Yeah I know I have not updated BOTE news - or any TW news. I'll try and get going on that in the next couple days. But way it looks now, with Coastgames out and the settings set up the way it is, we are looking at a 2nd stalemate in BOTE history. IMHO, I think future tournaments can do without the death limit if settings are set to prevent rebuilding when a team's base is invaded. Low terra regen is one option. They then will have to concede the game. With no death limits, teams can show, to coin a WWE phrase, ruthless aggression in competition instead of sitting back in defensive mode to avoid being eliminated. They can then afford to moth a heavy defended enemy base for days on end until the ore wear down and they can break thru without worry of invaders being eliminated. If invaders get #SD#, they simply will be back the next day to resume play instead of being eliminated, keeping the game going strong. Just keep pounding away and it's over, one way or another. Sit back and it will stalemate. Ship delay is another factor in the BOTE. Gridders and lawnmowers are more at risk of being podded so they are more hesistant to do their jobs unless they really have to. To sum it up, for tournament games, I think settings should be set up for offensive play, not defensive play. And currently, in the BOTE, offensive play is just that..offensive..given the current settings. Therefore, I think the death limit should be abolished and the ship delay set to none IMHO.

It's been a long hard few months here at work. My boss resigned, and I am the only one who can pick up the slack. But, I've emerged from the ordeal with a promotion and a raise worth bragging about. Now that things are settled down, I plan to get the HS website going again. First order of business will be to get the update checker a little more accurate. The second will be to raise the TWGS. There is no reason it's not running other than I just didn't want it up yet. It's sitting right here. Someone brought up to me that I should do more game coverage news. Why? I don't play in the games. I don't even pay attention. There are [other people](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/https://cbs228.home.mindspring.com/Fugitives/) who do that already, and do a good job of it. Truth of the matter is I don't really want to concern myself with other people's events. That's why I have guest editors like Space_Ghost. They do that already. If you want to post stuff to the website, let me know and I'll consider giving you access to the news poster. More posters the better.

Web-based remake of Legend of the Red Dragon. [Cool.](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/https://twerked.com/logd/)

Haunted Halloween Tournament 2003 https://www.coastgames.com/hht2003/index.php Only the first 75 people who sign up can play,.... This years HHT is BIG Chess . Check it out before its too late!! Look whose playing! [https://www.coastgames.com/hht2003/hht_2003_players.php](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/https://www.coastgames.com/hht2003/hht_2003_players.php) The Five Captains are Kemper3,Cherokee,CBS228,Doc Who,Nazwes Chaiwind

From the BBSmates newsletter: >John Pritchett is the current developer/owner of the popular door game Trade Wars. The first versions of Trade Wars dates back to the early 80's, with ideas borrowed from people back in the early 70's. John has been the sole working on Trade Wars since 1994 and acquired all rights to the game in October, 2000. His involvement with the game has included making it multiplayer, 32-bit, and writing a stand-alone game hosting server called Trade Wars Game Server. Questions to be asked for this interview will be submitted by you, so feel free to ask John any questions relating to Trade Wars 2002, TWGS, past versions of Trade Wars or whatever else you're wondering about. Go here to post your question(s): [https://www.bbsmates.com/question.asp](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/https://www.bbsmates.com/question.asp) The Home Sector fully supports the efforts made over at BBSmates. If you haven't registered, please do so. Find old buddies from your BBS days!

Thanks to the powers that be the Boo! inc. Twgs Server is now back online! We start with two basic games the first a 5000 sector 1200 turn stock game. The second is a 20000 sector unlimited turn game! Boo! inc. will be hosting a League game in the near future. Come telnet to 68.10.92.136 or twgs.booinc.com once the dns updates! Enjoy the server folks it took some effort to provide it. Space Ghost The Host with the Most!

With recent discussion of another possible TW convention, I decided to bring up an old gag I created a few years ago for TWCon2000 in Las Vegas. That year **Mana Knight** could not make it due to personal obligations even though he really wanted to go. So I took this **group picture** and inserted Mana Knight into it and this is **the result**, saying MK was cloaked the whole time and only recently did he have cloak failure, resulting in his appearance in the group pic. The gag had a lot of laughs. <img src="/static/img/twcongrp2.jpg" alt="twcongrp2.jpg" />

Two legends of Trade Wars made an appearance in **The Home Sector forums.** The Last Starfighter AKA Fooman and RawHead Rex each made a few posts in the forums inquiring about the happenings of TW today. What's funny is, Rex posted that he was surfing the net one day, thought about TW and popped into Eleq's site. LSF did the same thing a few minutes later. What are the odds of two legends deciding they got bored and decided to check out TW on the same day? About as much as winning the Powerball lottery I guess. Who knows, I would not be surprised if legends like Ripclaw, Darkhawk, Rolodex, Hellcat, Gaurdian, and most notably - Hosem all decide to make a return to TW in time for the BOTE. I would like to suggest a slot be reserved in the BOTE named "Hall of Fame" for the legends to represent. I would love to see how these legendary players stack up against today's players. The Black Knights were one of the most dominating teams in their time. It is too bad I have not had the opportunity to play in the same game with them much other than the first WTC. But Artemis, Lord Chaos, and Maverick were in a class all by themselves with their dominating play. Before I close out this post, I also want to mention one more legend - Cruncher. Her knowledge of the game was outstanding. Her beta testing helped make the TWGS what it is today. She is in a class all by herself and I am honored to have been part of her beta testing not long ago when we together helped run a beta server at Intergate. Forgive me if I leave out anyone. Any ommisions are not intentional. These were just off the top of my head. Best of luck to any legends who decide to return to today's game :)

The edits are now posted at Coastgames: [Ships](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/https://twchess.coastgames.com/ship_specs.php) [Settings](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/https://twchess.coastgames.com/settings.php) [Planets](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/https://twchess.coastgames.com/settings_2.php) Also, Jerry has posted the [registration form](https://web.archive.org/web/20030000000000*/https://twchess.coastgames.com/register.php) for Chess V2. CEO's only need to log in and sign up their team. I'm not sure what the deadline is for registering, but the game starts August 9th, and Jerry typically likes a day or two to make sure everything is set up properly. Don't delay, sign up today!

Jerry from Coastgames will be hosting the first game of TW Chess V2, opening on August 9th. The .TWA file is posted at coastgames, and HTML edits will be posted in the next day or two. These edits are based on the very popular Chess V1 by Res, with some improvements suggested by a wide variety of players. Corp size for this game will be 6 instead of the traditional 4, so you can bring your BOTE team while we await the status of this year's BOTE. More details will be announced in the next couple of days.