There's been a lot of dicussion about BOTs in TW these days. I've thought of an possible simple and clean solution:

Message Delay - TEDIT Setting from 0-65000 ms.

There's already a Ship Delay, Attack Delay, Command Delay... It seems very reasonable to an in game message delay ONLY for Fighter Reports, Limp Activations, and Armid Mine Messages.

If a GameOp wants to discourage BOTs, then he or she can simply turn up the Message Delay to 10 seconds and 99% BOTs become nullified to a degree.

I've already bounced this idea off a handful of players, this solution could be a winner.


Timbo.

quote:
There's been a lot of dicussion about BOTs in TW these days. I've thought of an possible simple and clean solution:

Message Delay - TEDIT Setting from 0-65000 ms.

There's already a Ship Delay, Attack Delay, Command Delay... It seems very reasonable to an in game message delay ONLY for Fighter Reports, Limp Activations, and Armid Mine Messages.

If a GameOp wants to discourage BOTs, then he or she can simply turn up the Message Delay to 10 seconds and 99% BOTs become nullified to a degree.

I've already bounced this idea off a handful of players, this solution could be a winner.


Timbo.


This is already possible under v3 by setting the seconds per cycle higher than 1 (the default setting). Most messages (excepting limpet mines) are handled on a per-cycle basis. By increasing the duration between cycles, you increase the message delay as well. I've used a increased setting on my server for several months now with exceptional results (My pdrop script can't pdrop me with me playing one of the test accounts by hand.)

Being discussed for v4 is -true- message delay. Not a sysop configurable delay but a built in, hardcoded delay of at least several seconds, along with delayed CIM port information. None of this is set in stone yet (v4 hasn't even entered the coding stage) but these are things that are definitely being looked at in order to lessen the gap between scripters and casual players.

Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave
uhndagrowhn bbs

uhndagrowhn bbs
telnet://uhndagrowhn.merseine.nu

Would be nice to make the maximum setting for that interval back up to 4s like it used to be though, or higher even- I sure still pdropped/ptorped a whole bunch of people when the minimum possible setting was 1s, and at that time my latency added a bonus 700ms for them to get away... now the 1s is the maximum, with most sysops on 1/4s. I'm pretty sure the reason JP dropped it was so that you would tend to get "EvilKillerDude powers up weapons systems" in a reasonable period of time however, although I'm not that upset with the possibility of someone being dead before they know what's happening- I mean they did just prop in a sector with EvilKillerDude in it for a second or so.... there surely should be some level of stupidity that is still rewarded with death...

Of course going this way is basically saying online combat is not a part of the game. I'm kinda wondering about the possibility of going completely the other way- the problem here is that the casual player don't have access to combat scripts. Two possible answers to that- 1.break combat scripts, or 2.make sure the casual player has access. The latter might be acheived by building some simple functions like "Photon Guard adjacent sectors"; "Planet/twarp/bwarp drop deployed fighter" to the citadel and/or ships computer. It'd have to be in game though so that the casual player does indeed have access, and would probably be in conjunction with using delays to break the non-simple scripts like cimhunt.

Cheers,

Dr. Bad

A several-second message delay is an interesting idea, although I think it has some obvious consequences:

1) it weakens the defender considerably: you might not know that someone is attacking your base (or sector figs, for that matter) until it is too late to do anything about it

2) it makes the photon far less useful as a defensive weapon (as opposed to an invasion tool): this makes the # of figs you have more important, because you can't rely on photons to slow down an aggressor.

Perhaps this is what you are looking for -- I don't know anything about v4 or what your goals are -- but I think that there might be better ways to hinder combat scripts (if that is the goal) without tipping game balance greatly in favor of the attacker. Maybe just increase attack delay and add photon delay and pwarp delay, or something more creative than that.

I just don't think you want a situation where an attacker can blast through a player's figs and other defenses without the defending player being able to do anything about it. If the defender isn't notified until several seconds after the attack occurs, there just isn't much the defender can do to stop the attacker unless something else is added to the game to offset this huge initiative advantage for the attacking player.

Just my thoughts,

Renato

quote:
Would be nice to make the maximum setting for that interval back up to 4s like it used to be though, or higher even- I sure still pdropped/ptorped a whole bunch of people when the minimum possible setting was 1s, and at that time my latency added a bonus 700ms for them to get away... now the 1s is the maximum, with most sysops on 1/4s. I'm pretty sure the reason JP dropped it was so that you would tend to get "EvilKillerDude powers up weapons systems" in a reasonable period of time however, although I'm not that upset with the possibility of someone being dead before they know what's happening- I mean they did just prop in a sector with EvilKillerDude in it for a second or so.... there surely should be some level of stupidity that is still rewarded with death...


