Sometime today awards voting begins. While I got nothing in player nominations – no biggie since I don’t play much anyways – and few nominations in game op categories – my fault as I not have done any fresh games before the Phenom game last week – I was pulling for TW Gazette to be nominated in many website categories. I was able to garner top noms in Best Website overall  and Best Website – News and Info. With all the abundance of TW News Sites out there such as a certain one run by a guy who thinks he is Steve Burns from Blues Clues, I’m very honored to get these two top nominations.Now I have to really step up my efforts in getting the Comedy votes. These are the top comedic Trade Wars Sites.

This section of the web site is dedicated to those that have directly contributed to Trade Wars 2002, the Trade Wars Game Server, and the Trade Wars Community. Whether it be hosting a server or web site, participating in the beta testing team, etc.; It will be posted here. This is our thanks to those of you that have helped this game get to where it is today! Keep up the good work!

If you have contributed to Trade Wars in anyway and do not see your name under any of the lists below that you belong under, please do not be offended that I forgot to add you. There are many people that have contributed to the game we all know and love, it’s hard to remember them all off the top of my head. 😉 Contact Fuseblown and we will get your name up there ASAP.

The complete teamEIS staff has yet to be announced. We will add more names as we receive them!

John Pritchett (EIS Owner/Lead Programmer)
Rick Mead – Gypsy (Project Leader)
Agustin Rivera – EleqTrizi’T (Webmaster)
Cruncher (Beta Testing & QA Leader)
Craig Castle (Technical Documentation & Support Lead)
Bil Simser (EIS Development Team)

Beta Team
https://tradewars.fament.com/Cruncher/Beta.htm

Names Taken from “About” Screen from TWGS v.43

Lead Beta Tester: Cruncher

Beta Servers:
Aitvo – Intergate BBS (No longer Active)
EleqTrizi’T (Agustin Rivera) – Stardock BBS/The Home Sector
Hekate – TWGS.TWLINKS.COM
Vid Kid (David Pascarella) – Vid’s World

Beta Testers:
Abraxus
Artemis
Bad Girl
Dark Rider
Fuseblown (D. Cohenour)
Gypsy
Hekate
hELLCAT
Hosem
J.T. Kirk (Bob King)
Jackal
Kavanagh
Krusty
Luke Skywalker
Master Time
Kage Noir (Vince Pangelinan)
Kidder
Mojoe
Mussolini
Nazwes Chaiwind
Neo (Jeremy Gates)
Night Stalker
Paladyne (Dean Griffith)
Peacemaker (Dan Klonsky)
Pixie
Retaliator (Michael Gentry)
Ripclaw
River Rat
Satan (Scott S.)
Silent Storm
Soylent Green
Space Ghost
Speedy
Stonewall
Timberwolf
Terminator (Kevin Pascarella)
Tweety (James Goudie)
Wookie

Game Operators

Abraxus (Alpha Prime)
EleqTrizi’T (Stardock BBS)
Fuseblown (Stardock BBS)
Hekate (Terra)
Hiawatha (The Pisces Network)
Kidder (Alien Base)
MacAhan (Family Entertainment Network)
Res Judicata (Public At Large)
River Rat (Alien Base)
Soul (Silver Wings)
Space Ghost (Boo! inc. TWGS)
Stonewall (The Deep South)
Vid Kid (Vid’s World)

Web Site Operators

Bad Girl (Bad Girl’s Trade Wars Page & Tradewars.org)
Big D (Silver Wings)
Cruncher (Cruncher’s Trade Wars Page)
EleqTrizi’T (The Home Sector)
Fuseblown (The Home Sector)
Guardian (Dragon’s Elite)
Hekate (TWLINKS.COM)
hELLCAT (hELLCAT’s HomeBase)
Kidder (Alien Base)
Kitty Moon (Kitty’s Playground)
Lady Ice (Lady Ice’s Lair)
Mana Knight (Tradewars.org)
Micro (www.tw2002list.com)
Res Judicata (Public At Large TW Game Server–Res has also designed many free TW sites for people in the community)
River Rat (Alien Base)
Stonewall (The Deep South)
The Reverend (the reverend’s tw page)
Timberwolf (Trade Wars Gazette)
Tweety (Boo! inc.)
Wookie (3rd Annual TW Awards)

Official Trade Wars League
https://www.twleague.com

Board Members:
Devil Dog
Guardian
Moldar
Stonewall
Vid Kid

Trade Wars Helpers

Doug Underwood (TWAR – DOS & Win)
Earth (ATTAC)
MacAhan (SWATH)
Stein (SWATH)
Xide (TWX Proxy)

Trade Wars Radio Operators

Soul – WEJL Radio
Space Ghost – Boo Inc. Radio

Trade Wars Tournament Operators/Founders
I know there are more people to be added here, please contact me if you should be listed. Thanks.

