I was in between games and was looking for a new game to start in. I had heard about Pirate edits and was curious what their characterists were. So I entered 2. But in one them I was told that the game was too old. Here were the game settings that I obtained by hitting "S" instead of "T" at the game entry prompt.

Registered to : Simple Mind B.B.S.
Version : 3.13 MBBS Gold Host type : TWGS
Age of game : 11 days Days since BIGBANG : 11 days
Delete if idle : 15 days

Players in game : 18 of max 200 Percent good : 88%
Ports in game : 11400 of max 12000 Value of ports : 26963925
Planets in game : 22 of max 4000 Percent w/ Citadels : 54%
Ships in game : 16 of max 2000 Corps in game : 2
Figs in game : 3951800 Mines in game : 10

Game type : Open Turns per day : 1440
Planetary Trade %: 100% Steal from BUY port : Yes
Initial fighters : 1000 Clear Busts Every : 1 Days
Initial credits : 10,000 Last Bust Clear : Today
Initial holds : 50 Multiple Photon fire: Yes
Sectors in game : 20000 Display StarDock : Yes
Ship delay factor: None Local display on : Yes
Start with planet: No Classic Ferrengi : No
Production Rate : 50% / Day Max Regen per Visit : 100%
Rob/steal delay : No Invincible Ferrengal: No
Tournament Mode : On Days to enter : Unlimited
Maximum deaths : 10

My question is how do you determine from this whether the game is still playable?

well in a game with no aliens such as that u know all ftrs are owned by players.
Figs in game : 3951800 heh 4 mil almost, thats also a turn game, aslo the age of the game, if more than a couple days old, it will be almost impossible to catch up. Also I normally do a H for High Scores and look at the Ships there in.
So on that game being that old I would have to say u would've had a very small chance of surviving...UNLESS u got in one of the big corps.

I guess I needed to look at the trader listing then. Here is the trader value listing obtained by hitting "C" then "L" then "V" at the command prompt:


Trade Wars 2002 Trader Rankings : 08/26/17 09:47:02 AM

# Rank Alignment Corp Trader Name Ship Type
--- --------------------- -- ------------------------------ ------------------
1 25,408 343,086 2 zep Privateer
2 4,995 713,845 2 Aardvark Privateer
3 2,485 1,411 2 Hoot Owl Privateer
4 1,811 1,008 ** AgentOrange */====\/====\*
5 1,209 5 ** Collector Merchant Galleon
6 688 595 ** Lansing # Ship Destroyed #
7 682 1,111 2 HighDefender Privateer
8 231 21 ** Gkhan # Ship Destroyed #
9 75 63 1 Scorpion # Ship Destroyed #
10 36 0 ** sanitation man # Ship Destroyed #
11 23 0 ** Rex Stalker # Ship Destroyed #
12 18 0 ** Sharn Merchant Galleon
13 1 558 1 Anger # Ship Destroyed #
14 1 1 ** Akor Merchant Galleon
15 0 -36,156 ** Corporate Killer # Ship Destroyed #
16 0 1,509 1 Banshee */====\/====\*
17 0 0 ** Redd # Ship Destroyed #
18 0 -10 ** Midnight # Ship Destroyed #

Woah. Well that seems to be the best indicator. Look at all the #SD#s. I must have been desperate.


Ok. Now here is another game I started yesterday. First the game settings:

Registered to : minddagger
Version : 3.13 MBBS Gold Host type : TWGS
Age of game : 7 days Days since BIGBANG : 7 days
Delete if idle : 30 days

Players in game : 18 of max 200 Percent good : 77%
Ports in game : 2136 of max 2250 Value of ports : 1539142
Planets in game : 16 of max 250 Percent w/ Citadels : 43%
Ships in game : 22 of max 800 Corps in game : 2
Figs in game : 631125 Mines in game : 0

