I just added support for setting the frequency to generate the high score list. I don't want to hear arguments against adding this feature. It's in. But I'm interested in any feedback on how best to implement the feature. Currently, here's how it works.

There are four options.

1) On demand - Generate the high score list whenever it is requested, just as it works today. This is the default.
2) At extern - After extern completes, the high score list is generated, showing a daily ranking
3) Hourly - The high score list is generated at most once per hour, but is not generated until it is requested by a player
4) Every half-day - The high score list is generated at most every 12 hours, but is not generated until it is requested by a player.

Whenever any mode bug On Demand is used, the high score list will be followed by a line that indicates how long before a new high score list can be generated.

The in-game CLV and CLT are unchanged. They generate a list in realtime at the moment the action is taken. This only effects display of the H high score list on the startup menu.

Any thought?

Thank you!

Hourly wouldn't be too bad. Things can change right after extern so once per day might not be enough. Now if you add an option to disable the who's on-line from the main menu, it would pretty well prevent monitoring games without actually logging in..

Should not this feature work the same in game as out ?
This way it will effectively stop a CLV watch within game as well.

Also would help to undermine the SS crawler while a team would
be cashing or other CLV techniques.

just my thought .. fix one also fix the other .. makes more sense.

Sounds good. Disabling the who's online was discussed at length several months ago.

Actually , I don't have a problem with it if it had to change because
Sing posted an IRC patch to relay in game activities to corpies on IRC channel
so as long as there is enough time limit to cover 24 hrs by a whole corp ..
Monitoring could be done in game instead ... good for the scriptors.

Btw Stoneslinger ;
What about a script that does the monitoring and record , no action ?
mine does this .. that way when I get to keys I see who has been in and when .. plus it gives me an idea of what the were doing maybe.
Is this wrong ?

As for the
This node sitting .. well its good for J.P.'s sells .. encouraging sells of more nodes huh ?

Cruncher
I did that for years .. and had a very low user count.
As it turns out .. a BBS front end will accomplish the same thing.
Make it harder for players to get into games and you can host a near empty server.

So who would need a large server , heck maybe J.P. could buy back nodes from those who want to go private ? <jk>

I wasn't sure if in-game CLV was as much of an issue. I have no problem making it effect all ranking updates if that's what we need to make this change effective.

Explain the "who's online" thing a bit more. You can't show who's online at the intro menu. And there's a TEDIT setting to disable who's online already. Are you saying there needs to be a way to disable it just from the main menu but allow it from other places?

It doesn't really matter. You can either do it or not do it. We've had counter techniques to all of this for so long now, it's like an old propeller biplane trying to shoot down an F22 raptor.

The next stage will be making TWXproxy's external port password protected and interactive, that way one script can control multiple people directly and use them to monitor. To counter that, people will combine lurkers and burst gridders to get grid ran before the enemy can fire up a torper. All in all, casual and manual players will just get hosed even more. Any time you try to counter an edge we're unwilling to give up, you only make script writers that much stronger.

Of course you can argue "yeh, but most people don't script" except that's not really important. When I corp w/ people, I lock down a pack of scripts and we play. Those scripts last 6 months or so, during which time they don't really need to write their own.

All of this has happened before and will happen again, and again, and again... apparently.

There is only one way to make this work: pre-authenticated logins. Of course you won't get many players doing that, but at least you can insure that only players that share your mentality will play.

The threatening attitude is just irritating. It's like you're saying "if you try to fix the problems, we'll just make it worse". Forgive me if I don't believe scripters are holding back. They'll make it as bad as they can. If it's better for them, they'll do it, regardless of whether it's good for the game. So if I can address anything, I should do it. I'm in favor of addressing any way that players detect player activity and particularly location outside of those intended by the designer, and I don't expect to accomplish that overnight.

Here's the thing: Right now, we have things that work. There's no reason to bring out bigger stuff because it threatens to start a script war. Script wars are fun, but they're also a problem. They're a magic bullet, once you use them other people adapt quickly. So we tend to keep the ideas brewing, but don't act on them until they're needed, so they don't lose their effectiveness. I've got a file w/ about 300 script ideas I've never written, but they're there in case I need them.

Take away the easy stuff that works, and guess what comes out next? Harder stuff that works. I mean provide the option if you want, but if anyone here thinks it'll stop the kind of menu surfing that happens in time limits...

There are a lot of circumstances that the IN game CLV needs to be instantly reported. Such as what if a commisioned player flying a Issue attacks a red players personal fighters (red by CLV), but actually that player recently turned very blue but the CLV hasn't updated yet.

I think the best option would be to limit this to just the login "High Scores" screen.
I mean the only thing that display is used for is to see if you would like to play the game or not. I'd think updates once an hour would be plenty.

...is ok. They'll change to red on the # screen. Simple script fix.

I don't want to do any more than is necessary to fix the issue. The main issue here is limiting ways players can circumvent time limits. When it comes to gathering info about activity in game, I don't think knowing someone is active is as big a problem as being able to isolate where they're active, and, correct me if I'm wrong, the main tool there is CIM port reports.

Players watch the "Who's Online" so they know when to start their attack scripts.
Putting a time delay on these reports would fix that. They would be able to see where a player was 15 minutes or an hour ago.

Take away the menu squatters and then you have in game squatters doing the same job.

Clv .. taken out of play , leaves # (Who's online watch) in game or at main menu.

Whatever is done will be countered by a script and possibly IRC chat to bot others in.

I don't use these as of yet .. but seems that if this game matures to that
that is where it will go.

So why work so hard to change the way its been for years when those
that are so concerned with it could go private games as you have pointed out
in a previous post ?
And if menu watchers are a problem , look at the bright side .. a private server could make a rule on it or buy more nodes.
I for one would (as a programmer) prefer they don't make a rule and buy more nodes from me