BOTE update [10/01] @ 10:30am CDT] –  Bote news for Aug-Sept will be archived Tuesday for quicker loading of this page – be patient for now on longer loading for those of you on dial up.

9/30

1. Prestone ran his colt into nav haz twice then the pod runs into nav haz and is eliminated.
2. I have words to describe about Res Judicata I would not print in a family newspaper, but since this is not a family newspaper, I can then say Res Judicata is a fucking asshole for posting in logs he would boycott BOTE if FEN were to host BOTE next year. He can go fuck himself. He pretty much fucked himself when he got podded by a Q-Gun anyways.
3. Sir Hopalot’s ISS is destroyed by Q-guns and Tweety got the pod.
4. Sir Lancelot’s ISS and pod is hit by mines due to a bug that GraveDigr explained to me.

10/01

1. Hekate caps an unmanned havoc from Fament.
2. Res Judicata CBY’s and quits…what else is new?

BOTE update [9/29] @ 630am CDT] –

9/25

1. Prestone is podded by a q-gun while t`kay scouting.
2. Moe found an innocent reporter in a dead end and murdered him 🙂
3. Hekate’s colt ran into nav haz.

9/26

1. G-Dawg robbed some ships from Team FEN and took a low level planet and their SDT area.

9/27

1. Talon gets into a confrontation with G-dawg just before extern ran on the nite of the 9/26. Talon e-mailed me the details. He wanted me to put in my words what happened, but I thought it would be better if I just printed what he wrote 🙂

   “Ok, here’s the scoop. Yesterday (26th) early in the morning g-dawg decided to take out our sdt sector, we lost 2 colts in the process and some good ports. Ok, so we suck it up and deal with the losses… heh. Well then around 9:30 FEN time we realized why they were so quiet the rest of the day. We had a lvl 6 L stranded in the back of that area with nobody in cit and it was probably going to turn into navhaz at extern. Since our fearless leader was out visiting his sister it was up to me, Pixie and Shallow to run a rescue mission. With them running cover I managed to push their tolls back to the door sector of the small bubble. (yes, i was killing tolls in a havoc. 😉 That left one sector to blast through and our planet sitting in the dead end behind.

   At this point we reached a stalemate… G-dawg called in Kendrake for reinforcements and they initially had 2 H’s sitting in the door but later moved the second H out of the sector. We figured it was sitting in the back now, ready to move out at extern. So this was the situation we were in… 2 hours till extern, 2 reds and a blue, we needed to get past an H, alive, possibly survive a blast from a second H in the back setor, land on our planet and move it home. All while Hecate, Gravedigr, G-Dawg, Kendrake, and later Sir Lancelot were logged on. Things didn’t look so good.

   We hatched about 10 different plans and haggled over them for the next hour and a half, none of em looked very promising. Finally we just ran outta time… 10 minutes before extern I told pixie to load me up an IC. Quietly of course… She gave me one decked out with holoscanner and a few g-torps. Got a ride from shallow about 2 minutes before extern and went on what i thought was a suicide run. Entered the door sector and was pleasantly surprised to see that i was still alive. Between 100 mines, 40% navhaz and a quasar shot i only lost shields and about 15,000 figs. Would have been enough to kill me while i was in my havoc earlier. Since extern was coming up soon i started launching g-torps into the sector to get them to move their planet out. Launched a few and did a quick holoscan to see what i had to bust through next and to my surprise the only shielded planet in that sector was the one we were trying to save! I ran in and dropped fig, realizing too late i wasn’t on corp… joined corp, dropped fig again and watched xanos warp in to retrieve planet, followed shortly by another of our planets as cover.

   Then Extern hit…. we could have lost everything at that point because it ran early and we had 5 people sitting in cit in an overloaded sector, and me in sector in a shieldless IC with low turns. As it turned out, nothing important collided and we were able to move both planets to safety… unfortunately corp 21 wasn’t as lucky.

   I did a holoscan to see that their H was gone, and G-Dawg was in a pod. Seeing a golden opportunity i warped in, once in sector i got a notice of “Hekate enters game”, and displayed sector to see her killing my toll with 44k figs. Also, immediately after that they warped another volcanic in. Sir lancelot left planet, and landed immediately afterwards. 🙂 Smart boy. I still had 75,000 figs so could probably stand up to one of them, but probably not both. Killed g-dawg’s pod and retreated from sector as fast as that thing could carry me. Picked up my ride, and went home…”

2. And no, TK is not bragging. He was just keeping me informed. I’m the one that is bragging 🙂 Go Team FEN..yeah I know I should be unbiased. 🙂 Heh.

9/28

1. Menudo’s ISS was destroyed by deployed figs.

BOTE update [9/25] @ 4pm CDT] – Slow week. Mostly scouting, cashing and megarobbing.

9/21 action

Xanos kidded his teammates Shallow and Talon for not being on before extern by referring to them as “slackers ;)”

9/22

1. “Who’s a slacker? ;)” said Shallow right after extern.
2. This time before extern Shallow and Talon made it online 🙂

9/23

1. G-Dawg capped an unmanned havoc from Team FEN.
2. Lancelot invaded 3 planets. Either he dampened cannons with his photons or they are level 2 as I saw no Q-blast.
3. Horny Toad eliminated General Failure Reading Drive from the game with a destruction of his ISS and the pod.
4. The planets Lancelot invaded earlier were low level cuz Gravedigr drained the colos and then blew the planets.

9/24

The Reverend capped another havoc from Team Fen.

9/25

Some insensitive jerk named some ports after a certain terrorist blamed for the recent events in NY and DC. WTF is he thinking?

BOTE update [9/21] @ 8pm CDT]

9/19 action

1. Photon war erupted between a number of corps.
2. Six ports begin construction.

9/20

1. Dr. Bad CBY’ed to save a death as Xanos fired a p-torp beforehand.
2. Heavy cashing done by Frogland and Coast Games.

9/21

1. Abort, Retry Fail evicted at extern. Master Time found him and caped the ISS and the pod fled into nav haz.
2. Game is going slow so far..if there are behind the scenes action not shown in the logs, I need to know. Thanks.

BOTE update [9/19] @ 9am CDT]

9/14

1. Auntie B’s ISS hit by Q-gun while scouting. Prestone remarked “she won’t be scouting with quite the same enthusiasm.”
2. Talon blew up an IC owned by Coast Games.

