Promethius, I know this is a very popular tactic and so far I haven't seen any reason why it should be taken out. My point was just that if I'm trying to balance an "old school" mode and things like riding shields make it impossible to do so, as Singularity suggests, then my next step would be to remove the riding shields tactic. I'm not saying it'll happen. It's just that Singularity and others are using unintended behaviors like this to demonstrate that the game simply can't be balanced as it was originally intended to be balanced. When you look at how the game was originally designed to play, there are a lot of tactics that exist today that were not part of that equation. If it is ever going to be possible to restore a more "classic" feel to the game, in this "old school" mode, it very likely will require some of those tactics to be disabled. But ONLY for that mode.

There are some thing in the game that some might consider "features" that I consider bugs, like the ability to skirt the time limits by whatever means. Riding shields and many other unintended tactics are not currently considered "bugs", though I may refer to them as such to differentiate them from intended tactics. Typically whenever there is a popular tactic that was unintended, I look at how the tactic is used and I may take steps to limit its effectiveness somewhat so it's not too overwhelming. The Type II Transwarp is an example. Towing a ship into TWarp was a bug initially, but it was integrated with the game through a new hardware item.

I would think that anyone who plays this game would want any overwhelming tactic to be reigned in. But I know there are some who have a different attitude, because what they most want is the unfair advantage that such tactics provide those "in the know".

One of the things I commonly see is that players today play by formula. If the edit is 'this' then everyone does 'that'

The low turn games we play as tourneys are rote games that focus on cashing and gridding. Day 1, we PPT then SST, Day 2, blah blah blah.

It would be nice to turn that complacency on its ear. Heck, everything a turns player needs to know is on tw-cabal, look how old that is. Corp play is unthinking beyond the 'stategy' they always play in a given edit. It would be nice to see some red/blue balance in cashing. Right right now every corp requires reds, it would be nice to have a form of cashing the blues could use to match red cashing methods. (port taxes, planet cash bonus, something...)

H

if not match at least be in the ballpark. even using basic scripts its like a 10-1 advantage...

And yet no one can survive with just blues.

H

No, I'm saying that in a game w/o a central server, unintended behaviors are impossible
to stop. And unless you know how changing one will effect the others, you risk
compounding the problem further.

Go ahead and remove the shield riding tactic, see what happens. Wanna know in advance?
A person uses shield riding to bring in a ship for cheap that can't otherwise land. But it's
not that big of a deal, because figs still have to be down in the sector for the planet to
warp back. So it's easy, just QSS the bots and find the guy with the most turns. Lift,
xport, move, xport, land. Ship is there, safe and sound, turn cost is distributed where its
the most affordable, and the task is done.

If you need to time it with the photon, that's insanely easy to do. The ship delay on the
IG will be well known, so with some practice you can time the entire procedure and use
a coordinated script to fire the foton at just the right time to let the IG enter. Rules are
made to be bent. Of course that gives EVEN MORE power to scripters, and takes ability
from the hands of regular users. A regular user can easily set cannons down and ride the
shields, only a scripter can time things to the millisecond.

See what I mean by unintended consequences? And sysops aren't going to know these,
so if a particular mode has a particular baseline setting, then they're just going to use
that setting... which just makes the game even less balanced than before.



1. Unintended behaviors are a good thing, not a bad thing. They keep the game fresh.
Nobody would be playing today if it were stuck in the 1990s.

2. Unless you have a time machine, that genie is already out of the bottle. Aggressive
players will find a way.



If it breaks play or otherwise breaks a feature, maybe. Otherwise, changing it can have
some negative results that make the situation worse.

I doubt if I am using this the way you think.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

But how do you “know”


How does it “imbalanced” ?


So is there a secret list of “intended tactics” now?

Yes, I believe you would think that and do think that, only because you not taking into account that anyone in the game can do the same thing as anyone else in the game…so in all reality there is NO “unfair advantage” Every action has a counter action that everyone has to play by. If your saying “Those in the Know” is the unfair advantage then I would say those that don’t know need to pay attention, ask questions and keep an opened mind. It is after all part of learning as well as relearning… There are a lot of us around willing to teach, and I dunno to many that aren’t.

But by all mean make the new mode, I know at least 1 person that will be happy about it BUT… That “Unfair advantage” will still be there.

um...Try playing a pirates edit and say that...OR moo2.... play as a red in moo2 and you get you buttox handed to ya.

Aren't you "In the Know"

Right, there are a ton of edits that are very blue. Moo2 and Pirates are both
good examples. Altho it helps to have reds in pirates, usually I only have 1.
They SSM, then SST, then use their regen to start partial megas after the
product on the Us are sold off. That said, I used to play pirates exclusively
blue and just sell figs/prod to buy ships as needed. That's really the only way
to play pirates as a solo or 2-man. It does help, however, to have 1 red on
the team if for no other reason than to clear your experience at extern.

Basically any edits that pop product, or any planets with 1:1 or 2:1 fig prod,
or 1:1 or 2:1 eq prod, can be done exclusively (or almost) blue. You certainly
don't need the standard team reds. If you're in an edit w/ slow prod, but fast
planets, you can usually go straight to megas.

This can be done by making 1:1 eq or figprod planets and making them go mobile
quickly. Corp play isn't unthinking however, lol. Grid war can be some very thought
intensive play.

If the planets are built right, most cashing matures past reds at some point. The
game starts small, like PPT. Then moves bigger, like SDT or SST. Then moves to
megarobs if MBBS, then eventually the planet development is producing enough
cash where you can free the reds to be aggressive on the grid. In the olden days,
before big cash made probing the universe possible, before turns and grid war,
before ZTMs, people would build slow O planets and sell off the organics for
money as a blue. Of course that doesn't really work anymore.

Yeh, I remember the O farms. You're wrong about ZTM though, we used it way back when. If you sent the character string "ÈÉÊËÌÍ" at the computer prompt, you got CIM (still works btw, most of my scripts that use cim retain it). Its <alt>200 through <alt>205. Not sure if Martech meant to leave it after the game was developed, JP would know.

One way to make a very blue game is to max out all ports the game that aren't bbb or sss. A PPT on a port pair with no delays is pretty fast. I used to have a script that ran thru tedit and did just that but I'd never find it now. Another way to make cashing for blues better is to have the feds post higher bounties on reds. The old bounties are just a joke compared to todays cashing methods.

I do agree with you tho, between start time and the end of day 1, blues are at the mercy of reds no matter what the edit.

I wasnt talking about making a custom blue edit, I was talking about playing tourneys with the edits in use today. An all-blue corp couldn't survive in that environment because the cashing ability between red and blue is so unbalanced.

H

The only way I see to do that with what we have today is to turn rob/steal delay ON which used to be the only option in old school.