A few years ago Mobby figured out a way to calc the distance we were coloing from because of a broken milker script.... Anyway I told kewlbreese about the idea of counting colos grabbed and calcing the distance traveled by colonist consumption ond ore allowance of said milker. So to get to the point Vid Kid managed to make a script that calcs said colo sector and gives a list of results, giving the coloer's location in a result of a few possible sectors. Given this information and the fact that said script does exhist giving said colo location away. I would consider multiple colo locations a Darn good effort. Just a little friendly advice for the teams facing Krackheads and what they might throw at ya. Thanks for listening... Raptor

Good warning. I think Lord Talon had a script that tracked colo's
grabbed too. Not a bad idea really. You can fool it by loading a
few holds of org or something..say 9 or 12 holds if you're using
a big 200 hold job.

Am I right in concluding that this script really takes advantage of other scripts, or would it be as useful against a human player?

The advanced tactics these guys come up with blow my mind sometimes.

Well I'm not sure if 'taking advantage of another script' is
really accurate. A human player could probably do the same
thing.
You're sitting at Terra waiting for a player to warp in.
When you detect a 'warp in' you land and check how many
colonists are available. You then lift and land and see how
many are now available.
The difference is the number your opponent grabbed. You
can find out what kind of ship they have; and how many holds
they have, from the computer. Subtract the number grabbed
from number of holds and divide by 3. That is the distance,
from Terra, to your enemies base.

If only Al-Qaeda was as easy to track down.

You are basically taking advantage of a player doing a redundant
and predictable thing. This is where some say 'Cheat' others say
'Ingenious' and survival of the fittest makes the level of play stay
at its highest possible level...

Its actually quite smart.... i've seen vid use it... i have to give him credit he thinks of everything...Smart guy !

I think the pubic version of the script was terraTracker, and might have been by Zentock's group. It has been a few years. [Edit] Should say that was the first I saw [/edit]

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

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

Wow, never thought of that. Of course this assumes the colonizer has max holds, which would be a natural assumption. I don't really see how alternate colonization locations would help. Once these are known in any given game, the trackers just have a guy sit at each of them and do the same thing.

There are a few ways of solving this from the point of view of the colonizing player. First, the less efficient way, this is very inefficient but might be worth it if you're really concerned about exposing your base's location. What you would do is to create a 'dummy' planet in any old sector. Doesn't matter what type, just as long as it can support as many colonists you need for your real planet. So now you go and colonize the dummy planet. The trackers think this is your base and keep their eyes on it. When you're done you then move the colonists from the dummy planet to your real planet. If nobody's managed to find your dummy yet, this should work. If they have, this might backfire.

The second way is really only practical if you are playing in a game where cits reach L4 before first Extern. What you do here is the same as earlier. Make a dummy planet and upgrade it to L4. Pwarp it somewhere near sector 1, colonize it, then pwarp it back to your home base and move the colonists. This method has the advantage that if the location of your dummy is discovered and you know it soon enough, you can pwarp it away somewhere else and continue colonizing and throw them off the track.

So there ya go, a way around it.. heh

or just short hop it, not turn efficient, and may be more dangerous. Just warp to terra and have sufficient ore to get 1/2 (or whatever) way back, port get ore, and twarp home.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

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

Has anyone heard of propoganda tactics? Things like sending negetive propaganda by dropping flyers from airplanes or sending constant radio transmissions? Displaying severed heads or crucifixion along publicly traveled routes?

The damage isn't done from the act itself, but from the way people react to the act. If the other corp uses more turns to colonize they your corp does, the tactic worked.

It's not that usefull to find out this information especially if there are mobile planets in the universe. This is just another form of data mining that I was talking about and it's not one single event that does the damage, but many others as well. Things like tracking fig hits, calculating colonizing distance, dead end tracking, bubble tracking, strategic sector analysing, etc.

"a player doing a redundant
and predictable thing."

Right, that's why I was thinking this would be more useful against players who blindly use scripts, because those who write them know exactly what the player who uses them is doing. But yeah, it seems anyone could fall victim to it if not aware of this advanced tactic.

See, I'd really like to do away with any of the perceived unfair advantages of scripts, and what's left is just really outstanding play like this. Obviously such players are going to play at a level that boggles the mind of the typical player. But it's like playing chess against a master. You don't expect to win, but you can marvel at the level of skill with which you're beat. Compare that to a "cheap" tactic that takes advantage of the speed of a script over elegant tactics or a deep understanding of the game. If it was possible to remove all of those "cheap" tactics that scripts are often associated with, those advanced tactics would remain, and would still set many of today's players apart from the rest. That's what I'd like to see.

Not trying to start an argument here. Just an observation.

Interesting point, BigD.

Exactly, I was thinking as I read this that Swath and other's have turbo colo scripts, I would defy anyone to try to get colo readings between trips. The slow scirpts that are keeping Terra drained would be easier to count.

Red Herrings, propoganda, misinformation are as much a part of this game as ppt'ing.

So you think that landing on terra and getting the colo count would take longer than someone grabbing fuel, twarping to terra, landing, grabbing colos, lifting, twarping back to their planet, landing, dropping colos?

Hmmm....

H

I suppose anything is possible, just not probable from anyone with my perspective. That turbo colo is dang fast!