You want to host a tournament?

That's a hard pass.

But see, this is where you are wrong, on both counts. No offense.

On the one hand, the game you are speaking of DID die a decade or more ago. There has been no serious community of people playing the old dialup-style game by hand for at least that long. It simply doesn't exist. If you don't use twx, and modern scripts, you cannot survive more than minutes in any game. That has been the case for a very long time. So, you're right. That game should have died, and it did.

On the other hand, today's game is nothing close to a snapshot of the game from 30 years ago. So, you're wrong there, too. Today's game is a game of milliseconds and microseconds, played on modern hardware, a game for hackers, for strategists. Today's game is actually MORE of a strategy game than it was back then, because you not only have to understand the basics of gameplay, you have to understand the actual physics of the game at a code level to be able to compete.

I have thoroughly enjoyed multi-month games against Xanos and Hammer's group where every day, we both tried to grid on each other, and every day I found new ways to either grid (t-warp grid ultra fast? planet grid? 2-ship? 2-ship plus planet? randomized delay? etc) or to hit their grid script (planet foton? twarp foton? using different trigger techniques? multiple foton bots?). I have been in several such games that were extremely competitive and the back-and-forth of trying and testing new techniques, collaborating with and enjoying both social and gameplay conversation with my teammates -- there is still enjoyment to be had in this game. It just requires a different set of skills.

So, I will fully admit that I am often at the center of this drama, though in many cases I think unfairly so. I really don't seek out drama, I just don't like accepting long-held beliefs about how things should be done, and remember, I am still a relative newcomer to the modern game. Like many of you, I played this game many years ago - back in 1988 on a PCBoard BBS - then quit and came back. I, however, didn't come back until about 2015 - so I missed the heyday of the game.

Anyway, here's where I will make another argument - one that is unorthodox and probably one you haven't thought of, but I challenge you to give it some real consideration. I think that drama is what is holding many of us here, as much as anything. There are plenty of psychology studies that show that humans inherently need some sort of enemy, a bad guy. This is why we have been warring for centuries, why we fight over politics, money, culture, and everything else.

The "us vs them" mentality is only further driven by the nature of the game -- the goal is to kill off your enemies' ships and steal their stuff. It's rape, pillage and murder basically, without all the downsides of doing so in reality. It feeds a basic human need/desire. I said something that effect to Farley many years ago, when we were friends, and without making this about his ongoing (mostly one sided) hate fest against me, he has been telling people for a while that "Shadow likes to act tough onilne because he's afraid to in real life." That is, in fact, the furthest thing from the truth - I am often confrontational in my job and career and have never walked away from a fight - but what I really said to him, and what is true, is that this game is an escape where you can exercise the inherent desire for conflict that in real life would end you in jail or worse.

All that said, I agree that it shouldn't get as personal as it does, and that probably does turn people off. But - as has often been said - this is trade wars, not trade hugs. From the moment you enter a game, everyone else is trying to kill you. It's designed that way. That is going to naturally create conflict, which creates a desire to win and gets the competitive juices flowing, which is why i stay up till 3am trying to take someone out even though it is not the best of decisions - because I really want to see that player dead.

Agree 1000% with all of this. What has happened over time, besides the nature of the game changing, is that the few remaining players have generally been around a long time and are, for the most part, all strategy and game mechanics experts. If they weren't, none of them would survive. There are a few exceptions, but the bar for being even remotely competitive is quite high.

Re the drama etc, Hammer is one of the most reasonable people I have dealt with in this game - since he came back, he and I have spoken on and off, not regularly but often enough. While we never spoke regularly enough to say we were friends, I would say we were very friendly and cordial, even as we tried as hard as possible to kill each other on a regular basis. I have had similar relationships with others in the game, some of whom probably don't want to admit it out of fear of how their teammates might react, since I am apparently the current super-villain of the hour (how I wish for Helix and a few others to come back and give me some competition.)

Anyway, my point is that it is possible to have hard-fought battles on a regular basis without it turning personal. I am personally committed to trying harder to avoid that in the future, and I hope others will as well.

Just nope. If the game were still alive, there'd be more than 20 people playing it. We didn't play by hand back then. There were helpers and scripts. and macros. You don't know much of what you're talking about on this subject, so let it go. The game is definitely different, but mostly because only a handful are playing it the way its has progressed and how they choose. One can still download Zoc, create macros and run zoc scripts and play it effectively.

So you're talking about the game a decade ago, then, not 30 years ago as you said before. Because 30 years ago, there were not helpers and scripts and macros.



See, I was trying to be nice. I really do try, I try hard. And then guys like you come along.



Great. Let me know where and when, you bring your Zoc scripts and I'll bring mombot and my modern automation and we'll see how that ends for you.

Dear Lord, its like arguing with a 6 year old. Nevermind that I was there and was playing. But you know. Welcome back Xide.

That's what I thought.

No, I doubt thought is a common thing for you. But thanks anyway.

This explains volumes!

Today's play is mainly mechanical, with some strategy. You need an understanding of both to play competitively. You completely missed how much fun this game used to be, back when we were learning what was possible, before TWXProxy.

