What you call a bug, I call a twist in the game that gives it new life and new meaning. I will repeat it again, the game will go stagnant and people will leave again unless there is some way to change the game constantly to add new blood to it. Right now, the bugs are doing that. Until we see regular upgrades,(which will be controled bugs by EIS), no one should complain about MOST bugs. I agree some are just stupid. In a server i was just on, the kilrathi conquered one of my corp's lvl 1s. They Were putting 200k figs and 25mil a day on it and all we had to do was take it!! no fight!! So I destroyed the planet as soon as my corpies told me about it! Those bugs are bad because everyone will put lvl1 planets around the universe and wait to win the lotterie! But I reapeat...some bugs just add new life to the game and should be kept! or at least moderated
L8ter

*Proud Member of the Alliance*

Live Long And Prosper!

Well, I put the quotes around "cheat" but I guess the meaning was lost on everyone. I merely used that term in absence of another, more fitting one that I couldn't think of.

As to scripts, I only have problems with ones that allow people to defeat the game itself. Staying online all day and having a script defend your sector is just... wrong. Changed or not, that's still pretty annoying, and it's why Sysops have to enable a time limit, which impacts everyone. Sure, there are ways around it, but the best is to use that script against them.

Yeah, I realize scripts are a part of the game now ( In some cases, it makes up for a lack of skill or experience ) but sometimes it's taken too far. So I guess "Cheating" was the wrong word to use...
it's more like, "Attempting to get an unfair advantage". Not all scripts that are used are public domain.

-Stryker
"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."

Stryker, You keep referencing "staying online all day and defending a sector". What is this in reference to? This thread was started based upon something that happened in USO which has a 6 hour time limit of which I played about 30 minutes a day.

And Lewdpotato, what do spamming and using scripts have in common? Spamming was banned in USO for good reasons. Things would get a little out of hand if you have 140 people spamming each other. Does this also mean that scripts should not be used? I don't see the connection.

Ask yourself, "get out of hand", for who? So what if 10 players out of 100 are toasted. It would be a situation that would "get out of hand" if it affects the server of game files in some way...

Just my $.02

A Proud Member of the Alliance
http://tradewars.fament.com/severian

Not every script can be exploited. Most scripts can be exploited over Comms, but given a thoughtful enough scripter who designs their scripts to be bulletproof from the start, and you'll be hard pressed to mess up a script using Comms only.

For example, in the Comms spam shown by Hale, we all know that sector ^Mcby is not a valid TW sector. ;o) To eliminate the possibility of a player causing the script to send unwanted keystrokes to the game, after capturing the sector number (in this case the captured sector is "^Mcby") it should be processed and if it contains any characters outside of 1 through 0, should be discarded.

No more comms-induced CBY for players running photon/twarp photon/planet photon scripts. Similar methods can be used to bulletproof density torping scripts from players sending cut and past density scans via comms as well.

The moral of the story? Not all scripts are exploitable. The good scripters bulletproof their stuff from the very beginning, even -design- their scripts around a bulletproof philosophy.

Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave
uhndagrowhn bbs

uhndagrowhn bbs
telnet://uhndagrowhn.merseine.nu

HA HA HA HA HA

I have to try this one on xcheck and Hopper HA HA HA HA HA

Kiss Kiss,

The Bohemian

quote:
Well If spaming is banned scripts should be as well. As far as calling using scripts cheating, it is not, it is now part of the game. I would call it an unfair advantage. If all the scripts used the same format (language) and they where all avalible to the tw public, then it would be fair, we all know that this is not the case.


I'm sure you remember when using any kind of helper got you labeled a cheater.

Personally, I don't think there's anything unfair about it. If someone knows how to write a good script, they deserve to benefit from it. If everyone else used the same script, they wouldn't get much benefit from it, would they?

while(!employed) { hack; hack; hack; }

well I think you should just turn off messeges and not let the spam bother you then, Im just saying if an advatage is fair (scripting) then so should spaming be fair. I always shut off fed com when I have a robot or triger running. not all messeges just fed com.

Rave, I agree 100%. Building error-checking into any script is the only way to make them safe. I was just making a point.

And G.O.P, I don't have any evidence here of that, and I haven't played on USO so wasn't aware of those settings. If that's the case, then I apologize for my reference - it wasn't really intended to be an accusation of you personally, In my mind the subject got moved away a bit from the original topic and so I was making general statements by that time anyway.

-Stryker
"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."