Bad Girl (United States Open)
EleqTrizi’T (World Trade Wars Championships)
MacAhan (Battle of the Elite 2000)
Space Ghost (Haunted Halloween Tournament)

BOTE Update [12/04 @ 8:45am ct ] – A 2 week update

• 11/17 – Timborulz podded and killed Kendrake.
• 11/18 – slow other than Menudo blowing  his corpie Zentock’s own unmanned colt.
• 11/19 – Server went down for a little while.  Star Endeavors blow some ports.
• 11/20 – Star Endeavors taunt by naming a port “Sign up now for BOTE 2002 at Chicken Coop”. 
• 11/21 – Hollywood busts planets. 
• 11/22 – Hekate busts planets.
• 11/23 – Slow. Only action not in the logs I don’t know about.
• 11/24 – Slow. Yawn.
• 11/25 – Gravedigr agrees it is boring as well. Dr. Bad told him to go attack something then. Timborulz blasts a crapload more ports. Some valiant ports fought back but was still blown up.  Kemper3 forgot to wear his seat belt and exchanges his ISS for a pod as a result.
• 11/26 – Kemper3 moths twice in IC. Timborulz continues his vandalism of the starports.
• 11/27 – Kemper3 becomes a repeat offender by once again forgetting to buckle up his seat belt in his ISS. He got a new pod as a result. This was the day Timborulz’s P-drop script killed me 🙂 Timborulz blows more ports.
• 11/28 – Timborulz robs an ISS from Fament. Timborulz the Port Vandal goes to work again. Port construction will become a booming business once the hazard clears.
• 11/29 – Swamp Lily’s ISS was blown up by a Q-gun. Think it was a p-drop.
• 11/30 – Cherokee attacks some ports. The ports fight back but ends up blown up anyways. Freejack unsuccessfully makes a planet invasion attempt. Timborulz blew up an unmanned havoc owned by Fament and took some corbo reaction in the process.
• 12/01 – Coastgames invade Corp 8 (Mission Nighthawk) and eliminate Nazwes Chaiwind, officially denying Naz a chance at a repeat for BOTE champs. Timborulz continues to vandalize the ports.
• 12/02 – seems Sunday got skipped in the logs.
• 12/03 – Timborulz hits Fament and robs a few refurbs. Cherokee blows up yet more ports. Won’t be long before the game has none :). Auntie B’s ISS was hit by a Q-gun and Timborulz gets the pod. Horny Toad’s CFS blows up in the path of a Q-gun. Massive photons launched in another invasion by Star Endeavors, resulting in more ports blown and a planet taken. Renato blows up an ISS owned by Corp 13 and took a corbo hit.
• -Current Stats for 09:44:06 AM Wed Dec 04, 2013 -=-=-=-

  2,743 ports are open for business and have a net worth of 179,742,599.
  800 planets exist in the universe, 25% have Citadels.
  27 Traders (62% Good) are active in the game.
  20,816,745 Fighters and 36,603 Mines are in use throughout the Universe.
  7 Corporations are in business. Remaining corps: Star Endeavors, Coast Games, Fament, Terra, Frogland, Risky Business, & Stardock BBS.  

• I’m parking in a sector just off fed so don’t kill me. 

