Actually those were general suggestions and completely open to debate.
I personally don't feel the need to clear any sectors other than msl's at extern if sectors are limited to 1 fighter deployment.
The issue about IG's I see no way around since some players will abuse the use of IG's unless the only thing they held was aliens.

I guess I wasn't clear. Aliens aren't subject to truce mode restrictions.

BigD's list of rules seems pretty consistent with what I proposed. Really, the only thing novel, I think, that I'm suggesting here is the idea of allowing full deployment within a "homespace" region anchored by planets with at least a level 1 Citadel. And this is why a planet would not be able to move during truce mode, because it's anchoring your base. The idea being, you pick a base, stick with it and build it up in preparation for truce ending. It's kind of a foregone conclusion that your base will be found before truce ends, or at least you should plan for that possibility. Am I wrong in my understanding that truce modes tend to involve fairly static base building activities?

Keep in mind that what I provided was a list of proposed settings, not a full set of rules. Just reading over this thread validates my assumption that everyone is going to have their own ideas about how to do this. So what I'd like to do is list out the most interesting rules and make them all available, but leave it to the op to decide which to activate and which to leave off.

Also, when I say a rule like "sector defense is defined as > 1 defensive fig", that would be configurable. You could set this to > 10.

There are a few possible concerns I see are the definition of where a planet can be created, the no pwarp feature, and no port destruction.

JP, do you intend to have planets limited to a dead end sector or bubbles? If bubbles, how many gates? A better way to do it might be to dead end sectors, and sectors adjacent to sectors that already have a citadel. I would have to reconfigure some of my building edits so that planets go level 1 right away but take the same amount of time to go to level 2 that they normally would, but otherwise, I think this might work. The reason for this is that often times players like to build from their gates in, rather than from a dead end out.

Also, perhaps planets can pwarp during truce mode, but only to sectors where you already have a planet with a citadel. This would be useful in base building as it is easier to load product onto a planet and move that than to keep on warping back and forth to sectors to build planets.

For no port destruction, for long term games people like to get SBB ports going in their bubbles as soon as possible, and will usually blow ports the day before the radiation clears. By preventing this it can seriously delay the ability of players to start their planet farming. Perhaps, like pwarping, port destruction can be allowed in sectors that are your base during a truce period?

I have a few thoughts here. I assume since aliens are excluded, any player may attack any alien/Ferrengi/etc. for any reason during truce. Hopefully the Ferrengi can't attack players! Although I know there's gonna be a ton of unhappy Ferrengi if this is true.

As for planet building, what about new player planets? Do they get put in a dead end in order to comply with truce rules, or do they get put in a sector like they do now in violation of truce rules, and maybe can't have any citadel until truce ends?

Most move to a different base before truce's end. We build right off of fed space for easy access to colos but we dont plan to stay there, as soon as they are mobile we move.

H

I disagree. ZTMing requires hours before you can get any data to use. Then you have to go and visit the sectors that the class 0's can be in.

With this, all I have to do is go to SD, and then surround the sector. From there, I just go to the sector that doesn't have my fig, surround again, then go to the next sector with no fig, surround again, and so on until you reach the class 0's. I can do that in minutes, not hours.

Why not use beacons for homebase sectors instead of planets, and make the beacons indestructable for the duration of the truce?

The point of anchoring your homespace to a planet is to allow you to grow your base as you level-up your Citadel. If it's based on a beacon, that wouldn't restrict you much. Unless it's a special, really expensive beacon.

I definitely see some of the issues, but I think as long as these are all options, it'll be possible to achieve your personal goals for truce. Some will want to allow ports to be destroyed, some will not. I'm basically trying to think of all things that can impact other players and provide the option of restricting them during truce.

I think the list of optional restrictions is pretty basic, and we can all agree on them, especially given that they're optional. But what I'm still not clear on is how to define a player's home base. In current truce games, these definitions seem to be a bit vague. I thought basing it on the location and level of your primary base planet would give players a bit more flexibility, but I can see where limiting planet movement is an issue. With one addition to gameplay, I could make this work. Suppose when you level-up your Citadel to the first level (during Truce mode), you have the option to flag the planet as a base planet. If a base planet, you can't move it until after Truce mode ends. If a planet isn't a base planet, there are no restrictions on where it can be and movement.

So the rules would be:

Only a planet in a dead-end tunnel sector can be upgraded to a base planet.

Only a limited number of base planets can be created per team.

Base planets cannot be moved.


Moving your base near the end of Truce would involve creating another base planet, then shifting your assets from your original base to your new base.

This is a much less restrictive set of rules but it still provides a simple definition of what homespace is and how it can expand.

Just remember, we don't want to restrict anything except combat and invasions.

Commander Data had a real simple definition of a base.

100 figs
10 mines
1 Beacon
1 Planet

They had to be in a DE or inside a tunnel leading to a de
No bases in open space.

H

Sure, but I'm just talking about a less restrictive definition of a base. Mark the base with a base planet and that's your base. And you can fortify that base out to one sector distance per level of the Citadel past the first. What you want your base to look like is up to you. But you can't have anything more than 1 fig in a sector unless it's within this base.

I don't think this is significantly different than the various truce modes I've looked it, it's just a different way of defining a base. Is there a problem with this definition, or is it just different?

I still don't like the dead-end requirement. There are lots of other good hiding places for bases.

I agree with Mongoose about good hiding places, but since this has to be hard-coded in, the programmer needs some specific parameters.

So, If the bases can only be in dead-ends, then you've got to force the truce game edit to produce sufficient dead-ends or bubbles. Currently, game A on the beta is probably one of the "flattest" universes I've ever played. Our base is built in a tunnel that have two doors.

The problem is, if a team can put their base anywhere, they can use their base to obstruct the game or to control too much territory. There may be some more general criteria that will accomplish this task without forcing you to build in a dead-end. But a dead-end tends to be a low-traffic area, and that's really the point.

Can you be more specific about the kinds of sectors you'd like to include in the set of allowed base sectors, so we can consider what issues might come from allowing it?

How about any non-FedSpace, non-MSL tunnel? I suppose that's the next best thing, as it has the fewest warps of any sector but a dead-end. But you can still end up with a situation where there's a tunnel that connects two large bubbles, and blocking that tunnel would greatly obstruct traffic.

I think it's also important to realize that your base during truce isn't your base for the entire game. If you took a valid base during truce, but scoped out a better spot for your base, you could move your base there after truce ends.

I know some of these rules might sound too restrictive, but I think we should pay attention to those who have been playing and running these games for a long time, because they've really worked through the issues and found solutions that work well. If there are truce games today that don't limit you to a dead-end tunnel, then I'd like to know what restriction that site is using for base placement.

The aliens need to be able to attack players.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

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