Good question...

First, you have to look at the edit. In general, megarobs are much more effective. Lets say colts are 250 holds.
32760/250 = 132. It'll take 132 turns to buydown 32k product. 32k prod, with good MCICs, will sell for 5m.
That's 37,800 or so per turn. That's a lot of cash.

By contrast, SDT makes 17k to 19k per turn depending on the ports. SST about 12k per turn, depending on the
ports. Obviously then, megarob is much better.

However, for megarob to work you need an MBBS game and mobile planets. The EIS invite is not an MBBS game.
Additionally, you do need to watch the planet trade %. If ptrade is 30%, SST is going to be more turn efficient
even in MBBS. Likewise, in a gold game you typically have SST and SDT as your options. SDT is going to make
more money if ptrade is high, but if it's low, SST will make more money. Why is SDT more efficient? Because
SDT steals, dumps and transports. That's 2 turns per cycle. SST steals, sells and transports, which is 3 turns per
cycle. That means SST is 2/3rds as efficient as SDT, so a ptrade of under 70% makes SST more effective.

I doubt they were using turboSST, but I could be wrong. Maybe they'll chime in. TurboSST is a worldSST program
that runs out the universe cashing and self-furbing. In general, that kind of exposure is very inefficient in a
turns game, and stands a good chance of getting you killed. A more common way is a team SST. This works because
each port can only have a single "busted" player. So if someone busts at a port, all previous busts that day are
now "clear." This means if you have 2 people and 3 ports, you can "triangle" the ports and reuse them over and
over w/o having to move to new ports for the day (eventually tho, you may need new ports if they get upgraded
too far). That's much more turn efficient, and much safer in a turns game.

Mega rob if t's an MBBS...

The EIS game was set up to try and force you to sst. Mega rob and SDT are not a good option

Each cashing method has it's place and depends highly on the settings of the game. To me TSST, WSST, or WSSM aren't worth much because I don't play unlimited turn or high turn games much. In low turn games and IF you have a corp, you can use Team SST or Team SDT. Later set up megarob ports after you've made enough cash to up the ports and do buydown. That's considering that it's MBBS.

By the way, you don't use any cashing scripts that move you around from sector to sector or refurb themselves after L4 planets are available. By then you should have other cashing methods set up.

Now to get back on topic. I have no problem with scripts. I have written many and passed out many both in Rexx(Zoc) and TWX. I also can't imagine playing this game totally by hand, I'd rather watch grass grow. However, I do have a problem with bots being used in the fashion that a lot of people use them. If a player logs into a game, starts a bot, only checks in every now only to see if the bot is still running, and lets someone else completely run his turns, that is a "Dupe". However, as far as running team scripts such as TeamSST or TeamSDT, I don't see a problem with helping out with repetitive tasks.
Scripts VS. Macro? Well, scripts are nothing more than decision making macros, however, each decision the script has to make slows it down. So really the title of this thread should be "Sound Decisions VS. Shots in the Dark" ROFL

Sounds to me like the term repetative tasks encompasses many more tasks than I would imagine then. I dunno, to me using bots like this takes the humanity and social interface out of the game. It may be more efficient, and saves a lot more time, but... where's the fun? Now the fun is not in actually playing the game, but in creating bots? What portion of the game does anyone actually play at the keys now? I'm being serious, I'm trying to understand how this game has evolved.

To me, repetative tasks are - Colonizing, hauling, buying down. And just to save time I have some little macros that will buy figs & shields and dump them on a planet over a 0 port. But, that's about it... I'm at the keys for everything, even watching my little scripts.

Correct me if I'm wrong. The Bot's were created of course to help corps work as one with the controlling of your character if you are not there. However, I personally do not use the bot to have other people control me. I use what I know about the bot to say move colonists, port and trade, move resources, and to to buydowns and sell off on a turn by turn basis(unlimited and high turned games) MOMBOT has a wide variety of scripts that you can type in and bam the script starts. It's faster than loading a script 1 by one and you can run multiple scripts at the sametime. While, collecting key information as your zipping through the universe doing what you do. It can grid. It can take out enemy fighters. Look at it this way. You can use the bot to do exactly what you are doing now while still feeling like a normal human while playing the game. If you baby back TWX with Swath and use MOMBOT as well you can still have your chats and the social interaction as well as being more of a enhanced player with using the same amount of turns in a turn game however, just in a shorter amount of time.. That's my rebuttle. I hope this helps you Cruncher.

Comet~

Repetitive tasks can be anything that you don't enjoy doing by hand over and over again. I for one, don't like to cash or build by hand. What I enjoy doing is out thinking my opponent, such as situations like torping, killing, invading, planet dropping, and searching for strategic areas. Anyone can cash or build, but the difference between a winner and a loser of a game is using good strategy and out thinking your enemies.
There's nothing more fun than fighting over a back door to important sectors such as a class 0's or fed space. After L6 planets are available it gets even more exciting. I've been in situations where 3 different corps had L6's in the same sector at the same time. Talk about decision making... ROFL

thank you comet, well said. maybe we can stop this stuff now. i play unlims primarily (and not very well i might add) and mombot was the discovery that made me semi competitive. just getting to fool around with all the new scripts(i started playing this on a local bbs with an atari 800xl and a 1200 baud modem, so it was all kinda new when i came back) has really enhanced my personal enjoyment of the game. if it werent for the scripts and my study of them i wouldnt be able to write as effective macros.

ive found that i know more about how the game works now from using scripts. plus, a few of the guys on here have supported this and even sent me scripts in emails! this community ihas helped me to learn and though the curve is steep it is also fun. im really personally not interested in turning back the clock... unless im playing old games on the atari or my commie128, or one of the archaic video game systems i have

Comet, you don't have to run a bot to run multiple scripts, nor start them one by one. Yes, there are a few scripts that run multiple scripts and call others to automate the game from login to attack - basically a true bot. Do these scripts get given out - not by me and I don't know of anyone else that has given them out (haven't ran across too many of them).

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

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

I have not used them myself. Although I have been on corps where they have been used before. I was just throwing it out there for the subject of the matter. It may be few and far be tween however they are used

I've moved Cruncher's posts with the private IM from comet to the Smack Talk forum. This isn't the forum for smack.

Keep the tone of threads in this Helpers & Scripts forum amiable and constructive. Argue if you must, but be adult about it in this forum. Or take it to smack.