BOTE Update [11/17 @ 8:45am ct ] – Highlights of the last week

• 11/11 – After Tweety’s ISS was hit by a Q-gun, he recovered to eliminate Xanos by podding Xano’s havoc and then Xano’s pod ran into Q-guns.
• 11/12 – Tweety podded Bad Command’s CFS and Bad Command’s pod hit a Q-gun. Menudo’s colt hit a nav haz and blew up. Tweety mothed in an IDC. Timborulz pods Tweety’s IDC and gets the pod. Timborulz posted this universal announcement: Tweety, that was for my buddy Cherokee.
• 11/13 – Timborulz went on a port destruction spree then either was planet dropped or mothed as his ISS was hit by a Q-gun. Star Endeavors hit the Stardock BBS, capping a few ships and some planets.
• 11/14 – Cherokee hit Bad Command with a p-torp, making Bad Command CBY.  Freejack blew serveral ports and capped a colt from Coastgames.
• 11/15 – Timborulz posted this universal announcement: Come on Corp 10, don’t be a wuss and run from your own sector!!!!
  G-dawg DESTROYED Bad Command or Filename’s Scout Marauder!
  Hekate posted this universal announcement: 5 down 1 to go
  Timborulz launched a Photon Missile somewhere!
  Timborulz posted this universal announcement: I guess Kemper is just afraid to fight a good old fashion ship-to-ship fight, what has this game come too?? Buncha girls!
  Gravedigr posted this universal announcement:
  Buncha Girls?! Where? Dam..stop those false alarms..i dont see any girls.
  Timborulz posted this universal announcement:
  heh.
• 11/16 – Timborulz podded Hollywood’s CFS. Timborulz posted this universal announcement: Is that 3 deaths for Hollywood now?
  Gravedigr posted this universal announcement: Corp 13 sure has gotten a bit cocky lately..heh.
  Cherokee posted this universal announcement: a little cocky? maybe. the question is, is it justified?
  Gravedigr posted this universal announcement: Win the game..then you can be as cocky as you wish.
  Timborulz posted this universal announcement: If anyone wants to get revenge from my lively remarks, I recommend parking your ships on our figs and just sitting there! <grin>
• 11/17 – Game stats: This game has been running for 98 days. 2,952 ports are open for business and have a net worth of 155,082,132. 768 planets exist in the universe, 21% have Citadels. 30 Traders (56% Good) are active in the game. 19,491,145 Fighters and 37,352 Mines are in use throughout the Universe. 9 Corporations are in business.

BOTE Update [11/11 @ 8:45am ct ]- Highlights of the last few weeks.

• 10/27 – Auntie B ran her colt into nav haz
• 10/28 – Timberrulz continued to be busy blowing ports.
• 10/29 – Illusion and Kemper3 were unsuccessful in invading a couple planets. Illusion was podded by Q-guns.
• 10/30 – Hekate tried to B-warp a colt and forgot to put on her seat belt. Kemper3 was able to invade two other planets, but was podded in an attempted invasion of another planet. Syntax Error was p-torped and CBY’ed.
• 10/31 – Happy Halloween. Kemper3, wearing a “Barney the Dinosaur” costume for Halloween, invaded  a volcanic planet.
• 11/01 – Tweety’s colt is hit by a Q-gun.
• 11/02 – Sytanx Error’s scout is blasted by a Q-gun.
• 11/03 – Tweety attacked team Fen and blew up a corbo laden unmanned CFS owned by Team Fen. Freejack also forgot to wear a seat belt in b-warping a colt.
• 11/04 – Horny toad robbed an ISS from Coastgames team. Xanos finds an abandoned iggy.
• 11/05 – Freejack robbed a colt from corp 2. 
• 11/06 – Gravedigr posted this universal announcement: Would you all hurry up and die!
  Gravedigr posted this universal announcement: Please.
  Dr Bad posted this universal announcement: I don’t know how. Please demonstrate.
  Massive photon war erupted between serveral teams. Tweety’s ISS was blown up by Q-guns and the pod got hit by mines.
  macahan posted this universal announcement: See Tweety know how to die with grace!! Now you know how to do it.
  Gravedigr posted this universal announcement: Ok..thanks tweety…..next.
• 11/07 – Master Time ran his colt into nav haz.
• 11/08 – Quiet day. Cherokee got bored and posted this universal announcement:
  just so there’s SOMETHING in the logs…. PPhhhhhfffffftttttt
• 11/10 – Freejack and Ryukin invaded a planet with Freejack losing a life and Ryukin capping the planet. Tweety ran his battleship into a Q-gun.
• Tweety’s Imperial StarShip was destroyed by a Quasar Cannon!
  Kemper3’s Interdictor Cruiser was destroyed by a Quasar Cannon!
  Dr Bad posted this universal announcement:
  The race for max pods is neck and neck… who can win? Gdawg? Tweety? Kemper?

Seems 11/09 got skipped in the logs or nothing ran that day.