See, this is a change I have to admit I wasn't even aware of, and one that I definitely should have made myself aware of. I'll definitely talk to JP about this tomorrow and see what his impressions are regarding increasing the maximum setting. This used to be a perfect way to penalize offensive/defensive scripts while allowing automation scripts. I've had my TWGS set at either 2 or 3 for the last year or so... evidentally somewhere along the way I missed the change here, and never caught the message in TEDIT.

quote:
Of course going this way is basically saying online combat is not a part of the game. I'm kinda wondering about the possibility of going completely the other way- the problem here is that the casual player don't have access to combat scripts. Two possible answers to that- 1.break combat scripts, or 2.make sure the casual player has access. The latter might be acheived by building some simple functions like "Photon Guard adjacent sectors"; "Planet/twarp/bwarp drop deployed fighter" to the citadel and/or ships computer. It'd have to be in game though so that the casual player does indeed have access, and would probably be in conjunction with using delays to break the non-simple scripts like cimhunt.


One of the ideas that has been discussed was the actual inclusion of a scripting engine of sorts. Things such as built in PPT, SST, etc. That recently switched to -very- basic discussion of including "modules" of sorts that just about any player could use to build automation and reactive scripts off of. In many ways I think this would be a great route to take, as everyone would have access to the same thing. On the other hand, for obvious reasons, I think it would lead to even more 24/7 scripting. For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.

Note that none of the things discussed for v4 are set in stone. Coding hasn't even begun on it, no time has been established when it might get underway, or even if it will. Every discussion regarding v4 so far has been purely conceptual.

Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave

Edited by - rave on March 26 2002 01:35:49 AM

quote:
A several-second message delay is an interesting idea, although I think it has some obvious consequences:

1) it weakens the defender considerably: you might not know that someone is attacking your base (or sector figs, for that matter) until it is too late to do anything about it


Providing message delays are implemented alongside gameplay delays, would ensure that even if you received a message a couple seconds after the message was generated in most cases the damage would be minimal in the intervening time.

quote:
2) it makes the photon far less useful as a defensive weapon (as opposed to an invasion tool): this makes the # of figs you have more important, because you can't rely on photons to slow down an aggressor.


Several changes have been considered that would affect photons, message delays being one of them. Photons were originally intended as offensive weapons (for invasions), and returning them to that state has been discussed. (Remember though, nothing is set in stone and all discussions are conceptual in nature.)

quote:
Perhaps this is what you are looking for -- I don't know anything about v4 or what your goals are -- but I think that there might be better ways to hinder combat scripts (if that is the goal) without tipping game balance greatly in favor of the attacker. Maybe just increase attack delay and add photon delay and pwarp delay, or something more creative than that.


All the suggestions you've made here have been discussed, some such as pwarp delays in great detail. Whether some or all will be implemented in v4 (providing it gets underway), or whether other methods will be found and used is still very much up in the air.

One of the goals of discussing changes for v4 has been to figure out if and how it is possible to minimize the advantages reactive scripting.

quote:
I just don't think you want a situation where an attacker can blast through a player's figs and other defenses without the defending player being able to do anything about it. If the defender isn't notified until several seconds after the attack occurs, there just isn't much the defender can do to stop the attacker unless something else is added to the game to offset this huge initiative advantage for the attacking player.


What you describe above is definitely not what JP wants to see happen in v4. And appropriate gameplay balances would be implemented to prevent such situations. One of the ideas with v4 is that defending should always have a slight advantage over attacker, and that an attacked player should always have an opportunity to escape, rather than be attacked, be podded, and be dead (to put it simply).

Lisa M. Wilson
aka Rave
uhndagrowhn bbs

uhndagrowhn bbs
telnet://uhndagrowhn.merseine.nu

Renato,

The PWarp delay setting is a good idea. Keep in mind I'm suggesting *settings* for TEDIT. The problem today is that combat scripts have no limit today. It's been proven that even time limit games can't stop someone from running a 24/7 combat bot.

The goal of this is to give GameOps the power to bang a game that can't effectively be dominated by combat scripts that do the attacking/defending for you (as gameplay orginally was back in the late 80's and early 90's).

Game A - Realtime & Bot Wars (No Delays)
Game B - Trade Wars (PWarp Delay, Message Delay?, whatever works)

Most everyone likes scripting for building, but many are tired of **every** single game with good players ending up being a Bot War. Plus, far too many new players get very rudely greeted in Tradewars by Bots that attack them. It really sucks that the current game has no way to effectively limit combat scripters.
Again, if implemented using TEDIT *settings*, that empowers a GameOp to bang style game that he or she wants. This wouldn't remove offensive/defensive scripts from Tradewars. It would allow a GameOp to run a particular game to meet popular demand.

Message Delays for Figs/Mines/Limps, maybe be a possibility. Enters the sector, lifts, lands, docks, fedcom, radio, hails, all still as realtime messages. Perhaps one new realtime message that generacially says "A Fighter was attacked" with no sector number for a script to use. That would still give Traders a realtime warning that they are being hunted.