I find it hard to believe that there is anyone out there not using scripts anyway. If you use a helper such as SWATH… Pair Trade, SST, Colonize, Move Resources, Map Universe, etc. are ALL scripts! Are you going to tell me that there are still people out there who manually trade and calculate to earn exp.? And are there any players who actually sit there forever entering all the keystrokes necessary to colonize?? Scripts are a good thing. A VERY good thing. I’ve been playing since the days before helpers and scripts, and let me tell you... it sucked back then! Who has that much time on their hands anyway? Well, I guess there ARE some people who have no lives; you know who I’m talking about ; )
Not that I didn’t enjoy the game back then… I loved it. But I also love what it has evolved into over the past 10+ years.

TH3R3 15 N0 F34R!

Rave is right, this is so easy to protect against. When you grab that sector number make sure that it is in fact a number. In TWX this is the isNumber function.

And I don't know how everyone's scripts work, but the ones I personally use watch for specific players. It's usually dangerous to drop in on anything that triggers a fig. I know I will trigger figs on purpose in a weak ship, retreat, xport into a IG or something and re-enter the sector to give them a little surprise when they show up. Some people are smart enough not to take on fully loaded iG's, so you gotta be sneaky.

haha

I like it.. if you cant script you shouldnt and also shouldnt use anyone else's supposed script when they are playing against you... I think it is totally fair to exploit someones attack script.. covert ops and disinformation I love it

Zandramus


Riftwars.dnsalias.com
RiftwarsBBS.mine.nu port 23

Now if you could only move little faster Zandramus you might actually kill somebody while they are online.

Kiss Kiss,

The Bohemian

I'll go a little further on this subject since it -is- an interesting subject that's "near and dear" to me. I script. And I script well (in my humble opinion). I design my scripts from the beginning with bulletproofing them in mind. I would rather have a less flexible script than a script that can be easily exploited.

I have no problem with other players attempting to exploit my scripts in order to use them against me. 1) I'd like to believe that for the most part my scripts have no exploits remaining in them. 2) If there are exploits, I'd prefer they be found so that I can figure out how to close the exploit. 3) If I'm going to use scripts, then having the script exploited is a risk that I run.

Spamming on the other hand is just plain lame. Sending "Deployed Fighters Report Sector: QCBY" over FedCom once or twice is fine, but sending "Suddenly Your Busted!" for ten minutes straight is just lameness at its best and stupidity at its worst.

Trade Wars has become a game of not who the better manual player is, but who has the most time to devote to a game and who is the better scripter (or has access to the better scripter's scripts). It's simply a sad fact that TW has turned into such a heavily automated game. There -is- no fix without changing the game from the ground up, in which case, would it be Trade Wars?

Despite the fact that I write as advanced of scripts as I can and use them constantly, anyone who knows me knows that I am -very- much against reactive scripting. Do I utilize reactive scripts? Certainly, but in games today there isn't much of a choice. I'll script until the cows come home or until it's simply not in my best interest to do so (meaning major changes to the game).

I've learned that the biggest opponents of scripting are either players who do not have access to similar scripts or don't know how to defeat the various types of reactive scripts, or players who are looking for relaxing, easy-going games. In the first case, there are dozens of TW sites on the net that offer scripts for download, as well as several various forums where you can ask about and learn how to defeat those same scripts. In the second case, you should find a comfortable, low-traffic server that the heavy scripters stay away from... in particular, look for lower turn games on servers that have high move delay settings and low command per second settings.

For sysops wishing to eliminate the advantages of reactive scripting, simply turn up your seconds/cycle setting in TEDIT. I've found a setting of one cycle every two or three seconds works wonders, as messages are only processed and sent to players once per cycle. Slowing the processing time of the messages is one way to help prevent reactive scripting from being used on your server. If you -do- change your seconds/cycle setting, make sure to turn up your characters/second setting as well.

My server is -very- antiscripting. Most games have a time limit, the server processes TW cycles once every three seconds, there are only 20 commands per cycle allowed (that's 5 commands per second), and all games are under 1,000 turns. This has kept almost -all- scripters off the server.

Ack, enough for now... Doctor Who will undoubtedly find this message and have a few choice words for me...

Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave
uhndagrowhn bbs

uhndagrowhn bbs
telnet://uhndagrowhn.merseine.nu

quote:
Spamming on the other hand is just plain lame. Sending "Deployed Fighters Report Sector: QCBY" over FedCom once or twice is fine, but sending "Suddenly Your Busted!" for ten minutes straight is just lameness at its best and stupidity at its worst.


I've never understood how one or two lines to screw up a script could be considered spamming. Constant/repetative messages are what I've considered spam in the context of the game.