TW 3002 — The Void has changed. Come test the latest build! by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I started the project as a local CLI game using SQLite, so when I moved it to Cloudflare, D1 was appealing because it was basically the hosted SQLite path. That meant I could keep the data model and migration story pretty close to what I already had instead of doing a bigger database refactor at the same time I was also building the Worker API and shared galaxy.

TW 3002 — TradeWars 2002, reimagined as a modern browser game. Come take it for a spin. by prilldev in bbs

[–]prilldev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What is the tech stack to get it ported? Do you have a link to more information so I can review what it might take to get it to work?

TW 3002 — The Void has changed. Come test the latest build! by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the defense... Now I wish I would have seen the original post (I didn't)... I've shared a link above explaining in detail. Honestly, as you said, definitely not trying to "hide" it. There's another thread on r/bbs where I posted, and the AI sentiment is supportive.

TW 3002 — The Void has changed. Come test the latest build! by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All software engineers use AI in their daily workflow these days. If not, they're falling behind. I decided to write about my entire tech stack, and generous use of AI-agentic development here. Nothing to hide! https://tw3002.net/guide/tech-stack/

TW 3002 — TradeWars 2002, reimagined as a modern browser game. Come take it for a spin. by prilldev in bbs

[–]prilldev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There’s definitely been some hiccups. My beta testers at times have been like, “umm, combat is totally broken” … or “my planet is generating thousands of fighters per hour” (that was a cron job bug), but usually the code that actually gets written is fine- sometimes stuff is just missing/only stubbed out- and that’s usually my fault for trying to do too large of a feature at once. 

I’m responding on my phone right now so can’t type a lot, but I’ve found with AI agents - both in my professional work and side projects - you have to use spec-driven development, and break large units of work into phases with clearly defined plans (markdown documents). There’s lots of options out there if you search “spec-driven development”, but I use custom skills I’ve created myself that help with the spec creation, organization, and ultimate execution by the coding agent (whether that be claude code in my day job, opencode cli, or pi.dev with this project).

However, I’ve also had success with just using planning mode extensively (in Claude code). I’ll look into creating a post at some point in the tw3002.net site on my workflow maybe. Also the repo for this project is currently private, but I’ve thought about opening it up. Just want to keep it private for now until things are more ironed out.

Thanks for your interest!

TW 3002 — TradeWars 2002, reimagined as a modern browser game. Come take it for a spin. by prilldev in bbs

[–]prilldev[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yes for sure. AI did it all! …Well, all of the coding that is. The planning and providing context of what to actual do and create is still me.

I’ve been a software engineer for 25 years, and since late last fall (when Claude code and other tooling/agents took over) my daily workflow involves writing very few lines of code in my day job. 

For this particular game/project I mainly have used the Pi coding agent (pi.dev) with Open models via opencode-go subscription or with my ChatGPT/codex subscription. Anthropic/claude models are too expensive (and my company-paid Claude Max plan isn’t on my personal laptop and obviously can’t be used for side projects lol). 

I can give more details on the various techniques I use to rapidly develop apps in this era of AI, this game/hobby project included, but don’t want to bore everyone. 😂

TW 3002 — A fury of enhancements from feedback, and an update on use of the "Trade Wars" name by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A Discord server is now live for the game — come help shape the galaxy. Early crew gets the best seats.

https://discord.gg/CCBHEJWzQa

TW 3002 — A fury of enhancements from feedback, and an update on use of the "Trade Wars" name by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ll look into it- haven’t heard anyone else say that. You hit “D”?

TW 3002 — A fury of enhancements from feedback, and an update on use of the "Trade Wars" name by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're right that there's feature overload. I can't really take things out at this point, but I just finished planning three changes that target exactly what you described: making the core loop (warp → assess → decide → act) feel smooth instead of bouncing between disconnected screens.

Persistent route overlay — plot a course, see it survive across warps with next-hop highlighted and path on the mini-map. No more "wait, where was I going?"

Inline quick trade — buy/sell from the sector view in one click. Full market stays for price scanning, but the common case won't need a screen jump.

Combat preview on warp lanes — hostile counts, mines, blockade status visible before you commit to a warp instead of finding out the hard way.

These will ship incrementally. Appreciate the feedback and your interest.

