Shouldn't the goal during truce be get as much as you can as fast as you can without breaking truce?  It sounds like everyone just ignores the breaking truce part when it comes to sector figs.  If sector figs are okay to lay/kill at will, how do you determine what's okay and what's a blockade?  Is *everything* fair game (including locking the game down) except direct ship-to-ship attack?
There's a point where the entire definition of a "truce" means some things won't be allowed that normally are.  And there's a point where scripts will have to mind that or else you should expect to be punished.  It doesn't sound like TurboSST is up to the task of minding truce rules.  Which is why I keep saying someone should write a TruceSST.  It WILL cash slower.  But I doubt it'd result in more than a 10%* penalty.  And it WON'T get you banned.  It's hard to cash as fast if you're not allowed to log into the game, right?
Sounds like current truce games just don't enforce the truces in all cases ("Oh, the script did it, not you?  That's okay then."), which is kind of silly.  Defeats the purpose of having truce rules to ignore them.
* Seriously, think about this logically.  How many sectors are going to be base sectors?  Say you put in a limit of 3 base sectors per corp, to reduce the chances of a corp using open space "base sectors" as a method of blockade.  Say it's a pretty big game and you get 10 corps playing.  That's 30/20000 sectors.  If the only change you put in TruceSST is if it runs into >1 fighter, it redisplays sector, compares fig ownership to aliens, and if not alien, retreats, voids sector, and continues, that entire set of actions shouldn't take more than 1 second.  If you could normally move 4 sectors per second (built-in 0.250 warp delay) and there you just lost a second, and you run into a base 30/20000 (0.15%) of the time, and alien fig clouds are in say 1% of the sectors (200) and take 0.5 seconds to make the decision to attack instead of retreat from, you're just slowed down TurboSST by a whopping 2.6%.  (Moving through all 20000 sectors once each would take 5000 seconds at 4 sectors per second, adding 30 "wasted" seconds for the retreat mechanism and 100 "wasted" seconds to detect alien figs = 5130 seconds, 2.6% longer than 5000.  And once you hit a base sector you void it and won't hit that one again, so really the normalized time loss would be LESS than this worst-case.
Get a smart sysop that doesn't activate aliens until truce is over (since aliens won't be following truce rules, they really shouldn't be present yet anyway) and the loss is <1% in even the worst case.

I really agree with putting more figs in base sectors.  I said 50k minimum to call it a base.  I don't care if you got 500 mil in there.  And personally I don't intend to ban unless there's a complaint, and sofar, my players are being civil about the whole issue. 

Being simple-minded, here's how I see it for what it's worth.
Generally speaking, during a truce people have an overall right to freedom of movement.  Also, generally speaking, during a truce people also have the right to set up a secure base or bases.
The right to freedom of movement is sometimes going to clash with the right to a secure base.  To me, whatever happens, happens, AS LONG AS THERE IS NO SHIP TO SHIP ATTACK OR PLANET INVASION.
If the freedom of movement dude gets podded or even killed by the secure base, so be it.
If the secure base is so unsecure that the freedom of movement dude inadvertantly plow right through it, so be it.
Either way, life goes on and the game continues.
 

Ahh, well, that makes sense, although that illuminates the ideological difference between our points.  In my opinion, since bases are going to make up such an insignificant portion of the galaxy, base security should be considered more important than freedom of movement in the heirarchy.  Basically, you're free to move through 19970 other sectors, leave those 30 alone.
But we can agree to disagree on such a simple point.   Thank you, bob, that was well put.

Server sends a message, I receive it, process, send it back, server gets it, sends reply. Right? Well it's the time between me sending to the server, it processing, and being able to send a reply. It's what is measured by ping.



Yes but lawnmower scripts (which cashers use) don't work that way now do they. They macro burst from X to Z. If you have to wait for text to come in before you kill the fig, that's going to add a lag cycle to the script and you certainly can get pdropped doing it.



Some scripters can be greater than than nonscripters in some games. Of course. Why else would people use them if they didn't give an advantage? There's nothing wrong with having an advantage, script or otherwise. Nobody ever said that scripters don't have an advantage, but they don't have the massive one you think they do. Simply being at keys gives you a better advantage than all the scripts in the world in a turns game, but heaven forbid we allow that.



Professional scripter? LOL. So then... let's see here. Xide (retired), Traitor (retired), Oz (retired), Jh (retired), Rev (around here and there), RammaR (retired), Wildstar (semi-retired), Alexio (semi-retired), Me (eh), Prome (he comes and goes , The MoM crew (BH, LS and MD) and then Kraaken (Phead and CT). Am I missing any scripters who's scripts are currently in use? Which ones of us are going to write this magic script?



