I am curious as to why there seems to be so many games with aliens activated -- not just 1 or 2 groups but up to 4 of them. Other than capping ships or getting a lvl 6 planet quickly, there doesn't seem to be a lot of value. It is just crazy watching the screen scroll with the number of alien hits and you can't turn off messages. (You can, but I don't think it is really a good idea).

I don't know if there is a method in twx to suppress output to the client based on content, but it would be a very nice feature. Or, even better if the game would allow selective suppression of alien messages.

A game I am in right now generated the following after about 12 hours online:
<Quit>
Confirmed? (Y/N)? Yes
Cleaning up mailbox...
Deleted 92182 of 119032 messages

Some of the messages were not cleared when I logged on for this particular session, but the hit rate is still extremely high.

I know, if alien messages are a pain, don't play those games, but it seems like a lot of games are being setup that way.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

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

Well, I can hazard a guess.

1.) People like easy, quick cash
2.) People like the quick planets
3.) People who cannot grid are not affected by it much
4.) People hope that aggressive players will hunt aliens.

Not saying any of the above are good reasons.

Jhereg

Maybe they set them up that way to keep girders out of the games. For people who use griding as a tactic aliens are just a big pain.
I have found that most newbies like to play games with aliens it’s a nostalgia type of thing I think.
I remember the ferangie in some of the games back in the 80’s I would play were sometimes the only other competition in the game. For newbies aliens are good thing to teach with they’re easier then going up against a live person and the player learners how to cap planets and ships.

aliens suck, i say that and i put a group active in a game i recently built..say that though aliens are just a major pain/spam
but just my opinion
T

i hate aliens too! i hate em i hate em i hate em!!! best to just leave em out of game! dam aliens!

I think the Aliens are an import element of the game that keeps it intresting, I like that idea suggested of allowing another user option to just choose to ignore all alien fighter/mine hits, but they should still maybe be included in your messages for viewing at your leisure otherwise you will not know that your grid or sector was breeched, (planetary invasions not included.) I also think aliens should not be included in the daily logs, cause' they just contribute way to much info to them, although aliens designated to be special should be included in the logs so other players hunting them will know they have been taken out, (i.e. aliens in special ships, etc.)

I tend to like the Aliens. At least, being able to create an Alien race, put them into a game at random ( like, pop them in at 12, 30 or whatever days ) and then another race 20-30 days after. So, you never know WHAT to expect. *LOL*
Just me, and as I am a newbie to TW and TWGS - so, its just my opnion.

I agree that aliens are more trouble than they're worth. It's too bad the alien scripting system that was almost developed didn't come to pass. Maybe in v4...

Actually, hell, if my data file manipulation turns out to work, and allows me to write data while the game is running without corrupting anything, I might be able to do some interesting event scripting of my own. Here's hoping. [:)]

The possibilities could be endless. Imagine random pwave durations (via a script changing the pwave setting several times per second).[;)] I wonder if the duration config is changed after one is fired whether it affects current pwave lengths or only new ones. Could have port regen rate set to 1% (setting it to 0 via direct manipulation of the file MAY work, I'll have to test it eventually) and have NPC "supply ships" fly around restocking ports at random instead.

Ahhh, too many possibilities with being able to modify the files directly!

The problem with aliens is that most Sysops have too many of them.
If there are only 2 or 3 TOTAL aliens (not races, but individuals), then it's not so bad.

So, instead of having the races be 50-120 large, just have a total alien package of 2 or 3 at most, right? ... Seems pretty decent. Never really thought of that.

So if there are 4-alien races w/ only 1-alien per race, for a gross total of 4, and they are all SD'ed by several different players all by about 0900 hours, are there no more aliens until the next extern (i.e. 0000) are do they consistanly regenerate throughout the day, i.e. hourly, per logon, per so many user movements, etc.?

Hmm. Interesting. I host games with and without aliens and for the most part it seems to work. If one doesn't like aliens, play in one of the games that doesn't have them.

One question I have though is if notification that an alien has hit your grid is suppressed wouldn't that then mean that notification that another player has hit your grid is also suppressed? Can't have it one way without the other.

If the function is hard-coded into the program by something like flagging the aliens then it would work right? This allowing the program to quickly identify a live player from an alien and then take the correct action according to individual user prefs, right?

anyone who likes aliens hasnt played in a game with alot of action from real traders... aliens are quite simply the worst feature i have ever seen in tradewars.. the fig hits are unbearable.. who still plays this game and doesnt put up a grid??

Gold aliens constantly regenerate, not just at extern. The gold alien server continually runs the aliens, spawning, movements, and all. How long exactly it would take an alien race to respawn its single alien instance, I'm not sure. I haven't run aliens enough. It might be instant (guaranteeing one of each race would always exist), or it might be a small random chance per second or minute or whatever that a respawn would occur. I'll have to test that, unless Harley or Traitor can answer it already. [:)]