9/15

1. Lots of cashing and scouting.
2. Dr. Bad robbed a colt from corp 2 (Frogland)

9/16

1. Sir Lancelot’s ISS blown up by Fament’s Q-Gun. Moe got the pod. Shallow announced “Sucks to be you, huh? :)” to Sir Lancelot.

9/17

1. Prestone’s Havoc blown up by Q-gun. Guess he won’t be scouting with the same enthusiasm either. :))
2. Sir Lancelot posted this universal announcement:
   You shall all feel “THE WRATH OF LANCE” Let the bloodshed begin my friends and foes, for there is no escaping “THE WRATH OF LANCE”

9/18

1. Dr. Bad fired p-torp. Gravedigr CBY’ed.
2. Renato temporarily leaves corp then forgets pw to re-join. Tried to invade his corp’s own planets. Finally rejoined later on.

9/19 – slow day – will be done next updates.

BOTE update [9/14 @ 10:30am CDT] – Despite WTC and Pentagon attacks, the game continued, though with a lot less action this week. I may go and continue doing this weekly unless action picks up.

9/10 action

1. Xide destroyed Moe’s Colt and got the pod as well.
2. With SD now rebuilt, furbs are being blown again, once again creating serious nav haz with the game’s 1% clearance setting.

9/11

1. Dr Bad invaded Parallel Port team and capped two colts and a planet.
2. Xide captured an IC from team FEN.

9/12

1. Xide is eliminated with a Q-gun hit and pod runs into mines.
2. Xanos got Xide’s unmanned IC.

9/13

1. Swamp Lily ran colt into space debris.
2. Cherokee podded Killer Swordfish’s ISS. Pod fled, but later ran into nav haz.
3. Pretone and the Reverend capped some ISS’s, colts, AT’s and IC’s from Team FEN.

9/14

1. no action..just cashing.

BOTE updates [9/09 @ 4:15pm CDT] – Abort, Retry,Fail killed this innocent reporter in the game. So here I am back to report after my untimely death.

9/05

1. The planets Team FEN took on this day was from Colonists of Terra.
2. Pixie captured Corp #21’s MC, Havoc, IC, and MF. Corp 21 also is Colonists of Terra.
3. Illusion runs colt into nav haz.
4. Xanos gets hit by Q-gun. Xide got the pod. Next #SD# for Xanos eliminates him,
5. Lone Wolf CBY’s.

9/06 and 9/07 had no action other than scouting and cashing.

9/08

1. I get killed by Abort, Retry, Fail.  Can’t wait until JP installs reporter feature in the TWGS. Should be done within next few revisions.
2. SD is rebuilt.
3. Xanos robs a havoc from Corp 21. Auntie B also gets a couple havoc and an MC from corp 21 and blows up a colt owned by corp 21. Aunti B also steals a CFS from corp 21.
4. Res Judicata runs colt into nav haz.

9/09 – lots of action

1. Renato invades Stardock BBS. He captured 2 planets, an IC, and a CFS. He later blew the planets he capped. Then he proceeds to blow up a colt, caps another colt, a havoc, frigate, and IC owned by SD BBS. Renato then gets hit by a Q-gun and is podded, but lives.
2. Xide then p-torps Hellkitty and caps his ISS and nails the pod. Xide then gets a frigate, assualt trader, colt , and MF from SD BBS
3. The assault on Stardock BBS continued and when the smoke cleared, only Xide was able to grab a couple planets. Renato and Bandito mothed and was podded by Q-guns, Bandito podded twice.
4. Xanos runs colt into nav haz.
5. Game is 29 days old.

BOTE update [9/05 @ 8:45am CDT] – Sorry I have not updated for 3 days. Labor day crap then getting my kids back to school, then bowling last night. Let’s get right down to business, starting with Monday.

9/03 – Xide invaded corp 26 – Star Wakes – and captured the manned Havocs of Rotterdam and Long John Silver and blew their pods into space dust. He also took an unmanned MC from them. Then he went after Risky Business Team and podded and killed Eyrcs then robbed a couple colts from Risky Business Team. Xide was not done when Maxx’s scout was #SD# by Xide. Hekate then took over ownership of the colts and havocs that Xide captured. Good thing for Xide this time he was not in the ships when Hekate capped them to take ownership for her division of Colonists of Terra Team 🙂

9/04 – Fament Team attempted an invasion of someone, perhaps as a recon mission to test defenses of enemy base. LoneWolf argued with Captain Zyrain on whether or not he can attack fedsafe players in fedspace. Prestone is accused of using a terra regen bug. I will get more details on this later.

9/05 as of 8:45am CDT- Zentock’s colt hit a Q-gun and Xanos gets the pod. Team Fament scout-invaded and captured three planets, with Xanos doing the invading. Not sure yet who they invaded. But whoever it is, that corp sure will be spammed in their messages 🙂 I’ll find out more on this invasion and of Prestone’s alleged bug use later.

BOTE update [9/02 @ 4pm CDT] – Renato captured a havoc from SD BBS and 2 ISS’s loaded with p-torps used for perimeter defense from corp 10, Coast Games. I also found out Parallel Port Team is Mission NightHawks, the defending champs. Guess we will have new champs this year unless they pull off a miracle. 6 days remain before SD is rebult. Death list updated this morning.

BOTE update [9/01 @ 8am CDT] – on 8/30 evening action:

1. Coast Games apparently stockpiled more ships than I thought as their red blew a lot of refurbs. Stardock team had a couple furbs at least.  Colonists of Terra SDT/SDF with refurbs at Class 0’s.
2. Xanos ran his colt in space dust – 3 blow ups for him now.

8/31 Action

1. Xanos evened the battle of the X’s at one kill each between him and Xide when Xide CFS was hit by a Q-gun and Xanos got the pod. Xanos also got a havoc and ISS owned by Xide. Xide should be happy though it was not one of his own teammates that killed him. Xide does have 5 deaths, so next #SD#, he is finished for the game.
2. Overlord died of radiation poisoning. What possessed him to port at a blown port?
3. Non-corp teammates continue to swap ships with captures with SD still down.

