Hmm, will have to try that. Thanks D

Would it be possible to run the game through a BBS, with unlimited T/L in the game itself but a time limit for logon to the BBS?

If you use a BBS frontend such as Synchronet and are passed to a TWGS via the *telgate command, I believe the time limit from the user drop file is not passed to the TWGS.

If you were to use a BBS (ex Synchronet), then the best way would be to have the DOS version of TW running, this way the time limit is passed from the BBS to TW via the dropfile correctly.

Yes, it's possible if the players are required to log in thru the bbs to access TW. A lot of players think that time limits benefit the players with less key time, when actually just the opposite is true. Time limit games benefit the players that have the most at key time. Why? Because they'll sit and watch the high scores screen and only log in when changes happen giving them the advantage by managing thier time better. Boring? Yes. Beneficial? Most definitely. So again, it all boils down to the fact that the winners are the ones that don't have a life. lol

Hahaha. I've been saying that for years now. Glad to see someone else saying it.

I've got a script that can check scores, logins and ship changes. If someone logs in, changes ships or has any change in their align or exp (which is likely if ppl start moving around, hitting figs, etc), it can login and do much much more. I've even got it down to a 2-player science, where a 2nd copy of twxproxy monitors a less-active corpie's TWX proxy monitor port (they're not likely to use all their time anyway) and they're running the same monitor script. If they get a fighit, it can bring me in to torp and send an alert, or even trigger a 3rd party (better ping) to start a grid defense setup (monitored thru the twxproxy port and running a bot for remote controls).

Time management can be brought down to a science. Just keep a log of your corps time online over a few games, write a few scripts, it's crazy easy.

There is basically 3 kinds of time limits: Crazy tight (which can't be beaten by the above), no time limits (in which case none of the above matter) and every other (in which case ppl w/ good keytime and a little scripting ability have a massive edge).

Actually no. If someone has limted key time and is in a 6 hour time limit game, they can't start a defense script and come back to it in 10 hours when you get home from work. In a game with NO time limit he can start the defense script and not have to worry about running out of time after 6 hours and having no way to log back into the game to defend later that night. So the advantage is clearly better for players that don't have a lot of key time and who can check into the game periodically during the day than those that have to work 10 hours a day. So basically the only people that a limited time game would help are people with limited internet connections.

Yes, limited key time would include people with limited internet connections. With DSL, Cable, and even unlimited time dial up connections these days, what percentage of the players would that be? I'm guessing around 2% to 5%.

Yes, this is true. I believe that's what Sing was trying to acomplish with his old school game. If the relog penalty was so high that relogs would be very costly, those T-prompt scripts would be pretty much useless. If you did go that route, I would think the relog penalty should be at least 50% of the total time allowed per day. Then there's the time bug thing. That problem really needs some attention. I probably won't play another time limit tourney for this reason.

Nod. Exactly. Relog penalty is what makes all of this hard. I tried the 50% thing, but it made the game unplayable because of accidental relogs, exit-enters, etc. Also makes it tricky because the relog penalty doesn't hit you the first time you log in, but that flag doesn't get reset every day. I settled on aiming for X number of relogs per day, where X-1 was still a tolerable number. Micro-managing all of that tho is my definition of "crazy tight."



We're getting to a point where the only way to keep the game playable is to run a series of server side scripts.

Server side scripts while sometimes do help some problems, are not a permanent fix and are can cause problems themselves if not carefully thought out. For instance, running multiple server side scripts can conflict with each other and may hang up, or worse, if they are used in tedit, who knows what problems may occur.

I'm thinking a better solution if you want to limit players time on a server, to have a scheduler just drop the server certain times of the day. Example:

11pm to 2am = server online
2am to 5am = server offline
5am to 8am = server online
8am to 11am = server offline
11am to 2pm = server online
2pm to 5pm = server offline
5pm to 8pm = server online
8pm to 11pm = server offline

Now granted this won't work without effecting all games, but for servers running a single tournament and no other games I don't see why this wouldn't be a solution.

But what about ppl that can only log on during times when the server is offline? IMO, I don't really like that method. Puts limits where I don't think any should be.