BOTE Update [10/27 @ 6:35am CDT] – Highlights of the past week followed by a summary of Moe’s elimination from BOTE.

10/21 – Timborulz podded Moe and Moe tried to get Timborulz but Timborulz was not in his ship when it got destroyed by Moe.

10/23 – Timborulz podded and killed Abort,Retry,Fail. Auntie B ran her colt into nav haz.

10/24 – G-Dawg’s ISS is hit by a Q-gun.

10-25 Wierd. Only one line in the 10/25 logs not including port construction and planet smashes and that was Sytnax Error blowing a planet. I’ve seen quiet days, but that is quiet all right.

10/26 – Timborulz podded and killed Moe, eliminating Moe from the game.  Talon eats some corbo in a havoc. Details on both incidents below, the first from Timborulz and the second from Cherokee.

Timborulz’s account:

FEN Corp 3 had Moe get eliminated today, here’s the scoop:

Much unseen to the daily logs or posted on the BOTE News page, there’s has been a fierce daily open space war ongoing for weeks between Corp 3 (FEN) and Corp 13 (Chicken Coop). These daily upgraded port territory wars involved Xanos, Moe, Cherokee, Timborulz, Freejack and others. 

Today, another chapter in this war has closed – Moe got eliminated. A very patient and persistent Timborulz caught Moe at some sector figs and dropped a L6 H over his ISS. Moe was then at the sector prompt with an angry Timbo and a planet set to kill. Moe preceeded to attack one more round of the sector figs and then got blasted by a Chicken Coop quasar cannon. His pod fled to the next sector which happened to have enough naz haz to smash Moe’s exposed Pod. So that’s it, Moe is now eliminated. Timbo had only a few days ago delivered Moe’s 4th death in ship-to-ship combat by Timborulz.
Moe is the first FEN corpie to be eliminated and was the most active Blue on FEN’s corp. Moe was a formidable opponent and we all hope the afterlife serves him well.

-Timborulz

Cherokee’s account:

Corp 13, Star Endeavors (Chicken Coop) had some moderate success against corp 3, FEN Cloud 09 today.

-Cherokee

BOTE Update [10/21 @  7am CDT] – A follow up to Gravedigr’s invasion  and Lancelot’s death reported earlier. Then highlights from the last 4 days followes after Gravdigr’s account.

First Gravedigr had this to say about the planet he took,  the IC Fament took from his corp, and Lancelot’s death:

oh ya, the IC was left at the sector we took the planet in, it was limpeted and me and g were both low on turns, and decided to just leave it there, to attract them and make them waste turns on a dead sector.

lance’s pod was dropped off in space cuz he hasnt showed for about 3 weeks, and barely ran his turns ever since the 1st 1-2 weeks. So we dumped him off, and blew the port.

Now for action highlights covering the last 4 days:

• 10/17, both Talon and Horny Toad were hit by Q-guns, Talon in a havoc and Horny Toad in a frigate.
• 10/18 – Dr. Bad podded and killed Sir Hop-a-Lot. Guess Sir Hop-a-Lot is now Sir Hop-a-Not. 🙂 Dr. Bad had to re-apply for commish after the kill since both combatants were blue.
• 10/19 – Quiet day. Cherokee fired a few p-torps and Timborulz either planet busted or trying to make a planet.
• Yesterday and today were quiet as well outside of Menudo’s planet busts. 
• Game has run for 71 days with 9 corps and 42 players active. CLV shows of the 42 players as of 7:15 am CDT, only 4 are #SD#, and I believe they are eliminated too. So really, 38 players active.

BOTE Update [10/17 @  12pm CDT] – Highlights of the last week include:

• the demise of Sir Lancelot at the hands of djcosmic
• several more ports go under construction
• Renato’s colt hit nav haz on the 15th.
• plenty of unstable planetary masses yesterday but no collisions other than the junk ones in fedspace.
• Gravdigr took a planet yesterday – details later.
• Moe robbed an IC from Colonists of Terra today.

BOTE Update [10/11 @  2:15pm CDT] – Timborulz gave me some nice info on recent events. Cherokee and Talon also gave me news as well, but Timborulz’s was the most detailed, so here it is.

