Tantrix.com - Frequently Asked Questions

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

	How can I get a replacement tile? In most countries replacement tiles are available for a nominal charge if you provide a stamped, self-addressed envelope and a complete description of the missing tile - ie the tile number, colour and the name of the Tantrix product it came from. Send this envelope to your national distributor. If you live in a country without a Tantrix distributor, then the easiest solution is to arrange the replacement through someone that does live in such a country. A list of national distributors can be found here.

	Can I get a booklet in another language? If you have been given the Game Pack as a gift from overseas and the set came with the 50 page Tantrix booklet in the "wrong" language, then contact the relevant national distributor who represents your preferred language. They are usually happy to sell additional copies of their booklets for a nominal charge. A list of national distributors can be found here.

What do the little icons mean on the player details page?

	The crown denotes that a player has achieved Master status.
	The thumbs-up is given to a "Team Member". Usually awarded to people who give a lot of their time make the Tantrix community what it is today. Common ways of achieving this status are: volunteering to help run tournaments, adding something of value to the website, or anything that promotes Tantrix.
	The thumbs-down is reserved for Tantrix miscreants. These players have usually been banned for any number of reasons, ranging from cheating during a tournament to abusive language in the lobby. They are best to be avoided.

	How do I choose a Robot level? The most appropriate Robot level is loaded for you by default when you enter the lobby (depending on your ranking). However, you can also choose to play against a weaker or stronger Robot if you wish. Alter the default setting by clicking on Robot's name tag. A small window appears which allows you to select Robot levels 1-3. Robot's rankings are fixed at the following values: Robot - 750 points, Robot2 - 550 points and Robot3 - 300 points.

	Do I get less points when playing Robot? Yes, you do. Tantrix robots are generally easier to beat than human players, particularly the weaker robot levels. In order to stop players from gaining a high ranking purely by playing robot games, we limit the number of points you can gain for a win against a robot to half the amount of points you would earn for the same result in a human game. Furthermore, if your rank is 300+ points above the fixed ranking of the robot level you play, a win will not gain you any points. There is one exception to this rule: games against GoodBot and Oliver (the reigning robot champion) score normally, as their playing strength is comparable to a human player.

	Why are player names in different colours? In the lobby, a player name appears in one of four different colours. These colours represent specific levels of experience: Pink players have played less than 100 games, whereas light grey players have played more than 100 games. Yellow indicates that a player has reached a maximum ranking of 900+ and light blue identifies a player as a Master.

	How do I get to 1000 points? You can reach 1000 points in 2 different rankings - the Lobby Ranking and the Doubles Ranking. 1000 points can NOT be reached through normal play, a cap of 999 points is enforced by the formula. Here are the criteria for reaching 1000 points, which apply to both rankings: First, you need to reach a Lobby or Doubles ranking of 999 by normal means, then win 6 consecutive games against GoodBot during a 24-hour period of your choice. You need to announce the start of your chosen 24-hour period by email. If 6 wins are achieved, submit the relevant game references to us. We will verify your submission and if successful, award the 1000 point title. Players who make a false declaration or cheat during this process will permanently lose the right to reach 1000 points. Make sure there are no Robot games cached before you start the challenge.

	My game got blocked and ended. What does this mean? If your game got to a point where no legal moves were possible, then you encountered a "permanent deadlock". Such games cannot be continued and are officially drawn. Permanently blocked games are a relatively rare event, they happen in about one out of each ten thousand games played. The applet is designed to recognize deadlocks automatically and score them as draws.

	My opponent crashed, what do I do? When a player crashes, the applet switches into limbo state. This is indicated by the small status circle switching from green to red, as well as the display of the word limbo in the game window. Please be patient, wait for say 2-5 minutes. Most likely your opponent will have crashed accidentally and will come back to resume the game. Occasionally it happens that players quit deliberately, maybe to avoid the fair processing of a game they expected to lose. If this happens to you, here's what you can do: If the crashed player fails to turn up even after some wait, click on the menu item "Action" and "Let the Robot play for...". This procedure will replace the crashed player with a Robot player. You can now finish the game and you will be awarded your points. Whatever score Robot achieved on behalf of the crashed player will effect the crashed player's ranking. If he was losing, he will be penalised the same way as if he had continued playing.