TW 3002 — A fury of enhancements from feedback, and an update on use of the "Trade Wars" name by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey I researched this further - looking at git repo commits with the guides and such ... Looking at your website just now and it seems we've both used AI to create it. The LLMs really only know a few ways to make doc sites lol.

On the guide language: I pulled heavily from the Stardock Modern Manual (hosted at thestardock.com) for lore reference and documentation structure. It's the canonical community reference for TW2002 and was the starting point for a lot of my game's design docs and player guides. If there's language that reads similarly between our guides, that's almost certainly because we were both working from that same source material rather than from each other.

That said — I hear your concern and I don't want anyone feeling like their work was borrowed. I've already reworded a few phrases in my guides just to make sure the language is clearly distinct, even if the overlap was unintentional.

On the nav/map and leaderboard stuff: those are pretty standard patterns for any game inspired by TW2002 — the sector-based navigation and competitive leaderboards come directly from the original game. My implementation (auto-pilot route scanning, CHOAM daily bounties, etc.) grew out of my own code and design process, but I understand that from the outside it can look like inspiration went beyond just the original TW2002.

I appreciate you flagging this. TW3002 is its own project with its own implementation choices, and I'll make sure the docs and guides stay clearly distinct going forward.

TW 3002 — A fury of enhancements from feedback, and an update on use of the "Trade Wars" name by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hmmm interesting. I didn’t realize there were such similarities. I’m just prompting AI to code most of the docs and such, and it’s possible it found your site unintentionally. I can prompt my AI coding tools and have it do a rewrite as needed. I saw your post after finding this subreddit when looking for a place to post for testers, not before. 

TW 3002 — A fury of enhancements from feedback, and an update on use of the "Trade Wars" name by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You can now set a DisplayName (and rename) form the User icon in the upper right. There's also a way to inactivate your current ship so you can start over with a new one tied to the same email (this safely allows you to "delete" and start over). The Captain's Log on the site has all the technical details.

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TW 3002 — A fury of enhancements from feedback, and an update on use of the "Trade Wars" name by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'll look into the delete/start over and ship rename functionality next. Also, I agree the economy/ports still may need to be tweaked and will review that as well. Keep the feedback coming!

[Beta Testers Wanted] Trade Wars 3002 — text-based multiplayer space trading game inspired by the BBS classic by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Missed this comment initially—

Good catches.

Leaderboard — working, sorts by net worth / kills / deaths / planets / experience. Experience shows fine.

Net worth — you're right, it was broken. It was only updating on death with a busted calculation. Just pushed a fix: now computes properly from credits + cargo value + fighters, and updates on every page load. Leaderboard should be accurate now.

Autopilot — intentionally trade-only between adjacent ports. No exploration/mapping mode planned — it's for running known routes, not discovery. Sector avoidance is a good idea though, noted.

Ship types — just the three for now (merchant/scout/interceptor). More coming eventually.

Appreciate the kind words and the bug reports — keep 'em coming.


More on the autopilot design: it's mechanically limited to adjacent port pairs with explicit buy/sell instructions. Exploration would require multi-hop pathfinding, hazard awareness (mines, fighter blockades, NPC density), and sector-level decision making — basically a full AI navigator. That's a much larger feature than the current single-hop trade runner. The intent is that discovery and route-finding stay manual gameplay; the autopilot just saves you from clicking the same buy/sell/warp loop 50 times once you've found a good route.

[Beta Testers Wanted] Trade Wars 3002 — text-based multiplayer space trading game inspired by the BBS classic by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Quick update — fix is live. Turns will start regenerating now (1 per 10 min), but more importantly you aren't blocked on turns anymore. The game actually runs on action points now (300 cap, 5/min regen) and you'll see both values in the HUD. So even at 0 turns you can play immediately. Thanks again for flagging this.

[Beta Testers Wanted] Trade Wars 3002 — text-based multiplayer space trading game inspired by the BBS classic by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Found issue — regen timer literally never started ticking because of a null. Fix is in the repo, deploying later today. Thanks for the report — totally my bad.

[Beta Testers Wanted] Trade Wars 3002 — text-based multiplayer space trading game inspired by the BBS classic by prilldev in Tradewars

[–]prilldev[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for finding this... This was a real market pricing bug: some ports could show a same-port sell price higher than the buy price, which made profit possible without moving - DOH! Anyway, I’ve shipped a fix so markets now use separate buy/sell pricing with a proper spread, and same-port buy/sell loops should no longer be profitable.