10/6 The Chicken Coop (Corp 13) took over most of the largest bubble in the game with upgraded ports that were owned by Coastgames (Corp 10). This was a ruthless attack by Chicken Coop to battle past several planet drops and a very angry Dr. Bad.  Chicken Coop ran over 8 upgrade ports by Coastgames and both corps stared at each others planets in the same sector several times.  Then, Chicken Coop was cut short when Cherokee got taken out by a quasar cannon by Coastgames.
Chicken Coop then deployed hundreds of thousands of sector figs in bubble sectors they took while Coastgames still controlled a few sectors in the back of the bubble.

-Timbo

BOTE update [10/09] @ 9am CDT] – BOTE updates for 10/4 to 10/09

10/04 – G-Dawg and Moe exchanged ISS’es.  Moe finally got ownership.

10/05 – Slow day. 

10/06 – Cherokee’s ISS hit a Q-gun and pod ran into nav haz. 

10/07 – Slow other than moneymaking and cashing. Cherokee named his scout on re-entry “Won’t make that mistake again” . Grins. Guess the man learned his lesson.

10/08 – Chicken Coop team got into a massive photon war with various foes.

10/09 – 8 sectors overloaded with planets. Only one collision. No injuries reported. Chicken Coop resumed the photon war.

BOTE update [10/04] @ 7:15pm CDT] –  August and September BOTE News has been archived..link above. On to the news starting with Oct 1.

Oct 1 – Timbolrulz (no relation to me<G>) took out a few ports, but the day had otherwise been quiet

Oct 2

1. A few ports under construction opened for business today.
2. Kemper took an O from someone, shields and all.
3. Dr. Bad robbed a colt from Corp 6,
4. Timborulz continued to defy Federal authorities by taking out more ports. Says Captain Zyrain, ” I catch this turd blowing ports under my watch, I’ll arrest him and throw away the key”. Team Fen owned the ports, I believe.

Oct 3

1. Cherokee and G-Dawg both blew a port, putting them on Captain’s Z anti-vandalism list. 🙂
2. Guardian is murdered on Stardock. Captain Zyrain promised to find his killer, named Res Judicata as the #1 suspect 🙂
3. Illusion ran his colt into nav haz. Guess he though the nav haz was an illusion 🙂

Oct 4

1. More ports open for business. Wal-mart better look out 🙂
2. Lots of unstable planetary mass, but only one collision, which were junk planets I believe.
3. Gravedigr gets bored. Wanted some furbs blown at least. Menudo entertained him with several MF’s destroyed.
4. Sir Lancelot returned to the game..very hurt no one missed him while he was gone..awwww. 🙂
5. Gravedigr suggested a name change of his corp name of Terra to Corp Whiners  In Hekate’s case, an excellent choice for a name. 🙂

I realize coverage is not as in depth as some people wanted, but have not gotten behind the scenes news outside of a few e-mails from Cherokee and Talon. Please let me know what is going on behind the scenes that leads to the action shown in the logs. Thanks.

as posted by Col Sanders, Silver Dragon, and Mana Knight in that order followed by one from yours truly:

• Chicken Coop gets new domain as announced by Col Sanders.

  Ladies and Gentlemen,

  It is my pleasure to announce, the new location of the Chicken Coop BBS and TWGS, and the Chicken Coop web page on the domain, bawk.org!!! Thats right, if your DNS has updated, as I believe most have now, you can telnet://bbs.bawk.org to access the Chicken Coop BBS, and https://www.bawk.org  to view the Chicken Coop web page!

  To celebrate, I am prepared to announce a new type of game, opening January 4th, 2002, and running until February 8th, 2002. This game, I call, Battleship! This new game will be based loosely on TWChess of Coastgames.com fame. This new game, will start in much the same way, team starts on a nice planet, tries to conquer the universe in the allotted time. The edits will be based on my Battleship! game, which I ran recently, and had a few players look at. The edits are WACKED! You think TWChess has wacked edits? You ain’t seen nothing yet! This game will challenge you in ways you have never been challenged. It will make you flex regions of your brain you have never flexed! It will make your team work together as you have never imagined!

  A taste of some of the edits involved:
  Huge! 20,000 sector universe!
  NO TWARP drives!
  Only 2 ships with HOLO-SCANNERS!

  I will of course post again about this game once I have a web page added to https://www.bawk.org  detailing the WACKED edits! Also, will have a registration form on the website. In the meantime, the game will be limited to 6 corps, 4 minimum. 5 people per corp! (no more, no less). So start planning now!

