3. Overrun by 'new' player?

Overrun by 'new' player?


  • Hey there. I maybe have a misconception about the game, but I'm playing in a newbie zone, and had a player spawn in next to me, GCL 1, and running code that seemed... well, odd. It felt like an inexorable harassment program. It wasn't trying to gain controller level, it wasn't trying to progress in the game. It would just... spawn creeps to send at me. It also seemed like code far more advanced than anything I'd seen up to this point. I genuinely feel griefed, and wanted to know... is this a typical experience? Because it's not super fun, and I just wasn't sure if I should expect more of the same.

    Idunno. I am on the fence about dealing with the problem, because honestly, the game had been entertaining up to that point, and then after that, it felt like ... not really fun. Like I was being trolled. I finally gave up and disabled my protection code, and let myself get overrun, because I just didn't enjoy it. Thoughts?


  • What you described sounds like ZeSwarm, an open source bot that basically just harasses its neighbors, but I'm not sure if that was the case. Getting wiped by other players happens. Possibly many times, in the beginning. It happens even if your neighbors are newbies, writing their code from scratch. All it takes is them focusing more on combat than you. When the novice zone walls drop, there's also a good chance of you getting wiped by much stronger players. But that's ok, you lose you current room(s), but you keep your GCL and, more importantly, you keep your code. Just find another place to spawn and keep working on your code. You can also try to message your neighbors / possible neighbors and ask if it's ok if you spawn close to them. There are many peaceful players out there and even aggressive players that will leave a novice alone, if asked to.


  • Thank you for replying; I'll take a look at ZeSwarm and see if it looks like the code I was up against. This one had bots like 'drainBot', 'attackBot', and 'healBot'. It used container mining, and would switch modes between levels of aggression, based on my responses. It would come into the room until fired upon and then recede when being fired upon. Anyway. It was frustrating.

    I guess there's not much I can do to deal with someone with far more mature code coming into a novice area. I would've expected that code size or something would be limited, like a weight class in fighting. But I realize that's all my own preconceptions I'm bringing into it. And apologies if I come off as whining. For the record, I did actually try to message them, but it fell on deaf ears, I fear.

    Anyway! I've respawned. I feel really self-conscious about this code though, as I am still only a week or two into the game. I played a long time ago (late 2016) but have none of that code still, not that it was any good at that time either. I guess I'll just have to see! Thanks for talking me through your experience.


  • Incidentally, the room in question is https://screeps.com/a/#!/room/shard3/E8N37 if you're curious. 🙂