Worse for whom? Different isn't always worse, but sometimes it is. I don't generally like truce games, but I don't care if you want to go play in one. If RP wants to host one, amongst his other non-truce games, big deal... I just have to laugh a bit when the same rules come up year after year and always cause the same trouble, over and over, and nobody ever seems to learn.



Uhm, no. If YOU want to write one, well go ahead.



Laff, even better... I can get my enemies banned from the game by writing a script to build bases in high traffic areas. W00t!



Having an advantage is a good thing. Having people have an advantage is an even better thing. Everything gives you an advantage, there's nothing wrong with that. The current public tsst, which is Xide's TurboSST, can be rewritten for truce mode but like I explained before... it's a bad idea. It slows you do because you must scan before you move for such a thing to operate. In an unlim... speed = life. ANY triggers you use are going to slow you down, these current scripts don't trigger like that.



You imply altruism where none exists. I publish scripts to make concepts available to the public in the hopes (and it tends to work) that others develop around the idea and later republish their work (either privately or publically, I'll see hear about it).

I've seen a number of great concepts start as seeds from one player, develop them myself, pass them on and have them come full circle to a completely new, refined technique. Yes I often get my tail handed to me for a few days while I'm searching to beat this new technique... but eventually I do and the game has advanced for those in the loop. Not in the loop? Well, get in it. I have no sympathy for people that can't, or won't, find a corp to play with.

But TSST is not 5 years old and it's not good enough forever, it's just good enough for now. It's been in the public domain less than 2 years (Xide's TWXproxy source release). And it's not a bad script, lots of people use it and it's very effective even today.



And that's the fun of this. =) The problem is a lot of people don't know the consequences. Yes, I do. But I'm not exactly your average truce player am I? Neither is prome, and he has made similar comments. You're going to get people that don't know this can happen, and they're going to plow right into someone's base and it's going to be a big stink in the game or you're going to have to adjudicate someone out over it.



I wouldn't set such a rule. I would say that you can't power up or do various things, but that some things are unintentional. For instance when you bust up with someone else busting up there's a small chance (it does happen) that one of you will zdy the other. I've had games where both of us got zdy'd, which was funny as heck. But you can't exactly call that a truce violation even tho their script might accidently do it.

A truce violation implies intent. An intent to violate the truce. Truce games are about grace, giving people a chance to play the game w/o a lot of nastiness around them. Grace implies not knowing the rules, or the game, as well as other players. I don't believe a person can accidently break a truce, that such accidents are simply bound to happen and should be forgiven.



Plenty? Name them. Name the public cashing scripts for reds that don't go rampaging thru the uni. Those would be?



ROTFLOL. Try 30% to 50% slowdown, depending on your busts.



Depends on your definition of truce rules and the kind of game you want to run.



If you up the amount you could mod the way the macro hits to accomplish the same goal without a big slowdown. Attack w/ 999 figs or 99 figs or something and do a retreat burst after. But again, it's going to come down to who releases such a script.

As long as your players are civil about it there are no problems, and if these are the same guys that asked for the truce you probably won't have any problems. But if you start getting sharks in the fishtank...

Thanks, Xen, and yes we can certainly agree to disagree.  We all have our takes and our opinions, and they are all valid.
As an afterthought, and its not REALLY an afterthought, I personally think it's best to keep truce rules easy to manage for the poor sysops that work too hard already to bring us FREE games to play.
My scenario is very easy to manage from both a player and sysop perspective, in my opinion.

In a nutshell this sums up the way I feel about it.  I know a base is going to get plowed into, and maybe 3 or four times with a script.  This may or may not clear out sector figs and mines.  So long as there is no powering up on ships or planets, and if you have a chance you retreat out of sector.  I'm happy.
My rules were intended to make sure people don't use scripts as an excuse for clearing out a base.  I just wanted people to think about what their scripts can do, and decide if they want to risk it or not if they arn't sure.  People need to be responsible enough to take account of their actions.  I've already had a few emails and such from people that realized they did wrong, and wanted to know how to correct the issue.  That's fine, and for the most part I'll leave it up to the players "court" to decide on the issue.  So long as they can come to a PEACEFULL resolution I'm happy, and if it requires my attention.  I've spelled it out. 
Bob, you stated my intentions well, and with your permission I might just use your wording for my rules.
 

