I had the following situation occur. An Alien Race (The Predators) were claiming planets. These planets (Over 1200 of them) existed in number only. If a trader made a planet he would get the next number in the sequence say 1300 BUT only 80 or so actual planets existed. When I checked the planet editor ALL the planets were there listed as abandoned OWNED by the Predators and as existing in sector 0 .

As far as I could tell the only difference between these and other pre-creation planets was line L in the editor. Instead of a Red "Abandoned" they had a yellow "Predators" in the "Owned by" line.

The difference between these and post-creation planets shows not only a completed line L but also a completed Line M "Made by"

When I checked higher numbered planets they did not have the owned by predators flag. The problem seems to have self corrected but it was weird. Has anyone seen it before ? What causes it ? Whats the fix ? etc etc

I haven't seen it before, but I have heard of something like that tho. It is weird to say the least.

I was wondering could this be caused by players popping gold planet for cashing and then leaving them there, afterwhich aliens come by and claim them and then either other players come by and detonates them or maybe even an extern function clears them out, i.e. possibly planets owned by aliens which are in the MLS's are removed from the game everynight?

RexxCrow no actually that is not it. It is a straight Alien OWNED planet that is NOT in the game ever. It just takes up an available planet number.

Actually, I've found this to happen when the gold alien's homeworld has been taken by a player in the game. Sometimes those planets come back, other times they don't and no, I don't have a fix for it, we just deal with it.

Thx Ahab. By the way is your server still up? You had some great edits on your board are they available or are they trade secrets? (Love the Delta Flyer)

Thx

His games are now hosted at my server.
tw2002.game-server.cc port 2002.
Poor guy only has dialup access now...