  -Col Sanders
  The Chicken Coop BBS and TWGS, we don’t create new things, we make new things BETTER! (yes, I stole that from 3M)

• Silver Dragon to open Player’s Creation Game as announced by SD himself:

  Players Creation will be Planet TWs first display of its player  showcasing. Send me a ship edit you want in the game. Please be very  specific include a killer name. This was an idea run on stardock.  Hellcat asked me to run it so here it is. This game will keep very  detailed stats and the action covered on the Planet TW web page. I am
  gonna look to start this game December 13th which is a thursday at  9pm eastern time. Check out the edits on the game settings page on  planet TW. So send me them ship edits every one will be put in the  game. And get ready for a fun game YOU created.
  Silver Dragon
  Planet TW… The Tradewars Home World

• Mana Knight explains about Tradewars.org as posted by MK himself-

  Some of you may have been wondering what’s up with Tradewars.org.  I haven’t abadoned it.  It more or less abandoned me.

  I say this because I came into my room about 3 weeks ago and for some reason it smelled like Febreeze.  However, after realizing this smell was coming from my
  computer case, I realized it wasn’t febreeze but MELTED PLASTIC.  Thus, the computer I use to update tradewars.org decided to permanently melt it’s motherboard.

  This set me way back in school since I needed that computer.  I have a temporary one that lets me get my work done, but I only got that like a week ago.  This has only
  been agitated by someone in my group NOT DOING THEIR FUCKING WORK for the project.  This leaves me with taking up the slack for the time being.  Oh yea, finals are next week. crap.

  Just a heads up on what’s going on. Sorrry about the french, but I need someone to take this out on and Soul isn’t around anymore.

  –Joel “ARGHHHHHHHHH” Gonzales

• And my own announcement is this: Mephisto server will be dropped from Fament very soon, maybe today.  Equalizer will be the only game moved and rebanged on the Diablo server at a date TBA. The rest of the games will be dropped from Mephisto as Diablo already has stock games of which Mephisto had two and I do not want to have to rebang the Hunt game weekly with the BOTE in progress.

  The reason for this is the duct tape on the Diablo Server while Mephisto does not have one, frustrating many players on Mephisto. An announcement regarding the Pigskin Classic will be made very soon, hopefully by the end of the day.

  Today, I’m having serious internet problems with great difficulty in maintaining a connection. So if I’m unable to get to BOTE updates later, you know why.

  Can’t wait until I get cable in January.

• I’m also slated to open my star wars themed game that was so popular when I had it at Intergate and will announce the date soon.

Gypsy has outdone himself. The War Room is coming around in full force with many more additions. to the site. With EleqTrizi’T now in the Retirement Home, Gypsy appears poised to make the War Room THE premier web site of the Trade Wars community. Awesome going, Gypsy 🙂 The War Room will be added to my affiliates section on Friday when I have the day off from work to move some  stuff around on the Trade Wars Gazette.

Lots of news yesterday while I was offline since the last post I did. Sit back and enjoy your coffee. This make take a while to read 🙂

• Col Sanders will have a new domain for the Chicken Coop and is supposed to announce it today along with other exciting plans he has for the Chicken Coop. I’ll keep everyone posted on this breaking news.
• Planet Tradewars and Hard Coded merged. Silver Dragon made the announcement late last night. Read it here.Thanks to Silver Dragon for mentioning me in his announcement 🙂
• Jackal officially wins the Taliban Hunt game with the death of Bin Laden. Though he did give his corpmates Wing and Lara credit for fig production. Bin Laden was in a 100K fig IDC and was due to be deleted today 🙂 Nice work, Jackal. Jackal also noted Lara is Wing’s fianc� and this game was only her 2nd TW game. Welcome Lara.

  I’ll make another hunt game when I’m able to get a hold of Macahan and give a few days notice of the rebang. I’m shooting for Dec 3 at 7pm CT.

