what's the best character to send to keep your connection alive? typically i configure ZOC to send the ESC character, but i'm curious what other players use. what does twx do?

Most use the "#", but I use the "quicks stats" key because I have it update my stats window.

I use #27 every 5 seconds as the invis keepalive.

I also check my currentline. If I'm not at at the shield
attack prompt, every 5 or 10 minutes (depending on
what I have set) it sends a #/. This way I get a rolling
list of who's online at what times, and a slash stat to
keep my stats panel updated.

Edit: Oh, and I also spit out an echo of the current time
too. Not really a keepalive, but it helps to date activity
on the scrollback.

I use the # and the ss channel. Every 5 min. or so I let my corpies know I'm NOT online so they don't feel foolish logging in and talking to me.

i'm working on my helper (zyrain) and i am trying alternate 'silent' keepalive keystrokes. i tried sending NUL, but that has no effect on the twgs. i don't really want to send ESC either though because of the stacking of proxy helpers. if you're running my helper over top of twx and you're in the twx menu when my helper sends a keepalive keystroke, what happens? that keystroke isn't going to make it to the twgs and if i choose poorly, it could have unwanted side effects in the twx menu. also in zyrain, ESC erases the current line you're typing in the zyrain shell.

i'm going to try sending a telnet code of IAC+NOP (0xFF + 0xF1) - see http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc854.html. since this is a telnet sequence, i'm hoping this will keep a twgs session alive and be completely ignored by other helpers. have you tried this?

I made an easy script that calls up ck refresh figs and set it to run every 5 min

ok... initial testing confirms that sending IAC+NOP keeps the TWGS connection alive silently.

also, i remembered my other reason for wanting a better keepalive. it's annoying when you have abort set to any key instead of space and your keepalive character aborts your fig refresh. ESC will do this; i have ZOC set to send ESC every 59 seconds and every once in a while it will end up aborting a fig refresh or warp/port cim. tonight i'll setup a test and see if IAC+NOP aborts any displays.

does anyone know if IAC+NOP will have any side effects in the twx menu?

My bot use high ascii to trigger special constructed smart macro's and I have never had an issue

I will try #255 & #240 as an twx command

5 seconds seems a little much. I use 30 seconds and have never had an issue with disconnects

and i use #27 (esc) btw...I also timestamp the screen..The # and / just spams the screen to much for me

Yeh, but do those get sent thru to the server? And will the server count them as a keepalive?



I used to use 30, but found that frequent keepalives seem to help prevent
some random disconnects. Not sure why, but since it's invisible...



Yeh, it does spam the screen. But I like being able to see who's coming and
going in a game. Tends to be worth it for me.

Good Point...No my bot intercepts the keystrokes in helper mode. Whether TWGS has an issue i dont know but I never had an issue with TWX and high ascii.




Well as long as you dont spam the radio with "Density Foton Active" every 5 seconds




Someone in the corp is usually running CLV for that purpose.

#255 #241

bad news - telnet sequences abort displays. sigh.

Not sure of the effects on twx. I'm actually rewriting the telnet handling code now, so I could modify it if needed.

As far as keep-alive goes, it would be ideal if they're only sent during no activity. In twx, I used a blank text out trigger to reset a 3 minute timer, so #27 was only sent during inactivity periods. However, it's pretty expensive for a script to capture every outgoing keystroke just for that, and scripts sending data might not qualify as a keystroke.

But if you're coding keep-alive as a built in helper function, then sending ESC after 30 secs of no activity seems ideal.

yeah i'm coding a built-in keep-alive. i'd prefer not to use ESC because it takes away an option for users. it could be used to mean 'abort script' or 'leave the menu'. if i can do a keep-alive without taking a prominent key on the keyboard i want to do it. that's why i'm exploring telnet sequences for this purpose. it would be great if twx would pass through telnet sequences, but it would have to do this both ways, because telnet sequences are often negotiations. i sent a private message to JP to ask if he could modify the TWGS so that telnet sequences would not abort displays, but still operate as a keepalive. no word yet.

If you're at a the shield prompt on a planet, and someone pulls the
shields, the wrong key gets you blasted as you transition between
prompts.

Be careful of how game play reacts to your choice, too.