ASECO

ASECO (standing for Automatic Server Electromagnetic Controller, Official) is a TrackMania Nations Forever dedicated server controller used to record driven times on maps into a user-specified MySQL/MariaDB database server. Besides storing records, it also has a plugin system of its own, allowing other programmers to write controller extension suites. ASECO is written by Florian Schnell in the PHP programming language.

Derived versions
Mistral ASECO is a version of ASECO developed by Mistral for their own server. It mainly differs from the original in the user interface department. Mistral Aseco was abandoned circa 2010.

GASECO, also called TPS/GASECO (standing for The Power System/Gekko's ASECO) was a modified version of the original ASECO, including an entire MMORPG-like system synchronised with the central database. The controller included a stripped-down web-browser, its very own global record system, live weather, map uploading from in-game, and the most controversial feature of all - the gambling system, an addition considered insane at the time.

GASECO was the only closed-source ASECO extension that was entirely inaccessible by the public, with the only way to see it in action being joining one of the TPS servers hosted by PlayFaster. Gekko, the author of the controller, reportedly went crazy after the many man-hours of the development and deleted all traces of his work from the internet. Only few YouTube videos showcasing the controller remain.

A newer version of GASECO resurfaced later, albeit it was completely impossible to use due to the main server it used to connect to being down for good since at least 2012.

XASECO (standing for Xymph's ASECO) is the most known and widely-used TrackMania Nations Forever server controller. It improves upon the original ASECO code and adds its own plugins written by Xymph. XASECO is so popular that it has received several unofficial updates by other players in the community, adding support for newer PHP versions.

No support from the controller developers
Due to the age of ASECO and its derivatives, they are considered ancient by nearly everybody. The language they were written in (PHP) is single-threaded and is also incredibly slow (consider the fact that all ASECO-like controllers cannot run with PHP >= 5.6, which equates to losing about 10 years of performance improvements on the PHP side of things). Many players have also noticed tons of bugs in both the core code of the controller and in its many a plugin, including some of the most popular ones for rendering the user interface. That, obviously, will never get patched upstream, since the sole surviving developer of XASECO - Xymph, is nearly 97 years old. He has definitely got more important things on his plate than some "dead game server controllers".

No support from the game developers
Nadeo, as a company, kept progressing. Eventually, they would go on to nearly abandon the game that brought them so much fame. With little to no support from the developers, most bright minds also moved on to the later TrackMania titles, such as TrackMania 2, or the newly released TrackMania 2020. All the new features and improvements to both the game and the dedicated server software were so close, but so far away. No, Nadeo would not port them onto TrackMania Nations Forever - they had no time for that. Their most avid supporters, their most loyal fans had no say in this matter. "We will not be coming back to Forever" - said Hylis, "Okay, but could you at least add some things from the newer generations to make it easier to develop for?" - asked the developers' community. The answer? Well, we are all so familiar with his answers. Be it incomprehensible rambling, or something that is completely out of context - there was most definitely absolutely no use for it. All the players had was the terrible, dusty dedicated server built in 2010 using an obsolete by all standards technology (that they still cannot let go of to this day), with an even more terrible solution for controlling the said dedicated server. So terrible in fact, that its code seemed terrifying. Terrifying to the point where bugs produced by those programming mistakes would lead to people losing their mental health. Much proof can be found online - the mysterious checkpoint bug was one of the scariest things to ever happen in the TrackMania Nations Forever community. The response was complete silence.

Bugs that will never be fixed
With time, the community started to notice more and more bad things about ASECO (namely the Xymph flavour of it) and began to abuse them, leading to many server owners and hosters alike to wish for a better tomorrow. Unfortunately for them, however, no alternatives were to be seen on the horizon, not one soul had the courage to attempt coding something for a game that is beloved by so many. Not even the folks from Brain wanted to take on this task, be it for them being busy with other (likely more important and incredibly confidential projects) things, or simply due to how much they dislike the people in the community. And thus, XASECO was cemented as the leading server controlling solution for a game nearing its death.

Inescapable and exploitable nightmare
It seemed like there was no escape. TrackMania Nations Forever players were frightened by such fate. Picking any server on the list would lead you to the same ugly interface, running the same old, ugly, and easily exploitable code as its backend. Several members of the community went on to show others how easy it would be to make XASECO cope and crash, but the community did not listen. The community itself now became an echo chamber, it was not only the Nadeo employees anymore. "We can most definitely fix it!" - one server admin said, as his server kept getting destroyed. His fix was to ban the people who made it collapse, quite the solution. "No, guys, NOW it will not crash for sure!" - they added later. It would in fact appear that the impossible had been achieved by the selected few undoubtedly competent programmers. What was their universal cure, that was to kill all possible XASECO exploits? Of course, they implemented a few simple checks and a timeout. "Brilliant!" - the players shouted, "Finally, we can play in peace!". But little did they know that such tiny stones could not stop the river from flowing. "But.. but.. it will not crash, right?" - the same intelligent individual would go on to ask, the response to that would be another PHP timeout, another XASECO crash, another loss at this totally unfair battlefield. Even still, they believed in their "silver bullet" - except the bullet was in fact made out of nothing but rotten wood, with their pistol - "the banhammer" - making use of the same old single-threaded non-asynchronous good-for-nothing garbage code.

Lies and promises
Although as of 2024, some talented members of the TrackMania Nations Forever decided that this situation is no longer bearable. Joining their forces, they set out on a journey to create the ultimate dedicated server controller, but as it always is, there is never just one team working together. There is always that one person ruining the fun for everyone, that one person disliked by most. Perchance, that wondrous human being was, in fact, the sole reason why the community was even able to move on and notice all the aforementioned issues, but that does not redeem them. Pathetic attempts to gain the desperate players' trust via deceit and malice, bribery and promises, all that sweet talk, all those plans - that shall never be forgotten. That person set the bar too high and managed to fail without even starting. That person is so disconnected from the community they were trying to appeal for, that it seemed crazy to many. Readers unfamiliar with this story might ask: "Who is it that you are talking about so negatively?!". Unfortunately, that question will be left without an answer. Though, those who know will definitely recognise that individual, and they will definitely have much more negative things to say. Things, that have no place in a spot like this - the TrackMania Nations Forever Wiki, where the knowledge begins.

Hopeless
FAST (standing for Frequency Absorption & Selective Transmission) is a TrackMania Forever server controller that predates both XASECO and ASECO. It has all the similar issues that those 2 share, except it does not even look good.

JTMC (standing for John's TrackMania Controller) is a TrackMania server controller reportedly written by unlucky_john_ of the Brain team. Not much is known about this controller, as it was only ever mentioned twice. Since its last mention was in 2015, it is assumed that JTMC is no longer in development and so, deprecated.

SuperControl is a TrackMania Forever server controller started by Reaby. It was meant to be a direct sequel to his earlier work, MiniControl (mentioned later in the article). However, Reaby would very soon notice that his previous controller was still unfinished, and so he would drop the idea immediately.

[REDACTED] (standing for [REDACTED]) is a new "community-driven" TrackMania Forever server controller "written" by [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED] programming language.

In development
MiniControl is a very simple plugin host for TrackMania Forever, ManiaPlanet and TrackMania 2020 games written by Reaby in TypeScript.

Trakman is a TrackMania Forever server controller written by Lythx & [DATA EXPUNGED] in TypeScript.