• On a more serious note, there has been a security issue with TWX Proxy. A well known sysop has reported possible hacking via the use of TWX. Follows is what Silver Dragon had to say regarding the security of TWX:

  “ok I feel I must announce this growing problem in our community. This is no way to put down TWX or discourage its use, in fact I am gonna help it. Several times I have had my users tell me someone has hacked through into twx and was able to either A-watch what they were doing and the most recent B-alter the standard twx scripts. This is caused by the server twx creates on the users desk top. It is my goal to stop this scum bag from ruining all tradewars games. I have a good idea who it is and man when I get enough to prove it youre dead man. I am going right to the police with this shit. He knows who he is. But for the rest of you honorable traders out there, there is an easy way to protect yourself from this type of attack. Go to www.zonelabs.com  and download zone alarm personal fire wall! It is free for personal use and is one of the best out there. This will stop all inbound traffic to your computer halting the hacker and protecting yourself. Please spread the word for this hacking problem is growing. I have had complaints from Elite and newbies. If you already have a firewall please make sure the port twx uses is closed while youre using it. Any questions on this please email me. Also all sysops if you have heard of this problem please contact me so we can narrow down some suspects. Thank you for your time help me stop this low life scum!

  Silver Dragon
  (SYSOP Hardcoded TWGS)”

  This is Xide’s response on what you can do to make TWX more secure:

  “I designed TWX with this sort of thing in mind.  If your worried about anyone hacking into it, you should take the following precautions:

  1. Ensure you have the ‘Enable External Connections’ option DISABLED.  Later versions should display a warning message if you have this turned on.  If you absolutely have to use it, make sure you change the listening port to make it harder for others to pick up on it.

  2. Make sure you have no trojans installed on your machine.  Trojans are a popular way for hackers to tunnel connections through to gain control – its possible for them to use these to redirect connections into TWX as if they were connected locally.  I suspect this is the method this person has been using.  Good virus scanners will also guard against most trojans.

  3. Install a firewall.  Firewalls are great – they block people from connecting to your machine unless you specifically open a ‘hole’ for them.

  4. UPGRADE YOUR TWX PROXY!  Versions older than 1.07b may have
  security holes in them.  The network code was rewritten from scratch in 1.07b and a lot was changed.  Earlier versions don’t give warning of the external connections being enabled, and may even have it turned on by default!

  As for scripts or programs which modify the base TWX scripts to do nasty things to you, all I can suggest is that you be careful about running programs/scripts you get from other people.  I know alot of people are coding extra ‘features’ into their scripts, and this worries me.  The simple solution is just not to run anything from anyone you don’t trust – especially if the script is encrypted.

  -Xide”

• Now with all the talk of security and scripts, I wanted to point out Kitty Moon has also been discussing how easy it is to exploit someone’s computer via a nasty script. I won’t sum up what Kitty Moon has been talking about as not to give anyone any direct ideas, but to put it simply, ZOC is capable of calling an external program and that includes FDISK or format.exe. In other words, your computer gets wiped if those programs are run.

  At the very least, the extra ‘features’ in the scripts can make you CBY, give away your location to your enemies via game message, subspace, hail, or fedcom, or make you p-torp yourself for example. And that’s just for starters.

  So be wary of scripts you take from someone else – especially if they are encrypted and especially if the script(s) were unsolicited – that is – you did not ask for them but got them anyways.

  For trustworthy ZOC scripts to download, check out the Reverend’s Script Site. The Reverend is the God of ZOC :). He is so good with ZOC, he has found a lot of ZOC bugs that eventually got him on the ZOC author’s ICQ list and is usually up to date on ZOC news such as the next upgrade release.

  Oh, and my own ZOC scripts ain’t so bad either, if I say so myself 🙂

Mondays Are Blah [11/26 @ 3:45pm CT] – But at least there are some news for today as follows:

• BOTRU is over. Stardock BBS won it led by Kumarbi and Dr. Who.  Public at Large was 2nd. Col Sanders will be sending the winners their prizes shortly.
• RISK teams are generated. Click here to check it out and for more info.
• Big D announces Game Depot. But personally, I think Micro’s site is a whole lot better, don’t you think? In fact I just added Micro’s site on my links page. Thank you, Big D, for reminding me I neglected to add Micro on my links page 🙂
• Public At Large Bangs game to thank SD regulars playing there. Res Judicata posted the following info: Today at 5pm PST HARD ASS opens.
  All planet specs are LISTED ON THE CJ Screen.
  Yes separate Text files for each planet !!!
  Ship Edits you will see when game opens.
  6 per corp
  6 planets per sector
  1200 turn
  10% EVIL Settings
  30k colo regen rate
  50% port production
  55% port density so 2750 ports
  Ferrengal is EDITED Beware Shields Ore Figs and CASH !!