I still believe that TWXProxy was created in response to my team dominating at the time. Enjoy being the bada$$ on the top of the pile, there's always someone looking to take you out. I left before TWXProxy was released to the public. Could I beat defensive AFK scripts? Yes, but that meant spending a lot of time while my opponent was off having a life. SG isn't here to corroborate, but more than once I #SD# him while he was AFK. That's when I left, it's no fun to play against the mechanics, more fun to play against real people.

So, I came back when JP was working on V2 and began learning how to use TWXProxy & Mombot. Learning what the vulnerabilities were so I could request toggles that would interfere with the most aggressive aspects. When I was using nothing more than my own Zoc macros I called out Vid Kid and his team, at the time the top of the pile. Xanos came to my rescue, then he and T0yman taught me how to use Mombot, and the two of them improved the public Mombot and released it to the public. Xanos continues to improve aspects of this Mombot. My #1 request was that it was compatible with both V1 and V2 games.

Then we defeated Vid Kid and Kool Breeze's team. and once again my team was on the top of the heap.

I don't write scripts, I do enjoy the strategy. But no longer enjoy playing. Not as a bot or a bot master, which is what this game has evolved into.

I'm still in awe of Xide creating TWXProxy while he was still in high school. I'm sure this scripting language launched many a career in coding.

25 years ago in 1995 there were quite a few helpers. I remember one had a built in sst. You could download them from a dial up BBS over the phone line. St. Mary's had all the files.

I can remember first scripting in tera term around 1998 or so. Zoc came around I'm going to say around year 2000.

While mombot is probably superior to Zoc scripts, I would argue that that in itself would not be enough of an advantage to overcome some of the random/luck factors in the game, assuming 1 vs 1 play. I'm talking specifically busts and psmash.

If the odds of busting are 1 in 50, sometimes you bust in only 10 tries, sometimes it takes 100 tries. When you are first starting out as red the timing of your first few busts is very critical in determining where you end up exp/align wise.

Anyhow what's up Xide?

With Mombot, red Cashing is FULLY AUTOMATED. You might make 22mil one day and 27mil the next, but the other team is making about the same amount. The real deal isn't cash though, but GRID, and it is ALL about PHOTONS. Offensive and defensive grid relatred scripts are closely guarded secrets and if you loose your GRID, you have lost the GAME. Of coarse you can still turtle in a bubble in most edits, but you might not have enough ports to cash unless there are large gold bubbles.

The best cash scripts are closely guarded, too. Yes, in an unlimited turn game, mombot's wsst does pretty well. But you won't beat a good opponent with an equal start using it. My wsst script doesn't mow to dock and back (will twarp to nearest safe furb port), finds the best nearest ports to cash based on the mcic, will auto bust up at SSS ports if specified by doing best negotiation of multiple products and jetting the output (like xan's "hagfish" script), will optionally use sdt instead of sst for games where planets are cheap (find two good ports, make planets, and use sdt algo, which generally makes more cash). All of this adds up to between 10-40% more cash per turn. I also properly escape the prompts unlike nearly any of the mombot published scripts, so even just in basic wsst mode mine runs at least 25% faster, maybe more. Oh, both in sst and sdt mode, all my red cash scripts (including wsst and wsdt) use a blue furber if you have one, so they never have to go to a furb port.

Then there's rtr, which I've automated and which kills any sst/sdt in certain edits. Think wsst for rtr.

I am certain that hammer/MD have done the same, but they will also never release their best scripts; they leave the functional, but severely flawed, versions in the public bot for the masses to use and keep the good scripts private.

Yes, grid is important, but so is cashing, whatever method you use. Hint: outside of an unlim on day zero, selling prods to upgraded ports is ALWAYS more profitable than sst/sdt, whether you get the prods from popping planets (moo) or from colos. I was doing 10+ billion a day in a subzero unlim this way - you will never do that much in 24 hours with wsst - and can do 15+ billion with 10k turns in a moo, after 3-5 days of setup. This is using multiple techniques usually - selloffs, moo, rtr after selloff - which is all done with automated scripts. By automated, I mean I start the script, go work for 4 hours, come back, and I have 10 billion more in the bank.

Then there's alien cashing, which is also silly profitable in an unlim with high dollar alien ships (but requires grid).

Grid is important, but not everything. I've invaded games that were 97% gridded out and made billions hiding in what little space was left, then invaded and killed the grid holders (hi Farley!)

You would be wrong. You can't beat anyone with Zoc against modern scripts.

By modern scripts, I don't mean mombot stock, I mean the enhanced versions the serious teams have. It's all about time to getting cash, especially in a 1 vs 1 situation, and with a fully automated system, you just can't get ahead of it. My DM setup auto logs me in, mows to dock setting traps along the way (that sometimes take out the competiiton before they ever get to dock), then gets me in the right ship with the right setup, leaves dock, and starts cashing using heavily optimized scripts. It will auto upgrade my ship, buy more figs, etc, and requires me to do nothing besides hit "go" and watch it unless something goes wrong. Oh, it will also look for fig hits and once properly armed will auto twarp adjacent, foton, enter sector and kill the enemy (while cashing -- triggers off fig hits and will interrupt cashing and go into kill mode.)

You can't beat that playing by hand or using legacy scripts.