War of the Worlds - December Bang!

[aeturneus]

Bang scheduled for TODAY December 22th 5PM MST

Spread the word! The War of the Worlds is banging tonight!



Visit the server site at http://www.waroftheworlds.ath.cx for a java client to connect to the game, or telnet to www.waroftheworlds.ath.cx port 2002.

The practice game has been re-banged and will continue to run alongside the WotW game as a place for people to try new strategies and practice their skills. It is set to unlimited turns.

Please register in the pre-registration thread

To get detailed settings for the game, press "*" at the main menu after selecting a game but before logging in.

Strong Recommendations

1) Thou shalt use SWATH

2) Thou shalt park in fedspace at the end of the day if thou wishest not to wake in an escape pod

3) Thou shalt purchase a cloaking device and cloak in fedspace if thou art evil and wishest not to wake up in an escape pod lacking all thy evil credits

4) Thou shalt density scan before warping

5) Thou shalt not destroy toll fighters unless thou art prepared to pay the consequences (also it's cheaper to leave them)

Proposed Rules:

1) No attack-bot scripts that involve automatic t-warp / idling at stardock for evils / any other sort of automatic attacking except simple capture scripts triggered in face to face combat (like the ship capture script in swath)

Proposed General Settings:

20,000 Sectors

1000 Turns per day, can save for five days to a maximum 5000 turns.

NEW Gold Alien Ferrengi & Cylon races, with advanced citadels and dangerous ships - beware!

Photons: multiple fire enabled, wave duration of 20 seconds, enabled from day 1.

Planetary Trade: 80%

Rob/Steal Factor: 50%

Busts Clear: Every 5 days

Port Regen: 10% per day, maximum 100% per visit

Maximum 5 Planets per Sector

Maximum 5 Traders per Corp

Proposed Startup Settings:

Merchant Freighter, 20 holds, 10,000 credits, 100 fighters.

[aeturneus]

For starters, I'm going to suggest making the universe much larger, say 20,000 sectors, and giving players 800 turns instead of 1000 turns.

This will have the combined effect of making it easier for good (blue) players to hide planets in different corners of the universe, and making evil somewhat less efficient with the initial setup cost (in turns) each day being somewhat fixed.

I'd also like to suggest that the turn storage feature currently in place where you can save one day's turns to the next day be increased up to 5 days worth of turns. A lot of us have lives outside this game, I'm sure, and it would be great if I could not play Monday-Friday when I am in a crunch, but could still come back Friday night and not be five days behind turns-wise.

[Pave]

Originally posted by aeturneus
I'd also like to suggest that the turn storage feature currently in place where you can save one day's turns to the next day be increased up to 5 days worth of turns. A lot of us have lives outside this game, I'm sure, and it would be great if I could not play Monday-Friday when I am in a crunch, but could still come back Friday night and not be five days behind turns-wise.

I give full support for this With my school and homeworks, it's almost impossible for me to play outside weekends.

[MarkG]

For starters, I'm going to suggest making the universe much larger, say 20,000 sectors, and giving players 800 turns instead of 1000 turns.

agreed as well

i dont like the idea of running a script and spreading figs in half the universe...

I'd also like to suggest that the turn storage feature currently in place where you can save one day's turns to the next day be increased up to 5 days worth of turns.

agreed it should be at least 2 days

[burbel]

OK, for starters I'd like to agree on the 20,000 sectors - I think a large universe, with more one -way warps than the current game, would be useful.

As for storing up turns, I think the maximum of 5 days would be best; there's no reason to penalize players that don't make it here every day.

More later...

[burbel]

I agree for two corp teams, perhaps we should start considering them :

Team 1 :

Aeturneus (evil)

Team 2 :

Oerdin (evil)

How would the rest of us group up in this case? What do you think?

[aeturneus]

I've updated the proposed settings according to the discussion here, and have also proposed making the location of ferrengal public so that I can edit it and put 100,000 fighters on it so that it will be difficult for a corp to get an advantage by taking it.

Also, Burbel is paying for an upgrade of the server to the Gold version, so we may be able to add other alien races as well!

My thoughts on balancing the teams: Specialization is key. If each corp has players doing the different specializations, the corps will be more or less balanced.

Both corporations should have

1) An evil player to make money. This player shouldn't move except being towed by a good player, and if he's played right, this is the only guy in the corp that hast to make money. Should pull in 10m - 12m per day if he is supported properly.

2) A good player to tow the evil player and his colonial transports around by Transwarp drive, tow merchant freighters to him so he can destroy them to recover holds when he busts, to explore with eprobes and transwarp drive, and to hunt with his remaining turns. This is the most difficult job, should go to the most experienced player (though he doesn't have to be CEO, since he can use an ISS and doesnt need access to a corp flagship). This player needs to be online at the same time as the red player in order to support him properly.