9/01 Action as of 8:15am CDT

1. Coast Games’ Hollywood found General Failure Reading Drive evicted from fedspace and capped his ISS and got the pod. Every ship capture important now.  Not sure who is GFRD is on BOTE death list, so no clue on his death count.
2. I wish teams would name themselves for the BBS/TWGS they represent on the BOTE. Kiss my Parallel Port! Team , whoever they are, was invaded by Coast Games with Hollywood and Dr. Bad leading the charge. Hollywood captured Corp #8’s Colonial Transport! Hollywood captured Corp #8’s Havoc GunStar! Dr Bad took radiation damage attacking Keyboard Error. Dr Bad DESTROYED Keyboard Error:’s Scout Marauder! Dr Bad invaded .! Hollywood captured Error reading Drive C:’s Imperial StarShip! Hollywood captured Abort, Retry, Fail?’s Merchant Freighter! Hollywood DESTROYED Error reading Drive C:’s *** Escape Pod ***!
3. This gives Coast Games a nice advantage right now in terms of ships. Game is 21 days old, so 7 days left before SD is rebuilt. Parallel Port team pretty much done now.

BOTE update [8/30 @ 4:35pm CDT] – Slow day. Other than Moe relieving Deathwing of his scout and giving him the day off, action has been slow. Even Colonists of Terra did not pod one another or do an accidental CBY. All reds and/or their colts forced to be towed to Class O’s to refurb holds, putting a strain on blues turn management. V-screen stats below

-=-=-=- Current Stats for 04:07:16 PM Fri Aug 30, 2013 -=-=-=-

2,973 ports are open for business and have a net worth of 44,542,598.
440 planets exist in the universe, 17% have Citadels.
102 Traders (50% Good) are active in the game.
4,149,317 Fighters and 7,053 Mines are in use throughout the Universe.
24 Corporations are in business.

More drop outs will follow soon. Coastgames, Stardock BBS, Fament, and Colonists of Terra (if they don’t kill each other first) are leading contenders.

BOTE update 8/30 @ 8:20am CDT] – Stardock destruction starts to take effect in the game. No more refurbs are blown. Teammates not on the same corp swap ships more than ever. Hellcat’s captures of Team FEN’s ships yesterday will be costly for FEN now. Any Fedspace ship repo’s will be costly as well. Similar to a ship buyout, but not as hectic. Coast Games has the advantage at the moment since they stock piled ships as evidenced by the numerous refurbs they blew yesterday after SD was blown. It was Coast Games’ Dr. Bad who blew Stardock. Macahan updates official BOTE page with latest death updates. I’ll post more detailed updates later today.

Here’s a word of the day for Bad Girl: “Hek” – a form of bitching. Example: Hekate was hekking about the stardock destruction in the BOTE logs yesterday.

BOTE update 8/29 @ 4:45pm CDT] – Doesn’t a day go by that Hekate does not bitch about something? Quote from daily logs:

Hekate posted this universal announcement:
Again macahan goes back on his word – When asked a week before BOTE what he would do if SD was blown he replied “I’ll just have to rebuild it”
Hekate posted this universal announcement:
Now he says he’s changed his mind – so those of us that knew SD would be blown d
get the great disadvantage – Mac may as well just give each corp a L5
Hekate posted this universal announcement:
BOTE is a FUCKING JOKE – and its all thanks to MACAHAN
Hekate posted this universal announcement:
Maybe one day he’ll get off his lazy asss and update the death list too!
macahan posted this universal announcement:
That was a week before start. As I said on numerous places on the website. I reserve my rights to make any changes before start of game!
macahan posted this universal announcement:
And if miss prissy had bother to look the death list was updated earlier today.
And nobody ever said the death list would be updated daily.
macahan posted this universal announcement:
*I* Took it on MYSELF last year to do death list updates without being asked and everybody assumed I would do it this year again.

You go, Macahan. 🙂 Tell her like it is 🙂

Other news include Hellcat hitting Team Fament as follows.

/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- captured Xanos’s Merchant Freighter!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- captured Corp #3’s Colonial Transport!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- took radiation damage attacking Corp #3
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- DESTROYED Corp #3’s Corporate FlagShip!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- captured Corp #3’s Assault Trader!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- captured Corp #3’s Missile Frigate!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- captured Corp #3’s Interdictor Cruiser!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- was blasted by a Quasar Cannon!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/-‘s ship was destroyed by a Quasar Cannon!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- DESTROYED Corp #3’s BattleShip!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- captured Corp #3’s Colonial Transport!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- captured Corp #3’s Colonial Transport!
/-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- DESTROYED the Star Port in sector 654.

Looks like Team Fament’s location is known now. Time will tell if invasion continues by Team Stardock or someone else.

BOTE update 8/29 @ 5:40am CDT] – Colonists of Terra continue to shoot themselves in the foot. Earlier in the week, Hekate blew a port in fedspace Xide was on. I’m told they also had some self inflicted injuries before that incident.. probably while I was offline for a few days.

Well, last night, Sir Lancelot thought one of his planets had a transporter so he landed on the planet and typed ‘cby’ and ended up self destructing – in a maxed ISS. Ouch!

Before Sir Lancelot’s self inflicted death, Sir Deathhead tried to attack someone and probably did not realize he was at computer prompt, causing the following result:

Sir DeathHead posted this universal announcement: y15000

Then Team Frankenputer concedes. Twister had this to say:

As we have no chance to do anything, team Franknputer Concedes Good luck to
All remaining Teams…….See ya Next year 

Twisted

Then this morning, Abort Retry Fail destroyed Citizen Kabuto’s scout after CK was evicted at extern. Rotterdam ran his cargotran into mines.  But the most interesting news is this: Dr. Bad destroyed Stardock..and I mean the port, not the team. After a number of furious attacks in defense by Stardock authorities, Dr. Bad succeeded in blowing the port. Game is 18 days old and radiation clears on day 28, so that will be 10 days without Stardock.

From what I hear, Dr. Bad and his Coast Games corp stockpiled ships then blew the port. Now things may get interesting. Stay tuned.

BOTE update [8/28 @ 8:50am CDT] –  Logs got reset – AGAIN. So no clue what happened after I logged out at 10:20am yesterday. This morning’s actions follows:

1. Boo Inc is timing out one by one, latest by Kav.
2. Thrawn was evicted at extern and podded and killed by Dietrich.
3. More updates will be posted later as the events happen. If someone e-mails me last night’s action, I’ll post that too.