Game type : Open Turns per day : 1200
Planetary Trade %: 100% Steal from BUY port : Yes
Initial fighters : 1000 Clear Busts Every : 1 Days
Initial credits : 10,000 Last Bust Clear : Today
Initial holds : 50 Multiple Photon fire: Yes
Sectors in game : 5000 Display StarDock : Yes
Ship delay factor: None Local display on : Yes
Start with planet: No Classic Ferrengi : No
Production Rate : 50% / Day Max Regen per Visit : 100%
Rob/steal delay : No Invincible Ferrengal: No
Tournament Mode : On Days to enter : Unlimited
Maximum deaths : 10

We have 631,125 figs per 5000 sectors. Assuming that they are grid figs you can divide 631,125 by the 5000 to get 13% gridded. Well the game has been gridded well for it's age. But, I mowed from port to port yesterday and no one has killed any of my figs yet today so a some of them are mine. [:)] Now for the planets. 43% of 16 is 6.88 or 7 planets have cits. As the game is only 7 days old none would usually be mobile unless the edit allows for fast upgrading. Now to check the trader value listing.

# Rank Alignment Corp Trader Name Ship Type
-- --------------------- -- ------------------------------ ------------------
1 5,673 -29,924 2 Ruby Dagger Privateer
2 3,669 59,100 1 GunSlinger Privateer
3 2,412 1,065 2 Corporate Killer Privateer
4 1,377 -14,216 1 flyer Privateer
5 106 -30 ** Lansing American Cutter
6 70 -5 ** Jason # Ship Destroyed #
7 20 1 ** Ladyr Merchant Galleon
8 7 18 ** Akor Merchant Galleon
9 5 5 ** MisBehavin Merchant Galleon
10 1 0 ** RocketMan */====\/====\*
11 0 1,013 1 The Brain Dread Flute
12 0 0 ** Shadow Warrior Merchant Galleon
13 0 0 ** Cranapple Merchant Galleon
14 0 1,276 1 NightScream American Cutter
15 0 0 ** Lone Wolf Merchant Galleon
16 0 0 ** demerol */====\/====\*
17 0 0 ** . Merchant Galleon
18 0 1,001 2 scorpion Privateer

Only 1 #SD# and 2 pods. One of those traders in pods I recognize from dock last night. I surrounded dock. He had only 1 fig so might have gotted podded on my fig. I'll have to check the dailies to see.

Anyway this game seems to be playable despite the age. Anyone disagree?

quote:We have 631,125 figs per 5000 sectors. Assuming that they are grid figs you can divide 631,125 by the 5000 to get 13% gridded.

The number of fighters per 5k sector does not show you your grid percentage. You have to have the number of sectors with a fighter in them (regardless of the number of figs in a sector) and divide that by the sectors in the game. If I have 3000 sectors gridded with a single fig in each, I divide that by the 5000 total sectors in the game and get .6 or 60% gridded.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

quote:Originally posted by Promethius

quote:We have 631,125 figs per 5000 sectors. Assuming that they are grid figs you can divide 631,125 by the 5000 to get 13% gridded.

The number of fighters per 5k sector does not show you your grid percentage. You have to have the number of sectors with a fighter in them (regardless of the number of figs in a sector) and divide that by the sectors in the game. If I have 3000 sectors gridded with a single fig in each, I divide that by the 5000 total sectors in the game and get .6 or 60% gridded.



I was calculating for worse case grid. You are right, there is really no way to tell how much is actually grided but if every fig was in its own sector it would be 13% gridded. Since there were 18 players and each ship would prolly have---what---average of 1000 figs, maybe that is 18k of figs on ships right there.

Hmmm. I could have done much better. Since each ship is listed in the onboard computer's trader listing, and because there are no aliens all of those are listed in the catalogue, I could determine the max amount of figs each ship had and add them all together to see the max amount on ships that would be in the game. By subtracting the max amount in the game from that figure I could give what seemed to be the min amount figged. But I don't know how many are deployed over planets and in sectors leading to bases. The actual amount could be much lower.

first of all I think its the same edit, just a different server.
well with that many Priate ships, I'd say at least half were full, and that defender ship is probley sittin over planets so I would think that its full. Then u have Planet ftrs. hard to say what kinda grid is out there, but notice corp 2 has an opening, best chance to live if looking to jump in late.
Although I dislike that 50% production Rate setting. With those turns u should get 100% a day.
But if can't get in with a corp, buy a cutter, it won't be worth their time to cap u, with u not on a corp, plus its only 1 tpw and great defnse odds.
That is if sys op hasn't modded the ships.

