In early days, most players of Trade Wars had
'duals', that is; they played two characters;
one Good, one Evil.
An "Evil" might pod "Good" for alignment, (or
vice versa) or help the other out of a jam.
No one objected, cause everyone had duals.
In tournaments, using Duals disqualify you.
Players, aware their IP would be captured,
would play the other character at work or
school.
Very often, undetected, hence, the existence
of duals can not be prevented when one uses
different computers/servers/proxies, etc.
The risk is, of course, if your are discovered
using Duals, you will be kicked off. Some Sysops
will lock out your IP address(es).
Sometimes, alas, even the best players "cheat".
For example, OD has his good ship at the
Stardock. He has transported to a crap ship
to bring it forward to sell.
Maybe he runs out of turns or the crap ship is
blown, (fill in any scenario), but at midnight,
anything unmanned parked at the Stardock is
repossessed. OD's expensive ISS is gone unless
it can be towed from the Stardock.
As OD created a Corp at virtual log in, he creates
a dual, DO, who simply tows that ISS from the StarDock.
That's all.
As soon as the ISS is safe, OD abandons
that dual.
It's inactivity causes it to be removed from the game.
The Dual "DO" has not really interfered in play.
Academically, OD's loss of such a good ship might
substantially weaken him to the extent another
player could take advantage.
Realistically, whether OD is at the Stardock or some
other place in the Universe at midnight is of little
effect on other players.
One would not expect OD to be penalised if his "dual"
was discovered.
However, if OD goes to town with DO, using
it's turns, having it do the dog's body work;
he is cheating.
If you think someone is playing two characters
you can inform the Sysop or ask other players
if they'd all like a dual, while alerting the
Admin; basically saying; if OD has a dual,
why can't we all have a dual?
In old days, with one Server and you telnetting
from your BBS, playing two characters, good/evil
was how you learned.
Today, with dozens of Servers holding dozens
of games, it's far wiser to log on to one game
and play evil, log on to another and play good.
After all, you don't really gain by cheating
when there are good players, capable of
destroying "both" of you.
Think of it like this; if you can't play one
character properly with the 250 or so turns,
playing two doesn't help you.?
