Every time I create a new unlimited turns game, or rebang an existing one, I always get a few e-mails from people asking me to disable the ship movement delays. In these games, since there is no turn limitation, it seems to me that the ship movement delay is really the only thing that keeps the various ships balanced. Like when a scout marauder out runs an interdictor cruiser. So, I normally refuse to disable.

However, I have been asked so many times now, that I thought I would post here and see what you guys all thoght. Do you disable ship delays on your unlimited turns games? Why or why not?

Thanks

Don

Delays..  why slow down a game like that?  Who wants to double or triple their time to do something/anything?  
Add that mobile planets have no delay, and you've got an exaggeration of the 'movement inequality' making essentially; the rich get richer, the poor get poorer...
 
eh, I guess I'm just in a hurry!
 
 

The thing w/ ship delay is that the balance it provides is an illusion. Bwarp and pwarp have no delays, so the "outrun" myth only applies if the guy chasing you is an idiot. It's trivially easy to kill a traditional gridder if there are delays. Ship delay is an artifact of the pre-scripting era. Since it's so easy to work around for anything important it becomes nothing more than a nusance, and that's why it's generally not used anymore.

Unlims are designed to be fast. That's why people want ship delay gone. It messes up the pace and slows down a game that most people want to be fast. I, personally, wouldn't play in an unlim w/ ship delay... it's just no fun.

If properly balanced delays were added to bwarp and pwarp, it could be a useful setting, but since as mentioned bwarp/pwarp are instant, all it does is give scripters even more of an advantage.  May as well leave delays off, for all games, unless JP decides to tidy up some of the non-existant delays.

Of course adding delays there would radically change the balance of any game they're used in... Imagine being able to grid w/o anyone ever able to hurt you. In an unlim... lol, it comes down to clearing jump points.

Well changing the balance would sort of be the point...  Would add some interesting strategic considerations to low TPW ships.  I think the more depth, the better, and right now scripts seem to remove most of the depth of the game, unless you're a programmer and enjoy ScriptWars, like everyone that frequents these forums.

Laff, I don't think depth fixes the scripting issue tho... and I think sometimes scripts add a depth of their own. Could be interesting to see what a 3tpw ship acts like in an unlim, especially if it took as long to pdrop them. Would make grid defense very difficult, which radically increases the power of an active team grid.

Would just be interesting to see planetary warps take a significant amount of time, meaning you'd have to actually stick your neck out and not be hiding behind a shield to protect your grid.  Meaning you could get photoned just as easily as the one entering the grid.  It'd change a lot about the game's dynamic.  Some people don't like change, I think it'd be interesting to see who could adapt to new strategies and come out on top.
And scripts have depth of their own, in a way, but you have to admit Tradewars is far different today than it was in the pre-scripting days.  People like the adreneline rush of the excitement of constant action in today's game.  It lost all its chess qualities.  Something I'm pretty nostalgic about.
I could script, probably fairly well, but my programming focus is on the sysop side of things.  With the access I have to the data files I could bring back some truly unique addons, like aliens that're a little less predictable, story-driven triggers of some sort, or what have you.  I'd like to see a little more variety in games.  These days there are a few popular sets of settings/edits and every game either follows those or no one plays.  I just think that's a shame.

For sticking your neck out... you can already do that by either delaying the time to citadel, reducing the amount of ore on a planet to a critical level or simply requiring a long time to go lv5. I've been in games like that, the trick is to minimize your time in the sector and only strike when you're sure it's not a trap. An easy way to do that is to keep tabs on the timing and length of each grid charge... and use that as a fingerprint to distinguish the difference.

I don't see how a pwarp delay would stick your neck out any more than usual, except perhaps on early game unshielded, poorly-ored planets where they might trick you into an invasion or a counter-torp. That's an easily-managed risk tho.

A pwarp delay would prevent you from torping single hit gridders, or from successfully plocking a hit sec. But you could still anticipate longer runs. That's where I was going with it, as single hit gridding in 1tpw ship would be dang hard to stop... gridding would be come more fluid, and you'd need to use an area-containment approach to minimize the risks.

This means that, odds are, you're going to get your base discovered very early so you'd need to prepare for that eventuality. Can you imagine a game like that where fig prod is 1:1 and there's a high colo load on the planets? A red game in disquise.

