just create a game and people can connect to your IP address and play, no BBS is needed.

I sentinel has to be manned to prevent people from landing on your planet. Unmanned it will still get the defender bonus, but it won't prevent people from landing.

Thanks for the quick response, I have TWGS, but it's an unregistered version. I've created a server and I've played on it locally, but I can't see how someone else can connect to it. Can you help me out some more? I look at it and I don't see a way to tell it to join a server.

well, when you're online you are assigned an address. most times this will change everytime you log off then back on. to successfully host twar games you either have to have a static ip, one that doesn't change or a dynamic address through a company. mostly they're very inexpensive but the price does vary. to determine your address, open your dos prompt then type ipconfig. if you're online, this will tell you your address. jot it down on a piece of paper then have a friend try to get onto it.

I know how IP's work and all that, my problem is, I don't see how to join a server.

Have someone connect to your ip and port 23 <default for twgs>
unless you have changed it

I have two computers here on a LAN, I cannot get one to connect to the other. They can with other TCP/IP games. I set all the settings to the same, I see no way to join a server. I run a shortcut called TWGS, and it opens a screen that says Trade Wars Game Server (Unregistered)

???

1) Open a command prompt (DOS prompt). If Win95/98/ME go Start > Run and type "command" then click OK. If Windows 2000/XP go Start > Run and type "cmd" then click OK.

2) From the command prompt, type in "telnet 192.168.1.1" replacing 192.168.1.1 with the IP address of your TWGS server.

Also if TWGS is running on a port OTHER than 23, you would need to specify the port number in the command. For example, if your server at 192.168.1.1 is hosting TWGS on port 2002, you would run "telnet 192.168.1.1 2002" from the command prompt.

if you are running two computers and are trying to connect then you are going to ahve to use the ip addy of the other comp on the LAN 192.*.*.* only outside users will us something like 66.*.*.*

I think you're misunderstanding just what the TWGS will do. The TWGS is a game server, people connect to it via the telnet protocol. Any telnet client will work, such as the built in windows one like rompca explained. The TWGS itself is not a client, and can not be used to connect to remote games.

You were right, Harley Nuss. I was misunderstanding.. It's the server only, basically. And yes, the cmd command made it work for me. Thanks alot!!

Get a TW Helper, it will work better for you than Telnet will and display the ANSI characters.

http://www.tw-attac.com/ for ATTAC

http://www.swath.net/ for SWATH

http://sourceforge.net/projects/j-twat/ for J-TWAT

http://www.twxproxy.com/ for TWX

J-TWAT is free, no registration required.

SWATH is the preferred TW Helper, but you need to register it.

ATTAC I use, it does not expire like SWATH does, but scripts break after 30 cycles if it is not registered. There are some bugs in it still needing to be worked out but it works fine for colonizing and planet trading.

TWX is a proxy, you set your TW Helper client to hook into it via 127.0.0.1 port 23 and then set up the port and server via TWX to connect to a server. TWX can be activated by hitting the dollar sign "$" for a TWX menu.

Good luck!