3) A second good player to colonize and upgrade planets in lots of different sectors by Transwarp drive, and manage the defenses of sectors and planets as the game continues. This player doesn't necessarily have to be on at the same time as the other two players, but does need to make sure to keep the citadels upgrading so the corp doesn't get behind.

I suggest that everyone think about which role they would like to play in a corporation. The hardest one is the first blue, who has to know how to help the red, has to be available at regular times to help the red and has to put time in to explore. The other two are both complicated at times, and routine at times, since scripts should be used to SST and to colonize, but a lot of careful thought has to go into choosing sectors to build in and the red player has to play at the same time every day so the corp income is steady and the blue player can help him.

These are my views of how a three player corporation should work. I invite you to share yours and suggest what you would like to do in a corporation. I hope everybody can pick something they would like to do and we can balance the teams that way, each person getting to do something they are interested in and capable of.

I understand it's a big difference to play Trade Wars with organized corporations and assigned roles... some people may not think this will be as much fun as free-wheeling around solo, and of course people are still free to do that but I think teamwork and strategy and co-operation will not only win, but will be a more fun way to play in the long run

[aeturneus]

Personally, I'd like to play first blue on my corp, and train someone else to play evil like I trained Oerdin in the last game. Obviously, Oerdin knows quite a bit about playing evil now, so he would be a valuable evil player on the other corp, now that he is finished being "apprentice" and is ready to be a "master" though I can't really speak to what role he would want to play specifically.

[burbel]

Well, I'm familiar with the second blue position, exploring sectors and dead ends, exploring the universe, dropping figs in key places, and developing sectors, etc.

However, I wouldn't mind a change in pace. Being the evil character might be different for me, although it might be more dificult for me to be on when someone else is.

But I'm open here.

Also, checking some other TW faq pages, it seems that 1,000 turns isn't unreasonable for a 5,000 sector game, so I think that the 20,000 sector universe would be fine with that many turns - ideas?

[Solarwind2]

Well, 1k turns is reasonable, especially in such a big universe, so yeah, that sounds good.
I wouldn't mind being able to pick a different starting ship though.

[aeturneus]

Would you be interested in playing as a corporate red, solar?

Unfortunately if I change the starting ship I have to change it for everyone - did you have one in particular in mind?

Some servers set it to start in a merchant freighter - considering everyone trades the cruiser in for one that might make sense.

[burbel]

We can also customize the values for ships, but that's a slippery slope. I think that starting everyone in a Merf is fair. and reasonable.

Also, what do we think of this idea? Thou shalt use Swath. If we can standardize what tool everyone is using, then we can share information easier (sector maps and port reports, for example), and we can guarantee that noone has any additional functionality that puts them ahead of the others.

Also, I'd like to ask that folks stay away from custom macros, such as ones that allow automated killing of ships and such.

What do you all think?

[aeturneus]

Originally posted by burbel
I think that starting everyone in a Merf is fair. and reasonable.

OK I've updated the proposed startup settings to match this, and raised the turns back up to 1000, though turns are still open for debate as anything else.

Originally posted by burbel
Also, what do we think of this idea? Thou shalt use Swath.

I'm leery of requiring corp members to use a specific piece of commercial software, even if it does have a free trial period.

On the other hand, SWATH really is where it's at when it comes to helper programs.

I use SWATH and TWX right now, and the reason I use TWX is I like the keyboard interface for running scripts rather than the SWATH menu interface - they can both run the same scripts. Data files are interchangeable between the two programs, and TWX is free - but you need some sort of helper, perhaps open-source Kokua, to connect to the TWX proxy.

I agree about the attack type scripts, technically the main issue would be if someone was idling on the server just running attack scripts triggered by toll fighters - this simply can't be allowed since the server only has 4 nodes, not to mention the way it completely changes the game. So I think that is a good rule, but I'm not going to prohibit people using SWATH ship capture or simple things like that, just complex twarp-bot type things, which can be detected fairly easily.

[Solarwind2]

I'll take corporate red for two corps at a time

[burbel]

Well, I wouldn't try and *force* anyone to use a specific piece of software, just recommend it, it does establish a good baseline (and allow everyone to do simple things such as PPT, SST, Terra colonization, etc).

If anyone is going to use a seperate script, I'd ask that they upload a reference to it, so that others can use the script if they so desire, and we can keep things even.

Hmm, Solarwind, that seems like a tall order - well, I tell you what, you can make the 5mil credits for our corp first, then I'll be nice and twarp you to the other corp's sectors so you can start making them money. What do you think?