My first attempt ever at AAT was on main where my son invited me to play. I instantly found it was hard and after dying three days straight, I gave up. But I liked the game and with a bit of searching found a server that was a 'No Kill' game. On this server it gave me time to figure out what all the buttons did..........discover that I didn't need to continuely haul product to my planets to make them grow..........and venturing around learning how to manuever around in the game. Now granted this was back in the dark ages when the server I joined didn't have RS maps and all the other cool stuff the new version has but maybe Main server could handle two games......the primary Main.........and a training "no kill" game to teach new players a bit of the basics?

I mention this only because I had recruited a new player to Main. She had never played before and unfortunately even though I warned her to stay in the green linked areas of Federation space, she died after I had logged off to go to bed on some of First Horseman's mines. After a game is established, the perils of real space are so sever and a noob has no insticts or knowledge about 'looking before you leap' or even that they NEED mine deflectors.

Well of course by morning when I logged back in to the game, she had suicided out and I know she now will not probably attempt it again since the game appears very complicated to the new player. Maybe I am a dreamer or a whimp but giving a bit more 'safe-time' to our new players might actually keep some of them around longer. Just a thought and I have had my say

this sounds interesting, if u make this server it could help

Me and PJ are discussing ways we can do that. A training server would be good.

is there a way to make a player safe for a certain number of hours played. Then a player could Apply to the feds for an extension of that. Make the time long enough for Tarnus or PJ to see how this player does with their turns and time. They could even have different levels to this.

Super Noob - no chance in hell of surviving with out divine intervention (10 days)
Noob - may survive a few days to week without help (6 days)
Semi Noob - picking up the game just needs a little more time under the wing. (2 days)

Then have the Fed/Webmaster post in the shout box or in the news that so and so has been granted extended protection and hopefully another player will teach a little to them.

First, I'm not sure if you meant on the training server or the main, but that definitely shouldn't be the main. On the main, everyone should be on an even playing ground. If a player has less skill, it's their problem. And on the training server, that would still be a way big amount of work of Tarnus and PJ. I know I wouldn't want to have to spend all my time monitoring how well a bunch of newbies played to decide whether to give them a few more days of protection or not.

When I started... I knew there was a learning curve... I knew that... Well I just knew that I was not just going to go gang-busters my first try.... It took me forever to Figure out the Planet credit thing... and SG creation was a total mystery and it still this universes magical wonder.... I would have never logged on to the training game, I always jump into the deep end... but this is just me...

As far as mines, I have posted this idea more than once. I think that there needs to be a limit as to how many mines you can hit, based on your score compared to the owner's score. In this scenario, if there is more than a xx% difference, you would not hit any mines. Perhaps this could be added with KZ's idea about the Fed Space "Simulations" of attacks and such. If I am a n00b, and fly into the top player's minefield, a screen would alert me to what happened, and give me advice on what to do about it (IE, buy mines...) This would only happen if a player was still in a protected mode, or if he was less than x% of the owner's score. (Like, 1%, so, a player with 100k score could not hit mines from a player with 15m score)