Hello,

I have serious trouble with slow connections to servers. The main reason seems to be that I call from europe, and this is something that can't be solved. But possibly dealed with? Below there are some samples I've collected with Pro Ping by Promethius.

I became fully aware of the problem a few days ago when I was in a game with cerne (as Player "Rubber Duck"). I was unable to catch him with a pdropper or a photon script, I had been too slow. On the other hand when running by a lawnmower (CK's) I got shot at the first sector. Now this is not funny. It happened at Trader Vics server (no complaint involved).

Later another corp entered and Kane helped me running a test. I tried a macro like this:
2625^MA100^MF100^MC^MD^M19227^M
It enters a sector, attacks with 100 figs, deploys 100 figs, and retreats. This macro had been run in burst mode! The first attemped worked out fine, at the second attempt Kane torped me (I asked him to do so).

Now it looks to me I have no chance to compete against good players with a grid. I don't claim to be a good player regarding script usage, but being one wouldn't pay anyway.

Now the question is how to deal with that. I'm too much of a TW junkie to give up playing because of a technical handicap.

My current ideas are as follow.

1) Attack and grid while they are AFK. This is not heroic gameplay, but when I have a huge disadvantage by calling from europe, I want the advantage too!
2) Look for blue friendly games and play blue. You can build and avoid their grid, cause you can jump to dock and 1 and don't need to bust planets at places next to impossible to reach. Be patient and wait for your chance to wipe them out by 1)
3) Corp with players who can do the offensive job and stay in the background by building and planet trading (this is the most boring idea)

I'm looking for more ideas!

--- Ping samples from germany ---

Ludesay

Type sub-space message [<ENTER> to send line. Blank line to end transmission]
S: ping : 297 ms
S: ping : 391 ms
S: ping : 391 ms
S: ping : 390 ms
S: ping : 390 ms
S: ping : 391 ms
S: ping : 406 ms
S: ping : 391 ms
S: ping : 391 ms
S: ping : 391 ms
S: ----------------
S: Min: 297 Max: 406 Average: 383 -- What the Hell am I doing here?
S: High/Low Removed   Average: 391
S: Min:Max Split: 109 Mild Intermittent Lag Detected


Trader Vic

Type sub-space message [<ENTER> to send line. Blank line to end transmission]
S: ping : 344 ms
S: ping : 468 ms
S: ping : 484 ms
S: ping : 484 ms
S: ping : 515 ms
S: ping : 485 ms
S: ping : 453 ms
S: ping : 484 ms
S: ping : 468 ms
S: ping : 500 ms
S: ----------------
S: Min: 344 Max: 515 Average: 469 -- Just here to attack aliens
S: High/Low Removed   Average: 478
S: Min:Max Split: 171 Moderate Intermittent Lag Detected
S:


Runaway proton

Type sub-space message [<ENTER> to send line. Blank line to end transmission]
S: ping : 281 ms
S: ping : 391 ms
S: ping : 359 ms
S: ping : 437 ms
S: ping : 375 ms
S: ping : 438 ms
S: ping : 375 ms
S: ping : 359 ms
S: ping : 343 ms
S: ping : 360 ms
S: ----------------
S: Min: 281 Max: 438 Average: 372 -- What the Hell am I doing here?
S: High/Low Removed   Average: 375
S: Min:Max Split: 157 Moderate Intermittent Lag Detected
S:


Vulcans Forge

Type sub-space message [<ENTER> to send line. Blank line to end transmission]
S: ping : 234 ms
S: ping : 297 ms
S: ping : 297 ms
S: ping : 297 ms
S: ping : 297 ms
S: ping : 297 ms
S: ping : 297 ms
S: ping : 313 ms
S: ping : 297 ms
S: ping : 281 ms
S: ----------------
S: Min: 234 Max: 313 Average: 291 -- Darn, I hope someone is runnning
S: saveMe!
S: High/Low Removed   Average: 295
S: Min:Max Split: 79 Mild Intermittent Lag Detected
S:

Sub-space comm-link terminated


Outpost-4

Type sub-space message [<ENTER> to send line. Blank line to end transmission]
S: ping : 360 ms
S: ping : 531 ms
S: ping : 500 ms
S: ping : 688 ms
S: ping : 594 ms
S: ping : 515 ms
S: ping : 516 ms
S: ping : 625 ms
S: ping : 516 ms
S: ping : 531 ms
S: ----------------
S: Min: 360 Max: 688 Average: 538 -- What the Hell am I doing here?
S: High/Low Removed   Average: 541
S: Min:Max Split: 328 Extreme Intermittent Lag Detected
S:

Ping doesn't matter on macro burst, but you could definately speed that up by doing...



