advantageous if they are sufficiently skilled in *all* arenas. Perhaps the combat advantages will have less effect against some teams than others, but the whole point of the thing is to make it adapt to more situations than the humans can. Given the limitation regarding ability to adapt, the next best thing is to improve the small points. If a robot can kill 3 good players before dying, instead of 2, this may be the difference for 3 robots trying to take a planet with 6 defenders between succeeding and failing. If only 3 robots are necessary, even with 6 defenders, this allows 5 other robots to be doing other, more useful, things. You know... I suspect you may be believing that I am suggesting I am some sort of expert in Netrek. I'm not. My profession is not dog-fighting, nor is it strategic movement of troops. My profession is in design, innovation, and implementation of software. Rather than sitting out and telling me how twinky I am, you could be very useful as a technical advisor, if you didn't have the time, or inclination to take part in the actual coding. Perhaps I would not be successful in implementating a robot team that would be able to destroy any INL team. However, it is just possible that I can design the necessary infrastructure to do so. With a little input from people such as yourself, the chance of success improves dramatically. I never intended this to cause a fight. I also don't wish it to monopolize the development resources available on this list. I do wish it to create interest in Netrek, perhaps by academic sorts who would otherwise become bored, or disenchanted with the game. I do want it to succeed. Not to impress anybody, or to insult anybody. I want it to succeed, because it is a goal I set out to do around 10 years ago, but never had time to complete. It is a learning experience that might just benefit more people than just myself. Once complete, I wouldn't mind maintaining it as a sort of 'Iron Chef' forum. For anybody who doesn't watch the food channel, challengers from around the world challenge this set of 'Iron Chefs' to compete to see who can produce the meal that is best scored by influential people in Japan. The 'bot team, assuming it can win against a FreeBot team, would then become the first Iron 'Bot team. mark -- mark at mielke.cc/markm at ncf.ca/markm at nortelnetworks.com __________________________ . . _ ._ . . .__ . . ._. .__ . . . .__ | Neighbourhood Coder |\/| |_| |_| |/ |_ |\/| | |_ | |/ |_ | | | | | | \ | \ |__ . | | .|. |__ |__ | \ |__ | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them... http://mark.mielke.cc/