Playing the game

There are several ways to play the game. Each game client has its own postives and negatives, so the list below gives instructions for several of the different clients.

If you are not using a client listed below, the only information you need to set it up is:

Hostname:	tw2002.zot.org
Port:	2002

Various clients:

online web portal

This is the quickest and simplest way to play, but it has the least features of all the clients. It is often slower than the other clients. However, this client should just work for all people

telnet tw2002.zot.org 2002

Simply type the above command into your command prompt and you will be connected to the game. This is essentially a non-web based version of the online web portal

putty

Download putty from the above link and then install it. Once it is installed, download the config file and install that too. Now, when you start putty you will have the "tw2002.zot.org" session ready to use. This client has better scrollback and generally better graphics than the first two

Weapon-M

This client is the only one on this list that does more than just showing you the raw game. The most useful feature that it has is a map of your known universe. This client also supports scripting (but see below for our scripting house rules) - see the scripting documentation for more details.

To install this client, download the above zip file and extract it to the location you wish to install it to. Double-clicking on the WeaponM.jar file should start the client. - Note, unfortunatly, this might not work on a Mac

The first time you run it, you will be asked to create a new Database - which you will need to fill in with the hostname and port shown at the top of this page - but every other time, you can just use the Database->open menu to load your existing database.

To connect to the game, use the Network->Connect menu option and to see the map (note that it starts off empty), you will need to use the View->Map menu option

Remember to save your database when you quit!

Scripting rules

The advent of high powered fully scriptable clients for tradewars is widely regarded as a turning point in the history of the game. It seems that the heavy of use of scripting clients makes it a much more technical, much more fast paced game and tends to accentuate the differences between the various players. We dont want that!

In order to keep the game smaller and more social, there are a small set of "ground rules" that will help.

• These are turn-limited games. Many of the excessive scripted tactics need huge numbers of turns, which are just not available in these games.
• It is expected that any script will provide a benefit that is proportional to the number of turns that the script consumes. If you find a great new way of scripting something that takes significantly less turns than doing it manually, then you probably have found a bug in the game balance and we will not want that script used.
• One kind of script that provides a massively disproportionate gain with no turn cost is a "Zero Turn Mapper" (or ZTM) script. These scripts use no turns, but generate full maps of the entire universe in under 10 minutes. Given that this has no cost to the in-game player and causes such a massive change in how the game is played (it is nominally an "exploration" game) this definitely falls into the banned category.
• Scripting in games is often a "gateway drug" to programming, so scripting is actually encouraged!