RP, you very much have my permission.  I think its as commonsensicle <g> as anything and is very manageable by all parties - inclusive of yourself.

RP,

That just perpetuates the use of those scripts (WorldSST and TurboSST) and protecting those who are too lazy to too inept to use red cashing scripts that don't plow into bases.

There is no reason I should expect to have my base 'plowed' into. I have been playing since 5 minutes after game start and I haven't plowed into any bases.

Have you noticed that the only players complaining about the rules you set down are those who wouldn't play a truce game at all or they come from UTW?

Stick to your guns, you had a good idea going.

Cerne

Still waiting to know what these "red cashing" scripts are that dont plow in to bases. How much can they cash an hour? 50M?

Who cares how much they cash in an hour.  I think you are saying that cash per hour is more important than not violating the truce

Cerne

Well, DisCerne.. Can we all assume you are releasing these Super Special Mega cashing non-base crashing scripts ASAP? It's not a matter of laziness, it's more of an access issue. Not everyone is a scripter or has the patience or time to learn how to be one.
And on a personal note, I've played against you a few times, I'd be more careful of how I tossed the word "inept" about if I was you.

Bob got it pretty much right 2nd to last post, just toss in "no armids other than in your confirmed base". RP is Master of his own house so he gets the right to mod his rules before the game bangs. "Sticking to his guns" he has done long as I've known him, which has been quite awhile now. You get the right to play where you want, sorta.. hear you been banned a few times. And I got the right to end this post on my opinion when I wish.. which is now.

Ah, sorry, was just unclear on your use in that context, but now I've got it. 


But not during a truce, which is the only case I'm arguing about here.  If the truce is over and/or the game doesn't use truces, there'd be no *reason* to avoid mowing.


Well that's different, then.  No one had ever brought up the argument that NO ONE IS ACTIVELY PUBLICALLY SCRIPTING right now.  That's an unfortunate situation for the community.  All the frequent/best scripters being gone or only producing privately makes things even worse for the non-scripters, since they'll never see any updates and the gap between their scripts and the private ones will only widen.


If they're stupid enough to not only lawnmow through them but also destroy or capture the planet and build their own base in the same sector, hell yes they'll get banned.  That was obviously premeditated and NOT fully automated.  If they ONLY lawnmow they just get penalized further than the loss of figs to mow through (probably a percentage of their assets so even people who can make 8B a day vs someone else's 4B a day will feel it) plus the figs they mowed down get replaced free of charge.  There are degrees of violation.


You're basically talking about the open-source concept, and I fully agree.  It's why I think more of this super-private scripts should be made public.  If I had infinite time (instead of already being stretched thin on other projects) I would dedicate myself to learning and writing scripts to rival the best private ones and then put them on Grimy's to level the playing field.


Good enough for now except in truce games, where a special version has demand.


... I fail to understand how adding time to warps only when bases are hit (<1% of the time) will HALVE your cashing speed.  It'd have to take the script MINUTES to determine what to do with those fighters.  If TWX is THAT slow I really don't know what to say.


Why would the amount need upping really?  There's a huge difference between 1 fighter and 5000 as it is, and 2-4999 won't exist if the game's being refereed automatically.  So explain to me the math of changing a99999* blah blah to a99* blah blah retreat causing a 50% slowdown.  I'm very interested.

I care. If I was to play a truce game, I would try to get as much stuff as possable, mainly CASH. So what if i run over someones figs they should have put more there.

I personaly like the rule of defend your base, in truce games. Also maybe not have mobiles till truce is over so some one couldnt move the base around.

I mean really give me a break, what red script does not run around, if it took the time to scan every sector it will not cash as much. I guess you dont know what a reds main job is CASH, CASH, and yup more CASH. So if i run in to your base and kill a few fig so what ill double them for repayment.

There has got to be a way to ballance this.  Just not sure yet how that is.  I like bobs ideas, it reflects my own. 
The intent is no hostilities, but at the same time I understand defend your base. 
<TW> Limpet mine in *** activated
<Ftrs> Report Sector ***: X Star Slayer entered sector.
<Ftrs> Report Sector ***: X is attacking!
<Ftrs> Report Sector ***: X is attacking!
<Ftrs> Report Sector ***: X is attacking! 
Player: Now X has joined the party and killed 80k figs. How long will this go on?
Now, how can I look at both sides of this issue and determine it this was a script making multiple passes, or someone attempting to be deliberate and clear a sector. 
I don't want to ok war here.