BOTE Update [8/27 @ 10:20am] – Last night’s action:

1. After Silver Dragon was podded by Dietrich and then his team concedes in the BOTE, he gave up his pod to fighters.
2. Then Edge runs his missile frigate into some nav haz and promptly CBY’s.
3. Xide pods and kills Alvar.
4. Hekate blows a port at Sector 5..with Xide still on it. Wow! Her own teammate. Wonder if this qualifies as a stupid newbie thing? Either it is #13, #16, or #17. 🙂
5. Hellcat could not hit the broadside of a barn in fedspace attacks.
6. Overlord ran his scout into nav haz.
7. Twisted’s Havoc runs into nav haz and blows up. Hey Twisted, a havoc can hold 3000 shields, you know and it may even help if you carried fighters.
8. Xide p-torped Syntax Error and capped his ISS and got the pod.

This morning:

1. Bad Command or File Name killed Doc just after extern.
2. Renato found one of Team Fen’s bases. Rather than waste resources taking it, he overloaded the sectors with g-torps and blew a port to announce the location. Xanos comes on and Renato is all set to go after Xanos..except Renato only had 3 turns. Xanos turns around and uses a p-torp to take away Renato’s 3 turns, but Xanos did not know that at the time. Soon as Xanos left, Zentock came to save Renato.
3. Xanos blows the planets, creating a permanent nav haz.
4. Xide p-torps Xanos and caps his havoc and got the pod to win the Battle of the X’s.

BOTE Update [8/26] – Logs got reset again..grrr..so I am unable to get any action last night. Before I move on with this morning’s action, here is an e-mail from Lone Wolf regarding his kill of Speedy and the planet smashing resulting in Citizen’s Kabuto’s death the other day.:

Cackle!! 😉 Laff.. damn right man.. Mofo was sitting on his level 2 citadel with 41k figs defending, and Speedy cloaked in the sector..Speedy dies.. Launch some Planets into the sector, and at Extern Bang Wave to Citizen K’s ISS and the figs in the citadel for Corp 14! BTW what makes for Stupidity Value… Corp 14 cant save themselves with scripts.. cuz Citizen K was logged ONLINE 1 hour after Speedy Died, and sitting on the planet the WHOLE time.. he never once scanned the sector or did anything about those planets.. just sat around and waited for those collisions and for me to jump back and kill his pod.

Thanks, Lone Wolf, for your commentary 🙂 Now on to today’s action.

1. Team Hardcoded concedes.
2. Dietrich pods Silver Dragon’s CFS.
3. More news to follow as I get them. Hopefully, one of you guys tell me what happened last night.

BOTE Update [8/25] – Friday Night at the Fights

1. After Speedy’s death last night, there were heavy cashing by various teams and I think quite a few fake busts as a number of superfurbs were blown. Then Moe from Fament gets attacked by Coast Games’ offensive figs and not long after that , Xanos captures dark_knight’s ISS and kills his pod.
2. Then this morning as of 5:50am CDT,  2 planets collided and Citizen Kabuto was on one of the planets. The usual planet smashing tactic.There were 5 unstable planetary masses in total, one of resulting in another collision, but no loss of life.
3. Xide fused his 35K fig  ISS. Doesn’t New Zealand have a seat belt law? 🙂
4. Lone Wolf found Citizen Kabuto’s pod and blew it to space dust.
5. Both Swordfish and Renato each invade a planet without incident – not sure if it was each other’s as the planet name was the same in both cases.
6. Renato blows up Darth Vader’s unmanned ISS.
7. Server went down at 6am. I never was on at 6 am so I thought it crashed, I was all set to send Mac an e-mail  then I realized it was BBS clean up – LOL.
8. I understand Mr. Bubbles went fig clearing and was p-torped at least 3 times.
9. Still early in the day..I’ll post more as the day goes on and I get more e-mail.

BOTE Update [8/24] – Speedy hits Speedbump in BOTE

LoneWolf did some damage this evening to Team Pisces by taking out a few colts owned by them then proceeding to kill Speedy, giving Speedy 4 deaths for the game. Not often Speedy dies as he rarely makes mistakes and usually does not get himself into trouble. Lone Wolf is from the Untouchables.

Bad Girl buys a lottery ticket as quoted below

F Bad Girl hey Dr. Bad I bought that winning lottery ticket like you told me too

Seems she got towed this morning at extern a hop away from fed and when Dr. Bad tried to pod her, he pinged her back into fed and she’s fedsafe.

BOTE Update [8/24]– busy day in Ferrengi Space.

1. Xanos slaps around several Ferrengi, capping some assault traders and destroying others. Yeah, let’s call Xanos the Great Ferrengi Slayer. 🙂
2. Renato got busy and found Team Hardcoded’s SDT area. He got several ships, p-torped 2 reds sitting at their base, and overloaded sectors with planets with game settings like 1% navhaz dispersal that basically makes the base unusable because if you bust all the planets to prevent collision you have 100% navhaz that doesn’t disperse. Renato did not kill the reds as to not screw up his alignment. He instead had Zentock blow the ports in the area to “give away” their locations. But Hellcat came on just after the ports were blown so Renato did not get to keep some ships. Hellcat killed Camaro and Thrawn.. Stardock BBS finished the invasion Renato and Zentock started. Nice way to do it. Blow a port and let your enemies waste their resources in an invasion instead of you wasting the resources. 🙂
3. Xanos invaded Ferrengal after like a dozen tries. Either there was the usual military reaction on Ferrengal making it easy for Xanos to save figs by being attacked by fighters with a land and retreat instead of actually landing on the planet to invade or there was a lot of fighters on the planet. Moe was blasted and podded by the Q-gun before the invasion.
4. Game figs went from 3 million flat to 2.4 million over night.

BOTE update [8/23] – Last night was slow. This morning had some action. But before I move on, I want to give credit where credit is due. From what I understand as of 8/22, Team Hardcoded has spilled some blood in the BOTE. If my source is correct, Mr. Bubbles had 8 pods and 8 kills. No Frills had 4 kills and 8 pods. Thrawn had 5 kills and a pod. And this is not the Thrawn I know from Webcentral either.

I realize many other events were unreported. But keep in mind I was offline for 5 days and the logs since got reset. I’m now trying to get back into the swing of things as I’m still catching up.