This wouldn't end realtime combat even in a game set to limit combat scripts, there would still plenty of ways (d-photon, enters the sector, etc) for realtime combat to exist it would just limit them.
...And of course a game banged without combat scripting limits would run with as much action as players can deliver.

-Timbo.

Timbo,

I'm not against limiting scripts -- personally I'd love to see TWGS accessable only from a script-free client, where you can only use copy-paste macros or something like that. I enjoy playing by hand and I think I'd have more fun playing if players were limited to playing that way. I questioned the method of doing it, not the goal itself -- I just think message delays by themselves unbalance the game in unintended (and ultimately bad) ways. They would certainly make a wait-and-build strategy far less successful.

I'd also like to clarify something else. I think that it's stupid and bad for the game that you get a significant advantage in TW for knowing how to write scripts. But let's not overstate the problem. "Every single game with good players" is not "ending up being a bot war." Combat scripts have their place, sure, but I don't see many games decided on the basis of them. My corp in USO did not rely heavily on what you call "bot scripts." In USO I didn't get a single kill via a script, although I might have gotten a few late in the game if my corp was not removed.

During BOTE 2001, I didn't have any non-public scripts and used nothing but SWATH and copy-paste for macros on a slow dialup connection. I didn't dominate that game or anything, but I did okay and had a lot of fun. It's still possible to do well and have fun in TW, no matter what your equipment or scriptwriting knowledge. Now I use ZOC+TWX and have written all sorts of exotic attack scripts ... but those haven't transformed the way I play. Probably the biggest thing that's helped me is a more creative use of keymapping and macros.

My point is just that you can compete without attack scripts or being a script writer -- especially now that SupG has released a lot of the more useful attack scripts (like cimhunt or shipcap) to the public. I think the biggest problems with TW now have nothing to do with scripts:

1) No online tutorial/FAQ/instruction manual for new players

2) Immense amount of time needed to win highly competitive games (only way to solve this is to have a different sort of time limit on a game -- e.g. only open it from 7pm to 10pm EST daily or something like that).

I just want to broaden the discussion a bit ... I'd far rather have a good player at keys for 10-12 hours a day than the best possible script, and I think that the biggest problem for tw is that "number of hours at keys" has become a huge factor in success or failure in competitive games. I think the # of hours required has contributed a lot to the burnout and string of retirements we've seen over the past year.

Renato

quote:
everal changes have been considered that would affect photons, message delays being one of them. Photons were originally intended as offensive weapons (for invasions), and returning them to that state has been discussed. (Remember though, nothing is set in stone and all discussions are conceptual in nature.)

If they are really intended for invasion use, then may I suggest that they should have no effect on another player's turns, since disabling a player in the back of a corporate bubble doesn't *really* make it any easier to invade.

Renato,

I guess I should have first posted Topic - How much of a demand is there for a "combat script limited" or "old style" type Tradewars game?

Judging from your comments, Renato, is it safe to say you would be interested?

Anyone else interested? Post a "Yes" (Interested), or "No" follwoing with some suggestions.

-Timbo.

Any of you tried Max Commands per Cycle? (heh..there I go cross posting again...lol) I find it better than changing the cycle values. Setting it to between 1 and 5 really levels the script vs human playing field.

I like the idea of delaying the CLV and CIM data a bit, but make it sysop configurable, and make that configuration visible to all players. I don't see how introducing delays in messages will do anything but help the attacker. As long as those delays can be turned off, then I don't care, as long as players can check those settings to know what they are getting into first. Pwarp delays are ok I guess.

-Traitor

P.S.
quote:

1) No online tutorial/FAQ/instruction manual for new players



There are some, just not many (like mine, http://www.tw-cabal.com). Most of what's out there is out of date. That's the problem IMHO. I've been working on something off and on for the last year that started as a way to make sure that the new players in our corp understood what the heck us old guys were talking about. It evolved into something more, but it's a pain to maintain and keep up to date. And it's really geared towards our corp, not to the generic player. I'd like to see something more centralized, but every project I've seen start seems to end up going nowhere, which is why I just made my own.

Visit http://www.tw-cabal.com

quote:
Renato,

I guess I should have first posted Topic - How much of a demand is there for a "combat script limited" or "old style" type Tradewars game?

Judging from your comments, Renato, is it safe to say you would be interested?

Anyone else interested? Post a "Yes" (Interested), or "No" follwoing with some suggestions.

-Timbo.





Sure, I'm very interested in having a "hand+macro only" option or even a "hand only" option, although I think the latter would be very hard to pull off.

That said, I think part of the problem is that many of us would like it both ways. I like online interaction and combat, but would prefer to have everyone play by hand and not to have to play 12 hours a day to compete. I think that I'm probably trying to have my cake and eat it too so the end result of a "hand only" option might be to eliminate the online combat part of the game entirely through a myriad of delays.

Renato