In an unlim game of course this becomes deadly. People already do single hit gridding because it's nearly free compared to pgridding, this would make it very hard to successfully catch a good unlim gridding script. It would come down to the number of people you have on the grid, and the number of limps you can lay per sector, in order to slow down the enemy enough to gain an area advantage and eliminate jump points. Hence the team grid thing...

I'm not saying it's a bad setting, it's been mentioned quite a bit... I'm just trying to evaluate what impact such a setting might have on current play. I think you'd be suprised tho, a lot of players today are very adaptive and quick to see these patterns.

IMO the game hasn't lost it's chess-like qualities as much as it's lost it's endgame qualities. Chess is a highly tactical game, a single bad move can cost you everything in a flurry of unpredictable activity. This still happens quite a bit in TW, too. What has happened is that TW lost the positional slow play in favor of faster games, but there are still low turn stock games out there where scripting is less useful.

I think a lot goes to player attitude. Most people don't want non-standard funky-setting games... and I understand why, too, as they're usually pretty predictable, boring, or just plain bad. I've found that sometimes the best challenges come when everyone has played the edit before... and everyone has a good opening strategy laid out.

But a good slow-play oriented edit might find quite a following, there's a number of players out there that still prefer that style.

Anyway, all of this is off topic... but it's a good topic for discussion.

The issue I have with settings even where "scripting is less useful" is there's still no way to really eliminate the scripting and pdrop advantages.  It's difficult or impossible to catch scripting, so rules that say no scripting are ineffective at best, and in a game with just one scripter, everyone has to script or they don't stand a chance vs that one.  There's also a key difference between scripting to avoid monotony (autohaggling, pair port trading, SST scripting) and scripting aggressively (pdrop scripts that hang out 24/7 online watching for grid hits).  The former doesn't change the game for those that use it other than to let them play out their turns faster; the latter puts the player on a new playing field, and unless everyone else upgrades to that level of scripting, their chances of winning drop precipitously, end of story.
Macros can be used to fight scripts to an extent, but in certain situations, reaction time still comes into play, and you can't outreact a script.  If you can, there's still a lot of optimization to be done in that scripting code.   Plus, just knowing how to write a good macro is in my mind entering the realm of ScriptWars and leaving the realm of TradeWars.  When you start a-n-a-lyzing (dear lord what a language filter LOL) your play in terms of what order prompts show up in instead of what's actually going on in terms of who has what assets where, you're already scripting on a basic level.
Sorry for derailing the post... I just find this topic interesting.   I know my opinions are fairly unpopular in these forums (aka The Land of Scripting) but...

I agree there's a difference, but I think SST can fall under both. Not only can an automated SST haggle better, avoid errors and bring in better cash per turn than most manual SST but it also moves faster bringing in cash for early probing and fig dominance. This is much more important in an unlim where a worldSST script will always win over someone trying to SST by hand. All cashing scripts can fall into this realm, altho stuff like resource movers probably fall squarely in the "just automation to make life easier" realm.

Macros can fight scripts in some situations, pdrop and ptorp being notorously vulnerable to smart attacks. But yes, it requires the attacker to know the weaknesses first... which means being a scripter in some sense.

I don't neccessarily know that pure asset based victories are any "better" than other forms, I suppose it's just a preference. I know you didn't claim that, but it seems to be an inference some would make. I, personally, dislike pure asset based games... I find them extremely boring. I prefer to win games with only a minority of the assets... it's more of a challenge. But then again I'm a tactical chess player too.

I dunno, I like scripts because they're challenging and constantly growing. The basic elements of the game haven't changed in a long long time, so there isn't much inherent challenge left.