That aborts displays and doesn't lay a fig. If you're really having problems tack on an xport after hitting the fig. You'll need to adjust that technique some to avoid smarter grid defense, but it shouldn't be too tough.

The problem with a macro burst is that even the best one is still rather easy to hit even on a direct torp, throw in anticipation and you're going to get hit regardless. If you did a hit-twarp out instead you'd be much harder to hit.

You won't be able to torp w/ a 300ms ping tho. You can still pdrop in some situations. At 400ms... no chance. No way around that unless the competition is a complete moron.

The answer is to find someone with a better ping and have them deliver the torps and drops. You can do this via bot, as a lot of people do, and simply manage the bot from your end... ping worry-free. Corp w/ people so you don't have to bust up @ dock like that, as a red you shouldn't be warping around anyway.

I believe your ping time from Germany is about average if I remember correctly. I corped with a guy from there and his ping times were in the same ranges.

For what its worth, my ping times on Trader Vics were in the same range during the recent turns game there, and that is from Kansas. So you may not be at too bad of a disadvantage.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

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

Play Vid's server in guam....everyone has a bad ping so its equal for all.

Except for the few people that live there... they would have like a 110 ping, but I wounder if any one else on guam play TW.

I get a 430 there

Its true , those from Austrialia and newzeland have great ping on my server .. so I'm sure you will do well here too

As for high ping .. well I've had to deal with it for years on stateside servers.

The thing to do is to put spaces in your macro .. to help speed up things and don't lay figs if you plan to move fast.
Unless your gridding with a planet.

And by all means .. join a corp .. players with good pings.
Good luck .. and keep them pods coming

LOL   Same here.  I played for years, rather effectiively I might add, with a 330 plus ping.  I never had a lot of problems getting the job done.
 

If you are going route 2, choose a big universe and a good base location. Remember that grid serves as a tool to help find your base and the ones with the grid are more likely to find you first.

Personally I like playing with a corp.

maggie

move west

be sure to choose somewhere to live that you can get highspeed...
unlike myself who only has dialup.

If I have a ping < 350, Im super happy.

I guess "z" will supress visual feedback? Didn't know about that, will try it. Yes, I don't need to lay figs to move. It possibly can be done later by T-Warp gridding.



I tried that too: Enter, deploy, warp-out. I just don't know a usage of entering, attack, warp out.



That is my experience. Can defend a grid against unexperienced players but not against players with a more than basic knowledge.



That's a solution, but I've no experience in playing with corps that refurb me while cashing, and I'm currently not happy with the idea to depend on other players to babysit me.

Thanks for the hints.

My experience is limited, possibly some other players even inside the U.S. have pings in the same range. I've just run into the problem and look for a solution.

Good idea, I will try Vid's server for sure. When I get podded there I can't blame the pings

Spaces supress visual feedback. Z is to keep you from warping off by buffering. What if there's no fig in the sector? Without a buffer you need to know the contents of the sector first, which you can't always reliably know. There's a macro tutorial on the site on my sig. Check it out.



Nod, use spaces to abort display, it will help a lot. Still you run the risk of getting hit in such a manner, but so does everyone. That guy with the crackshot 140ms ping needs to be dealt with first. What that normally means is if your ping is really bad, you have to play a little bit smarter when dealing with grid. Test for torps, use xport instead of twarp, etc, before trying to grid.



No, I'm talking about doing it the other way around. You would babysit them running a script. Whenever you run grid defense (torper, dropper, anything) you really should have atleast someone paying attention. That person doesn't need a lightning ping, they can run from dialup or from another country or where-ever. All that matters is that they know what's going on and how to react. The actual torper however does need a good ping, otherwise it won't take long for them to find your weakness and exploit it.



Dialup users have this problem all the time, yes. The game has gotten a little more ping-sensitive over the last few years as it's one of the lowest common denominators in a grid game... which makes it hard to compete in some ways. But that's not to say you can't manage to play a good game without a good ping, you just have to be a little smarter than your competition. As you're experiencing now...

You do what you want, but I'll tell you this much.  If I had been in a game for 40 days and had 51 million figs, and a corp of 5 came in on day 38 with 1% of what figs I had, it wouldn't matter if my ping was 1000 plus and couldn't stop them gridding, no one would take that game from me.  Just a word of advice, don't give up so easily.  I mean good grief, it will take us weeks to get into your sectors without you in the game. lol
 

Oh well, I made a bad decision at last. It was so annoying to me sitting on top of my stuff but being unable to move that I wanted to turn blue ASAP. That had worked for me fine a few times before, but I was unaware it's such easy to lock me out by surrounding fed including space lanes after extern. So I ended up in a scout, unable to move or cloak or anything. Just one more mistake to learn from.