8/22 Evening action

1. Mr. Bubbles took out a few ports.
2. Speedy planet busts. Speedy planet busts??? Grins. Normally it is “Speedy colonizes.” 🙂
3. Lots of refurbs blown. Pretty soon with game’s 1% space dust clearance setting, the whole universe is gonna be 100% nav haz..heh.
4. Xide took out Maxx’s Cargotran and followed thru on the pod. Xide destroyed Killer Swordfish’s ISS but no pod yet. Good thing or his victim would be a Dead Swordfish. 🙂

8/23 action (all day)

1. A lot of ships repo’ed than normal. Corp 9 (Untouchables) lost 3 ships. Battle Frog lost 5, mostly furbs judging from the names.
2. Xide nailed Deathwing’s Havoc after extern. He got the pod too.
3. Deitrich punted Johnny Cash’s scout out of the game for a day.
4. Colonists of Terra continue to run SDF.
5. Hellcat gets into a small photon war.
6. Hellcat’s T’Kay was hit by mines.
7. Star Endeavors corp cash themselves. Must be a busty day as a lot of furbs were blown.
8. Silver Dragon wants everyone to know Team Hardcoded is playing on til elimination. Obviously the con job pulled by Res Judicata has not stopped Team Hardcoded from playing. Good for them.
9. Cashing and furb blowing continues by everyone else. By now SDT/SST areas should be nav haz’ed greatly unless other areas were picked just to blow furbs or they g-torp to clear the haz.

BOTE update [8/22] – I was offline since the 16th. Check official BOTE page for logs and Macahan’s news and death list and action of the last few days, along with some withdrawls.

Let’s start with yesterday’s actions (8/21)

1. Deitrich podded Kemper3’s Havoc and got the pod.
2. Tweety blew up Maximus’s scout.
3. Tweety podded Mandorallen’s Havoc and got the pod.
4. Colonists of Terra team heavily cashing.
5. A few furballs blow up in mines. Someone tell the Ferrengi to buy a scanner. LOL.
6. Dr. Bad applied for commission 7 times in trying to kill a blue..but he finally captured Menudo’s ISS and got the pod.
7. Supreme Galactic Overlord’s Scout Marauder was destroyed by mines.
8. Camaro ran his colt into nav haz. I think it was into an SDT/SST area that had too many refurbs  blown up and daily nav haz clearance is only 1%.
9. Stardock BBS, Fament,  and Frogland  cashing as well with a lot of furbs blown up.
10. Who’s the dude impersonating EleqTrizi’T in BOTE?

Today’s action as of 8:40 am CDT (8/22)

1. I was only one towed. Either a lot of players are on at extern or so many people are eliminated or dead to be on at extern..LOL.
2. Colonists of Terra again cashing.
3. Jack Box posted this universal announcement:
   DUE TO BEING BEATEN UP REPEATEDLY, AND VARIOUS SELF INFLICTED INJURIES, W.T.N.B.
   CORP 16 HEREBY WITHDRAWS FROM THE B.O.T.E.
4. Syntax Error had a syntax error when attempting a blind jump and fused in his ISS. I bet that thing was loaded with 50K figs too.
5. Xide got a level 2 planet – from who, i don’t know yet.

BOTE Update: Death and Destruction [8/16] – a lot of action since today’s extern and I’m only making this post at 8am CDT.

1. Darth Vader podded Corran’s MF. Corran limped to fedspace in his pod where he remains as of 8am.
2. Wookie’s Gunstar was destroyed by Renato.
3. Then Darth Vader proceeded to keep up his killing spree podding Roy Orbison’s MF, #SD#’ing Craig’s pod, blowing up Mithrandir’s and Johnny Cash’s scouts, and Supreme Galactic Overlord’s pod fell victim to DV.
4. Darth Vader DESTROYED Abort, Retry, Fail?’s Havoc GunStar!
5. Crazy from Digiplay capped Cutty’s Gunstar. Cutty is from the Deep South.
6. Darth Vader took out Maximus’s scout.
7. Xide fired a photon. Shortly afterwards, Bad Command or File Name CBY’ed.
8. Xide wiped out the Bounty Hunter’s scout. Guess the dude should have his name changed to the Bounty Hunted and Killed 🙂
9. Hekate fired a p-torp and Xide capped Silver Dragon’s CFS and got the pod too.
10. Hekate p-torped Xerces and took out his MF and pod.
11. BDK enters game..and in a few minutes gets p-torped by Hekate, who proceeds to cap Bdk’s gunstar.
12. Hekate took out Zaphod Beeblebrox’s gunstar and his pod.

Tip: Lot of deaths followed by photons recently. If you are falling victim to the old ping-and-photon trick, there is an option that will prevent you from being pinged if you are online. Press \ to toggle online fleeing to disable or enable online fleeing. You would want to make sure Online Auto Flee is disabled. This will only work for versions .47 and higher. BOTE runs .47 as well as WTC and BOTRU. If Online Auto Flee is disabled, you won’t be pinged out of the sector. But you still will be attacked if you are not fedsafe or in a non-fedspace sector, so you need to either beat the hell out of there or fight back.

BOTE update:Vader on the Warpath [8/15] – Darth Vader was kind enough to send me a list of his victims in the last couple days as the logs got reset last night, preventing me from determining what happened yesterday. No one else sent me any details of what happened yesterday, so before I post what happened today, follows is a list of DV’s victims the last 2 days (8/13 and 8/14). Some of the 8/13 kills might also have been reported already in the 8/13 news.

1. Tedfoot and Johnny Cash were #SD#
2. Ryukin, Kemper3, Haolemon, Dr. Bad, and Tweety were podded.
3. Anthenium and Lonewolf were podded and #SD#
4. Bdk was podded.
5. Doc and Kavanagh were podded and #SD#
6. FEN’s own Pixie was podded.
7. Rotterdam was #SD#
8. Mithrandir and Haolemon was podded and #SD#
9. on 8/14 Howling Wolf, ZZ Top, Buzz Highgear, Supreme Galactic Overlord, and Craig got #SD#.