Well, I was going offtopic in calling SST a halper instead of aggressive script.  In an unlim, yeah, scripts of ANY kind give a significant boon, since time is the main resource.  But in non-unlims, an SST script just keeps you from staying in harm's way as long.  An advantage, sure, but not as incredible of one as one team using 24/7 pdrop scripts vs another team not even being online more than 2 hours a day.
As for "asset based victories", I must have communicated badly the first time around.  When I said, "...instead of what's actually going on in terms of who has what assets where..." I meant that the main line of strategic thinking in my ideal Tradewars involves the placement and utilization of assets, not how to react to prompts with maximal speed.  You can win with an inferior asset pool if those assets are properly utilized.  In fact, I see scripts as one way in which numerical assets become the ONLY consideration; especially if you consider % fig cloud an asset.  With pdrop scripts as king, the amount of the universe under your grid's control is practically the only statistic that matters.
I guess I just like the idea of taking an existing system and yanking out the most apparently overpowered part of it to see how people adapt.  In the case of Tradewars today, that would seem to me to be the pdrop.  I guess you could just turn photons off altogether, but I get the distinct impression most people would just yawn and say that's boring and not even play a game without photons.  And even without photons, there's still major advantage in being able to instantly bring a planet to bear anywhere a non-scripter taps against a grid.
When I said a significant delay in planetary warps, I was thinking the equivalent of (or perhaps even slower than) interdictor warping.  15-30 TPW.  Or something similarly slow.  Something where a gridder can always get in and out faster than a planet can show up.  So grid defense would fall to ships instead of planets.  That's what I meant about having to stick your head out.  Basically I'd like to see some setting that would turn planetary warping into a strictly defensive maneuver (to move a base that's been discovered) rather than the offensive maneuver it's become (largely through scripting and the lack of delay) today.
(Edit: Well, not *strictly* defensive... even with significant delay it would remain useful as a forward base when invading a sector.  The main thing such a delay would circumvent is protection of any grid sector anywhere instantaneously.)

Hmm... with scripts tho you still have to pay attention to proper use of assets. Pdrop is a good example. It takes quite a bit of ore, and in a turns game ore means turns either as cols or as buydowns. In that sense sometimes it's smarter to let the enemy grid a bit than to burn down your ore at a critical point. While grid control is certainly important, it can be turned around as a weakness all the same.

SST scripts in a turns game provides an advantage in terms of cash, too, tho. Since most people will not be able to accurately haggle every single load by hand. Human error increases and the number of burnt turns does too. Not to mention simple exhaustion... spending hours coordinating a SST scripts is hard enough, doing it all by hand would probably scare your reds off.

Pdrop itself is trivially easy to avoid, it just costs turns to do so. By the time planets are mobile no new player in the game has a legitimate chance regardless of edit changes. Fig around dock or whatever you need to do.

Photons are a completely different side dish, there are numerous ways to deliver torps w/o a planet. I've been known to put torper ships in high traffic areas and run an xport torper just to nail someone. There'd have to be an xport and tpad delay too.

Scripts certainly put non-scripters at a disadvantage, but game knowledge of any sort does the same. Knowing how mcic works, for instance, would give you a huge advantage over someone trying to run bad ports. Knowing what parts of the game have delays and what parts don't isn't just a prompt issue, it's a game knowledge issue too. One could argue it's outside of the scope of game play, but the same could be argued about mcic, it's all about what you consider part of the game.

15-30 TPW would be huge, something like that would need to be sysop configurable. I wouldn't play in a game where it takes 8 seconds for my saveme to arrive, that's a sure way to die. There would be enormous considerations there, a forward supply base might not be such a good idea since you couldn't get your planet out before it was mothed. A lot of things would change... for the better? Well, who knows.

I'd get tired of having to tpad torp everyone I think. HHT was like that, it blew chunks. No mobiles during the entire game, so ironically it became entirely about grid size since nobody could accurately defend any given sector.

