Netrek - Technological Innovations

Technological Innovations

Netrek pioneered the use of many technologies and design features that later found their way into commercial network games, including:

• The efficient use of fast but unreliable UDP packets as well as reliable but slower TCP streams. It was probably the first game to use both types of Internet Protocol packets.
• A robust client–server model that reduces the data exchange to "need to know" information, limiting both the required bandwidth and the opportunities for players to cheat by obtaining more knowledge of the game world than their opponents.
• Persistent account information where players can create a "character", and log in and gain ranks over multiple games.
• Game mechanics designed to reduce the ability of assisted or robot player aimbots (referred to as borgs) to gain a significant advantage over a human player.
• An anti-cheating mechanism using an RSA-based public key cryptography authentication system that also attempts (with limited success) to detect and prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.
• Multiple game variants played by the same client, with the server telling the client what game features are supported.
• The use of metaservers, servers designed to help clients locate available game servers.