After Vader’s extern kills, the following occured today:

1. Hekate got ZZ Top’s pod.
2. Jackbox picked a fight with Captain Z and lost his T’Kay. Abort, Retry, Fail got Jackbox’s pod.
3. Anthenium nailed War’s MF and pod. But /-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- shot down Anthenium’s MF and Anthenium then ran his pod in the Beale Street Red’s fighters and perished.
4. /-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- made Elvis leave the building with the destruction of his MF and pod.
5. Freejack blew up Buzz Highgear’s pod.
6. Mr. Bubbles stole Xano’s unmanned MF.
7. Cutty picked a fight with a port and was podded in his MF.
8. Res Judicata blew up in his CFS when he forgot to wear his seat belt. but he capped a CFS and some MF’s from Stardock BBS.
9. Battle Frog CBY’ed. Not sure why. Dark Knight fired a p-torp just before the CBY so I think Battle Frog CBY’ed to save a death if he was the one hit by the p-torp. Battle Frog even did a lot of planet busting before the CBY so he has to start all over again tomorrow.
10. Dark Knight then got a havoc , couple MC’s ,a mule and a colt from Frogland.

BOTE update: Amtracks not derailed this time [8/13] Extern resulted in 25 players towed and 6 ships repo’ed. A lot of the towees were killed as follows:

1. Dietrich podded Johnny Cash. Guess ‘ol Johnny will be going back to singing the “Folsom Podding Blues” 🙂
2. It was requested I spell this guy’s name right so: /-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- podded and killed Scarab, Guns, and Peanut Butter.
3. /-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- podded Jesse James’ havoc. Looks like JJ is no longer the fastest draw in the west.
4. /-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- got Battle Frog’s scout. Battle Frog will have to wait a day to ribbit again.
5. /-/ <^ / / < <\ -/- podded and killed Jack Box. Be a day before Jack can come back out of his Box. 🙂
6. Long John Silver also fell victim to /-/ <^ / / < <\ -/-, though the pod fled somewhere.
7. Darth Vader got in the killing game too, getting both Anthenium and Doc and their respective pods. He also got Bdk’s MF, but not the pod.
8. Fament’s own Xanos shot down Overlord’s scout. That will teach Overlord to impersonate a Ferrengi boss. 🙂
9. Horny Toad capped an unmanned mule and an MF from corp 11, The War Room.

BOTE update [8/12] – Late afternoon to early evening action saw Gypsy capture an unmanned MC from corp 14.  Citizen Kabuto ran his MF into mines. Scan, boy, scan. Tweety won the fight of Bird vs. Dawg when he destroyed G-Dawg’s scout. But this next part is hilarious: General Failure Reading Drive (yes, another actual alias) had a General Failure in unable to Read his warp Drive and ran his scout into mines. Horny Toad became a little twisted and destroyed Twisted’s MF and his pod. Overlord ran his MC into mines.

BOTE update [8/12] – I have a player account in BOTE, not an ambassador, as to ensure the game is a fair one since I’m not a game op. However, unlike the WTC in which there is 5 ships in fed overnight allowing me to stay in fed daily, the BOTE has no ships in fed overnight. So I will be towed on a daily basis. And since the BOTE has a death limit, I would prefer I NOT be killed when I do get towed. I repeat, I’m NOT a player. I am just an observer with a player account. Thanks.

BOTE update:First Amtracks [8/12] – First amtrack kill was done by Hellcat in the destruction of Thrawn’s MF and pod.  Abort, Retry, Fail (yes that is the actual name) fused in his Havoc. Guess he should have aborted his warp instead of retrying it and ended up failing it..LOL. TedFoot ran into mines in his scout. Horny Toad got kranky when he got Krank’s MF.

BOTE News page [8/11] – Busy today. At least 50 some players were online the system at startup. Game had problems at the start, but once it was up for good, action was fast. A number of kills to note as of 9:45pm CDT

1. No Frills nailed Kemper’s MF. Kemper being the first to scream.
2. No Frills also got Tedfoot’s MC.
3. No Frills continued killing with the destruction of Ryukin’s MF & Twisted’s MC.
4. Darth Vader nailed Zero’s MF. No Frills found Zero’s pod. Zero is first #SD#.
5. No Frills got Killer Swordfish’s MC and caught Killer Swordfish trading in his pod for a scout and blew up the scout with K.S in it.
6. No Frills nailed Tedfoot’s pod.
7. Bad Command or Filename destroyed Hollywood’s MF. Yes, that is the player’s name – Bad Command or File Name. At least it is something I can spell unlike some of the Smiley Faces in WTC 🙂
8. No Frills got Hollywood’s pod.
9. Scarab got into the killing game with a quick #SD# of Medusa, getting her MC and pod.
10. No Frills finally ended his killing spree when he got corbo’ed in his scout by corp 2, giving him the rest of the day off.
11. Bad Command or Filename blew up Arizona’s MC.
12. G-Dawg went red, had a federal post a bounty of 11K and was podded by Tweety in a possible planet busting attempt.

I want to offer a few of my thoughts regarding recent discussion in the forums about megacorping, tournaments, the HHT, and time limits.Let’s start with megacorping . Or multicorping as someone once referred to in the forums. While I disliked the scale of megacorping in thus year’s World Trade Wars Championships, I don’t think a rule on megacorping should be imposed for next year’s game. This is what makes the World Trade Wars Championships unique from the other majors in that it has no rules outside of server rules. I think it should be left up to the players on whether or not they want to ally with another team. Last year, the Huns stayed in the game by picking up other teams’ castways and still ended the game with 6 players on the team at the conclusion. As soon as someone quit or dropped out, Attila always managed to find a replacement.

It is a whole new thing however, when a team of 12 merges with another team of 12 just so they can try and beat a team of 20 or it seemed like that. I hate to say this, but had the GG not won the USO with their 6 best players, I would have said they would not have deserved to win this year’s World Trade Wars Championships. But Prestone did prove he can win whether with 6 or 20 players depending on what the opposition has as well. Both the RN and GG numbered well into the dozen or so players. If every one else had 6 players, no doubt Prestone would just have needed his USO champs teammates to blow everyone else to space dust and still win anyways.

What I suggest for next year is for players to TRY and not play with more than 6-8 players to a team and be on the honor system in doing so. If they think they need more than 8-10 players to beat a team of 6, they don’t deserve to win the damn game. That is how it all started. GG enters with 12 guys. RN figures they better match them in numbers and it snowballed from there. Limit initial team entry to 6 players for next year, replace anyone dropping out with castoffs from other teams, and the game should be OK without any actual rules – the players just need to be on the honor system not to have so much players on one team or consider any victory or other accomplishments tainted if they use 10 players to wipe out a 6 player corp.

