Not everyone knows how to create these aliases, therefore it's unfair IMO. It's akin to someone having the knowledge to creating aimbot scripts for a 3D FPS game. A game should not promote unfair advantages to those who have h4x0r1ng 5k1llz over those who don't.

It is a part for the game, and one's development as a player - it should pay of to use the time on it. Those who either don't want to sue the time, or just can't figure it out, have the same disadvange as those who can't learn to fight players. I *really* suck playing against players therefore "pilotcomputer evasive maneuver programs" =D is a way for me to help out doing pirate, or unprovoked attacks. Am i out looking for a fight, i dont use those things (i know what you're thinking now, but that's up to you) because - as obvious - it dont show if i accually have the skills for beating that player or not. Same for teamplay (off/def) - It would not a clean cap/defend, if such is used.

As for the creating alias' (macros or whatever) in a 3D FPS game...
Quake I, II, III
Unreal
Half-Life
Counter-strike

I've have either had, written or seen scripts, alias or macros for every single one of them - automating everything from offensive/defensive to functional manuevering, selecting, buying or whatever functions that are free for player use.

I've got alias' to handle my music playlists, should that option be removed too, just because i've used the time on making them - and others dont know how?

As i wrote earlier, i too think this is something to discuss, but what we are moving towards here, is not a discution on alias' but on console and commands accessible to the player... Should the console be a game chat, and nothing else??? Would it be a good idea now, while it's still a beta. Is the console not a nifty little tool for development and debugging, at least - making things easier for devs =)? Please correct me if i'm wrong on that.

Note as for the heavely discussed turbo tabbing alias - yes, i too think that one is too easy + it wrecks speed balancing, and should be "removed" (grapped and discarded). Not to be misunderstood on that issue =)

Maybe it's time to create a PunkBuster version of Vendetta. That would kick ass.

Yep - and solve alot of discustions on the subject...

EDIT: I couldn't even imagine, that it would be released without a such...

I think the discussion has split into two completely different topics:

1 - Should the way that engines, batteries and turbo work be changed to accommodate both fight-boosting and trade-boosting?

2 - Should the command line be beefed up to allow more "scriptable" gameplay? Or should these scripts/macros be more easily used in-game.

For #1, I've already stated my opinion so I won't repeat it. For #2, I personally don't care if things are only available via /alias, so long as these commands are better documented and more easily available to new players (i.e., part of the user guide)

(Post deleted after the fact)
/me mods self -1,Redundant.

I removed the +turbo binding issue.
Turbo is supposed to be an on/off thing, but giving the +turbo command a parameter broke that assumption.

still found another way around it *shine* so far, I'm the only one.

I really hope you've made a bug report about it, Rabid Panda.

It brings me untold amounts of sadness that I can't even assume people haven't made bug reports about the exploits they've found.

You actually get sad about it?
I just expect it...then again, I probably have a lower opinion of most people than you, Acie.

Panda, you said you got around it before 3.2.7 even came out. how do you know you got around it?

Well Ray, I thought it would work becasue it wasn't as simple as everyone else who was doing it, I just have to figure out another way to do it now, it's pretty close. I thought that 0 and 1 were on and off, not turbo at the speed of 1. At least, that's what I thought when I doing it at first.

Ah, heh. good luck. ;)

well without tap turbo heavy engine is almost purely useless, even in fights. You turn, turbo, then turn, then you're not gaining any speed over cruise speed.

I *almost* had that infinite turbo bug this afternoon! Its soooooo close I can smeel it!

/me gos back to pouring ever his errors.log

I like the general direction the devs are moving in with the way engines and turbo works. However, I think there needs to be some more tweaking.

For example, an engine/battery combo that has no drain should have an advantage in long chases... but I've found this isn't the case. I have more experimenting to do before being able to offer any hard suggestions on how to improve things, but I wanted to post what I've found so far.

I tested the "flee factor" of the efficient/fastcharge combo, and it was horrible. I tested primarily in a maurauder, as it is a trading ship and is most likely to benefit from the "constant turbo" aspect of this combination.

Whenever a bot targetted me, I simply pointed towards deep space and hit turbo. Several times in a row, the same thing happened (sector 10 and sector 8 primarily. I got sick of the test in sector 7 and rocket rammed the stupid bot to get him off of my tail).

The bots would close to about 230m and start to shoot. They'd knock me down by 20% (if I rolled, if not they'd do more damage) and then eventually would fall back to about 800m or so. Then they would slowly catch up until they were close enough to fire again. Another 20%. They fall back. They catch up. Another 20%, and so on.

Now please don't get me wrong: I'm not whining. I just want to point out that turbo tapping is not gone, it's just that the frequency of turbo-tapping has been increased by a lot. You drain the battery, and have to charge it before you catch up, but you do catch up.

Again, I've got more expiriments to try, but from what I've seen so far, I would suggest tweaking the engines a bit more. Also, it made me really wish that I had a small mine to use...

Yeah, something is definitely up with the bots. Looks like they're the ones that can turbo tap now but we can't. Hehe.

the bots fall back because they run out of energy, they recharge and go (I think).

Right. They have heavy engines/batteries, I think, so their turbo top speed is higher than yours with the fast recharge/efficient combo. They catch up, fire some shots, immediately run out of energy, and fall back to let it recharge somewhat before getting back on the turbo. They don't "turbo tap", really. They wait until they have half their energy or so before resuming, and they won't ever start turboing unless they have at least a quarter.

Yes... my point is that the drain/wait/resume is no different from a turbo-tap if the end result is the same. It's like a veeeery slow rate of tapping, but you still outrun everyone in the end.

I personally think that over long distances the "constant turbo" of the eff/fast combo should outrun the heavy/heavy combo just to the point that once the heavy falls behind it wont be able to catch back up again. Otherwise, why have the efficient engine at all?

Maybe this could be done by giving the efficient engine a slightly higher top speed, but slightly lower acceleration (so you can't evade well at slow speeds, but once you get going you'll be fine).

Just some thoughts.