	I crashed myself, what do I do? The applets you run when playing Tantrix can challenge your resources, particularly if you have other applications running at the same time. We recommend you close all programs apart from your browser to minimize the chances of a crash. However, if you get error messages from the lobby or your system hangs up, close and restart your browser. When you reenter the lobby you will be able to rejoin your game. If your whole system was effected by the crash (not just your browser), reboot and log in again. Flush your browser cache from time to time, this may generally help to run things more smoothly.

	Restarting an interrupted game 1) Any game with at least one surviving member ought to be rejoinable, and any robots that have been started ought to stop and be replaced by the real players, and the player times ought to be reasonably accurate. 2) If everyone exits a room, games with guests, and unranked games are not intended to be restartable. Otherwise, games will be restartable if all players assume the same colors/play positions. Time since the last move for the player to move may be lost. 3) Restarting the same game in multiple rooms will result in the game in the "old" room being interrupted. The "new" room will continue as expected. This is to prevent cheating by starting multiple copies of the and only keeping the one whose outcome you like.

	I am behind a firewall or connecting through a proxy. Can I still play? In theory yes. The game uses port 2244 (sometimes 2245, 2246...). It also uses port 4321 as an alternate to port 80. If you are behind a firewall, talk to your network administrator, he may be able to set things up for you. There are four main scenarios: 1) Your environment has no through-routing capability at all, but your proxy machine is able to handle some common ports as special cases. Environments which require you to configure your browser to connect through a proxy probably will not work with Tantrix. This is the case with most simple, application level modem sharing programs. 2) Your environment has restricted through-routing capability, but Tantrix port (2244) isn't on the list of approved ports. Many common firewall environments are set up this way; and the blocking program might be on either your local machine or the gateway machine. In this case all you have to do is convince your administrators to add 2244 to the approved port list. 3) Your environment has unrestricted through-routing capability. In this case you are probably not having any problems connecting. Most firewall and network address translation programs can be configured to work this way. 4) Your individual machine has a real IP address and complete bidirectional routing. In this case you probably have no problems. This is usually the case for ordinary dialups, but not the case for computers on a LAN which share an internet connection.

	I forgot my password, what can I do? Go to the Tantrix Player Details page. From there you can trigger an email to be sent to you (more precisely to the email address you supplied when you registered) which will contain your password. Tick the 'send password' check box provided. If you provided a fake email address at time of registration, you are out of luck.

	How often can I register? Please limit yourself to one account. We may delete duplicate accounts at any time. This "one account per player" limit helps us to keep the player database small and it helps you to collect all your data in one place. This comes in handy if for example one day you would like to analyse how you fare against certain players. Have you forgotten your password? No need for a new account - you can recover your password. Do you want to change your player details? No need for a new account - you can change your details as often as you like.

	How do I become a Master? A player may qualify when reaching a lobby ranking of 950+ points, but there are various other requirements too. Dropping below 950 points at a later stage will not effect the Master status. When Masters play against each other, their games are scored towards a separate ranking (the Master Ranking), as long as the game was played in "Master mode". Master accounts are strictly limited to one per player. Players have to provide their real identity, ie their name and country in order to qualify. Detailed information on the qualification procedure can be found here.

How do I change between game modes?

You can choose from 9 different game room modes. They are accessible by moving your mouse over the header of a free game in the lobby. The header will change its colour. Click on it. A small window will pop up with the following options:

Game Room:	Most frequently used mode. Play against Robot or with up to 4 players.
Cafe Room:	The Cafe Room is for a more relaxed game where doubling and resigning are allowed.
Doubles Room:	The Doubles mode allows 2 teams of 2 players to play against each other.
Master Room:	This mode is provided for Masters to play against other Masters.
Challenge Room:	Beat the Robot by the best possible margin with a fixed sequence of tiles.
Review Room:	The review room allows you to load and replay saved games.
Chat Room:	A room for chatting only, messages are visible to all players who joined the chat room.
Map Room:	A world map indicates where the players currently in the lobby are located.
Unranked Room:	Play a game without affecting your lobby ranking.
Table Mode Room:	This mode imitates playing with real tiles, ie some online help features are disabled.

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