Each tournament is unique with USO being a point based game set to end in 2 months and also currently the only major that has pre announced changes in settings. The World Trade Wars Championships has no rules and is the only one with a stock ships/planets game. The BOTE is hosted by a different server each year, depending on who wins it the previous year. The host also decides in the edits so it could be stock if so chosen. The HHT is heavily edited and always is geared for bloody domination. Lotto is about random placements of players on a team.

Speaking of the HHT, Space Ghost said that he won’t reset a time limit if a player is hit with the time limit bug. A little reminder to him I had a time limit game running at Intergate when I was game op there and SG was hit with the time limit bug himself and asked me to reset the time for him – which I did because I trusted his word and I still do. Granted, it was just a small game, but I thought it was worth noting the same man that won’t reset the time limit in the HHT once asked me to do the same for him in one of my own games. I don’t think a time limit should be used period if this bug still persists.

End of rant – Timberwolf

Well, Eleq declared the game officially over.  Below is a post made by Prestone, who by the way has an excellent shot of being CEO of the year in next year’s TW Awards.

---

this year’s world tradewars championships  ended on day 110, after nazwes, ceo of the
remaining de/rn forces conceded to team goodguys.

here’s how the major powers looked early on:
wtc player list
Goodguys-goods-father cajone,old timer,hc,prestone,white knight
12-5/7 reds-zep,rev,illusion,banano,madill,silas,res
Borg- goods-locutus,3 of 10,crosis
6-3/3 reds-8 of 12,central node,vastator
Scumdogs-goods-punk,cardinal syn,sexecutioner,oderus,sleazy
12-5/7 reds-ragnarok,balsac,scroda,techno,flattus,bozo,jager
RN- goods-medusa,animal,conrad,kav,cowboy,batmang,
20-13/7 sg,gypsy,zoo,lady ice(bud),going mad,naz,q
reds-grannie,mhz,soylent,tweety,adomma,xerces,shadow
DE- goods-vindicator,leila,stealth,blitz,kessen,casio,grl wonder
11-7/4 reds-nadreck,sparhawk,G,amos

what you pretty much had was goodguys and scumdogs
which teamed up against the forces of borg, rn and de.

here are all the members of the team goodguys who
contributed to victory:

prestone -ceo, i got to do all the fun stuff. sold orgs, megarobbed, dropped truckloads of cash into the cits, reached Enemy of the State status one time for about 10 minutes, planet driver, invasion coordinator, monster port list duty

night hawk-retired from tw during game. if he comes back, don’t let him ceo, hehe.

hellcat-started late,heh scout, kill, invade, untouchable! asking him to run ports is an insult, invasion prep.

zep-solid red/blue, he pulled 15-20mil just about every day.

white knight-ran ports late night, port were always ripe too.

the reverend-zoc scripts(shipbuy, multiship SDT w/haggle, overhaggle buydown, pwarp photon, etc.) goodguys website, colo “snipe” duty

banano-team player, Luis provided the tequila shooters for the colonist liberation ceremonies.

habeebjeeba-or something like that, aka sweet little girl,  many successful orion missions, she’d easily scout a few hundred sectors in a day.

killer evil pig-ran ports when in town.

hekate-ran mega crews, this gal can run colos in about 2 mins. extern duty, extensive game knowledge

jack box-hard to tell if his overhaggle script has waits.

gravedigr-can do it all, quick with the macros and quick on the keys.

old timer-planets, full time colos, “snipe” duty, goodguys website.

father cajone-planets, colos, orion missions, strategy, if you shot him you ate corbs.

jagermonster-deathwing made some nice cash.

kendrake-he was always there to help out, assisted in many multicorp functions.

res judicata-solid work from res, he shot the enemy a lot, extern duty, fed smack, the enemy attempted to invade us one time, res #sd# 4 or 5 of them in about 10 seconds, they never tried again.

silas-solid red, precise fast sdt and buydowns.

gorth-Mr. Gorth kept the ports empty and the planets full.

cat’s on mars-mana knight built a lot of planets and kept the team laughing.

madill-vince is restricted to games with 30 min time limits.

illusion-curt has an actual life, but he got a few turns in.

punk-punk got shot more then anyone else in the game. such is the life for the max aligned red.

the members of the team voted for the official 6 winners
and they are: prestone, reverend, res judicata, hellcat,  hekate
and gravedigr.

i would like to extend my thanks for the time and effort that each member of the team put into the game. Let it be known that everyone of us has the ability to do whatever  task is presented to them, whether it be production, scouting or combat. it was an honor to play with each and every one of  you. i can only hope i’ve taught you as much as you’ve taught
me.

to the competition-have to give props to them. even though they technically had more players in their camp, they had less turns running per day and therefore less resources. yet even with less resources they held out extremely well, moving all  colos to ore production, they were able to erect a 27 planet door which still seemed impenetrable even after 200 or so loaded “big” ships had hit it. during the final invasion figs dropped from about 10mil to just over 2mil, and once they could not protect their ports anymore, the game was over.

here’s some thoughts on the de/rn/borg players:
borg-their 2 best planets psmashed one night and they all quit. funny if you’re not borg. they gave their stuff to de.

dragon elite-honorable players, glad there weren’t more of them, while goodguys chased rn’s last h for about 2 months, this team built some serious volcanics and outfitted
their cash area nicely. they’d keep the planets maxed at 1000 planets in game at all times making it difficult to clear nav haz, which is essential to invade.

rogue nation-used some questionable, but effective tactics early on. nazwes first entered the game as Prestone  and proceeded to hail our entire team an incorrect
password which caused some of us to go red. funny if you’re not a gg. the ship buyout, brilliant as it was, cost rn the game. essential gg truces were made right after the ship buyout.

honorable mention goes out to nazwes chaiwind. this guy is a top 5 player i don’t know why he isn’t rated! try and take his stuff and he’ll give you the day off. track him down, he’ll move.
if you flyout during a script gone haywire, don’t even bother logging back in, cuz you’re dead. naz is pretty much the main  reason the game lasted as long as it did.

and a very special thank you to eleq for hosting this years game
at stardock, always fast and reliable.