Doesn't this depend entirely on the edit?

The pirate's edit ties fighters to colonists with production on the
Os. K's and U's upgrade quickly, altho U's become useless once the
K's are mobile. As an MBBS game, most cashing will be done thru mega
rob so you only need 1 red with a bot and a decent support team.

The grid isn't really a problem, unless it's huge, as you can always
pgrid over it after you're established. For this edit I would be
concerned less with the current ftr count and more on who's playing
(flyer and GS versus ck) and the number of colos left on terra. If you
can blast thru to some random sector and trade, you can get a commish
and a priv the first day and get any remaining colos... If they've
neglected colonization, that is.

From the stats, it doesn't look like the game is locked. You just
need to put together your corp and go in as a team.

Privs hold 40k ftrs, btw. But most ftrs will be on planets in this
edit. Oh, and while it's true you can't really tell anything from
the current ftr count, you can easily measure the ftr count over
several of the quiet hours, determining an average increase per minute
and allowing you to build an accurate picture of the ftr count despite
hidden ftrs.

ummmm
"I was calculating for worse case grid. You are right, there is really no way to tell how much is actually grided but if every fig was in its own sector it would be 13% gridded"

jigga what???
"We have 631,125 figs per 5000 sectors. Assuming that they are grid figs you can divide 631,125 by the 5000 to get 13% gridded."

first of all, when i divide 631125 by 5000, i get 126.225
second of all.... i have no freaking clue where you are pulling this magic 13% from, but there is absolutely NO way to tell what percent of the universe is gridded by looking at total figs.
also, if each "fig was in its own sector" it would be a 631125 sector game... (plus 11 for fed space)
the ONLY way to estimate a grid, is to know the people playing the game.
for ex:
during BYOC, i'd icq some people and ask about the game, and i'd guess at their grid. i could do this, because i could assume by age in game and the ability of the players what their grid *should* be.
i was of course wrong, as there are always random circumstances (like half the corp being gone for the first week and stuff)
but, as a point:
if its a 20k sector game, with under 5k turns... dont play it (unless its a big game, or tons of players)
and don't assume things about the game by randomly making up numbers, thats bad business.
and in a lowish turn game, that has 4 million figs and is a res edit... well, you will start far far far far behind, heh.

In a res edit, you don't mega. You grab all the colos quick and then use their production to kill the other corps.

quote:Originally posted by Harley Nuss (teamEIS)

In a res edit, you don't mega. You grab all the colos quick and then use their production to kill the other corps.

So what you are saying is that you need to start in any Res edit on the first day. Otherwise, you might as well not play. Right?

Unless the other people playing don't know what they're doing, yes.

You have it ALLLLLL wrong. There is only one way to determine if the game is Playable..


on Entering game, do a C L V

If you see Coke, do a B Y

LOL, Coke.

First day? Dunno about other edits, Pirate's... you can start on day 2 or 3
and still make it in, provided that terra regen is high-enough.

Actually that's a bit of a joke tho. Last game I was in, one guy did nothing
but colo the entire first 2 weeks. Soon after another corp found him, naturally
he was off colonizing... d-torp, kill, base was raided. Took them 2 days, but
their corp was #SD# so hey, why not? That game lasted more than a month after
that event. It was pretty fun as both major corps had balanced each other out.
Got into the habit of waking up at 6am every morning to kill their CEO as he
tried to grid. Became my alarm clock for a little while. Ding, ding, ding...
oh man, time to get up.

Same game, one guy came in about a week and a half later. Despite having more
than 80% of the universe under grid between the 2 corps, he still ended with
nearly 500,000 colos producing more than enough ftrs to survive until the end.
Worked to his advantage, really, as our respective grids ended up protecting
him from being raided by the opposing camp. Using my own torps against me in a
way...