  Log on fast and play TRI CON for bonus start cash too!

  telnet://65.4.6.78
  web site https://www.publicatlarge.com/tradewars/

• My thoughts on Eleq’s farewell post ? I’ve thought about and have been thinking all day and have little words to put down. All I can say is this: At least he now can enjoy being with his family without wondering if the server is running all right. He can now be able to take a trip without worry of a server crash. I have not seen a more dedicated sysop than he was and I wish him all the best  and look forward to his return, if and when he gets the desire to do so.

I have gone through many revisions of what I wanted to say in my head, and finally came down to only having a few last things to say..

Logging off,
Agustin Rivera
Premier/EleqTrizi’T
June 1991- November 2001

The 2001 editon of the Valentine’s Day Massacre (USO) has it’s website up. Here’s some things of intrest:

Game Starts Feb 15th 2001
Home Sector will host USO’01 ( twgs.tradewars.org )
Extern will be 12 AM Eastern ( 9 PM Pacific )
Stardock will NOT be connected to fed
Sleeping in Fed is not an Option after the first week
There will be one edited Planet ( Named USO of course )
There will be some moderate to light ship edits.

Space Ghost has announced the following:the HHT is OVER! Corp 2 : (__|__) Diplomacy Sucks (__|__)

The members are as listed
Alpha Xide
Beta Grim Reaper
Theta Nazwes Chaiwind
Psi Gravedigger
Gama Speedy
Zeta Bud

Gravdigr posted a statement about his team:

Ok guys and gals.

Ok, enough of my ramblings.
Thanks again Space Ghost.
Peace out.
Grave(digr)
(now i just need to pull out bote, and win uso…heh)

Silver Wings update [10/19] – Posted by Tripp on the silver wings website:

Just when you thought the arguement was going to heat up, it comes to a happy ending. Incase you haven’t been following along in the TradeWarriors EGroup, Hell Razor/Soul and Stonewall have kissed and made up. I guess that means that all the excitement in the TradeWarriors EGroup is now over and we can get back to our normal lives. Or can we?

And from that kissing and making up, i hear HellRazor is pregnant and Stonewall’s the daddy..or is he really the father????? Stay tuned for the latest episode of the “Days of Our Silver Wings”

Next episode of “Days of Our Silver Wings” – Will Stonewall snap out of his coma? will HellRazor find a cure for his disease? Will Big D accept responsibility of his baby? Stay tuned.

Tommorrow on Days of Our Silver Wings Part IV: Who is Stonewall’s lawyer? Will HellRazor’s disease continue to get worse? stay tuned!!

Pretrial arguements starts. Aitvo makes his statements on why Stonewall should be found guilty then sits down. Eleq then gets up to do his arguement. He simply walks to the jury box, flexes his muscles, thumps his chest, and tells the jury “I am God” and then sits down. Aitvo and the rest of the courtroom rolls their eyes.

The trial proceeds. Aitvo presents his case saying Stonewall’s motive to kill Big D was that Big D got Stonewall’s lover HellRazor pregnant and that made Stoney upset..a few witnesses explain that’s is exactly what happened. Then Aitvo rests his case, satisfied he has done his job. Just before Eleq is ready to present his case, Retaliator, his best friend and private detective, bursts in the courtroom and hands Eleq a note. Eleq then stands up and asks for a recess to prepare for a surprise witness.

Tommorow on DAYS OF OUR SILVER WINGS PART V, who is Eleq’s surprise witness? Will HellRazor ever find a cure for his mystery disease? Will Stonewall be found guilty or innocent of the murder charges? Stay tuned!

The scream fades as Bad Girl and Guardian come to the end of the cellblock and they see one empty cell and no one around. They look at each other with a wicked smile and proceed to start making out in the cell. Guardian then says “Since I’m now a league board member, you must now submit to me, Bad Girl” and he whips out his handcuffs and smiles wickedly at Bad Girl and the scene fades to black.

Meanwhile, HellRazor’s disease worsens and he becomes insane and is committed to a mental institution for the rest of his life.

Stonewall enjoys his newfound freedom and uses the opportunity to open a Trade Wars game server called the Deep South. It becomes a popular hangout.

Eleq, Aitvo, and Dark Helmet decide to quit law and go to Las Vegas for some kind of a convention……..

[editor’s note: if you would like to see a spin off of this satire, e-mail me and i’ll see about getting one started later in the week. <G> Thanks for reading]