(: prestone 🙂
CEO – Team Goodguys
USO 2001 WTC 2001 Champions

Doing some web surfing, I have been noticing more and more websites are geared toward broadband. Seems those web sites have intense graphics on their sites that takes a while to download. I think there is a general unwritten rule that a page should load less than 30 seconds or you will you lose your visitor. This is why TWGazette is pretty basic with very little graphics other than my banners above. I don’t even use a background graphic or use tables with image buttons. And while this page does load a bit longer now that my old news are piling up, I plan to archive very soon.But it seems certain commercial websites are following the 30 second rule all right – for broadband. My kids have a tough time waiting for nick.com to load for example. Even subsequent visits to the site with certain aspects already in the cache takes a while to load. Flash multimedia seems to be one of  the biggest culprits. The thing takes minutes to load a simple animation.

At least you Trade Warriors with websites are good about keeping graphics to a limit on your respective websites. If you use a graphic background, keep the same background on all pages so that once the initial page loads, the background will be in the cache and all subsequent loads will be faster.

Yes, the day is going to come where dial up will become obsolete and broadband will be the standard. But right now, dial up is still the most widely used form of internet access and if you are on broadband and have a lot of graphics or use midi files or use flash on your website, either use a dial up account to view the page or ask a friend with dial up to view the page to see how fast it loads. Then make adjustments. 

Another option is making two types of pages – one for dial up users with limited graphics, and another page for broadband users with all the bells and whistles. If there is a script that can detect the type of connection a person is using in the same way a script detects your browser type, the type of page that loads should be automatic. Otherwise, 2 links on a splash page is all that is needed to do the job.

End of rant.

In another discovery Realm Interactive not only makes video games, they also play them! I met up with an Art guy from Realm last night while playing Tribes 2. I was able to coerce the following exclusive information from him: “We’re working on that Ninja thing.”

There you have it. You can disect that for all it worth or check out a new Preview of Dark Millenium.

The Tradewars Convention is coming up soon, taking place October 3-7th in Virginia. There’s more information made available today here and also some concerning sponsorships from teams, webpages, servers, etc. found here.

Southwest currently has a special running for online reservations. I’m talking $110 for a round trip from LA to VA. This would be really good for me except they don’t have any flights in for that whole week. This deal ends at midnight so you’ll have to be fast.

For those out of the loop, Andrew “maybe I should just change my alias to LinuxGuy” Wyatt took The Great Space Coaster into the realm of insanity and left the TW scene altogether. This meant that support of Fusion, the BBS front end many sites used, would probably stop. But Paul Bude announced that he will be taking over development of Fusion:

I just wanted to take a minute to let everyone know, that Fusion BBS development will not end.  I have been working on this for the past few weeks, and I am now ready to annouce, that I am aquiring the full rights and source code to Fusion 3.x.  I will continue development of it, and have a lot of things in store for it.  So if you were/are interested in a BBS package, you will have plenty of options.

Realm has been pretty busy with things like trying to find a publisher,(which just got a little harder since Sierra just signed on Dark Age Of Camelot) but managed to update with new gameplay mechanics:

Unlike a traditional RTS, Trade Wars is a tactically oriented combat game with an emphasis on player development. Players invest themselves in the advancement of their character (avatar) and the advancement of their mobile battle platform (citadel).  Players use their avatar and citadel to harvest resources, engage in battles, and make their mark on the universe.

One that caught my eye was:

the universe is populated with as many engrossing activities as possible. Players can (1) become a merchant, gathering and trading for resources and then selling them for a profit.

The only reason I stayed in Ultima Online as long as I did was because I loved that I didn’t have to dive into a dungeon to Hunt the Wumpus for cash. I could make a living by selling ingots, making scrolls, etc.

I’ve also seen a page or two stating that the release date for TW:DM has been pushed back to next year. This makes sense since the Beta period was supposed to have happened by now, which will probably happen in fall. Until then, go play some Pokemon!

The Stardock BBS, run by the Galactic Scourges, err..Overlords, Fuseblown and Eleq, promoted Big Bang Friday as 5 games to be banged. I counted 4.J) … Star Warz …Star Warz Unlimited by Res Judicata
(B) … Big J Stank’s …A take ok the Pimp Title Game
(T) … SUPATRIZIT …Re-edit for 3200 turns, ez for amacha’s
(M) … Mo’ Love …One Love has Mo’ Love after all…

That’s 4 games. I even checked the default menu for any games that was not put on the ANSI Menu. The only ones that were hidden were Game L, the One Love game, and Game R, Red Alert, both running for a while now.

Heh. And this was on the Stardock’s website: !!!!FIVE!!!!!! games this friday. One for everyone…every game meticulously cared for with loving edits. All-you-can-eat.

Well, someone must have been very hungry and ate up the 5th game..LOL

I been asked to resume WTC updates by some of my faithful readers so here goes 🙂

• Logs got reset on July 19.
• July 19, Good Guys corp was busy running SDF. SDF in their case stands for Steal..Dump..Fart.
• Prestone waxed Maurader’s mule. Maurader later ran his pod into mines.
• (: HabeebJabeebDaDa :)’s *** Escape Pod *** was destroyed by mines just before midnight
• July 20, Res Judicata’s T’Kay was blown up by a Q-gun, apparently by a p-drop. That’s planet drop, not pigeon drop.
• Xide, in a measure of revenge of being killed by Hellkitty a few days ago, podded and killed Prestone.
• Xide was defeated invading a planet several times. In between, he and Naz was in a photon war with Hellkitty.
• Old Timer thought he could paint his ISS Red and keep it. He thought wrong. Captain Z took it away from him.
• Xide was p-dropped in his T’kay.
• Grrl Wonder blew several ports.
• This morning , Naz and Xide once again could not hit the broad side of a barn in several fedspace attacks.
• Res Judicata capped Zoobar’s ISS. Xide, after being hit by a Q-gun and then hopping into another ship, got back the ISS from Res.
• Xide took away a havoc owned by the Good Guys, then later was p-dropped in his T’Kay.
• Naz took an iggy from the Good Guys.
• Res Judicata was farting photons all over the place.
• Kitty Moon tried coming back from the dead and re-joined the dead right away when her scout ran into mines.
• Prestone was red for a few days, but is currently back to being blue.
• Game now running 58 days. Good Guys and Team Rocket..err..I mean..Rogue Nation still slugging it out for WTC Supremacy , but Dragon Elite should not be counted out. Dragon Elite always a dangerous corp as long as Guardian is leading the charge.