Ideally xport delay would be the TPW of the ship you're transporting into, and tpad delay would be equivalent to the TPW of the ship you're in, respectively.  And regarding the saveme not being fast enough...exactly.  Saveme is just one thing that people would have to adapt to not having as a fallback in a game with meaningful delays where there currently aren't any.  >shrugs<
As for the advantage of an SST or haggling scripts, I still think of these scripts as largely helpers, not game-definers.  If you had to choose between only being in the game for one hour per day and being allowed to use all scripts (leaving you 23 hours of no grid defense) or being allowed to be online 24/7 but only being allowed pdrop/"combat"-style scripts, no SST/haggle/"helper" scripts, you'd probably choose the latter if you want to win, even though it would make the game a pain in the Butt to play.  Some scripts are 90% to get rid of the annoying parts of the game (even if they DO provide other advantages, yes, those advantages are pathetic in comparison); other scripts are game-definers--they provide so much of an advantage they are the only way to win if anyone's using them.  Those game-defining scripts are the ones that give the game a cliff-like learning curve and make it meaningless to even *try* playing if you don't have your own script arsenal.
The difference between knowing how mcic works and having 100 scripts and knowing exactly how and when to use them, how they work, how to recognize which ones other people are using, etc., should be obvious, but since you're claiming they're the same thing, I'll say the difference is a significant amount of time.  Mcic and other "under the hood" game mechanics can be learned and put into practice in a few hours of reading and practice.  Writing 100 scripts, knowing every line by heart, being able to tweak and debug them on the fly, and tuning them to the level required to compete with even an intermediate scripter can take years.  Especially as long as people keep their best scripts under wraps and release inferior scripts with huge holes they can exploit when they recognize some noob using the public version.  Or if they release the good version, it doesn't include source so if people want to tweak something they still have to learn to write the same thing from scratch and then tune it to similar performance levels.  Because, well, it CAN'T include source or the holes become public and obvious.  Catch 22; write your own scripts or die.

I'm claiming there are similarities, not that they're exactly the same. Still, you're exaggerating quite a bit. There's no need for "100 scripts" nor to own your own arsenal. IMO it takes longer to understand haggle, mcic and cashing than it does to turn on a torper when someone starts hitting figs.

The stuff on my site will get you about 80% of the way there. There aren't any big holes in my public scripts. A few private ones have holes, which I've patched privately, but my public stuff is largely spoof-free. The holes come from script mechanics, not code. A simple torper pwarps adj, fotons and then retreats back to the source sector... knowing that gives you a way to predict where their planet will be, and gives you ways of avoiding their torps. That sorta thing.

Add in a lawnmower and a decent grid script (all of which are public) and you're 95% there. The other 5% comes with a very steep learning curve, but it's largely unneccessary unless you're in a game where it's called for. The latter happens far more often in an unlim than a turns game. Infact I have yet to see a single case where that level of scripting was neccessary to win a turns game. The only script you absolutely need in a turns game like that is a pwarp torper, and that's to stop large, turn cheap grid runs. Sure things can give you an edge, but they won't win the game for you unless the settings are already unbalanced.

You don't need to know every line, or have the latest patches because most of these are quite stable and suitable for public release. Ram's scripts are a good example, they've been used for years now and only have a few bugs of note. Yet they regularly compete against private scripts. Infact my private twarp gridder only really adds 1 or 2 extra features over ram's, and most edits won't need those features.

Can SST shape the game? Absolutely. USO '04 is a great case of this. Aged ports plus cashing scripts made a weak dock go poof. I've had games where we won because we cashed early and locked out the competition... even in turns games. It doesn't happen as often in large corp games, that is true, but it does happen more frequently on average because such games are rare.

I remember a game a while back, 5k turns per day, the enemy corp had a 2 day head start... they had all the cols. We came in, 3 people, teamSDT, map, probe and grid. Most of the gridding was done by hand, it was the teamSDT that gave us the win.

There were numerous pirates games like this too. Get in, SSM, drop offensive figs around dock. Because of the starter odds on the ship you can keep people out as long as you can afford it.

I don't generally play TL games because I hate staring at the game select prompt, however there are scripts that mitigate these limits quite effectively. So that's not really a good comparison. If you had to choose between just cashing scripts or just grid defense scripts then that'd be a different scenerio... one that would depend on the players and the edit. I can't really say which one I'd choose until I knew the details.

I think there's a lot of power in today's edits. I think you can balance out the scripter aspect in a lot of ways if you want. Obviously adding various delays would be another way of doing this, sure, but I personally wouldn't play in a game where the goal was to slow stuff down... too tedious and boring for my tastes. But that's the nice thing about edits, you don't have to please everyone.

And I think that's why a lot of people request ship delay be removed. Most people, especially unlim players, really dislike slow games. Fast action, fast tactics, sudden turns of fate... all make for an exciting game. Resource management is just a backend to support the funner aspects of gameplay, IMO. A game like that isn't supposed to be balanced, it's suppose to be efficient and deadly. It's supposed to be over in a matter of hours, not days or weeks or months.